So I've seen Dol Dol, and what a place to have seen. If God made Dol Dol, he started with the same blueprints he used in Arizona but took a break after laying out the climate and topography to drink a six-pack or two. When He got back, He got to work on the flora and fauna and the results were understandably strange: the cacti grow 35 feet tall, the locusts are neon blue and 8 inches long, and the deer and jackrabbits of Arizona have been replaced by zebras, gazelles, giraffes, camels (all of which I've seen in the last week) and elephants (which I have not seen, but which chased my friend's minibus yesterday). The town itself isn't much: a few schools, government offices, butcheries, and a row of stores. The Maasai themselves, many wearing their traditional red clothing and elaborate jewelry, provide the town's color. You'll see them in town shopping or on the hills outside town with their herds of cows and goats.
As you'd expect in a small town, everyone here is friendly. I've been meeting with a lot of the youth groups, and one took me out to their projects in the countryside. Out there they slaughtered a goat (I took pictures) and roasted it for me. Here, they slaughter animals through strangulation so that they can preserve the blood for drinking. Ah, but I digress. I'm picking up some Maa, but a lot of people speak English. The English here is oddly colored by development discourse. If you want to organize people to go to a pub, you "mobilize them". A local chief, whom we incidentally ran into while he was wearing army fatigues and carrying an M-16 through the forest is limited in his English to "What are your recommendations?", "field study", and "testable hypothesis." Strange place.
The youth groups I've been working with have called the area "The Other", as in "There's Kenya, and then there's The Other." The Other starts where the paved road ends, where the electrical lines stop, where the cell network dies, and where the government loses interest. That's a few miles outside Nanyuki.
My house is an example of that government neglect. It's part of a fenced compound built by the government 20 years, just outside town. The compound contains a huge granary and the houses designed to house the granary workers. The problem? The Maasai don't grow any grain and don't consume much either. The granary, which is easily the biggest building in town, has sat empty for two decades, and the houses have long ago been sold to private citizens. The result is that I'm living relatively well for Dol Dol: a squat toilet, a camp stove, two bedrooms, a living room, two gas lamps and running water once a week. Still, things are funny in The Other.
I'm back in Kenya (Nanyuki, in this case) for the weekend to meet with my boss, shower, shave, check the internet and drink something cold. I'll keep you posted.
