while i have my around-the-world photos out from their usual home in the garage, i think i’ll continue telling some more stories from that adventure. after the last post about india ...

**note: most of these photos were scanned from contact sheets, thus the low quality.

we flew to nairobi, our luggage arriving splayed open on the conveyor belts, along with many other bags arriving in similar shape. curt was missing a few items, but we were glad to see our bags. many fellow travellers' bags didn't arrive at all. an airport luggage worker, either in bombay or nairobi, jimmied open the zippers on our bags and rummaged around. both places are filled with desperate people. still, we have a feeling it happened in nairobi ...

curt and ngugi

we were there visiting curt's friend ngugi in ngong (pronounced "gogi" and "gong") outside nairobi. ngugi lived in curt's neighborhood in portland from age 10 to age 20, and they grew up playing together. at 20, ngugi had an apartment, a car, a job, a girlfriend, a bank account, and was going to college. he decided to make a trip back to kenya to visit his dying father. had all the necessary visas and paperwork. he took two suitcases, one with his clothes, and one filled with gifts for his family. at the end of his visit, he went to the airport all ready to head back to portland, and was denied transit. as in, the airport officials denied his visa, which had been fine a month prior when he had departed portland. ngugi later learned that while he was overseas, president reagan had changed the law. ngugi was not allowed to return to the US.

ngong

what? curt's family and all the neighbors worked on ngugi's behalf to help him return to portland, to his LIFE. but they were unsuccessful. and unable to send his things. ngugi had one suitcase to his name.

with nowhere else to go, ngugi first built himself a mud hut in a shanty town. then eventually he married, moved in to a compound and had two beautiful children. ironically, he worked sporadically as a photographer of passport pictures. 10 years later, he was still bitter about how he was treated by the united states government. yeah, i get it.

ngong

curt and i stayed with ngugi, his wife mama-ciku (once a kenyan woman has a child, she takes the name of her first born preceded by "mama") and their children ciku and jack in their two-room home for a few days until we were able to find lodging. we rented an unfurnished house -- a mansion compared to ngugi's place -- with an eastern (aka: squat), but porcelain and flushing, toilet. at ngugi's place, the shared toilet facilities were not porcelain, not flushing, and ... how can i say it ... the worst i've encountered ... anywhere, ever.

ciku (left) and jack and neighbor (right)

our house was clean and simple. we borrowed a single bed and a propane burner, and lived there for two months. but we only had running water for the first few days. from then on, we had to join in the queues of people with our five-gallon buckets. we had to boil our water for drinking, we used one-liter bottles for bathing and for flushing the toilet.

mama-ciku and neighbor girl

we did take ngugi's family on a low-budget/high-adventure safari (the post which started this whole series of our trip around the world).

and we did visit ngugi's family farm one weekend. they even killed a goat in our honor (i was a vegetarian at the time. horrible.)

ciku and jack on family farm

and curt and ngugi got to spend a lot of time together. they had 10 years to catch up on. but two months was a long time for me. ngong was a poor african town with not much happening, no opportunity for the locals, people having to walk far for water. lots of people hanging around not working because there just wasn't any work. it was depressing, hopeless.

one night we visited ngugi's brother who was living in his old mud hut in the shanty town. we were drinking beer. two local policemen paid us a visit, and from what i could gather, demanded beer. they stayed and drank it, loosened their uniforms, disheveled. they had guns. it was very scary.

i also made a collage out of newspaper stories and headlines while i was there. horrific stories about people hacking each other up with machetes. police raping women with coke bottles. astounding brutality.

mombasa

we also visited mombasa on the ocean. curt got really, really sick. more sick than when we were stranded in that nepali village.

i literally just found my travel journal out in the garage. here's an excerpt from that time:

mombasa was a bust, we are nonplussed and both got bacterial dysentary. curt was so sick and with such a high fever (i'm glad we had no thermometer!) and chills, i thought he might even have malaria. but after several hours of his suffering and my nursing, his fever broke. he was still not well enough to take the bus back to nairobi, so i exchanged our tickets for tomorrow and got more medicine from the nice indian pharmacist.

mombasa

and i have to say, africa -- or maybe it was just travelling in general -- was taking its toll on me.

