Pate Island Part 2

We took the orange tractor back to the beach after visiting the school to find a very welcome 4WD drive vehicle waiting for us. There literally are no roads on Pate, just walking paths through the vegetation and so to get around the islands you genuinely need a 4WD.

When I got into the car with my colleagues I immediately felt a distance from the reality of the place I was in. I felt like I was in a bubble looking out at the passing world - a visitor to an alien place protected from its harsh realities - able to witness what was going on but unable to really participate.

We passed by salt marshes and lagoons with lonely figures foraging for food seen only in silhouette in the distance.
We passed donkeys slowly walking in the baking sun carrying heavy loads being gently led by their owners who walked by their sides.

We occasionally saw monkeys and small antelopes scuttling across the road as we passed. Herds of goats held us up a couple of times and all the while passers by on the road staring at the big powerful machine so out of place in this stark and simple world.

Over the next few hours we visited various schools that had also been built by the American military. Once again the schools stood in total contrast to the villages built in stone with corrugated roofs as opposed to wood and thatch.

One of the more memorable places we visited was a town called Chungua. They had acquired a generator and a couple of Camara computers and were running a lab in the school. I was curious to see how they were getting on.

We arrived at the school and the generator was running. Only 4 computers out of twelve were on. They explained that if they turned on any more computers the surge protector cut off the electricity and all the computers turned off.

I asked them what the power output of the generator was and they told me that they thought it was 6 KW which should have been enough to power the computers (each computer needs about 400Watts max). I asked them for the generator handbook and discovered that the series 6 generator that they thought they had bought looked suspiciously like a series 3 generator which only output about 2 KW. Somebody had duped them when they bought the generator.

I felt so sorry for them. They had bought the generator in Mombasa and then had the enormous challenge of getting the machine up to the island intact and safe - to then discover that the machine would only power 4 computers.

I explained everything to the councillor and he promised to follow up....

That said, the computers were working and being used. In particular they loved the Camara Wikipedia. I came away convinced that every year we should upgrade and update the Camara Wikidepia and bring it with us for trips like this. It is a very powerful and useful tool for remote areas like these islands.

The head master explained that there was a huge drug problem developing on the islands. With little to do, young men and women were turning to drugs to escape the boredom. The computers however small in number as they were, were keeping people interested and engaged and many of the students asked to stay on after school to use them....it was good to hear this.

Then I noticed a young man wandering in the school yard. At first I thought I was looking at somebody from a strange tribe. His body was totally out of proportion with his head which was only the size of medium size grape-fruit.

He came over to me and I suddenly realised that he had huge learning difficulties. He stumbled over his words and made no real sense when he spoke. He was then joined by two others, a boy and a girl, that were similarly deformed. The head master came over to us and explained that they were 'mental' (his words not mine), that they were all from the same family but that they had two normal older brothers and that they could not 'learn'.

The young girl then tried to interject and showed me she could count up to seven.

'This one, she can learn' conceded the head master.

I asked what the problem was and he told me they suffered from microencephaly.

I had heard the term before but I had never met anyone suffering from the condition. I had a weak phone signal and was able to get onto the net to find out more.

Apparently if a pregnant woman catches illnesses like chicken pox or Rubella or suffers from alcohol or drug abuse microencephaly can occur. There is also a possibility that partners with too similar genetic makeup can case the condition to happen.

I gave the information to the councillor and he was amazed that I could get the information using my phone.

It occurred to me then just how powerful information access is to places as remote as this. Information access could literally save lives and reduce suffering and hardship. Who knows why these poor children were born like this but perhaps with the right information (particularly around the dangers of drug abuse when pregnant) births like this could be reduced.

I feel awful writing a sentence like that and I hope it does not come across the wrong way. If you are born with a disability then I truly believe our society should be setup to care for you. Out here though, if you are born with a disability there really is no support structure and everyone struggles more including the people trying to care for you.

The fact that people can be born with awful disabilities has always been an enormous spiritual challenge to me. I have never truly been able to reconcile it with the existence of a loving God. Its at times like this I wish John Moriarty was around to throw some light on this profound mystery. (If anyone reads this far and has any enlightening insight please fill me in..!)

