Dayton Visits Il Motiok Primary School

We arrived at Il Motiok Primary School early. The students still had plenty of class time left before the after-school Conservation Club I was there to help teach. Helen and some others left for Nai Perere, and I remained with Nancy and Alex. Nancy Rubenstein is a former elementary school teacher and the wife of Princeton ecologist Dan Rubenstein and the Conservation Clubs are largely their brainchild. Alex is a rising junior interning through the Princeton Environmental Institute as a teacher and she has prepared a lesson on birds and adaptations for this afternoon.

With permission from the Il Motiok teacher, we decided to sit in on a class until school was out. First we caught the tail end of a religious education class in which students were learning causes of suffering (war, sickness, sin, guilt, etc.) and, had time permitted, would have learned of Jesus Christ’s triumph over said suffering. A cursory Wikipedia search reveals Kenya first found Jesus in the form of Portuguese Catholics in the 1400s. Kenya’s colonization by the British from 1920-1963 cemented Christianity’s hold, and today roughly three-quarters of Kenyans are believers. (Other British influences can be found in their Anglicized names and driving on the left side of the road.) I don’t mean to comment on the merits of Christianity; instead, my thoughts drifted to the lasting power of colonialism. Parts of a culture were lost or irrevocably altered due to Western influence. As a white Westerner interacting with young Kenyans, I must be conscious of not overstepping my role.

The next class we saw was a science class. A different teacher went over the parts of the heart and drew a diagram on the board. His style was relaxed and informal, and he actively involved Nancy, Alex, and me (“Let’s ask our visitors what the smallest blood vessels are called”). The students seemed to be enjoying themselves, and I knew I was (“Capillaries!”).

After class, we met up again with the religious education teacher, Joseph, who also teaches the Conservation Club. He expressed discontentment with the way the kids are so often kept silent in their chairs, and declared that for today’s Club we would go on walk.

It was tempting to be frustrated. All the preparation for Alex’s bird lesson just (forgive me) flew out the window. But to be honest I was secretly pleased. Joseph, in the end, is the Club teacher, not Alex, Nancy, or I. If he felt his students had spent too much time inside, well, he knew better than we did.

We walked about 5-10 minutes to a rocky outcropping, past a glut of livestock (domestic goats are everywhere here. Apparently they eat more than their fair share of plants and are bad—dare I say baaaa-d?—for the environment, but between you and me I think they’re hilarious and kind of awesome). I tried to initiate conversation with one or two of the students, but due to their general shyness, unconfident English, or whatever else, I was woefully unsuccessful.

We sat down in the rocks, some of the kids flipping through animal-themed picture books they’d brought along. Joseph began to speak, as much to Nancy, Alex, and me as to the students. He pointed far out in the distance at what he claimed was an elephant, and the students seemed to agree. I’m inclined to believe them, and I think I might have seen it move, but I wouldn’t be shocked to find out it was just a big grey rock.

Elephants at Il Motiok are not quite as beloved as they are in the US. They had trampled and killed a woman three months ago in the area, and such events are not uncommon. While poaching (for ivory) and habitat degradation (especially cutting down trees) have sent elephants onto the endangered list worldwide, there are still quite a few in Il Motiok. Kenya’s textbooks take a pragmatic approach to conservation: elephants are good for tourism, which is good for the local economy, and thus Kenyans should protect their elephants. Joseph explained this to the students in a way that implied they had heard it all before. The tourism benefit might be true in the short term, but I am skeptical that conserving solely for this reason is a sustainable approach.

Luckily, Joseph also hinted at something more important. Discussing leopards, which are endangered due to—yet again—poaching (for their pelts) and habitat degradation (they live in trees), he had his students follow the food chain. “What happens to gazelles when there are no more leopards?” he asked.

The gazelle population, of course, would increase with fewer predators. More gazelles eat more grass, which means less grass left over for the goats, cows, and other livestock upon which human communities depend. (This is a simplification, but the principle stands.) Ecosystems are complex and sometimes fragile things, and humans are a part of them. We should think twice before tampering with the system, because we might bring ourselves down too.

