Paula Kahumbu’s blog

In a doorway of a Lamu shop was a cat  trying pitifully to lick enormous wounds on it's back. Someone had poured boiling water on it. People in the shop were amused with my concern and told me that someone had done it to stop it from making so much noise!

It seems like there are millions of cast on beautiful Indian Ocean island of Lamu in northern Kenya, some in horrendous condition - obviously abused. I reported this particularly troubling incident to the Kenya Society for the Protection of Animals but didn't really expect any reaction - Lamu is very far from their HQ in Nairobi.

It turns out that they have a very active partner organization in Lamu, the Lamu Animal Welfare Clinic LAWC who were already aware and they sent me these photos.

Before treatment 1

Before treatment.

After treatment 1

After treatment

Dear Paula,

 

Many thanks for your feedback. I will forward your message to Dr. Kevin Sande at our Lamu Animal Welfare Clinic.

 

He is going to make his investigation and I will give you the feedback in return. For your information, I attach a copy of our last Newsletter to give you more details on our work and the situation in Lamu.

Regarding the many young cats we are now resuming the neutering programme. We had done so much at this level that people started 'to talk' wandering if the cats are not going to get extinct! Over here and as you may know it is always a challenge to strike a balance between local mentalities, (total) ignorance about animal welfare, the workload and therefore it is not always possible to cover everything at the same time. In the end, much more could be done if we would have the financial means...

 

Be assured that we are trying our best, going out on an ongoing basis to spot animals in distress and try to sensitize people.

 

I will let Jean comment on the donkeys as this is not our area although the two vets are often working together reporting cases where necessary.

 

Thank you again & best regards.

Richarde Traeger

Promoter Trustee of LAWC

The cat was rescued adn treated and is doing well now. In addition, a man who cut a dog with a knife has been arrested and is in jain waiting for his case to be heard.
 
I dedicate this post and give huge kudos to the LAWC and KSPCA for repsonding and tirelessly seeking to improve the welfare situation of animals in Kenya. Thanks especially to Jean Gilchrest and Richarde Traeger and of course Dr  Kevin Sande who treated the cat. I will be redoubling my support for these efforts from now on.

Lamu is famous for its cats and most of the people of Lamu care for or at least tolerate these adorable creatures. If you love cats then you must get this book The Cats of Lamu which is one of my favourites.

Lamu cats

If you want to join me and help KSPCA or LAWC, then become a sponsor and join the group on facebook

How do you describe the apprehension when approaching Kenya’s most notorious prison, Kamiti Maximum Prison in Nairobi’s Kiambu suburb.

Yes. I have a friend in there but visiting him isn't like going to a hospital or a hotel. We had to ask for directions at a petrol station, the pump attendant looked at us in disbelief, ‘but it’s a prison’

Arriving as a visitor can’t be anywhere nearly as tense as arriving as an inmate, in one of those ugly black window sealed with wire buses.

The greeting at the gate is a signboard – No mobile phones, no guns, no weapons, no cameras and no other obvious items. The guards were polite enough when asking who we were visiting. We had to leave our phones which were carefully taped together and stored in a desk drawer with all the others.

Our bags had to be left in another, but all valuables and cash removed. Books and magazines had to be left behind and a letter obtained from the ‘customer care’ desk before they could be taken in.

We stood in line to be searched, the lady in front had a roll of toilet paper that was carefully felt all over before she was allowed to go in.

Once inside the gates it was a 300 m walk down a dusty path to the customer care building. Everyone was in this little concrete shack, on wooden benches. A desk manned by a guard who looked nearly comatose, a green sign ’customer relations’ on the desk below a gaping hole in the wall that served as a window looking onto a monumental smouldering rubbish dump, alive with scavenging maraobou storks

Once inside one cannot help feeling like the laws of the land no longer apply and you are at the mercy of a gang of bored guards

A lady is being served at the desk, the guard is tearing a tiny piece of pink paper with a ruler, on which he has written something and handed it to her. She sits down with her piece of paper. He looks at me and gestures with his head that I should approach.

