The Camel Project

Lest anyone think, after reading my Ketumbeine  Secondary School post, that I am soliciting funds or donations, I am not!  Asante Network, Floresta, Solace International and many other organizations have worked diligently to establish partnerships with village level organizations and cooperatives.  There are lots of generous and good hearted people who want to help, especially tourists who have visited and experienced first-hand the conditions of sub-Saharan African village life.  But unsolicited and one-time donations frequently have the opposite effect than the desired one.  Westerners see need based on their perspective; the villages may have very different priorities.  One time donations and gifts often generate dependency and feelings of entitlement in villagers.

Asante works with the women's groups to provide and administer micro-loans which are required to be paid back.  We do sell items like goats, school books and uniforms, school lunches, etc. on our website.  The money which is paid for these and other "Special Gifts" is administered through the women's groups and the vocational schools we have partnered with, to provide employment opportunities for producing the items as well as the products themselves.  For more information, I have listed some books that are worth reading if anyone has an interest in this area.  But, if anyone wants to donate to Asante Network, feel free  :-)

A couple of years ago, women from a boma in the Ketumbeine area wanted to join with NAAPOK bead group.  Since the group already had 56 women, they had to be turned down.  Bethany's husband, Steve (the missionary doctor) knew something of Project Heifer's camels, so he investigated that project.  The result was that the women were selected to participate in an experimental camel project.  They received 30 camels, which had been walked down from Kenya.  The Maasai community was, at first, reluctant to embrace the idea.  Then came the terrible drought of 2009.  During that drought, many of the goats and cows died; children had nothing to eat except for thin corn based gruel -- no goats meant no milk.  The camels, however, not only thrived, but calved healthy calfs.  A total of 16 calves have been born.  During the drought, the camels continued to produce milk for the children of that boma, and provided milk for the women to sell.

After that drought, the camels were embraced as a good project!  Bethany is hoping to see more bomas and Maasai communities participate in camel projects.  One of the provisions of Project Heifer is that 1/2 the calves must be given away when they are old enough -- so many new women will receive camels and training.  Camels make such good sense -- they are well adapted to the arid, scrubby conditions; they continue to give milk in droughts; and they are more environmentally responsible.  And if you have never been up close and personal with a camel, they are huge!  I wasn't prepared for them to be so big; and their eyelashes are so long; and the calves are adorable!

So when we left Ketumbeine the morning of the 6th, Ima, our driver, told us that he had been shown a short-cut for getting us back to the main road from Longido.  Hahahahahaha!  The joke was totally on all of us.  We took so many wrong turns that all of us, Ima included, were wondering if we would be spending the night in the vehicle!  Where we were gave new meaning to "off the beaten track".  We were also off the track completely.  There were times on that drive, that the fine, red dust was sheeting off the windows like water and the only reason we weren't stuck was because the red earth was so fine that even though the wheels were halfway buried in the stuff, the undercarriage of the vehicle just slid over the silt.  There were places where the washouts were so steep and so deep that we had to wander all over looking for a place to cross so we could continue.  Ima was amazing and kept us heading in the right direction all the time, but . . .

We even talked about the fact that we knew the Maasai in the area would welcome us into their boma and offer us tea, so we would be protected from the hyenas during the night.  Finally, however, we found some folks who spoke Swahili.  They didn't know of Longido, but they did point us onto the track which led to the road to Monduli -- many many kilometers south of Longido, but close to Arusha.  I have never driven over worse terrain, even when we were in Panama driving up into the mountains to locate the Chagras River. It was an amazing adventure -- we saw giraffes, ostriches, gazelles, birds and amazing scenery -- we drove the entire length of the valley rather than crossing it!  Everything (everything!) was saturated with the red dust.  I'm sure my suitcase and pack will still have red dust in it when I get home.  The shortcut took us about 8 hours longer!