New Warriors – My Reflections
Shivani Bhalla’s story, as told to Resson Kantai Duff
I can hear laughing down the hill. Boisterous, belly laughs. The kind that only come from teenagers with too much to prove to each other and the world. I didn’t realise the laughter in this camp has changed. The men I’ve worked with for years are older. Calmer than they used to be.
Today I took pictures of eight young warriors in the fading sunlight. They are the newest entrants into our Warrior Watch Programme. As I grinned at their contagious toothy smiles, I was transported back almost 15 years to the Acacia tortillis tree where I met Jeneria, Jeremiah, Francis, and later a whole gang of equally enthusiastic young men.
Together we set up a camp using borrowed tents, make-shift tables and stones to demarcate our pathways in the camp. I had no idea what I was doing back then, but I knew why, – and that is what mattered and what kept us going. Lions that ventured out of the reserves either returned very quickly to safety, or never returned at all. The young men around me knew why, and had every reason to resent lion presence. Lions were killers of their cows and goats. But over time, lions became much more to them. We all got to know these lions together. We drew their faces, marked their whisker spots, tracked them on parched sand along the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro. We watched them have families and brimmed with pride as their cubs grew up on community lands.
We all grew up. Slowly, the sounds of cheering youth were replaced by little feet. The warriors got married in the most colourful ceremonies. They had children. And finally, I watched the last of the lot take off his beads and feathers, and shave his long ochre-filled mane, the last step before becoming a junior elder. He sat silently with the neat shaved hair in his hands like he was holding the cup of his youth for the last time.
Then came 2020. The year of circumcision, initiation into a new age. We all shed some bitter-sweet tears watching a new group decorate themselves for the first time, and strut their stuff.
Lekalkuli, Lekakwar, Lemarle, Lekoomet, Lekamario, Lekilemo, Lolchuragi and Lkasian are here with new courage, new ideas, new energy. We welcome them.
Meeting them has made me reflect a lot. Firstly, this new generation is, just like the last, not a homogeneous lot. Too often people talk about the communities that do community conservation as a unit, a living being that thinks the same and acts the same. But people are just people. They are different in their perspectives and actions, and you have to work with everyone if you want to move forward. Today’s new warriors say that they are more attuned to conservation than the previous lot. Maybe they are right. Maybe many of them are. But the challenges are greater than ever, and losing livestock to lions is just as hard, if not harder now. The new warriors have their work cut out for them.
Most importantly though, this passage of time has taught me that conservation itself takes time. I notice the impatience in the world to solve all our pressing issues. We feel like the world is crumbling beneath our feet. It is. Even I have grown impatient as I watch some of the most precious things vanish. But I disagree with the new wave that seems to promise that in one fell swoop, we can solve everything. I disagree with the new projects cropping up promising to save an entire species in a few months. It can’t be done. Trust me!
Conservation takes time. It takes a lot of people, and a lot of failure and tears. But as I photographed these warriors today, I was reminded that out of all of that, comes resilience and hope. The first time we did this, Jeneria held binoculars in his hands and had no idea what they were or how to use them. It was a while before his passion for lions grew into his very bloodstream. And longer before others wanted to join him. Fifteen years later, dozens have clamoured to get these eight spots to join Warrior Watch. All of them want to be like Jeneria. They want to be there to get camels out of harm’s way at dawn, just like him. They want to go out to see Nanai, daughter of Nashipai, and her new cubs.
We have come full circle. That is conservation.
- Generously funded by Whitley Fund for Nature, National Geographic – Big Cats Initiative and Houston Zoo.