Guard 1: “Can I help you’

Me ‘yes, I’ve come to see John x, I have some books for him and was told to get a note from you so that I can bring them’

Guard 1, ‘who told you that?’

Me ’the guard at the main gate’

Guard 1 “what kind of books?”

Me “one is novel and four magazines’

Guard 1 “A novel? What kind of magazines?”

Me “nature, national geographic, travel’

Guard 1 hesitates for a long time while considering the request…”ok, sit down and wait for my friend he will help you”

I sit down. The guards change. After 20 minutes nothing has happened. I approach the new guard. The exact same interview takes place and I’m told once again to  sit down and wait.

I wait watching the marabou storks and other visitors opening the packets of soap and toilet paper and write the names of their inmates on them.

The guards change again and then I’m called outside and told to go into the prison to see John. I mention the books

Guard 3. "Why didn’t you bring them?

I tell him the story and he says “ok, go in side and see him, he’s ready, afterwards you can get the books’

I go to the big wooden door – as I approach it someone looks at me and closes the small door. I stand outside the 50 foot door – what do I do? Knock?

People are staring, a tiny window is opened “what do you want’ …'I’ve come to see John X'. The door opens and a guard comes out and searches me.

I’m let into the inner court where I stand idly…waiting for instructions. I can see John x beyond another gate …I’m led to a room, but thrown out by the guard who seems to be sleeping in it, then another room and another and another. John is tracking me through the window on the other side. Eventually we get to talk through a window. Its miserable, he’s in good spirits, the system is designed to strip the inmates of all dignity, food is pathetic, water non existent, clothes tatty,…he describes the hell but it’s clear that they haven’t broken him.  

We knew time was up when one of the guards started banging the desk with his ruler (!) and glaring at us like a baboon. We had to leave. We walk back to the main gate and I go to get the books. The guard at the gate stops me, and demands the note he asked for in the beginning.  

There's no point pleading, these guys are a law unto themselves and dont care that their instant rules make no sense whatsover.

I return to the prison to get the note, nobody will issue a note. Again they ask what the books are. Another long wait until permission is granted and then finally someone is instructed to come with me to get the books. He acts totally humiliated. I give him the books, and he scrutinizes every page before they will take the books down to John (I doubt he ever got them).

While waiting around I couldn’t help reading 3,671 prisoners – this is a facility built for 2,500! I read all the  signs all over the prison, ‘Rights of prisoners”, Missions statement of ‘Kamiti Maximum Prison’ …you’d think you were in the worlds most conscientious reform institution.

There's one sign I wish I could have photographed “We are a corruption free institution” - …

Overall experience

Ease of getting in – Very

Ease of getting out – Very (but you’ll be dead)

Customer care – Forget it, the guards are all powerful

Food – inedible

Facilities – filthy

Overall feeling - threatening

Recommendation: A perfect home for all of Kenyas politicians and police.

Growing up in Kenya I was just a Kenyan, school was a delicious mix of colours and creeds, religions and interests. I fitted in perfectly  - it was only when I went abroad that I realised that colour matters to some people. Most boys wouldn’t date me in England, and those that did risked alienation from their families. I was spat on for holding hands with a white boy while walking down the street – that was fifteen years ago.

So, in Kenya Obama is considered white, in America he's black. In my family we'd say he's mixed, but to a chimpanzee he's just another annoying human.

While studying at Princeton University I had the pleasure of having to decide what race I was each year I filled the registration form. Caucasian or black. I had to fill it, being of mixed race I found it ludicrous, but I always wrote black – it was expected, and besides it may have affected my status in the college. A friend of mine was more objective, to be fair on his ancestors, each year he filled a different bubble – after all he had Asian, African and Caucasian blood. The university immediately asked him to “stop it” or leave the university. Race was obviously a touchy subject, gender less so. That I was perpetually listed as a man on my form despite my complaints that I had not undergone a sex change, was never taken up by the administrators.

