A Continuing Safari

A few days after my adventurous trip to the Maasai Mara, Kenya's largest national game park, my friend Steve, his sister Tina, her friends Julie and Christina, Tina's boyfriend Gary and I decided to go for a short trip in the center of Kenya.

One weekend, the six of us took off in Steve's tourist plane, a six seater Piper, and headed north from Kenya's capital, Nairobi. Flying north in Kenya takes you over one of the most impressive sights on earth - the Great Rift Valley. The Valley, a gigantic, broad crack in the earth's skin, stretches from way down south in Tanzania right up to the Red Sea. It is the great avenue on which prehistoric man walked, to conquer the world millions of years ago.

Within the Valley, and on the cool highlands to either side, are numerous lakes. One of these is Nakuru, the famous lake of the flamingo birds that winter there every year. My favorite is Baringo - and we were going there.

Lake Baringo is a shallow, freshwater lake that lies between the cliffs of the Great Rift Valley. Its unique feature is an island in the middle. At the southern edge of the lake the waters slip softly into a papyrus rich swampland with narrow creeks. On the island is a Lodge, Island Camp, famous throughout the country for its simple beauty, its hospitality and the splendor of ever changing colors as the sun runs its daily course across the heavens.

The Piper landed on the dusty airstrip just south of Lake Baringo. Waiting to meet us in a Landrover was Daniel, one of the Lodge's six staff. Within no time, we were bouncing down a dusty track to the lakeshore. Moored to the end of a rickety wooden jetty that stretched out about twenty meters into the lake's water lay our transport to the island Lodge - a pirogue. A pirogue is a long and narrow canoe, made from hollowing out a tree trunk. It is finely tapered at the bow and cut square at the stern to allow a small outboard engine to be mounted. In the bottom of the pirogue were four paddles, just in case the petrol engine failed. Whenever I am on the water, I love going to the bow of the boat and dangling my feet over the sides, it is as though I am a seagull skimming on calm waters.

"Will you tell that man to take his feet out of the water, please." Daniel muttered to Gary. Gary called my attention. Looking down at the totally opaque orange colored lakewater splashing over my toes, I was perplexed.

Daniel shouted that there were hippopotami in the lake. Oops! Hippopotamus is the most dangerous of all river animals. They may look friendly but their nature is that of a wild ferocious woodland boar. They are totally unpredictable. They can turn on you in an instant, smash up a canoe like it was a matchstick, maul you with their stumpy teeth and then drown you for good measure. All Africans are afraid of the hippopotamus. I jump quickly back to the middle of the pirogue, tucking my feet underneath me.

The most stunningly beautiful view I ever saw is burnt into my memory forever when we walked up to the lodge. We had arrived at the end of the afternoon. Here, like everywhere else near the Equator, day becomes night quickly. In the early evening light, as the skies were fast turning from cobalt to indigo as the sun sunk to the horizon below us, the entire curtain of cliffs that cascades down from the highlands above us blazed a hot orange in a great arc around the island. The sun's fiery light was so intense that every stone, every cleft, every jutting rock was edged by its own darkening shadow.

Below, the lake had turned from the milky orange I had sloshed my feet into a deep purple, framed by the dark green pipes of the papyrus reeds crowded around its shores. Speechless, the six of us turned around to see the whole circle of cliffs around us turn to liquid fire as the sun slipped into the night. Awesome. Dinner was tilapia (same variety as those in the Philippines), curried rice, okra and mangoes, washed down with Tusker, Kenya's best beer. We then played obao, a truly ancient game played in this part of Africa. The game consists of two players moving beans around a board made up of two rows of six to eight shallow bowls each side. There are specific rules, rather like backgammon. What was special about that game, aside from the fact I won for once, was that we were playing on a "board" cut into a large flat rock over two thousands years ago. After the violent passion of the evening light, it was a surprise to see the gentle pastel of dawn. The lake was a creamy turquoise, the volcano walls a light sand, the sky a soft opal as the early mists rose from the water's surface and, touched by the sun's first rays, curled towards the heavens. Only the papyrus retained its strong green color.

As I stepped out of my worn green canvas tent to go to the Lodge's dining room for breakfast, I glanced up at the Lodge manager's residence. His graceful daughter was in the process of opening it for the day. The act was as simple as it was magical. Instead of opening windows and doors, she simply rolled up the canvas walls. The entire space between the four massive cedar posts that held up the thatched roof was opened to welcome the start of the day. I want my house to be like that!

In the morning I resolved to explore the little island. Didn't take long - you could stroll around it in less than an hour. While sitting on a large rock overlooking the dock where the pirogue and a small speedboat were still moored, I saw an amazing animal that looked like it came out of a fantasy. It was a lizard, about the length and shape of an iguana, brick red color for the upper half of its body and cobalt blue for the lower half. How on earth did it get that way? What story does a father tell his children when he puts them to bed at night and they ask exactly such a question?

