Still in Emotional & Physical Transit through December 5th
Though we landed in California late on Nov. 18th and spent the night at 1050 Fremont, we left again 36 hours later on Nov. 20th morning. We had been warned of culture shock when re-entering our old lives. But we’ve spent Nov. 20 to December 5th in Washington D.C. at Rick’s mother’s house, with family. Being in transit at airports and places not-our-home seem perfectly normal! Rick has worked at TechnoServe headquarters in D.C. for 1.5 weeks, while I was also in Boston with my aunt and uncle or our kids for a few days. The reality—and surreality—will likely hit us on December 6th.
Lasting Impressions from our Last Days
It’s Always the People I Miss Most
We are so lucky to have worked closely and gotten to know many local Kenyans—from our office especially as well as a few ex-pats and clients. They know who they are so all I’ll say is thank you.
Two of our most memorable clients were both young women. One young woman was a finalist in our business plan competition. During the final training week to prepare to present her business plan to the judges, she felt unwell on Monday; Tuesday she went to the hospital to have her appendix removed; Wednesday evening she returned to the training site with her mother and sister to help her recover; and Thursday she pitched successfully to the judges. She was awarded the top cash prize of Ksh. 1 million (~US$15,000) on Saturday morning at “graduation.” Talk about entrepreneurial drive…
The second special young woman is Cecilia from our Young Women in Enterprise program (see her story at www.walleigh.com/tns_ke_projects_&_biz).
She already employs a few friends to do sewing piece-work for her knitted products. Rick and I are investing in Cecilia by loaning her the money for a new, more efficient knitting machine to meet her increased demand. Also TechnoServe has helped her rent her own small shop in anticipation so that she’s not working long hours in the dark at her non-electrified, Mukuru slum homestead. Cecilia was recently featured in the new Kenyan magazine, Business Women so we are hopeful about her business success.
All of these amazing, capable people who warmly allowed us into their lives, will help Africa move fully into the 20th and 21st centuries. We will miss them for now but know we will see them again.
411 is 991 in Nairobi
Rick and I wanted to have dinner at the main dining room in the old Norfolk Hotel which has been under renovation near downtown Nairobi. Our apartment didn’t have a phone book, so I looked up the number online. One of the hotel’s listed main lines was continuously busy and the other was wrong. But the recorded message sent me to 991, Directory Assistance. The operator was very nice and tried to be helpful but she could not find a working number for this Nairobi landmark either. So she asked for my phone number, said she’d continue searching, and would call me back shortly, which she indeed did Meanwhile I’d also found 2 different phone number online, so between the 2 of us, I reached the Norfolk Hotel. When I mentioned to them my difficulty in reaching them, the staff acknowledged that they’d been having phone problems…Except for the very helpful Directory Assistor, it was classic T.I.A!
Electricity Glitches
In early November, President Kibaki finally announced official elections on 27th December, kicking off crazy traffic everywhere as politicians flung their campaigns into high gear. Coincidentally, our electricity in Westlands, where we lived and worked, began to have power outages even more frequently than usual. I guess the fact this is a high ex-pat area means less local voters so who cares what happens to our electricity and traffic, right?
Last Weekend with Anna & Greg
Our closest friends in Kenya had moved to Arusha, Tanzania a few weeks before, but they recognized that a visit to Nairobi’s better food, shopping, and other amenities was a monthly requirement so they planned to visit before we left. The 4 of us went out to dinner at Orchid, a favorite gourmet Thai restaurant on Friday night and Talisman on Sunday for our favorite brunch. On Monday, just Anna and I had lunch at our favorite “coffee” shop, Java House, then spent the rest of the afternoon in serious retail therapy. Nairobi is a fun city to shop, eat and explore with great friends!
Nairobi to the U.S.
Another classic image of Africa was our time spent in the 1st Class Lounge at Nairobi Airport, which looked like an all-night diner rather than the typical Admirals Club in Western airports. Because our flights from Brussels to NYC then to SFO were in Business Class, we qualified for the special lounges at all airports. The Nairobi lounge’s most memorable low point was the ladies’ room toilet--1950s’ pink with no seat. Oh well, one more T.i.A.!
