Nguruman AKA the Furnace of Kenya

After leaving lake Naivsha, we drove a good 10 hours to the bottom of the rift valley to a place called "Nguruman". This is one of the areas that my prof (Dr. Galaty) has done a great deal of research on the Maasai people so we were extremely lucky to benefit from his connections during our stay.

First of all. THIS PLACE WAS HOT! At one point, Andrew looked at his key chain thermometer and it read 40 degrees celcius, and this was as we were getting ready to go out on an active field trip.

Nguruman also has alot of acacia trees and although they look pretty, they are actually scary because they have branches covered in 3 inch spikes that like to whack us as we ride around in our truck... So all over the campsite, thorns from acacia trees were lying around and believe me, it was not fun to walk around in running shoes and socks in forty degree weather to avoid being punctured by acacia thorns and then needing to scrape off the bottom of your shoes due to all the thorns sticking into them after just a short walk across the camp area. 

Although Nguruman was a really tough place to be camping at, I cant deny that I learned a great deal. We were lucky enough to be lectured by David Western who is Kenya's most famous conservation biologist, not to mention the guy who's academic article I was reading as part of my class just two days prior to meeting him and the founder of the Kenya Wildlife Service!

Nguruman is a great place to learn about a conservation method that is in partnership with the people of the community (the Maasai community)... Within the last twenty years there has been alot of tension because of the government asking the Maasai people to privatize their land, which comepletely goes against their pastoral way of life and their need to graze their cattle on communal land.

In Nguruman, they have a great innovative way of distributing land that still allows them to continue with their pastoral way of life. To finally come to a place and see something going in a positive direction in terms of the future of the Maasai was really good. We also have a Maasai masters student from McGill TA'ing our course (named Kimaren) and he gives us such an important "inside view" into maasai life. Half the time we talk to official representatives and they give us one story, and then Kimaren pipes in and says "thats not ACTUALLY the way things happen" and proceed to give us the low-down...

I dont know if i can say that I enjoyed Nguruman, but it was definitely an... experience... The first night, we got in really late and while dinner was being cooked and the students were studying for midterms to be had the next day. The field school set up a generator and some lights around the area and within seconds, thousands of beetles were hovering around the lights. BIG beetles and made noises when they landed due to their weight. The lights were on for 10 mins and then the generator went off and the beetles that had gathered around the lights proceeded to RAM INTO US and land all over our bodies and our soup and around our head lamps and they were ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE. There was screaming and yelling. As our staff member (Monica) tried to make announcements with her head lamp, a group of beetles started hovering around her head lamp and she dropped her book and head lamp and ran away screaming....

I have never been so afraid and uncomfortable and frustrated in my life as I was in that particular situation... I was hungry..and there were bugs and I had a midterm worth 40 percent of my mark the next day.... and thats not the end of the wrath of Nguruman...

After Nguruman, we moved onto Elangata Waus and everyone started developing odd blisters on their bodies in the most random places, like their elbow joints and necks and fingers...Every day for the next 3 days people would randomly acquire a blisters and it was like an epidemic! I couldnt even tent with my friend natalie because the doc told her that she had to be quarantined in case it was contagious!.. You can imagine how that made me feel when i was blister free, and then my TENT MATE GEORGIA got a blister on her face!! It was such a mystery and ppl were getting pretty freaked out about this whole epidemic. Our doc eventually had to drive into Nairobi doctor where she found out that the NAIROBI BEETLE (such as like ones found at Nguruman) will land on you and release a blistering agent if you alarm it.

Considering there were five thousand beetles and that we must have all killed one or two Nairobi beetles, I'm sure we caused a bit of alarm to them...
And so, the mystery was solved....

Sooo, a summary of Nguruman:

-heat
-thorns
-nairobi beetles
In short: Don't go there.

(Jk there are some redeaming features of this place).

i went on an incredible night safari in a land cruiser where we got out, turned all the lights off and just stared at the night sky. there were billions and BILLIONS of stars. I could literally see the milky way across the night sky. If there was something i appreciated about Nguruman was the lack of habitation (due to the above features probably) that has led to the very few lights and an absolutely beautiful beautiful beautiful night sky. The best I have ever seen in my life.