Loiyangalani, a rapidly growing town of three thousand, lies in the Rift valley of Kenya, sixty miles south of the Ethiopian border. It is not a lush settlement. British explorer John Hillaby, in his famous Journey to the Jade Sea, describes the town as “torrid and incongruous." "There was nothing I liked about Loiyangalani more," he wrote, "than the prospect of getting away from it."
Loiyangalani, "a place of trees" in the Maa dialect, is one of the last frontiers on the safari circuit. Encircled by desert and stumble-sure lava fields, the town is an oasis sandwiched between Mt. Kulal, the source of fresh not springs, and Lake Turkana, the largest alkaline lake in Africa. The place is hot: by midmorning, shimmering heat waves rise from the ground. As the sun sets, ferocious winds swirl dust and distort sound.
The town recalls the barren drabness of the American Old West. In leased adobe commercial space, a half-dozen Somali dry-goods merchants intermingle on the main street with several butchers and numerous small café-inns, of which the cold Drink Hotel - which offers no cold drinks - is the most popular. Since there is no electricity, there is no refrigeration and no evening lighting other than by kerosene lamp. Gradually, the small residual huts of logs, sticks, and mud are being replaced as more people build square, zinc-roofed adobe houses.
There are few public services or comforts, and well-to-do tourists, though they have signed up for a rugged safari, happily confine themselves to the expensively luxurious Oasis Lodge, where a generator provides a filtered swimming pool as well as chilled drinks and fresh food. The government has built a small airstrip - perhaps for military reasons, given the proximity of the Ethiopian border - which is nonetheless used almost exclusively by patrons of the lodge. Regular transportation is nonexistent, but on occasion a lift can be wangled on a merchant truck or an all-terrain tourist vehicle.
Once a tiny Samburu enclave, Loiyangalani now bustles with cultural ferment. In its dusty streets mingle Samburu, Rendille, Luo, Turkana, El Molo, and Kikuyu tribesmen; Muslim Somalis own many of its shops; a German couple runs the lodge; Italian priests man the Roman Catholic mission. The town's population has more than doubled in the last few years, largely due to the widespread famine in northern Africa; refugees, attracted to the village by the relief supplies available there, have remained to become permanent residents.
As it is throughout Africa, traditional culture is giving way her to the imperatives of the twentieth century. The cattle-herding, nomadic life-style of the Samburu and Turkana has been forever altered by the establishment of permanent settlements. Likewise, the Rendille in town no longer herd camels. Many of the Luo still ply the traditional fishing trade, making a living from the plentiful Nile perch in the lake, but many of their young folk, like those in other tribes, have gone off to the cities in search of regular salaries and modern excitement. And the Kikuyu, the first tribe to have heavy contact with the British colonialists, have become the police, soldiers, and bureaucrats that signal the presence of the government and the loss of autonomy.
Samburu life and traditional
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