Kenya and the 2013 Great Migration

There is great excitement as this year's vacation gets underway.

And as we plunge into our special experience, I can't help but think about what-has-been (as Beryl Markham or Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen might have written). The difference, though, is that this experience is not about leaving somewhere. It's about going back.

Even so, Markham herself shared that sort of reverse mental picture as she wrote about a big change she was experiencing in her life.

Here's what she wrote at the opening of Chapter IX of her memoir (West with the Night):

Somebody with a flair for small cynicism one said: "We live and do not learn." But I have learned some things.

I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are buried deep - leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late.

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with Markham on this.

Yes, I very much support the contention of many, including our special Peter Drucker, whose thoughts about re-inventing one's self connects here. It is best to move forward, "opening a new page" as we move into an unknown (or perhaps - in this case - known) future. In my way of thinking about it, though, I tend to be more focused on what's coming, and what that future will bring and - I must admit - that I'm not too concerned with that "dead hour." It's gone, it's respected, I've learned from it, but I'm much more interested in what I will learn.

All this comes to mind and resonates with me as I think about my visit to Kenya. My pleasure in this journey is sweetly strengthened by the fact that this time we bring with us four "new" visitors, introducing them to our (almost) favorite place in the world. We brought two people into the I-love-Kenya camp with our safari in late 2010 (after I had lived there for a year), and now four more people will return to America to share Kenya adventure stories with their friends.

What pleasures do we expect? Certainly high on the list are visits with friends and loved ones who live in Kenya, people who have become part of our lives and who are simply referred to as "our Kenya family." Other people? Of course. If there's time I'll head over to the client with whom I worked for a year and, perhaps, have a few "professional" conversations to review and be pleased with (I hope) progress made since my assignment ended. And perhaps some more casual encounters, perhaps looking up my barber, the lady who took care of me where I lived, and other people I came to know in my time in Kenya.

In truth, though, this year's journey is holiday, a vacation from from the workaday world of my life in America. And the timing this year is carefully chosen, as it has been specifically determined by Africa's Great Migration. As this is truly a natural phenomenon, the dates for the migration are based solely on when the wildebeests and other ungulates figure out that the grass is greener on the other side of the Mara River and dare to endanger their lives (some of them) to get across the river, attempting to get through the crocodiles to make a path for the thousands of others behind them, all of them trying to get to the green grass they need. And once they get across there's another gauntlet, as other predators - larger carnivores - are waiting hungrily for them.

Still, many wildebeests, zebra, Thomson's gazelle, and eland make it through (some 2,000,000, it has been estimated), and seeing them all as they transverse this great expanse of land is truly a spectacular site. As usual with me, once I experienced the Great Migration I couldn't stop talking about it, which is why we're going now and taking people back with us. And for those who are interested, my version of my earlier Great Migration experiences was told back in 2010 here at my personal blog. Take a look at the archive dates to the left; go to the posts between August 22 and September 25, 2010 and you'll learn much about Mr. Guy's experiences with the Great Migration. On top of that, there's also a good picture of the Great Migration is the CBS News (90 Minutes) feature from 2009. It's a good story, well-told.

As for what we'll see, naturally we're going to enjoy the spectacle of the Great Migration, but in introducing our friends to Kenya we'll see lots more, including the spectacular scenery (lots of photos of that as well, in the 2009-2010 blog posts here at the personal blog). And Mr. Guy will of course take his pals to see his elephants, especially at the Amboseli National Park - in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro. [And no, we won't be climbing Mr. Kilimanjaro - I've wanted to do that for years but there are a very practical couple of reasons I've not done it: 1) I'm not really a climber and 2) I can't find anyone who will train with me for the time required, so I've come to realize that Mr. Guy's climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro will remain in the realm of fantasy!]

