Howdy ho!
Welcome to Travel With Reason: my ongoing travel musings. Photos in the gallery at left will link you to corresponding albums at Flickr; more photo links can be found below. You can email me at ronreason@gmail.com. Thanks for stopping by!
[Lagos, Nigeria] OK people, my off-time in Africa isn’t all spent on safari or touring the slums. Last night, at an elegant cocktail party with jazz pianists and singers, fabulous food and champagne, I chatted up Mo Abudu, the “Oprah of West Africa” (in yellow, at right, photo below). She’s for real – visit this site after you leave this post!
[Lagos, Nigeria] Random observations and thoughts from the first two days in Nigeria:
Sofitel hotel … fluffy bed (maybe a little too much – bad back in the morning) … concrete wall shuts out the outside world … impossible wi-fi (how on earth do these people blog?) … amazingly weak orange juice … large in-room safe … power goes out (unbelievably inadequate power grid, thanks to corruption of previous regime – everyone’s on generators) … Read more
Update from 10 months later … we’ve done it! The Hope Library is up and running. Click here to read more, and read below to learn the origins of the project.
[Kibera slum, Nairobi, Kenya] My second visit to Kibera, May 4 (posting this entry after mulling it over for a week). Being taken in a little deeper this time. I had been to a “drinking den” on my first visit, but my shepherd this time, Osir, takes me to another one (despite my stated focus on reconnecting with some artists I met earlier).
The half-dozen gatherees are socializing, and drinking changaa, the traditional homemade liquor of the Luo people, in a shack with a dirt floor, cardboard wall. A child who might be 2 years old sleeps nearby. (She’s at the far right in the photo below- maybe that’s her pink backpack on the wall above her?) Another boy, about 8, refills the liquor jug when needed, if mom (the proprietress) is otherwise busy.
It’s a funny dance, having the rare mzungu (white guy) in their midst. Do they want to have their photo taken, or not? Do they want to chat, or not? Sometimes it’s both at once.
One guy (in the hat, on the right, in photo above) strikes up a chat. “I love a good book. Do you like to read?” Nonchalantly, he tosses at me his current read – or rather, the ripped-out middle third. The front portion of The Parcifal Mosaic has been passed on to its lucky next reader; the final third, well, he’ll have to get to that when he can find out who has it. It’s all about sharing when it comes to books in Kibera, if it comes to that at all.
“Ludlum does the best stories, but only if you can deal with extremely complex characters. Man, he does characters like nobody can.” The others chime in enthusiastically; maybe they are reading the first third, or the last. I tell them I read 3 or 4 Ludlum stories in high school, not so much since. (Can’t focus on all those characters.)
These guys are readers. Osir, too. Read more
Nearing the end of an amazing two months in Kenya (and off to another African nation tomorrow), I’ve been thinking about others I know who have had extended tours of duty in Africa, and who are quite passionate about what many people would consider a difficult, undesirable place. I decided to interview them via email and ask, what brought you to consider an extended stay in Africa? And what brings you back, either physically or spiritually? Here are their responses, which individually I find quite fascinating, and collectively, sort of remarkable:
Lara Weber, Chicago (Lara was a Community Health Volunteer, Peace Corps / Zambia, 2000. We were briefly neighbors in Lakeview and acquainted via Chicago journalism circles. She now works at the Tribune.) “I’d always just assumed that I’d spend some time living overseas, doing study abroad or taking a job outside of the U.S. So when I hit my 30s and realized I hadn’t done it yet, I knew it was time. The AIDS crisis was just starting to get more attention, and since I was joining the Peace Corps, I really wanted to be as close to that issue as possible. It just felt like the thing I was supposed to be doing right then and there in my life. (Plus, I’d spent a decade as a journalist and felt wrong working on world issues from the point of view of a tower on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.)
