 Good morning to you. Thank you for keeping us company. This is why in the morning and this morning we are discussing or we are talking about the significance of an animal that many people may regard it to be not of essence, but they help us in our day to day services, especially people in the rural. I'm speaking about the donkey and we will have a relationship with them and water and sanitation, especially in order to be marking on 22nd of this march to be having wild water day. What significance role does the donkey play in the society? I'm speaking to Mr. Lonad Geishuho, he's a youth donkey owner in Campbell County. He's the chairman and also I'm speaking to Dr. Samantha Opera, veterinary officer. Ken, good morning ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to have you. Just like I was mentioning before we began on 22nd of this march, we will be celebrating or we will be marking the world water day. I am sure and I have seen this actually am a testament of what donkey's role in the society and of course in the services they provide to us. But also we've been facing the decline of our donkeys in the society and reason being their meat and skin. On 24th of February this month we saw the government come down and ban the slaughtering and selling of the skin. But also it's still continuing because of the economic value. But also now that you're here being the experts in this field, I'll begin with you, Lonad, what's the role of the donkeys that we do not apart from the transportation we see? Okay, there are so many roles of a donkey, especially when it comes to pastoral communities. Most of them depend on the donkey for transportation of goods from one place to the other, especially when they are moving. And you know in those nomadic areas water is a huge problem. So they mostly depend on this donkey for water because a donkey is a drought animal. It can survive in drought areas. And because these people they don't stay for one place for a long time. So a donkey is very important to them. There are no rivers there, maybe there are not so many boreholes there. So those people they depend on this donkey for water. Even when we come to Amman setup they steal scarcity of water in some towns. So you still find that so many youths they are being employed by this donkey. If you go to Naivasha there are so many youths who are working there with donkeys. But of late it has been hampered by the legal and illegal slaughter of donkeys. If you go to other towns like Kimende, Sokomjinga, Naikuru, Nairobi highway, you will find that those people they use the donkeys to transport the goods, the warus, the chipos that we eat here in town. They are being transported from the farm to the bus stop using a donkey. So donkey is a very very important animal. Not only in those people who are in Mali carriers, also even people for Amman setup. Even if you go to Kayole, you will find one. Alright, there is something that is being said about the donkeys population in terms of how they reproduce and how can their population be controlled. Now that you come from the vet, Samanda, would you explain to us how then can we control the population of war donkeys because like he mentioned we have the legal and illegal slaughtering of donkeys. It has been allowed in Kenya since 2016, but also we still feel we need the donkeys other than for the economic value in terms of the meat and skin. How then can we control our population of war donkeys because they do not reproduce as much. You can't compare it with other animals. What else can be done? Have you come up with a way of seeing their multiplication or how to control them? So if I go backwards a bit, in 2009 the census on donkeys was about 1.8 million. When we got to around 2016, from 2016 there has been a decline in the donkey population. As at now we haven't gotten the actual numbers as per last year's census, but we know there's a decline. The thing about donkeys, they don't reproduce quickly, mainly because most of the time they are working. So when animals are using their energy for a lot of work, the energy for reproduction is almost, that whole system is kind of shut down. So you find that it takes longer for them to breed and then they take about 11 to 14 months for gestation and then it also depends on how the man, the man is a female donkey, was she given her maternity leave before she had the full, the full is not the baby. So if she was not given enough time, which means the full will either be aborted or it will be born but it will be weak, which means even that one might not grow up to adult stage. So you find working with donkeys, what we are trying to encourage is maybe reducing the working hours or just setting aside specific donkeys for breeding purposes. So we have a few groups we worked with as kendat, where we just ask them to set aside a certain number of donkeys and to their main role will just be reproduction. So their focus is reproducing and then other donkeys are used for working. It's sort of working, but again donkeys are supporting communities of people who are on the lower income level. So if you have to take away a donkey from them, it means you're taking away an income. But we are trying to work on it. If you see places like China, China had the highest population of donkeys in the world, but because of what they've been doing with the slaughtering of donkeys and the use of the products they get from it, they've also significantly reduced their population. So that's why they ended up coming into Africa because we are free markets. You can get what you want if you pay or something. So that's why we have them here. I know maybe someone might ask about AI, artificial insemination in donkeys. It has been tried, but