There are those occasional days that make up for all the rest. Today was one of the former.
I’d been invited to the launch of World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) in northern Kenya – immediately prior to the international avian influenza symposium I’m attending in Nairobi. All I knew was that we would be taken there and back by plane…
Early this morning we had an hour and half flight up from Nairobi – especially interesting as I’d been allocated a seat in a tiny, high-winged, four-seater. (It was a just bit unnerving when I found the fuel gauge in the pocket of the seat in front of me: a graduated bamboo cane – still if it works…).
So we had a low-level zoom-across-the-landscape sort of flight. Lots of ridge-hopping – which is always good fun in a tiny plane: has the pilot really got his altitude sorted against that massive cliff we’re just about to fly into? So far, the answer’s always been – yes, he has.
When we arrived above Laikipia, we circled the grass landing strip and could see a massive human WMBD logo surrounded by high flapping flags (a la WOMAD) alongside the runway. We came round again and had the scariest landing (ever) on a sort of corrugated ‘grass’ landing strip – no concessions to flatness (or lack of stones) in Africa and I’m sure we bounced right off at least two times… But eventually all was quiet and still… hmmm…… it felt good.
We were greeted by 120 local children in a massive ensemble – all wearing T-shirts with images of Greenland Whitefronts – under a massive WMBD banner with Alyn’s same image of J5U and mate flying over Hvanneyri. The children were singing and dancing of the importance of migratory birds and the joy that they gave to people in all lands.
I must confess to having more than a trivial lump in my throat (and things went a bit blurry too) that the message of the annual flights of Wexford & Hvanneyri’s J5U had reached quite so far. It seemed incredible that this image from (chilly) Iceland could be quite so relevant in (hottest) Africa.
And of course everywhere else: which I guess is the fundamental message as to what WMBD is all about…
For the sake of modesty, I’ll spare you the gory details of the rest of the day – it was an incredible celebration of the performing arts – as related to migratory birds, performed on a stage constructed high at Laikipia itself (a further half-hour bus ride deep into the Kenyan bush) with a gob-smacking view down the Rift Valley: Peruvian pan-pipers; amazing groups of dancing girls from Kenya and India; four Whirling Dervishes from Turkey, extemporising sax, mbira and oboe players,….. etc. etc.
(OK, OK – I know you were all hard at work in the office…)
Quite a special day, as was the return flight through the thunderstorm that hit us just out of Nairobi and gave us more than a bit of rock around the clock. Quite amazing how they land these planes upright in these conditions – on the whole, I think I prefer grass runways.
As the children wrote and sang:
“Oh, every year has its Winter,
And every year has its rain,
But the day is always coming,
When the birds go North again.
When the leaves swell in the forest,
And the Grass springs green on the plain,
And the alder’s veins turn crimson,
And the birds go North again.
Oh, every heart has its sorrow,
And every heart has its pain –
But a day is always coming,
When the birds go North again.
It’s the sweetest thing to remember,
If courage be on decline –
When the cold dark days are over,
Why the birds go North again.”
The Children and Head Teacher of Karia-ini Primary School
The Village of Mwenje/Kinamba Ngarua, Kenya
Now down to the real hard bird flu work for the next two days…
Atishoo…
D
e-mail from Nairobi, Kenya, 9 April 2006