“So when a Peace Corps assignment in public health in Zambia was offered, I was thrilled. For two years, I lived in a mud hut in a very remote part of northeastern Zambia, in a place that was just beginning to confront its own HIV/AIDS situation. I met and worked with incredible local health officials and I did see change happen while I was there. And, naturally, I changed quite a bit as well. In the midst of extreme poverty and disease, I got to know people who love life and aren’t burdened by the pressures we put upon ourselves in the ‘developed’ world. Read more
[Nairobi, Kenya] I’ve got a lot more to say on the topic of my latest expedition through Kibera slum, this time a bit deeper into it all including time spent with a family, and yes, photos to post, but one thing that always strikes me, and humbles me, is the contrast between the worries of an American abroad and those of say, my new friend Osir, who I met a few weeks ago in a “drinking house” in Kibera (bootleg liquor, another story really) and who invited me into his tiny home on Sunday to meet his wife and six kids. Aiming for no judgment in his or mine, just trying to lay some of our issues side by side:
I’ll assume most people reading are Americans, and this one’s for you. The next time you get annoyed by service or delays at, say, the driver’s license office or a bank, consider this tale of the challenge of getting person A (American) from Point K (Kenya) to Point *** (Country to Remain Unnamed) in 17 steps or less.
Following is a tale of the wildest business trip ever, wherein your intrepid reporter tries freshly slaughtered goat, battles rude monkeys, conducts a formal presentation to his clients in remotest Africa, participates in a tribal hootenanny, boils an egg in hot springs, and visits the client’s mama in the bush! Most links will take you to photographic evidence at my Flickr album.
Day 1, Sunday, April 27:
10:15 a.m. I’m on a prolonged business gig in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa. Client has requested my presence at a 3-day executive retreat. Expecting a 2 p.m. departure, I check messages in the morning only to find that what I thought would be a 2 p.m. departure is now 10:30 a.m. Surprise! Frantic packing.
10:45: Clients show up (a bit late, thank God – on “Kenyan time”). A bus with a duct-taped window shows up in my hotel driveway. I ride shotgun with Andrew, an assistant photo editor who has just moved here from Mombasa. Behind me is Jane, mother hen of the whole crew. Off we go, headed six hours deep into the Great Rift Valley of Africa!12 pm: About an hour after leaving Nairobi, we pull off to the side of the road. We have gone up to about 8,000 feet in elevation, and come to a lookout point with stunning views of the Great Rift Valley. This is an amazing feature of East Africa with fertile valley, lakes, and soaring hills on each side.
12:45 p.m. We pass by huge settlement camps, current residences for Kenya’s IDPs (internally displaced persons). This is the U.S. lingo for those folks who were forced from their homes in the post-election violence at the start of 2008; much of the distress occurred in Great Rift Valley. (It is said that 1,200 people were killed across Kenya; the paper reported this week that 780 bodies went unclaimed and are to be buried in a mass grave.) For a variety of reasons, the IDPs still have not been resettled, and are enduring ongoing hardships like bad rains and failing shelters.
1 pm: We stop for lunch in Kikopay, at a small community of roadside huts that apparently cater to tourists and villagers. Green View Butchery is apparently the place to visit for the most freshly slaughtered (then roasted) goat. We eat with our hands, and it’s what I call a National Geographic moment. Not for the squeamish. Read more
Only after booking a five-week trip abroad for business (and a little vacation) did I realize I was going to miss my mother’s birthday, April 22. A milestone. Turning 70.
Yikes! What to do? How to arrange something special from halfway around the world? For some occasions, ordering FTD just doesn’t cut it.
I put on my thinking cap. I was going to be in exotic places. On one end was Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where I was to spend 24 hours on a layover en route to my other business. The place is dripping with money, and unusual characters. Wealth is everywhere. You may have seen the place on the Discovery Channel, or likely in the news. It would be my 5th trip there.
On the other end was Nairobi, Kenya. You might also have seen it in the news, with post-election violence that rocked the nation earlier this year, and even this week (as of this writing, Tuesday April 8, newer incidents were reported after the coalition government failed to reach agreement on cabinet positions). Despite all this, it’s a place of people and scenery that can be quite nice.
I knew I’d be encountering unusual and exotic people along the way. Dubai in particular is a polyglot of nationalities, en route from one foreign land to another. Why not enlist them to help wish my mother, back home in Indiana, a Happy Birthday?
Read more
If you are like me, you easily confuse the names of cities in Kenya with planets in the Star Wars© universe, resulting in awkwardness in many social situations and political or sci-fi movie discussions. Eldoret? Kamino? Trans-Nzoia? Who can tell them apart? In addition, it’s quite easy to mistake Star Wars© characters with personalities from Kenyan politics, media and history. With Kenya in the news these days, the time is ripe to take these two helpful quizzes – test your knowledge and eliminate such vexing confusion from your life! Read more