the morning we were going to the family farm, curt and i took our usual path to ngugi's, but the monsoons had started and it was pouring. i stepped in mud down to my ankles and basically had a meltdown. we got to ngugi's and i wouldn't stop crying. the children were concerned. curt laughed at me. i was not a happy camper. it was kind of funny that a little mud would warrant such an explosive reaction, but i just had had it up to here (karate chop in the air over my head).

view of ngong hills from the karen blixen museum

to escape our heartbreaking surroundings, we snuck away -- somewhat guiltily -- and rode the insanely dangerous matatou (minibus) from ngong halfway to nairobi ... to karen. ah, karen. karen was the wealthy suburb where many europeans had plantations and farms. karen blixen (also known as isak dinesan, "out of africa"author) had her farm there, which had become a museum and which i visited often. and there was a great restaurant with a safe salad bar, candlelight and cold beer! curt tried game meats. i soaked up the sparkling clean ambiance. heaven.

another journal entry:

curt and i really do get along well, we have had nothing but time on our hands and have managed to keep ourselves and each other entertained -- thank god we both like gin rummy. he really is a pleasure to live with ...

exotic plant at karen blixen museum

i'm embarrassed to say that i needed to get away to karen. but i really did. i just did. it was peaceful, subdued, beautiful.

in spite of the hardships, in spite of my heart breaking over and over witnessing so much hopelessness, i did find beauty in the landscapes, the majestic animals, and the courageous people who live and laugh, day in and day out, with such rawness of LIFE. and what a treasure for curt and ngugi to have had that time together.

~~~~~

lessons learned: important friendships are worth any hardship.

+++++

while we were travelling, we didn't really have any extra money or things we could give to ngugi and his family. but when we got home, it felt good to send ngugi some extra camera gear i had. and curt still sends money.

in kenya, i became a huge karen blixen fan. read her "letters from africa, 1914-1931." when i returned home, i found this wonderful book "longing for darkness: kamante's tales from out of africa" by photographer peter beard. he collected stories and drawings by blixen's servant kamante, the hero in blixen's "out of africa."

portrait of kamante in the karen blixen museum

my aunt nancy (not to be confused with my birthmother nancy) left for south africa a few days ago, saying she she sure hoped her safari would NOT be anything like mine …

... my safari was twenty years ago, while travelling around the world for a year with my boyfriend. we stopped in kenya to visit with curt’s childhood friend ngugi who had since married, had two beautiful children, and was living in ngong outside nairobi. his wife and kids had never seen wild animals, so we decided to take them all on a two-day safari.

safari. just the word sent exotic images wafting through my head: karen blixen, born free, and architectural digest safari décor.

the reality was, our pockets held 30-year-old’s-budget-travelers-wallets. still, i was going on safari …

we rented a jeep, two tents, and set out … along with ngugi’s baseball-bat-sized stick (tourists had recently been attacked, not by animals but by people) … intending to camp out. how naïve were we???

driving toward the masai mara, we encountered giraffes and ostrich. exciting! getting closer to a real safari! the first night we stayed in a masai campsite just outside the oloololo gate to the park. it was relatively similar to campsites at home … assigned spots, a bathroom/shower building, etc, but for the tall, lean men wearing red plaid sarongs milling about. (we heard the masai men typically did not wear underwear under their sarongs … so i, in my curious -- if juvenile -- way, wanted to see if it was true. it was.)

the next day we bumped down the dirt road south through the park. saw herd after herd of animals: antelope, wildebeest, kudu, leopard, even a lion feasting on a zebra, hyena and vultures lurking. the majesty of the land and the animals converged on one point: we humans -- not just in this game reserve but all over the world -- are on their land, the animals' land. we are trespassing on their land! so clearly and naturally, the earth belongs to the animals.

toward the end of the day, it was high time to find a campsite; we drove to the largest one we saw marked on the map in our area, only to find nothing resembling our experience the previous night.

this “campsite” consisted of an outhouse in the middle of a savannah, with trees in the distance on three sides and a dried riverbed behind us. spectacular african scenery, but still … nary a soul in sight! we decided to try one of the other two campsites nearby. each one was less impressive than the last, so we returned to the first place.

