September 4, 2019 – Volume 21, Issue 7
In This Issue
- Flanigan’s EcoLogic: Welcome to Africa!
- The Republic of South Africa
- Visiting the Falls in Zimbabwe
- Kenya’s Masai Mara Experience
- The Only Thing Better than Getting Away…
Flanigan’s EcoLogic: Welcome to Africa!
For Terry, Kristin, and I, it was our first trip to Africa. Stephanie had been to Morocco. This time, their mom’s birthday celebration… Terry’s right of passage! This travelogue reflects my impressions of a taste of Africa, a two-and-a- half week, three-country excursion, a short but potent immersion.
The continent of Africa is regarded as the origin of humans, homo sapiens. It’s the second largest continent in the world, covering 20% of the Earth’s land area. Only Asia is bigger. Africa is made up of 11,730,000 square miles; three times the United States (3,531,905 square miles). Africa is divided into 54 countries, plus two disputed countries. It has the youngest average age of population: 19.7 years versus 30.4 years globally.
Emirates Airline Airbus 380, 15.25 hours from LAX to Dubai. Terry, Kristin, and I board one of Emirates’ 109 Airbus 380s. The rest of the Emirates sparkling fleet are Boeing 777s. Our brand-new jet is luxurious; details more in line with Cunard class than typical American airlines.
Polished jet service. A multi-cultural, multilingual flight crew, the in-flight entertainment system is great. Our crew originated from 14 countries and speaks 17 languages. We land at Dubai International, an uber -modern airport, meet Stephanie just in from New York. A layover and four weary travelers are off to Cape Town. That’s an 8.5-hour flight. Finally we deplane in South Africa after 36 hours of travel.
Energy in Africa:Like the massive continent, energy in Africa is diverse and generally dire. Fully 32 of its 54 countries are considered to be in an energy crisis according to The World Bank. In 2017, the entire continent of Africa’s Gross Domestic Product was $2.2 trillion U.S. – just above that of Italy ($1.9 trillion) but below France at $2.5 trillion. Energy development has not kept pace with economic development, with half of sub-Saharan African nations experiencing GDP growth of 4.5% annually, with energy lagging with a capacity growth rate of 1.2%.
Africa is rich in oil and gas with five of the top 30 producers in the world. Libya has the greatest oil reserves in Africa; Nigeria the biggest production, and the world’s sixth largest producing nation. The African continent is an exporter of oil and gas. The south of Africa has the coal. South Africa has 91% of the continent’s coal reserves and 70% of its uranium. Central Africa has hydroelectric resources. Wind and solar and geothermal currently make small contributions but are emerging and gaining ground. We’d fly by a ridge-top wind farm when approaching Nairobi.
The Republic of South Africa
South Africa’s population was 57.7 million in 2018; 8% of the population is white, 4.5 million. The country’s central plateau provides for vast expanses and “big game,” notably in Kruger National Park. South Africa is also knowns for its western cape made up of beaches and winelands.
South Africa’s GDP in 2017 was $349 billion, the second largest economy in Africa after oil-rich Nigeria ($400b), well ahead of Egypt ($237b). It is 33rd largest economy in the world. We pass the hospital where the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant took place in 1967. South Africa has built nuclear weapons and has the continent’s only nuclear power plant.
The country has been progressive on climate protection; a signatory to the Paris Agreement. Its “Nationally Declared Contributions (NDCs)” include solar deployment, decarbonizing electricity by 2050, increasing electric vehicles and hybrids, planning a carbon tax, and developing a National Adaptation Plan. But South Africa is still marred by income inequality, with a quarter of the people unemployed and living on less than $1.25/day.
Cape Town
Cape Town is South Africa’s most diverse, advanced, and beautiful city. It’s at the southern tip of Africa, close to Antarctica. The Dutch colonized South Africa in the 1400s. A take-off of their language is still in use in the Afrikaans language. Then the British came and took over in the 1600s. Today Cape Town is a city of 3.5 million.
