Election day dawned bright and sunny and we began as usual with early morning tea and a walk. The elephants were very active and close this morning so Solomon called for an armed ranger to walk with us. Thanks to him we saw relatively fresh wild dog footprints - so they are around. We also saw leopard prints very close to the Lodge.......indeed during breakfast we heard the Kudu alarm call and look and we heard, but didn't see, a leopard growl so we knew it was somewhere near and either resting, eating or passing through.
We agreed to meet Solomon and Chris around 0930 to go with them to their polling stations to see democracy in action.
Solomon's station was the closest and under an acacia tree .......it had 167 registered voters, made up predominantly of the Masai community, and by late morning 92 had already voted. The presiding officer was a local head teacher and she was having to spend a lot of time with the illiterate voters explaining the ballot papers, she was watched over by literate mentors (which included Solomon's wife and Pauline, one of the massage therapists from the lodge) who ensured it was an impartial briefing and guidance. This was made more complex because there were 6 different ballots, the Presidential vote being only one of them. Having voted they had to put the different coloured cards into the appropriate boxes. Although the queue to register was long and slow when Solomon had registered he was quick to vote as he was one of the few literate ones who could go into a booth on his own- we could just see the top of his head! Next we took Chris to the school where he was registered to vote (over 360 were registered here and when we arrived at midday 250+ had voted). This station used the technology that the Kenyans had spent millions on to ensure people didn't vote twice i.e. a computer database and fingerprint reader to register voters the voting however was still paper and pen.
The deputy head who was an assistant to the presiding officer said they had had a phone especially installed, by the government, to ring the votes through on - once used it would become useless so they had to be correct first time with their count.
Our afternoon was spent relaxing I had a swim and massage; John avoided the swim and watched the wildlife albeit he did have a massage.
In the evening we went to John and Gills newly built house - gone are their tents to be replaced by a lovely open eco friendly house. We started with drinks on their deck behind the house - after the sunset we went back down to the house for dinner while keeping an eye on the television for the early election results - Kenyatta led (and it remained as such until the final results were announced 3/4 days later - his vote was just over 50% so there was no need for a second ballot and he was subsequently declared the winner). Ironically he has just be indicted by the international court for crimes against humanity regarding inciting the violence at the 2007 elections - he is supposed to appear there in August!
An interesting day - peaceful across the country and it was great to watch the local peoples enthusiasm for exercising their democratic right.

(We agreed with Solomon not to take photos of the elections so today's picture is of a Kilpspringer that stands guard near the Lodge - it has the most fantastically marked ears!)