Conservation Art

Four Primary Schools, Ngabolo, Kimanjo,  Musul and Naiperere, plus Kimanjo Secondary School, have all enjoyed a two week art and conservation programme. Visiting artist Mathew Owino from Lily Pond Arts Centre, Nanyuki and volunteer Joy have excelled in helping the pupils produce some  excellent pieces of art work using paint, pastels, crayons, natural materials  and recycled multimedia materials.

  Solomon , Paul and Kingori have been responsible for the conservation input. They have tied each school’s theme into the most pertinent issues for them: following their trip to the river  Kimanjo Primary school produced lovely work on water wildlife and birds; Ngabolo, who still face nightly incursions by marauding elephants, despite the fence , have focused on elephants, Musul focused on the natural world around them using flowers and stones and Kimanjo Secondary who are spearheading the clean-up campaign in Kimanjo have begun some interesting  installation art using recycled materials. Naiperere showed real seriousness in producing work on conserving culture with complex stories depicted pictorially.

At the end of the term we will come together to share what we have learnt about conservation this term and show our finished results

We have had numerous wonderful volunteers in schools over the years, but special thank you this month must go to Joy who has shown such commitment , independence,  energy and  sense of humour, as well as wonderful artistic talent, in what has been a challenging task.... and STILL first out of bed every morning!!

Later this term we will take another art team to Raap and Parkuruk schools.

Bicyclists Magnifique

Ol Lentille  would not work without all our wonderful friends  around the world  and this week we are reminded of this more than ever ...we owe  an enormous debt of thanks to our friend Jon Diver from The Character Group PLC and his staunch allies Jon Elliot , Ron Brawer and Tom Hodgkins.

 

They are seen here setting off yesterday from Paris with their bicycles to arrive in London tomorrow afternoon  a tough bike ride of  approximately 225 miles in 3 days, which is an average of 75 miles per day. They will arrive in London tomorrow.. just in time to set up for the London Spring Toy Show! The team consists of Tom Hodgkins, Ron Brawer, Jon Elliott and Jon Diver. They will be travelling light, with only what they can carry on their backs and the bikes .. ..so its a tough challenge.....

One website describes people doing this challenge as being ‘crazy if you’re not in peak physical fitness’, luckily they are ……… !

So, why are they doing this? Because on his visit to Ol Lentille Jon was struck by the difficulties the community faced in educating their children and he made an aim to raise a significant amount of money  .... Jon doesn’t think small....

He aims to... firstly  .. upgrade and rebuild Nkiloriti School so that children as young as 6 won’t have to walk 6km to the larger 8 roomed school at Ngabolo every day (it is not uncommon for these children to encounter elephants, leopards, hyenas and  wild dogs during this journey)... and ..to provide funding for 2 years salaries for two early years trained nursery teachers at Nkiloriti School including training....

That’s just for starters...

Secondly...

 ...to build a boarding facility with beds, kitchen/dining facilities, toilets, washing facilities and solar power at Ngabolo school so the older Nkiloriti children get a chance to board weekly ....

and thirdly.....They want to provide furnished classrooms to the children at Parkuruk School and Narasha Nursery who currently learn under a tree.

and ......don’t stop yet.......  S’ingaun Nursery is in a remote village that is like going back 500 years in time. It’s a day’s walk to the nearest water and back, and the mothers do this trek twice a week with their donkeys. Jon  would like to provide them with some sort of water storage system to help them

They have the North Downs, the South Downs, and the Parisian traffic to deal with but thankfully no elephants!

Thank you  sincerely Jon for your ambition and energy ....... and  of course your powers of persuasion in getting your friends on their bikes!

Giant Tortoise Rescue...

Turtle or Tortoise?

Well done to Murango who saw our lodge friend Mzee tortoise roll into the rock catchment this morning... it turns out that even very heavy tortoises can swim very admirably whilst they await a rescue team to bring them out of a large expanse of very deep water... thank-you Paul and Solomon for an intrepid rescue!

We now have to persuade Mzee (in reality  Madam) tortoise to move her home elsewhere as she is now falling over too often on our mountain top rocks and her shell is being damaged.... we have tried moving her before but  she is capable of traveling long distances to get back home.....the lodge grass and flowers are obviously just too tasty...

Transport to a safer home...

Female tortoises are usually  larger with a flat under-shell (the male is concave)and, generally (though not always) a shorter  tail than the male.

More Cute Baby Pics.... Can't Resist a Baby Zebra!

Feeding time for camp pets

 Remember zebra when she was a baby??

 Burchell’s  zebras are so fierce and she was such a cutey.... perhaps just as well we don’t still have her as our ‘guard’ zebra.. may do more damage than the camp elephant contingent..

...And for anyone wanting a pet eland- just be warned that they have a passion for eating the last page in every book left on a table, plus the soap from every  shower and just about anything else that is animal or vegetable left within 50 metres of camp.... also that every time their horns grow another spiral they will knock you flying off a chair and rub holes in every tent... we STILL have some of those tent holes...

Its a while since we had an ‘abandoned’ orphans sent our way.. I think diki -diki was the last??