The education begins. From the airport we pass Langa, Cape Town’s huge 99%-black slum. Areas such as Langa were set up for blacks and colored people… relegated and segregated out of the tonier areas. Free power is evidenced by messy maypoles of connections. Next door, new government homes have been built, but not nearly enough. They’re design is ugly but functional, rooftops littered with solar thermal panels. We pass the University of Cape Town at the base of Table Mountain, then Lion’s Head. I notice quite a bit of photovoltaic solar.
Cape Town was established in 1652 as a refueling station for ships bound east on the Spice Route. Today it is a bustling port. We’re staying at the waterfront, just up the bluff from the port’s mix of fine dining, touristy shopping, and commercial fishing. There, boats have extra-high gunwales to fend off choppy seas. Nearby there are cranes for shipping containers. Cape Town is a hub for international commerce. I walk to a working drydock now surrounded by trendy hotels. Seals lay about.
Morning drive to Camps Bay, a stunning seaside resort marked by massive boulders pounded by the ocean waves, intercepting giant swells of cold water rolling ashore. There are magnificent properties. A Hard Rock Café. Celebs have moved in too: Leonardo de Caprio has a home at Camps Bay. And all the stars have been here, from Oprah to Michael Jackson and the stars of Out of Africa, Streep and Redford. We drive past Hout Bay; its hillside shantytown reminds me of favelas in Rio De Janeiro. Such stark contrast to the wealthy homes nearby. Further south on the coast highway, steep cliffs drop off… the rough seas amplified by the confluence of currents at the Cape.
The Cape of Good Hope is the southwestern most tip of Africa. Exhilarating and windswept… a super-clear day, blustery. Funicular to the lighthouse perched high above the seas below. Along the trail down a baboon grabs a daypack. We watch the tussle between the owner of the pack, and the baboon wanting its edible contents. A bit scary. Baboons run wild. There are road signs that warn of baboons crossing. There are also signs urging protection of the baboons. Next up it’s the penguin colony near Simon’s Town. The penguins put on a show; they’re hugely plentiful. We spend an hour amused by their waddles at the Boulder’s Bay reserve.
The Post-Apartheid Decades
The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalizing a system of racial segregation to benefit the white minority that was in effect until the early 1990s. The word “apartheid” means separateness in Afrikaans language. The Population Registration Act of 1950 required all residents to be classified as one of four races: White, Black, Colored, and Indian. The government’s method for determining who was Black was done by measure of the width of nostrils and the thickness of lips. White’s percentage of the country’s population fell from 20% to 13% during apartheid, while Blacks increased from 68 to 76%. Today Blacks are 76%, Whites 9%, Colored 9%, and Asian 2.5%.
Our guide Clinton tells us about apartheid with Blacks and Colored relegated to certain areas, and even beaches. One beach we pass was an “early Black beach,” known for its sharks and thus undesirable for Whites. Another beach reserved morning hours for Whites, midday hours for Colored, and then later for Blacks when sharks were most prevalent. The Pass Law required Blacks to carry government-issued identification cards, the Blacks called “dumb passes,” at all times. A noted protest was organized by Robert Sobukwe in which all Blacks left their cards at home on a designated day, resulting in thousands of arrests and ultimately left 249 dead in the Sharpeville Massacre.
Clinton – one of the colored folks — tells us about his son, five years old, at school the teacher asks the kids to raise their hands if they are Black, White, or Colored. His son does not relate and does not raise his hand until his teacher tells him to. He asks his dad that night… who explains that some parents ate a lot of toffee – and ended up with Colored kids. Blacks ate chocolate… Whites drink a lot of milk. His son accepts that. He does not see race at all… a telling sign of generational healing.
Robben Island is where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 years of the 27 years that he was held. It’s a somber boat ride to a prison of note. Very choppy seas to the island… we pass major freighters at anchor. Robben Island is 7.5 miles from Cape Town and 4.6 miles to the nearest mainland, in cold, cold waters. (Alcatraz to SF is 1.25 miles.) Robben Island was previously home to a leper colony, a maximum-security prison for political prisoners, and a convict prison. The island served as a military base in World War 2. After apartheid it became a national heritage site. It’s now a profound visit.
