A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey

Yesterday I walked about 40km…. We think… we really have no way of knowing… no sign posts around here, or maps for that matter… Two other people from ICM and I explored deep into the forest of Mt. Elgon and saw so many amazing things… two caves (we could only reach the inside of one)- with salt deposits in them that herdsmen bring their cattle to so that they can get the ‘medicinal’ qualities of the salt. Apparently salt has anti-parasitic qualities… cool- herbal medicine for animals! We also saw a LOT of bamboo- did anyone else besides me think that bamboo was the last plant I would find in Africa? I thought it was just in Asia! There was a little forest fire where we were too- just a ground fire- and in some places it was still burning. The people I was with were of mixed opinions, but it was decided it was set by humans- ‘crazy people’. After about an hour walking through bamboo we came across more deciduous trees. The most valuable one, Elgon teak (Olea spp), has been taken out for carpentry work, but there are many other amazing ones left behind.

I was just floored to look around me and be in the midst of such a thick, vibrant forest… so easily cleared to make way for shambas as far as the eye can see (which is quite far on some of the peaks!). It reminds me of what it is like to walk through the lush beautiful Canadian west coast forest and think that is what once covered most of Vancouver Island! The crystal clear streams looked so idyllic compared to the muddied, reddish streams people washed their clothes at, bathed in, and drank from in the cleared, agricultural land.



The coolest experience in the forest was finding a group of people who are living in the middle of the forest. I’m not sure if they are squatters or were there legally… in any case, they are from this area, were removed years ago and have since moved back. They were extremely welcoming, though I was surprised to find out I knew more kiswahili than they did. In fact, the only way to communicate was with the four words I have learned in their mother tongue (Sabaot)- which are ‘how are you’, ‘I am fine’, ‘good’ and ‘thank you’. I love seeing people faces when I greet them in their mother tongue! I also love seeing peoples faces when I start rattling off entire sentences in kiswahili. These people have a diet of milk, ugali (stiff maize porridge- the staple food here), wild honey, bamboo shoots, and ???. They looked well fed to me and happy to be so far away from any other sort of civilization. Because there is absolutely no road access, the closest schools and medical clinics are far. Maybe a two hour walk. The houses they built were similar to the ones I saw out of the forest- mud, stick, and thatched roofs. They simply cleared out a patch of land and built their compounds. The land of course continues to get cleared in a slowly growing radius because of the never-ending need for firewood. These compounds included a corral of sorts for their cattle- it looked like each family had at least a dozen from the size of the corrals.


At each of three houses we were given milk to drink, served out of gourds that were coated inside with the ash of some sort of crushed, burned stick. The resulting milk looked like a melted oreo blizzard- all kinds of black flecks floating at the top. I was assured that this is the proper way to drink milk. This particular plant has medicinal qualities and makes the milk safe to drink. Hmmm… Well, I had to just trust my companions, and two days later I still feel fine. :)


After we had left the small gathering of houses and were setting across a field, we heard som men calling us. We turned around, and saw them hurrying toward us with a big plastic bowl. The bowl was full of... honey! Freshly harvested from an underground bee hive!!! I'd never heard of honey bees living underground, so I had to see it for myself... not too far away, in the forested area, was a small clay looking tube sticking out of the forest floor, at the base of a tree (this must have been the bee's entrance). The men had dug immediately in front of the tube, and found a huge cavity filled with maybe 4-5 litres of honey! They put the slurry of very liquid honey, bits of dirt, sticks, and dead bees, through a strainer, and gave us a full litre of beautiful amber honey to take home and share. What a huge present.