Look Out Poachers

The Mara Conservancy has just made a giant leap forward in anti-poaching efforts. Just this week they welcomed eight dog-handling rangers and two new “officers” into their ranks. After an intensive four-week training with two professional dog trainers from the Colorado police department, these dogs are ready to assist the Conservancy and surrounding lodges.


Using their amazing bloodhound sense of smell, the rangers will bring these dogs to poachers’ camps and follow individual tracks left behind as people flee. For Mamusi and Murani (the dogs; meaning “something we’ve been waiting for” and “warrior” in Masai) following the trails left by the poachers is the easy part. For the rangers, keeping up with such strong dogs that enjoy every minute of tracking, is much more challenging.

Jeff and I had the opportunity to follow along on a training exercise and boy can these dogs run! To prepare the rangers for extreme all-night tracking, each ranger had to go through (and continue) rigorous conditioning. This includes running multiple kilometers around the camp daily, all-encompassing weight training, and being able to traverse the nearby escarpment in under seven minutes!


We ran about a mile and a half following the dogs in our practice run, and I cannot imagine what it must feel like during the real thing. Running through the dark of night with no lights, surrounded by grass that is at least eight feet tall, all the time searching for people that you know have no remorse for breaking laws.

After lightly jogging behind these dogs, I know there is absolutely no way I could out-run them in the middle of the night.

Good luck poachers when they are at full speed!

Running back: a reentry

As I’ve mentioned in past entries, I often turn to jogging for all my therapeutic needs. Handily, it also accomplishes my exercise needs. So here’s an account of my thought progression during my first run back in the Mara:

Minute 1: So happy to be back on my feet on my old stomping grounds. Feeling light and energetic and ready to take on the world(!). (Sigh. This won’t last.)

Minute 6: The endorphins must be starting to kick in, because I’m having one of those isn’t-nature-so-amazing moments—a common feeling here in the Mara. I’m struck by the unparalleled blue and wide expanse of the Kenyan sky, the spectacular view of the hills rolling in the distance, and the serenity of the afternoon.

Minute 8: Moment over. Cue running, screaming, and waving children. At first I feel the warmth of familiarity, of a reunion with old friends…the same feeling I got when I saw Morpheus, my favorite hyena. But I’m quickly brought out of my genial haze as I get a swift elbow to the thigh. An overzealous kid is insisting on running six inches in front of me and is swinging his elbows like there’s no tomorrow. Well-intentioned, my young friend, but please excuse me as I gently shove you aside.

Minute 25: My mind wanders to random topics as I try to preoccupy myself during the long middle stretch…the Red Sox are 5 games up, that’s lovely (an ocean away, I still care)…Murphy should be having a new litter of cubs soon…I wonder what my most-loved one is up to right now...hopefully missing me….

Minute 33: I approach a group of older kids walking home from school. One by one, they fall into step with me, saying hello and then silently joining the trek. Now we are four, now nine, now fourteen. I smile, saving my biggest grin for the lone girl, knowing that she has faced many hardships to stay in school this long, and will surely face countless more if she is to finish secondary school against all odds.

Minute 36: “What is your name?” my companions want to know. “Leslie” is particularly difficult for Kenyans to say, and I am reminded of my journey to the Mara on a lorry from Nairobi a few days ago. While waiting for the driver to return from errands, a parking enforcement officer sidles up to my open window.

“You can’t park here.”
“Sorry, it’s not my lorry. You’ll have to talk to the driver. He’ll be back soon.”
“You have to pay a fine.” I wonder if this is because my white skin makes me look like an easy target for cash. Or maybe we’re just actually parked illegally. Probably both. I decide to use my charm as a young American woman to my advantage and offer an innocent smile and a Kiswahili apology. This seems to do the trick for the moment and we ease into small talk. He asks my name, and when I tell him, he makes me repeat it. He tries to write it down, and it takes him three tries of listening to me spell it for him before he gets it right.
“That’s too hard,” he says. “You need a Maasai name. I think it should be Naisenya.”
“Naisenya? That’s pretty, I like it. I think I’ll keep it.” He writes it down for me so I can get it right. He wanders off, having forgotten all about our parking ticket.