Fast forward to our landing in Brussels, with the sun rising on a new day as we return to the west. Hoping that our luggage was with us, we headed for the Admirals Club where we settled in comfortably for our few hours’ lay-over. The 2 women sitting next to us seemed to know each other, as well as people in common from the U.N. They were bemoaning the implementation of policy for Sudan. Their frustration reminded us of why we work for TechnoServe whose total focus is program implementation to create positive impact on the quality of life and incomes among the poor. We cannot imagine working for large NGO (non-governmental organization) bureaucracies like the U.N., World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. We know that we have been very fortunate to have seen some results of our work with young women, entrepreneurs, and agriculture.
Taking off from Brussels on time, we luxuriate in our Business Class seats, watch lots of movies, and enjoy decent food. Being on airplanes and in transit seemed relatively normal for us. It still didn’t feel like we were going home. It was only when we landed in JFK, picked up our luggage and dropped it back for our next flight after customs that we realized we were actually headed home. I think it may have been the efficiency, speed and professionalism of U.S. personnel vs. Africa. Even though our next flight to SFO was delayed, once we had boarded the plane, we were kept informed, given soft drinks, and watched taped TV. Six hours after departure we arrived at SFO which seemed familiar yet surreal at the same time. A friend picked us up, we stuffed our 7 suitcases plus 2 carry-ons into her SUV, drove down Route 280, and arrived at 1050 Fremont. Home except for the last year and a half…
October 6 – 20 with Our Family and Friends in E. Africa
Rather than trying to review our daily activities and excitement with the amazing amount and kinds of animals we saw, I’ll focus on a few truly stellar activities. All of our accommodations were updated and upscale versions of the old-style tent-safaris--except these tents had permanent floors, ceilings, and “en suite” bathrooms. The worst hardship we faced was getting up in the dark at 5:30 for a 6:00 a.m. game drive! And all of us shared 2 unique experiences for the first time: walking with chimps and trekking to see gorillas in Uganda.
Quality Time with Adult Children
First of all, having quality time with Adrian, Diana, and our nephew Nathan was a gift. We really enjoy our adult children! 1st Diana and Nathan arrived 2 days ahead of Adrian, and Nathan left 36+ hours earlier than Adrian and Diana, so we had quality time with each. Rick and I have grown to be very flexible about our traveling conditions in Africa, so it was fun being able to joke about those standards with the kids without being mean-spirited.
More Leopard and Cheetah Sightings in 1 Week than all Previous Safaris
At Lewa Conservancy, The Mara, and even The Ark, with almost daily morning and evening game drives, we experienced more sightings of rare animals than our 2 weeks in 1997 in similar or the exact same locations. We saw leopards, cheetahs and lions almost daily where Rick and I saw 1 leopard and 1 cheetah from long distances a decade before. I think what made it even more special for me was knowing that the kids and friends were experiencing these animals, landscapes, and cultures for the first time. That re-ignited our own excitement by sharing “our adopted home” with them.
Watching, Walking and Hugging Chimpanzees at Ngamba Sanctuary
Though Rick and I had experienced trekking to see wild chimps in Murchison Falls National Park’s jungle in northwestern Uganda, we would not have time to repeat that, so our friend instead suggested a Chimp Sanctuary near Entebbe, Uganda, the main airport for Kampala. It is situated on Ngamba Island, about 1-hour’s boat ride on Lake Victoria.
Unfortunately all of us had some negative previews of the island because the staff rigidly required proof of more inoculations than for any place we had ever traveled, including Hep B (for health and sex workers) and polio and meningitis boosters. However, if our expectations had been better set, we would have understood the cause for the aggravation and expense (Diana had to pay $700 for shots but not the extra $400 for doctors’ visits due to professional courtesy),. Each family was actually going to walk, hold and interact WITH the youngest chimps! More on that in a bit…
Leaving some luggage with our Ugandan travel agent before boarding the boat to the island, as we approached Ngamba we saw Robinson Crusoe-like thatched roof huts along the edge of the jungle. Our group took up the majority of tent facilities for the night. In fact Adrian, Michelle & Chris were in mobile tents with an outdoor shower.
Rescued Chimps
Before lunch, we had an orientation to the sanctuary by the vet who told us how most chimps were rescued from pet traders (who had purchased young ones from poachers who had killed the family) to sell to Westerners who thought chimps would make great pets. Though adorable when little, chimps are aggressive and violent as adults so sometimes they are abandoned after a few years as pets. The island’s forest is beyond maximum capacity for chimps to feed as they do in the wild, so adult chimps go to the jungle during the day but return to the camp for feedings. Almost all chimps sleep in the enclosure where there are hammocks hung from the roof to simulate the nests they would make in the wild. Each night, the chimps take fresh straw from the enclosure floor to make up their beds in a different spot from the previous night.
