Kakamenga Rain Forest

This weekend's travels took me to the last remaining swath of rain forest in Western Kenya, Kakamega, which used to be part of a band that stretched across Africa from the Ivory Coast. As a result of human encroachment and land overuse it has shrunk to only 230 square kilometers, which is now being "protected" by a local organization. As always the travelling was as much an adventure as being there.

The forest is near a mid-size town but essentially quite rural. After an easy matatu ride to the town, I wandered through the bustling Saturday market in search of buses to Shinalayu - a small town that marks the end of the road for public transport. The "bus" was actually just a pickup truck with two rows of facing benches and a roof. As always, the rule in Kenya is there is always room for one more. On the way out, this was fine - a cozy mix of people, chickens, and market purchases bumping over the country roads. On the return trip, in addition to the twelve of us seated on the benches, four chickens, and two small children, we then proceeded to add EIGHT more people to crouch in the (nonexistent) space between our knees and two more hanging off the back. It was like a bad version of that soap commercial ("aren't you glad you use Dial..." though of course most people don't have the luxury of daily baths or deodorant). I thought we might have gone one too far when one of the chickens started to lose it - after a flurry of squawks, feathers in the air, wild pecking, and lots of shouting in Swahili, order was somewhat restored.

From Shinalayu, I then took off on an hour's walk down the road towards the rain forest. It is beautiful country, quite lush, the red road lined on either side with farms - and of course, many small children, yelling "Mzungu" and running out to shake my hand. It is also a bustling thoroughfare for commerce - the bicycles (as pictured on the right) or people's heads (above) are piled high going to or from the market. Two popular items of transport are the long grasses used to thatch roofs or as cattle feed and long branches for firewood. I later learned the reason these were all being transported rather inefficiently. As part of the environmental protection of the rain forest, goods that are illegal to remove from the forest (grass, wood, bark), are okay to take as long as they are carried out by hand and not by a vehicle that would pollute the area. Though, of course, other diesel-powered vehicles are allowed through - and no-one is trying to really stop the removal of products from the supposedly protected forest.

The forest itself is beautiful, filled with butterflies (home to 45% of the country's species), birds, and monkeys. I stayed in a little cabin on stilts - looking out into a sea of green. It was great meeting the other travellers and sharing stories - including two other women, Spanish and Swedish, who had done quite a bit of traveling on their own. We went on an afternoon hike in the dripping forest (it rains 200 cm per year and this is the rainy season), stood inside trees hollowed out due to "strangler" vines, watched the monkeys play at dusk in the trees outside our rooms, and did an early morning walk to listen to the birds and watch the sunrise. We did see one viper - but it was very small and our guide assured us it would only bite if we tried to harass it - so there is no picture of said snake and I am here to tell you about it. Very relaxing just sitting on the porch listening to the sounds of the forest.

The matatu ride back was great. There are no scheduled departures, your bus just leaves when it is full. The one I climbed into was blasting reggae in Swahili - the cashier (fare collector/general recruiter of passengers) was urging passersby to check out his very nice car and join the trip to Kisumu (and all points in between). We then took off around the neighborhoods of Kakamega recruiting additional passengers - remember, no vehicle is EVER full. Then took off down the mountain, barely slowing to let off passengers and pick more up - literally, they often come at a run. Despite all the unscheduled "stops" we made the trip back down in far less than it had taken to get there.

I spent a very American afternoon - sitting by the pool with Sophy, another medicine resident who has just arrived from San Francisco and the pediatrics resident, Lisa, who is about to head home.