Transmogrification
[Originally written upon returning from Kenya in January 2001]
Nothing is as it seems. Everything is somehow more real and, simultaneously, too fantastic to be true. Scale and proportion play tricks on you. Shapes shift and turn from inert to mobile. Contrasts are unexpected and extreme. Things are closer than you think, or farther away; bigger or smaller; more dead or completely alive.
The lone tree in the distance turns out to be hiding a single giraffe who separates himself slowly and walks cautiously closer to check you out; the yucca plants at high noon have pointy shadows that turn out to be a zebra on second look, then a herd of zebra on third; the red-earth boulder alongside the road is an elephant who is followed by more; the black rocks are ostrich. The lazy logs floating in the river turn into gigantic hippos.
The transport truck seems to be carrying an enormous load of rounded black peat, but is in fact conveying more than a hundred men standing jammed together on their way to work on the only road between Nairobi and Mombasa. All I can see are the very tops of their wooly heads.
The corruption causes lights to turn off during meetings and parties, and turns off water for days at a time. The impoverished huts turn out to be immaculate inside, filled with color and tidiness. The lush green of the abundant growth masks infertile land that has failed to feed the people who inherited it. People who have nothing but that tiny plot somehow bring forward piles of sandwiches and pots of steaming chai, and hold a bowl as they pour water from a pitcher over your hands before sharing their food with you. The shy children and the proud parents, welcoming and witnessing.
Other towns on the map turn out to be rows of shanties held together with tin roofs – maybe - and filthy burlap, where people with no possessions, money or work crowd around a Coca Cola hut hoping that someone will stop and buy one, then perhaps a hand carved animal or a mask and a string of beads.
We drove for hours within a game park during which time we saw no humans nor evidence of people ever having passed here on the rutted, eroded paths that serve as roads as well as palettes for animal remains. Then the clump of darkness that is miles ahead finally turns into recognizable structures; the hotel in the middle of the vast open plains is luxurious and gracious and grand. Before closing the car door we are approached by a spotless, smiling woman with a tray of hot damp towels to remove the plateau dust from our hands and faces, then another woman with a tray of fresh mango juice which we drink gratefully as we check into our accommodating rooms, where every need is anticipated. The rooms are elevated on steel platforms connected by rope bridges, constructed so guests can comfortably watch as the elephants saunter underneath and drink from the watering holes located on the hotel property for that purpose.
Outside the cities is an endless stream of movement: always thousands of people walking slowly and gracefully carrying everything on their heads or backs only feet away from the lean-to’s and shacks that are places of business, residences, restaurants, offices. There are a few pieced-together bicycles, usually with more than one person on them; mutatos, which are vans that almost stop to let passengers on and off as people cram on top of one another inside, or hang onto the outside traveling as far as they can for a couple of shillings; various broken down vehicles going sideways on their axles, careening toward you yet averting collisions and potholes and flood holes and crevices and unpavement and each other in a fluid dangerdance that somehow results in the movement continuing within its own chaos, without benefit of a conductor or police who can’t get there because they have no cars or motorcycles, without anyone in charge of this continuous life production.
It’s not really noisy, but it’s always busy: swarming, redbrown earth punctuated by every random color possible on the clothing of all those people who are always outside where you can see them, and in the shadows where you can’t at first, and leaning, sitting, walking, lying, living in plain sight all bright day and all clear night, in flip-flops or bare feet. I only saw one person in two weeks who was carrying a book. It was the Holy Bible, which he had borrowed from the church, which is a mud hut. But people speak their own language and Swahili and English and the other languages of the touring, gaping guests whom they welcome and consider to be blessings. They smile dazzlingly and easily, frequently. And laugh.
There is the music of the birds and animals and Muslims chanting prayers, the rhythms and undulations of the people and wildlife, the intensity of ritual and of drumming that follows the dancers, the lilting, lovely languages and giggles of the women who braided my hair, the camaraderie of the men who spend their days together while the women spend theirs in separate, laborious pursuits and the children are in school or else together outside, going someplace or doing something or nothing.
We stopped by the first shade tree we had seen in miles to have a roadside picnic on our way to the Indian Ocean. There was no one in sight except for vehicles passing on the road. Before we had our food out of the cooler, two men appeared from nowhere and stood a few feet from our car. We offered them drinks which they accepted with nods. Within seconds, dozens of people came out from wherever we hadn’t seen them in the fields, and more could be seen walking now from every direction toward us. We could not feed them all. We left, feeling inadequate and embarrassed. They hadn’t asked for anything, though we felt like we wanted to give.
I have seen the Southern Cross, crossed the equator four times in one day, rode a camel on the beach, ate roasted goat.
These are my first cogent impressions. My mind races with images and experiences as I allow them to sort themselves out and self-express. No matter what I think I saw or experienced, of this much I am already certain: my time in Africa was hugely stimulating, wondrous, and a highlight of my life, which is now forever changed into something else whose form I cannot yet discern.