the success rate is still quite low. So that one is still a work in progress. So we are mostly trying to encourage natural breeding of the donkeys. Okay. But now if you want to have the natural breeding of the donkeys, how are you encouraging farmers and anyone who uses donkeys to ensure, like you're giving the maternity leave for the donkeys. But now I only have this female donkey. Going to hire or have it, but I need my work to be done. What are you doing about this? Or should I just leave it, agree? You have been of help, but for now rest. How are you encouraging the livestock farmers to do this? It's a bit of a challenge, especially in the arid areas where there's a woman who has one female donkey and she relies on this donkey to help her carry her jirikans of water, like over 7 kilometers. So if you tell her that she needs to rest her animal before it gives birth, ideally you're taking 6 months out of that working life of the donkey because we encourage 3 months before it falls and 3 months after because the female donkey will not accept to go to work without her full. So it means the full will have to walk the distance, the mother walks as it works. So that's ideally essentially 6 months of this donkey's life is on break. And if this woman only has the one, then you are unable to actually get her to use another means of transport because she can't afford it also. So we mainly focus on maybe the ones who have more donkeys and they are able to put one aside for that specific purpose. With the ones who have just the one donkey, it's a bit hard, but still they breed and by faith sometimes they actually carry the full to term and the full will grow. So it's a bit of a balance. All right. For quite some time, I have heard of the tunza pundaku tunze and this was because people used to beat these animals for them to walk. I have seen that in these other sides of the country where they are used to transport rice and other things. In the same vein we've seen donkeys being stolen for their meat. Has the organization got a solution to sustain the lives of these donkeys and being taken care of by the people who owe them? In partnering with Kendat, we've been able to visit very many donkeys in our county and also telling them the importance of this animal and trying to show them the reality that this is your vehicle, this is your source of income, this is the way that you should treat it. And some of them have changed. It's only that maybe those who are much publicizer, those who are beating donkeys, but there are so many. And we thank God that there are so many groups in Kiambo County that have come together and they form groups that are registered and they meet normally. So it's easier for us to go and meet them and talk to them and show them the importance of donkeys. And we thank God because some of them now have moved from the level of training them about donkeys and they have really grown into and some of them have started even investing in other places because of the income that they get from the donkeys and the education that we are able to teach them and show them the importance of donkeys that donkeys can move you from one level and also to the other. Well, you touched on... Being stolen. First of all, I don't know which camera I'll face and I'll tell Munya which camera should I face. You should. I won't tell Munya that thank you so much for closing the abattoes. We had really cried. There was no one to listen to us but we thank God for your appointment that you appointed and you had us and you took a step. That was really great. God bless you. Because these things had really hurt us. So many people have cried. For example, where I come from this one lady, she comes from a place called Rodeete. It's in Karai Division, Kiambo County. Kikuyu constituency. She had a female donkey and... What do you call the name? That cartotoyer. They were stolen. Both of them were stolen. She used to supply water to the masses living in Kibiko because in Kajiyado County it's approximately... She used to go for like 10 kilometers to supply water to the masses and she used to make a lot of money. And unfortunately the donkey and the calf what do you call this? The fold. They were stolen. Now she is forced to like pull the cart all by herself. She is becoming a donkey. She is now the donkey now. She is just a representative of very many Kenyans who are suffering. Some people now have gone for some other employment. There is one guy Sambezi. He can't actually remember his name. He had like six donkeys. Six to eight donkeys. All of them were stolen. Now he goes to construction sites. You can imagine a person who was self-employed and he was making a lot of money now and he's going to serve other people to get some money up. So these things have really they've really hurt us also. My mum is also a victim. I remember when we moved from where we grew up the scarcity of water. We organized and we bought her a donkey. Unfortunately when she went to church on Sunday, one Sunday 2018, to stolen. So now she is forced now to go. Sometimes she has to carry the water with her back. So many lives have been ruined because of this thing. But we thank God for the minister. And that is not enough. He needs now to burn even the skin. Because they can be black markets maybe outside there. They can be slaughtered in the bush taken to the airports or the ports and exported. But that is one step. And we believe it's going to work for us. The story of the donkeys and the water is somehow close to me. Personally I've had an experience of fetching water with the donkeys so many kilometers away from home. And we would go to borrow one of our grandmas and at some point the donkeys fell sick. Now this zone is not