tales of gypsy sista

16 survivors :) less the camera clicker

2009-07-13T19:43:00.001-07:00

havasu canyon flood - part one

2009-01-24T20:30:00.001-08:00

Every action has a reaction:

I look out the train window at the giant cement piers that holds me and a hundred tons of rumbling motion above the bay and think 'all this started with one step, one person, one action.' In 1869 John Wesly Powell decided to row down an enormous waterway from the headwaters of the Green River down the Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. He was not a boatman at the time, but he thought it would be a good adventure. Now the Glen canyon dam holds back the Powell Reservoir. How ironic that the enchanting canyons he claimed his favorites now lay still and dark under millions of cubic feet of water bearing his namesake. Is it just my race of people or all of mankind that needs to change, develop, and improve every nook, rock, and cranny of Mother Nature, no matter how beautiful and functional it is to begin with? In fact the more pristine and perfect it is the more we want to change, groom and manage it. I wonder if Powell knew how far reaching his ‘one step’ would be, what reaction his one action would bring.

Aug. 16 2008

It is still dark but I can tell it is predawn by the subtle changes in the night sounds. I lay here and watch the stars fade. I can’t sleep but I don’t want to get up either… even though this day has been promised to be “the best so far!” Havasu canyon. Ayla has been talking about this hike since the day I met her four months ago. “Oh wait ‘til you see it. It is the most amazing canyon in all of Arizona!”

I see a dark figure moving along the beach, I’m sure it is her. She probably hasn’t slept a wink in anticipation of today’s adventure. Ayla’s face is weathered with adventure, deep smile lines and bright blue eyes. Her figure pushes the boundaries of slender and her strength is graceful and seemingly endless.

Dooooooooong

There is it ... the beautiful, vibrating clang of her ancient brass bowl. My body jerks with a negative response. It is confused by the conditioning of the last two weeks. By which that beautiful sound normally mean scrupulous food is ready and the conflict of knowing that this morning it is telling me to just ‘GET UP.' Something I don’t necessarily want to do but am not really opposed to either. I guess it is just the idea that someone is telling me "do it ‘right now’" that pushes my rebellious button. It isn’t quite 5:00am and the work will begin the minute I drag my sore bones off this paco pad, at least I’m not on kitchen duty this morning.

Sixteen years ago Ayla, returning from her first Grand Canyon rafting tour, wholeheartedly signed her name to the ever growing list of people asking for permission to float the mighty Colorado. Sixteen years of waiting for this day! Today we will hike the pristine Havasu Canyon.

It’s 7:20am we are packed, strapped and pushing off the banks of Upset Hotel camp. Seven cool, tranquil miles slip by in little over an hour. We arrive at the Havasu eddy around 8:45am. Not surprisingly we are the first party to anchor here ... all a part of the plan that was formulated months ago around the table of our trip leader.

To everyone’s great relief we all catch the tricky eddy and tie the lead boat to the webbing attached along the canyon wall just outside the tiny mouth of the expansive canyon. I’m not sure exactly how wide the mouth is but our boats are 18 footers and they defiantly can’t fit through sideways. We tie all the boats securely to each other.

part two

2009-01-24T20:26:00.001-08:00

I gather my hiking gear; my daypack, nalgene bottle, the sandwich I made this morning and my sun shirt & hat. It is already about 100 degrees. We are all eager to get going knowing that Mooney Falls lay six miles up an unknown trail and we must be back by 4:30 -5:00, approximately seven hours for 12 miles or so. Cedar paddles the IK full of packs and people upstream to a trailhead on creek right. The rest of us dive into the turquoise water and swim upstream easily conquering the gentle current. There is some discussion as to where the ducky is to be left. Matt suggests the cliff we climb towards the trail but that means dragging it a good fifteen feet up to the level ground. An alcove across river is chosen, which leaves it about four feet above the waterline.

As we prepare for the day ahead, Ruby reads us a passage from her guidebook. It goes something like this: It is suggested that a boat wrangler be left to tend the boats as the canyon has been know to flush away whole groups of boats due to the flash floods of the monsoon season.

No one looks directly at each other, our eyes averted, we just keep rifling through our drybags and changing our attire. Finally someone says 'fuck that, I'm not staying'. We all sigh in relief and look around with a chuckle, 'me neither' we all think silently. Happily we start the acclaimed adventure together. I start to think about what one would do if they were left behind with the boats and a flash flood was emanate. Untie them? ...ride one and wrangle the rest into an eddy by yourself?...stay with one and set the others free?... leave all your buddies behind and do the last 60 miles by alone?...with five boats? Oh well, its a beautiful, sunny day... not a cloud in the sky.

part three

2009-01-24T20:20:00.000-08:00

The excitement is accumulating and we take off in various groups. It is like the beginning of a bike race and soon we are spread out according to hiking speed and waterfall-sighting intent. The trail is a smorgasbord of fascination, weird rocks, watery tunnels, palm trees, snakes and scratchy cliffs. It is well marked, running alongside river right, then river left, then river right again and so on and so on. Even before the first crossing I jump in to cool down in the lusciously wet water. It is so warm compared to the icy Colorado, so clear, just perfect for a warm day's hike. There are no bothering bugs.

Soon we see Beaver falls, incredible! Travorntine teacup clusters create turquoise-green pools with foamy white drops.... but gentle... everything looks and feels so gentle. We jump off the cliffs into the deep pool. I ask Matt to take my picture while I am waist deep in the middle of the stream, a waterfall as the backdrop. I remember a scene from Blue Lagoon where Brooke Shields looses her virginity, well this scene looks kinda like that one. I can't really describe the true peacefulness and beauty of this little valley tucked away in the depths of the great Grand Canyon desert. We wade through acres of wild grapes not being able to see below out waists. I imagine all the little gnomes and other creatures down there just watching our legs and feet tromp by.

Around noon we start to meet other hikers on the trail. They are coming down the trail from the Supai Village. A funny mix of people. We ask how far to Moony Falls and they ask how far to Beaver Falls. I notice some sleeping pads and bags tucked away in tiny cave near the cliff. Someone will camp here tonight even though it is not permitted.

By 1:00 we arrive at the spectacular Moony falls. WOW. Only photos can help me now. We eat our packed lunch and marvel for awhile. The sky is still blue with a pretty white cumulous cloud building near the horizon. Its 2:00 and we all decide to head back. Seven of us have made it this far. The wind begins to blow and the temperature drops noticeably. Within 20 minutes the sky darkens and we feel the spatter of raindrops, we hear thunder.

part four

2009-01-24T20:14:00.000-08:00

We hurry across the Havasu creek, back and forth. The rain is fierce now. I feel cold, but walking fast helps. We enter the grape filled valley and the buckets of raindrops are joined by aspirin sized hail balls. The river is rising and taking on a brown film color. I look up and see muddy water pouring over the top of the rim walls... everywhere. Where the cliff trail was dry hours ago a mighty shower now pours down on us, we climb through newborn waterfalls. It is slick and slippery. We pass the other hikers headed back to Supai. Not many words are exchanged but a few 'good lucks' and 'be carfuls'. I feel excitement, crazy energy from the storm, wonderment at the strength and spontaneity of Mother Nature. We stick together.

About a mile below Beaver Falls the trail makes another crossing. On the opposite bank we see four other people from our party.... I can see their eyes are wide from here. Excitement? The rain has let up. They beckon us to hurry and join them. It isn't so fun to cross anymore. Ruby is almost breathless as she describes her experience of forty minutes ago. 'I was standing right there!' she points to the submerged bank of a brand new side creek that is gushing over a twelve foot cliff into the Havasu creek. What was a dry side canyon hours ago now gushes to life. The water is thick with mud, rock and red sand. There is an usual smell in the air, like the damp earth of a cave, like sulfur. It smells damp yet dry. The thick water is still shooting out over the cliff like projectile vomit. It has been an hour since Cedar and Ruby heard the grumbling roar that sent them running up the bank out of the draw. The flow has slowed considerably. They show me a video they had been shooting, a panorama of this spot.

Ruby's video dialog; 'Here are all the elements of a possible flash flood.... the rain, the dry creek bed, water pouring over the rim of the canyon..... I don't know why there is only a small trickle here, it has rained hard for hours now'. The video abruptly ends, this is where they hear and smell it coming. A feeling of panic, an overdose of adrenalin, refrigerator size boulders falling from the cliffs pushed by the unexpected flood. Cedar is concerned about the boats. 'They could never have ridden that sudden amount of water out.... they're gone for sure' No. They can't be gone. They were tied tight to the wall..... it will let them raise up and the ride the flood wave out.... maybe, just maybe they are still there..... I want to hurry and see.

We wade across again, just above the side creek created by the flash flood. The water is just about up to our chests, but it is still gentle, unlike the mudflow that has taken over the canyon below us. Larry and Elaine are still down there, somewhere, in the canyon below. I feel anxious, alert, like something important is pending, like when you see a mountain lion in your yard. All my senses are heightened.... adrenalin.

Ten minutes later we find Larry. Hallelujah! I see him slip down the last bit of bank to join us. 'Oh man, am I glad to see you all. I thought I was a goner' He had climbed the hillside when the flood rushed passed him, taking higher ground. His video dialog: 'something is happening. Oh man this is not good. The water is rising, I better get out of here. This is bad.' As the water rises he turns the camera on himself, gives a loving good bye to his family and settles in atop a huge rock for the night. Luckily we are together, now. I start thinking about Elaine, what if something really bad has happened to her. My natural state of 'worrisome mother' kicks in and I imagine all sorts of scary scenarios. Michael was the last one to see her and he said she was sunbathing near the mouth of the canyon, near the boats. I feel the gritty feeling of dread.

We come to yet another river crossing. The current is strong but it is only thigh deep. We decide to use the three buddy system. I grip Matt and Larry's arm and we begin to slowly rotate across the creek. Wouldn't you know it I lose my footing and pull Matt down with me, his eyes are startled wide open and seem to say to me 'Oh mom!'. Larry has a solid foot hold and we are soon recovered. My legs and feet are sandblasted with the age old clay and bruised by rolling rocks. They begin to swell... just a bit. We decide not to cross again. I walk in the back of the line with Larry and Bob, urging speed. Soon we come to another ford. 'NO way' is the consensus. We start to bushwhack along the cliff wall. Matt is out front scouting a through route, our 'indian scout'. The rock climbing is doable, but a bit challenging for some. Finally we scramble down a rock ledge and find the path which has crossed the creek again to join us.

As we walk alongside the water we notice fish scattered on the ground, left behind by the flood. Larry picks one up that must be a 22 inch brown trout 'Look at this one. We can't leave this one behind'. I agree we should bring it ...'for dinner tonight' I say jokingly.

We have come miles and still no Elaine. We trudge on, sometimes on the path and sometimes not, for often it dips down under this new, bigger creek. It is still clear but threatening clouds begin to move across the small patch of visible sky. Finally we spot some of out river mates and hear the greatly appreciated story of Elaine's rescue. She had been standing on a rock ledge on the opposite wall of the canyon, no path to the right or left and no way to get any higher, the water had risen to within a few feet below the shelf. Four of the bigger guys formed a human chain into the creek, Adam was chest high. First she threw her backpack to see how well they could catch and then she jumped in the raging mud hoping to be grabbed. She climbed from one to the other until she was safe on our side, the trail side of the messy water.

We are all here, together. What a strong feeling of togetherness I feel ... I never want to be apart again, not until things fall back into place anyhow. Soon I hear the sad news of our boats departure, disappearance, detachment. They are gone, kaput, discombobulated, headed down river with all our precious possesions ...and more importantly WITHOUT us!

I climb the last half mile hauling mama trout in one hand, fingers hooked through her useless gills and grabbing hand holds in in the rock wall with the other.

In the late afternoon sun I sit on the hard, cold rock on the cliff that overlooks the spewing mouth of the Havasu Creek. I just stare at the place our boats should be. I am thirsty, no one has any water left, we didn't really take enough for the hike in the first place. All our food, all our water, all our warm clothes, and sleeping equipment, and shelter, and fire starting stuff, EVERYTHING is gone... rushing down stream ... headed down the mighty Colorado, riding the great wave in the freak flash flood. I think with apprehension 'did I retie the straps after I undid them for my back pack ???!?Did I tighten the one that holds down Matt's kayak???!? How many did I loosen and how many things will hang on when the Zambezi FLIPs!?!?!

part five

2009-01-24T20:08:00.001-08:00

The ground under my butt is hard and cold and the pointy rocks hurt.... but I just sit there anyway, my emotional body and my physical body well on the way to exhaustion. It starts to rain again. Shana has been spelling out our new plan. Get shelter, start a fire, dry our pathetically insufficient clothes out, find drinkable water, pool our snacks and get ready for the night. Tomorrow we will flag down a commercial trip and try to catch our wayward rafts.

A quarter mile back up stream is a pretty big overhang that diverts the rain. Firewood is readily available, there is a stack of driftwood under the huge logs that runs parallel to the canyon wall in our new 'dusty-but-dry' camp. It has been deposited here by an ancient flash flood. I have distinct eye contact with my friends, as we slowly, deliberately discuss an emergency exit should the river raise up this far. I am reminded of the earthquake and fire drills of my elementary school years.

Soon a fire is crackling and people are hanging there soppy clothes on the rocks that protrude from the wall. The rain is coming down in rivulets, we gingerly place our water bottles under them and wait expectantly for the gritty liquid they will yield. It is dark. I am cold, we are all cold. Some of us have only bikini tops. Any extra shirts and pants are distributed. The food is pooled, beef jerky, oranges, two cookies, a few power bars, some seaweed and dried papaya spears. We start claiming sleeping spots. The ground is not level and there are only small patches that are not rocks.

Luckily the youngest crew member brought his knife with its one and a half inch blade. Cedar somehow finds the energy to clean the mighty trout. He slaps it down on the log, her body muddy from the still flooding creek. How shall we cook her? Cut her up into steaks and skew them with marshmallow sticks? Someone comes up with a piece of tinfoil their sandwich had been wrapped in. After the rain has rinsed her clean she is wrapped up tight with her head and tail exposed and thrown onto the red coals. Oh how wondrous the aroma, how glorious the taste. Each of us gets a fork full.... yes Matt has come up with a FORK from his backpack. It is a meal I will not soon forget.

Exhausted I rub an indention into the dirt with my cheek and shoulder and fade away into shivery sleep. I wake to the smoldering embers and notice a few others are stirring. We build up the fire and sit around bullshitting quietly. Shawnee asks Matt what time it is, for he is the only one with a time piece. A hefty time piece at that, the one he bought to assist him with his EMT endeavors. He looks down and slowly, silently shakes his head. "Eleven thirty." Shawnee lets out a soft squeal "This is going to be the longest night of my life". Its crazy.... I thought it was predawn, I had hoped it was predawn. I am pretty over it, the relentless cold, the warmth seeping ground, but my mind doesn't stray far from the moment, from the now, and the only thing I want is right now is sleep. I cuddle a warm stone from near the fire and drift off again.

The next thing I know my eyes shoot open and my head is full of sound.... BIG sound. People shouting, running, tripping over my inert body. "Run!" But there is something bigger, something louder, like a freight-train's roar filling the canyon, bearing down on us. Oh god, its another flash flood! I grab my shoes and join the mad rush up the trail to our 'higher ground' emergency spot.

Here we are again, sitting on the cold, hard ground with the pointy, hurtful rocks ... watching the creek turn into a turmoil of churning foam. In the moonlight I see the thick water climb steadily up the opposite wall, one rock crack after another is covered. It rises for over two hours and then plateaus off. It does not recede for another few hours, and then only slightly. We huddle together on a 'not-so-big' ledge. Elijah spreads over a few laps soaking up all the warmth he can absorb. Oh man, when is this night going to end. My head hurts.

part six

2009-01-24T17:02:00.000-08:00

Well as always, morning comes and with it the gloriously warm sun. Funny how the day seems to wash away the importance of a cruel night. I drink rainwater from the puddles in the rocks. We are all anxious for nine o-clock to roll around. That is what time we expect the other river trips to start passing by. Shana and Matt shimmy along the cliff that runs alongside the Colorado, upstream to a large eddy. For there is no eddy at the mouth of the Havasu anymore, not even a tiny one, just a monstrous current intersection. Even after six hours the water continues to thump, the creek swollen with violent velocity. I watch as propane tanks, debris and thirty foot trees quiver and shake at the intersection before they are swallowed up by the muddy Colorado. The Colorado has also risen noticeably. There must have been other canyons that flashed last night. But, what kind of flash flood lasts this long?.... I guess it's raining pretty hard somewhere up there on the giant plateau that drains into this watershed, Dead Horse I think its called. Ruby stands on the hill, higher and around the bend to flag any oncoming boats in. They all have whistles.

Suddenly we hear an engine. It is a helicopter, the whopping sound echos of the canyons walls overpowering the sound of the river. They buzz by us and we tap our heads in the universal OK sign. They seem to be counting us. Too bad we are on cliffs. I can't imagine them landing here. They fly off and Ruby spots a commercial raft trip on its way down. YEAH! Matt jumps off the cliff into the waiting raft.

They give him a PFD (personal flotation device) and send him back with a backpack full of gorp and water. He ties it off using his flip line and I haul it up to some very grateful hands. Matt relays the news from the commercial rafts. Someone reported our guideless boats to the Parks service around eight o-clock last night, each trip is supplied with a satellite phone .... too bad ours is AWAL with our runaway boats. They think the boats have been corralled by another helpful group. These guys have five extra PFDs and are willing to take that many of us down river with them. They are sure other trips will follow and we will all soon be on our way downstream. Cool, I am ready to go. I was not looking forward to hiking back up this crazy canyon ten miles to the Havasupai village, and then another eight and a half up to the rim. My feet are twice the size they should be and my shoes are too tight, even with the adjustable straps! Ouch.

part seven

2009-01-24T16:53:00.000-08:00

Just before Matt climbs the face to rejoin us we hear the chopper again. We stand flabbergasted and watch it LAND! It is on the other side of the Havasu creek but it lands none the less. WOW. Ruby and Cedar confer with the park rangers across the smallest part of the canyon, they are about 15 feet apart. The rangers are a special rescue unit known as the yellow and black.

For me time stands still for a moment. Like the centrifuge brakes on a huge turbine engine that is about to change directions, I slow the inertia of plan A and get ready for plan B. Their news is enlightening and threatening, an earthen dam gave way last night and another one forty miles away has released a far greater volume which should be here soon. Oh wow... again.

A game begins, an ancient game, the game of cat and mouse, protector and victim, fear and reaction. We begin to shift from in command to victim. They are here to execute a rescue. When we talk about our plans they counter with theirs, unquestionably the better... the only. "We will save you all" We are scattered, the information comes in fragments, our ideas are countered with new ones, our options seem to dwindle. I still feel the powerful feeling of 'sticking together' that began with the urgency of our situation, the feeling that has created our tight functioning group, the relief of being all together. So now, after one more question, 'how much will it cost', we concede. The minute that decision is made the conversation turns to commands .... it is out of our hands, we listen and wait for the next move.

I watch as their spokesman explains the procedure. He is kneeling, telling us not to worry, we are in good hands. They haven't actually done a rescue of this size before but they are prepared... they practice for this every year. His body language expresses excitement, nervousness and .... is that fear? He squats on the other side of the canyon, smiling, wringing his hands. His eyes dart from one person to the other as if he is sizing us up, counting and judging our abilities and weaknesses.

part eight

2009-01-24T16:49:00.000-08:00

They have decided on a 'short haul' to get us to their side of the creek and then a helicopter ride out of the canyon. Cedar jokingly says 'don't you have a ladder or plank?', implying that the gap between us seems so small. I think a zip line is in order. But no, they want do a short haul, which means we dangle from a carabiner a hundred feet above the rocks and raging water. The idea is growing on me, let's go.