For standing up for human rights, Mandela and others were severely treated, given less food, and among other things forced to quarry limestone in blistering heat. We go to Mandela’s cell, see the spartan floor mats upon which he slept for so many years, the bucket, his latrine in solitary confinement.
Now the island is home to a couple hundred residents that manage the heritage site. Our guide was an inmate, freed after five years, who is now living on the island and relating its sordid past. He is soft-spoken, gracious, and forgiving. Mandela urged forgiveness, and not to forget the inequality and atrocity of apartheid. Our guide thanks us all for our countries’ boycotts of South Africa that contributed to the end of apartheid.
Energy in South Africa
South Africa has 51,309 MW of electrical generating capacity. Of this, 91.2% comes from thermal power stations and 8.8% from renewables. Eskom, the national utility, also exports power to Botswana. The primary sources of South African power are coal 67%, oil 15%, petroleum products 14%, gas 2%, and nuclear 2%. The Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant, located 18 miles north of Cape Town, is designed to withstand earthquakes thanks to “aseismic raft design.” We drive past a coal plant.
There’s considerable solar development here in Cape Town, all around our hotel are rooftop systems, we saw a large, ground-mount array at Robben Island. South Africa’s new solar program called REIPPPP, Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program, has a goal is 956 MW of new solar capacity. Already South Africa has the 75 MW Lesedi solar power plant. By 2016, the country had 1,329 MW of installed solar capacity.
Kruger National Park
Flight to Hodspruit airport from Cape Town. Hodspruit is a small military airstrip leased to commercial airlines. Upon final descent I think I see elephants in a watering hole. No. There’s a safari jeep there too. This looks like a movie. Can this be real?
We get to our lodge in time for the evening game drive. Ngala is a 37,000-acre reserve leased within the 4.9 million-acre Kruger National Park. Our lodge is neatly settled into the African landscape. Steenboks and springboks look like small deer and loiter in the safety of the lodge. Baboons are here too. The pool is frequented by elephants that dip their trunks in for a drink. The next day we see a herd of buffalo there. We meet Trico and Given, our ranger and tracker.
Here’s the drill for game drive days: Up at 5:30 with coffee delivered. On the jeep at 6:00, thankfully with blankets and hot water bottles in our laps. We’re ready to experience crisp, cold mornings when the animals are most active. Tricor and Given do an awesome job of introducing the bush ecosystems. We ask a million questions. Meanwhile they expertly fill us with close-up views of animals. We see buffalo, giraffes, and come close to a rhinoceros in the bush. We see lots of zebras. They expertly find a leopard in the grass. Later they spot and we sit and watch a pride of lions at rest, this time including a white lion.
One evening it’s getting dark and Given scans the bush with a torch. When he spots wildlife he puts on a red lens. One evening we pass by 6 – 7 rhinos just after dark and Given instantly shuts off the light to protect them. There’s a red moon rising. Trico explains that its “the poachers moon.” The full moon makes it easy for poachers to operate in the stealth of night without torches. We’re glad to pass by the anti-poaching patrol shortly thereafter. They use dogs to track poachers. But three rhinos have been killed on the reserve in the past four months.
Three and half hours driving to our next South African airport. Along the way we see wildlife. We slip out of our slice of safari chic luxury, passing poor communities, modest houses made of cinder blocks. I notice a “free circumcision clinic.” Workers along the roadside catch Toyota taxi vans, transit something between Filipino jitneys and Peruvian taxi/buses. We fly 1.25 hours, Nelspruit to Livingstone, Zambia.
Visiting the Falls in Zimbabwe
Arrivals at Livingstone, Zambia; then long line to buy visas. Beks meets us at the airport and guides us across the border to Zimbabwe. I’ve just read about the history of British explorations into Africa’s interior. The notorious David Livingstone was determined to chart the headwaters of the Nile but ran out of resources and was sick and lost. Right here.
Then a journalist named Stanley was sent by the New York Herald to locate Livingstone. Stanley did ultimately find him, famously greeting him with, “Dr. Livingstone I presume?” But Livingstone was too determined to chart the Nile, and sought to re-supply instead of returning to England. But he was weak and died before additional supplies arrived. This is the spot where his heart was removed and buried. His body then packed with salts and returned to London where he is interred at Westminster Abbey.
