There and Back Again

I'm back in Kimana. The past two weeks seem like an eon ago already. While the Nairobi Park Site was similar in many ways to our Kimana site--we still had bandas, the chumba, the garage, etc--it had a completely different feel. For one thing, ants were EVERYWHERE, crawling onto food plates, into bags, over everything. For another, I fell asleep to the sounds of hyenas laughing outside of our fence (did I mention that it is an electric fence because of the threats from carnivores like hyenas and lions?). And the ground wasn't covered in so many thorns that they got stuck in my feet when I walked around in flip-flops. And we had access to the most amazing soccer field.

It was outside of our camp atop a nearby hill that got my heart racing climbing to the top of it, scrambling over rocks and through acacia trees. From it, we had the most open, 360 degree view of everything around us, from the rangelands stretching out through Nairobi National Park to Nairobi City itself to the Ngong Hills. We would go up there and start a game, and local guys would almost miraculously appear to play with us (all of whom were incredibly fast and pretty much better than all of us wazungu). We ran, ran to our fullest extent on that field, in that open space, over scanty grass littered with small rocks and animal dung, and it was just the best times I've had playing soccer. We played as the sun set behind those Ngong Hills where Karen Blixen once lived, as the sky turned from blue to yellow to golden to a silky, dusky blue-grey. We played until it was just about time for dinner at seven, and left before it was completely dark, before the predators would become a serious threat to us.

We had a four-day expedition to Lake Nakuru National Park. I saw flamingos! They are gorgeous, and it was refreshing to see pink, this new color to me from what I have seen so far in nature. On our first full day there, we went on three game drives, once at 6am, once at 11am, and once at 4pm, and each time that lake with its flamingos looked different, each time appearing, if possible, more spectacular than the last. In the gentle tones of the morning light the flamingos appeared as a soft pink band stretching along the rim of the lake, turning a darker, stronger hue under a more brilliant blue in the blazing mid-day sun, and finally popping out vividly against the grey atmosphere of the cloudy afternoon.

On April Fool's Day, as I walked outside to clean my dishes, I heard that there were lions feeding outside of the fence which enclosed us. I saw Daniel jumping into one of the Land Cruisers and turning it around to leave through the gate; I knew that he was going to see them, and I had to be in that car. I motioned at him to slow down and jumped in dirty dishes in hand, pajamas still on, contacts not in, no camera, no binoculars, no nothing. The car had barely slowed down and stopped before myself and four others had jumped in, ready to go.

We drove, scanning the landscape. Something shadowy appeared in the grass before us, seeming too small from afar to be that for which we were looking. But as we approached, it was that indeed: two female, sub-adult lions, feasting on a waterbuck.

The lionesses took turns tearing away at the carcass, one lying in the grass watching as the other ate. I could see the legs of the waterbuck move with the force of the lions ripping away at the tender flesh. I could make out faint spots on their bellies, remnants of their youth that had yet to fade away in adulthood. I gazed in wonder as I watched these amazingly powerful bodies walk--they exhibit raw power.

Watching them, I understood why people refer to lions, the simba, as the king of the savannah. They are beauty and power perfectly matched into one dangerous yet endearing animal. It was a phenomenal morning, made all the sweeter by the fact that the cry "lion" was not in fact some elaborate April Fool's Day plan concocted by the staff.

But that wasn't it: we saw white and the much more reclusive black rhinos. We hiked through a gorge in Hell's Gate National Park that required bracing myself with my hands on one boulder and feet on another to make it through a narrow pass over a hot spring. We visited an elephant orphanage where I got to touch baby elephants and a baby black rhino. We went to a giraffe center where I fed a giraffe and others kissed them (I did not really want to swap spit with them, and let me tell you, there kisses were slobbery). I ate my first ostrich burger, and an hour later tried riding one (it's something I do not need to do again).

It was a full two weeks, but I am glad to be back in Kimana. As we drove back, my heart warmed as we entered again the Maasai group ranches, as I saw Maasai men in shukas wandering solitarily through the rangelands, as the people we passed opened up the most marvelous smiles in greeting and waved to us as children ran after our cars. I like this more rural country, even with its unpaved roads. I missed the hot days and nights, the baboons right in our backyard.

It feels good to be back here for our final month.