Kenya Travel Journal
I started this Journal on 6/6. I’m back in Jersey now and need to get to work, so a quick 6/1 – 6/5 summary follows, then a more detailed account of the remainder of the trip.
Monday, June 1, 2009 – Tuesday, June 6, 2009.
Meet Corey and his friend Tom, at Newark Airport. Leave Newark the evening of 6/1. Transfer planes in Amsterdam. Unexpectedly upgraded to first class! Arrive Nairobi, Kenya, evening of 6/2. Greeted by Mr. Philip & Mrs. Bernadette Thiuri, our gracious hosts in Kenya. Meet Susan, a human rights lawyer who is staying at the Thiuri’s while she works to help the poor of Kibera, Africa’s biggest slum, prominently featured in The Constant Gardener. Dinner at the Thiuri’s. June 3: Bernadette and Timothy take us the Escarpment overlooking the Rift Valley. Tom battles with vendors trying to sell him trinkets. Tour of the National Zoo in Nairobi; pet cheetah. June 4: Depart later than planned for Mairi Rural Reading Center. Lunch at Blue Post. Dinner at Bernadette’s mother’s in Mairi. Pound through about two thirds of the books we need to log, with assistance from Timothy and Bernadette’s brother. June 5: Finish up cataloging books, then tour the village and surrounding area with Corey, Tom, Timothy and Bernadette’s brother – with me at the wheel of Mrs. Thiuri’s Toyota. Fair Trade is doing wonders for this village. They just built a new clinic and soccer pitch. Pick tea leaves in the field. Tour Mairi Primary & Secondary Schools with Peter Thuku, Head Teacher. Lots of exuberant children imploring “How are you?” “How are you?”! I’m nearly brought to tears at the all but total absence of teaching aids, coupled with Mr. Thuku’s steady professionalism and determination to enrich his student’s lives. Bumpy ride back to Nairobi.
Saturday, June 6, 2009.
I began the day with what I thought would be an unpleasant but not to be missed Kenya experience - a Matatu ride. Matatus, AKA ‘Nissans’, are Kenya’s answer to mass transit. Privately owned, maintained and driven recklessly, notoriously accident prone, equipped with high decibel sound systems, and often sporting colorful, flashing LEDs and video. They transport a driver, a pusher who loads/unloads passengers and a dozen or more passengers. To ride in a Matatu is to engage all your senses. Despite a wholly alien experience and the higher than usual probability of injury via auto accident, this mzungu (white man or as Corey, Tom and I decided, 'whitie') felt little in the way of discomfort or nervousness. I felt very much alive and enjoyed the KSH 20 ($0.25) ride immensely. Having made it to Wilson Airport in one piece, I caught my flight to Massi Mara. The beautiful estates scattered about Nairobi I did not see from the ground were conspicuous from the air. After a few minutes of flight the city faded away, replaced by seemingly endless scrubland, punctuated by traditional villages whose defining characteristic is a circular disturbance on the landscape, inside which the villager’s livestock, among other things, are kept safe from predators. A short while later we begin our descent into the vast Mara grasslands. Elephants, buffalo, and hippos come quickly into view. I disembarked, then jumped into the co-pilot's seat on my connecting flight for a short hop to a airstrip on the far end of the park. I was met by Keith, my guide and member of the family that owns Impiripiri Camp, and Sanbae, a Massai tracker. Almost immediately I began snapping pictures of wildlife, including a pride of seven lions. Ate lunch beside the Sand River, which Keith and I crossed momentarily, thereby delivering us to Tanzania. There are plenty of descriptions of the Mara, far more eloquent than then my writing skills allow, so I won’t go on about its beauty. Suffice it to say: the swaying grasses, blue skies dotted with puffy white clouds, and distant hills are vast and sublimely beautiful. At the end of a long and satisfying day shooting game w/ my Kodak, I had a fantastic dinner, sat ‘round the Camp fire for a bit, then slept soundly.
Sunday, June 7, 2009.
5:00 rise and shine. 5:30 depart Camp to spot wildlife. Saw a bush baby on the way out of Camp, then countless lions, elephants, buffalo, hippos, gazelles, zebra, giraffe, baboons…etc. Keith is an excellent guide, and Sanbae’s tracking abilities are surely unsurpassed. Lunch was beside the Mara River, overlooking the hippos below. The day’s highlights included seeing a hyaena with a huge chunk of probably stolen meat clenched in his jaws, the mating lions letting loose a thundering ‘climax roar’, touring Impiripiri’s array of eco friendly built environment with Greg, and with the guidance of two Massai ‘tracking’ giraffe who had wondered into Camp at dusk. Dinner was excellent, once again.