This concept, while not simple, is fairly intuitive in this region of Kenya. Thinking ahead to the eventual object of my project with Helen—the development of a US curriculum—I realize a lot of work must be done with American students. Industrialization and urbanization have created an illusion in the states that the human world and the environment are two separate things. Resource depletion and climate change are showing us just how dangerous this misconception can be, but these threats are less obvious than “my goat shares grass with this gazelle.”

Making the connection between humans and the natural world is hugely important; to save the environment is to save a part of ourselves. I personally feel obligated to point out that even if this weren’t true, I believe we have a moral responsibility to other living things, especially the more intelligent ones like elephants. However, even an anthropocentric ethic is enough to motivate conservation; Helen and I will have to show American students that humans have a place in nature, that Earth is a finite, sensitive home.

When Joseph ran out of things to say, we still had a few minutes left. In honor of the recent inaugural World Giraffe Day, Alex led the kids in a true-or-false-type game with giraffe facts. I let my ecological ruminations slide and watched the game. Honestly, I hadn’t known most of the facts, and I learned a lot. Did you know giraffes can run 50 kilometers per hour? Or that their calves can stand on their own five minutes after birth? These days, it’s easy to attach my knowledge of the non-human world to all this high-minded moral responsibility stuff. I’m glad I haven’t forgotten that it’s also really cool.

When it comes to the elephant, students sometimes confuse the words 'endangered' and 'dangerous.'

My beloved goats

Seriously goats are everywhere.

Wild dogs reclaim the streets.

Check out Mpala Live to see the wildlife

The Mpala Live webcamera at the watering hole is very cool.

Take a look at the animals yourself .

You can also access the webcam feed via the Mpala Live tab on the navigation bar.

Helen-Post 2

We stood next to the school garden which flowers like a green oasis in the midst of the dry, dusty dirt. The students had planted the trees; I learned that this was something that was highly prioritized and encouraged in Kenya. Planting trees and conservation went hand in hand - someone told me that if you cut down one tree, you were expected to plant two. In schools when we taught lessons of how to help endangered species, the common answer was to “plant trees.” The students were proud of the trees; they said that it made the school more beautiful and provided shade for them when they ate their meals. I was delighted to hear this, since something that we’ve been trying to teach the children is the importance as well as the satisfaction of preserving, and perhaps even creating, beauty in the environment.


“How do you say beautiful in Swahili?”

“Nzuri.”

“Kenya is nzuri!”


The children who shyly lean against the wooden post smile widely, and a boy (Johnson) nods enthusiastically. Yes, Kenya is a beautiful and striking country. Each day when we make our trip to the schools, I am awed by the land rolls and stretches luxuriously under the azure sky. There seems to be no end to the breathtaking plains beyond the shrubbery that carpet the low, rumbling mountains in the background. However, each day that I am here, I am constantly aware of the dichotomy of being an appreciative visitor and living as the people of these rural villages do.

It was surprising (perhaps it shouldn’t have been) because for many of the children, the “cool” animals like leopards, lions, and elephants, can be a symbol of danger and fear for them. In some instances, it was hard to dispel the notion that these animals needed protection; some students didn’t understand the idea of “endangered” and persistently thought that it made more sense to portray the animals as “danger.” The fear and perhaps even anger toward these animals are not unjustified. Recently, an elephant invaded a village and trampled a woman to death, and the elephant was killed. Lions and other predators are deadly nuisances that kill the people’s livestock and even humans.

However, it would be incomplete and perhaps even incorrect to say that the students have a negative attitude toward animals. While conducting the lessons and asking the children about the animals that they see around them, I had the sense that they felt pride and fascination toward their wildlife neighbors. One of the things that we worked on with them was the “Species on the Edge” essay contest. They each chose an endangered animal, wrote about it (what it looks like, where its habitat is, why it is endangered, and so on) and drew a picture of it. The pictures were vividly colorful and gorgeous, and the children glowed with satisfaction and some even pushed their artwork toward me when I passed by their desks. These animals were magnificent and attractive, and the children seemed to enjoy drawing them.

