Rhodia Mann (born 1942) is a writer, researcher, bead and jewelry designer, and historian of several traditionally-pastoralist tribes in Kenya, including the Samburu and Borana tribes of northern Kenya. She has published six books and is the creator of a documentary, The Butterfly People. [1]
Mann is Polish-Romanian and was born in Kenya to parents who had fled Europe in the early 1940s as refugees from Nazi-invaded territory. Along with her brother and sister, Mann grew up in Nairobi while her parents worked with the British colonial government of Kenya. Her father, Igor, was a veterinarian and her mother, Erica, was an architect. Her childhood in Nairobi was filled with artists, writers, and intellectuals from all over the world. [2]
When Mann was nine years old, her father took her to visit the Samburu region of Kenya, then called the “Northern Frontier”. This visit inspired her interest in studying the land, life, and culture of the people who live there. [3]
When she was 16, Mann had a dream in which she returned to the Samburu region. After high school, she studied fashion design in London and later, business studies. She then moved to Manhattan, New York City. As she continued to travel the world, Mann's fascination with Kenyan history and culture merged with her interest in fashion, textiles, jewelry, and beads. When she was 30, Mann made her adolescent dream a reality and went back to Samburu. [4]
After many years of traveling to Samburu, Mann forged a close bond with a Samburu family north of Maralal. The matriarch of the family, named Ntaipi, officially “adopted” Mann. She was given the name “Noongishu”, which translates literally as “cattle”, but signifies a respected and independent woman within the community. [5] Mann eventually started her own safari company in the region, which specialized in taking tourists on vigorous camping expeditions in northern Kenya. [6]
During many years spent among the Samburu people studying their lifestyle and culture, Mann began documenting what she saw. She is the author of six books and the producer of a documentary, The Butterfly People. Each of these publications provides insights into the vibrant Samburu culture and their relationship with the Massai tribe. [7] Through her writing, Mann demystifies cultural ceremonies, addresses the generational stratification of Samburu family structure, and helps readers understand the spiritual importance of the stars. Mann was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of her devotion to research. [8]
In 2018, Mann donated her extensive 50-year collection of rare and historic Samburu artifacts to the International School of Kenya, where the Rhodia Mann Museum of Samburu Culture now exists. This permanent display is dedicated to educating students on the history of Samburu. It includes authentic traditional artifacts, ceremonial beads, warriors’ spears, and other articles essential to understanding the Samburu culture. The exhibit also includes maps, original photographs, and copies of Mann's published books. [9]
Mann is an accomplished jewelry designer and bead collector. In 2003 she curated an exhibition on beads at the National Museum of Kenya. [10] [11] The beads that have been adorning the Samburu people for many generations inspired many of Mann’s bead endeavors, and these artistic pieces remain one of her passions today.
Mann was once married, but later divorced. [12] She has two sons, both of whom live in New York City. Mann lives on the outskirts of Nairobi. [13]
Survivor: Africa is the third season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor. The season was filmed from July 11, 2001 through August 18, 2001 in Kenya's Shaba National Reserve on the African continent, and aired weekly from October 11, 2001 until the live finale on January 10, 2002, when Ethan Zohn was named Sole Survivor over Kim Johnson by a jury vote of 5-2. Hosted by Jeff Probst, it consisted of the usual 39 days of gameplay with 16 competitors.
Out of Africa is a 1985 American epic romantic drama film directed and produced by Sydney Pollack, and starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. The film is based loosely on the 1937 autobiographical book Out of Africa written by Isak Dinesen, with additional material from Dinesen's 1960 book Shadows on the Grass and other sources.
The Samburu are a Nilotic people of north-central Kenya. Samburu are semi-nomadic pastoralists who herd mainly cattle but also keep sheep, goats and camels. The name they use for themselves is Lokop or Loikop, a term which may have a variety of meanings which Samburu themselves do not agree on. Many assert that it refers to them as "owners of the land" though others present a very different interpretation of the term. Samburu speak the Samburu dialect of the Maa language, which is a Nilotic language. The Maa language is also spoken by other 22 sub tribes of the Maa community otherwise known as the Maasai. Many Western anthropologists tried to carve out and create the Samburu tribe as a community of its own, unaffiliated to its parent Maasai community, a narrative that seems to have sunk into the minds of many Samburu people today. There are many game parks in the area, one of the most well known is Samburu National Reserve. The Samburu sub tribe is the third largest in the Maa community of Kenya and Tanzania, after the Kisonko (Isikirari) of Tanzania and Purko of Kenya and Tanzania.
The Kamba or Akamba people are a Bantu ethnic group who predominantly live in the area of Kenya stretching from Nairobi to Tsavo and north to Embu, in the southern part of the former Eastern Province. This land is called Ukambani and constitutes Makueni County, Kitui County and Machakos County. They also form the second largest ethnic group in 8 counties including Nairobi and Mombasa counties.
Moyale is a market town, found between the border of Ethiopia and Kenya, the administrative centre for two woredas; Moyale of Somali Region and Moyale Oromia in Ethiopia.