Monday, June 8, 2009.
Awoke to a sublime Mara sunrise, in full view through the mosquito netting separating the front of my tent from Camp. Had a great breakfast, then rode into Sanbae's village with Greg and Keith. Keith started by showing me around the area outside the lion/cheetah/leopard fence encircling the Village's few homes and two livestock pens. Sanbae's family has put down roots in this spot, abandoning generations of nomadic tradition just a few years earlier. In full view was the village’s first attempt at growing corn; from the looks of the uneven crop, a difficult task in the Mara. Keith then led me through the fence and inside the circle. We inspected the cattle pen and the goat pen, both elevated several feet off what would otherwise be ground level by dung. The smell of the cattle pen was bearable, but I was happy to leave the goat pen. Sanbae then welcomed me to his home; like the rest of the Village, all but utterly devoid of Western influences. Constructed of cow dung and sticks, and consisting of six rooms by my count:
~ a low and narrow entry - designed to discourage predatory animals from entering?
~ a womb like main room, about 6x6, warm and dark, soft underfoot, with embers glowing in the hearth
~ sleeping quarters situated on either side of the hearth room, each large enough for sleeping but little else, elevated a bit above ground level, one for Sanbae, and one for a wife and young children. The Massi are polygamous. Sanbae has two wives – I’m not sure where the other one sleeps – and is rumored to be taking a third
~ there are two additional rooms, also off the central hearth room, one for goat calves and the other for cow calves
The structure is extraordinarily modest, substantially smaller than the two story, spacious structures of the Sherpa, my only other point of comparison. Their size is likely a function of the Massai’s traditional nomadic lifestyle. Why invest energy in a large home when it will be occupied for only a few years before the villagers' cattle degraded the surrounding landscape sufficiently to prompt a move to more productive pastures. Form follows function; if Sanbae's village remains settled, it will be interesting to see if their dwelling structures become larger and more permanent.
Upon exiting Sanbae's home I saw a group of about two dozen women, many with babies nestled comfortably in slings around their mother's backs, who had assembled in a large circle, their bead work and other crafts attractively displayed on blankets before them. I purchased about a half dozen items, colorful and glistening in the African sun. That was it: a memory to last a lifetime.
Off I went, to the airstrip for my 11:00 to Nairobi. The flight was uneventful, and was not delayed by the elephants crossing the runway as we arrived. Each passenger seemed to have a more exciting experience than the last, topped by young the couple from London who saw a cougar 'kill'.
Upon arrival in Nairobi I immediately went to work booking a trip to Lamu, a small mostly Muslim island off the coast of Northern Kenya. I settled for Mombasa, having missed Monday's morning flight to Lamu.
I touched down in Mombasa, Kenya ‘round 6:40 PM, offloaded, then met “James”, the other Steve's driver, who took me to the wrong hotel despite twice confirming my destination. James speaks English, but does not understand the language; like Jason, my former Indian bookkeeper. Apparently James should have picked up some other Steve at the airport. I nearly caught a bullet shortly before arriving at the wrong hotel - a beach resort of the all-inclusive variety, where all sorts of diversions are dreamt up to keep boredom at bay. James thought the shots fired from the side of the road at precisely the moment we drove by were discharged by plain clothed police officers, which seemed a plausible explanation. It all happened so quickly, and was so surreal, I didn’t have time to be frightened. I was taken to correct hotel after the manager who failed to give James his intended passenger's surname tried, unsuccessfully of course, to have me pay the fare from the airport to her hotel. Upon arrival the driver who was supposed to collect me at the airport showed me the "Stephen" sign he was holding and berated me for "not knowing your name". Ate over cooked pasta at the hotel's overstaffed rooftop restaurant, offering "excellent food" according to Lonely Planet's East Africa guidebook. The restaurant and adjacent flower lined pool stand in stark contrast to the chaotic and decrepit city below. Welcome to Mombasa!
Tuesday, June 9.