First they hook themselves up to the cable and rise up ever so slowly, silhouetted against the sky, under the belly of the helicopter. I am impressed with the steadiness of the pilot, the tail has no propeller just two jets that are constantly moving. The chopper sways in the gusts of wind but the cable stays steady, I see the pilot watching from the window. Two of them are on our side now. I am fascinated by 'the procedure', they are definitely functioning 'by the book'. Everyone has a job, everything has an order and things run smoothly. We are grouped together on the ledge, 'everyone in sight at all times'.

The excitement is increasing. Its our turn now. Two at a time we slip on the 'diaper' and walk to the edge of the cliff. The ranger snaps the carabiner of our harness to the suspended cable. A good-bye tap on my back and the straps begin to tighten. Hip to hip shoulder to shoulder we are lifted so gently off the ground. I look up and see the pilot looking down at us like the friendly face of God.

It is not like the tense 'Charlton Heston' rescue films. There is no whistling wind in our ears, no frayed ropes or shuttering lines frightening us into thinking about our emanate death. It is more like a Disneyland ride, the gondola above the park, the 5 story ferris wheel with the incredible view. Our friends get smaller and smaller as we gently glide to the opposite bank. The landing is just as incredulous, I've hit the ground harder dismounting my horse.

part nine

2009-01-24T16:41:00.000-08:00

Soon we are being schooled about the next leg of the adventure. They hand out five fireproof jump suits, which are gladly donned by the semi naked, and helmets. We listen as we are told the fourth revised plan of where we will actually end up tonight and what to do in case of a helicopter crash. "There are two toggle switches located in the center of the dashboard, flip those down. Then below them you will see two more switches with red lights above them, flip those down also. These turn off the fuel pumps. The side windows can be unlatched and kicked out. Remain in the cabin until all the moving propeller parts have stopped ..... unless it is on fire, in which case you try to get out as fast as possible." ( -: OK then, lets have a go at it, yeepee.

Of course in reality we now play the 'hurry up and wait' game. It is 'us' and 'them', and they have our back packs, and we are thirsty again and hungry! We have been ordered to stay together in sight at all times .... over here. Ruby braves the protocol and ventures into their territory to retrieve her backpack, which has her lip salve in it. She even takes on the roll of 'Oliver Twist' and asks for 'water... please'. Before being shooed away from their debriefing, she is handed one of the rangers personal, half full nalgene bottles. A hole in the 'procedure' has been discovered, they do not have water for sixteen very thirsty victims.

I see Matt soaking it all in, he seems stoked. "That will be me in two years, mom." He is a eighteen year old EMT on his way to Paramedic school next Spring. Yes I can see him joining the rescue unit of some national park... right up his alley. Ruby is doing a homey break dance move in her oversized jumpsuit sporting her cap bill to the side. Cedar squeezes horizontally under a ledge the size of a coffin to get out of the rain. We wait..... and wait.

An hour later we are drinking ice cold gator-aide and crystal bottled water. A tiny police helicopter lands and drops off a blue ice chest. 'Yeah, the BEER is here' Not. But how welcoming is this drink. 'Drink up my friends, for this is probably the most expensive drink you will ever experience in your lifetime' How much does a helicopter delivered gator-aide cost anyway?

finally

2009-01-24T16:03:00.000-08:00

Finally the time has come to lift off. There will be four trips, the chopper can only fit four passengers at a time, I am designated to the last one. The round trip takes almost an hour so we wait some more. Just before we jump in up walk four boat type rangers. They have been sent to retrieve our wayward rafts. Apparently only one has been captured and the others are headed towards the biggest rapid of the whole stretch, the notorious 'LAVA'. "Come with us and row your boats down" they say tauntingly. Oh man I wish we could. I really want to see those last river miles and canyon hikes, but alas it is not so be.

The view from inside the helicopter is like no other I will ever see again. We fly up the flooded canyon and see Mooney Falls brown and gushy and the green valley where the Havasupai people "the people of the blue green water" have lived for hundreds of years. Can you imagine parking your car on the rim, taking the groceries out and then hiking eight and half miles to the house? That would take a different mind set. Everything looks so different than it did yesterday. How wild mother nature is.... especially helped towards disaster by mankind. This pristine paradise will be changed forever.

We arrive at the emergency staging area where the Red cross is handing out army MREs and blankets. Blackhawk helicopters are evacuating tourists out of the Havasu wilderness. National emergency vehicles are everywhere...no repeat of New Orleans here. Then it is a bus ride to the reservation town of Peach Springs.

On the way we encounter a roadblock set up by the natural disaster team to begin the job of accounting for every person in the area. I remember the sleeping bags and pads down by Beaver Falls, ten hikers are still unaccounted for. A TV crew boards the bus and asks if anyone is ready to give a firsthand account of the events, we're not... too tired and dirty. Little did we know there would be nine national TV station camera crews waiting at the high school gymnasium that is doubling as the Red cross center tonight, home sweet home.

And it was sweet, I have not appreciated a shower quite as much since. Turns out we and four other hikers were the only ones to utilize the cot and blanket accommodations. The villagers all seemed to have a relative to stay with. But oh the stories I heard..... well they will take a whole new page to retell.

Now here is the real mystery of this crazy adventure. When our 'outfitters superior' picks us up and reunites us with the rafts, EVERYTHING is here!!! The four renegade rafts have navigated Lava Falls rapid on their own and they all did it without FLIPping! Even my map which was hastily slipped under my seat strap is still here and DRY. To me this is the craziest part of the story. We all laugh when Matt says 'well now we know ..... all you have to do to make it through Lava is stop paddling a few miles above!'

Part one: Journey through Kenya

2006-07-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

This is me sportin my fancy Kenyan doo, my hair is really quite short. Extentions... everyones doin it.

journey day 1,2,3

2006-07-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

A ride across Kenya

I am a woman and I want to ride my bicycle across Kenya. I am forty eight, white, an artist and mother of four beautiful young men. On this journey I will be traveling alone. People just shake their heads and try to talk some sense into me. I am not sure of my route, but I know I want to see the Serengeti, the Maasai Mara. I begin my journey in Kisumu, a small city on the western side of Kenya and the eastern side of Lake Victoria, where I have been helping with a nonprofit bike project. I don’t know if I will succeed in making it all the way to Nairobi, but I will try.
My bike is an old specialized 'hard rock' I bought off Craig’s list for forty five dollars, and I have already replaced the tires and tubes, the front sprocket, the front wheel bearings and the bottom bracket. The tubes are heaviest fatty tubes I have ever seen, donated to me by my only sponsor, Amsterdam Bicycles in Santa Cruz. Oh, except for my sweet sis who donated a nearly new xtracycle, and two very cute bike mechanics who primped, preened and transformed an ordinary mountain bike into the ‘Almighty African explorer’. Thank you Kim, Shawn, Davin and Amsterdam Bikes!!, The tires have stubby mountain bike tread, miss-matched front and back, one bought in Nairobi and one in Kisumu. Mountain bikes don't really exist in Kenya yet and it is hard to find any parts, in this case 26 inch tires. The frame is a good size for me and the seat is comfortable while a bit bulky and worn out. I have attached the used xtracycle on the back and I am carrying 35 kilos in provisions, including camping gear, food, water and spare bike parts.
I have been in Kenya for almost six weeks. I have lived in Nairobi with friends, climbed Mount Kenya, traveled to Mombassa along the east coast and the source of the Nile, Ginja Uganda. I worked in Kisumu with my friends on the world bike project and now I want to see the rest of Kenya.
I choose cycling because I like experiencing a place via bicycle. I can hear the birds, feel the rain and smell the flowers as well as the decaying carcasses.
I have had a hard time finding dried or dehydrated food that will not spoil, I have settled for some top-ramin, over dry gristle jerky, salted banana chips and some canned fish. My water capacity is three liters, with iodine tablets.
My map is the freytag & berndtersion of Kenya Tanzania and Uganda. It is too big, but I have searched in vain for a more localized detailed one. What's up with that google earth??!? I have no compass but I do have a small digital camera and binoculars. I do not speak Kiswahili but I am bringing a phrase book
I begin tomorrow.

Day 1

I finally say good bye to the hours, the days of preparation and waiting. I say kua heri to my friends in Kisumu. I kiss the girls cheeks and hug John in front of the Mamba hotel. I ride through the busy city, the busy market, the busy streets not knowing what to expect, just knowing that I am going. My only experience with the road ahead was the bumping grueling bus ride from Nairobi, which wasn’t much since I had been too sick to look out the window.
I pedal down the main Nairobi road, alongside it really, on a path well worn by the feet of many pedestrians and the wheels of plenty of boda bikes. It is hot but not too hot. There are no hills. I am joined by other bike riders now and again, they are all men. I begin to hear the mantra they will recite to me my whole trip, ‘It is too far’. I keep my cadence for about five hours, interrupted only once by a shiny silver SUV, Hosea the missionary. He had called me a few weeks earlier, while I was in Nairobi. Hosea does his work in Kisumu, he had seen Phanice riding my bike there. He was intrigued by the Xtracycle work horse feature and called to see if I would sell it to him. Right now he stopped because of the bike not me, but we have a nice conversation and he wished me a safe journey…. a wish I become very familiar with.
I ride the day light away and stop just after a town called Katito. The thunder has begun and the wind. The wind is mighty before the daily storm. The ground is still flat and I think… I could camp just about anywhere. I ask and like always in Kenya I am granted. I camp on a millet and maze farm with the Obura family. Joseph, Isaac, Phillip, Milisant, Elizabeth, Maurice, Richard, Matheus and Little George… otherwise known as El Niño for his stormy eyes and moody character. All but Milisant live on the 400 acre farm. Their Father and Mother having the most established homesite.
I stay with Phillip, his wife Caroline and their two boys Bruno and Runi. The baby Runi is sick with the malaria. I sit in their two roomed house made of pole construction, metal roof and cow dung plaster walls. I sip a stiff cup of tea with the men of the family, Joseph, Phillip and Richard. The woman prepare and serve but do not join us. Being a British colony everyone in Kenya prepares the same cup of tea they call chai. It has strong black Kenyan tea, boiled milk and two heaping teaspoons of sugar, sometimes they add a spice called masala.

Joseph the oldest is a ‘fundi’ which, in this case, means carpenter. A bike ‘fundi’ repairs bikes, metal ‘fundi’ welds, but a ‘fundi’ just builds things. He proudly shares that he built his home in one day. The windows are glass covered with metal grates like all windows in Kenya, and there are old calendars high up on the walls, well above eye level.
Joseph is overwhelmed with the hope of sponsorship from a muzungu…. me in this case. It’s as if somewhere in the Kenyan social guide it is written that you must attain a mzungu ‘contact’ before anything miraculous can happen to you. He leans close to me and tells me of the hardships and problems his family endures. The crop is only grown once a year for six months, because of the rain. The drought hit them hard. He must find work the other six months. He went to welding school but could not finish, He wants to learn to drive but the cost is too much. He wants to be trained as car ‘fundi’ but that means leaving his family and moving to Nairobi. He relates a story about his neighbor who went away to Italy and returned with much money, this neighbor even took his mother to live in Italy. For some reason he thinks I come from the UK, it doesn’t really matter where I come from it is just out of Kenya to him. His efforts annoy me.
I ask ‘is your neighbor’s mother happy there?’ He looks at me confused. I try to tell him that his life here is rich. He has work as a farmer and carpenter, a sturdy home and his family all around; plus the land is beautiful and the school is not far. I annoy him.
I ask Caroline to join us. ‘Aren’t you going to join us?” Phillip looks at me for understanding, then trying to appease my every desire, indicates her to join us. She sits and nervously smiles. She gulps a cup of tea, and then disappears into the kitchen. The kitchen is a separate building with a one hole charcoal burning, stove for cooking, this kitchen alternates as a barn to keep the chickens and goats safe at night. I learn not to rock the boat where woman are concerned…. well maybe I learn.
“If god desires we will keep in contact and you will help me get to the UK.” Joseph says over and over. I feel like I am only dollar signs to his eyes. They ask me nothing about my home or my travels, what I have seen or what I think. Kenya has her hand out asking to receive. The children are taught to ask any mzungu for sustenance. “anything” they say “ anything you can give me will help” I want to tell them what I have seen as a traveler, my observations. Kenya has a poison spreading through her…. and I don’t mean AIDS… greed and envy. It touches the hearts of many. "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?" Proverbs 29:4
I try to understand. Joseph is the oldest, he feels responsible for the welfare of his family and the next generation. His father has provided for so many, he has given land to his children and their families. The father, Drismas, works all night as a security guard, and takes his machete and the grand boys into the fields in the morning. Security has to be the number one industry following tourism here.
The mother Mary, is in her early fifties. She has nine children. Her youngest, George is about eight years old and her eldest is thirty four. Her daughter Elizabeth is twenty two and has a year old baby. Elizabeth is not married and lives with her parents. She is well educated and bright, she dreams of becoming a nurse.
I spend the night cozy in my tent. Before I leave I give them my ‘contact’ and three hundred schillings. They seem pacified as if they have accomplished what they needed to, although what they have accomplished is still a bit confusing to them. Perhaps it is the beginning of the road to the garden of edan, paradise, the promise land, all their hopes, dreams and desires can now be had….. god willing.
I want to tell them that Kenya must help herself. The businesses and economy must thrive from with in. She is like an adolescent child wanting the keys to the car, another few bucks for the movies, a season ski pass.

Day 2

HILLS! A whole day of up hills. The first one is into Sondu. I thought wow up hill changes things, glad that’s over. But oh no, the biggest one leads out of Sondu and winds up, up, and up. I am escorted by a bicyclist delivering milk and millet in old reused gerry cans. We rarely talk but I gather info gradually. He rides… or rather pushes his bike up this hill everyday, fills his buckets then returns, delivering on the way. We share peanuts and he asks me to take his photo. We laugh at the results, Kenyans love to see their images in the screen, an unusual experience I suppose. We summit at Sigowet I stop for a coke, baridi, I really want chocolate but none is to be found for the duration of my trip, no 'baridi' coke either, most fridges are just cubbards. He moves on with a sad look. I feel sad, I miss his company… I should have offered him a coke.
The girl in the shop is thrilled. She sits by me and laughs at every word I say. Her head falls onto my shoulder, she is laughing, gitty, nervous, thrilled. Biggest thing to happen in her day or maybe her month.
I ride through the most beautiful mountain farmlands, tea, maze, pineapple. Richness, beautiful homesteads, lush growth. Green hedges, paths running up and down the hill through the fields, no roads, no driveways. There are no fences, the animals are attended by shepards, usually young boys. They graze near the road and crops keeping the grass short, everything looks trimmed and clean.
My bike bell is broken. It rings constantly over every little bump. I feel bad The ring of a bike bell in Kenya, like the honk of a car horn, means 'GET OUT OF THE WAY', and I send many an old lady jumping to the side unnecessarily.
The day wears on and my destination eludes me, it starts to rain. I have brought large garbage bags to put over my backpack and tent, I have raincoat and pants but opt not to wear them because, for one I am already wet and two it is too hot, I am working hard, pedaling up hill. Too many hills, too slow, not enough strength. I make it to the cross roads near Letein, 30km short of planned destination, Sotik. I have only traveled 64Km today.
It is 4:30, I stop for food. It is always crazy when I come to a ‘town’. There are always people milling about everywhere, and garbage strewn all over. I can tell I’m coming to a ‘center’ when plastic bags and bottles start to line the road. Lean-to sheds housing everything from nik-naks to food items line both sides of the street. There is a matatu or bus stop in the middle of it all. There is always a kind of tense madness surrounding the matatus, a frenzy. I push my bike through the mud to a ‘hotel’ which means restaurant here. Everyone’s eyes are on me from the time I arrive in such places until the time I leave.
After being approached by several people stepping over each other to attend to me, I relate my desires, food and camping. The room is cozy and warm when I sit down I realize how tired and cold I am. Chai is always ready and hot in places like these, Kenyan tea boiled with milk, I drink cup after cup as I wait for my eggs and chapatis. Concerned looks over the camping request. Perhaps the school… ah but, no one is there for it is Easter break. Where will there be a secure place? I have brought a problem with this question.
The young waitress that is serving me invites me to stay at her home. I agree and there is a great relief of tension. She looks proud and everyone smiles. A line of people come to see the mzungu. Conversation with different citizens that speak English. One ‘cousin’ wants her photo taken, they all line up along the wall…. as many as can fit. I am nervous that my camera will not work, it uses AA batteries and they are almost depleted. I have tried to buy batteries here but they don’t seem to have enough juice to run it at all. Is it possible that the batteries sold here are of lesser quality than ours?

After food I am lead to her home, a 12’ X12’ cement walled room. There is an enclosed toilet stall in a separate building around the corner. Water is heated on a paraffin burning stove for me to wash with. The coffee table is stacked onto the single cabinet and an extra mattress is placed on the floor, I get the couch. Five of us sleep safe that night, with my bike also inside, Betty, her sister, her lover, a friend, and me. Now I know why there are always so many people milling about, homes have just enough room for sleep.

Day 3

Letein then Sotik pass by. The upgrades mellow out. I ride all day through farm country the view sometimes opening to show the plains below. The Maasai Mara. I thank goodness for every descent. I get intense stares from the young men on bikes, no women ride here. I ask a man why and he answers ‘because it is serious… it is a business’. Yea, so, ‘why don’t more girls ride?’ I ask again. He shakes his head as if I didn’t understand his English.
I pass a group of young men and get some pretty serious mean looks. For the first time I am a little nervous. They follow me. Up hills they struggle to ride their turn of the century bikes at all, while I ride and carry 35kilos (about 75lbs…I have to get a lighter tent) behind me. Down hills they pass me in triumph. This goes on for half the day. Visions of an isolated ambush cross my mind. They begin to peel off at different cross roads, one is stickier than the rest, he still shows up around every turn.
Then I pick up a real threat. At first I thought he was the village idiot, which he may be, but soon realize he is drunker than a skunk. Sorry skunks…. what’s up with that, I know skunks don’t drink.
Excited, freaky, my new admirer follows me up the hill….damn this hill…why such a steep one, I am pushing my bike. Closer and closer he gets with his wild hand gestures and slurred words. I hear him summoning every word of English that he can muster. He is trying to get a reaction from me, I am trying to ignore him. Finally he begins to touch me, I say firmly and loudly ‘go home!’. He stops, he looks confused, he points down the hill ‘home down dare’. I say 'Yes GO HOME' still pushing hurriedly. I wonder how am I going to get out of this one. That’s when I notice my ‘mean staring’ bicycler, he stands in the road. He looks into my eyes, a message is passed. He engages is a short conversation with ‘senior loco’ and the threat passes. My adversary becomes my hero.
As the afternoon rains approach my destination is, again, unobtainable. I must find shelter. I have traveled 78Km today.

