LOIYANGALANI -"the place of the trees"- is a vague agglomeration of grass huts, mud huts, tin shacks, a police station, a school, a pair of campsites, "the mission" and "the lodge". It's a small community far from metropolitan Kenya, without newspapers and often without beer (a real measure of its isolation). The land around is mostly barren and stony, scattered with the carcasses of livestock, with palm trees and acacias clustered around the settlement's life source, a
hot spring of fresh water. This empties into two pools near the police station, one for men, the other for women.
The village came into being in the early 1960s with the Oasis Lodge and its airstrip, and the Italian mission to the Elmolo people, a small group who live by hunting and fishing on the southeastern lakeshore. Somali raiders ransacked both establishments in 1965, but since then the two institutions have been left alone. The mission is now starting to thrive and its net of influence has reached most of Loiyangalani's more permanent inhabitants, especially the children who come to the school.
For all its apparent drabness, the village isn't dull. When you've had enough of haggling for artefacts and fantastic quartz, onyx, amethyst, and other semi-precious stones collected from Kulal - as well as the odd fossil - you can wander over to the springs and the school. You'll inevitably pick up a cluster of teenagers - Turkana, Elmolo, Samburu, Rendille - eager to practise their English. Swahili has never made much impact up here and English is the usual teaching medium. Education is perhaps the most positive of the major influences - which otherwise include state interference, Christianity and tourist money - bringing pressure to bear on local customs and traditions.
The mission , while changing the structure of traditional society (through conversions to Catholicism, which have been particularly effective among the Elmolo), is at the same time helping to make local people sufficiently independent to resist unwanted change and to make choices about their future, by helping to set up income-generating schemes such as the shops, some of the boats and a new service station. Some of the Italian missionaries are extremely open and informative and, although you can't be assured they'll have any time to meet you, the chance to talk to them about Loiyangalani may well arise if you're around for a few days. For non-Christians, however, the whole concept of missionaries and their work can be difficult to swallow. For all their schools and clinics, it's difficult to escape the feeling that these people - for so long "untouched" by the outside world - managed very well with their original beliefs and traditions, which formed the basis of their society, cosmology and human relations. With Christianity now ascendant, the old structures are breaking down fast and some risk being lost completely (the Elmolo lost their language in March 1998 following the death of its last speaker, for example). By preferring to convert children, rather than their more obstinate parents, the deeper morality of the well-meaning missionaries is questionable at best. More positively, there's a small library at the mission, which you're free to use.
Loiyangalani's " beach " is a grubby strip a couple of kilometres down the road. Many of the loose stones on the shore shelter scorpions (not serious) and carpet vipers (very serious). In the evenings, dances often take place around Loiyangalani - informal, energetic, pogo-ing performances for fun, always worth checking out. Track them down by the booming sound of collective larynxes. It's the girls who ask the boys to dance, and you're welcome to join in (no cameras or torches unless permission is expressly given and paid for, usually Ksh300 per person).