In the afternoon, everyone was rested and gearing for something fun. Steve and Gary knew that we could go water skiing as they had been here before. Just a couple of problems: I had not water skiied before; the second was much more important - those hippopotami in the lake.

"Oh don't worry about them! They go down to the swampy end of the lake - way over there." Steve explained, pointing at the dense mat of papyrus to the southeast.

"Absolutely nothing to worry about, old man!" Gary asserted in his very good-natured English accent. "Anyway, I'm going first, so you can see how it's done."

With that, we six climbed into the speedboat and sped off to a big raft floating half way between the island and the lakeshore. The three girls got out and sat on the wooden planks, the better to see the show. Steve did the piloting; Gary was tremendously good at water skiing. They switched places, with Gary piloting the boat and Steve skiing. Even better - great style! Then it was my turn.

"OK Carl, we'll do this the easy way first. Put the skis on and sit on the raft. Take the rope. Remember to keep your arms straight and your knees bent. As I accelerate, you lean back and straighten your legs. You should be OK. Oh, and keep your back straight too. Bending it not only looks silly, but actually makes the skiing more difficult. Got that?"

With a throaty growl, the outboard engine accelerated away from me. The cord whipped tight. My arms stretched out, pulling my shoulders with them. In no time I was halfway into the opaque orange water, unable even to see my knees. Suddenly, the skis pulled to the top of the lake surface. Two white crests of waves pushed away to either side of my feet. I'd done it! Well, not quite. My knees were bent as though I was doing sit ups.

"Straighten your knees!" Steve shouted. "Great, now straighten your back. You look like a banana!". I pushed forward with my hips. My back remained stubbornly curved. I was a banana!

"Carl, if you keep on like that you won't make the turn and you'll fall!" Gary shouted. I remembered the hippopotamus. Click! My back straightened. Perfect sweeping curve as I turned towards the raft. I let go of the rope and skidded into the water just by the raft itself. Only beginners could be this lucky! Daniel was starting up the outboard motor of the pirogue when we reached the pier. "Would you like to go to the swamp to see wild birds?" he asked us. The girls cried: "Yes, please!" We guys cried: "Yes, please," too - but only because the girls did.

So we all jumped into the pirogue, one sitting behind the other like Amazon Indians. Soon we were deep in the papyrus reeds at the southern end of the lake. As the water channel narrowed, broad leaves closed in on us, overshadowing the sun. We could see, in the small open patches of exposed red earth, some large, messy nests of great white storks that migrated there every year to give birth to their young. A flash of white, a long yellow beak, the cold stare of an orange eye told us "mother" was in residence and eggs were about to hatch.

Daniel pointed to an ill-formed hole in the canal's shallow banked walls. Steve and the others wore big grins when I asked what it was. "It's a home," answered Steve, "for crocodiles!" Crocodiles? "Of course", laughed Gary, "all lakes in Kenya have crocodiles in them. Didn't you know?" "But guys - we are in a canoe. It's so easy to tip this over. Shouldn't we get out of here - like fast?" I asked nervously.

"Don't worry; crocodiles very rarely go for man. The fish and the cattle that come down to drink in the creeks- like those over there", Tina replied, pointing to some cattle that a young African boy had brought down to the water's edge, "are enough for them. They only attack if we annoy them or do something silly. And we aren't going to do that."

As we rounded a bend and found ourselves connecting to another canal, Julie whispered to us, "Look, there's a crocodile!"

Sure enough, on a small beach of sand created at the juncture of the two creeks, a crocodile, with jaws slightly opened and eyes slightly closed, was lazing in the sunlight. It didn't look too big, about the length of a man. Fear surrendered to curiosity.

As we closed in, the crocodile got nervous and, with a quick flick of its tail, slipped into the opaque waters. Daniel skilfully turned the pirogue into the stream and there, before us, sleepy in the afternoon sun, lay five more crocodiles on two sand bars that crossed the creek.

"We will have to do this carefully so as not to excite them," Daniel somberly explained. Very, very carefully, with the motor not accelerating, we drifted towards the sand bars, pulled along by the slow moving current. The crocodiles pretended not to see us as we floated by, fixed in our seats, staring at the leathery monsters a short distance away. The twinkle in the eye of one as it tracked us gave the pretense away. We had just got past them when Daniel revved the motor to turn past a third sand bar. We slipped by but then a soft rasping sound under our seats told us we were scraping bottom. Sure enough, the pirogue came to a grinding halt.

"Oh no! Not here! Not with them just behind us!" cried Christina.

"And in front of us, too! Look!" I exclaimed. For on another sandbank just ahead, lay another crocodile. And this was the daddy one. The biggest of them all. He was staring at us with his cat's eyes. Daniel revved the motor to see if we could get over the hump of sand just under us. Nothing happened. "How about we use these paddles to give an extra push?" suggested Steve. He gave one to Tina, Gary and me.