I must find shelter. I ask fellow road mates for possible camping spots, they point and say ‘center’. That is what people here call anything remotely resembling a town square, in this case a church with a fruit stand shed on the roadside. I consider a homestead of Maasai huts, circular earthen buildings with thatched roofs, smoke rising straight through the thatch. The practice of cooking inside the hut, with a charcoal jiko, smokes the mosquitoes out for the night. I would like to stay in one sometime…. not in the stars for this night.
I ask again, a middle aged man whose gaunt face reveals every curve of his skull. ‘I am Johnston, I am the pastor of this church, perhaps you can stay here.’ He pronounces it John Stone, but when he writes it down for me it is Johnston. The church stands on a hill side behind a rock wall, it is surrounded by short green grass, ‘yes I would like that.’ He begins to lead me down the muddy boulder strewn road, we are met by a young boy. ‘You are being summons’ Johnston tells me. I raise my eyebrows...‘Invited’ he corrects. The boy leads us to a wooden milling shed, there sits my real host, Joshua. He is a very large., old man with torn open ear lobes and his lower front teeth missing in traditional Maasai fashion but otherwise dressed in western clothes. He introduces himself as a Kalenjin. The men’s clothes here are usually dress shirts with ties and suit jackets much worn, threadbare to be honest. I notice most men’s ties have white worn lines on the creases, as if they are never untied just loosened and then re-worn the next day. The fashions reflect downtown Oakland in the early sixties, I remember holding my fathers hand while walking through SF and seeing the same felt derbies and shiny penny loafers.
I am directed to an empty wooden chair, a handmade willow branch type. There are many children of all ages. Curled up in the sawdust at Joshua’s feet is a striped cat, an unusual sight here in Kenya. There is also a lean shepherd like dog, a much more common sight. My host and I speak through Johnston the interrupter. We run through the usual while chai is being prepared. Where am I from, where am I going, what country do I live in, so on and so on. The view from the shed is stunning. Green rolling farmland spilling into the plains…. the Maasai Mara, almost within grip. As the evening turns, animals pass by us in herds headed to their night quarters, young boys attending their chores. When the chai comes the children are dismissed, but they still peer at me through the slits in the barn siding. Some women come and go with the tray of tea, carefully stepping over fresh cow pies. They do not join us. Finally it is time to secure my night quarters. We begin as a procession down, then up the hillside. My bike is heavy, like it always is at the end of the day.
The house we come to is a huge western style ranch house, apparently built by missionaries from Arizona. I say I want to stay in my tent, but end up staying inside. The house has not been used for some time, it is not well kept. The windows are all blocked with forty year old curtains holding forty years of dust. The walls are bare except for the mold and pealing paint. Oh I take that back, there are photos of the late president Moi and some old calendars…. 2002 as I recall. This is very common I have found, bare walls with expired calendars and presidential photos, although usually they are of the current president. Johnston has informed me that Joshua has close ties to the ex president Moi, for he is a Kalenjin also. I shutter at my memories of the things I read about old President Moi.
I am wet from the rain, Johnston shows me to the wash room. My bike is placed in a locked fourier. Everything is filthy, there is a toilet, but no toilet seat, also very common. The shower is above the toilet, there is a drain in the floor, which runs directly through the wall to the grass out side. The hot water hasn’t worked in years. Johnston starts a fire in the kitchen fireplace and hangs a cast iron pot of water above it. Water is collected from the rain runoff from the roofs, I am glad I am here during rainy season, otherwise there would not be enough water to clean with. I gingerly use the warm water he brings in a basin and wash myself…. thank goodness for my flip flops. I wash some clothes by headlamp as well. Passing by in the hallway I hear a surprised huh!?! Headlamps are not common.
Then there is a sputtering and electric lights….generator. Joshua has been waiting in the living room for me. I am uncomfortable around him, he has an ominous presense. I have learned that he has four wives and … well I never figured out how many children and grand children, they are not important enough to be introduced to me. His farm is a little over 800 hectors, which is roughly 1600 acres.
We sit in silence, Johnston is attending to dinner at some other location. Joshua shows me a hymnbook with English titles and Kiswahili verses. He points to ‘Oh come all ye faithful’ and then proceeds to sing. The empty room, the empty house is filled for a moment with a very plain male voice singing an almost monotone hymn. I squirm in my seat. When he is through he places the book on the coffee table, still looking forward. Silence again. I sit with my arms folded in my lap. Finally I begin to sing my version of 'Come all ye faithful', an old Christmas carol. Now he looks uncomfortable.
Finally Johnston and a little helper come with the food. The three of us sit around a table with a bare florescent bulb above us. I have informed them I am allergic to corn so that I may avoid eating ugali and scuma. I am served rice and fried eggs with their version of catsup. They are served ugali and scuma and eat it with their hands. Scuma means push in Swahili, the saying comes from ‘push the week’, scuma is a dark green leafy vegetable that when added to ugali pushes hunger away for the week.
After dinner we are visited by two young girls, they speak English, thank god. They are bright and beautiful, they invite me to the Easter sermon the next morning. We talk about Kenya, and my adventure… I feel happy. I am sorry to see them go.
I retire to my bedroom. Everything is filthy. There are cobwebs on the ceiling, the walls are discolored by time. The curtain is heavy with dirt. I remove the covers and put my cotton sheet down. My sleep is troubled by night mares, some about my dad and one about Matt, Davin and me bodysurfing in some huge maverick waves. What the hell are we going to do when we reach the bottom! Luckily dreams have a way of just ending without an ending. I am alone in the house with Joshua. I am nervous. He is a fat old man and shuffles down the hall several times during the night to the toilet. I hear the farts and grunts of old age, and thank god every time my door is left untouched.
By morning I am a wreck, all I can think of is getting on my bike. Breakfast is another long drawn out affair. I am asked how I slept several times. I finally spill the truth and we laugh uncomfortably. The girls join us with one of the eldest sons, who also speaks English. I now realize why they were chosen. Joshua talks about how god has brought us all here together, how it is His plan, how we should be thankful, on and on. Johnston faithfully interprets. They tell me that the bike project is admirable and could be gratefully utilized here in this valley where, thousands of hectors and hundreds of farms that are not accessible by cars… no roads just paths. Incredible. They tell me I could walk straight to the Mara from here in six hours on these paths. I ache to do just that.
I inform them that it is important for me to travel in the morning because of the afternoon rains, I decline participating in the sermon. They understand because the roads are dirt and become impassable to all vehicles every evening. In conclusion they choose a hymn and proceed to sing amazing gospel music in two-part harmony, right there at the table. Wow. I decide to see the sermon… just for a bit. What a pleasure. The acoustics in the small brick building are amazing. Everyone is rocking, it’s crazy the way it makes me feel. I ride away happy, renewed.

Journey day 4,5,6

2006-07-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Day 4

Pretty uneventful. The descent becomes the norm, I truly enjoy the ride off the escarpment and into the Great Rift Valley. I cruise toward Lolgorian and the gates of the Maasai Mara. The landscape changes and the farms become scarce. More Maasai cattle less patches of maze. Sometimes I feel like a Maasai cow, my bike bell rings continuously, like a cowbell, as I bump over the rocky roads. The roads have been dirt since leaving Sondu. I’m not sure whether it is because of the rain, which make the roads impassable by car, or whether it is just the remoteness of my route, but the cars are getting scarcer, one every couple of hours or so and none during the night. I see my first wild animals in Africa, a band of zebra’s cross the road.
As night comes on I near my destination. I have ridden 104Km. I consider my options. I want to camp. I decide to ask permission from a Maasai family. What a scene.
It begins to rain…. like it does every afternoon around three or four. I scout out some possible fields but am enjoying the ride so much I pass many by. I know I do not want to stay in a town again. I am over stimulated by being the guest of honor every night, hosted by members of different types of tribes. Stiffly sipping tea with the men of the household discussing Bush and President Habaki.
I decide on a ridge with a view. I ride my bike down a narrow path through thorny bushes to a muddy yard. I am greeted by what my friend refers to as the ‘random kid factor’ and soon realize English is not recognized.
It’s quite comical really. Me in my bright blue rain jacket and pants, hood up, my bicycle leaned over in the muddy yard. Twelve scantily dressed, snot nosed, dirty little kids that I couldn’t imagine touching, all under the age of six, with giant wondering eyes and three woman, all in a circular mud and thatched roofed hut trying to communicate.
‘Welcome, Madame, welcome’ with gestures of entry. The children line up sitting on the damp earthen floor in the light cast by the doorway, twelve mind you… I counted. The older woman is mixing something with a stick and gourd, I think it is the mixture of cow blood and milk they eat. They have given me a sticky piece of wood to sit on… I think it must be their chopping block.
The old woman grabs one of the youngest kids by the hand and laughingly pulls him towards me until he bursts away from her grip, whimpering in ‘MZUNGU’ fear. The two other women…. beautiful woman, are trying to understand the nature of my visit. ‘I do not understand the language that you are speaking’ she says. I think ‘ yes you do, you are speaking it’. Eventually we realize all is in vain. I mumble ‘asante, kua heri, asante sana’ and duck out the door. Next time, I think to myself, don’t ask.
So I don’t. As I ride over a muddy river and up the other side a meadow calls to me, I scout it out and camp well hidden from the road.

<

Day 5

Holy shit balls you would not believe what happened this morning!.

After deciding to camp in the bush, I scout my camping spot out. There are small bunches of trees in the middle of the meadow and large clumps lining the gullies. I look into the big clump and find a large flat cave like opening completely covered by foliage…. this seems pretty cool, but wait, there is an animal trail running off the side of it.
I decide to set up behind one of the small clumps, out of sight of the road. I have such a peaceful night of sleep, really needed
In the morning I watch the sun rise, mist rising out of the river canyon, clouds touched with pink, morning dew on spider webs. I take a short walk reveling in the solace. I spread my camp out to dry and ready to pack.
I am listening to the birds and thinking about adjusting my brakes. when I hear an especially loud bird hoot. I try to see it but fail. I rummage through my tools. Something catches my eye…. I stand up slowly. Three huge elephants with shiny tusks enter the meadow not 30m away!
They suddenly see me and my stuff hanging from the trees….sleeping bag, sheets, upside down tent and bicycle. They change directions abruptly and disappear into some trees.
After a few moments curiosity gets the best of me (not remembering that curiosity killed the cat) and I venture out to see the path they have taken. As I draw closer to the trees I see movement. Oh my god they are still there! In fact one bursts out of the trees and heads straight for me. I promptly and quite quickly retreated to my tiny clump of trees and kneel down trying to be the trees. They proceeded forward cautiously. They come within ten feet of my bike, huge ears forward, long trunks pointing…smelling.... they seem to be checking out the xtracycle, just like everyone else in Kenya. Then they turn and enter the trees opposite me… the right trail I presume. Good thing I had decided to camp near the small clump. CRUNCH!
I stay here for a long time, not being able to move… not wanting to. Just living the feeling I am having. It’s a feeling that is hard to describe. Excitement, yes, my heart is beating, but it is something more. Love, yes, I feel the overwhelming feeling of endorphins, but it is something more. I remember this feeling, I have felt it a few times in my life. A little when I touched a wild baby grey whale that was swimming in San Ygnacio bay, in Baja. A lot when I held each of my sons for the first time, an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Yes I think I am touched by grace this morning.
I stare at their footprints on the grass in the morning dew not ten feet away. Oh how I want to share this moment with someone… you should see me try to explain it to the first Maasai I meet. Fingers around my eyes and an excited ‘tembos!’, three fingers up, ‘tembos!’.

Later that morning I meet a boy, Jeffery. He looks about eleven but he is fourteen and just entering high school. His family is Kisi, his father is a teacher that moved to this area twenty years earlier to teach the Maasai children. Jeffery can speak four different languages, Kisi, Kiswahili, Maasai, and English. I thank him for learning English, he nods in acknowledgement and says with confidence that he will study in the US someday. He becomes my ‘guide' for the next six km.
The minute he jumps on the back of my bike, monkeys rustle in the trees and a bush buck leaps across the road. I think there must be a little magic in this boy. We talk and ride, until the next town. Then sit down for a cold one…. coke a cola that is, and not so ‘bridi’ after all. The towns here are weird, they are all the same only on different scales. You know you are nearing a town when the litter appears and the houses start looking like cheap western look-a-likes, full hip metal roofs and simple shed barns. There are always tons of people outside and they all seem to be staring at me. I think about that and realize that I have not seen another mzungu since Kisumu five days ago. I’m rarer that a rhino in these parts.
The signs on the rundown store fronts are a crack up, ‘excellent store, hotel, bar’ all over the same door, Behind that door is a wire fence protecting the merchant of a store selling bagged peanuts, laundry soap, tubs of margarine and Kenyan tea. Nothing is newer than the 1950’s including everyone’s close.
Jeffery leads me through the stalls, I tell him I like to eat beans and rice….and chocolate. We pass a police checkpoint at the crossroads. I smile and the officer jokes with me about my bike. ’Is that a vehicle?’ ‘yea’ I laugh ‘a bike limo’. Only vehicles are allowed past this point, I wonder if I will have trouble getting out of here.
We enter the café. It is dark but nice. There are picnic tables and wooden benches, and dirty white lace curtains tied in knots hang from the ceiling in various places for ambiance. Plastic placemats from the seventies decorate the middle of the tables,painted with roses or tacky fruit of plenty horns, plastic tablecloths are also big here.
Soon the place fills up with young men staring earnestly at my map. Great concern is expressed over my planned route. ‘What will you do about the lions?’ ‘You cannot proceed without a vehicle. You must hire one.’ A firm shake of my head and a possible route emerges. I will head straight to Kichwa Tembo lodge, Kichwa Tembo means head elephant in Swahili. I will find lodging there.
I mount my trusted steed and head towards the park gate. Thirty kilometers of cool pasture like land filled with wild animal sign.The ride is sweet I see more herd animals, gazelles, impalas. I meet two Maasai girls that whistle and roll their eyes at the knowledge of my experience so far…. it is so far to them. They sell me a beautiful beaded vessel, for all the change in my pocket.
Finally I reach the Maasai Mara! I ride up to the gate. I ask about camping and they lead me down a grassy road. I ask for the most remote camp. I am the only camper they don’t understand my desire and ask if I won’t be scared so far from other humans. I love it! It is the most beautiful camp sight I have ever seen. I quickly erect my tent as the wind picks up. I tie all the strings to the ground pegs but it still collapse beneath the mighty wind that rolls across the plain like an invisible steam roller. I am pelted by raindrops driven sideays by the wind, but I only feel excitement. It is so beautiful. I stand under some trees as the lightening storm passes over. The thunders shakes the earth. Within an hour it has moved on. I watch it in the distance. The game warden starts a fire, he insists, says it is for the wild animals. I realize later that it is a warning to them that a man resides here tonight. I go to bed happy.

Day 6

Here I sit in the warm afternoon sun, under an acacia tree in my camp at the Maasai Mara Park entrance, listening to the ever-changing birdsongs.I am taping the cheap pair of tennis I bought in Mombassa ( so that I could work out in the fancy hotel gym) together with black electrical tape. It is still and peaceful before the rains, the grass is green knee high and graining out. From where I sit I watch a family of warthogs rummaging around their hole in a sandy bank. A motley crew of five baboons graze in the field, the big male sits on a bare termite mound and the little baby rides on mama's back. When I asked about security, I was warned that the baboons may attempt to steal from my tent. I smile at the relief of not having to worry about people for a night or two.
In the distance is a herd of African buffalo take a siesta. There is a funny blue-black bird with a bright orange head and an enormously long tail courting an audience of three females. When he flies he is taken by the breeze and must follow his tail, he looks like the bird version of the Siamese fighting fish. The birds make the most unusual sounds here. I hear them constantly. even throughout the night. The insects and frogs add to the continuous concert. They sound like amplified drips, giant leaky faucets. The tse tse flies buzz close ready to bite at any moment.
The moon was bright last night and I saw the giant form of an elephant pass by my tent, the fire reflected orange on his belly and the moonlight silver on his back. When elephants walk they are nearly silent. I was awakened by a deep drum like sound, I think it was him eating trunkfulls of grass. Elephant footprints have tread just like giant adidas, horizontal ridges and indented spots.
Lions roared during the night but I was disappointed when they didn't come close enough to see. Liz told me of her experience while in a safari camp deeper in the park. She was awakened by the heavy breathing of a lioness circling their tent, a coughing sound. She heard its footsteps as it moved away. I am jealous.
I heard hyenas too and some squawking, probably baboons.
There are flowers and butterflies everywhere. It is my day of rest from the bike. I feel so relaxed.
This morning at 6:30 I began my game drive‚?. Being solo I was accommodated by a friend‚ of the ranger. That's the funny thing about Kenya, there really are no problems 'hakuna matata', because you merely vocalize your desire and like magic you are accommodated… for a price. This price is thirty dollars for a six hour observation drive in a private four wheel vehicle. They don't allow bicycles in the park. In the National Park near Nairobi a Japanese tourist got out of his car to photograph the lions and was horrible killed and eaten in front of his hysterical family.
I was watching a herd of buffalo move into the field in front of me when Ahmiz and Wilson drove up. They are both from the Maasai tribe. Ahmiz is distinctly odd looking in his American attire; white safari hat contrasting with his dark pinched face, black Patagonia jacket, a loose fitting Rolex imitation, gold pinky ring, and chain necklace. Wilson is a ranger for the Mara Conservancy, he wors a green sweater and kaki trousers. He has a round baby face. My official, private guide, sweetly answering my every question. English is his third language so they speak mostly Maasai between themselves and Kiswahili to the other drivers and guides.
Our first mission was to get close to the buffalo…15' or so. I watched a bird disappear into a big bull's ear, eating ticks I was told. I have heard about buffalo getting agitated by cars and ramming them, actually being able to move the car with their incredible strength. As we dive, two jackals wait for the car to pass, they are like beautiful sleek coyotes. We see herds of elephants, another close view... always close views. Only the rhino family escapes the close up, we stayed 40 of 50 feet away from them, black rhinos, mama, papa and Jr. Junior is about four and a half years old and Wilson thinks mama is pregnant again. Through my binoculars I can see every hair wrinkle and mud clod's, this is close enough. The same type of bird works busily sorting out the giant creases.