Call me stupid but I don’t understand why skin colour and race matter so much.

Race has little or no biological meaning

Genetic studies have helped scientists to prove that race is a social construct and has little scientific basis. In fact, the human race is not very diverse compared to other primates. We are genetically more similar to each other than chimpanzees are to each other!

"Genetic variation among individual humans occurs on many different scales, ranging from gross alterations in the human karyotype to single nucleotide changes."Nucleotide diversity is based on single mutations (single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)); the nucleotide diversity between humans is about 0.1%, that is one difference per 1000 base pairs. This difference between humans is considered small relative to other large primates, for example it is often cited that although chimpanzees have a restricted geographical range and small population numbers their nucleotide diversity is greater than that of humans, with one difference between individuals per 500 base pairs”

One theory is that humans passed through a population bottleneck before a rapid expansion coinciding with migrations out of Africa leading to an African-Eurasian divergence around 100,000 years ago (ca. 5,000 generations), followed by a European-Asian divergence about 40,000 years ago (ca. 2,000 generations).

It is proposed that our ancestors went through a big squeeze: Volcanic eruptions, disease, or climate change created a population "bottleneck" that reduced the number of breeding adults to about 10,000 sometime in the past 100,000 years. But new genetic studies of ancient DNA from Neandertals have found that they and the last ancestor they shared with humans, about 600,000 years ago, also lacked much genetic variation, which would require at least three dramatic bottlenecks--an improbable scenario.

Human inbreeding led to loss of genetic diversity

Ann Gibbons writes that one study proves that we’ve been interbreeding like crazy! Language differences restricted gene flow in recent times in Europe, suggesting that cultural barriers might have limited genetic diversity more consistently than occasional local bottlenecks.

If human ancestors selected mates from similar backgrounds, there would have been a lot of inbreeding within different populations, restricting the flow of new mutations to other groups. Over time, most populations went extinct, allowing the genes of only a few groups to proliferate, further erasing genetic diversity.

Chimpanzees and gorillas are not racist

Genetic diversity increased when individuals were less selective about their mates. Chimpanzees and gorillas mate whenever possible with individuals from other groups.

Human gene map shows we are more related than we thought

We’re all mixed up - individual Europeans were about 38% of the time more genetically similar to East Asians than to other Europeans.

Skin colour is controlled mainly by just one gene

The basis of most racism is based on skin colour, a factor that influenced even our most revered evolutionary scientists like Darwin. Studies now prove that a substantial portion of the differences of skin color between Europeans and Africans resides in a single gene, SLC24A5 the threonine-111 allele of which was found in 98.7 to 100% among several European samples, while the alanine-111 form was found in 93 to 100% of samples of Africans, East Asians and Indigenous Americans.

Race underpins so much

I find it incredible that we live in a society that states it wants to be rid of racist attitudes. Yet we are being conditioned to it every day, and racism permeates people’s minds though media, education and religion. In every census, job application, school application and to obtain travel documents we have to report our race. We are being categorized all the time and assumptions are made about our abilities based on race.

Race and education

 While at Princeton University a few years ago, I received a little yellow book in my mail box, it was a book generously donated to me that explained why Africans were inferior mentally and declared that this was a genetic flaw that we might as well accept and adapt to. The university would not withdraw such mail circulation stating that it was up to the individual recipients to decide what to do with them.

Race affects opportunity

In my short life I’ve experienced racism several times. While in USA my application for renting an apartment was acceptable when I called up on phone and all was in order, but as soon as the landlord met me he suddenly had no vacancies. He claimed that the apartments were unexpectedly filled and apologized profusely. My white friends applied for the same apartment and discovered it was in fact still free. My American friends of all colours were not surprised or bothered by this. I was infuriated and took the bastard to court. He had to pay, but he refused to apologise, stating he didn’t see anything wrong in what he’d done.

Do equal opportunity policies take us backwards?

