... if a nuclear war struck and only the Kenyan Kikuyu survived, they would still have 85% of the genetic variation of mankind; with a similar history and conditions, they too would turn blond and blue-eyed under the northern sun.
J M Ledgard, Exodus, Intelligent Life, Summer 2009

The temperature between the wadi walls must be in the mid-forties, but it is somehow pleasant here, with a bit of wind passing from one valley to the other. Abdullah leaves the goats and women behind, and takes me five minutes up a nook in the wadi. The walls get narrower until they close in, forming a little bowl in which a spring bubbles to life. This is the reason why Slooh is inhabited, why the Rahbis have lived here for generations, why the goats are kept at the base of the slope. The rock face turns sheer from now on, and you can see that the wall in front is impassable from this angle for it is too smooth and high. It is obvious that this is also the path of seasonal waterfalls when it rains in the mountains, and this, along with the spring, has led to a handful of stunted, twisted trees taking root out of the cracks in the rock.

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