So I hesitate when the school children ask my name. I contemplate which is worse: giving my real name, which they’ll have trouble pronouncing, or giving my new Maasai name, and sounding completely crazy. I decide to go for it:

“Naisenya.” They dissolve into giggles—it’s a common Maasai name, but they can see I’m no Maasai. This disconnect pleases them to no end. I’m glad I went with that one.

Minute 48: Want to die. Cursed altitude, cursed equatorial heat, cursed unblinking sun, cursed Kenya! I’m too out of shape for this. What was I thinking, running this far my first time?!? That was an error. Maybe I shouldn’t have come running at all. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back to Kenya at all. Cursed heat.

Minute 59: The end is in sight, and with it, the endorphins are flowing freely again. I happily reach camp, reveling once more in my surroundings. My moments of self-pitying drama have passed and I decide that I am, without a doubt, happy to be back at Fisi Camp.

At least until the next time I try to run.

Running in Kenya does not a Kenyan runner make

At an altitude of almost 3,000 ft and under the equatorial sun, I'm not exactly churning out record-breaking times when I go running here. Running in the Mara is, needless to say, quite different from running in the States. Technically, I don’t run inside the Mara, I run just outside the border, through the Maasai community that neighbors our camp.
The landscape is a far cry from my typical suburban route—rolling hills of savannah, dotted with acacia trees and wildebeest, spread out to the south. To the east and north are mountains, and to the west are manyattas (Maasai homes—see photos), which are mostly made of dried cow manure. The view allows me to see rain coming from miles away, as opposed to at home, where dense trees and buildings make any jog a guessing game weather-wise. The river that forms the border of the park separates me from any carnivores, buffalo, or elephants that might present a threat (or at least that’s what I tell myself, although I haven’t seen anything more than a gazelle so far).

After I cross the river from camp, I make my way through a few bushes and out into open fields, all of which have been grazed down to mostly dirt by the Maasai’s livestock. I follow a cow path onto the road and turn west, making my way up the hill into the Maasai community, all the while avoiding piles of poop and mud puddles. Sometimes cars with tourists will pass me, and I love seeing the confused look on their faces at seeing this random white girl running in the middle of a Maasai community.

As I approach the first cluster of manyatas, I’m usually spotted by a child or two, who shriek to their friends that I’m arriving. Within seconds, kids pop out from every corner and gather at the road ahead, grinning and waving and shouting things in Maa (the Maasai language) that I cannot understand, but presume to be something along the lines of, “Crazy, crazy white lady, why are you in such a hurry?” Usually the kids will join me for a few hundred yards, running by my side, peppering me with questions that I can’t answer. Sometimes the crowd gets so thick—yesterday I had about twenty kids and two dogs with me—that the kids trip over each other and fall. Despite my rudimentary Swahili warnings of “pole, pole!” (“slowly, slowly!”), this inevitably cracks them up and they waste no time in catching up to the group. The kids range in ages from two to about fifteen, both boys and girls. They laugh hysterically as they weave in and out of my path, and love high-fiving me.
Most of the time, the children will run with me for a few minutes and then stop before they stray too far from home. Occasionally, though, I’ll acquire boys walking home from school. These boys are typically on the older side—between nine and fourteen, I’m guessing—and will often run with me for a mile or two. Given that they are wearing sweaters and carrying backpacks, this never fails to impress me. I have to admit: although I enjoy the attention of the younger children, it can be exhausting trying to make sure I don’t run anyone over (harder than it sounds), so I much prefer the older kids. They’ll stop walking when they see me, and as I reach them, they’ll casually say hello and fall into step right next to me, matching me stride for stride. They will run silently next to me until we pass their manyattas, at which point they will wave goodbye and abruptly veer off. I find these kids very comforting, because instead of being my spectators, they are my companions—they’re not in it for me, they’re in it for the run. When they leave, I shout, “Very good! Goodbye friend!” after them, and they grin as we go our separate ways.