Oliotoktitok...yeah!

February 21
Today was our day off! Woohoo! We started it off with a 2 hour nature walk...OUTSIDE OF THE FENCE!!!!!!! We saw zebra and giraffes. It was really cool not seeing them from inside a car. When we got back we got our Maasai spears and swords that a local made for us. They are all different and it was fun to see our professor throw them. We are going to learn how to throw them sometime this week. Around 11:30 we left for Oliotokitok. We've never been to Oliotokitok on their market day, so it was really different then before. Isobel and I got lots of passion fruit and mangos. We got six mangos for 20 shillings! That's a deal...and they actually taste good. Walking around and seeing the different stands, while being chased by the Mamas, was fun too. There were stands with hand-woven baskets, tons of beautiful fabrics, and other stuff too. I love going into market!

February 20
So today Economic Policy was actually a little more my speed. We separated into groups of 4, drove to a small village outside of Kimana, were dropped off with our translaters (Solomon was my grop's translater), and were picked up 4 hours later. Our goal for this project was to talk to as many people as we possibly could about the problems they face being farmers. We talked to about 11 farmers (it's kind of a far walk in between farms). The most common problems were wildlife, costs, market, labor, and water. I thought since the short rains did not come this year that water would be more of a problem, but I was wrong. Across the board wildlife was the main problem. These farmers hate elephants, zebra, antelope, and hippos. I can't say that I blame them. It was really sad to visit these farms and see the damage that the animals had caused just a few hours ago. It was good for us to be able to go out first hand and see this. In the class you feel bad for these animals, but in the field I felt bad for the farmers. I also realized that this was not a black-and-white- argument like I did before. Do you punish the people for killing wildlife for trespassing, when these crops are all they have? Or do you kill the wildlife even though this land was once where they grazed? Tricky...