Is a ‘designer’ lodge located 7km north of Samburu National Reserve, in Kenya’s wild northern part which is surrounded by 95,000 hectares of private wildlife conservancy, and perched on top of a spectacular viewpoint, its four houses and large swimming pool overlook several waterholes where the famous Samburu elephant, leopard, reticulated giraffe, Oryx, and Grevy’s zebra gather to drink.

The vastness and purity of this African landscape, combined with the untouched local culture, make your safari to Samburu a unique experience. The traditions and semi-nomadic heritage of the local Samburu people are an important part of the experience led by professional Samburu guides; guests to Saruni enjoy a new dimension of this rightfully popular region: the feeling of individuality, of having an incredibly large area totally to their own, and a high level of comfort and tailor-made service. Saruni Samburu has its own private airstrip near the Kalama Wildlife Conservancy headquarters, but it is also easily served by the other airstrips of the area where scheduled flights land.

ACCOMMODATION

Samburu Saruni Camp consists of 4 open-faced houses (accommodating 12 guests or more if triples needed) all of which have their own seating areas, multiple verandahs and private dining areas (2 of the houses are large family villas with two separate en-suite bedrooms and dressing rooms).

Saruni Family House

Saruni Samburu also offers a large swimming pool with dramatic views over Samburu, an area for massage and beauty treatments called Samburu Wellbeing Space, and several other are unique areas to use as hide-ways or view point to the waterholes that attract elephant, reticulated giraffe, zebra, Oryx and all the species that make Samburu Saruni so special.

WILDLIFE

Elephant, reticulated giraffe, grevy’s zebra, Oryx, leopards, ostrich’s, greater and lesser kudu, gerenuk, hyenas among other species.

ACTIVITIES

In addition to game drives to Samburu National reserve, Buffalo Springs National Reserve and West Gate Conservancy, activities will include night and morning game drive in Kalama Conservancy, rock climbing, professionally-led game walks, bush dinners, and star gazing.

The traditions and semi-nomadic heritage of the local Samburu people are also an important part of the experience. Led by professional Samburu guides, guests enjoy a new dimension of this rightfully popular region: the feeling of exclusivity, of having an incredibly large area to yourself, and a high level of comfort and tailor-made service.

Samburu Girl

Beads are captivating for the guest, but for the young girls of Samburu they suggest bondage.

Tourists often wonder at the exquisiteness of the multicolour beads adorned by girls in the Samburu population. For Rampaini Letereuwa, nevertheless, the red beads that adorn her nape are a root cause of great trouble.

The 13-year-old is pregnant, and her family plan to kill the baby as soon as it is born this week.

“I know my baby will be dumped into the jungles to die or be killed like so many others who have been exposed to a identical destiny,” said Letereuwa, through an translator at her parents homestead near ol Donyiro marketplace in Isiolo district.

She has never gone to school and, like every other girl her age or possibly even younger, Letereuwa is a “child bride,” having been briefly paired off to a Samburu warrior (moran) in a customary routine known as aishontoyie saen (beading).

Bead colours

When ever a girl is beaded, which essentially means being studded with costume jewelry by a moran, her parents construct her a house where the moran, usually a related, is permitted to indulge in sexual contact with her.

Different beads carry distinct meanings. Engaged girls don red beads.

Women who are not engaged and those who are married don beads of various colours. White beads express purity and health, black means burden while orange plus yellow is a symbol of hospitality.

“A particular colour of beads is used by a moran to temporarily wed a girl from his family,” says councillor Moses Lerosion of ol Donyiro ward.

He quips: “When a girl is beaded, she is simply not expected to get pregnant because she is not circumcised and our community emphasizes that an uncircumcised woman should not bare a child.”

The custom of Female Genital Mutilation remains widespread inside the Samburu culture.

The necklaces to bead the girls cost about Kenya Shillings10,000 and are usually bought in Nairobi stores.

Great Honour

“The morans routinely execute raids and stealing animals from neighbouring communities to help them raise funds to purchase the beads,” the local councillor, said.

An ol Donyiro elder, says that a number of parents in the region still regard the beading of their own daughters by morans as a show of great honor.

“After effective raids, the moran would give his in-laws livestock and offer the girl’s mother nyiri nyiri (special meat boiled in fat),” explains te local councillor.

Additionally, the beaded woman is still free to marry to any other suitor because in most cases, the girl and the moran are from similar clan and inter-clan marriage is outlawed.

Ms Orietta Lemungesi, a woman leader, says an impregnated girl is seen as an outcast, causing induced abortion using crude techniques for example pressing the tummy with hard gadgets, the knees and elbows.

In case an ‘undesirable’ child is born, it is either discarded in the jungles or given up for adoption in another region.

Ms Lemungesi is presently supporting a four-month-old baby who was born through beading and abandoned by its kin.