True, he was a big bull with long, sharp horns, and there were a lot of cows grazing nearby. I was cycling right toward him across the savanna, and there’s a lot I don’t know about the temperament and habits of wildebeest. “I’m going to keep you between me and him,” Susan added, just to reassure me.
But after we gave each other a good looking over, he turned and scampered away. Perhaps it’s hard to picture a 500-lb ungulate scampering, but that’s really what they do, running very lightly on their skinny legs. So we held our course, with wildebeest running off to our left and a couple of dozen Thompson’s gazelles keeping a wary eye on our progress from the right, and we went on bumping and bouncing over the rough ground of the grassland. (And, for the record, wildebeest, also known as gnus, are not aggressive at all. From a distance we were worried that they might be Cape buffalo, who have much shorter tempers. In this case, as we grew nearer, “no gnus” would have been very bad news.)
For the first few kilometers of our ride this afternoon, on a pair of Schwinn mountain bikes lent by our weekend hosts Jon and Phyllis Masso, we stayed on the rough dirt tracks that led off into the open country across the road from Daystar’s Athi River campus. A small herd of zebra surprised us by running very fast right across the track, just a hundred yards in front of us, and then stopping abruptly and looking back at us. Their destination looked to us like an ordinary patch of grass, but evidently through zebra eyes it was really special. The wildebeest and gazelles were grazing lower in the valley, far from any of the tracks, and we wanted to see them up close. So we spent most of our time riding across the grassland, which was churned up into little mounds and valleys by their hooves.
It was the first time on a bike for either of us since last fall in Michigan. (When was it the snow arrived and ended my biking season—late November? It seems like years ago.) And one of the most unusual bike rides we will ever take. Riding on such rough ground was exhausting, however. For a while Susan decided to walk her bike. I kept riding, til I realized I could not quite keep up with her.
We are back home now after a delightful country weekend at Daystar’s Athi River campus, where I could have chosen to live and teach and spend all my time. (Actually, although I had specifically requested housing at the Nairobi campus, we learned recently that the other guest faculty member who arrived in January was offered his choice between our apartment and one at Athi River and chose the latter. We’re glad he did.) Out there we would have enjoyed fresh country air, beautiful sunsets, a clear night sky full of brilliant stars, and lovely hiking and biking paths in the Lukenya Hills, and our flat (smaller than this one, but with more air and light) would have been one of four in a guest faculty block. But we’d have been 40 km away from Nairobi—5 km on rough dirt road, then 35 km on one of the most heavily traveled highways in East Africa with several stretches of unspeakably poor rocky surface around construction zones. The closest shopping—very limited at that—would have been 15 km away in Athi River town.
All in all Daystar at Athi River strikes us as a lovely place to visit but not to live, and couple of days there confirmed that we are city people at heart (even though we gave up our own wonderful city house to move to a quiet spot on Lake Michigan’s shore in 2006). The chance for an extended visit came from Jon and Phyllis, who learned that I needed to spend time talking with a colleague on Saturday and invited us to stay in their guestroom for the weekend. The plan had been for two nights, but both of us were down with short-lived but virulent indispositions last week, Susan on Wednesday with a severe GI attack, I on Thursday with completely different symptoms including headache, general neuralgia, and a fever. Friday we were both still very weak, but by Saturday morning we felt much better and were ready for an outing.
The minute we arrived, Susan turned around and went out with most of the Athi River moms and kids and one of the dads to an ostrich farm for a tour and an ostrich ride (Susan passed on that) and ostrich meat for lunch. (We could get delicious ostrich steaks in Ghana and South Africa, but not here, alas.) I spent the morning with a colleague in community development, who is focusing on many of the same issues in his research work as I am—how ideals sustain community and what motivates people to feel they have a stake—but in the context of a particular village in Niger, where he worked for 16 years for SIM, rather than in the realm of national politics. Then I took a long walk around the campus, sat for a while at a little dam and watched weaverbirds working on their nests and swallows skimming over the water, and found some books I need to read or reread in the library—only to be told that I may not check out any more materials on either campus until I return some. The limit for students is six, for lecturers ten.
In the evening almost the entire visiting faculty cadre went out for dinner together to a nearby private game ranch, Acadia Camp. It’s a lovely place (though unfortunately we arrived just after dark) and the buffet was scrumptious—some of the tenderest meat we’ve had in Kenya. We may try to spend a weekend there before we go, since it’s just an hour away and far less expensive than the national park lodges and camps. We saw shadowy forms of wildebeest and zebra on our way in and out of the reserve, and francolins flapped up out of the track when they saw our headlights approach.
We celebrated Palm Sunday at St. John’s Anglican Church in the tiny African settlement just across from the Daystar gate. The church is a galvanized iron shed on a wooden frame, about 20 x 30, with backless wooden benches to sit on. We set out in time to gather at 9:30 for a procession, but on finding that Jon’s car had a puncture (that’s a flat tire, for you Americans) we walked over and arrived a little before 10. Our arrival swelled the ranks from two to five. By the time we set out, shortly after 10, there were about 25 of us singing our way through the narrow dirt lanes between houses and shops, alternating between Western hymns and Swahili praise songs. Two young boys carried 12-foot palm fronds at the front of the procession, while the rest of us waved palm branches cut just this morning. It was a fine service, with a sermon by visiting Bible lecturer David Miller (in English, with a quick and fluent translation in to Swahili). And because the preacher was American (so says Jon) it lasted less than two hours.
Phyllis is a lay reader and frequent preacher at this little parish, but she was busy with a preaching workshop at the Machakos cathedral, half an hour to the south. Jon and Phyllis’s house, just a kilometer away from the church, is part of a small development they launched ten years ago with eight others (some American Daystar faculty, some Kenyans, all with links to Nairobi Chapel). When we drove up Saturday morning Jon’s greeting was “Welcome to Paradise!” And he was not exaggerating: they built a compact but airy house, very cool even after a day of equatorial sun, surrounded by beautiful native-plant gardens. Cooling breezes waft over the Lukenya Hills from the south every day, and when the outdoor patio gets hot in late afternoon they retreat to the much cooler interior and watch the sun set over the savannah through a wall of (low-transmission, high-efficiency) windows. I understand now why Jon was so reluctant to accept an appointment as Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor, since his days are now filled with meetings and he has to travel to the Nairobi campus several times a week.
For pics related to this entry go to http://picasaweb.google.com/dhoekema/1003CSAthiRiver?authkey=Gv1sRgCKrBlJq_1emsvgE&feat=directlink