We left Chungua and headed for Faza. Again the journey in the car was like traveling in a time machine to an age long since forgotten.

We passed by women pumping salt water from ancient wells - water they would use to clean dishes and wash in.








We saw rain catchment gutters designed to capture as much water as possible and feeding them into large black tanks for drinking water. We saw women making dresses from long grasses and leaves at the side of the road.

Faza is on the northern tip of the archipelago. In order to get to Faza town we had to leave the car on one side of a causeway and walk across a narrow stone bridge that stretched for about 200 metres to get to the town.




Millions of tiny crabs were running below us on the baking sand as the tide was out.

Naked children, covered in sand were playing chasing games with the crabs.

At this point I was utterly starving. I had forgotten to bring food with me foolishly thinking I could last the day on fruit and water. The councillor brought us to a local 'restaurant' where he said food had been prepared for us...

To be honest, I was dreading what was coming. I have had too many bad experiences eating local food and suffering for it afterwards. And I had a long boat journey home later that evening...

But I was so damn hungry. In the end I ate a marvelous meal of boiled beans and chapati bread washed down with a hot cup of masala (spiced) tea. I decided that, worst case scenario, my imminent bowel problems might come in useful. They could add a little horse power to our boat and speed up the journey home;)

A few hours later after visiting another school we were making our way back to the beach we had landed on. We had left it late and the sun was setting quickly. One of the reasons we were late was because we had to wait for the local fishermen to return from the sea with a gift for us....

The fishermen on these islands are legendary. They free dive and stay under water for over ten minutes and hand fish! They do not use nets....you would not believe how fit these men looked when they arrived with their catch.

They had caught a number of huge red and white snapper (about 20Kgs of fish) which we were urged to cook as soon as possible.

And so it was that we sped across the islands in the 4WD with this cargo watching the sun go down on this truly beautiful place.

I think I would have enjoyed the sunset more if I was not thinking how challenging it was going to be to navigate the mangrove reef that we had come through in the morning. It did not help that our captain waiting at the beach was urging us to get into the boat quickly.



The journey back across the open section was much rougher. The wind had risen and our little boat was thrown about quite a bit but thankfully all went well including my ability to contain the extra horsepower in my lower bowel. I could see a light ahead and it was clear that the captain was heading for it.

It turned out that the light was from a much larger boat owned by the local police commissioner. We managed to catch up with this boat and simply tailgated it as it navigated the mangrove reef section! I am not sure how we would have navigated it otherwise. How do the Africans plan these things....

A simple twist to the story was that as we were emerging from the Mangrove forest on the final stretch of the journey home the Police boat hailed us asking us for fuel! It had ran out and so we ended up helping it get back to port.

That evening we asked a local restaurant to cook the fish for us and a party of 12 people ate the most magnificent barbecue fish dinner with coconut rice and swahili sauce with freshly squeezed mango juice to wash it down.


A perfect ending to a truly incredible day.

Pate Island Part 1

Every year I have come out here I have traveled to Lamu island which is off the far north east coast of Kenya. Stonetown, the main village on the island, is a world heritage site and is so for good reason. The narrow streets, the lack of vehicles, the use of donkeys to carry people and merchandise captures a way of life that has long since vanished from the West. Even though life is tough here and even though it takes considerable effort to get to the island from Mombasa it is a real privilege to spend a few days here. Every school on the island now has a Camara computer lab and the community here are amazingly supportive and keen to keep improving the program. Its a great example of how even an isolated community with limited resources can participate in the information age.

This year I met a local councillor for the entire region who, coincidentally, was one of the first people Camara worked with when establishing a base in Kenya. He had only just got elected and he explained that since he was actually born in the area he was really committed to trying to improve life for the people up here. He suggested that we visit Pate island (his birthplace) to get an idea of what he was up against.

Pate island is about 4 hours slow boat journey from Lamu. Its right up on the Somalia border and is part of a small archipelago of islands separated by mangrove forests and narrow channels. The islands have no electricity, no roads and get drinking water from rain catchment tanks. There is one vehicle on the islands (which he had access to) and there were 12 schools serving a population of about twenty thousand people plus.