Such a tension between danger and beauty, wildlife and the human, frames the environmental concerns and efforts here. Perhaps it is ironic that it is because the Kenyan landscape is dangerous that the environment is made all the more vulnerable. The delicate balance between human survival and wildlife protection is, and should be, central to the conservation education at Kenya. This is a challenging task, and I realize that each day as I learn about the students’ efforts to conserve the environment. For example, planting trees is an entirely different matter in Kenya as compared to the United States. The school faces issues such as not having enough water to give to the trees, elephants and other wildlife coming in to trample upon their garden, and even members of the community setting their livestock into the schoolyard to graze. Most of the teachers, however, expressed a tenacious desire to “keep going” and “keep planting” and to not give up. I felt that it really is a battle to conserve the environment at Kenya, and it starts with the children.

One of the main goals of the conservation clubs is to educate the children so that they can grow to be responsible and knowledgeable adults, and so that they can go back to the community and teach their parents. For example, one of the lessons that we did was to create a role-play game for the students. The situation was that water was scarce, and the members of the community have to make a decision whether or not to close the waterhole to the animals. They pretended to be a member of the community that either agreed or disagreed with sharing the waterhole with the animals. They got into groups to discuss and answer questions such as: why should we protect animals? What are the short-term and long-term effects of our decisions? Are there other solutions? Giving the students knowledge about their environment (the impact of biodiversity, maintaining balance in the ecosystem, the consequences of deforestation and so on) is like giving them tools to make their own decisions.

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to educate a child in Kenya. To me, it feels that the conservation clubs’ efforts are to help the students become a global citizen in a sense. Healing the environment is only possible if it is made into a worldwide effort; giving the tools for the Kenyan students to grow up to be wise decision-makers in their communities, and to make decisions that could have a far-reaching impact, is an important step in this process. As I spend more time here and learn more about Kenya, I realize how crucial it is for the indigenous people to make their own decisions; they are the ones living on the land, coming face-to-face with wildlife, using the resources. At the same time, our help and sharing of scientific knowledge is also important.

Such a partnership can begin with the communication between US and Kenyan students through the Mpala Live! website. It has been a meaningful and exciting journey so far!

Dayton and I were working on creating the cards for the “more or less” game that we’re planning to teach to the students at Kimanjo secondary school.

Elephants--Kenya's Satao was recently killed by poachers for his ivory. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2014/06/15/world-famous-elephant-satao-killed-by-poachers-in-kenya/  for the full story.

A giraffe

A hippo

Helen and Dayton's First Post

After a long journey, Helen and Dayton made it to Mpala! They have already begun working with some of the Conservation Clubs of Northern Kenya and have seen some amazing wildlife. They will be posting from Kenya and will be joined shortly by Kate and Colleen. Below is an account of some of their initial thoughts, observations and experiences.


6/11/14-Today we (Helen and Dayton) visited five schools and met with each of the clubs to talk about what they were planning for community conservation day (a gathering of all the Conservation Clubs of Northern Kenya during which individual groups perform and present various projects).

One of the lessons we helped with focused on biodiversity and balance of the ecosystem. Opuntia cactus are invasive species that must be eliminated. One of the schools was experimenting with how to effectively wipe out the cacti. They found cutting the cacti and leaving the pieces to dry did not eradicate the species fully and that burning the cut cacti was more effective.

The Deraja School was working on a project about pollution and recycling resources. Students created a soap of grey water, using charcoal instead of cutting trees for wood.

One important aspect of environmental education is to promote stewardship of nature, and to emphasize the human role in not only participating in actions that prevent environmental degradation, but those that actively protect and restore it. We found that this was a theme for all the schools we visited, and planting trees was a central aspect of the environmental consciousness and education of each. This is part of a nation movement, as the government strongly endorses tree-planting. The common motto is that if you cut down one tree, you should plant two. Herders, who have suffered from overgrazing, flock to schools because there is grass at the schools thanks to the trees members of the school community have planted.

The importance of trees was also present in some of the lessons. One school focused on the benefit of trees, especially for livestock (like the herders above). The groups attempted to teach children and their parents about how conservation can benefit day-to-day life, hoping to promote a personal connection to trees and feeling of stewardship.

One other thing that we are emphasizing is the importance and presence of indigenous knowledge. The children are encouraged to talk to the elders about how human activity has influenced nature, especially given the juxtaposition of the past/present.

Dayton and Helen

A leopard we saw on our way back to the ranch.

A mural painted by the children of Kimanji Primary School on one of the building's walls.

Children drew/wrote this on a water tank to remind themselves not to waste water whenever they use it.

Crossing the river to access schools that are farther away.