Not a Travel Diary: Kenya
Nairobi’s nighttime air is healing. After 8,000-some miles of inhaling and exhaling the filtered and recirculated air of planes, the warm night air embraces me as I step outside the airport—I am new again, reenergized. We made it, we are here! We drive to the outskirts of the city and crawl down a long, bumpy dirt path illuminated only by our vehicle a few feet at a time, the truck lurching from side to side as we roll along. The truck eases to a stop; a gate swings open. The house glows against the inky night, inviting us inside.
We settle into our rooms before walking to the open-air dining area. I have one or two or three glasses of Malbec and a light dinner of butternut squash soup and bread. The simple elegance of the meal and my exhaustion and hunger and the release I feel after all of this time anticipating what it will be like to be here, so far away from it all, make this one of the greatest dinners of my life.
We sleep on a big comfy bed under mosquito netting and listen to a screaming tree hyrax. What is he so worked up about? My eyes fly open at around 3 AM because of the time change. I drift back to sleep for a few more hours, blissfully unaware that over the next two weeks, the rugged beauty of Kenya will shatter my heart, leaving me to put it back together and sort out what it all means and what to do now that I know it exists.
In the morning, we have a proper breakfast, which is a novelty. My typical morning at home entails getting as much sleep as possible, instant stress from sleeping too late, coffee on an empty and growling stomach, and rushing to work and wherever else I am needed that day. For the second time in 24 hours, Kenya’s simple offerings heal me: warm, earthy, tangy coffee and fresh cut fruit, along with the rest of the meal, fuel me for the day ahead.
We drive again down winding, bumpy dirt roads, this time towards the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. My eyes adjust and a bustling ecosystem on the sides of the roads takes shape. Dog walkers walk packs of domestic dogs, the leashes twisted to form a single tangled rope with five, six, seven different breeds of pups scattered at the end. A man with a herd of goats trailing him turns a corner, and I am told he is probably pretty well off considering how many goats he has with him. One of the goats has a bad leg and I wonder what will become of it. Roofs and sharp corners of large houses peek out over the tops of trees, bushes, greenery, tall fences, and barbed wire. I wonder who lives there. Locals sell fruit out of the backs of cars and work coveralls using tree branches as hangers.
We visit the elephant sanctuary at the wildlife trust, where baby orphaned elephants are rehabilitated with the aim of releasing them back into the wild when they are ready. Calves can become orphaned for many reasons; they may have fallen down a well or their mother may have starved to death or been poached. The babies scamper out to where we wait in a semicircle with other tourists and they are fed huge bottles of milk. Some of the elephants hold the bottles themselves with their trunks, and others are fed by the keepers. They play and make trumpet sounds. I apprehensively reach my hands out to touch them as they pass by: their skin is rough with tiny hairs sprouting from it; the backsides of their ears feel like velvet. Some of the babies have moisture streaming down the sides of their face from their temporal glands. The guide explains this does not mean they are crying, but it can show some form of something like emotion; it may be an expression of the calf’s excitement or an indication there may have been a disturbance in the pack. I wipe tears from my own eyes when I learn this. This is not a moment of anthropomorphism, rather, I see that elephants are social and complex in their own unique way. I want to learn more without trying to make comparisons to how they are “just like us.” This is not about us—this transcends “us.”
We go on our first game drive in Nairobi National Park. We spot elephants, giraffes, birds, baboons, rhinos, impalas, ostriches, zebras, and more. We have a picnic lunch with a view. We pepper our guides with questions as if we have never seen anything in the world before because we have never seen the world like this before: Is that a male or female? What do they eat? Do they sleep standing up? What are the birds saying to each other? Do the families stay together for life? Can they hear us? Can they see us? Do they fear us?
Over the next two weeks, we go on many game drives in the Borana Conservancy and Maasai Mara, but no two drives are the same. On each drive, we learn new things, see new types of animals and plants. The drives and all they encompass—the diesel smell, the rocking back and forth as our guides masterfully navigate slick rocks and bubbling creeks and steep hills, and the cognac leather seats, weathered, worn, and supple, sporting rips and tears and lines showing the truck’s age and timelessness—are therapy, a safe space to learn and play or quietly observe the vast plains and the unimaginable life and death that they contain.
We spot a lioness stalking a hartebeest at Borana. She is patient and meticulous, so low to the ground that at times, the only parts of her we can see over the tall grass using binoculars are the black tips of her ears. She moves towards her prey inch by inch, waiting for him to turn his head before she moves. I hold my breath as the gap between them closes. I do not want to watch the hartebeest die, but the lioness needs food for herself and possibly her cubs. If she has cubs, she may be hiding them from the pride to protect them from infanticide by male lions, who may kill cubs that belong to other males so that their own genes are passed on. I am torn on how to feel. Who do I root for in this moment? In truth, it does not matter how I feel. I am a mere observer of this ancient survival skill in action. The lioness makes her move, launching herself at the hartebeest, who manages to escape. The lioness lays down briefly in defeat before slinking off to find a place to restore herself before she will try again. I decide I pity the lioness as we drive away.
We explore the wild hills, mountains, salt flats, and deserts of Northern Kenya. Sharp tears prick my eyes again as I struggle to process the scenes before me. I have seen landscapes like this on television a la Planet Earth, but never in real life. I was unaware that there are parts of the world that are still this free. I did not know that Earth is this beautiful. Where I live and have traveled, it seems every inch of land has been developed; even parks and open spaces are maintained and controlled, have operating hours and employees and public restrooms and gift shops. I think: this must be what it looked like before all of that. It crushes me.
In South Horr, we listen to birds chatter and watch them shuffle in the dust then perch on tree branches then soar. We talk about nothing and everything over gin and tonics with extra lime and jump in the pool to cool off in the afternoons. We take slow, leisurely walks when we are keen, and on one such walk we learn that the twigs of a salvadora persica tree can serve as a natural toothbrush. We see members of the Samburu tribe—the “butterfly people”—adorned with bright, colorful beads, elaborate headdresses, and tiny plastic mirrors clipped to themselves, jump and sing and chant and dance. Two young Samburu girls hold hands, whispering to each other, their bracelets stacked high on their wiry arms. They proceed to bob their heads, creating a liquid visual effect with the large beaded collars fanned around their necks. When the sun goes down and the night sky rolls out, we return to camp and stargaze, our hands wrapped around hot mugs of tea. We learn about the constellations; how big the tiny white glistening pearls above us really are, what they mean, what they reveal about time and space and our place in the universe. I consider that the maps etched in the sky are not an accident. And what a waste it would be to hold my head so low, focused on my immediate surroundings, that I disregard them and the vastness of everything else that lies beyond planet Earth.
At the Maasai Mara, we sip sundowners and watch the blazing sun quickly slip below the horizon. Just south of the equator, the sunsets here happen in a flash. I begin to miss them as they are happening because I know they will be over too soon.