soon two masai men -- with spears -- showed up, said it was their campsite, and we needed to pay them the equivalent of $6 to stay. and for $2 more, they would sleep with us. not sleep WITH us! just sleep nearby. we promptly dug in our pockets for the additional cash. they turned and said they’d be back later, ambling away gracefully like giraffes.

after putting up the tents, curt and ngugi went scavenging for firewood, leaving me with ngugi’s wife mama-ciko (kenyan women take on the name of their first born, preceded by “mama”) and small children. traditional division of labor was seriously bugging me at this point in our travels. i was 30 and still needing to prove my i-am-woman independence. but i had to swallow my enormous pride and go with it; we had bigger things to worry about at that point. we began assembling camp, the sienna sun setting over our little piece of savannah. we were in the middle of wild africa, tiny in the grand scheme of nature. it was exhilarating! we had had the jeep between us all day. now i was feeling the nakedness of being one with nature.

unloading bags and pots and food, mama-ciko and i startled at the sight of a troupe of baboons, cackling and galloping across the far side of the field and disappearing into the trees. they seemed far enough away (about 100 yards), and i was thrilled with this brush with real safari life! mama-ciko, however, was fearful and kept the children nearby. we went about our business.

a few minutes later, however, these 12 or so waist-high baboons scampered up the riverbed and surrounded us in a circle around our little camp. mama-ciko scurried into one of the tents with the children and i deftly found our big stick. what else was there to do? one at a time, a baboon lumbered toward me, grunting. i held the stick up and, when it got closer, stabbed the air between me and it, sending the monkey to retreat to its former place in the circle. then another came at me. then another. i fended off four baboons before they all, suddenly, ran off across the field again and into the trees. the masai men had appeared on the hillcrest, thank god! i guess the baboons had “history” with the masai. regardless, we were saved (pride out the window)!

the guys returned with firewood, we ate with the masai men, and went to bed. but not to sleep. the dark night filled with ominous animal noises. ngugi got up to make another fire closer to the entrance to our two tents. he was afraid, mama ciko terrified. fortunately curt was pretty calm. my stomach was in knots. i was having my period, and was sure a lion would come bounding through our tent and devour me. the masai men did hear a lion's roar, and wanted to leave to check on their herd of cattle. no way, josé! ngugi talked them into staying … (i hope we paid them a bonus in the morning, and i hope their cattle were ok.)

morning. yes. then came morning. we had survived! spent the next day completely sobered and quiet, still driving and watching the animals. midday we came across one of those fancy tented camps (safari dream coming true??), but it was closed (sigh). desperate at that point -- and wanting nothing of a reenactment of the night before -- we found the caretaker who i pleaded with to allow us to stay in one of the enormous and luxurious walk-in canvas cabins, complete with two double beds and a private bathroom, for $50. a large sum for us, but i was primed to break the bank for some semblance of safety, and romantic safari experience! and we were able to finally relax.

sipping warm beer (better than no beer) on the stone veranda overlooking a bend in the river, all of us perched in comfy director’s chairs in the late afternoon glow. we marveled at the scenery: hippo in the river right before us. gazelle, waterbuck, oryx, fox, and even those pesky baboons at a distance on the opposite bank. we were safe. and having my ultimate safari experience, budget be damned! a spalding gray perfect moment. yes it was.

the monsoon rains poured down that night, but did we care? we were cuddled up in our grand tent. next morning the caretaker told us the hippo did some serious damage in the camp that night, while we were safe and soundly sleeping.

we made our way home to ngugi’s the following day. with stories to tell for a lifetime. and with dreams made real.

and i can’t wait for my aunt’s return to hear more safari stories.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

lesson learned: hold onto your dreams. they just may come true!

+++++

twenty years later and i still have romantic safari dreams. doesn’t everyone? the march 2008 issue of the late domino magazine featured kenya-based photographer liz gilbert (for some reason i’m enamoured by all liz gilberts) and her stylin' african nomad tent she uses travelling around the bush.

liz is now helping local kenyan women sell their stunning jewelry, and runs a straight-out-of-my-dreams lodge in kenya. dream on!