It’s 2009, Right?

This was my first question this morning when I woke up. In Africa, time disappears. Lovely to think that you can revive your dormant internal clock and go to sleep when it gets dark and wake with the sunrise. Also helps that there are no real distractions, television, stereos, shopping centers, movies, to vie for your attention.

For the past two weeks Tyler and I have been on the go. We arrived in Nairobi and spent the first week with our friends, the Lever clan – Bart, Mary, and their three boys (under three!) Ian, Lox, and Raef. They had moved into their new home over Christmas and Raef had been born only a few weeks before we arrived. Bart is the General Manager for Great Plains Kenya (who we work with) and on top of that he likes to say “I’m Dutch!” which makes up for all the funny things he says or does. Wish I had a phrase like that! It was great to see some of our old friends from this fall and reconnect, as well as meet some of the new players.

After a week in Nairobi, Tyler and I set off for the Masai Mara. I actually love the fact that when we arrived at Wilson Airport, they didn’t have our reservation, but no worries; we’ll just put you on. No IDs necessary, no crazy security. The only major restriction is the weight of your bag! Flying into the Mara is always great – seeing the landscape from above is inspiring with green and gold undulating hills dipping into ravines and then shooting up into sharp escarpments. The land is speckled with brown circles of varying sizes that form arty patterns – the Maasai settlements and bomas dotting the plains.

The flight is only about 45 minutes long, which is good considering if it’s bumpy in a small plane, that’s about all you can handle. Depending on the pilot’s mood and the drops he needs to make determines the landing schedules. There are various airstrips in the Mara and you could be dropped off first or last. It’s always good to know at what airstrip you’re getting off! Tyler and I were actually the only ones on the flight that knew our airstrip name. Luckily the pilot had a list. We had four landings, all within minutes of each other, before we landed at Mara Shika.
When we arrived at Royal Mara Camp, we realized there was no cell reception or internet, and power only a few hours a day, which was going to make our work extremely difficult. Tyler had to walk about .5km out of camp with an armed guard to get a cell signal! Royal Mara is situated on the Mara River and there are massive hippo populations always cavorting and snorting to each other. It’s hard to have a serious conversation, when a hippo often chimes in with a hilarious round of snort-chuckling, right after your comment. Quite the peanut gallery!

We had worked out an arrangement with the owner of Royal Mara that there would be a car available to us for our use. The first morning we asked for them to bring the car around we waited almost an hour. The car arrived in a cloud of smoke and the manager said, “Here you go. The brakes don’t work. Good luck.” We asked if there was anything else that we should know and he said the clutch is very finicky. Anything else? Oh, yeah…..you have to push start it. Oh, well THAT’s good to know! No wonder it took them an hour to bring it around. The final warning sign was that a mechanic, Tom, hopped in the back seat with us carrying a bag of tools. “Just In case,” said the manager. As we pulled out Tom told us that the car was affectionately known as “the limousine”.

After an hour of extremely slow-going progress, we decided that we would not be able to make the river crossings, since it had been raining. Getting stuck in the middle of a river crossing with a car you have to push start and no brakes was not going to work at all. We headed back to camp to discuss our options.

Working in Africa is an adventure. Every day is a unique set of circumstances. Lions on your front porch – no problem. No water – no problem. No power – no problem. Which brings me back to my original question – it’s 2009, right? Somewhere….
But it’s absolutely perfect here.