Africa Trip Part 6 – back in Nairobi

We spent our last night in Africa in Nairobi at the same hotel where we started – the Fairmont Norfolk. It was nice to get back into civilization again with a working wifi system, a TV, and a lovely place to have dinner. We retrieved our luggage containing our city clothes that we had stored there, and immediately sent a big load to be washed.

The highlight of our stay in Nairobi, and probably one of the main highlights of our whole African trip, was meeting a young Nairobi man, Pascal, for breakfast the next morning. I had heard about him through my friend and writing instructor, Ellen Bass, and our tour director, Anastasia’s Africa, helped arrange the meeting.

My husband Bob and I spent an hour with him talking about the Kenyan orphan situation – out of 30 million people in Kenya, 1.3 million are orphans caused by HIV/AIDS and cancer deaths of the parents – the economy, the Chinese poaching, and the corruption in the Kenyan government. After breakfast we walked into Nairobi’s already crowded and hot business district near the hotel as the shops were just beginning to open.

Pascal and I also exchanged information about our writing lives. He’s been writing since boyhood, and he recently had some short stories and poems published. One won a prize, which appears below. Because of his brother’s suicide death ten years ago he has been writing to heal – a subject near and dear to my heart. It always amazes me that no matter where I go or whom I speak with, I find they have or know someone who has suffered a similar loss as mine. Now I’m happy to say Pascal and I are sharing our writing and continuing our conversation through email.

Pascal is the CEO of G.R.A.C.E. Grassroots Alliance for Community Education., a not-for-profit organization that provides programs in early childhood development, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) education sponsorship, agricultural development at its ten-acre farm in the Nanyuki district in the Mt. Kenya region, legal and social justice, and technical and financial assistance to their grassroots partners. When I first found out about this organization through Ellen about a year ago, I gave a little donation. Please join me. Here are some its donor partners in the United States.

Here is Pascal’s award winning poem:

The Flags are tattered

by Pascal Masila Mailu

Winner of 2011 Hay Festival poetry contest

The flags are tattered and stained, brethren

From Cairo to Jo'burg, Tunis to Addis.

Should we take a break from the tweeted riots

To revisit the blurred transition from OAU to AU...

From Gaddafi to the rebels......or is it NATO?

The flags are in tatters, mother

For in SA, they openly discuss the price

of old Madiba's casket

While the old icon sadly smiles

Weighed down by the impossible food and fuel prices.

And the wind…O what happened to the wind?

The powerful, revolutionary wind of change

That blew across the then green continent

in the rolling 60's and coup-infested 70s and 80s?

Have we finally replaced the Kalashnikov

with facebook?

The AK 47 with twitter?

The flags are tattered, elders

For today's youth swim in alien terminologies

coated with violence – pre and post election

tribal and clan-based

Sometimes hanging out or in

Eternally glued to giant screens,

Dying of state-induced idleness and self pity.....

The flags are tattered, children

for I anxiously await my exit - surrounded by sinking nations

Torn apart by negative ethnicity, oil-coated imperialism,

hollow political pledges and dusty manifestos

While slums mushroom in every open space....

Brother – what happened to the land we fought for?

Who stole our land and future

Leaving us cramped in Kibera, Soweto, Kawempe and Kechene?

Let’s take time brethren

To slowly mend the flags in between disputed elections

And re-inject authenticity to the national anthems

Lest the continent implodes from internal bleeding

In her mid fifties

Note we're toasting
with water and tea

Soon after our meeting with Pascal, our tour company arrived with two vans to take us to the airport. One to carry our luggage and the other to carry the four of us. While our travel mates went directly to Paris, Bob and I stopped for about twenty-four hours in Dubai before going  on to Paris for the last four days of our trip. What we all call the nadir of our trip was waiting for our flights out of Nairobi in the so-called business class lounge – hot, uncomfortable tents with porta-potties next door. It looked like the Nairobi airport still had a way to go to recover from its recent fire.

But I don’t want to end my tale of our African trip on a sour note. Again, I have to say it was a trip of a lifetime. I recommend it to everyone whether adventuresome or not. The people, animals, birds, and landscapes are breathtaking. One of these days I’m going to put out a picture book that will show you what I mean.

