Thank you for your generosity, in helping to support the work of the African Environmental Film Foundation. In line with our recent appeal, this week’s donations will be used to pay for prizes for the children participating in the Environmental Awareness Competition at Kenya’s Giraffe Center. Altogether, 150 winners and runners up will receive a copy of one of our educational DVDs about conservation, from a selection of 12 different films.

The following donations have been received in the past week:

Dana J $50

Susanna N $25

Anonymous 25$

Thank you very much. We hope to be able to attend the prize giving day ourselves (on 6th June), and photograph the kids receiving their DVD prizes… We’ll be sure to post some photos here.

I got up early in the morning the other day, to bake some bread before starting work. I measured out the flour, salt, yeast etc, and was about to start mixing it all together by hand when something in the flour caught my eye…and lucky I saw it too, for it was a tiny little scorpion! Where it had come from, I don’t know, but it was possibly hiding on the underneath of my flour container, and had fallen into the bowl when I was measuring out the flour. I’m just glad it happened to fall on top of the flour, as opposed to being buried under it, otherwise I would have been given a very nasty wake-up call in the form of a very unfriendly sting. Scorpions of all sizes give a painful sting, but the smaller they are, the more potent the sting, and the more sharp the pain. A close escape, I’d say…

I suppose, when you consider how many years I have lived in the bush, I have got away quite lightly (touch wood!), and have only once been stung by a scorpion – that was on my backside, about ten or fifteen years ago, when a few friends and I were lying back on some giant flat rocks at dusk, watching the stars appear one by one in the night sky…It was my own fault really, as I should have known better than to tempt fate (and scorpions) like that. It took about 12-18 hours for the pain to subside. No sleep for me that night! You know how some pain comes in waves – not so with a scorpion sting – the pain is consistent and burning for hours….but at least you know you just have to wait it out and you’re going to be OK – an African scorpion sting is not dangerous, as such…so it’s a matter of gritting your teeth and bearing it.

CHILDREN’S ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AWARD

The Giraffe Center of the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife is a non-profit organization whose objectives are to educate the youth in Kenya on the importance of conserving wildlife and the environment. This year, the Giraffe Center celebrates 25 years in conservation education.

The Giraffe Center has long been one of our major distribution partners, using our educational films as teaching tools to great effect.

Each year, they show our educational films about diverse conservation and environmental issues to over 165,000 children and adults, as follows:

Organized School Trips:……………60,000 children per year
Underprivileged Children’s Groups:……..5,000 children per year
Teacher Training Programs:………………225 teachers per year
Domestic and International Tourists:………>100,000 visitors per year

As part of their education program, the Center organizes an annual National Environmental Awareness Competition, whereby children participate in essay writing, artwork and photography, giving them the opportunity to analyze the environmental issues affecting them on a daily basis, and to suggest possible solutions to problems.

This year’s competition theme is “Environmental Conservation Education”, culminating in a prize-giving day on 6th June 2008, to coincide with World Environmental Week.

The African Environmental Film Foundation has been asked to contribute 150 DVDs of our films as prizes for the participating students (many thousands of children will compete).

150 winners and runners-up from different categories and age groups, representing students from across Kenya, each going back home to their village with a copy of an educational film which their whole community will see, have the potential to spread the conservation message contained therein to every corner of the country.

Despite the cost of these DVD copies being relatively small, it is nonetheless an expenditure for which we have not budgeted. Therefore, if we are to be able to contribute the DVDs as prizes, we need to raise the money to produce the copies.

Please help if you can:

The cost of producing each DVD copy (which has to be done in UK as no high quality replication facilities exist yet in East Africa), including the cost of the cover and freight from UK to Kenya is $7.50.
Producing 150 DVD copies (incorporating a selection from our 12 available films) will cost a total of $1,125.

Donations can be made online here, or by check made out to the ‘African Environmental Film Foundation’ and sent to our Foundation offices in the USA, Kenya or UK. Please specify that your donation is for the Giraffe Center Award Partnership. Thank you.
For more information, you can download a copy of the Giraffe Center’s letter to us, requesting our participation in this initiative, you can visit the Giraffe Center website, and of course you can always contact me personally with any questions.

A heartfelt thank you for any help you can give…

150 DVDs of AEFF’s twelve educational films will constitute prizes…

We were excited today to receive notification from the WildlifeDirect team of our very first donation:

Anonymous $40

I think I know who this is from, as you mentioned it to me before…thank you so much….it is wonderful to know there are people all over the world who share our vision and support us in our work.