stolen. But we could feel the pinch of how the donkeys would feel fetching water all those kilometers away. But anyway, that aside, actually there is an investigation going on about the assolatering of these animals and how to sustain them. Other than making sure that these authorities have come up to protect the donkeys owners. What else should be done? Should we have maybe after work we have quote-unquote say a parking where they'll be there. It's your donkeys, you come for it in the morning but it's enough security other than having it back to your home. Okay. Because of the current situation of the donkey theft most people, most farmers or donkey users have come up with their own ways of protecting their animals. If you visit like now where I come from Kikuyu town, we have a park whereby we lock, when I say lock it's locked with chain. And security reasons you lock them there. And because you come from one setup. There are so many things that the donkeys can eat. We are surrounded by markets. So there's a lot of waste from those markets. So those donkeys, they feed on that. And also animal feeds. We buy them animal feeds. For example, mizja, which is very productive to them. So for us we have come up with that plan of making sure that they are safe. Also the manua, those people and that manua, they also sell it. So it's also one way of keeping the environment clean and also making money at the same time. We thank God because also Kenda had a project whereby they were building farmers shelters, very safe shelters for the donkeys to live in. So if you visit so many places because of this theft the donkeys somehow, I should say this they are somehow taken care taken well care of than before. Because now like before someone used to just mutoto enda ufungi yo punda apu. Apu apu yo maia. Then asubu ina chikuliwa. But now if you dare do it you'll just it will just disappear. I remember there was once time we visited one of our rocko areas and we were doing a research on donkeys. We went and found a donkey and asked a person who was passing by who is the owner of this donkey. We want to talk to him or her. He told us just go and stand there. You will see the owner. And exactly that is what happened. If you want to know the owner of the donkey. Just go and stand there. It's like when Jesus went when Jesus went when the apostles went the owner came. So he was the owner so it's kind of the same thing. So this thing has really helped the donkeys. They are well taken care of. Someone will not beat his donkey that much because he knows that if this donkey dies to get another one. Actually do I need to beat it for it to work? What's the essence? Because I believe it knows it's work to carry on, to move around Do I have to hit it really? Okay, you know there are two types of donkeys. Okay, tell us now. Not lead it up to their type or maybe the way they do it. Kichungumuna. There is the commercial one and there is one for home. Now the one for home we can also say that those ones for they don't work a lot but our donkeys are commercial. Okay. They work alone on wrong highways. We pass through people, markets, vehicles and all these traffic. So in order for you to tame it to be able to adapt a town setup you have now to can it up. Just like a child. Even the Bible tells us. If you spoil the child if you don't tame this donkey using a stick it will never land. It will land but it will take some time. You will have paid a lot of you will have to compensate so many people, cars and people and all that. But when you go now to Geshagi you don't need to beat it because it knows the way. Actually I had one donkey which died it was called Jack made so less in peace. That donkey was so unique because I remember that time I used to tell it to go in the evening it knows where it used to sleep so I just put it in the cart and tell it to go. It used to follow the traffic. If there's a diversion it just follows the diversion and goes the way Mia will take a shortcut and then we meet there. So you can train it you can train it in such a way that like my donkey when it sees a vehicle it measures I can't go direct, I have to but it's training Naseile Raising When you get used to you've now become friends you don't have to beat it. Some other you mentioned of something about the foe and the mother having to walk what contribution has it done maybe negatively to the foe to coming to grow because if the mother is doing 10 kilometers and the foe is just a weeks or maybe a month. Does it have an implication health wise to the animal? Yes ideally the focus of any young animal is your main thing is to grow and some of the things that kill young animals is hypoglycemia which is lack of glucose in the body for energy which is used for growth and cold so those are the main things so if this foe was born yesterday and it's now working 10 kilometers you see the milk it has consumed may not be enough for it to have energy to grow and then energy to walk the distance so it needs to and that's why people are like when you have a young one you are just within a certain area because most of the energy that is consumed in the food needs to go towards growth so the thing with the foe is they may get into contact with other animals that may have a disease and they are still building the immunity so they may get affected by that also when you have the foe starting to walk this distance very early we find that most of the owners start working them very early so ideally a foe or a young donkey should start working so you can start training at 2.5 years but ideally at 3 years is when it should start proper work the reason for this is when you start putting for example the cart or the jelicans of water on its back even