Isiolo is a town in Isiolo County, of which it is the capital. It is located in the middle of Kenya, and lies 285 kilometres north of the capital Nairobi. The town grew around the local military camps, much of the population being descended from former Somali soldiers who had fought in World War I as well as other Cushitic-speaking pastoral communities and the Ameru community. The town has an estimated population of 80,000 people, most of them living in the rural outbacks of the District. There is an increasing urban population in the recent years, especially from as far as Moyale, Marsabit and Mandera. The Isiolo town is also becoming a centre of interest because of its newly acquired status as a resort city cashing in on the popular Samburu and Shaba Game reserves, which have become preferred destinations after the famed Maasai Mara. Isiolo lies along the long A2 Road, leading towards Marsabit and Moyale much farther north.
Grace Emily Ogot was a Kenyan author, nurse, journalist, politician and diplomat. Together with Charity Waciuma she was the first Anglophone female Kenyan writer to be published. She was one of the first Kenyan members of parliament and she became an assistant minister.
Saba Iassa Douglas-Hamilton is a Kenyan wildlife conservationist and television presenter. She has worked for a variety of conservation charities, and has appeared in wildlife documentaries produced by the BBC and other broadcasters. She is currently the manager of Elephant Watch Camp in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve and Special Projects Director for the charity Save the Elephants.
Bethwell Allan Ogot is a historian from Kenya. He specialises in African history, research methods and theory. One of his works starts by saying that "to tell the story of a past so as to portray an inevitable destiny is, for humankind, a need as universal as tool-making. To that extent, we may say that a human being is, by nature, historicus.
The Happy Valley set was a group of hedonistic, largely British and Anglo-Irish aristocrats and adventurers who settled in the "Happy Valley" region of the Wanjohi Valley, near the Aberdare mountain range, in colonial Kenya and Uganda between the 1920s and the 1940s. In the 1930s, the group became infamous for its decadent lifestyles and exploits amid reports of drug use and sexual promiscuity.
Umoja Uaso, is a village in Kenya. The village, founded in 1990, is an all-female matriarch village located near the town of Archers Post in Samburu County, 380 km (240 mi) from the capital, Nairobi. It was founded by Rebecca Lolosoli, a Samburu woman, as a sanctuary for homeless survivors of violence against women, and young girls running from forced marriages. The women of the Samburu people do not agree with violence and the traditional subordinate position of women.
Erica Mann was an architect and town planner and later in her life an NGO head who lived and worked in Kenya for almost all her adult life after fleeing her home in Romania during the Second World War. She made a significant contribution to the 1948 master plan for Nairobi and also took a leading role in planning Mombasa and other parts of Kenya. She became interested in development projects seeking to improve living standards and was director of the Women in Kibwezi project, which was recognised at the United Nations Habitat II conference in 1996. The "Woman in Kibwezi" project was but one of several NGO's she headed across Kenya, many of them engaged in fostering women's cooperatives. In 2003 she was honoured with the title of Architect Laureate for Kenya.
Tourism in Kenya is the second-largest source of foreign exchange revenue following agriculture. The Kenya Tourism Board is responsible for maintaining information pertaining to tourism in Kenya.
Mary Anne Fitzgerald is a British journalist, development aid worker and author, best known for her international war reporting in Africa, and two successful books.
Buffalo Springs National Reserve is a protected area in the Isiolo County in northern Kenya.
The greater Turkana Basin in East Africa determines a large endorheic basin, a drainage basin with no outflow centered around the north-southwards directed Gregory Rift system in Kenya and southern Ethiopia. The deepest point of the basin is the endorheic Lake Turkana, a brackish soda lake with a very high ecological productivity in the Gregory Rift.
The El Molo, also known as Elmolo, Dehes, Fura-Pawa and Ldes, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the northern Eastern Province of Kenya. They historically spoke the El Molo language as a mother tongue, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Cushitic branch, and now most El Molo speak Samburu.
Umra Omar is a Kenyan humanitarian and community conservation strategist. She is the founder of Safari Doctors, an organization that delivers primary medical care and health education by boat, air, and land to Bajuni and Aweer communities in Lamu, Kenya. In 2016, Umra Omar was named a Top 10 CNN Hero, and in 2017, she was named the UN in Kenya Person of the Year along with the rest of the Safari Doctors team.
The Laikipiak people were a community that inhabited the plateau located on the eastern escarpment of the Rift Valley in Kenya that today bears their name. They are said to have arisen from the scattering of the Kwavi by the Maasai in the 1830s.They were one of two significant sections of that community that stayed together. The other being the Uasin Gishu with whom they would later ally against the Maasai. Many Maa-speakers in Laikipia County today claim Laikipiak ancestry, namely those among the Ilng'wesi, Ildigirri and Ilmumonyot sub-sections of the Laikipia Maasai.
The Nairobi Gallery is an art gallery located in the capital of Kenya. The gallery is dedicated to showcasing African art.
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