Jambo - Hello - Aloha

Salamu jamaa wa ukoo katika ulimwengu ... Greetings fellow tribesmen around the globe (Swahili)

Day one: Welcome to Nairobi. The university closed today. Three students were killed yesterday protesting educational reform. Time to meet the travelers at your hostel. The majority have been robbed in the past few days, two at gunpoint. Go get groceries. Grab thieving urchin's hand as he rapidly pilfers your pocket. Congratulate yourself for concealing your cache of Kenyan shillings in a zipped pocket. Valuables are hidden inside the inner pair of shorts; you wear two at a time. No, your hips do not look fat. Perform a jig of glee when you discover the store carries chocolate-covered Hob Nob biscuits. Praise the Commonwealth. Purchase Hob Nobs (One nibble and you're nobbled, after all) and a bottle of ginger soda named Stoney Tangawizi. A fine beverage whose unique flavor lives up to its funky moniker.

Walking home three punks try to forcibly steal your watch. Please. They should know not to play reindeer games with a temporally fetished chronophyllic. Admonish your oversight for wearing shiny trinkets, pick up your questionable nutrition from the dusty road, and head back to the New Kenya Lodge. Later, you contemplate its luxury pit toilets: are the merits of enhanced anatomical efficacy outweighed by deficient sanitary conditions? At any rate, Conde Nast won't be confusing the New Kenya Lodge for the Koele Lodge anytime soon. Since your room cost 100 times less than the Hawaiian Shangri-La, pat your double-shorted booty, smile, and climb into your mosquito net. Lala salama ... sleep well.

Day two: Explore this fascinating city. Equal parts scintillating-spiced-symphony and chaotic-cultural-cacophany. Whatever. Having left the timepiece at home, you realize that you glance at your wrist every 9.3 seconds (time approximated due to lack of watch). Today, the hostel has only one tenant and sports an impressive staff-to-customer ratio. Conde Nast nods approval. Night is enjoyed on the rooftop terrace with the local rasta posse: sipping Stoney Tangawizi, Bantu language lessons (Swahili, Kikuyu, Meru dialects), chewing miraa (hyper-caffeinated twigs), and nasikiza nyimbo za muamgaza wa mwezi ... listening to the music of the moonlight.

Day three: Sip Kenyan coffee with a dose of classic cartoonery, the inimitable Underdog battles the evil Simon Barsinister. Peruse the 1933 encyclopedia volume you picked up in London for ten pence. CHI - DER captivates with a hypnotic underlying linear structure but the bucolic denoument is contrived and predictable. With a plot that begins in ancient China, heads west into Christianity, rides fearless amongst the Crusades, and sails with Cook to Australia and Hawaii, one can't help but be slightly disappointed when left stranded in the English Lake District of Derwentwater.

Enough ramble, time to amble downtown to further quench the arabica beast in the atmospheric Thorn Tree Cafe. Hemingway wrote here. The ephemeral muse still lingers on the leafy wickered lanai. Her libidinous voice licks your ear with lubricious phrase. Thus spitillated and titillated, you write out some letters. A sighing saxophone completes the mood. Inspired tranquility. Briefly. Gunshots erupt across the street as the Bank of Baroda is held up by five gunmen. Three people are killed. The soft jazz becomes lost in a cauldron of sound and confusion. Underdog must be shining shoes; it takes the police twenty minutes to arrive on the scene.
Karibu hapa Naiwizu ...Welcome to Nairobbery.

Kuingia jangwani ... into the wild: A great deal of my time has been spent on safari in the Serengeti of Tanzania and Masai Mara of Kenya. Between visits to the game reserves I made an excursion to the shores of Lake Victoria. Experiences that surpassed expectation and expanded the imagination. Mere description but a pale penumbra of radiant reality: endless sky, lions mating a breath away, giraffes poking their goofy heads into our vehicle, leopards in Acacia trees, wildebeast migrations, gazelles, hippos, crocodiles, spooky hyenas, kudus, impalas, cute warthog babies, herds of water buffalo, zebras mingling with antelope, elephant caravans, vultures, and baboons. A stunning proof to Sunri Suzuki's assertion that The world is its own magic.

The word travel shares the same etymology as travail; both terms originating from an ancient instrument of torture. Fitting? The misadventures and mishaps, delays and detours, are simply an integral part of traversing the open road. More importantly, they frequently illuminate hidden paths of thrill and discovery. Or, as the Muppets would sing: Movin' right along (dooga doong, dooga doong) footloose and fancy free, getting there is half the fun, come share it with me. Especially when it is shared with a tribe of Masai warriors. Straight from a classic Camel cigarette ad, our vehicle became mired while crossing a muddy river on the way into Kenya. Our little cadre consisted of a Dutchman, Aussie, Norwegian, and myself. After an hour of shovelling the frame clear, arranging stones / branches for traction, and pushing like madmen ... we succeeded in covering ourselves with a layer of muck and little else. The driver wisely chose to enlist the aid of a nearby village.

Exit the bounds of expectation and enter the surreal: fifteen enthusiastic Masai arrive, traditional red cloth draped over a single shoulder, enormous earlobes stretched and swaying, smiling and friendly. The next two hours were exhausting, exhilirating, slippery, filthy, and fun. Our successful outcome was an added bonus. We cheered, clapped backs, and devoured nearly three days worth of food rations. A celebratory feast worthy of the Thanksgiving season. One of the passengers, less eager to participate, chronicled the event with my camera. Cool moe dee. I look forward to brother Christophe digitizing them (great thanks o' mighty postal-cyber-market guru). Sample image: buried calf deep, a dozen muckmen are straining their guts out pulling a handmade leather strap attached to the truck. All are exotic ebony save the blonde haole boy in the center of the maelstrom. Primed with soil, proudly make that hapa haole. The entire memory was epic. Lli katika/kucheza kama askari ... It rocked like a ninja or Danced like a warrior.

The act of writing affords the author considerable liberty in the abusement of language. Take, for example, the following ditty about Hawaii - once referred to as the Sandwich Isles:

" O, how my spirit languishes
to step ashore on the Sanguishes."

- Robert Louis Stevenson, circa 1888

A wise man. Sentiment aside, I also enjoy Stevenson's warped use of Sanguishes to slide in the rhyme. In the spirit of such goofiness I offer the following:

A shen ribs of the wildebeest; bony platter of the vulture feas T
S avannah rains sing asunder; primal plains ring a'thunde R
E lephants saunter true and slow; majestic swagger to and fr O
R ivers swirl enhancing blue; skies unfurl entrancing yo U
E vening spins her celestial loom; a web of life or stellar tom B
N ight -free thoughts wander free; sailing dreams on the cosmic se A
G leaming light dawns aloud; land awakens fierce and prou D
E lands prance in tawny hue; monkeys dance, joyous to O
T he primal pulse and painted flow; echoed rhythm of earth's tablea U
I nfused with beauty, fuelled by lore; inhaling deeply, let wonder soa R

I will be in Kenya until friday. Despite its numerous drawbacks, Nairobi boasts some excellent Indian restaurants, illicit pool lounging at the Hilton, East Africa's best internet connections, ready travel supplies, various entertainment options, and a charged atmosphere. My next destination is Arusha, Tanzania. After selling my left kidney to finance the trip, I will climb Kilimanjaro ... the Mountain of the the God of Cold. Africa's highest peak, it should afford beautiful views and an enjoyable hike. Snuggling the equator, it's the only way I get to play in the snow this December.

- kwaheri marafiki wangu ... farewell my friends - Kevin