Africa Trip Part 2 - Samburu, Kenya

We left our Nairobi hotel bright and early on Sunday morning, September 2, and flew via Air Kenya to our first safari stop, Samburu, Kenya. The flight was approximately one and one-quarter hours, and every seat in the twin-engine plane was full. We landed in Samburu on a dirt runway and as soon as we deplaned we met our guide, Bon-i. Take a look. No words could describe his wonderful African costume and beaded accessories.

Almost immediately he piled Bob and me and our traveling companions, Joel and Susan, and our duffle bags, various backpacks, jackets, hats, scarves, and camera equipment into his open-sided four-wheel drive vehicle, and we set out on our first game drive.

Bon-i, who is very knowledgeable about the game and birds and landscape of the Samburu reserve, told us right away his goal for us was to see the Samburu special five: Grevy’s zebra (a larger animal with narrower stripes than the plain zebra), Somali ostrich, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk, and the beisa oryx. Of course he promised we’d see other wonderful animals and birds as well.

While he drove – with the driver’s seat on the right – he looked on the ground for footprints and dung deposits, and he talked on his car radio communication system to other guides in the area about the whereabouts of the animals. Even though I was bumping around a bit, I was just happy to be there. Any animals out in this vast reserve of grasslands, rugged and rocky hills and plains would thrill me to no end. As we drove we started to peel off our jackets and sweaters. Samburu was the hottest of the five areas in Africa we visited.

First, Bon-i taught us a few necessary words in Swahili (which has forty-two different dialects). Pretty soon we could say, “jambo” for hello, “asante sana” for thank you very much, and “karibu” for you’re welcome with the best of them. One of our favorites that we said over and over is “hakuna matata,” meaning no worries, a phrase made popular in the musical, “The Lion King.”

We spent three hours on this first drive – all in the direction of our lodge, Saruni. Here’s a short list of what we saw: a bustard, many Kirk’s dik-dik (one of the many kinds of antelope in Africa), black face monkey, crocodiles, Grevy’s zebra, female and male reticulated giraffes, guinea fowls, Grater kudu, a cheetah, the secretary bird, gerenuk, oryx, and a white leopard. Bon-i also pointed out huge ant farms, termite mounds (some dormant and some not), the turquoise bark of the juniper tree, the many acacia trees with huge hanging African weaver bird’s nests, and the many dry river beds in the area.

As promised we arrived at Saruni in time for lunch – about 1:30 – and we received the royal safari welcome: a line up of the staff in native costumes, a cold cloth, and a cold mixed drink of tea and juices.

Saruni, though not a tent camp, looks like it belongs to the land. Built on a hill we trekked up many steps to get to our suite. The four of us shared a living room, and each couple had a separate bedroom and bath with an outdoor shower. Did that feel good after our hot drive. Plus the view while showering was spectacular.

And I must say the food at Saruni was the best of all places for me. I was especially impressed with the Saruni staff, most notably Benson and Kennedy (who asked us lots of questions about American politics). Very mindful of my restrictive diet of no dairy, no gluten, and no red meat, they always served me something delicious and healthful.

We rested after lunch and went on another game drive late in the afternoon. This time we didn’t see as much: the skink lizard, cinnamon bee eater, and the augur buzzard, but Bon-i had the makings of nice little happy hour libations that we shared in the bush.

The next morning we left on our game drive before breakfast – Bon-i planned a picnic for us – and we really got into the thick of it. We saw the tiny bush babies up in a tree, more oryx (antelope), the red-billed horn bill, our first sightings of elephants, impalas, more Grevy’s zebra, mongoose, standing gerenuk, an olive baboon family, the Somali ostrich, Grant’s gazelle, and five more reticulated giraffes. While we ate breakfast on the banks of the Ewaso Ngiro (brown) river, we saw marabou and the absolutely superb starling.

On our way back to the lodge we asked Bon-i if it was possible to buy artifacts from the natives rather than the shop there. He called ahead and took us to a little airport area not too far from our lodge where several women in full regalia set up shop – really just stands made out of rickety wood. I bought colorfully beaded necklaces and bracelets – all for gifts to our great nieces – and Bob bought four beaded coasters. The woman who sold me my artifacts gave me a little bracelet, and we took a photo together.

