It was a coming home of sorts. We looked down into the excavation site- this is where a band of hominids roamed the plains. Paleoecological evidence indicated that there once was a large lake here at Olorgesailie. Since then the lake had receded to the salt flats at Magadi and the hominids have long gone extinct.
As the sun retreated over the hill, we watched as the sky was painted black and stars provided the backlighting. We weren’t familiar with these constellations but we knew they had been there for millennia. We lay down looking upwards and felt connected to the early people that once lived there. They must have looked up at these same stars and marvelled at their beauty, maybe even asking the same questions. We were to leave Magadi the next morning and the end of the field course was on the horizon. But, the stars will always remind us- whether you are from Kenya, China or Canada- that we are all connected in time and space. We all live on the same earth, had the same ancestors, and share a collective future.
By: Patrick Mugabe and Sevan Boudakian (MMASc in Global Health Systems in Africa Candidates) and Erika Freeman (Collaborative Program in Global Health Systems Candidate)
The Africa Institute Blog 