I was honestly reluctant to travel to the islands given the challenging boat journey but he told me there was a quicker way to get there.

If you look at a map of the region (check google maps) it suggests that you need to go around a large headland between Lamu and Pate to go from one island to another. It turns out that the headland is actually an island joined to the mainland by a huge mangrove forest and that it was possible to navigate through this forest on a speedboat which literally halved the journey time.

I agreed to give it a go....

The following day at about 6.00am I checked my email via my phone. A friend of mine had sent me a quote from St Francis of Assisi which went something like:
'When you are faced with the impossible, start with what is realistic, then with what is possible and soon you will be doing the impossible'

At 6.00am, myself, the councillor, and 4 Camara colleagues (all local) got into a 12 foot speedboat with a 40HP engine and we heading off. The trip through the mangrove forest was incredible and I was glad that we had some light to navigate as there were reefs, rocks and roots everywhere. Our captain was very experienced and assured me that all was fine and that he knew the way. When we hit the open sea on the far side I realised just how big the distance to the island was - all fifty miles of it! The Captain opened up the engine and we literally flew across the sea which thankfully was not too rough. Some of my colleagues had never been in a speedboat before and they were delighted with the bumps and bouncing of the tiny craft. I could not switch my engineering brain off which was calculating the stresses on the fibre glass hull....

Anyway, we arrived safely and docked at a beautiful beach where local workmen were building a small peer.

I got off the boat and quite literally stepped into another world....

...it turned out that there was actually a second vehicle on the island at this time. The workmen at the peer had acquired an old, very orange, battered tractor that they were using to carry materials for the peer.



There was a school about a mile away and the councillor suggested that we use the tractor to drive to the school in advance of his vehicle arriving (it was late having to get fuel from somewhere!). So one of the workmen told me to sit behind him on the trailer with the councillor and a camara colleague and off we went. If I was my son Osian, I would have enjoyed the experience - it was a 13 year olds dream trip. Unfortunately I found the trip terrifying being unable to take my eyes off the heavily rusting machinery carrying my now delicate 42 year old anatomy.

We arrived at the school with me ducking just in time to avoid whacking a large low hanging branch (much to the hilarity of the locals out to greet us). It was also a dreadfully undignified lunge from the vehicle that marked my exit, my palpable relief at touching solid ground visible all over my face.

I was soon surrounded by curious children all gaping up at me with huge brown eyes and beaming toothy smiles that would break your heart.


We walked through the village made up of wooden houses with thatched roofs, all filled with farm animals and smoking fires and then onto the school.







I was amazed to find that the school, unlike the houses in the village, was built from stone and was quite modern looking. I found out that it was built by the Americans in the army base directly across the water on the mainland. The Americans had a base there because of the trouble in Somalia.

However, once inside the school I realised the school had absolutely nothing. They were short of even the most basic equipment like chalk, pencils and copybooks. One of the classrooms was even outdoors.

The teachers did their best but the odds they faced were incredible.

And then they asked me could they get computers.

What do you say at times like this?

I told them the basic infrastructure they would need to get a computer lab up and running. As I listened to myself talking I felt ashamed that I was effectively leading them on. At the heart of my rhetoric was a sense of hopelessness....

I then found myself remembering the quote from St Francis that I had read in the morning and looked around suddenly noticing that one of the teachers was carrying a mobile phone.

'How do you charge that?' I asked.

I was led away to a tower in the middle of the village which we climbed. On top of the tower was a 75W solar panel which was charging a car battery.

Connected to the battery was a 12V to 220V inverter out of which was connected a Nokia charger for a phone. There were a couple of phones in the village and they shared the charger on a rotation basis.

They were even able to run an old 14" television for about 30 minutes when the battery was fully charged.

And then it occurred to me (and forgive me if it is obvious to you) that laptops and a couple of solar panels could work out really well here.

As I was leaving the school I asked a village elder that I if were to make a small donation to the village what would he buy. He immediately said that they would like another voltage invertor as a community resource so that mobile phones could be charged. He said communication with the mainland was crucial for local enterprise.



Later that evening I was able to check email again and discover that a very well known tech company was willing to donate a large number of state of the art laptops to Camara if a suitable home could be found for them.....

More from Pate island later....