Background
Zimbabwe’s economy is in trouble. The population of Zimbabwe is 17.3 million. UNICEF claims that 78% of Zimbabweans live in “absolute poverty” and that 3.5 million children are chronically hungry. Unemployment as high as 95% is among Africa’s highest rates. There is no right to education, those that can afford it must pay for it. There are long lines for gasoline. The country’s currency is near worthless.
Certainly government corruption is one of the reasons for Zimbabwe’s poor condition. Robert Mugabe was a dominant political leader in Zimbabwe for four decades. While known as a revolutionary hero during the country’s path to independence, Mugabe was later viewed as a dictator, accused of mismanagement, corruption, anti-white racism, and human-rights violations. We’re told that the leaders of the 2017 coup are similarly corrupt, hampering the country’s attempts to develop for its people.
Energy in Zimbabwe
Energy is a serious problem in Zimbabwe. Fuelwood still provides about half of the total energy use in the country, creating deforestation. Zimbabwe has large coal resources, 30 billion tons from 21 known reserves, but no oil or natural gas. It has a major hydro plant on the Zambezi River – the Kariba Power Plant Dam — shared with neighboring Zambia. It normally provides 750 MW, 57% of the country’s power. Drought is causing power shortages, the power station is operating at 25% capacity.
The country is experiencing daily power curtailments; “load shedding” is a common term. Our lodge has its own generator. Country wide there is 1,100 MW of capacity and 1,500 MW of demand. Load shedding is essential: In 2016, Zimbabwe Electric Supply Authority only generated 6.8 billion kWh when experiencing demand of 7.1 billion kWh.
Game Drives Day 5 & 6
Zambezi River is Africa’s fourth longest after the Nile, Congo, and Niger rivers. As I write at the Matetsi River Lodge, just across the river is Zambia; we’re 24 miles to Botswana. The lodge is situated in its own private game reserve, 135,907 acres that it leases from the government and manages as a conservatory. The lodge was completely rebuilt and reopened since the political overthrow of the former president. Each room is a separate building with its own pool overlooking the river.
The reserve here in Zimbabwe is teaming with wildlife. There are major colonies of baboons. The youngest cling to the undersides of their mamas, then play roughly with one another, jumping and climbing about. Families of baboons hang out high in the treetops at night. Greater kudos, impalas, and giraffes galore. Giraffes saunter about in their signature walk, right legs in unison, then left legs in unison to avoid entanglement.
Avid as always, we’re working on the “collective nouns,” that there are “dazzles” of zebras, “towers” of giraffes that become “journeys” of giraffes when they’re on the move. This time with Trymore, our ranger. We learn about the ecosystems, the pecking orders, amazed at how certain species coexist and rely on each other for security from the lions, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas. We see impalas everywhere.
Buffalo, zebras, and elephants are plentiful here too. Elephants much up close on seemingly indigestible one-inch diameter sticks. We’re told they need to consume ~800 pounds of food each day. The rhinos that were here have been moved to safer areas. We learn that Zimbabwe has a shoot-to-kill policy for poachers. In South Africa, the country’s human rights policies do not allow that. Poachers sell rhinoceros horns primarily to Asia for aphrodisiacs.
Victoria Falls
The world’s largest waterfall: At 355 feet – it is the “world’s largest sheet of falling water” and more than double the height of Niagara Falls (167 feet) and well above Iguazu Falls (269 feet). The highest waterfall in the world is Salto Ángel in Venezuela at 3,230 feet. When height, width, water flow, and other factors are considered, Victoria Falls is largest. It falls span a mile into the Batoka Gorge.
It was formed by the erosion of soft sandstone-filled cracks within the hard basalt plateau of the upper Zambezi. Waters averaging 38,430 cubic feet per second flow rate eroded the softer rock forming the gorge. So clear as we helicopter over the falls. Later a sunset cruise upstream, toasting the falls, “the smoke that thunders.”