Topi, water buck, thompson gazelle, impalas, hippos, crocs and giraffes; you name it we saw it. We watch a lioness assigned to baby sit, stare into the distance from the crotch of a tree. Four cubs lined the branches and a fifth stuck half way up the trunk not able to maneuver around the grumpy auntie.
We saw many, many of my plump friends the warthogs, impressive long manes, stuck up tusks and tails that stand on end like flag poles as they run.
My plan is to sleep during the rain today.
Such amazing bird life here, now two yellow and grey striped ones with rigid tails that stand up like road runners are making the loudest sound for their size.
The most impressive thing today, the water bucks They remind me of reindeer, I think I could ride one of them, they gallop like horses.
After many hours we stopped at the beautiful Serena lodge and had breakfast in the employee kitchen. Of couse I had the usual, fried eggs on chapati with a special prize... fruit salad, papaya, pineapple, bananas and avocados, made just for me. Yummy.
Well now, here I sit on my thermo rest, back to the tree, gazing out across the expansive Serengeti Plain trying to take this day with me into eternity. The rain is coming, the wind is picking up, the tension builds, I wish I could record this. The thunder the frogs starting up like giant raindrops... leaky faucets, the birds in the trees, the wind pushing the windmill as it creaks around to face the storm. My fire starts again like magic, bellowed by the coming storm.
I look out over the plain and see the clouds touch the ground where it is raining contrasted by the bright green sunny spots. Movement above me, flashes of light, the clanging bell sound of the Maasai's herds. Darkening skies. Anticipation building.
Tonight I watch the most intensely beautiful lightening storm I have ever seen. The flashes of light turned the underside of the clouds purple. I sit by the fire and watch the storm move across the Serengeti, each lightening bolt defined by the darkness. Oh… the thunder, it is impressive, some of the cracks sound like a godly version of Chinese New Year, each one continuing an unbelievable length of time. Sipping hot tea with my friends. Tiny raindrops sizzling in the flames, fireflies dancing all around us, it is truely incredible. Lightening storms and fire flies.
As I lay in my cozy bag lightening bugs cover my tent. They look like florescent blue-green stars. I feel so content, finally I am here in Africa on the Serengeti, something I have been dreaming about since I was old enough to dream.

journey day 7,8,9

2006-07-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

Day 7

So much to write about. Sunrise, two beautiful balloons float above a herd of tembo and the Mara river mist. The sky turns from dawn to early morning brightness. Another balloon rises from the Serena lodge, I wish I could ride that balloon. I hear the sound of the gas fire machine inside it, and see the flash of flame.
Today I head towards Narok.
My friends the birds getting louder. One balloon dips into the mist…. spying on hippos perhaps. My warthog buddies are back, they are very close and they are staring at me. Mama also has a bird friend on her shoulder. She sports a marvelously long mane that drapes across her shoulder. I am up wind, that makes them cautious but they continue to graze on grass. They are cautious animals, my guide says they are the favorite breakfast of the lions, leopards and cheetahs. Yum pork.
The two balloons are especially beautiful today dancing together, one up then the other, red and yellow highlighted against the green. The sunlight reflecting off one side, shadows on the other.
I have to admit I secretly hoped to see a lion or cheetah catch a pig in front of my eyes yesterday on my ‘game drive’. Horrid girl.
I sit on my zebra snap deck and spy on the world through my binoculars. It is kind of like watching TV ‘you control the view’ TV, discovery channel 3d. I watch a lone topi graze near an acacia tree. Funny thing about topi is that you rarely see them with their heads down, they are always watching. In the foreground is a beautiful yellow bird on a bush. In the background I see giraffes moving with their awkward gait… what fun mother nature had in Kenya. Something moves in the grass near the topi. I imagine it to be a lioness stalking, but it turns out to be more warthogs. I don’t know why they call the bumps on their faces warts, they are for too big to be warts. They say that the females have two ‘warts’ under her eyes and the males have four… two lower, near their snouts.
An elephant appears over a rise to my right and a small band of zebras brave the park. The herd animals tend to stick close to humans during this time of the year especially at night. They spend the night in the Maasai lands, in the hlls outside the park to escape the lion’s prowl.
Sammy, the game warden brings me a thermos of tea and we talk about the park in the early morning quiet. Lions rarely go out of the park, a Maasai cow is killed maybe once every ten years or so. During hard times the conservators of the park feed the lions deep inside, near one of the safari camps. They kill some of the resident wildebeests, not the buffalo or topi, just the crazy expendable wildebeests. Wildebeest have an amazing ability to reproduce and in July they migrate into the park by the millions. While the other animals suffer the wildebeests seem hardly annoyed. They have their babies in Tanzania on the Serengeti where it is flat and they can spot predators easily. Then they come here when the grass gets too dry. In hard times it is the lions that are most vulnerable, they die more easily. The park rangers don’t worry about the leopards and cheetahs they can take care of themselves. The cheetah hunts with speed and the leopards have superb lone stalking abilities. Lions hunt in teams and depend on ambushes. Here in the park the lions are taken care of and they seem to obey the park rules, they rarely leave the park boundaries. When they do they are killed by ranchers. The Maasai have a rights of passage ritual which involves young men killing a lion with their spear. Perhaps a new instinct has been born among the king of beasts, to be passed down to new generations.
The cheetah’s favorite food is the thompson gazelle, the leopard likes warthog and all the other antelope and gazelle. There was an eight year old boy that was snatched by a leopard out of one of the safari camps while walking outside his tent at night. Sammy look surprised when I mentioned this after he had told me that the Mara boosts no human deaths. I had heard about it from Liz who knew a fellow student of the poor boy, who was indeed killed and eaten... although it was in Tanzania, there had been no mention of it in the news paper. Sammy quickly informed me that he thinks he was rescued.
I must leave before noon. I am sluggish, loving this camp so much. For the first hour I ride alongside the mighty, muddy, Mara river, all set about by fever trees. I study each rapid, I could kayak this river, and oh what amazing sights I would see. Too bad it is full of hippos and crocodiles. I guess it would teach me not to swim!?!? Sammy says that the crocs feed on any animal that comes to drink. He has seen them catch food many times, wildebeests of course but also young giraffes and even baby elephants. I think about Rudyard Kipling’s story the Elephant’s Child. Now I understand the African people’s inherent fear of the water.
After climbing a steep rocky hill I am on a huge green mesa. There will not be many days in my life that I spend pedaling through herds of wildebeests and zebras, gazelles and impalas! Hour after hour I move through what I have deemed the game plateau. Every herbivore is here elands, topi a giant herd of buffalo and even the ostrich, I ride off the road to get close to the largest bird on earth. I come so close to everything, incredible.
The only draw back is THE MUD. It is black sticky, slippery clay that clogs up my bike. Going is slow and there is no way around some of the immense puddles. I slip and I am covered head to toe with the black goop, and of course so is everything I own. I discover that it is easily washed off with the semi clear water of the grass puddles. I proceed to undress and rinse my clothes, no one in sight for miles….oops…. a safari client plane flies directly over me, oh well, another sight in the wild African landscape.
I have to clean my bike several times, thank Amsterdam Bicycle shop for the extra water bottle, I use it exclusively for non potable wash water. But still damage is done. I loose my front shifter and the front brake become temporarily worthless, I adjust the back brakes almost daily. My bottom bracket starts to moan. I have a thought of regret for choosing the ‘hard rock,’ I have read personal web experiences expressing this as a hard rock weakness… fear of abandonment here in these remote hills. But alas we keep trudging on my faithful wounded steed and I.
This night I have a hard time finding a comfortable camp sight. There is sign of tembo everywhere and I am suspicious of the Maasai, I must find a camp sight out of their sight. That is one downside of spending days communing with nature, one gets negative feelings towards human kind. I see the Maasai as shepherds stealing their wealth from the wild animals. Why do they have to have so many cows and sheep? Everything is over grazed from the park boundaries on. The grass suffers and the trees are sparse, cut down for cooking fires and charcoal. The areas around the huts stink and the bones of butchered cows lie scattered on the roadside. The Maasai children run towards me shouting the only English they retain ‘ give me, give me, give me treats’ I feel frustrated and sad. I try to talk with them... in vain. They laugh and run off. I don’t trust anyone… probably because I can’t communicate here. It is hard to find a place hidden from them, yet safe, so I camp on elephant dung and hope for the best.

Day 8

I slept well and when I look out of my tent I see a few impalas quietly walking through the bush. The elephants definitely made their presense known last night but luckily they were far enough away not to disturb my sleep much. It seems strange that I have gotten used to seeing the wild animals I have waited so long to meet.
Pretty uneventful riding through Maasai muck land, over-grazed pasture land. I’m hungry and tried, getting rundown. I couldn’t find food yesterday and had to rely on the food I had bought in Kisumu… raw top ramin and very very dry gristle, I mean beef jerky. I talk to no one even though there are some who obviously want to converse.
Finally I stop and ask a young man how far to Lemex, he says one kilometer. Great I made good time last night. After about ten KM I remember in Kenya distances and direction answers are completely random and usually irrelevant to the truth. Silly me.
My bad mood is broken when I finally reach Lemex and I’m treated to my staples of late, ‘mixed’ fried eggs, chapatis, chai, and good conversation. A young Maasai named Dominick, although his shirt is embroidered with Sean, speaks perfect English and we talk about California and his job as a safari guide. He tells me what to expect ahead… which is unusual, most people I meet have never been ‘ahead’. Faith in my fellow man restored, as well as my smile, I ride away with my spirit lifted and I see the sweet Africa again, giant acacia trees, the white moon in a blue sky, beautiful young Maasai girls dressed in colorful traditional ceremonial garb. Yes a whole new Africa.
I reach a tarmac road and the sky opens up into the US’s Midwest. Corn and wheat fields. This road leads to another and there materializes civilization at the crossroads, a place called Oloulunga. As usual every eye in the place is on me. My mouth is watering for a banana. I am greeted by a young man that speaks English. He is instantly my servant. What do you desire Madame? Nataka banana. He rushes off to find one. His name is Elvis, and he is about 22yrs and works gathering wood, then turning it into charcoal. He has a chronic chest problem that he treats with warm cow’s milk. Oh well. He has a funny way of using hand gestures and a slight twitch in his right eye. No bananas to be had, in his hand are five green oranges...tasty indeed. He escorts me to the ‘best’ hotel in town, which remember is really a restaurant. I am tired.
The 34KM to Narok seems far, very far. I ask about camping. The proprietor, Mohamed grants my wish, and I set up camp on the lush green lawn. When I ask if it is a secure place, he tells me there will be a 24 hour guard. I am reassured that nothing bad has ever happened here.
I am sitting is an open air room about 20’x50’.At one end is a television sitting on a table like a king perch on a throne, obviously the center of attention. Forty or fifty men have gathered here to watch the Kenyan 7:00 news. They line the walls and stand outside the windows. There are NO women, save me. I stick out like a sore thumb. Kenya is a land of men and invisible women. The TV is powered by the generator next door at the BP station.
The rain has begun, it is a heavy rain that threatens to go on all night. I worry about my tent spot. The rain on the metal roof completely drowns out the television’s volume, but the audience is faithful. This is so weird. I can’t help laughing. I’m going to bed.

Well things have happened. I was careless and some one stole my valuables back pack while I was washing. God it had everything in it. I know, I know I should have split my $$ up into different locations, I should have taken it with me, I shoulda, woulda, coulda.
I find the escari (security guard) and report the loss. I watch a gambit of emotions cross his face. First comprehension, then fear, then anger or annoyance and finally determination. I don’t really understand the order of these feelings until much later.
I crawl back into my tent and draw my knees up to my chest. I feel horrible. In a moment’s time everything has changed. No ID no credit card means no money, no money means no food, no food means challenging riding. How far is Nairobi? I know it’s about a 5,000 ft above sea level, how high am I now? Oh man I didn’t want to climb out of the Rift on that crazily busy road. How long will it take? How will I ever get to the Westlands in Nairobi traffic?
I sit here with the ‘pit of my stomach’ feeling, rocking slightly, hearing the rain. OK what to do. First ….try to get it back. I have an idea.
I emerge from the tent and observe the buzz between the escari and lingering TV watchers. I make an announcement, “I must get a message to the people who have taken my bag. This bag contains all my necessary papers, my ID, it is so important to me. I will not call the police if it is returned, even without the money. They can keep the seven thousand schilling no ??s asked if only they return my bag and its contents. This is my prayer.” I get several nods of understanding, but a little resistance from the security guard. He wants to tell the big boss and the police immediately. I realize his motivation is job security, I begin to understand his fear and annoyance. We agree on a compromise, we will tell Yosuf, Mohamed’s son, tonight and report to the police tomorrow if it has not shown up.
With that said we begin the march through the soggy night about two kilometers down a muddy road. When we arrive Yosuf is awake… obsessively chewing mira leaves. Stuffing his cheeks so full that saliva runs down his chin. After a long discussion, and many relative stories, the deed is done. We have informed the boss.
Nothing left to do tonight, we trudge back to the ‘hotel’. Voila! What is this ?!?!? MY BAG stuffed back under my tent flap. Amazing! My passport and credit cards and most everything else, wow. Well maybe not every thing. My phone, binoculars, camera, (of course the money) and …oh no …my flash drive too, all missing. Too bad. Oh well, I am grateful, so very grateful. Such a long, long day, I fall asleep at last.

Day nine

Today was a very humbling day, the kind of day that you pray a lot and feel like you have used up one of your lives at days end. I don’t feel the exciting appreciation of being alive, I just feel quietly thankful that I can still live the life I started with this morning.
The morning was slow. It had rained a lot and the sun was sluggish behind morning overcast. I started to dry my camp.
I had a comfortable breakfast and talked to the people involved in last night’s saga. I also talked with the big boss Mohamed. I searched around my tent and followed some paths leading away from the crime scene. I found some items that had been well tucked away in my wallet and hope was kindled for finding my flash drive, which was what I missed the most at this point. No luck after hours of searching.
Finally I am packed and ready to shove off. Urgency begins to rise in my hosts as I make my departure known.
‘There is still hope’ Yusuf states. Oh really? What do you mean?
Seems that the old man had called the police and an investigation is in progress. Mohamed comes to me and says the police need a statement just in case any thing is recovered. OK
The scrawny police officer, with a worn out suit, wire rimmed spectacle and a walking cane, Mohamed and I, climb into the cab of a small but large lorry. I thought the police station was around the corner in the town. Wrong.
We travel down the tarmac road a kilometer or so and then turn onto a dirt road leading into the interior. It is farm country. I remember thinking ‘I’m in Kansas, Todo” when I bicycled into this area. The farms are wheat and corn fields. Not many tractors though…. lots and lots of hand work. Even the spraying of pesticides is done by individuals. A man with a generator back pack that sprays the stuff out under pressure. I never saw any protective wear on these workers and was told that they receive 200sch per hector, remember that a hector is roughly twice an acre and 70sch equals one dollar.
Anyway back to the story. Here we are traveling farther and farther from my stuff and the road to Narok. I am in a truck sitting between two men I do not know… or trust for that matter… traveling to who knows where. I begin to have a sinking feeling. I asked how far? Mohamed replies just another 8Km form here. Oh my god, we have already been in the truck for twenty minutes, I start calculating the distance. I think ‘I can walk back, in a pinch’. I keep a close account of the directions. I imagined escaping and returning stealthily in the cloak of darkness. I saw culverts and trees I could use while cars passed. I will have to scale the brick building they have locked my bike into and haul my stuff bit by bit over the ten foot wall to freedom. Oh man what have I got my self into.
I caught a glimpse of my face in the rear view mirror, I began consciously trying to relax my furrowed brow.
Finally we stopp. There was nothing. No police station, no buildings of any kind. Just fields of wheat and a muddy road on the left. We climb out of the truck. ‘We will walk from here’ Mohamed mumbles. I look around and there are several people getting out of the back of the lorry. One of them was the young man that I had first met at the crossroads who had directed me to the ‘hotel’. I smile at him, and I’m not sure if I actually spoke words, but I asked him ‘what are you doing here?’ In reply he lifts his hands, they are hand cuffed together. Oh brother what next. I looked around again, there is the butcher who had brought me water, the baker who had served me mandazis, and the security guard that had failed to protect me. The butcher, the baker and the charcoal maker, all in hand cuffs, all trying to defend themselves by laying blame on the others. What a scenario this makes.
We beian to walk up the muddy hill. Over the top, and over a kilometer later, I see the Police station. Talk about way the bum fuck out there. I begin to think of my role and how the hell I’m going to get out of this one without hurting some innocent bystanders. They had arrested virtually everyone that had talked to me…. lesson to Kenya’s citizens do not be nice to mzungus.
Upon arriving at the station several other officers, (with not much to do I imagined) greet us and are filled in on the happenings. The number one suspect is the butcher, for it happened while I was bathing with the water he brought. He is a kind of weasely guy that whimpers and whines in a high pitched pleading voice. Next is the Maasai security guard who tries avidly to make the case of the butcher’s guilt. And then the waiter that had tried so hard to convert me into taking Jesus into my heart, last night… I secretly want him to sweat a little.
I had decided on a plan and now with all of us gathered in front of the station, I begin. ‘I think there has been a mistake. I thought someone had stolen my bag, but I was wrong and here it is to prove it. So sorry for the inconvenience’
I hear Mohamed whistle through his teeth, poor guy now his reputation is at stake. 'What about the items still missing?' he announces.
‘Well I have lost my camera and binoculars but in thinking about it more thoroughly I think they may have fallen out of my bag when my bike fell over on my ride from the Maasai Mara.’
Oh brother that starts a whirlwind of Swahili. We finish our business inside the station, me leaving multiple statements and them shaking their heads and trying to act official. I have to admit I begin to feel that I have the upper hand. I don’t think they see many mzungus and especially not a pushy vocal white girls. Everyone in Kenya seems to harbor a sort of awe concerning US mzungus. The main officer, Gabriel, is obviously fighting the generational lesson of ‘must get mzungu contact for life miracles to happen’ and I smile to myself at my new found, inherent power.
While left alone in the office, I read my horoscope, YOUR STARS, was the title. Taurus: “Relating to others today could cause a very dramatic affair. If it is too much for your laid back nature, take a walk or go for a drive.” Well I guess I opted unknowingly for the drive.
Here’s another laugh for those who know me. Gabrial slowly and meticulously writes down all the items by hand in an official notebook. I am trying to down play the value of the items so whoever took them won’t spend the rest of his life in a jail cell. When he comes to the phone he asks me for details… I tell him the make… at that moment he pulls out his phone … I was in the middle of telling him it had little value…and he realizes that the make is the same as his…. “like this one” he says ….. “yea, the cheapest one I could find” ….woops. He looks at me, shakes his head and says “ oh, Madame”. I laugh a bit nervously, foot in mouth strikes again.
I leav not knowing if my plan has helped the poor suspects or not, they are all being locked up in the single cell. But I get into the truck with a sigh of relief, and soon we are back at the crossroads and my beloved bike.
The day is speeding to an end and I dread the thought of staying here another night. Narok is 34Km down the road and it probably has a real hotel. So I prepare to leave heading straight into the afternoon showers.
But miracles do happen, and Mohamed’s son-in-law drops in on his way to Nairobi, and guess what, he is driving a pickup with a covered bed. Prayers are answered sometimes

me without extensions

2006-07-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

Part two: Journey through Kenya

2006-07-14T11:23:00.002-07:00

Day 1

I’ve been in Nairobi for three days eating, resting and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. My bike is in the shop. News of my belongings being found has influenced my route to Arusha. I will make my way back to Narok, pick up my stuff and then take the less trodden path through the Loita Hills. Perhaps I will back pack there for a few days as well. It is toted as being the last real wilderness in Kenya.
Now I will attempt to describe the indescribable…. I know I will fail…. I think you will just have to come here to truly understand. It is the road between Narok and Nairobi. No I really shouldn’t call it a ‘road’, it is the way to Nairobi from this crazy town of Narok.

The new tarmac road that has carried us for 38km suddenly stops. We slow down abruptly as if there is a speed bump ahead. The truck lowers itself carefully off the pavement . Potholes appear like an exploded mine field across the entire space, we weave from side to side avoiding other vehicles, still moving slowly.
As we leave town we increase speed and head down a grade, it is raining quite hard, the windshield wipers click at a rapid pace. We veer off the center route, onto a dirt track that has been created on the left shoulder. The car tilts at twenty degree slope to the left. No one is driving on the center “road” for it is a continuous series of car eating holes. Suddenly there is a car head-on, we swerve across the “road”, to a similar dirt track on the right shoulder. We are now at a twenty degree tilt to the right.
We have increased our speed to one that, I feel, is compromising our safety. Muddy water spews heavily down the hillside and over the road’s embankment, like mini waterfalls plunging into a large creek which is really a deep crevasse along the “road’s” shoulders…. another slippery obstacle.
The tracks we are following are riddled with potholes similar to Jackass Flats at its worst, we avoid them jerkily. It also winds here and there constantly threatening to end. On-coming cars are regularly avoided but sometimes throw us into pot holes the size of our truck. Still no one drives on the ‘road’. OK I’ll admit it I’m scared for at least an hour.
Finally we hit a hideously torn-up tarmac road, but in comparison to what we just left it seems great. It is a large government project started five years ago, I am told.
The rain lets up as we pass through a mile-wide flying termite crossing. The dead bugs leave a thick film of fat greased across the windshield. This, combined with the rainwater and windshield wipers, create a white barrier that blocks our vision completely… we stop. Yosuf says that is why the natives eat the termites… the fat.
Hence my description…. as I read this over and feel I have indeed failed, it is really much, much worse.