But there's more at Amboseli, although it will be probably the elephants that will have my attention. As it turns out (I don't know why) Amboseli is the one area of Kenya where the elephants have lived somewhat protected lives, and many of the animals are very old indeed. Very old and, as far as any of us visitors can tell, very gentle. The poaching that is ravaging Africa (and even taking place in Kenya, to some degree, even though Kenya seriously outlawed elephant poaching about ten years ago) does not seem to have made its way into Amboseli, making this park absolutely perfect for two spectacular game drives a day. And we intend to take full advantage of them.

We'll also have game drives at the Nairobi National Park, the Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks, have a drive through the beautiful tea country to get to Kisii (where we'll see more friends and other members of our Kenya family), and visit the museums and some of Kenya's historic sites in and around Nairobi. We're having a splendid adventure!

Come August, watch this space. [But don't be disappointed if there isn't be much written before then - I'll do what I can but I expect I'm going to be pretty busy!]

Flat Stanley Goes to Kenya (2): Visiting Mt. Kenya

When Mr. Guy and Mr. Andrew invited Flat Stanley on the Kenya safari, they said he would see some beautiful countryside, and the safari began with a visit to Mt. Kenya. The Kikuyu, Meru, and Akamba communities think of Mt. Kenya as the home of the gods, and it is easy to see why. It is the highest mountain in Kenya, and a great attraction for serious mountain climbers. Our guide, a member of the Akamba community (the Kenyans say "community" instead of "tribe'), is an employee of the Kenya Wildlife Service and he works as a rescuer for climbers who get caught high up on the mountain and need help coming back down.

Our drive took us from the Naro Moru Route up (shown above) to the second "level" of the mountain. We hiked up for a distance from the second level, and here is a photo of Mr. Guy and Mr. Andrew and Stanley as we began our hike. It was from this vantage point that we were able to take photos of the splendid views from the mountain (one of which is shown below).

Flat Stanley really liked the walk up the mountain and he kept talking about how his friends would enjoy the hike as well. There were lots of trees and wildflowers to see, and many bushes and dead trees to jump over as Stanley climbed up ahead of Mr. Andrew and Mr. Guy and the guide and Mr. Charles (their driver and good friend).

But even if they can't be with him, Stanley sends good wishes to his friends in Colorado and to Brian Hopkins and Julian Lafferty in Santa Cruz, CA. He wishes they were with him on this safari so they could all have a good time together.

Re-Entry: Welcome Home to Nairobi

Welcome – the concept – is the theme of this post. The trip from Rome was long (9+ hours, with a too-fast transfer in Zurich) but was considerably eased by being a daytime trip instead of a night flight.

So there were good opportunities for just relaxing and being quiet.

And for reading. I enjoyed Bill Bryson’s sweet African Diary, in which he recorded some of his experiences travelling with a crew from CARE. And I undertook the beginnings of John le Carre’s The Constant Gardener, which would have been completed if I had not been so comfortable I ended up having more naps than I really needed!

I am much looking forward to the continuation of this fascinating saga! A real page-turner.

Now about that welcome. Once in Nairobi and having left the aircraft, everywhere I turned there were welcoming smiles, and the people at the airport – both those processing incoming passengers and the people waiting for the passengers – were all very kind and generous with their time and seemed to be very happy to see us. And the best of all was my driver, there to greet me and see that I got home safely and securely. He made it clear that he was genuinely glad to see me.

The greetings at the workplace, too, were mighty close to effusive, not only among professional colleagues (who include many local people, or professionals from somewhere else in Kenya) but from the general group of workers with whom I interacted on a regular basis in the short time I was in Nairobi before I went to Italy. It was nice to be made to feel so at home in a professional situation.

And that brings me to why I want to say something about the concept of welcome. There seems to be a natural instinct in the people I’m meeting these days to be welcoming, to make one feel at home, relaxed, and ready to enter into dealings that seem built on a sense of shared good thoughts about each other. I’m not sure I can articulate very well what I’m experiencing in this remarkable place, but what I am finding is that people seem to be going out of their way to make me feel that they are happy that I am here.