There are 14 viewpoints of Victoria Falls that we diligently hike and digitally document. Across the gorge is the Devil’s Pool, hanging precariously at the top, a crazy spot. Guides help thrill-seekers wade across the river water at the precipice of the falls to this little pool. What a rush that must be! Only one death recently, a guide swept over.
We walk to the famous Victoria Falls Bridge. It was manufactured in pieces in England, shipped and assembled in Zimbabwe. The bridge which carries cars and trains, and deep gorge, is also used for bungie jumping. In a celebrated accident there, the line broke and a 22-year old Australian female jumper plunged into the Zambezi River, emerging remarkably unscathed.
Kenya’s Masai Mara Experience
In 1963 the Republic of Kenya was founded, ending 80 years of British colonial rule. The country is made up of 47 counties and 52.6 million people. The 8th national census was underway during our brief visit. The population is growing fast; now at 6.5 million people. Kenya is known for its coffee, the flavor derived from Kenya’s volcanic soils. We buy some.
Working our way northeast; Kenyan Air flight from Vic Falls to Nairobi. Aging 737 marked by dilapidation, ventilation in particular. Overnight at Hemingways Hotel in Nairobi. Nice digs. The pungent City smell, however, reminds me of Manila, humid burnt stuff including plastics. About a million of Nairobi’s citizens live in shantytowns. We pass one, marked by corrugated metal, clothes lines, haphazard power lines. Folks there earn less than a dollar a day.
The Country of Kenya has an installed capacity of 2,651 MW. Its peak demand in 2018 was 1,802 MW. That resulted in 7,701 GWh of generation, about 166 kWh per capita. Demand in Kenya is growing at 3.6% annually. The Kenya Electric Generating Company supplies 75% of this power from hydro, geothermal, thermal, and wind: 52% hydro, 32.5 from fossils, 13.2 geothermal, 1.8% biogas conversion, and 0.4% from wind, Nairobi uses 50% of the country’s power. It imports crude oil and natural gas.
Renewables contribute ~60% of the Kenya’s power needs thanks to hydro; it’s the highest percentage of renewable power generation of any African country. Government investment in renewable energy has dramatically risen, from zero in 2009 to $1.3 billion in 2010, investments in hydro, geothermal, wind, and biofuels.
Kenya was the first African nation to develop geothermal. It has 200 MW now installed with a 10,000 MW potential identified. In 2018, Kenya developed the first utility-scale solar, the 54.6 MW Garissa Solar Power Plant. It provides 2% of Kenya’s needs was first and largest in East and Central Africa. Kenya leads Africa with solar systems per capita. We hear that many Kenyans are choosing independent solar instead of connecting to the grid.
There are a number of progressive actions taken by Kenya thus far: It has produced “Vision 2030, National Climate Change Action Plan.” It has developed the first carbon exchange in Africa. And it’s been working on microfinance. The World Bank and IFC have partnered in Lighting Africa Initiative.
Safari on the Masai Mara
The word “safari” means journey in Kiswahili. We’re having a big safari! Up early to catch our Safarilink flight to the infamous Masai Mara. From the plane’s windows endless wildlife is present. Dropping off passengers at a remote airstrip I notice a Dash 8 plane skewed just off the runway, oddly abandoned. Turns out that it hit a wildebeest a week ago on landing. Fortunately no passengers hurt. Leaving that airstrip, I watch a lion chasing gazelles or impalas. This can’t be real!
Picked up by Masaai villager in traditional bright garb. Senior – pronounced “Zeen ee ah” — is our guide for next four days. He’s about the age of our girls, yet a world apart. We become friends. The jeep drive from the airstrip to the lodge takes an hour, wildlife jaw-dropping. The Masai Mara: it’s endless and the animals we saw dwarfed the populations we’d seen in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Our home on the Masai Mara is the Saruni Safari Lodge. It has six guest cabins, main lodge, office/shop, wellness center, library, and kitchen. There is also staff housing for 50, mechanics bays to maintain the jeeps, plus maintenance and laundry. Baboons are in force at the lodge which is also home to “Jackie,” an eland whose mother was killed by a lion, and who was adopted by staff at the lodge. Castrated and loyal, he’s now a very big pet… the size of a horse. The lodge is not connected to the grid. Instead it is powered with a microgrid made up of generator, some batteries, and solar. Each cabin also has its own solar hot water that provides for showers. Those are backed up with wood. Water is trucked in daily from ten kilometers away.