Daniel revved the engine as we began paddling hard.

"It's not working!" cried Julie, her voice rising in anguish.

"Don't worry - we'll have us out in no time. OK everyone, take the paddle and push down against the sand so we lift the canoe over the ridge." suggested Tina. We plunged the paddles into the water. Nothing! The canoe was too heavy. "One of us will have to jump out and push," announced Daniel as he glowered at the other three men.

"Oh no, don't look at me!" I protested. "I just had this problem with lions last week! Not again! No way!" The girls gave me a puzzled expression. "I'll tell you all later". "Come on! All the guys out and in one go we'll get this thing moving in no time. You, too, Carl!" Steve exclaimed.

"But we can't see anything in the water. One of those crocs could grab us before we could see it. Worse, we could jump down on the back of one of those monsters!"

"Ready? And go!" cried Steve, ignoring me completely.

So, the three of us guys jumped into the muddy orange stream, right up to our waists in water. And we pushed, hard and fast. The pirogue, lighter now, easily slid over the sandy ridge. Daniel gunned the engine and we all three vaulted back into the canoe. The whole action must have taken all of five seconds. Five seconds I will long remember.

If there had been a crocodile down there when I jumped ....

The rest of the trip was, thank heaven, mercifully uneventful. The stream reconnected us to a larger canal where we motored up and quickly found ourselves back in the open waters of the lake, reeds and birds and herders with their cattle, and crocodiles, disappearing behind us.

At the end of the day, bags packed, a warm goodbye from the Lodge manager and his daughter, a handshake from Daniel, then Steve piloted us all back to Nairobi. That evening, we all gathered in the Muthaiga Country Club, the place the original safari hunters used to hang out. Sitting on the porch, we raised our icy fresh cocktails and saluted our courage in fighting off the two most dangerous animals in African lakes. Well, more of avoiding them, really! Cheers to more adventures! OFW's impact on the economy WEALTH MANAGEMENT By Ruben D. Almendras With the high oil prices, the political turmoil, the declining export growth, the slower growth of the world economy, and the consequent slowdown of the Philippine economy, the impact of the OFW's contribution to the economy and the country should gain more significance and recognition. That the overseas Filipino workers are hailed as modern day heroes of the country, is not an empty praise or boast. It is even an understated reality.

Filipino OFW's this year will remit to the country at least $10 billion which translates to P560 billion. This amount is 18% of the country's GNP of over P3.4 trillion, and equivalent to 30% of our exports of $34 billion. Considering that our number one exports is electronics, with imported components and labor as the main value added, the net dollar inflow of our exports would just be about equal to the OFW remittances.

There must be some 8 million Filipinos outside the country, 7million of them gainfully employed. About 4 million are in the U.S.A., 500,000 in Canada, 1.5 million all over Europe, 700,000 in the Middle East, 600,000 in Asia, 200,000 in ships, and the balance in Australia, Africa, New Zealand, as well as other parts of the world. All of these Filipinos have relatives in the Philippines and have maintained strong family ties, so they keep on remitting part of their earnings to the country, the amount depending on the number of close relatives still living in the Philippines. Half of the Filipinos in the U.S. have brought their immediate families with them so they are remitting smaller amounts. Those in Europe, Asia, in ships and other countries are still big remitters as most of their families are still in the Philippines.

Assuming that the 5 million OFW's have 4 dependents in the country, this means that 20 million Filipinos of the 83 million population is supported by the OFW's, and this is 24% of the people of this country. This number of Filipinos can survive with only a part-time job or no job at all, as long as the remittances continue. This is what makes the unemployment and underemployment statistics in this country tolerable.

This situation may not last forever, as more immediate families join their relatives abroad and stay there for good. The number of remitters will eventually reduce and the amount of remittances decreases. While restrictive immigration policies of the host countries will prevent this from happening rapidly, we have to contend and plan for this eventuality.

The counter-action for this upcoming phenomenon is to put our country in order so that most of the OFW's will want to come back in their retirement or twilight years of their lives. They will bring home to the Philippines their retirement funds, to build homes, invest in some business, or just spend it here for the remaining years of their lives. Filipinos are by nature sentimental and therefore nostalgic. As long as he believes that the country is a safe, pleasant, secure, and progressive enough, he will come back to stay and bring some or all of his savings. He misses the fiestas and the Christmases in the Philippines and will stay longer or forever when he can afford to do so.

Our governments and our politicians have not really done a good job of making our country a safe, pleasant, secure and progressive place. They have been too busy politicking, and taking care of themselves. We do not need a revolution, a coup de tat, or another People Power to put our house in order, we just have to make our politicians more responsible by taking them to task to deliver the basic services that we are entitled as citizens.

Do you know why Boholanos all over the world, always go home for their fiestas? It's because Bohol has some of the most responsible political leaders in this country. Bohol is probably one of the safest, most pleasant, and most secure places to live in the Philippines.