29 January 2017

DAY 21 of violence, mayhem, destruction, shooting etc etc….(Sunday)
It’s very tiring and depressing to watch how over the last few months the work of my Grandfather, Father, Brothers and us and our children slowly or not so slowly deteriorating back to the beginning.
Very tough for our staff and their families too, some who’ve worked with us for 2 and 3 generations.
The day continued with our version of ‘normal’ – herds and herds of illegal cattle, sheep and goats pouring in with armed men. 5 armed men seen below the dam and 1 shot was heard…..other armed men seen gathering in their ‘usual’ spots. Then just to change things a bit and shock us just a little more we could see about 300 head of cattle,sheep and goats moving into the garden of my brother’s house that over the last few days has been vandalised and looted and the staff houses burnt to the ground. More shock as looking through binoculars we could see donkeys being loaded with stuff from the house by Samburu women. Armed men could be seen walking around openly with their illegal firearms and others seen throwing stuff from the house into the dam. They could see us watching them and fired at us, the AP’s here returned fire and slowly the herd moved off only for another to appear after a few hours. Later on in the afternoon 3 armed men were seen in the compound and seemed to be look outs for a herd of cattle that were grazing within 150 meters of our house.
It hurts so deeply buying in food for our remaining cattle and burdening our friends, when we had so carefully preserved our pasture for the coming dry months…….