All females are on birth control because the sanctuary is too small to hold more than the adults and babies who are rescued. However, that creates a problem for the little ones because females, who have no parenting experience, don’t know how to mother them. So the babies imprint onto the human handlers who give them intensive care when they are first brought to the shelter. One exception was the young female who managed to remove the birth control implant from her arm, got pregnant, and raised the baby in the sanctuary. Interestingly, other females are starting to mimic her mothering because one rescued baby has been adopted by a chimp mom.
Snack Time for Chimps is Viewing Time for Us
After our lunch, we headed to watch the chimps return from the forest to the outdoor enclosure where the handlers tossed fruit and veggie snacks to them. It was impressive to see a couple of them use sticks as tools to retrieve oranges that had rolled under the edge of the electric fence surrounding the enclosure. It’s almost impossible not to project human thoughts and emotions when they seem to be happy, angry, selfish (hoarding carrots), wanting more treats, etc.
Walleighs Join a Chimp Gang
About 5pm as the Walleighs were preparing to walk into the forest with the smallest chimps, we watched the adults come into their cage-like enclosure to sleep for the night. If even one did not return, the handlers would only have taken us out to the outer enclosure for our walk because the adults are so large and aggressive that even one feeling threatened in “its home” would be very dangerous. But they all returned, ate their evening porridge—then begged for more. The vet sprayed anti-bacterial medicine on a couple of chimps who had small injuries (e.g., cuts or scrapes from fighting). Like little kids who want the attention, they kept putting their hands (or feet) out again for more.
Then Adrian, Rick, Diana and I, suited up in green coveralls like the handlers, went to the edge of the field and watched as about 7 young chimps scampered out toward us. Within moments we experienced truly how these primates carry more than 98% of human genes. We had been warned that some of these youngsters were about 40 kilos but it was still a surprise when the largest chimp jumped up into my arms. Even though I transferred Billy to my back, I could only walk a short distance. Somehow Rick and Adrian carried the littlest ones. Thankfully, we soon stopped in a clearing to play, tickle and groom them-and be amused by their farting a lot from their porridge dinner. At one point, there was a screech from Billy who had wandered off. All the chimps in the clearing got scared, jumped into the arms of the nearest human, and wanted to be held. I will never forget the moment that the little guy I was grooming climbed into my lap, put his arms around me and held on tightly. The hour walk was over too soon. The feel of his hairy body, soft hands and feet will remain in my mind forever.
Over dinner that night and breakfast the next morning, all we could talk about was the amazing feeling of playing with these close cousins of ours. Less than 24 hours after we arrived at Ngamba, we were back on the boat to Entebbe.
Our 1st Charter Flights Ever are on Planes Also Used for Humanitarian Missions
Returning to Entebbe Airport, we left even more luggage with our driver in order to meet our charter plane’s allowance of 5kg. (~12 lbs.) per person, including cameras, changes of clothes, raingear, etc.
Air Serv’s Tourist Charters Subsidize Humanitarian Missions
We understood the weight limitations once we saw our 9-passenger plane. Our flight over East Africa's savannahs, jungles and mountains was enjoyable and enlightening for many reasons. Air Serv, the charter organization, subsidizes its many humanitarian aid flights by doing custom tourist flights like ours. These same highly-trained pilots fly into African war zones to deliver food and medicine. To date, the sign on the side of the plane clearly indicating there are
no weapons on board, has successfully prevented so-called freedom fighters from shooting down Air Serv...
Diana as Honorary Co-Pilot Without Flight Duties
The pilot was an Afrikaaner (South African of Dutch heritage--for those who've not read Power of One...) fellow in his early 30s who allowed Diana to sit in the co-pilot seat. She did look very anxious before take-off, but she was calm for the actual flight. Diana later did question why the pilot was reading maps, not holding the steering wheel, and did he really know the way to Bwindi.
Some Airstrips are More Exciting Than Others
The short, grass airstrip at Kayonza near Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was fine to land 10 of us. However, the pilot forewarned us that on the return flight to Entebbe, he would have to ferry half our party to Mbarara Airstrip about 30 minutes away then go back for the rest. The good news was that the hard dirt airstrip at Mbarara is long enough for a 10-person plane to take off. It was an bonus flight that we didn’t even have to pay for!