start the growth of that animal so it could have been taller but because it started carrying the weight of water it doesn't grow to its maximum height and that also brings other health complications in future so also these donkeys don't tend to live up to their possible maximum age so maybe instead of being 15, 20 they end up being dying at 10, 7 because of actually what's the lifespan of a donkey? it depends on the donkey where it is what are the conditions it is in is it like a pet or is it working so if it's pet like they could go up to 20 working jack died at how long for 6 years 6 years as an adult he was 9 years he was poisoned by the way there were a lot of dogs so people used to poison those dogs so it went somewhere that they were poisoned it's a human animal conflict so in regards to the fold growing up and maybe having to work with the mother in the vet department have you come up with a way of maybe supplementing because if the mother has to work with the fold they have to come back and because the milk has now gone from the body is there a way to supplement that are you having something to supplement that? currently no mainly because as you had mentioned donkeys are like forgotten livestock even in the past if you look the schedule by the vet department on vaccination of animals there would be cattle sheep goats maybe dogs no donkeys also in terms of research there is minimal research on donkeys available worldwide but I think now it's coming up more because of the many issues surrounding the use of donkeys for their skin and also their input into community livelihoods but ideally most of the time we find that people just these are the things balance themselves out naturally with the communities and you find that someone will be considerate because if you put yourself in the hooves of the donkey then you think that if I'm working this donkey and she just give birth what about me who when I just give birth I have to wait like three months to feel empathy for the animal and then you are considerate to maybe its needs alright now what are some of the things that you feel people out here do to the donkeys and they shouldn't be doing they will never attend these meetings you call on taking care of the donkey they will not hit to the cause of maybe vaccination if any what are some of the programs actually you enroll or or work out out here to make sure people take care of their donkeys working together kendat has been a close partner we could have not done all this without kendat and one thing that would really help the donkey owners if they come together if they come together we can be able to reach out to them forming groups and like women have succeeded in groups women have really succeeded in groups they are able to mentor each other they are able to help each other in groups now if the donkey owners for example it's a town where people are working with donkeys if they are able to come together they build their own association in between them I believe they will be taking care of the donkey for example in our group we have rules and regulations if you are mistreating your donkeys we can even disqualify you from being our member and you might even lose your benefits so it's a team work how do you supervise them the people using the donkeys you know first of all we are an organization we have money whereby it's our own contribution not donors if at all you feel that you lose your money because of not taking care of your donkeys then you will have to take care of your donkeys but people who you are not able to reach out to and maybe they can be able to watch this program is to tell them the donkeys are decrying we thank God the minister interviewed but before we are able to reach the population that was there in 2009 the donkey still will be few so that donkey which you have you need to take care of it you need to feed it if it's a female just try your best to see that it's reproducing if you are working with it for example people in Meru ah not Meru it's Kere Nyaga we thank God because there is one guy called Cyrus I believe he is watching the program he has done a really good work he has tried to mobilize people together talking to them preaching these good news of taking care of the donkeys and actually we adopted from them together with our national chairman called Mr. Maitevi I believe he is also watching us right now and so if you have your donkey please just take care of it you need it it's a komash which can take you from one level to the other and also for youth if you have a donkey at your place don't say that there is no employment just take that donkey and start serving those people from the community before your barwaya university you will have pocket money for yourself take care of yourself take care of it and we are also going to reach out together with Kenya we are going to try our best to reach out to every donkey owner in Kenya especially Kiyabu County where I come from to make sure that we educate you on the wealth on the wealth of donkeys we were like them but we have changed we were once children who are lost now we are found we are not taking care of the animals we are in darkness and we are going to make sure that we reach out to them and they come out of the darkness and into the light now every animal they have instincts but they have no control of how they do their thing like for example they don't see if they want to poop on the road it's okay for them if they are animals but is there any any relationship of any infection that could come from the donkeys to human yes and how can we control that and even an example can a donkey be harmful to human beings in terms of say biting and is it harmful okay where do I start so the first thing