It takes a whole day to drive the hundred and twenty miles to and from Narok. I check into the Chambai hotel and try to call Mohamed and Gabriel Matata, the police officer. No one answers. I later find out that they were sitting in court all day and when Mohamed’s phone rang out in the quiet, it was confiscated for a week. Poor Mohamed I seem to bring him nothing but trouble. The fact that the theft happened on the premises of his hotel has created a situation that he must remedy for the future success of the establishment.
I suppose you are wondering how he managed to get my things returned. Remember the scene I described involving the television on the throne and the fifty men coming to watch the 7:00 news. Well Mohamed told his fellow TV viewers that there would be no more showings until my belongings were returned. Needless to say everyone in town start looking for my stuff. Ah … the power of the almighty television! Finally the culprits try to hock my phone and are turned in to the big boss. I only wish the police had never been called. They are sixteen-year-old boys, who do not attend high school because their families cannot afford the school fees.
I wake up early this morning to connect with officer Matata. He woke up at five am to arrive, via public transportation, by 8:00. The police department has no vehicle, so he pays the 150 schilling matatu fare to attend official business. He says the station is getting a vehicle, it is coming very soon, a Landrover. I don’t know whether this is him hoping or saving face or whether it will really happen. … can you imagine a whole police department taking care of a whole county with no vehicle?
We walk down the dirt roads to the court of law. ‘Where is my stuff?’ this is the question of the morning. We wait in the witness waiting room for hours. God I wish I could take a photo of this ‘room’. It is an open air wooden lean-to with a rusty metal roof and a rustic wood railed fence around three sides. The floor is dry, dusty dirt with old garbage lining the edges. There is an ancient wooden chair in the center near the back, weathered and cracked, the remnants of the rattan seat hanging in shreds. We sit on some wooden plank benches attached to the fence. The best part is a graying hand painted sign hanging above the entrance reading ‘witness waiting room’.
The woman sitting next to me has her toenails painted shiny copper. Seems like every woman in Kenya has her toenails painted. While I was in Kisumu one of Phannice’s friends looked horrified at my feet and asked why I didn’t have them painted. I said ‘Uh, I don’t know’ she offered to paint them then and there. She used the tiny fingernail file on my metal fingernail clippers. An hour and a half later my toes glistened with a deep red polish. Unfortunately that was three weeks ago and hundreds of bike ridden kilometers, my toes now look like the ‘road to Narok’.
The guards in the doorway of the courtroom have automatic machine guns. The prisoners are brought in handcuffs. Finally it is our turn to go before the judge, no juries here. It is 1:00pm. Ten minutes into the proceedings court is recessed until 3:30… apparently a document needs to be photocopied. Officer Matatu is handed a few coins to go do so at the local Posta. Everyone leaves. Alas.
I sadly realize that I will be spending another night in the Chambai Hotel. Not that it isn’t charming with its sunny courtyard, the instant ‘luke warm’ heater in the shower, and comforting Kenyan breakfast, all for less than ten dollars. It’s just that I am anxious to be on my exploring way, my days in Kenya are numbered…. only 11 more.
Back in the courtroom I am directed to a wooden pulpit, the light blue paint worn through by the feet of many a witness. The court recorder/interpreter comes towards me she is carrying a book. I strain to see its title. I must have glared, she recoils and says ‘Do you believe in god?’ I realize it is the bible. I place my hand on it. She is annoyed and shows me how to hold it. I cup the binding in my hand and raise it up above my shoulder at about eye level. She begins to recite something I do not understand. She indicates the words taped to the cover. “I hereby swear to god our heavenly father that I will state the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me god.”
We begin the testimony… very slowly for the Judge must handwrite each word I say into his notebook, while the interpreter informs the accused in Swahili. We are there way too long while gallant officer Matata presents our case. End results I get back my camera, binoculars, phone and flash drive. I realize the camera is malfunctioning and the sim-card on the phone is blocked, I fear the flash drive may also be broken for they hid everything in their back yard buried in a bag, in a very wet, muddy hole. I ask about the money. They show me some new clothes and a cheap daypack that have been lying on the evidence table: four tee shirts, two pairs of pants and one pair of muddy leather shoes. I am informed that I may have these clothes … and the back-pack, for that is what they spent my seven thousand schillings on.
‘That doesn’t look like 7,000 schillings worth of clothes to me’
I look at the boys. They are quiet, obediently watching the judge, dressed in rags. I imagine the new clothes on them. I feel bad. I begin to feel sorry, I begin to feel like the bad guy.
‘Well what do you want us to do with the clothes? ‘
‘Give them back?’
‘We cannot do that… they will be auctioned off to help pay for the court costs’.
Gravel slammed, end of story.
Geese, I should have taken the clothes, just another buck going into the deep pocket of politics.
Please let tomorrow be a better day.

Day 2

This morning begins with chai, sausage and more chai…oh, and mandazis, Kenyan doughnuts. I buy a few for the road.I ride down the steep eroded streets of Narok, waiting as a herd of Brahma cows pass by. The street to my right is an open market, donkeys, goats and chickens use the road unattended like humans. Garbage and cow pies. I stop to admire some Maasai beadwork. The sales girl follows me. I stop here and there, at the posta to mail some letters, at the gas station to check the air in my tires. She is intent on a sale. We sit down and barter in the parking lot.She wants something from the US and I want something she has made. I trade her a compact headlamp for a beautifully beaded basket.
Sixty five kilometers to my next destination, Narosura. It is already noon, whoops. I have been warned that if I don’t make the whole distance before night fall I will be eaten by lions…. we’ll see. I cruise eighteen km on a tarmac road to Ewaso Ngiro. I buy a eight inch stainless steel kitchen knife… just in case the lions ahead are related to the infamous Tzavo ones. Ewaso Ngiro is a crossroads, the main road heads to the Maasai Mara east gate, the other leads off behind the buildings barely resembling a road at all. Wouldn’t you know thadda be my route. A middle aged Maasai merchant tries his sell, sell, sell technique on me, can’t he see I am on a bike?
The road is horribly muddy. I head for the hills, lots of cows. The terrain changes as I climb, small trees getting bigger, elephant tracks and droppings all around. I walk with a group of Maasai, the youngest knows some English. He sticks with me after his father and brother catch a ride up the hill. I share my chocolate bar. We talk. His eyes are intense, he listens hard to every word, I don't think he gets to hear English that often. I tell him how far I’ve come and how far I want to go. “I just go as far as I go each day, then I sleep”. I admire his conviction to learn English. He admires my freedom. I think he catches the traveling bug.
A dung beetle! Two actually, each rolling a one inch dung ball across the road. I can’t believe it. Well now I can go home happy. There were only a few things I really wanted to see in Africa, the elephant and the dung beetle being the main two. I nudge one dung ball off the road before I leave, the beetle plays dead… for a long time. I touch the other one he does the same. I leave them belly up next to their balls safe on the shoulder. The day of the Dung Beetle for sure. I see several more throughout the day some the size of ladybugs and some as big as rain beetles. One is rolling a three inch elephant dung ball, granted he does have a partner and he is huge himself, but the ball is the size of a golf ball! I have heard that they lay their eggs inside the balls and the baby maggots eat the yummy dung for the first few weeks of life. Leyein thinks they burrow themselves in and hold up through the rainy season.
Atop the hill the view is expansive. A huge flat valley spreading into a row of deep blue hills along the horizon.Those hills are my evening destination. I just can’t get over how beautiful African landscapes are, an unlimited amount of space and beauty.
I descended into the valley, into herds of game animals, wildebeest, zebra with their newborn babies, impala. Its African magic. I think I see giraffe in the distance and grab my binoculars. Dang they’re broken. A wave of frustration wells up in me, so much time and energy lost, days used traveling and waiting for a broken camera, a blocked phone, lost money and worthless binoculars. I shed a tear. Oh well.
I’m actually pretty happy. Wondering through the African countryside. Lovin it. I see the dust cloud of a vehicle coming towards me deep in the valley. It is fancy new Safari truck with the canvas side curled up. The driver is a Kenyan man dressed like a Banana Republic model, he stops and bellows out a ‘Jambo’, obviously wanting to talk. I stop.
‘Where are you headed?’
‘Narosura.’ It is already late in the afternoon and I think I am about fifteen kilometers into the 45km I must ride before nightfall. Being on the equator nightfall is always at the same time, all year round, about 6:30pm and the sun rises twelve hours later. I know I will not reach Narosura before night.
‘Where will you stay tonight?’
I’m not sure what got into me but I suddenly got tired of being warned…. or rather told that I can’t do this and I can’t do that. I copped an attitude.
‘Here.’ I said with an arm gesture indicating the open prairie.
I think I step on his big, protector, safari guide ego, being a solo female out in the bush with no fear, because he turns to his wide eyed Kenyan passengers with a cynical snort and says to me.
‘Do you know this is a serious place? I will tell you that I spotted six lions about 16 km back’ now he is smiling.
‘Wow thanks… I have my binoculars but I doubt I’ll get to see them. They seem to be very illusive animals. Thank you though, Asante and kua heri.’
‘Kua Heri Madame’ with a shake of his head they drive on.
Ok here is how my mind really works. First I ignore his words with a 'ha'. Then the ‘yea ...but what ifs’ start creeping in. ‘What if’ there are lions, and ‘what if’ they are close to the road. ‘What if’ they happen to be hungry or just curious about such a slow moving animal such as me? I pedal on. Lets see, sixteen km I should be there in about another hour at this rate. I start looking around. The game seems to be thinning out, is it because there are lions ahead? I kind of wish I had asked him what the terrain looked like where he saw them. I think I see something, I wish I had my binoculars. I start pedaling faster, a steady pace…. but I break a sweat. I glance at my shiny new knife. Well one good thing, I sure don’t feel tired and I’m eatin up the miles.
Eventually I pass through the open land and enter a shrub forest foothills,no lions... elephant country. Ah, a familiar danger, I feel relieved and laugh at my gulliblness. I ring my bell and enjoy the ride into the evening. I camp on a grassy spot under an acacia and watch the sunset as it begins to rain, it’s stunning.

Day 3

Last night brought a couple of hyena, or ‘fisi’ in Swahili, close to my tent. Not having much experience with crazy Americans in flimsy tents they were discouraged quite easily. This morning is another story, five young Maasai confront me and demand payment for traveling through their land. I say no, but they do not back down and I end up giving them my imitation swiss army knife. I feel violated. I had read about the Maasai before I began my African sojourn. The book had described them… well I quote.
“For many, the Maasai are the definitive symbol of ‘tribal’ Kenya. With a reputation (often exaggerated) as fierce warriors and a proud demeanor, this tribe of Nilotic origin has largely managed to stay outside the mainstream of development in Kenya and still maintains large cattle herds along the Tanzanian border.
The Maasai first migrated to central Kenya from current day Sudan…the Maasai scorn agriculture and land ownership. There is a strong taboo against ‘piercing the soil, and the dead are traditionally left to be consumed by wild animals.”
Unquote. Don’t believe in ‘land ownership’, these few think they own the whole valley. I make my disapproval clear.

I arrive at Narosura in a fowl mood. Like every town I pull into there are sneers, stares pointing and laughter.. and of course GARBAGE, fowl smelling garbage. I almost ride by thinking ‘this can’t be the main part of town’, Then I spy some ancient gas pumps and realize ‘yep’ this is the center, there was a gas pump icon next to the town’s name on my trusted map. Another relic of a past time… ‘old’ British Kenya.
Luckily Mohamed has given me the name of his cousins who runs a Somali shop here in Narosura. I found a shop with Muslim dressed women and showed them his handwritten note in my book. ‘Kinsi’ daughter of Isse’. Robust and outgoing one woman looks at the name and smiles. ‘I know her, follow me,’ a cousin apparently.
Kinsi happens to be the most beautiful young woman East Africa. She is the eldest of four daughters, all but the youngest being educated in Nairobi Universities. This is her summer break and she is filling in for her mother. She is running the shop. The Somali shops carry everything a Maasai needs to be Maasai, minus the cows. What was it like before these colorful plastic beads and factory woven shukas were imported … even their sacred swords are made of metal they do not forge? Like the ‘Asians’ (from Indian) people in Kisumu, the Somalis seem to be the merchants here and run many of the businesses in town.
She hesitates not knowing what to do with me. ‘I will talk with my father’ she says and sends me to Hussein’s café. Oh yeah, chapattis and chai always manage to cheer me up.
By noon I am part of the family. I am given grandma’s bed and eat from the family pot for the rest of my stay. Grandma and mother have taken the youngest daughter, Shukri, to Nairobi to see a doctor concerning her deformed leg.
Within a few hours all my desires have been addressed. I have a Maasai guide that speaks English for my backpack adventure, food in my belly and a safe place to leave my bike while I hike.
I sort through my gear, leave half my stuff and swing on my borrowed backpack (thank you Todd). We walk out of the courtyard, through the dirty streets, across the cornfield and into the hills. It feels good to walk.
I hike behind Leyien, my young guide. He looks like a little school kid. Jeans with guns embroider on the thighs front and back, some leather shoes, a long sleeved dress shirt and a camouflage back pack with the pocket zippers blown out. He chews the mira that he purchased with the money I gave him for food, and carries a half-liter of water. Mira is plant imported from northern Africa. When the leaves and stem are chewed the effect is a slight cocaine type high. He turns around and smiles at me and in his mira high says ‘ One thing is for sure I am so glad we have met.’ Ah but the hike is still so new young man… who knows how you will feel after a few grueling days with me, I think to myself.
We hike for a few hours over some hills. The road is steep and paved with small boulders. Night comes on as we reach a fairly large manyatta. He is proud of his homeland. He talks to the local Maasai, making our passage smooth. He wants to stay in the yard of his distant cousin, I whine a bit… I don’t want to sleep in goat shit. We compromise and keep walking ten minutes past the last boma. I set up my camp, he has brought nothing to sleep in save his woolen shuka, no pad or tent. I realize much too late that normally the mzungu… thadda be me…. provides an extra tent, just so ya know not to do as I have done.
Within ten minutes of settling down we hear an alarm snort. Buffalo! Leyein eyes grow wide, white circles accented by his dark pupils.
‘Lets go’ he breaths anxiously
‘Go? Go where?’
‘Come on…. lets go!’
‘No…. I can’t just leave my tent.’
I just want to crawl into my tent and begin my night, but I see him torn between leaving his ‘client’ and obvious terror of the buffalo. I start to realize that he has little or no experience of wilderness camping. Kenyans in general have different fears than I do. They have grown up with different horror stories than mine. Most fear deep water. They definitely fear lions and other large predators, elephants, hippos and buffalo. They fear the night.
I compromise again and pick up my stuff…. including my still constructed tent and start moving clumsily through the bush towards civilization of sorts. What a night. We end up sleeping in goat shit next to the only radio antennae in a 50-mile radius… ah, Maasai radio. Oh well. Sleep comes and I am safe and happy.

Journey day 4,5,6

2006-07-14T11:12:00.000-07:00

Day 4

Today begins with a walk through the forest, which follows the Kenlitoto River. We walk along a dirt path that has many more baboon tracks than humans. They look like fat short human hands and funny feet with the big toe askew. I see a place in the sand that depicts a scuffle, I save the hair that has been torn out by the tormenter. I find a porcupine quill. The path empties out onto a bigger track, a main Maasai road, which as never seen a car. Cows, many cows. They stand in a wet eroded trench and lick at the earth laden with salt and mineral, eating mouthfuls. So many cows, at times the road is transformed into a long muck hole. We pass village after village. The flies are horrendous, they are different than the flies at home. They seem bolder, returning immediately after my hand swishes them away, as if they are annoyed that I even try to displace them…they OWN my face. Again I start to whine, ‘of all the places in this beautiful valley this road has got to be the worst’.
We choose an alternate route, the western ridge. We are treated to beautiful expansive views. Every rock in the Loita Hills sparkles. The grass opens to a rocky crest
along the top of the ridge they glisten in the sun, pink ones, black ones, grey ones they all look like shiny gold. Mica.
Among the boulders I notice horses droppings, it must be donkey, no horse could navigate these rocks. Hours later we come across a zebra carcass spread out under a tree, what a magnificent last view. It is cool to see a zebra hide so close, the black and white pattern is so stark, each line sharply defined.
Many livestock died this year because of the drought. Here in Kenya the rain comes at the end of March and lasts through May, it begins again in October and lasts through December. This year god forgot one season, it didn’t rain for nine months and everyone suffered. The Maasai especially, when their animals die, they suffer from malnutrition.
Even though they don’t usually eat their cows, they milk them for blood and milk. They puncture a hole in the cow’s neck vain and extract blood. The blood is added to milk in a special vessel made from a gourd and stirred it with a stick until the blood coagulates. This thick paste is their nutritional staple.
Live zebras graze on the hillside, coming to the higher ground to escape the leopards and lions that hunt near the rivers. Bushbuck and dik dik jump away at our arrival. I always see the dik dik in pairs, apparently they mate for life. A large turquoise lizard suns himself on the sparkling rocks, well he is half turquoise and half bright orange, crazy design. I deem this place ‘baboon ridge’, for all the barking and tree rustling.
Late afternoon Leyein begins to get anxious. We still have two hills to cross before the edge of the escarpment. We talk about tonight’s campsite. I find out that he is out of water, has no food and needs the shelter of his people ...and they are down there. I also find out that he has only been to the escarment one other time in his life, when he was fourteen. He and his older brother were sent to the Great Rift Valley to retrieve two bulls their father had acquired from a distant relative. That was eight years ago!
We start the descent heading towards the Endesopia River. My ankles feel weak from the long walk and heavy weight I’m carrying, my descent is slow. The thought of getting injured out here motivates extreme caution.
The flora change is dramatic. From dry thin grass to thick green jungle, now the grass over our heads and rope like vines hang down over the water. I see Colobus moneys, with their striking black and white coats, and more baboons. It is so beautiful, we walk for hours as the sun goes down.
At each river crossing… and there are many, we see butterflies. Bright yellow wings opening and shutting in a sunbeam reflecting off the muddy riverbank. The air all around me fills with soft delicate fluttering wings surrounding me with butterfly juju. Sometimes there are yellow clusters, sometimes purple or corn-blue ones, and sometimes they are all mixed together in a bouquet of fluttering color. A friend once told me that the newly hatched male butterflies come to certain mud to get the minerals they need to become potent.
I choose a camp by the river, we have agreed to camp separately. The only disturbance in the meadow grass is a set of buffalo tracks. He is walking up river, he has paused here to munch down a patch of thick meadow grass. I set up my tent on this manicured spot. Leyein rolls his eyes, “Aren’t you afraid it will come back?”
Most likely it will be different visitor if any, “no”… I feel little fear.
He builds a fire, I gather wood. Just before sunset he high tails it down the road. I love being in this wild spot alone, quiet, still. I am excited to see what comes to drink in the morning. There is a troop of colobus in the trees on the other side of the river, I can hear their peculiar noise. I sit by the fire in the still of early evening.
In Nairobi I watched an hour of “man eaters” on animal planet. I watched an African buffalo charge and gore to death some unsuspecting young lions. I make a plan, just in case. I set up the door intended for my tent mate facing a giant downed log. Now I can escape out that door and lie under the log on the opposite side. Doubt it will actually work due to the instantaneous nature of buffalo charging….. but ya never know. As I settle down for the night the sounds outside begin to change a whole new soundtrack and its getting louder and louder, especially the baboons. They bark and cough and continue a steady racket that seems to be getting closer and closer. Finally when I think they are close enough to see with my headlamp I crawl out of my tent and stoke the fire. I look around for them but see nothing… at least they are quiet. I sleep a dreamy night.

