Interestingly with the drought, there has been some problems with grazing issues b/c there just isn’t enough grass for everyone especially in the drier north. Mpala Ranch had been dealing with a fair amount of illegal grazing. But things escalated this week with gun armed maasai and turkana grazers showing up and getting into skirmishes over grazing. George’s field assistant’s family had to spend a night hiding in the bush b/c 6 armed grazers had ambushed the village. This past week Mpala had been upping security and all of a sudden all our ascaris (guards) were carrying automatic rifles. It’s a difficult situation b/c you feel bad for the herdsman in areas where the drought has caused there to be no grass and you realize the only way for them to avoid mass die offs of their livestock is to graze illegally.
Random fun times at Mpala including Sunday fundays, sundowners, and moonuppers, We also had a RAF LC-130 visit our airfield to practice some parachuting.
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