Just what can love and passion do? Well, for one man, his love for culture and heritage helped earn his little-known village recognition.
A brief chat with Charles Leshore will have your mind taken from sacred mountains of Kajiado to how Samburu’s camel racing annual event came to be.
You will also think of how vultures travel from southern Africa, Kenyan artefacts in the United Kingdom and new heritage and cultural discoveries across Kenya.
Leshore is a walking encyclopaedia.
The 51-year-old trained nurse has transformed into a scientist-cum-researcher-cum-conservationist while on his journey to document and bring to light the dying critical culture and forgotten heritage.
A village called Olergesailie near Magadi, Ilkeekonyokie ward, Kajiado West, has Leshore to thank after it was named a key cultural and heritage tourism site by the UN World Tourism Organisation in 2021.
According to the UNWTO, where Kenya is a member state, 44 villages from 32 countries across the five world regions were granted the recognition.
“The Best Tourism Villages by UNWTO initiative was launched to advance the role of tourism in safeguarding rural villages, along with their landscapes, natural and cultural diversity, and their local values and activities, including local gastronomy,” UNWTO notes on its website.
When Tourism CS Najib Balala stood to receive the certificate for the recognition during the UNWTO’s 2021 General Assembly in Madrid, Spain, on December 2021, pictures of Leshore in Maasai regalia, holding a signature shield and spear, appeared on the screens, in his absence.
It’s Leshore who made applications for three villages, namely Archer's Post in Samburu, Lemongo in Amboseli as well as Olergesailie. The UNWTO settled for Olergesailie.
Countries that made it to the list in sub-Saharan Africa include Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
Tourism CS Najib Balala handed over the Best Tourism Villages of the World 2021 certificate to Olergesailie village community members in January.
“Kenya has more than 40 ethnic groupings, and with this comes a cultural richness that is loved and that people from across the world want to experience,” he said.
“Our goal is to continue showcasing to the world that we have so much more for them to enjoy while in the destination. I congratulate Olergesailie village for putting Kenya on the global map, and I encourage even more of this going forward.”
OLERGESAILIE ATTRACTIONS
The village hosts the Olergesailie pre-historic museum, which was discovered by Mary Leakey in 1942, and the site was excavated continuously between 1942 and 1947.
It holds exhibits on human evolution, stone tools, site formation and animal fossils, all dating from 1.2 million years ago.
Researchers say the site has the highest concentration of hand axes probably compared to any other place in the world.
A visit at the museum shows human tools are most prominent of all fossils in the area, and the accumulation of tools represents the actual camping places of early men. Information at the museum shows the evidence of human activity consistently between 1.2 million years to 400,000 years before present.
Another feature is Olergesailie mountain, which was used by the Maasai to perform sacrifices to their God, Enkai.
Leshore, who is also a KWS honorary warden, says the mountain needs to be protected as a special historical and natural heritage site.
“The current threat facing the mountain is charcoal burning. I'm doing research on how the invasive Mathenge tree can be used for charcoal and building to avoid cutting down of acacia trees in this mountain,” Leshore says.
South of Olorgesailie lies Lake Kwenia, which is home to one of the largest known breeding colonies of Ruppell’s Griffon Vultures in East Africa. Protection of the vultures site is a potential tourist attraction feature, according to Leshore.
“The major threat is poisoning of vultures by the community, who think their conservation is not beneficial to them,” he says.
Another feature highlighted by Leshore while pitching for the recognition of the village is the ‘annual donkey migration’, where donkeys from across the county migrate to Oltepesi town.
While much is not known about the phenomenon, findings suggest a nutritious plant known as by Maasais as 'Olkurushashi', which withstands drought, is found in the area.
Donkeys migrate to the area in the months between August and February.
Next to the village is Lake Magadi, which hosts thousands of flamingoes every year, which come to nest before proceeding to other parts of Rift Valley lakes.
Leshore says the lake is threatened by filtration and bad farming practices.
The area is host to other wild animals, including elephants, giraffes, lions among others, and the Maasai have coexisted with these animals for years.
“Children go through parks and conservancies while heading to school. When women are collecting firewood from the bush, they meet with elephants and they are able to communicate with them,” Leshore says, adding that the community culture and traditions and coexistence with wild animals was a key consideration in the recognition.
Other sites that border the village include Oldonyo-Lenkai, where the Maasai believe their God lives, part of Lake Natron and the Naiminie-Nkiyio indigenous forest.
PROTECTING HERITAGE
The village, which lies approximately 70km from Nairobi, has rich potential for tourism due to its rich culture and heritage, natural features and wildlife conservancies.
“The model of the village combines community, conservation and tourism business to ensure a win-win for communities, travellers and the environment," he says.
“We have introduced alternative rites of passage and the boma model of health."
This model is an innovative approach to provide and offer sexual reproductive health services in the manyatta, whereby the man is involved so that he gives direction and women go to get care and other services, he says.
Despite the Maasai being the custodians of the pre-historic sites, cultural and natural resources, a key challenge lies in knowledge and harnessing the economic potential for the community.
Leshore says the sites in Southern Kenya are under threat from climate change, human destruction and infrastructure.
“We need to develop critical research agendas in the next 10 years and to disseminate studies to influence practices and actions,” he says.
"My key recommendations include: Educate counties to develop legislation and bio-cultural concepts, a new paradigm to sustainable development and international rights and indigenous people."
Leshore is now pushing for education among the community to preserve the heritage and understand the economic potential of the sites.
The Maa Museum and Centre for Indigenous Culture, which was founded by Leshore, is spearheading Cultural Practitioners' Groups to empower the community who live around the sites to take part in the conservation and preservation activities.
“We have registered literacy groups to get skills to read and write so they can learn how to conserve the environment,” he says.
“If we have a community who think they are not benefiting from conservancies, they poison animals.”
The Maa Museum and Centre for Indigenous Culture is also involved in training morans and young tour guides on proper tourism practices and ethics in areas around the sites.
Leshore’s museum has mobilised Class 8 and Form 4 leavers from Olergesailie and Magadi wards for the government-sponsored TVET courses at the Maasai Technical Institute in Kajiado town.
This, he says, is part of a technological revolution to prepare the village in tourism.
The museum, found in Tinga village along the Magadi-Nairobi Road, also educates communities on the informed and biocultural consents of indigenous people within the international laws.
Currently, it has more than 350 Maasai cultural artefacts.
“My father was a collector of artefacts, and while working in Kajiado, I saw artefacts being thrown away,” he says.
“I started thinking several years down the line, our heritage will be gone. Something told me these treasures will disappear, and that’s how I founded the museum.”
He is constantly being mentored by retired KWS director Paul Mbugua.
The museum hosts cultural, technological and colonial artefacts and wildlife trophies.
“We are a young museum and have funding limitations. This is not for profit, I want to leave a legacy for this generation," he says.
Leshore was part of the anti-FGM landmark declaration by Samburu elders to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Kisima, Samburu county, president over by President Uhuru Kenyatta early last year.
He is now a technical adviser to the Kajiado county government, who are preparing a declaration to end FGM mid-this year.
Together with the National Museums of Kenya, Ministry of Tourism and respective county governments, he is helping to map out areas with potential archives, document and preserve them.
"I'm challenging county governments that they should not only focus on roads, schools and bridges but also allocate funds for culture and heritage," he says.
Edited by T Jalio