Day 5

Through the open rain flap I watch the tiniest little red hummingbird I have ever seen. At first I thought it was a flying beetle. It looks frustrated, hovering around my smelly shoes and a pair of bright blue undies hung out to dry. The morning is quiet and wet. I hear the monkeys. Their voices sound like slow motors, Tibetan monks in their deepest, lowest chant.
Leyein and Matthias, the Maasai that took him in last night, greet me and I start to pack my camp.
Matthias whistles through his teeth, clicks his tongue and repeats ‘oh mama, oh mama’ over and over. He so wants to talk with me, but alas, neither of us has made the effort to learn the other’s language. Mama is the Maasai’s title of respect for women in general, like Mr. is in the US.
‘Poli mama, poli mama’ (‘I’m sorry mama, so sorry’).
I ask Leyein what he is sorry for ‘he is sorry that you were alone last night’.
‘Please tell him I like being alone I have camped alone for many nights and I like it.’
‘…Olowotu’shaking his head.
‘What is olowotu,’ I ask?
‘He said, what about the leopard, it was headed up river towards your camp.’
Leopard? (they pronounce every letter leo-pard) I thought about the baboons, oops. Now that I think about it the scoffing I heard last night wasn’t the typical cranky baboon blabber and baboons are usually secure by nightfall like the rest of us on the general predator menu.
‘Why do the leopards make so much noise?’ ‘
‘They are looking for other leopards this time of year. If he meets another male he will fight him for his territory and if he meets a female … they will just have a good time.’ he says with I smile.
Wow, I think about all the leopard stories I have heard here. The eight year old boy who got snagged out of the Safari camp, the guy in the open-air truck that got scalped by a leaping leopard….guess I shouldn’t have gotten out of my tent last night.
We walk another15km to the edge of the escarpment. Altogether we have walked about 50km so far. The Rift Valley spreads out before us. There is a settlement just below, with an air strip. I see dust from a vehicle far across in the valley. So there is a road to lake Magadi! I had seen one on my map but it was a faint dotted line, now I know it exists and it is passable by bike. In Kenya, especially in the Maasai land I have found it hard to get accurate information about trails, track, and roads, how to get from point A to B. Besides the main public transportation road to Nairobi, which mind you hardly resembles a road, people seem to know about a ten mile radius and only guess or rely on hear say for the world beyond that. Its not like home, there are no cars…. hardly any bikes, hence no need for maps. People walk. They do not even use beasts of burden. I see woman and young girls carrying milk, honey and firewood for miles to the market. They wrap their burden in a cloth and hang it over their back with a strap around their forehead, or put it in a basket on top of their head. Many people are born live and die in that same ten mile radius.
We do a little cliffhanging hike to get a view of the waterfall, the Entosapia River doing its final plunge into the great valley. I find obsidian, black, grey and clear near the top of the falls. I add them to collection of sparkly rocks in my pocket…. Shawn’s gonna love these.
We start our long journey back. I am hungry. My diet of raw veggies and canned fish is lacking. I crave carbs. The Maasai are revolted by my consumption of fish, they would never touch the stuff, they don’t even eat chicken. Leyein says it would be like eating snakes. ‘Yea.. so?’ Apparently the snake is a fierce and powerful sacred symbol. We sit far apart until I have finished eating my dry top ramin sprinkled over tuna and wrap up the smelly can.
Because of the sight seeing detour we end up bushwhacking for a few hours. We crawl through the menacing foliage and cross the river many times. One time we surprise a pair of monitor lizards, the larger of the two being about four feet from head to tail. They are in a dark, quiet pool shaded by a canopy of green. The lizards lay on black lava rocks that rise out of one bank, bathing in a sunbeam that breaks through the leaves. Some dik dik are lying in a dusty, undercut cave on the opposite bank, their ceiling a tangle of b roots. White blossom petals fall into the still black water, it looks like a set from the ‘Legend’…. cue the unicorn.
Much later, Leyein confides how deeply frightened he was by them, it must stem from his inherent fear of crocs. He imitates the way their heads dart back and forth and the awkward jerking movement of their legs. I tell him my friend keeps one as a pet, (it is actually an iguana). She often lets it roam free throughout her house, knowing that one whack of its tail can break a human leg…another crazy image of the American woman.
We really cover ground and darkness finds us back on the banks of the Lenkutoto River.

Day 6

Leyein is a very resourceful man… and he is carrying my tent. I am tired and irritable, he is a good companion. He is always explaining things and showing me tiny details about his homeland. Like the brightly colored, extremely poisonous caterpillar that can make you sick with the slightest prick of the needle-like spikes along its back and the tree whose twigs make excellent toothbrushes with its bacteria killing abilities. He smiles a lot and feels comfortable traveling in silence. After sharing my sensitivity to over stimulation, especially at certain times during the month, he leads me through the Maasai land with little to no human contact.
He chuckles when he finds out I told the hyenas to ‘shut-up’ last night. They laugh like crazy people and cackle and hoot. I was awakened by a crash in the brush close to my tent, three of them started yucking it up. I listened to their ruckus for over two hours. I believe the tent perplexes African animals, they haven’t seen enough to figure them out. They know something yummy is inside but getting through the rip-stop material to the treat inside is like a childproof cap. Unlike our California bears they stay a respectable distance. I like that, but their continuous noise kept me awake for too long and a few shouts really did quite them down long enough for me to fall asleep.
I heard a leopard last night, actually I heard two. One was coming up river and one down. I strained my ears trying to hear what would happen when they met. I was expecting a leopard scuffle, but nothin. Must have been a girl.
I have such mixed feelings about the land I am moving through. I admire the Maasai for holding on to their rituals and customs that have evolved throughout their ancestry, and I realized their culture is still in transition, but I hate the results of their life style. To the Maasai being rich is having cows. They don’t usually eat the cows just milk them and bleed them. Their nutritional sustenance is a mixture of milk and blood, which they mix in a gourd until coagulated. The more cows the better. Western medicine has increased the life expectancy of their cows and the parks have restricted their grazing lands… the result, over grazed damaged grasslands from the Park borders on.and very few wild animals.
This morning I was so hungry and sore I didn’t think I could make it back. But here we are in Narosura eating chapatis and eggs and of course cup after cup of chai. I rest happily in my newfound home with my newfound Somalian family. I practice Swahili with the young Maasai girls they have adopted and read a book written by a Kenyan author ‘Across the Bridge’… another strange perspective of life in Kenya.

journey day 7,8,9

2006-07-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

Day 7

I am eating crepes and drinking chai, Somali style. Today I will rest. I look out my open door onto the dirt courtyard. There is a white hen that thinks this is her room. She waits at the door impatiently, she wants to enter but I deter her attempts, ‘shoo shoo’ over and over. A beautiful rooster still crows now and again even though it is well into the morning. He started long before dawn, about the same time the Mosque called out with its amplified voice for all the good people to begin their prayers.
The courtyard is big about 50’X85’. Rooms line two sides in an L shape, a gated wall and the back of the neighbor’s complex squares it off. In the center is a serrated metal structure, which houses the eskari and his family. Along one side is a five wire clothesline and in the corner is a large cement water tank, strategically placed to catch most of the runoff water from the roof. Buckets stand in the walkway where the gutter leaks.
This hen is persistent, she is getting more and more agitated with me, now she is bok bok boking very loudly in the doorway.
I am content with four yummy crepes in my belly. My chai is super sweet. Sugar cane is grown here… I have seen boys selling fresh stalks for chewing, in Narok. Kenya’s main agricultural export is tea and coffee and perhaps cotton, but many small farms grow maize, wheat, beans, onions and tomato for the populous consumption. That is what I am surviving on, chapattis (wheat) eggs with onions and tomatoes and sometimes beans with potatoes and goat meat….oh, and rice when I can get it.
Last night I slept soundly on grandma’s bed. The bedroom is 12’ x15’. There are two twin sized wooden beds painted black. Blue gingham covers the window and the pale yellow cement walls reveal the previous turquoise paint. Clothing filled suitcases are stacked on two small tables and a cabinet stands in the corner… a beaten old wooden armoire with some glass panels missing. It is empty so I put my stuff in it.
The door has a simple lock, we can slide the bolt shut from the inside. A Maasai guard kept an all night vigil from the courtyard. Three young girls slept in the bed next to me. When I fell asleep I thought there were two, but this morning I realize there are three. They slept head to foot, head to foot. They are sweet hard working Maasai girls that have been adopted by the Somali family. They practice their English with me and I learn a little Maasai. We giggle as one lifts the white hen out of its hiding place near the foot of their bed.
The Somalis do not use sur names like we do. They have a first name and use the father’s first name as their last name. Mohamed Jonis is father to Yosef Mohamed who is father to Daniel Yosef, etc.
I am stuffed on sumptuous food. Lunch is potatoes mixed in rice with goat meat and herbs, accompanied by chipattis and chai. For desert…. mandazis, the grease polishes my fingernails and makes them shine just from holding them.
I walk with Mustafa to the source of the village water. It is an amazing spring that bubbles out of the ground as a full-on river, the Kanunka River. There is a massive water conservation project happening here, to preserve the quality of the water and improve the way it is used. One of the many non-profit organizations in Kenya has ear tagged ten million Ksch to help fence the cows out, pipe clean water to the center and build long irrigation ditches along both sides of the river. A rock wall partially fences out the cows, not completely unfortunately, and rock lined ditches run a mile or so feeding the gardens along the way. This oasis looks like the perfect environment for monkeys, lush and green with vines hanging from giant trees, but there are no monkeys here for they invade the shambas. So they are beaten back into the hills
The local Maasai market is in progress here in Narosura. It happens every Wednesday. People come from all around to sell their honey, milk, used clothes, beads, beans, fruit and veggies. It is nothing like the ‘Maasai market in Nairobi, no trinkets or carvings. I buy some oranges and look on as the cow and goat bells are sold. The herdsmen squat next to a blanket piled high with hand hammered steel bells that have rebar ringers. They come in many different sizes. They ring one after another, over and over again. It sounds awesome, all the different pitches and tones, like a symphony of clanging bells and symbols. I want to buy one for my bike.

Every person here is decked out in the most amazing array of colors and beadwork. The earlobe decor is the most fascinating to me. They slice their ears just above the earlobe and pack it with mud and herbs until it heals. I have seen some young woman with huge swaths of cloth stuck in the slit to enlarge it. The slice is so long that the lobe can be folded up and over the top of the ear, …making it very hard to hear I imagine. I have seen some young men sporting this fashion. This long loop is usually decorated with rings of colorful beads and or shiny metal chain and charms. Every man woman and child wears bracelets, anklets, necklaces and ear jewels, no two the same. It is really an incredible sight… so much color moving through a dusty monotone town.
Rain comes early and the lively market is abandoned, washed out, leaving only the empty stalls to remind us that the bartering ever took place. Crowds of people stand under the eves of the buildings watching rivulets of water pour from the rooftops, smoking, chattering, and visiting until dark. Then everyone disappears and the town sleeps….as do I.

Day 8

Namelok Putwai… the hospital administrator at the Entasekera missionary hospital in the Loita hills. Originally from Scotland, or the UK as she puts it, she has now immigrated to the Maasai lands of Kenya. Namelok means sweet thing in Maasai, but you can call her Barbara if you’d like, that is her old name. Alisha Putwai, her husband a native Kenyan Maasai, didn’t speak English when they first met. They live in a small slope stone house in the mission hospital compound. She is 58 and he is thirty-six. They are happy together. She feels lucky, he is so sweet to her and only wants one wife…. which is unusual for his tribe. Together they learn from each other and love onr another in this remote African wilderness
I never thought to offer her money for her hospitality, it probably would have been awkward if I had. Two things I expect from a fellow mzungu, a warm shower and a free camping spot, I get both and much more.

This morning I leave Narosura and begin the last leg of my bike ride back to Nairobi.
I decide to try an isolated route to the South, a faded dotted line on my map, not passable by car but surly by bike?!?! When I reach Magadi I will catch a matatu to into the city…Nairobi.
It rained hard last night. I left my bike under the roof runoff, it was washed fairly clean. This morning I finish it with my bandana and WD40. Kinsi cooks crepes squatting over the open fire jiko using a half full flour bag as a weighted spatula to spin them. We talk. Her sisters will be moving to Nairobi on Saturday, back to school. Kinsi will stay another month, until her mother returns. Her mother has gone to a hospital in Nairobi with the youngest sister, Shukri, who has a serious problem with her leg since birth. Kinsi is the eldest, she runs the store and huge household with ease and charm. She is studying social service at a university in Nairobi.
It is warm and smells good in the kitchen room. Kinsi wants me to ride the matatu back to Nairobi. We talk about how people project their own desires and discomforts onto others. I tell her I want to ride my bike and would be miserable on the bus, she tells me she would rather take the bus and would be miserable in the rain on a bicycle. “I worry you will catch a cold” …. I smile, it is never less than 70 degrees here, even during the rain.
One more stop before I hit the road. I want to buy some chapattis for the road, five should do I should be in Nairobi in two days. Unfortunately none are to be found, everyone wiped out from yesterdays big market day. I buy six mendazis instead. Five oranges, seven tangerines, two avocadoes, three tomatoes 12 small bags of goober peas….. I feel like the kid in my father’s dragon, twelve sticks of gum, seven brightly colored ribbons. Well at least …I am full now, well fed by my Somali friends. I am off.
Within the first three kilometers I bog down in the thick mud. Unable to even push my bike due to the sticky clay that accumulates over the tires. An hour ticks by as I scrape, wash, push… scrape, wash, push. I young Maasai helps while shaking his head and making the soft clicking sound with his tongue and the ‘eye eye eye’ that they all use when expressing challenge or difficulty. Finally we get to a river crossing and give it a thorough washing. I am off again.
Thankfully the roads dry out a bit. I ride through a flat valley, south. I meet the orange lady and several other Maasai walking home after their market day experience. I walk with an old man and his young grandson. They are talking so sweetly. I communicate in universal sign language. I tell them about my journey so far…. not in great detail, but some basics.
We see baboons on the road as it begins to wind up a 3km hill onto the escarpment. They direct me onto a footpath that branches to the left. I hestitate, they convince me with maps drawn in the dust with a stick. I follow. Soon it becomes steep, too steep and rocky to be accomplished with my heavily loaded bike. I show my doubts, the young boy pushes from behind. We struggle more and more. My body is drenched in sweat my heart is pounding every inch is hard won. I am worried. This path seems so far from the road, I can see the road across a wide gully. I wonder if this is just the trail to their home and they are just wanting me to join them for a visit. I trust them further and we continue the fight for another half hour. As we near the top the road appears…. oh, a ‘short cut’ I say out loud. “A short cut” the boy repeats. I later find out that this particular section of road is known for highway robbers. I wonder if they were protecting me. I bid them adieu and I start a long descent into a very wet swampy green valley.
The road is hard to follow because it splits a million times and ways to avoid colossal mud holes and foot deep puddles and it often turns into just grass, very very wet grass. Sometimes I am splashing through six inches of water. I eventually realize that all roads lead to Rome, and just keep heading downhill. More and more herds of goat, sheep and cow…wildebeest, zebra and gazelle. Open grassland.
I loose the road. Have to traverse the valley, watching out for buffalo in the trees to regain it. The water gets worse and I am pushing my bike through watery mud up to my knees, mile after mile. I wonder if leaches live here. I disconnect my brakes my pants are rolled up to my thighs, I almost loose my flip-flops to the sucking mud. A memory enters my day dreams.Visions of that fateful day in 1962 when a returned home with one foot in a mud covered boot and the other in a slimey sock. My beloved cowboy boot sucked off my foot by the sticky, hoof turn muck in the cow pasture behind myparents home.
SLOW GOING.
I meet a Maasai safari guide and ask directions, to Magadi. Slow is the conversation for first I must convince him that I am capable of traveling alone through the wild bush of Africa. No women he knows would ever think of doing what I am proposing, for that matter no well minded man. He says there is a way, it is possible for he has done it with donkeys. But he believes it will be next to impossible with a bike. He gives me his hopeful ‘guide’ pitch.
“I will guide you there if you wish.”
“I have no money and you have no bike. We are not a good match” I tell him.
“I will not forget you woman, please write me if you make it”… PO box 148 Narok. I am off.
I see something. Something out of place on a grassy knoll…. what is it? Oh how weird, soccer goal posts! Flimsy metal goal posts in the middle of nowhere with a few zebra grazing near them. Wow.
I enter brushy rolling hills. The riding is glorious. Huge clear elephant tracks alongside buffalo prints fill the road. They must have walked here during the rain this morning.
Damn that Nairobi bike mechanic for fixing my bell. I ring it with my thumb over and over again…. I am reminded of West Hollywood. Ringing my bell through the quiet tree lined streets of West Hollywood. I feel a pang of sadness.
I ride through lush green Maasai farms. Maize leafs rise well above my head the road is lined with dark green flowering hedges. The red clay bomas contrasts against the dark lushness. So fricken beautiful! Such a view, the sky is deep blue with massive white cumulous clouds. The road winds up and around and through the rolling hills. These hills could be the green oak filled hills of my childhood in California… this could be the Dickenson trail. Those could be squirrels, but they’re not …they are monkeys! Life is so weird. I use to pretend the squirrels were monkeys now my mind assumes the monkeys are squirrels.
It is getting late. The rain has begun. I ride over creeks and roads washed out from watershed streamlets. I am headed to Entsekera and the ‘mission’ that Kinsi’s uncle Ahziz told me about. I find it on a steep hill, I am so tired… my bike doubles in weight each evening. I ask for the muzungu and meet Namelok Putwai.
She is in her humble stone house with Jess her fat, spotted mutt puppy. We share a cup of chai and she offers me lodging. An empty quarters within the compound, it has solar hot water shower and lights. She has no food to share but we enjoy the chai and an evening of conversation by the fire. She says she will inquire about directions to my destination in the morning.
We talk about the patients in her hospital: five rabies victims, all bitten by the same rabid dog, two toddlers dying of malnutrition, and the buffalo-goring victim who has been sent to Narok.
We talk about the buffalo.
“They are here …I know it from the poor victims that come in. They are here in the tree lined gullies. They are tricky. They hide from you and wait in ambush, goring you in the stomach or thighs and tossing you over their head. In the four years that I have been here I have never seen one, but I know they are here”
There is cholera, malaria, dysentery and typhoid to contend with here. She has suffered through typhoid herself…Alisha makes her drink bottled water now. The doctor has gone to Europe for a month, Namelok is a registered nurse and has worked as a surgical assistant, but was hired here as the hospital administrator. She has not been outside of Entasekera since a trip to Nairobi in February…. it is now May. She is the first white person I have seen in my three weeks of travel.
On the way back to my cabin I think about the leopard that stalks this neighborhood... at home I would be thinking about the mountain lion that stalk my neighborhood. I sleep on a simple cot and listen to the Colobus monkeys outside my window.

