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