Visit to Kisayani & the Spring

 Well for the past two weeks I have been travelling through Kenya, as well as putting together some research and meetings in Nairobi which will help me once I finally settle in Kisayani (which will be on Monday). I was travelling with my professor and one of his Masters students from the University of Manitoba (Heidi Walker) as well as a University of Nairobi student who will be with my in Kisayani. Heidi is writing her masters on Strategic Environmental Assessments in Kenya and looking at community participation, a research project with a lot of overlap with my own. She has yet, however, to find a case study site something I have had a privilege to have laid out for me.

Dr. Spaing, Heidi, and I

So on our journey through Kenya, we went to the Indian Ocean coast to Mombasa and travelled North to a potential site for Heidi in Watamu, where a great little organization by the name of Rocha Kenya is based (http://www.arocha.org/ke-en/index.html). But on the way to Mombasa we stopped in Kibwezi and Kisayani for a few nights. I had the privilege of meeting the Water Project Committee and the Kisayani Christian Community Development Programme and make introductions. I was able to briefly meet a few key people introduce my research and myself and explain how I hope they can learn and benefit from the results. Since they have been the site of a number of research studies, they had expressed concern about having more research done in the community and never hearing back from the researchers or the findings. This is a very real concern of theirs and something I will be attentive too; it is something that Dr. Spaling has also specifically tried to resolve by offering workshops and presenting the results afterwards – something I hope to do when I am finished. After some constructive conversations they were open and accommodating to the research and would help us coordinate many of the details (including my lodging). Building relationships and trust is an important part of Kenyan culture, and is something I have experienced throughout both east and west Africa.

I was also able to hear some of their concerns and brief observations of the pipeline. They all expressed concern over the pressure of water from the kiosks, which has severely lessened. They were concerned about the lack of rains, expressing how they have not had rain in three years (something I understand to mean they have not had a ‘good’ rain in three years), and food prices are rising dramatically. The area itself is very arid and thirsty for rain, which should arrive in late October, but the rainy seasons have since been increasingly unreliable. This region of Kenya has been long susceptible to drought, although they are much more food secure than northern Kenya where the famine is worst. Famine has not reached the south.

The once-wet swamp - I am told water was up to the roots of the trees a few years ago

The committee also offered two kind women to accompany us to the Umani Springs, the source of the pipeline. So we made the 20km journey through the increasingly dense Kibwezi forest. We passed baboons and elephant tracks (and droppings) which are not an uncommon sight in the area. Before we arrived at the spring we passed by a large swamp which is replenished by the steam from the outpouring of the spring. According to government regulations 25% of the spring flow must be untapped. However, the women in our vehicle were shocked to see that the swamp was nearly dry—an indication that either the spring is drying up or the intakes are taking too much. According to hydrological studies it is during the dry season when the spring has the largest output.

The new pipeline project - showing 6 intakes

The original 5 intakes at the base of the spring

The spring itself is a beautiful oasis of green vegetation and diverse bird life. Signs of wildlife were apparent all around, elephant tracks, suspicious python dens, insect clouds and monkey calls. The spring is literally bubbling up from the ground and flowing into a intake which supplies 5 different pipelines.

However, we noticed immediately the presence of construction in the area. There was a new installation of a series of pipes and a large plaque reading “Mtitu-Andei Umani Water Project” commissioned by the Minister for Water and Irrigation. This pipeline I came to learn is a 300 

million KSH (~$3 million) project supplying nearly 70,000 people (about 5 times the size of the Kisayani project). It will be interesting to see how another additional pipeline (or as it seems an expansion for one of the smaller existing ones) makes the management of the spring water resource even more complex.

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Now back in Nairobi, I have been trying to come across the EIA for the new project, which could prove to have some valuable information and updated data on the spring and rainfall patterns. I have been given a number of contacts for the project but no luck. I have also been reading up on studies which evaluate local communities’ ability to manage water projects. Since the passage of the new Kenya Water Act, the government has attempted to decentralize many of its functions to lower state bodies. Some project therefore are expected to be handed over to communities or to private water service providers (WSP), but projects already owned by the local community (such as the KCCDP) are sort of in a grey area to who owns the assets, and who has the authority (let alone capacity) to manage such resources. Many community project are currently outsourcing (privatizing) certain aspects of management, whether it be the financial responsibilities or the technical expertise to maintain a multi-million dollar project.

Again there are a lot of complexities to work through, and on paper this proves quite difficult. I am looking forward to soon moving to Kisayani, and hearing from the recipients of the water themselves as well as the management committee and gaining a better idea of how they are adapting to these multitude of changes. 

We also visited some giraffes