Day 9

No cell network, no landlines, no electricity for days, yet I get high speed satellite Internet this special morning. Although I do have to wait until 10:00 for the solar panels to kick in. I shoot off a few ‘I am alive’ emails with not much info for I don’t know much right now. All I know is I am headed towards Lake Magadi and then Nairobi.
Namelok gives me a tour of the hospital. It is a formidable size cement building with offices and different wards for children and adults. The weirdest thing is that, there is hardly anything in this impressive building. I go to use the computer and the wall adaptor doesn’t work. Some one has taped it to the wall, spent some time doing it too. But it still only works sporadically. I finally take the initiative to untape it and inspect the damage. One of the prongs is broken off in the wall and the adapter is charred where the electricity has been arching between the two. Oh boy, high tech all right.
‘Isn’t there a different adapter we can use’?
Oh yea and life goes on...
She shows me her theatrical staging area. Gotchya there, just like she got me… this theater is for surgery! Funny thing about it is the way she walks effortlessly over the cow pies hidden amid the piles of lumber. She tells me where the protective lead walls will be and how she doesn’t think they should have a complete x-ray lab before they have beds for the patients. The eskari has been using the half finished building as a barn to keep the calves safe from the leopard that prowls at night. Namelok shakes her head and mutters under her breathe ‘This has got to stop, I’ll have to talk with him today.’
I meet David a real Maasai guide very knowledgeable. He knows about the way I have chosen. He is skeptical. We talk about other routes, easier routes that lay far behind me at this point. Oh well. He writes a note to his friend Olenkuo who lives in Mausa, one of the villages in my list of landmarks. ‘Please take care of this girl’ more or less. Thank you, Daniel.
Many small hills, they seem to be endless. My destination for the day, Mausa. Right now I think I am technically in Tanzania, I must turn north again and then east.
The Maasai especially the children are mesmerized by my presence. I hear the cry ‘olashunpai’ from far away and see them running from the fields. These people just come to stare and giggle a bit. They do not ask for ‘treats’ or say anything in English, they just stare and smile. When I stop the younger boys, less than ten yrs old, bow their heads forward for me to touch, a gesture of respect like hand shaking. I am the first mzungu some of these children have ever seen. It is so remote here. The villages are self sufficient.
I feel tired so very tired. Village after village, the day goes on and on. I climb gradually out of and endless green valley, into wilderness. It is late the stars begin to appear. One last struggle up a seemingly vertical hill.
I camp atop a cliff that looks out over the valley I have just conquered. Raw beauty does not comfort me tonight… I am drained. I fight with the wind and my tent. I set up on a rock slab under an acacia tree. It rains hard into the night. I am so tired I fall asleep filthy without changing my clothes and pray my tent stays tethered. I am plagued with nightmares and a tiny persistent voice saying ‘is your passport safe…. where is your passport’ oh god I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing it for a few days. I wake up and search by headlamp for it. Gone…. I can’t find it anywhere. I take everything out of my bags. Oh I wish I had hidden it like my intuitive voice had told me to. What am I going to do? Where could it be? Who could have taken it? I fall back to sleep even more rundown and wait for a new day.

journey day 10, 11

2006-07-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Day 10

Another day of extreme miracles.
Ok so my passport is missing. That is all I can think about. I will miss my plane for sure sitting in the Kenyan American Embassy all day. Oh god why this… I am so tired and now so depressed. I try on the thought of ‘maybe its for the best, its supposed to be this way, what is so bad about spending your birthday in Nairobi instead of with your boys? You can rest and write and… oh fuck it’ I’m bummed.
But as I start today’s ride nothing but beauty fills my eyes and mind. So alone, so wild. The track rises up a rocky cliff…. a sparkly rock cliff. It is hard to keep my footing hauling the weight of my bike, but it’s do-able and brings forth such great views. There are massive, dark forested hills rolling in every direction, the deep blue sky with stark white thunderheads rising out of the Great Rift.
I lose track of the trail several times, it just fades into the grass or gets lost in the rocks. Nevertheless in an hour or two I am in Mausa a beautiful lush farm manyatta with many bomas. I inquire about Olenkuo, the friend Daniel had sent me to find. He is a wise old Maasai just like Daniel. We talk, very roughly, through an interpreter that is hesitant and not at all clear. After discussing my intentions to proceed to Magadi and hearing again that it is impossible, we decide upon a plan. His son will guide me to the edge of the escarpment and point out the trail down the ‘big hill’. There are only a handful of paths leading down the shear walls of the escarpment cliffs, which runs the length of Kenya. It is so impressive. The Great Rift Valley is a very flat piece of ground that runs from Egypt to Tanzania. It is littered with salt lakes disappearing over time. The valley was formed by the continental plates separating and the land in between dropping, creating a huge flat gap with massive cliffs on either side…the escarpment.
I am pretty confident that I can make it down the ‘great hill’ because I have seen the trail from above on my back packing exploration and the Maasai bring cows up it … I remember Leyiens story. Olenkuo is pretty confident that I cannot. (I never expected to find what I did that day).
There are only three km left to the trailhead of the escarpment, the top of the descent, but the traveling is hard. I am completely drained physically and the heavy rain has made the creek crossings next to impossible. I slip in the slimy mud and have no footing. I can’t believe how heavy my bike feels…as if I am carrying two pygmies in my bags. Up, up, up just one more hill. So tired. Olenkuo II helps me by wearing my backpack.
There it is…. the way down! My heart sinks. It is so steep. In places it resembles bouldering routes in the Sierras, the kind you have to use both hands as well as your feet. This is not the road I viewed earlier, definitely not a cow trail. I should have known, I am two days ride South of the trail I had seen. This trail is three times as long, and three times as steep. The valley is at least ten km down. I plead with Olenkua to help me a bit longer. He carries my pack another quarter of a mile. I am thankful. The trail levels out a bit into a very steep road made of ‘way bigger than a bread box’ sized boulders. I strap on my pack and use both brakes to hold the bike back. I walk carefully over the rocks. I am worried about my ankles.
Thump, thump thump… poor ‘Hard Rock,’ the battering begins. By the end of the day every tube, deck, and bar will be dented, scraped and scratched.
Time drags on. There are moments I cry with exhaustion. For at least half the way I walk ahead with my bags, drop them off and go back for my bike to carry it over the boulders.
I see a dung beetle. She is pushing her dung ball up the trail. It falls, rolling backwards until a rock catches it. She rides with it, tumbling over and over, just to begin anew. I feel a kin to her. I am a dung beetle, tumbling down this massive hill in a continuous dance with my worldly processions.
Yet when I pause to breath, I see that it is the most beautiful landscape so far. Baboons peek at me from the sidelines, their bare butts on the granite rocks. I see their prints at every creek crossing; this trail is following a creek down. Butterflies, sweet butterflies, bringing with them the light… butterfly juju cheers me up. Butterflies in Kenya seem to travel in flocks, ultra blue and black ones, pretty yellow ones, soft corn blue ones, flashy swallowtails, all separate clans. Sparkling rocks, I am fascinated. I can’t help slipping a few in my pocket. What am I crazy? What do I need with more weight?!?! I find a porcupine quill and see thick forests full of elephant sign. What food I eat is extraordinarily delicious, my mouth waters over the tastiest orange ever… well except for the one in Maui on Xmas eve.
The shadows grow long as I near the bottom. I begin to ride my bike for short spurts. Oh how I love being in the saddle again. No weight I feel free, until a rocky draw stops the flow.
The trees are playing with me, they grab, poke, scratch and prick me. Some pull at my ‘money makers pump’ hat, ripping it even out of my tight-handed grip. I have run out of sunscreen, this baseball brimmed hat is all that is between the equator sun and me. One branch brushes up against the soft flesh of the underside of my arm leaving a long bloody cut, purple bruises, and thorns lodged deep inside. ‘Agh! You think that’s funny’ I yell. I am sooooo tired.
A HUMAN! I see a human. Two really, they are young Maasai boys, el morans, staring at me. They are dressed in amazing traditional garb. Headdress, necklace, bracelets, ochre dyed dreaded hair, sacred swords, each a true piece of artwork. They seem even more surprised than I am, meeting on this precarious mountain trail. We exchange greetings and just look at each other for a time.
The terrain slowly shows more and more sign of human inhabitance. The track widens into a road. Yes! I have made it to the next village in my map-list of landmarks.
Not so fast Cyndra you are not out of the woods quite yet. I get a sinking feeling when I ask people directions to Magadi and get repeated, definitely negative responses. One young man shakes his head and puts his hand under his chin with a strange faked desperate look on his face saying ‘magi, magi’. Magi means water in Swahili, the first words I learned were ‘Nataka magi’ which means ‘I want water.’ Sure enough, the road dead-ends. It just fades into a river and continues away on the other side… a river in flood. About twelve feet deep and forty feet wide.
Filthy, exhausted, cut, bruised and bleeding I sit down to contemplate. Ok, ok …I think I can swim it, yuck I hate to think what lurks in that brown mucky water. What about my stuff? I can’t swim with my bike over my head and my bag weighs over 75lbs. Oh, am I finally beat… no… I will build a raft… tomorrow. Tomorrow I will build a raft and float onward to Nairobi and my flight home.

Later that very same night:
What fate is this? I am eating CHOCOLATE mousse and beef borgenois with steamed carrots and string beans. Oh did I mention the spinage soup, liver pate and the sesame sprinkled cheese balls? My god I feel like I just fell off the edge of the world and ended up in another dimension. I am sleeping in clean cotton sheets in a queen size bed under a soft white mosquito net listening to the odd symphony of an African night, writing in my journal via solar powered bed lamp, and sipping the cold drink served to me on a bamboo platter. God the view is absolutely breathtaking. Sunset… peach colored hue touching the under bellies of giant thunderheads looming over the dark purple Shompole Mountain, the flat Rift Valley with the salty white shadow of lake Magadi spreading below. A hundred and eighty degrees of African beauty… I feel guilty just looking at it.
How did I get here? Well I’ll tell you. I was sitting near the river, trying to figure out a place to schlep my tent when a car drives up, a fancy safari rig from some Camp. My mouth drops open. I talk to the driver… he doesn’t speak English. I gather that there are mzungus at this lodge. ‘White people’ they will know what’s up concerning directions and…. they can tell me in English, hopefully. I throw my bike in the back and head towards the Shompole Lodge. Oh readers please look it up on the net “shompole.com”. Completely crazy place. Gourmet meals with crystal glasses and eight piece silverware settings. Beautiful women in super model silk dresses, chilled white wine and dainty fragrant beedee cigars from India.
The owners Elizabeth and Anthony happen to be here this weekend. They take pity on me and treat me to the night of my life. Elizabeth invites me to drive with her to Nairobi tomorrow afternoon. My room has an open air bathroom suit with a river of hot water pouring from the showerhead. White towels hang from the mirror and the Jacuzzi hot tub waits, warmed and ready near my bed. All the floors are polished white cement so clean you could eat off of them… I do yoga and smile deeply. The composting toilet is a throne and an incredibly designed heavy thatched roof covers the whole thing.
Oh I must tell you one more thing that counts as a separate miracle. As I am dumping out my backpack to find the least dirty clothes to wear after my very, very HOT shower, my passport falls to the ground! My heart jumps. I know, I know I should feel guilty because the loss of my passport played a major role in the sympathy hosting, but I rejoice knowing that indeed I will be coming home for Christmas… I mean my birthday!
Ya gotta love it.

Day 11

I sleep in soft cotton sheets spread out over a fluffy queen size bed behind shear white gauze completely protected from the flying malaria bestowers. Tucked safely away from the crazy hyenas hoots and genet cats screams that fill the night. I wake up scrubbed clean, smelling like lavender and white gardenias. I gaze out at the most delicate rose colored sunrise and sip cool clean water from the glass on the bed stand. A pair of dik dik pick their way through the flowers planted along my bungalow’s path.
After lazing around with a cup of tea and a soak in the hot tub I join the others for breakfast and a walk in the conservatory. Breakfast is a long table ladened with fruits, flowers, cheeses and Danishes. The eggs, sausage, sliced tomatoes, and fresh squeezed orange juice come later.
The walk starts out with a short drive past the airstrip and into the savanna. We pass the three kings on our way, three young male lions that Elizabeth has watched grow up here. Click, click, national geographic style photos from grandma’s tiny digital camera. A close up of a Maasai giraffe and four new foals in the zebra herd. We stop the truck and begin to walk across the field in knee high grass and low growing devil’s thorn. The fox terrier pups that are with us whimper and limp from the nasty thorns between their toes. We see hippo prints in the dust. Elizabeth looks like a high fashion model framed by Mount Shimpole, her silk skirt and hair blowing gently in the wind, a woman alone walking her dogs in the beautiful Serengeti wilderness.
It all seems like a dream. I get to experience the American dream of Africa as well as the real, rugged, wild, down to earth Africa. Unbelievable.
The drive to Nairobi is long flat and dry, I am glad I am in the truck. We pass lake Magadi and see the pink flamingos. The town of Magadi is a company town of the salt processing plant. The matatus do not come often, again I am grateful I am in the truck. The road up to Nairobi causes the truck to over heat but it is gradual and paved, and I imagine riding here would have been fun especially down, but again I am glad I am in the truck. My strength is gone and I have already left this beautiful crazy place called Africa. Thank you Elizabeth. Thank you my traveling angels.

In conclusion

I am grateful.

Thankful to be home, but more than that I am grateful to have had an experience like this one. Many times I felt blessed… and still do. So many things just happened in such a beautiful way that, I must admit, I believe I have an angel traveling with me. How else can I explain all the miracles that were bestowed upon me. The force opened up and held me safe for a spell.

Many people asked me if I ever felt like my life was in danger or I might not make it, or if I was ever scared. And truthfully I have to say no. My experience of Kenyan people in general is one of gentle, genuine, giving people. They were helpful, welcoming, charitable and friendly. It is true that everyone I met had hopes of receiving something from me, and I hope many of them did, but on the whole they treated me with great human respect. My experience of the African wildlife was also one of mutual respect. I knew that if the opportunity arose some of them would hurt or eat me, but there are rules one can follow that exclude, or at least curtail those opportunities. Unlike the bears of California the animals of Kenya seem to respect the barrier of my tent as off limits, even though they could smell me and my food inside. Walking or riding during the midday hours seems to lower the chance of accidental meetings which could lead to accidental goring, trampling or predator deaths. My trusty broken bell worked like my hiking songs do at home, a great warning system. The conscious effort not to leave the tent during the night reduced temptation and the strategically timed campfires served to announce that ‘man’ is here this day.

I’m standing by the kitchen sink watching the water run, letting it heat up for the dirty dishes. I think of Kenya and the differences between here and there. How precious water is. We ran out of water for five days at a time even in the ritzy suburbs of Nairobi, Teresia would scoop buckets of cholorine water from the pool for the toilets. Water sources are not well developed, the majority of residents gather rainwater off their roof. I can't imagine what it is like during the dry season. I remember how grateful I felt when my host could bring me a pan of water warmed by a cooking fire or paraffin stove to bathe with. Showers are not the norm in Kenya, especially hot ones. All clothes are washed by hand sparingly with second hand water.
I have mixed feelings about our way and their way of life. I wish Kenya could skip over all our mistakes and wrong routes and just achieve the good progress we have made…. cleaner-air cars, less polluted rivers, rich food production, clean drinking water, refuge recycling and clean up, wide spread health. While keeping the amazing achievements they live everyday, public transportation, trail and track systems for foot and bike traffic, organically grown food and no fence livestock care, widespread physical fitness, roadless populated areas, conscious water conservation, well established traditions and rituals, clear structure for the elderly and death.

Thank you Ed for lending me your camel back, but more importantly thank you for supporting me in my bike endeavor, your words and reading about your past adventures inspired me and gave me courage to go for it.
Thank you Amsterdam bikes…. not one flat!!! And the bottle became indispensable too.
Thank you Kim for just giving me the xtracycle …it has a good home now.
Thank you Shawn and Davin for staying up late and shoving your own lives aside to piece together the African Fankenbike.
Thank you Lida for filling my head with African backpacking stories and possibilities.
Thank you KC for riding with me on many of my previous adventures, your similar roughin-it, starvation style helped me to realize I am not alone in my perspective and tolerance.
Big thanks to my sis Jeannette for taking care of me in multiple ways I can see better, I have some photos, I was dressed appropriately, I ate the last few weeks, I rested knowing ma and pa were in good hands, and well, I went…thanks for making it possible.

I am grateful.

2006-04-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

Mount Kenya

2006-04-06T01:11:00.000-07:00

Mount Kenya is the most beautiful place in Kenya. One week was way too short, funny how that works. We climbed through the lowland forest, home to the giant 'Tembo' or elephants. Their foot prints in the sand and mud, crossing our trail, crushing the banks, told the early morning story. The jungle excepted them with broken tree trunks, mangled brush, a tunnel sized opening in the greenery. There were banana trees as tall as houses and strange straggley conifers mixed in with the acacia.
Next we passed through a place that reminded me of the Scottish moor, barren yet fertile, low lying grasses with rock outcroppings and wind. The hyraxe bathed in the sun and scurried alongside the creek we stopped near for lunch. We joked about how much he looked like the Dr. Suess character the Lorax. High - rax Low - rax?!?! Could he have spent time here in Kenya? As we tramped upward we entered the world of Suess. Everything seemed to be straight from his books. The funny fuzzy plants, the funny fuzzy creatures the rolling valleys and ridges. Yes he must have been here. We dressed one up in dark glasses and shook hands.... altitude sickness? No.... just fun.
Upwards we started getting amazing views, the valley floor went on forever.... I guess because the next closest mountain is in Tanzania, Kilimanjaro. The serengeti, so beautiful.
We reached our camp around 4:30pm in the first moments of a three hour hail storm. The hail piled up in drifts dry and fluffy. Our guide fed us ogali and goat stew and told us that tomorrow we would start a 2:00am to reach the summit by sunrise. Well that didn't really go over too well and a new start time was agreed upon, 4:30am. Our tents were stiff with ice but we shook them dry and folded them away in the light of our head lamps. Altitude sickness is a real intruder and caught one of us that day. Thao would stay behind and rest before ascending any further.
Each step is an effort, breathing and super hydration are key. The peak was glorious and the views dramatic. I didn't see Kilimanjaro but they say some days its possible. I did see our new route down.... long.
The descent was challenging in its own way, we all know how our poor knees and feet suffer, but then add a continuous hard rain for five of the nine hours. Luckily it wasn't cold at all, quite pleasant really, I love walking in the rain. We were in the swamp area and trail turned into rivulets which turned into small creeks right beneath our feet. Well at least we were all going in the same direction.... down... hopping from one giant tuff of grass to another. This area had burned four months earlier but that only increased the view. It was obviously recovering quite quickly.
Nearer to the bottom was my favorite terrain, more elephant lands, and the bamboo forest. That night we rose to the challenge of starting a fire with very little soggy rotting wood, to dry our boots outs. After hours of diligence and determination a roaring fire crackled in a filthy cement walled tin roofed shelter, meant for ... I really don't know what. But we strung it full of line and hung every piece of clothing we owned to be smoked and dryad by morning.
During the night I heard the weird whistling hoots of the hyena. There must have been at least two for they seemed to be calling to each other for hours, one on this side of my tent and one on the other side. When something sniffed at my tent visions of that goofy looking animal with their magnificently strong jaws dragging me out into the night overwhelmed me into peeking. Unzipping a tiny slit, just enough for my eye and headlamp. To my surprise, and the buffaloes too I suppose, there was a whole herd of water buffaloes mowing the campsite lawn. They stared, then dashed, thundering off for moment before settling down again.
In the morning we began early again, which is a shame because this truly was the most beautiful part of our journey. One of the only daytime creatures I saw was the dog sized deer called the dikdik, they are territorial and mate for life, thought I'd throw in a little national geographic. With sore knees and toes we began another 32K walk down a gentle slope this time through three more different flora belts. What a wonderful day.... and adventure. Only regret, didn't actually get to see the largest land mammal in its natural habitat, only his giant scat, oh well still have a chance.

boda bikes and bikers

2006-04-01T01:17:00.000-08:00

boda boda

2006-03-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

There is a fantastic...that's my new saying, picked up from my buddy Liz.... a fantastic new bike phenomenon happening in western Kenya. It was an idea birthed at the Ugandan border in Busia and it is trickling west through many cities and villages. Boda boda. That means border border. Bike taxi's to be precise. At the border everyone must get out of there vehicles and walk across the border.... out of Kenya and into Uganda.... with a $30 charge each time mind you. The public transports do not cross at all. If you come by Matatu you must find another one, a Ugandan one, on the other side. Hence the need. The boda boda drivers carry you and your stuff a half KM over the border for 10 schillings or roughly fifteen cents. They are now very official in this location, they have an association and all wear hot pink shirts.
In Kisumu the boda boda drivers are young and hopefull. I'm sure a good majority were street boys who saved and saved for years to purchase or rent their bikes and start a new life, an employed life, Kenyon entrepreneurs. Paul says they are at the bottom of the working class but from their faces and the pride they display I think it is the top of the freelance beginnings, the beginning of the new business class.
They all ride, unfortunately, the same type of bike. The one speed, top heavy, poor braked, heavy black mamba. A bike, Paul says, that dates back to the turn of the century. It is very hard to carry much weight up hill with these bikes. I have often whizzed by on my bike while they pushed theirs up the hill. Too much money is spent on maintenance of this inferior bike. Hence the new need. The world bike.
Hopefully the world bike will enter Kenyas everyday life and improve the lives of thousands of young workers, not to mention support the people's independence of burning fossil fuels.