Mayoral election today in Hoboken. In light of my not being dependent on the City for my livelihood, I voted via absentee ballot for the New Hampshire native who wants to lower taxes and re-privatize the municipal hospital which is hemorrhaging money. Awoke at God knows what hour by an Iman blaring morning prayer from loudspeaker for all the city's people - Muslims, Christians, Anamists, Hindus…and me…to hear. Highly offensive, I thought, especially in light of the East African slave trade, in which more than one million Africans were sent to Muslim and other countries over the course of several centuries of Arab rule. The Trade ended completely only in the 1960s, when Oman outlawed the enslavement of non-Muslims (infidels); the enslavement of Muslims is prohibited by the Koran. Showered, ate breakfast on the rooftop, made arrangements to return to Nairobi today rather than tomorrow, then went out on foot exploring. The dedication to tradition among Mombasa's diverse population, at least to the casual observer, is remarkable. Women dressed in hajib, burka, and sari. Bearded Muslim men wearing Fez. To use a tired metaphor, if the US is largely a melting pot, Mombasa is a salad. A fascinating display of humanity, both wonderful in its diversity and, when coupled with the filth and poverty, street urchins, beggars, and peddlers, frightening - especially to a foreigner in a city to which he is completely unaccustomed, roaming around trying to find Old Town and Fort Jesus without a map. They were both largely disappointments, but Mombasa was not. While not enjoyable, it was worthwhile. Perhaps I understand just a little bit better the mystery that is humanity, and if not, at least I picked up a few stories to bore my friends with.
I never thought I’d be relieved to see Nairobi, but I was. Upon arrival at the Thiuri’s home, I had a stimulating conversation with Sue about Kibera, Palestine, US foreign policy, and Iran, then took a taxi to Karen and kicked back some beers and swapped stories with Corey and Tom. Round trip taxi fare: 2,500 shillings. Beers for the three of us: $550 shillings.
Wednesday, June 10.
Last day. Awoke ‘round 7:30, showered, ate and headed off to Kibera, the Africa's largest slum, with Sue, Corey and Tom. Met Katherine, a Kibera resident befriended by Sue, en route. Purchased a few kilos of provisions - rice, beans, sugar, flower, etc - to feed the over one hundred children at the school/day care run by Katherine and her two sisters. A short walk later and we descended, literally and figuratively, into Kibera, population 800,000. Kibera is a testament to many things: corruption, indifference, incompetence, greed, hope, fear, filth - horrible, stinking filth - and above all else, perseverance. Homes are constructed of mud and stick walls, and corrugated metal roofs. God willing a severe storm will never hit Kibera - the homes would be torn apart. City services - electricity, garbage pickup, water, and most appalling, sewers - are rare or non-existent. The smell is at times overpowering, causing a colleague of Susan's, when first visiting Kibera, to barf. Rivulets of raw sewerage flow through the pathways of Kibera; there is no excuse for it. For chump change the open sewers could be enclosed, if only sufficient will existed to do so. We finally made our way to Katherine's home, a roughly 10x10 structure housing her and her three children. We purchased some lovely handcrafts from Katherine then made our way to the school, where we were greeted by nearly 100 mostly joyous children. Blessed, an expressionless, HIV positive four year-old girl, will forever haunt me.
After the school we walked to the Brothers of Charity Mission. The Brothers serve men and boys, many of whom are Down Syndrome, crippled, or both, including Jeffery, 18 years old and delivered to the Brothers last year by Sue about not long after he lost his legs while laying on the train tracks that give Kibera it's name. His mother was about to abandon him and pleaded to Susan for her assistance in finding someone to care for Jeffery. I was speechless, both at the horrible existence that is Jeffery’s life, and the uplifting mission of the Brothers. Words fail me.
I don't know all of the impact Kibera and the Brother's Mission will have on me, but I suspect it will strengthen me, and cause me to appreciate all that I have to be thankful for. To see the most incomprehensively disadvantaged carrying on, coping, carving out a life for themselves - unbowed - is both remarkable and inspiring.
I ended the day at the restaurant and estate of Isak Dinesen, AKA Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa, another thrilling Matatu ride, goodbys, a spendy cab ride to Jomo Kenyetra I'ntl, and a flight to Amsterdam.
Thursday, June 11.
Arrived in Amsterdam 'round 6:00 AM. Purchased a train ticket to Centraal Station. No wonder so few people have cars in Europe: the train comes frequently, and is smooth, quiet, and clean. We have much to learn from The Netherlands. At Centraal Station there is a huge parking lot and garage, for bikes of course, countless thousands of them. I roamed the City in the rain, well worth the inconvenience. Bikes outnumber cars by a large margin! Consequently, Amsterdam is quiet and belongs to people, not cars. Amsterdam belongs to the people, not to the mall owner or the car. It's difficult to express in words how much this matters; it causes me to feel as though I belong here. Perhaps I do :).