I am also surprised – based on some of the messages and comments from some of my friends elsewhere in the world – that so little of this attribute of Kenya is known to people in other places. Yes, I know there are the security issues – as there are going to be in any big city where so much of the population is poorer than even the poorest American can imagine – and over the last couple of decades things have been very bad at times. But, as a colleague made clear to me in a conversation yesterday, Kenya has become – or is trying to become – a modern country. I asked him what he meant by “modern,” and he pointed out that with the massive amounts of communication available, things like television, online interactions, etc.), the good educations people are getting (even if they cannot get work after they have their education) and all the interaction going on between the people of so many countries coming here, the local population realizes that no matter how bad things get for them individually they do themselves and their country great harm by engaging in lawless activities.

Is that too simplistic? I don’t know. All I do know is that I meet very friendly people as I walk to work in the morning. I have about a 35-minute walk, along beautiful streets and, yes, the houses on those streets are well protected, many with a man standing watch at the gate, either inside the gate or on the street in front of it. But each of these people greets me, especially if I look at them and simply smile as I walk past. And, yes, my walk takes me past the U.S. Embassy, where the guards have now gotten to know me and greet me before I can greet them, so I recognized that where I live is perhaps not a typical neighborhood but I don't think that explains entirely the welcoming interactions I'm having with people in Nairobi.

So to test my impressions about all this, about the – you might say – “welcoming state of mind” (and to give me the opportunity to see a different part of Kenya), I decided to go out into the countryside, away from the city, just to see what I could see. First of all, of course, was the spectacular scenery (here's one view and that's tea you see growing up the hill behind the tree). Many, many people have written about how beautiful Kenya is, and they have all been right. We drove up into the hills where the coffee and tea plantations are, so many farms, and I saw scenery that looked like it had just dropped out of some fantasy about country life. And a sky and clouds that – were they not real – could have been painted by John Constable.

And the people? The welcoming? Absolutely. And most noticeably in Limuru, a moderately sized city – perhaps just a good-size town – that was full of people, all moving about, all on their way to or from somewhere.

We stopped to do a little shopping and I was amazed to see the greetings we were given. Not because I was a white man (the concept of racism and prejudice based on skin color is not known in Kenya) but because the people in the shop – customers and clients alike – were just nice, friendly people out in the town, going about their business.

And as a little aside, despite the fact that I was not the same color as everyone else in the store there was no attempt to charge me Muzungu prices (which, if I’ve got it right, means something like “white man’s prices”). I’m still working this one out (and I might not be spelling the word right), but apparently in some parts of Kenya there are or have been special – higher – prices for whites, an scheme that seems to have sprung up in colonial times. I’ve not experienced it since I've been in Kenya, but in Limuru I was not only not charged a higher price, but the shoes I purchased – already about 30% cheaper than at the Village Market, the shopping center near my house in Nairobi – had an extra 15% knocked off at the cash register. Why? Because the factory where they are made – employing a goodly percentage of the town’s population – is just about 100 meters up the road from the store!

How’s that for a very tangible welcome?

I will admit that as we drove along – when we left the countryside and meandered into some of the more populated areas – there were some gloomy scenes along the way, primarily because I’m accustomed to business districts in villages and communities in America that are all tidied up and neat and polished. That is not the case in some of the places we drove through today. In many places, the road we were on was the main street (the only street) of the town and there were plenty of shops that were nothing more than lean-tos or sheds or what looked to me like pretty flimsy buildings propped up on cement blocks.

But not always. In other communities there were plenty of nice, recently constructed buildings, with what looked like very nice flats. And, as it turned out, as we approached the city on our return, we visited the town where my driver and his family live, not that far from the part of the city where I live in Nairobi. He told me all about his town, and pointed out people he knew, and I got the feeling that the idea of welcome and friendliness is just as evident in his town as in the other places I've visited. Quite frankly, if it’s appropriate, I might one day ask him to take me back to his town, just so I can walk around with him and get to know some of the people he knows. I’m sure I’ll be made to feel welcome.