Colobus Trust

Category: Habitat Restoration/Conservation | Date: Jan 29 2007 | By: admin

This Saturday I went with some other volunteers and staff members to a community near Kwale Town in the Kwale District, where a group called the Chitanze Falls Cheka Cheka Medicinal Garden Group were holding a meeting with the Water Resource Management Authority and some other organizations, trying to work out how to promote Forest Conservation in the area. At the moment it’s being done mainly through a tree nursery, but they have other activities to raise money and awareness in the community as well.

It felt like such an authentic experience. We were all sitting outside under some large trees that offered a nice shade, and the people from the village sat in what looked like school benches. The women were all dressed in traditional African dresses, and the people from different authorities sat opposite of them in plastic chairs. They would then get up one by one, go stand in the middle, and I assume they talked about how they thought this should be organized. The community people didn’t speak, they just listened, but the atmosphere was very open and relaxed. There was one old man in particular who always seemed to object to what was being said, usually by cracking up the crowd. I think he might have been an elder representative from the community.

After the meeting a few of the people from the village performed a play, and one of the staff members next to me explained that it was about a daughter who had HIV, and how her parents wanted a witch doctor to treat her instead of a “real” doctor. Even though I didn’t understand what was said, I could tell the acting was really good. The actors seemed to do a lot of improvising, which they must’ve been good at, since the crowd was laughing most of the time. It was really impressive, and I wish I had understood Swahili enough to follow the plot without a translator.

After the whole thing was over, Anna and Christine went for a hike to the water falls, but I was too hungry to dare such an adventure, so I went back to the Trust with the others and had lunch. - Anna, Volunteer