With fellow guests and guides we discuss Kenya’s high population growth over dinner. Our guide is one of 44 siblings; another staffer is one of 30. It has been a source of pride and respect for their fathers to have multiple wives. A small homestead we pass has huts for each wife. But we hear that there is now more focus on having a single wife and fewer kids. Nevertheless, Senior has four children, another lodge worker five, another six.
It’s easy to feel the impoverishment of the people here in Kenya. There’s huge unemployment throughout the country. On the Masai Mara we witness men herding their flocks of goats and cows on the open land. We see women gathering fire wood and carrying heavy jugs of drinking water. There is a lack of education; there’s no free education. But it is now compulsory and families sell cows and sheep to pay for it. We pass a school with a soccer pitch and crude goal posts.
Game Drives 7,8,9: Lots more game driving. We’re up and at it early to catch the morning period when the game is most active. Coffee in the cabins, then we hit the trail. One morning we have breakfast overlooking the Masai Mara River, teaming with hippos and crocodiles. The hippos lounge all day in the cool of the river, then feed at night. We’re amazed to learn that hippopotamuses – the third largest mammals of all — can run at up to 19 miles per hour, faster than the average human (but not as fast as Hussein Bolt as African lore has it. Bolt clocked in a 27.7 MPH!) And, hippos kill more humans in Africa than any other wild animal.
Every drive got better and better. A second male lion is approaching us. Within 20 feet we watch two males fighting, which they do to the death over females we’re told. This time, one backed off with injured leg and bloodied face. We see lots of lion cubs, a pride of nine lions passes by our jeep one afternoon. Later Terry, Kristin, and Stephanie would witness giraffes fighting, using their long front legs to gain position, and then whipping their long necks into each other. Ouch.
Come upon a recently killed topi. There’s an exhausted mamma lion resting in the grass recovering from the hunt. We sit close and wait. Her three cubs play, toss, and roll, slumbering in the shaded grasses waiting for their mama to rip open the fresh kill. When she finally gets up, we watch her licking her kill, then ripping first at its genitals, and eating with great satisfaction before our eyes. Next stop, our guide finds a mama cheetah and her six cubs … the mama ripping on a greater gazelle she’s just killed, the one-month old babies lick the blood and chew on the fresh meat. It’s the circle of life, the survival of the fittest on full display here.
The Migration is made up of millions of animals over the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. It’s an annual cycle of searching for greener pastures. Fully 1.5 million wildebeests, 400,000 zebras, 300,000 gazelles, and 12,000 eland participate. They move from the dryer southern part of the ecosystem in Tanzania to the more saturated northern Serengeti woodlands and the Masai Mara plains of Kenya and back again.
We drive to the Masai Mara National Reserve to see the migration, lunching in the shade of a flat top acacia tree, next to a sea of grunting and snorting animals, over 20,000 wildebeests and zebras. Intermingled zebras and wildebeests, the younger ones bucking about, some mating. They’re grazing their way towards one of three major Mara River crossings, the river infested with crocodiles eager for crossing kills.
The Masai Mara culminates our nine days of game driving in three countries. From our cabin deck are zebras, gazelles, impalas, and giraffes. On the plains we see greater and lesser kudo, eland, topi, warthogs, monkeys, mongeese, jackals, hyaenas. We see endless “ellies” (elephants), hippos, gazelle ,and are fulfilled by sightings of lions and cheetahs. Birders are equally impressed by vultures, eagles, storks, and herons and the mighty bateleurs.
We’d seen hyenas on every game drive, and at night in the glow of a red torch. They can eat one third of their body weight at one meal, eating practically every part of the animal, including skin, hooves, and teeth. Their bone-cracking jaws are able to crush bones, readying for highly acidic stomachs. We witness the progression at a recent kill, the vultures, the jackals, the hyenas.