In her attempt to escape racism, the shackles of apartheid and tio rectify past wrongs, South Africa has adopted a policy called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). This policy actually unintentionally entrenches racism. The categorization of people has led to a greater sense of difference. It has reached ridiculous proportions; to force greater integration at every level, quotas are placed on black participation even school sports games.  

I know my views are overly simplistic, so I'm curious about what others feel, experience and in what you are doing.

Here's my two cents worth of advice to global leadrs

Two steps to get over race

1. We should stop inbreeding so much (we should stop so much breeding in general)

2. All racists should all have their eyes gouged

Go Carzy, it's the year of the Gorilla! Thump your chest, grunt and scream, join friends at WildlifeDirect in helping to save our gentle cousins.

Gorilla

Ok Ok, I'm really sorry, I apologise profusely to all donkeys and donkey lovers. Please forgive me ...I swear to never insult them again.

But you realise that now I'm stumped, how can we insult our rotten leaders by comparing him (or her) to any living organism? Can I call them bacterias? Do we agree that bacteria are bad? they are infective, nasty, disgusting, smelly, dangerous, deadly, ...just plain evil?

If you read this article you''ll see that I cant even do that! Damn, even E. Coli, that nasty creature that gives us food poisoning has become a good guy and has been turned into a biofuel producing savior

"Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have successfully pushed nature beyond its limits by genetically modifying Escherichia coli, a bacterium often associated with food poisoning, to produce unusually long-chain alcohols essential in the creation of biofuels." read more here

Ushahidi's is a crowd sourcing software which was developed to track citizen reports of incidents in Kenya during the post election violence.  It has been used to track the incidents in the Congo conflict and the latest application is by Al Jazeera to report on the conflict in Gaza.

Gaza-ushahidi

Imagine the potential - this may be the biggest innovation for 2009. Tell everyone about it.

According to the East African Standard newspaper, the parents of a primary school in Meru, Kenya, have demanded the removal of a head teacher after the school was invaded by 'spirits'. No, not the acoholic sort, - you know, the other kind, ...No, not holy spirits, but the sort of spirits that seize the kids and make them all to the ground 'one after the other'.

No doubt these naughty demons got bored after completing their work in the presidents state house, the house of parliament and other government officers where our elected officials have been asleep ever since they were elected.

Only the police are busy working (perhaps the ghosts fear guns), if only the rest of Kenya was as efficient as our police force who have fleeced innocent road users during the festive season of millions, if not billions to pay for their celebrations ..and school fees.

We need a ghost-buster to bottle them up and release them at all our road blocks.

In Swahili, the word punda is just as insulting as donkey is in English so I will use it liberally when describing our current leadership.

Donkey-race

So what has a donkey and a Kenyan politician got in common? Everything! The smell, the arrogance, the stubbornness, the stupidity (sorry Shrek).....Grrrr..... Kenyan politicans are all donkeys in a stupid donkey race with us the idiotic public riding them - notice the lack of any safety gear, the cruelty and the slow pace at which the donkeys are trotting in a so called 'race'. All are synonymous with a sleepy country with a bunch of punda's leading it. Much as I love all equines and I hate violence and abuse against wildlife (or humanity), these leaders deserve a good whalloping for being the twits that they are.

Members of parliament voted for a media bill that basically strangles the media, then after the public cry out in rage, a huge group of MP's state that they were not even in parliament when the bill was passed. Hello, where were they? Asleep, shopping with all that money that they earn (Kenyan ministers are amongst the highest earners in the world - for what? to stop corruption. What a joke).

Why don't we vote the out? Good question  - the answer is that we do, but then we keep replacing them with even worse guys. It's not even a funny joke. We started the year with sobs again this year.

Some people hate the rain and use the saying "when it rains it pours" to describe bad things.

In Africa we say the opposite, "it's a blessing when it rains".

Well, it has just started raining, perhaps all the horrible things we are hearing about like credit crunch, crisis in eastern Congo, Darfur, Somalia, starvation in Zimbabwe,..... will all vanish.