Two of our beehives, burnt out and destroyed (above and below)

Wasted honeycomb which could have sustained a new generation of bees

The better news is that, with the river full again, the hippos are happy. One turned up opposite the house, scouting out the reed beds where we often see hippos spending the heat of the day. The following day, a mother hippo appeared in the same place with a small baby…I can’t believe this is the same mother and baby hippo that were living here before – the baby looks smaller, so I think this is a new one. Hippos are one of the only mammals (apart from whales) that give birth underwater. Imagine being a baby hippo and having to swim to the surface before being able to take your very first breath! It’s so lovely having the hippos right here by the house.

Hippo scouting out the reed beds opposite our house

Mother and baby hippo

Yesterday, the river was rising and falling every few hours, changing the landscape completely as huge grey storm clouds gathered overhead, preparing for our nightly downpour. (Today is another story again, but that will have to wait for my next post…)

There must have been rain to the west of us because the Mtito River started flowing, having been dry for over a month. From the house, we watched as it broke its way into the much larger Athi, crocodiles, herons, egrets and hammerkops congregating at its mouth.

The smaller, seasonal Mtito River starts flowing into the Athi (on the right hand side of the above picture)

A Crocodile and a Grey Heron wait for prey at the mouth of the Mtito River

Oh so elegant: a Grey Heron stands next to a Great White Egret near the Mtito River mouth

Unbelievably, the Bauhinia (bauhinia taitensis) are flowering again already, only six weeks or so since they were last out in bloom…In fact, the dry season has been relatively short as the last rainy season ended so late. Unlike last time, when the Bauhinia started flowering in dribs and drabs, with the sudden heavy and sustained rain, the flowers have come out en masse this time, like snow across the landscape. Do you know the feeling when something is so beautiful, it hurts to look at it? This is how I feel when I look at these blossoming Bauhinia bushes, with their pungent yet delicate scent like roses. Each flower-laden bough looks like a ready-made wedding bouquet. Even as they start drying out – ever so soon, for the blossom is short-lived, turning pinkish and shedding its petals like confetti after just 24 hours – they retain an aching beauty.

Our driveway, adorned with Bauhinia taitensis bushes in full bloom

Sweet-scented Bauhinia

Turning pink, as they start to dry out…

Other flowers are blossoming too, including the pink grewia lilacina and clumps of small yellow flowers which I think are triumfetta flavescens. The yellow-flowered creeper on our lawn (which shall remain nameless for the simple reason that I don’t know what it’s called) has produced a wonderful looking fruit that resembles a melon. In our balcony flowerbeds, the most incredible white lilies have self-seeded (pictures below) – they’re similar but not the same as the white lilies I photographed during the last rainy season. They took us completely by surprise – all of a sudden they were there on our balcony in all their glory, and the next day, they were withered and gone…but what a flush of beauty while they lasted!

The power of film cannot be overstated, not only to educate but to put places “on the map”, thereby attracting tourism revenue and highlighting issues of importance like conservation.  The recent reinvigoration of this Association is a good sign of the film industry in this country banding together to drive positive change.

The Association also provides an excellent networking facility for the film industry, and as AEFF expands, we may well recruit our future film makers from amongst the membership. We also hope to be able to help the Association through contributing to discussions and ideas, and sharing our experience with others.

The Association website is currently being revamped, but in the meantime, they have an active Yahoo eGroup called KFTPA2006.

AEFF’s 12 completed films to date

The African Environmental Film Foundation produces broadcast quality educational films about conservation issues in African languages. Our films are available free of charge to conservation organizations who wish to use them as educational tools.

For the past 10 years, our films have proved extremely useful to conservation organizations which are initiating new projects by “winning hearts and minds”: the films can pave the way for the implementation of new conservation projects by informing local communities and policy makers alike, and showing them the importance of conservation, from an ecological and an economic perspective – showcasing working examples of successful alternative livelihood methods whereby people have improved their standard of living while protecting their wildlife and natural environment.

The films also assist ongoing conservation projects by spreading awareness and garnering community support for conservation projects. The films can also show how conservation projects in one area can have much wider, positive repercussions not just in that particular area, but much further afield.

You can read testimonials from organizations that use our films here.

If you represent a conservation organization (or indeed an educational institution) in Africa, please email us to request a set of our films.