The second day we deviated from an evening game drive. While Joel and Susan rested, Bob and I took a late afternoon guided walk to the Water Dam – about an hour’s trek up and downhill from the lodge. Bon-i was with us, and much to our surprise he brought along a ranger, dressed like a soldier who carried an automatic rifle. I guess those guys are serious about keeping the tourists safe. That was also evident in the evenings after dark. We always had a guide to walk us from our rooms back and forth to dinner, and that guide carried a flashlight and a spear.

We stayed at Saruni for two nights, and ate lunches and dinners with other guests at the lodge. This kind of gathering, sitting at long tables together, was a highlight of our safari experience. It was always nice to meet people from other parts of the world. Everyone told their favorite safari stories and shared about their animal sightings of the day.

And, thanks to Bon-i we saw each of the Samburu special five, and much, much more. Our next goal, however, was to see lions and rhinos. We'd see them at our next safari stop, Bon-i predicted.

The next installment is about Masai Mara and the Elephant Pepper tent camp.

Africa Trip Part 1 - Nairobi

Since so many people have asked about our trip to Africa, over the next few weeks I'll share some highlights at: Nairobi, Samburu, Masai Mara, Serengeti, Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro crater, then back to Nairobi. 

Part 1 - Nairobi

We arrived at the Nairobi airport at 2 am. The place was practically deserted and that was good, since the main terminal’s welcoming hall, destroyed by a fire two weeks earlier, was nothing more than a large tent. We got our luggage quickly and met our tour group driver, Martin, outside. Since it was so early in the morning Martin said we should have no traffic, and we’d be at our hotel – the Norfolk – in about ten minutes.

By the way, I keep wondering if the airport fire was a warning from the terrorists who attacked the mall in Nairobi several weeks later. But we'll never know about that for sure, will we? 

And then almost right after we left the airport we passed a horrific accident. The car involved looked like it went through a mangler, and we learned later that someone died. With police and rescue vehicles lining the road, it took us more than ten minutes just to get around them. Then about a minute later I heard a large noise like we had run over something big and metal. It turned out the car passing us on the left – illegal with right-hand driving rules – clipped the front of our van. The car stopped, five drunken guys named “Vinny” got out and started arguing. Then they took off. Martin with us in the back seat raced after them, made them stop, and they all got out of their car again. I was scared. I really thought they were going to fight with Martin and we would end up being stranded on the road with no way to communicate with anyone. Thankfully, though they were drunk, they were not violent.

Even Bob wanted to get out of the car to see if he could speed things up, but I wouldn’t let him. What could he do? He probably couldn’t even communicate with them. Finally Martin got the information he needed and returned to the van, and we were finally on our way to our hotel. All told, it took us over an hour to get there. After a long plane ride from London, on the very uncomfortable Turkish Airlines, and our adventurous ride from the airport, I was ready to collapse.

Of course I felt much better in the morning. I got up early, went to the gym, and walked through our hotel’s beautiful grounds overflowing with flowering plants. After breakfast in the outdoor restaurant we ventured out just a little, following the music. Singers and dancers were entertaining across the street at the National Theatre. We also spoke to four young men selling their new CD, which I bought for $3 American.

We had a four-hour tour scheduled for the afternoon with our two traveling companions, again with Martin driving. However, the Nairobi traffic was so horrendous – many times worse than the Los Angeles freeways – that we only made it to two places: The Karen Blixen museum and grounds  – so much like I remember from the movie “Out of Africa” – where a museum docent gave us a private tour, and then we went on to the Nairobi cultural center to do a little shopping.

That night after eating at the hotel, we prepared our bags. We left two bags with clothes for the France part of our trip at the hotel to store and stuffed our small duffle bags with our safari clothes. We were told to pack light – no more than thirty-three pounds – and we did. Unfortunately I took the instructions much too literally. I could have added a couple more pairs of slacks and a lightweight sweater or two and no one would have complained.

The four of us left for the airport early the next morning to take our first tiny plane ride to our first safari stop in Kenya, Samburu.

The next installment is about Samburu.