[meteorite-list] Kenya meteorite

From: Dave Gheesling <dave_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:30:07 -0400
Message-ID: <DA92864B32234CA3ABCF47EDE9FF2198_at_meteorroom>

That's a great story, Michael, and it looks to be a great meteorite as
well...
Congrats!
Dave
www.fallingrocks.com

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Michael
Farmer
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:28 PM
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: [meteorite-list] Kenya meteorite

A little more background on the fall,

First want to thank Greg Hupe who went with me for trip #2 less than a week
after trip one. I wanted to get more money, get the first stones home safe
and in the lab and back to Kenya. I had to cancel another trip planned for
months with Greg, so only proper thing to do was invite him. He was most
accomodating of the rapid change in continents we were going to visit when
he saw the stones I got from the first trip.

Congrats to Robert Ward who also recovered a stone in the field, saving it
from sure destruction under tropical rains.


We had a lot of fun, we also worked our asses off, dawn to dark, endless
hours of every day stuck in traffic jams just to reach the strewnfield.
Cobras, yes, I am not kidding, Greg had close encounter with a Cobra that
stood up and scared one of our workers nearly to death, he ran from the
field, Greg went to see it but it went down a hole before he saw it. Place
crawling with snakes, I was of course in shorts:) so after the worker came
screaming to the car, I left the field myself for safer quarters.

The people were nice, the secret police found us, threatened us, got to the
point and demanded their cut of the payday to allow us to work. The usual in
Africa, another day, another shilling.

I paid great money to the locals, either for stones or for workers and
supervisors to monitor the workers, money none of them could refuse, most of
them got a year or years of salary for stone worthless to them, changed
their lives. For example the woman who sold me the 3.5 kg stone bought cows
and pigs, went back to give her photos I promised her, she told me she
invested some of the money in livestock, she bought 4 piglets and told me in
a year she would have 20 pigs. she could not afford a single pig before that
meteorite fell and like a gift from heaven, she got more money than she had
ever seen in her life. I will not sell it.

More than one month after the fall, hundreds of deperately poor people
searching, 11.8 kg has been found plus the ~2.5 kg original mass.
I thought more would be found, but not so easy.

I flew 39,224 miles, spent more than $28,000 on expenses, went on safari,
saw things I have never seen, and recovered a meteorite for science and
collectors alike.

Hopefully this is a good thing, but sadly I am sure some will try to destroy
my work.
Thanks for the support from those who like what I do to get you the things
in your collections.

Trying to work on a webpage, but my computer will have none of it, so giving
up for the day. Will try again tomorrow.
Michael Farmer
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Received on Wed 24 Aug 2011 04:30:07 PM PDT