We currently have 12 one-hour films available, and several more currently in production, covering a variety of conservation issues. All the films are narrated in both English and Kiswahili, and several are also available in Maa and Kikamba. (The DVDs are multi-language, so you can select whichever language is most suitable for your audience as you show them).

Films currently available are:

1. The Great Ruaha River
2. Elephants of Tsavo
3. Keepers of the Kingdom
4. Tombs below Aruba
5. Wanted Dead or Alive?
6. Running Dry
7. The Meanest Animal in the World?
8. The Walking Birds
9. Together They Stand
10. Black Rhino – On the Brink
11. A Keeper’s Diary
12. Natural Security

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me personally.

Hippo leaving the river as the sun bakes the river…

That afternoon, the first splashes of rain cascaded down from an angry sky, hard and stinging, bringing instant relief and releasing us from the clinging, claustrophobic heat. The shower was short and sharp, and did not last long, but while they fell, the raindrops were fat and full of promise… What joy! The rains have broken!

A Yellow-billed Stork continues fishing as the first raindrops fall on the river…

In the evening we watched the sky for hours, bewitched by the huge electric storms raging all around us, massive fronts of lighting illuminating the entire firmament like a giant fireworks display, on and on into the night. I felt awe-struck, and privileged, and very, very small before that gigantic stage. There is nothing quite like Nature for putting you in your place, for confirming that – in the big picture – you’re really not all that significant…

Fast forward to 3.15am and I am awoken from a deep sleep by a fantastic roar. For a moment I am disorientated, and don’t know what’s happening. And then, in the haze of my early morning mind, it dawns on me: the river is flooding. I stumble out of bed, the moon is large and luminous, and I can see the huge river tumbling and crashing below our balcony. The roar was from this wall of water, plunging its way coastwards in one massive flash flood, whipping yesterday’s placid shallow stream into a frenzied deluge.

From this…

…to this, in the blink of a sleepy eye

There’s something quite awe-inspiring about a big river in full flood. Even though you know you are safely above its danger zone, you still have to fight your animal instinct of fear which makes you want to run from it, such is the power of that water and the thundering sound it makes as it crashes beneath you, red and muddy from its cascade through upcountry farming areas where poor land management has left the earth bare and vulnerable to erosion with every bout of rain.

It has rained ever since then (with the obligatory accompaniment of an insect invasion, including a very pretty moth that landed on our bathroom mirror, above), the stormy clouds obliterating all view of the full moon rising at the weekend. A foray into beautiful Tsavo West National Park rewarded us with muddy elephants, a herd of giraffe, a couple of elegant Lesser Kudu and more than a few buffalo…

A lovely Lesser Kudu doe, a wonderfully muddy bull Elephant, and a herd of haughty-looking Giraffe were just a few of the animals we saw in Tsavo West…

Yesterday, it was cloudy and rainy all day, the crocodiles starved of any sunlight and barely any warmth…then today we awoke to a totally different morning: back to the scorching heat and the crocodiles returning in droves to bask on the sandbanks, while the Goliath Heron, too hot even to finish washing, just sat down in the river and stayed there (and who could blame it?) I had to take a cold shower at midday, just to fortify myself for the onslaught of the afternoon heat.

The crocodiles were happy to see the sun again, but it was too hot for the Goliath Heron who, half way through its wash, just sat down in the river and stayed there!

Tonight, as might be expected, the thunder and lightning are raging again, huge storm clouds fomented in the heat of the day, now towering overhead…and the rain continues, and the bugs multiply, and the flowers prepare to launch into their reproductive cycles once again…the tiny pretty blue commelina flowers are already blooming everywhere you look (including on our nascent lawn) and the sanseviera we transplanted into our garden (both on the balcony and outside) are sending up a proliferation of shoots, the new spikes breaking the surface of the earth like spiky aliens, and reaching up towards the light…

Delicate blue Commelina flowers colonizing our new lawn

Sanseviera (above and below) sending up new spikes

Look at this feast! Today our trusty beehives delivered this bounty, despite there being rather a shortage of bees around this year…obviously enough to make enough honey to go round for us and the guys that work for us. The hives we use are traditional Wakamba beehives: hollowed out logs hung in the trees with wire. They’re not the most efficient type of beehive in the world: we’re planning to buy some more modern, more efficient hives soon. In the meantime, it’s important when harvesting the honey not to take all the combs out of each hive, otherwise there’s nothing left for the bees…I squeezed the incredibly sweet honey out of the combs by hand, which was a sticky experience but well worth it…there’s nothing quite like a slice of homemade bread, fresh out the oven and still warm, with honey from one’s very own beehives…