Pygmy Tribes in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
The benefits of saving the last remaining 700 or so mountain gorillas are obvious to anyone who supports wildlife conservation. The downside is the displacement of Pygmy tribes who until a few years ago lived in the forest and hunt local animals as their main source of protein. To complete the protection of the gorillas, the Uganda Wildlife Authority removed all the tribes to the forest’s border villages. Thrust into a foreign environment, these primitive people suffered new diseases because they did not have a protein source to quickly replace the bush meat on which they had depended. During our guided community walk, a nearby Pygmy tribe came out of the forest to sell us hand-made crafts and perform some of their traditional stomping dances. All of us bought something from them in the hopes that the money will help offset their difficult situation. The local medical clinic which Diana visited, is making some progress to help improve their health with education and medicine. Intellectually it’s easy to say that the nearly-extinct mountain gorillas are critical to save. But after we saw the local human population’s further distress, we recognize how tough a choice it is to trade-off that animals being more important than people…
Armed Guards Accompany Us During Our Bwindi Town & Jungle Walks
We were only 1 km. from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has “freedom fighters” who are violent and unpredictable. So armed guards with AK-47s accompanied us any time we left our lodge. At night, men with large bows and arrows walked through our compound. The guerillas have in the past kidnapped and killed tourists but more recently butchered the 1st troop of gorillas to be habituated. Gorillas’ 3 “home” parks are within 100 km. of each other in Uganda, Rwanda and DRC. The last baby gorilla from that troop was slaughtered at the end of Sept. 2007 only 2 weeks before we arrived. Bwindi guides were so upset by these deaths that at risk to their own lives, they trekked into the DRC park to rescue their “friends” and give their bodies a proper burial. The courage on one side and the cowardice on the other, with so many innocents caught between…
10 Feet from Gorillas in the Rainforest
With shoes still wet from our disastrous hike through Bwindi Town and surrounding area in torrential rains, we all had an early breakfast then drove to the trail head where we were assigned to our group of 8 (24 people in 3 groups is the daily maximum allowed to see gorillas). By 8:00 a.m. we were trekking over a mountain into the rainforest. It was a steep climb up and down dirt trails covered with vines—not as romantic when you’re doing it as it looks in the old jungle movies. But when the advanced scouts tracking our “assigned” gorilla family radioed the primates’ location, we knew that this $500 per person (permit cost only, not including transportation, food and lodging) experience was about to prove its worth. Within 30 minutes, we were standing about 10 feet away from 7 of the last 700 Mountain Gorillas. Unlike our chimp-cousins, gorillas are very gentle, definitely vegetarian, and pretty much ignored our presence. They continued pulling vines into their mouths, calmly chewing away, while we stared and snapped hundreds of photos. The only excitement was when Adrian accidentally (really, truly) came too close to the troop, so the silverback charged through the jungle to insert himself nearer to his family. All of us had been “oriented” by our guides at our last stop before the gorillas, that if a gorilla should approach, we should stand quietly, heads down, and never look into their eyes. Adrian immediately went into calm, submissive mode and the gorillas carried on as if nothing happened.
As soon as we returned to Buhoma Lodge around 2:00 p.m., we showered, had lunch, and sat glued to the veranda’s sofas to contemplate (with beer in hand) our adventure with the gorillas. Even without that brief scare, seeing these amazing primates in the wild rainforest was an lifetime experience to always treasure.
Diana Volunteers at “Special” Clinic at Nairobi’s Gertrude Hospital
Through a TechnoServe friend, Diana and I were able to visit Gertrude Children’s Hospital in the Muthaiga area of Nairobi. It is the best pediatric facility in Kenya and possibly Africa. Briefly we met with the CEO who introduced us to the Chief Pediatrician. He answered a few of Diana’s questions before handing us over to a pediatrician in the clinic, with whom we thought she’d spend another few minutes observing him with a patient. Diana and I walked into the patient examination room with a healthy toddler and her mother. But the doctor insisted that for the patient’s (and probably his) comfort (and in the U.S., privacy laws), I would need to wait outside.