kisumu girls

2006-03-17T01:57:00.000-08:00

Joanne and Phanice

2006-03-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

When I arrived in Kisumu I was not met by Ed or Paul as I had expected. I stepped out of the bus from Nairobi... after the most grueling eight hour ride of my life so far... and it was a beautiful young kenyan woman who greeted me. "Cyndra!" as if she knew me. Her smile was bright and she automatically gave me a welcomeing hug. As the boda and taxi drivers crowded in around us, with their competitive heavy sales, she wisked me away with authority giving them all a stiff shoulder....with a smile. We walked through the night streets of Kisumu towards Ed's apartment. We had been in strange communication for the last few hours. A communication that was new to me then, but has already become a daily part of my life here, text messages or SMS. It was confusing because I had not really known who I was communicating with, sometimes it had been ed and somtimes it was Phanice I later found out... very very confusing. Anyway there we were in late night Kisumu with no way to get a hold of Ed and Paul. Their phone apparently lost and the guard at the gate not willing to let us into their apartment building. What to do?!? "why don't you just come to our place for the night", her friend Joanne had met up with us. "OK" I said and we walked another half mile up the street.
The streets are paved with a gravely red shoulders to walk on. The only other people we passed were on foot or boda bicycles. We sqeezed through a gap in a cyclone type fence and tip toed around a freshly planted bean crop, across the crabgrss yard and over some cement chunks and muddy trenches.
Their home consisted of a 12'x12' room with cemet walls and windows far above eye level. On the wooden plank door was a padlock and aross the breeze way is a stall with a hole in the floor for a latrine. It is quite common in Kenya not to have a toilet, less to clean up and perhaps less desease spread, good old healthy squatting.
Outside the door was a large black water barrel that caught the rain from the roof and a few plastic tubs for washing. Inside the room was a rug and a large foam bed. Their clothes were neatly folded in piles on the floor and their shoes carefully lined up along the wall..... mostly flip flops of different colors and designs. There were a few bowls of food in the corner and a clock somwhere for I heard it ticking throughout the night.
We all fit comfortably on the mattress and I pulled out my muslin sheet and the sweet little pillow Dav gave me. I feared through the night about mosquitos. I have heard many varying reports about the nightmare malaria: the malaria mosquitos only come out between midnight and 5:00am in the morning....they don't buzz, silent attackers.... it is only the infected females.... the malaria mosquitos only come out at sunset and sunrise.... they are not infected near Nairobi but definately west of there. I had decided to use preventative manuevers, sleep under a mosquito net, use deet repelant and wear a night cap and long sleeves. One out of three made me very nervous.
Joanne and Phanice are best friends, they work together, play together, and live together. They are 23 years old, bright, healthy, beautiful young girls. They have thinly braided hair, flashy white smiles and star spangled banners in their eyes. All their lives they been bombarded by adertisments for the big, beautiful, prosperous, USA! Everytime I open yahoo or google here the pop ups shout.... get your life time green cards here.... do you want to work and live in the US.... American visa available. Mount Elgon Park is two hours away but they have never gone there, Uganda and the white nile.... crocodiles and hippos, eagles and monkeys...but they have never crossed the border. They have never seen Mount Kenya or been to the beach, they dream about lands far from here and far from their culture. When Phanice saw the photo I took of her and her cell phone she exclaimed "Oh, I look like one of those American black girls" They each have their photos posted on the international bride web sight. They each have an American boyfriend that they have met and try to keep in touch with. They know they haven't got it quite right yet.... so they keep on hoping and waiting.
They are privilaged, they are independent women that are supporting themselves. They are among the few that have jobs here. They work in a chinese restraunt and get paid by the month. Their shift is eight and half hours, six days a week, but normally it runs of over a few hours per shift. They have good jobs here and recieve 3,000 schillings a month, that is about 50 dollars. Rent is 2,000 schilling. Unfortunately their particular boss is sexist and they are put in akward positions at times. Holding fast to their standards they are often punished by being moved to his other establishment on the bad side of town, where the pay is 2,000 schillings. The second night I was in Kisumu a fellow worker was attacked on her way home. She had paid for a taxi home, for they often work until 1:00pm, but had not made it up to her residence. Joanne had asked her to call when she arrived home to make sure she was safe, but their converstion was interupted by a man voice. The next day Phanice and Joanne visited Emma in the hospital, she had been badly cut on her face head and hands. I realize that without the money they recieve from the "mzungus" they meet and interact with their life would be even harder.
There are many street boys here, I have seen them sleeping on the sidewalks at night. Every day I am approached by begging hands. One more observation I will throw in here, are the 'glueboys' as Paul refers to them. The poor young boys here get addicted to sniffing glue from converted water bottles. I have seen them wondering aimlessly, completely goofy behaivor after sniffing.....destroyed brain cells I imagine.
Over lunch one day we talk about their families. "I love my mother" Joanne sighs, "she is so great". Phanice speaks of her steadfast mother who raised all four of them by herself, "she has even banded trees and has worked gathering...... to feed us all. It was hard for her". Woman raising generation after generation. Yet when I asked Joanne what she is doing in life, what is she working towards, a dreamy look passes over her and she says she is waiting for Mr. right to come along.
I don't understand how it all works, but I can't help wondering.... is it changing or does the same story happen generation after generation? Does each generation see the viscious cycle and try to mend the wrongs or do we pass down the same old info to our sons and daughters? Life is so different all over the world and yet it seems to be generic... washed into a muddy mixture of the same people. The world is definately getting smaller and the problems of Kenya are the problems of the world, each step towards spreading the wealth is a step towards healing the world. Ed keeps saying " we're here to help, aren't we?" Sista's have each other, we are all connected and have the strength of the whole. Amani

2006-03-04T21:25:00.000-08:00

bikes in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

2006-03-04T20:44:00.000-08:00

Does innovation stick around in the same spot over the centuries? Amsterdam is a city with its own unique way of being, one innovative idea manifested after another. From deliberate architectural planning to human powered transportation, there is no other place like Amsterdam in the world.
First there was the idea of canals. What better way to move about a city than a tranquil ride on still waters. Experiencing the city from the canals gave me a feeling of peace, a silent slow way to commute. Although when I looked down at the icy water while riding my bike along the path, a thought crossed my mind.... what if I fell in. My god the walls are shear and it would be a long freezing swim to anything that remotely resembled a way out. I think hyperthermia would surly get the best of anyone who had the great misfortune of taking a swim . Some design.
Then of course the idea that marijuana and mushroom use is as legal as liquor and cigarettes. Giving the choice and responsibility to the individual adult makes nothing but sense, takes the pressure and the expense off the justice system. But I have to say California takes the frontseat on the smoking scene... can't believe it is still cool to smoke here, yuck.
The red light district... is it because less crime is better for business or does the legalization of prostitution bring a sense of normality into this part of town? I'm not sure but most tourists and citizens alike can walk through most any time with relative safety.
But the most impressive, most idealistic, most practical, innovative idea of all and the one I'm dying to spread with the utmost determination is the beautiful, awe inspiring, unbelievable bike story! This city and the people in it are truly set up to get around by non polluting, human powered bicycles. In the rain, snow, sun and sleet, EVERYONE gets around by bike. I stayed on the third floor of a street side building with nine hour jet lag. I looked down at the street at all hours of the day and night.... three o-clock in the morning and a strong majority of the traffic (which was surprisingly heavy) was still bicycles.
And no one wears a hat, what's up with that, its ten degrees out there and hardly anyone wears a cap let alone a helmet. Now that I think about it I have yet to see a helmet, makes me wonder. Wonder what the statistics would reflect if everyone wore helmets....I wonder if everyone could afford a helmet, and if they would be as willing to ride. I have often been accused of being a poor role model when I ride without a helmet, but after being in this truly bike oriented culture for just one weekend I realize that the real criminals, the real lousy role models are the ones who design our communities and towns without bike routes included, the ones who make excuses of too cold, too far, not enough time to ride, the ones who don't willingly share the roads with the cyclists, and the ones who pile the kids in the SUV to go do the shopping. In Amsterdam you see all the American car activities done by bike and with a smile. So cool to see kids riding along side Papa and their little sis who sits up front near the handlebars.
One other thing I noticed, that still doesn't make sense to me, is that every bicycle is old.... what happens to the new bikes? Do they go through an aging process before you actually get to ride them or perhaps they are manufactured old, like the Levis of today, in any case there are no new bikes in Amsterdam.
Mom's with multiple kids and groceries, young students and business persons, middle-aged woman, and grizzly old men all look normal here riding bikes down town through the rain. God what I would give to see that in my hometown USA! Come on America wake up. To top it off obesity is a rarity and now I truly know what a dutch ass is......very fine.
One final sad note is the absence of xtracycles.... an innovation yet to come I guess.

Thao

2006-02-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

She sat across from me on the moss-covered rock, the sun behind her, filtering through the oak leaves. Her lips glistened with gloss and I marveled at the full softness of the skin above them. She had a silver post through the pierce under her bottom lip and her eyebrows lifted in the most provocative way. Her beauty was haunting, it had taken me several meetings before I felt worthy of seeing it…. now I couldn’t turn away.
She was telling me her story.
I had mentioned that my son would soon be traveling to Thailand and Vietnam and her eyes had drifted into a far away, reminiscent gaze.
‘Have you ever been there?’ I had asked.
‘Oh yes. I was recently there to honor my grandfather in his death and visit my relatives. I hadn’t been back since I was a little girl on the boat.’
‘The boat? What do you mean?’

‘My family left Vietnam like melting snowflakes, like vanishing ghosts we escaped on the boat.’

‘We began our journey in the middle of the night, disappearing into the darkness like the receding tide. My aunt had carefully dried and packaged our food for the journey, but it was all stolen the second day. I was two years old. We were on the open sea for twenty-one days before the Indian ship. Three weeks without food, that’s a long time. My mom said she nursed me some. We collected rainwater to drink, my father would lay out towels to soak it up and then squeezed it into jars. My young uncle was so hungry, his mind would constantly be thinking of food. He would talk non-stop about the most delicious dishes he could think of. With his head in my fathers lap he would dream out loud, until my father couldn’t stand it and told him if he didn’t shut up he would throw him overboard.’ She smiled at the thought.
My uncle was only twelve. He wasn’t really supposed to be there but he had awakened that night and couldn’t be left behind. He could have given us away. My aunt was a only few years younger that my mom. When my father had snuck into the bedroom that night to get her, their little brother woke up. There was nothing else we could have done, he had to come along. The boat held twenty people, but there were forty of us on board. Many others had come because they had found out and wouldn’t be left behind.
‘My father said I was so quite on the boat, I would even tell the other children to hush. He said I was such a good little one. Our food had been stolen on board, but there was nothing he could do about it. If a fight broke out on the boat everyone would be in jeopardy, the boat was in such delicate balance.
Once a French ship passed us, but it didn’t stop. They had colonized our island but they didn’t stop, they didn’t want anything to do with us. They left us floating in the open sea. Well that’s OK…I didn’t want to go to France anyway.
We finally came across a ship from Indian, it had broken down. We just started climbing on board. They thought we were pirates. My mom knew some English and tried to explain, but they said they must examine our boat for weapons before they could accept us on board. Well, of course we had weapons on our little boat, but as the last person exited a giant wave threw it against the ship’s side crushing it and leaving no return. It was a miracle, after the last person had gotten out! They had to take us and when they unloaded their cargo in Japan they unloaded us.
We stayed in Japan for two years. They were so good to us. It was a small fishing village and they just took us in. We became a part of their families, we worked and lived among them. But we were refugees, we would have to immigrate to have a real home.
My mother never stopped dreaming of America, the land of opportunity. She knew that to become a US citizen meant freedom to move around the world, to be able to return to Vietnam. The US offers so many freedoms that other governments withhold.
Finally our distant cousin sponsored us into the US. My mother, father and I moved to Memphis. We arrived with nothing and lived in destitute there. The catholic priests helped us. They gave us clothes and household item. My mother and father worked all the time, sometimes three jobs. I don’t know how we made it.’

Thao is now in her late twenties and a successful businesswoman and artist in California. She graduated from the university of Memphis and knows three different languages. Another precious drop in the melting pot of America.

harvest of '05

2005-11-18T16:31:00.000-08:00

I look into his dark eyes and laugh. His long black curls cradled specs of cornmeal that had drifted through the air during the ritual. Wow Marc is getting grey hair that seems pretty sudden, must be the harvest. Ah yea, the harvest of ’05.

How grateful I am for the abundance of the harvest this year. I don’t know what I would have done without it. Twenty bucks an hour and gentle time spent with beautiful friends, neighbors and not yet friends. My world had just been busted wide open, taken a 180-degree turn in LA. I had barely made it home, penniless, car-less, houseless, and loveless. Thank god, Ala, Buda, the goddess for the harvest of ’05.

Silently I work the scissors, first the sun leaves, using the sharp little points to snip the stem as close as possible without catching the bud. Then the sugar shake, sorry to see all those crystals go, but knowing they will make a kick ass batch of magic cookies or some dank bubble hash. So much crystal ….the goo builds up on my blades making my hands work harder, annoying little mounds of brown crystal-goo growing with each stroke. Dark sticky finger hash making my eyes burn when I accidentally rub them. I guess that’s why they named it afgooie. Ganja, ah sweet ganja so soothing and aromatic, I feel at peace for the first time in a week.

The sun warms my face, the green leaf keeps coming and the trimmed buds keep leaving. Taken to the drying shed, and hung with care from the fishing-line rows, row after row, marked with colored strings to distinguish the different strains. Every inch of every building, shed, tent, even outhouses full of hanging bud. Wood stoves and fans powered by purring generators heating tents, teepees and yurts, humidity meters registering the perfect climate for drying. Halls lined with open brown bags filled with trimmed weed in various stages of curing. Pounds and pounds, on the washer, tucked into barrels, stashed in the scotch broom, stacked in Rubbermaid tubs on the porch. School buses with special, tuck away, hand made trimming boxes designed with silk screens and glass to catch every spec of displaced crystal and keif

“Camp Cut, that’s what we’re gunna call it from now on” Marc held a bandana to his face blood dripping from his nose. He had slipped in the garden and a piece of rebar had sliced through his nostril... seven stitches from the local clinic. The day before he had snipped his finger with his clippers and cut it to the bone. He called himself clumsy but we all knew it was the anxiety of the harvest manifesting. The Feds had been busting fellow growers for the past four days. Randomly it seemed, and the rumors had us all on edge. They had started a week earlier, the rumors, they had filled the air, whisping around us, whispering in our ears. ‘Dillon’s cousin’s sister, who works as a maid at the Hitching Post Inn, said the Feds are here, renting rooms. Word has it they have a list of 129 people they plan to bust. The big bust is going down on the 16th. Seven people on Jones Ln..... that must mean trimmers too. The whole Sawyer family ma pa and the kids too. They say the brother turned them in.’ Every morning we heard reports, some from the previous day Union and others third hand word of mouth. James got picked up... Mike’s kid,too... hand cuffs...helicopters buzzing.... Ed knew they had photos, he was yanking every thing tonight. Each morning people gathered at the Cafe not wanting to be home when the feds rolled in. Each night the busted ones loitered outside of Paddy’s Pub telling their sorrow filled scenarios to sympathetic ears.

But every day I trimmed and trimmed. Sometimes in silence and sometimes in cheerful conversation, sometimes in haste and sometimes in mellow meditation, but always in the trimmer’s flow. It’s funny, the flow, or should it be called the ‘stuck’. I never wanted to get up, kinda like having a cat on your lap. Just one more branch, one more basketful, one more bud. For the first few days I forgot to eat, postponed drinking water and was annoyed at having to get up to pee. When I did finally get up to stretch, my bones creaked and my muscles ached, I started daydreaming of Bernadette’s massage table. The conversation would drift towards things like food and sleep and places other than here. “Let’s go to sushi tonight. When this harvest is done we should all have party, a dance party. When this is over I’m taking you all out to Sushi City, no...Sushi on the Side! I think I’ll make a cheesecake tonight. Have you ever had an Italian cheesecake where you bake the…. and use…, but they don’t have …. at Philly's corner, we’ll have to go to Health Way." Yea right like anyone’s going to town, like any one is going anywhere. But then there are the occasional evenings meals catered by the thoughtful hosts, scrumptious dinners of tender pork loins, garden fresh raviolis in hand- made sauce, with imported wines and yummy desserts. Always a vegetarian option and always well received.

‘Seasonal workers’ we are called. When asked what I’m up to these days I reply, “ oh I’m doing some seasonal work… landscaping… gardening… or just the silent scissor snip with my fore fingers. There was a run on local market, they couldn’t keep the shelves stocked. Sally said these were the biggest days of the year, even the hottest summer day hadn’t brought in this cash flow…. and cash it was, too. Seasonal workers. It’s an industry no doubt, one that supports life on the Cliffs. Young families starting out, buying land and building homes, poor people trying to sustain, established pillars of the community invested in political change, plumbers, lawyers, carpenters, students, mothers, brothers, musicians all just trying to make ends meet, keep life going, get food on the table, make way in this world of crazy consumption, and the inflated dollar.

But it’s such a beautiful industry, the sweetest plant on the earth. It seems to have a powerful gentle spirit that fills the air with a reminder of satori. So much pride pours out of the farmers, Reed even named his plants, often referring to them as ‘the girls.’ “Have we finished Sensie? We’ll start on ‘lil girl’ this afternoon and Rex’s plant on Friday.” Rex’s plant... he had appeared one day with tear filled eyes carefully unwrapping the photo of an old Australian Shepard which lay between two pieces of parchment. Choked up, he had asked us to please give a moment of silence, of thought, of prayer to Rex…. the best dog, best friend ever…. this was his plant. Nods of agreement, Rex sure was a good dog. I remember laying under my ‘girls’ on a warm summer night the air heavy with the pungent scent of the lavender, bubble gum, and blue dot, the heavy dream-filled sleep I swam through until morning. I definitely share his fondness for growing the marijuana plant.

As I ride my bike home through the night, whiffs of skunkweed float through the air in the most peculiar places… wafting through the manzanita, seeping over neighborhood fences, and from underneath greenhouse walls…peculiar, maybe, but very consistently spaced,on my five mile ride, never more than a quarter mile between gardens. During the harvest each job has its own flavor, and name Camp cut, Lizard hill, Murphie’s land, Moonshine Rd.

You got Angies’s place with the trimming machine roaring and the leaf flying, the air full of crystal dust, discarded leaves piling up in mounds and falling off the deck. Sticky plant partials clinging to pant legs, sweaters and polar fleece, beautiful young girls working next to their friend’s papa, their old teachers –aid, their little brothers. Bruce’s hardy laugh after bending too close to the trimming fan, to jokingly distort his voice, and losing an inch and a half of his mountain man beard.

Then there is Lizard hill, late night on lizard hill. Mostly musicians or musician’s supports, festival goers, vagabonds, nomads. Trimming starts early evening and goes until ganja turns the night into musical magic, everyone’s heart opening to the call of ancient song, crawling to bed as the sun hints its arrival in the sky. Sometimes food, sometimes showers, sometimes sleep, but always mountains of ganja and plenty of fresh cool water. Food for the soul.

Camp cut....to me it is really camp peace. Clean, organized, quiet, undemanding...just plain peaceful. Chairs arranged in a shady spot with lights hung from the trees. Music flowing from the I-book and stories rolling off of gypsy tongues, tales of dancing through Africa and kayaking over wild granite drops of the Sierra rivers. To adjust the thermostat I would take off clothes or add a woolen layer, depending on where the sun stood in the sky. Big baskets to catch the shake and an assortment of very sharp scissors to please your preference, spring loaded ones for the green leaf and easy flowing handles for the dry bud. Definitely the most beautifully, hand trimmed bud on the Cliffs.

We dream the American dream, dream of places we will visit, things we will build, the schools our children will attend. We talk about the quality of our crops and speculate about next years possibilities just like other farmers throughout our country, history, time…. with one exception this crop is illegal. How strange, to imagine it illegal to grow a plant. But this group of farmers seem used to the idea of persecution. They remain, poised, waiting wondering who will go down and when; how extensive will the punishment be and how expensive the retrieval.

Still, I think this is a magical moment in history. Medicinal marijuana is becoming legal. With wavering rules and regulations, and unclear stipulations growing, and some types of consumption are becoming decriminalized. The underground faction of ganja cultivation is buzzing, one of the only industries that isn’t corporate. Small, single person and family owned farm operations catch the enchantment of old times, the warm supportive attitude of community. What will happen when /if marijuana cultivation becomes truly legal? Will it go the way of tobacco, alcohol, and food production? Now that really would be a crime.