Around Mwamba Field Study Center

These pics were taken just outside A Rocha Kenya's Mwamba Field study center . More info on A Rocha Kenya's field study center, programs and local conservation activities here: http://arocha.org/ke-en/kenyahome.html The beach just outside Mwamba, A Rocha Kenya's field study center where I had lived for six months in 2003-2004. The beach was unusually full of seaweed this week, so it was surprisingly difficult to get a picture with so much white sand. This is a long spit of sand that we found about 20 minutes up the beach, towards the Italian resort end.
In my mind, Mwamba is perfectly situated on this long stretch of beach in that it is about 3km from any resort. We found these nouveau-Masai (I am not in any way convinced these are actual Masai- likely opportunists dressed up in something tourists would like to take a picture of, which is why I don't feel badly about taking a picture of them without paying) heading back from mingling with Italian tourists. Usually though, there are not any 'beach boys' around Mwamba, so you are left in peace when you go down for a swim.
Some garbage that washed in with the seaweed- again- this is not normal for most of the year- I never saw it this bad in the six months I had stayed there. At the Turtle Watch rescue center in Watamu we read an article about a large turtle that washed up on the beach and had 20+ plastic bags in it's stomach. Yikes. I'm surprised it survived that long. Turtles can easily mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and choke on them. Littering is just not cool, on land or on the water.Here is Francis, the gardener at A Rocha and his family with a bag I gave them from my university. I'm putting this in because I wrote a post on Harry, the oldest son, two years ago on this blog. At that point he was building his own house to live in . Amazingly, Francis (the dad) was married and well on his way to seeing his first son born by the time he was Harry's age now (16).A sprouting coconut in Francis' nursery. Did you know how coconuts sprout? Cool, eh?

Mike and Francis at Francis' roadside nursery. The nursery is on the property of some friends of his, and he pays them a bit of rent for the land and for them to look out for it. There is a water source nearby, and it is high visibility. I am so amazed at how well all these tropical plants grow without a greenhouse... they were pretty much all tropicals that we would only see inside here.

Some pretty flowers from the Mwamba Nature Trail...

My favourite tree EVER - The Rhinocerous Tree (not the real name...). I make sure to visit it at the same spot on the Mwamba Nature trail each time I am there! These ants are not sinister, but I don't know exactly what they are doing. either harvesting food or water.