All HIV/AIDS Patients that Day in Clinic
Rather than sit in the patients’ lobby on this beautiful day, I sat in the garden outside. I noticed the sign above the clinic entrance said “Dental Clinic,” which was clearly through the next door, “Well Baby Clinic,” and “Specialist Clinic.” As I watched children and mothers traipse in and out of the lobby, I assumed the patients were having well-baby checkups. When Diana emerged about an hour later, she said that she had been quite surprised that she was volunteering to examine young HIV/AIDS patients. After another hour, Diana came out, clearly upset by what she’d seen, saying, “This is all so preventable. Pregnant HIV-positive mothers can in 99% of the cases prevent their babies from contracting this disease by taking freely available medicine in their last trimester then not breast-feeding.” But she was also moved by the courage of two older children with full-blown AIDS. One young girl was now blind and stopped going to school. Another young man was still in school but clearly ostracized from his school-mates, as is typical across Africa.
HIV/AIDS Children in the Hospital Lobby
Diana and I walked out past the front lobby to see if we could grab a taxi, but after a few minutes, we called our TechnoServe driver to pick us up where he had dropped us off. We returned to the lobby to wait for him and saw very sick little patients. Shortly, some young white women carried a transparent crate with 3 babies inside into the triage room off the lobby. They went back out, brought in a few more crates, and also carried several toddlers in their arms. Diana got up to help them, talked to the people in charge of the children, and found out that these were HIV positive orphans coming in to get tested so those without AIDS might be placed into Western families.
Several Sad Ironies
1. Gertrude’s main campus is in Muthaiga, one of Nairobi’s highest-end neighborhoods, where many foreign embassies (and families) are located along with U.N. personnel.
2. The Chief Pediatrician described Gertrude’s as a private, very successful hospital, #1 in pediatrics in Kenya and maybe Africa. About 80% of patients have respiratory illnesses, 10+% have stomach problems, and 10% other. .
3. However on Mondays and Fridays, they have a “specialist clinic” to see HIV/AIDS related children Our guess was that possibly up to 40% of total patients suffer from HIV/AIDS which is nearly totally preventable through free medicine available today.
4. The babies and toddlers in the lobby were being re-tested because their prior tests done elsewhere had been done poorly. Several recently-adopted children now had full AIDS, despite being “certified” only HIV postitive a few months earlier.
5. They were at Gertrude Hospital to ensure proper testing of the remaining children, though the lab was trying to charge Ksh. 800 per child (~$12). The Hospital agreed to Ksh. 500.
6. Free, good HIV/AIDS test kits are available in Nairobi and throughout Africa via U.S. PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief).
Kenya Wildlife Service’ Poor Administration Causes an Almost Fiasco
Our friends stayed one more day in Kampala before returning to the U.S. and our nephew Nathan had to leave the next morning, so just Rick, Adrian, Diana and I had an appointment with Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage to visit our adopted babies, Shimba and Lempaute. Our travel agency had loaned us a driver for the afternoon. We knew that it was not a good sign when he picked us up at Village Market about 3:30 and told us that traffic was too bad to reach Sheldrick by 5:00pm. Rick directed him onto a couple of back streets to which the driver reacted annoyed though we did make faster progress. He drove us to the Sheldrick entrance, one of the back gates of Nairobi National Park, where we had entered with Diana and Nathan 2 weeks earlier. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) refused to let us into that gate and directed us back to the main park entrance. We reached the main KWS facility to be told that we must pay full park fees to enter Sheldrick, and yes the policy had recently changed. KWS officials directed us to walk to among several buildings until we paid $40 non-resident per person (Rick is the only official Kenya Resident but didn’t have his stamped passport). One very nice guard felt sorry for us so he volunteered to accompany us back to Sheldrick inside Nairobi Park. After stopping to allow several giraffes to cross the road, we eventually arrived at Sheldrick at 5:30 (even that was a miracle). The Sheldrick officials told us that 3 days prior, KWS sent them a letter notifying them about the new requirement of full park fee payment, and since then their visitors were down by 80%! Excuse me, but who wins on this brilliant policy???
However, the next hour was a wonderful cure for the previous one because we touched, played, and talked to several small elephants, including our Shimba and Lempaute. Though elephants are not in our human family tree, they exhibit (and we project) playfulness, need for touching, and bonding with their “parents” (human handlers). In other words, they are totally cuddly and adorable! By the time we left for dinner nearby in Karen at one of our favorite restaurants, Talisman, the world was a lovely place once again.