On the culinary front, I’ve recently started making kefir – for anyone who doesn’t know what this is, it’s a drink/food very like natural yoghurt but apparently with even more health benefits. You start with some ‘grains’ – an ugly-looking lump consisting of bacteria and yeast (which I got from a friend – her grandmother kept the same culture going for 60 years by carefully looking after those all-important grains), put them in milk overnight, and by morning you have a thin yoghurt-like mixture with myriad health benefits. (Even Ian has been persuaded of this, and has a daily glass into which he mixes a little honey.) After making a jugful, you have to carefully sieve the kefir to extract the grain, then place the ugly, magical lump in some water (or milk) to keep it alive and ready to make the next batch.

Ian thinks it’s like “The Good Life” all over again [a 1970s English comedy series where a Do-It-Yourself couple tried to live off the land in their tiny English town house, overlooked with amused disdain by their upper-crust neighbours.]….just wait until we have own elephant- and baboon-proof, super-fortified veggie patch!

My goodness it has been HOT – you sweat just getting out of the bed in the morning! The river has been very low, and a huge new mud flat has opened up on Hippo Bend, with interesting sand formations being created by the wind where the mud meets the sand. There were lots of ‘track stories’ on the beach when we were down there the other evening…telling of the passing elephants, and the baboons who were running just ahead of us on the beach, and of storks walking in perfect parallel, and even of the cheetah who’s been back here drinking again….or is this a hyena footprint? They are so difficult to tell apart, and we’ve been hearing a lot of hyena noise around the house recently, loud whooping and the distinctive chuckling noise they make which leads people to say that hyenas laugh…

Elephant footprint patterns in the mud

Storks walking in parallel

Baboon footprint in the sand (the thumb makes it distinctive)

Cheetah footprint (notice the claws – unlike other cats, cheetahs cannot retract their claws)

The searing heat has been pulling great tall rain clouds and it looks like the rainy season is about to start any day now, with huge wild skies and towering clouds and the smell of moisture on the hot, hot air. Because the last rainy season ended so late here in Tsavo, it seems strange to be contemplating rain again already, but it certainly does seem to be on its way. The wind in the evenings, as the sun slips below the horizon and the temperature drops, has been unbelievably fierce…in fact, it’s been blowing so hard, we think something has snapped in our wind turbine which is looking decidedly sluggish despite the raging winds…

Click to enlarge…

These two young impala rams, which have just about taken up permanent residence on our Little Serengeti, have got the right idea – resting up in the shade on the beach during the heat of the day.

Impalas on the beach…

The baobab trees have only just dropped all their leaves, which had turned such a bright yellow colour that the trees looked like they were in blossom. They are now bare-boughed again. If the thunder and lighting outside my window beyond the Yatta have anything to say about it though, it seems the trees will be coming out in leaf before too long again…

A yellow-leafed Baobab Tree at the end of February – you would be forgiven it was in flower!

The Baobabs are bare-boughed now, but if the gathering storm clouds have anything to say about it, it won’t be long before they’re coming out in leaf again…

Jean-Genie [plural – our genet cats - we initially thought there was just one, but it now turns out there are at least two or three] have become tamer and tamer, and now come right up to our chairs when we’re on the balcony eating dinner. Soon they’ll be tame enough to photograph but I don’t want to frighten them away at this early, delicate stage by using the flash. What the genets leave behind, the ants tidy up – how about this for cooperative labour?

Ants carrying away the chicken scraps after the genet cats have had their fill.

More Pictures from March 2008:
Wild Animals
Birdlife
Tree Watch
Miscellaneous Views of the Landscape
Big African Skies
People Pics: Our Life in the Wild
Track Stories: Tales Left Behind in the Sand

‘Kulafumbi’ is our family home in Kenya, East Africa, situated on the confluence of the Athi and Mtito Rivers. The property borders the Tsavo National Park – with no fences between us and the Park, the wildlife comes and goes of its own free will and treats our land as its own.

Ian and I were married here on 22nd September 2007 (after having talked about it for no less than 7 years!)

We work from here too, in office space which is donated to the Film Foundation by my father, Simon Trevor, who owns the property.

It’s a very special place, and many of the tales recounted in this blog will be about our lives here “in the middle of nowhere”, and the animals and birds that are our neighbours…

Read more about Kulafumbi – the house and land – and see some photos of our unconventional house…

Read more about my family and I, and how our long love affair with Africa started several generations ago…

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