Visiting a Masai Village
Visit to Kileleoni Village, a traditional Maasai village. We’re warmly greeted. Gilisho is our guide and happily takes $30 each for education.
Many villagers come out to welcome us in a ritual chant and dance. Colorful clothes, hearty chanting with deep guttural drones, a very different culture. Each one of us is taken by the hand and swept up in a circle of dance and welcome.
We enter one of the 32 small mud huts that form a circle around the pen for livestock. Each hut is built and maintained by a woman. I duck to get in, the hut reeks of smoke. There is a fire pit in the tiny main room where the woman cook on wood. The only ventilation is a window less than 10 inches square. Terry was claustrophobic. Gilisho explains that he and his wife share one sleeping nook, six kids in another. There is scarcely enough room to turn around. He shifts huts to his second wife’s every other night.
The village has no electricity and no running water. We ask about toilets but the issue is skirted. About 100 yards away is their school, made of western-style, stick-built construction. They seem proud of the school. In contrast, the Maasai huts are crude, made of sticks and mud; their rooftops a mixture of cow dung and mud and clay. We can’t imagine the mud in rainy season.
Off the Grid Solutions
Cecilia Rono manages our lodge, the Saruni Safari Lodge. Her husband, Maurice, shows me the lodge’s microgrid. It’s powered by solar PV, a lead acid battery bank, and a 3.5 kW diesel generator that runs in the morning and evenings. The solar is dated: 24, 85-watt panels; a 16-year-old system with Outback inverters. Batteries plus solar provide daytime electricity.
Maurice talks solar in Kenya. Individuals and businesses are tired of unreliable grid power. They are forced to have backup systems. How can lodges run on the grid if the grid goes down for 5 – 6 hours a day? They need generators on site. Solar is coming on strong; solar plus storage has a big future here. Yes, there are PPAs in Kenya for credit-worthy commercial and institutional deals.
Hi-Value Solar: Maurice introduces me to M-Kopa, hi-value solar. This Nairobi-based company offers a solar leasing service for off-the-grid villagers. Mini solar systems are practical means of getting basic lighting and phone charging to the people. It’s a way to wean many off the use kerosene lanterns for lighting. M-Kopa has sold 700,000 units and rightly claims to be “upgrading lives.”
M-Kopa’s “Classic” leasing model provides an 8-watt solar module, rechargeable radio, control unit with lithium ion battery, four 1.2-watt LED bulbs, 5 in 1 phone charger, and rechargeable torch. The Classic can be leased with a deposit of only $29, then 48 cent lease payments for 420 days at a total cost of $232 after which the customer owns the equipment. Buying with cash outright costs $184.
A second, 30-watt option features all of the above plus a 24-inch TV. A third, 60-watt option has a 32-inch TV. A fourth option includes a 100-liter fridge with a $135 deposit and a daily cost of $1.50 for 650 days, a total cost of $1,104, or $812 upfront. M-Kopa never goes on site, instead sells equipment secured by cell phone numbers. The systems can be remotely disabled if payments have not been made. Elegant and highly appropriate technology.
The only thing better than getting away…
Is getting home!
What a trip, experiences that we’ll never forget. Toasted Terry’s birthday royally several times. And what venues to do so: in Southern and Eastern Africa. We feasted on good scenery, good foods, good learning, and made lots of friends. A great time; the wilds of Africa on vivid display; a dive into ecosystems and remote cultures. Deep reflections the stark contrasts between the haves and have-nots.
Why are we drawn to the wild cats of Africa? Is it profound beauty and smarts? Their power? What is it about the raw forces of nature that lure us to Africa? It is spectacular; nature is a spectacle amplified in Africa. There, the masterfully choreographed shows present the cycles of life in full color, its ups and downs. It is raw, it is pure, it is beautiful, joyous, and painful.
Nairobi to Dubai, five hours, a snap! The impressive Dubai Airport quickly and definitively exterminates my heavy thoughts about the meaning of life. Now it’s glitter, opulence, real estate for sale, great halls, passing customs to ground transport. Our safari is over, smacked out of that reality. Too fast, but we’re fulfilled and on the long path homeward.