to remember is that all animals is a thing we call sentience animals have feelings so if you if you are beating your animal your animal is actually feeling pain and you see its future reaction you will find animals that are beaten a lot tend to be very hostile to the people it will be working with because it already has the memory of being beaten I don't know if you've seen okay like where I come from when we have funerals usually the stray dogs that come around to eat from the tent they usually chase with hot water so if you see someone with if the dog sees someone with a cup of something they always run because they have that memory of being chased the same way for donkeys you are alluding to it biting someone but I don't want to know what is the relationship you have with this donkey because donkeys will not bite or kick you without giving you warnings so a donkey will give you like three warnings whether he bites you or kicks you because it will tell you there are things it just does there is a sound it makes from the mouth that's a warning if it stumps its foot on the ground that is another warning when it starts turning its body to set its hind limbs where you are that is your final warning you have forgotten something when it also looks at you when it looks at you that is a warning not a friendly look friendly is this when the ears are forward hungry is when they are flat and then you see even the muscles on the face are tense and the nostrils are wide open so that is also I am a jam so you better move away because it's not here so if a donkey bites you the other thing I want to know is was it bitten by something else because animals don't randomly bite unless they are threatened that is one or if they have rabies so if this donkey has rabies then it would bite you because rabies are the disease just makes things you just want to bite even if you are human with rabies you just want to bite things it just messes with your nervous system like that so that's why if animal is rabied then that's a major concern because if you are bitten by a rabied donkey a rabied dog then you will get rabies so that's one the other thing you may be alluding to is tetanus as a disease tetanus the bacteria for tetanus is everywhere even here this bacteria for tetanus but the thing with tetanus they call it ubiquitous bacteria and it's everywhere so if you see how donkeys are they have teeth up and down unlike cows that have just the teeth at the bottom so as they eat they feed very close to the ground and maybe Lana will tell you a place where a donkey has eaten nyasi miisha they move everything because they are picking with both teeth so they pick from the ground as they eat they also picking whatever is along with the soil and maybe the bacteria so you find that they have a high percentage of clostridium tetanus the bacteria that causes tetanus in their GIT in their intestines in their stomach system but the thing with tetanus is basically hygiene the same we have been told about corona and hygiene if you have a wound an open wound and you step on soil you need to clean the wound and when you clean the wound whatever dirt is there what happens with tetanus is you have a dirty wound maybe you were pierced by a nail or you stepped on something and you didn't clean it properly but your wound healed so when the wound healed that's when now the bacteria thrives because they say it's anaerobic it grows when there is no oxygen so that's when you're likely to get tetanus but basically your personal hygiene is good and vaccination and treatment of your donkey is will reduce or minimize the chances of you getting a disease from your donkey to you now we are out of time I would like to get your final recommendations we've seen the significance of the donkey and you've mentioned of the role they play and how they would be taken care of but maybe there's one thing you'd want owners of the donkeys to know this day a donkey is a very important and unique animal created by God to serve human it was created for us so if you take care of it it will take care of you and also to the youth and the people out there it's a form employment and also if you see people working with donkeys don't do mother hours to them they may be earning more than you are earning of course we have timelines deadlines all that the donkey doesn't have all that he doesn't have to wake up early or sleep up late he doesn't have to work at night and report to someone he's comfortable with his life he doesn't have to pay a license he says don't catch that but they live a normal life they live a normal life they also speak English if you continue they can understand my final words well in line with we said world water day water is life is one thing but there are so many other actors and players that are in this line of getting that water donkeys are one of those very important ones especially in the arid areas where women trek long distances remember access to water water is still a challenge in our country and a lady with a donkey is able to transport 4 jariqans of water as opposed to the one she'll carry on her back so donkeys are very important in terms of there's sustainable development goals of access to water so if you have challenges getting water remember there's a donkey somewhere that can help you out alright many thanks for coming and sharing your ideas in this particular field of course I have learned something and I appreciate that and I'm sure our viewers back home they have learned something they have been my guest he's the chair of Youth Donkey Owners Gambo County and Dr. Samantha Opera Veterinary Officer with Kenda thank you so much for keeping us company coming up next to be Val with MCM my name is Dereva Hillary