The last couple of months have been rather eventful. And
some of it not in a good way. Last week a friend of mine was killed in NY. She
was 42 and died at the hand of her husband, along with her daughter. I don’t really have anything profound
to say about it. It was gruesome. Well publicized. It defies explanation.
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| Jenn's (in the middle) birthday 2006 |
We’ve known Jenn since before Priya and I were even a couple
back in 2005. We were all living and working in Dar es Salaam. We were part of
an expat community that used to have dinner together, go to the beach, etc. Jenn
was pretty gregarious and had lots of friends, seemingly could get along with
about anybody. It was hard not to like her.
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| Jenn & me Feb. 2006 |
Other than social functions, the first real activity I
remember doing with her was taking diving lessons. We both received our PADI
certification north of Dar at White Sands Resort. I’d been wanting to do it for
some time and Priya was already certified. Dar is an exceptional place to learn
given the beautiful, turquoise Indian Ocean waters. We ended up joining with a
few other people who were interested and all did the lessons at the same time
in February 2006. As I remember it, this is sort of where we turned the corner
from being acquaintances to friends.
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| Mt. Meru, Tanzania, April 2006 |
Around that time I told her that my family was planning on
coming to visit me in Tanzania. While in the US over the holidays that year I had
pitched the idea and there was some interest. We hadn’t honed in on a date but
we were talking about later that same year. I didn’t know how long I was going
to be living in Africa and I put the pressure on saying that they shouldn’t
miss their opportunity to come while I was living in Dar.
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| Mt. Meru |
One of the things that was on my bucket list, even before I
moved to Tanzania, was to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. Jenn said it was on her list as
well and I told her that we should consider pulling some people together and
make it happen, if indeed my family did come. To begin setting ourselves up for
the big climb we quickly starting talking about climbing Tanzania’s second
highest mountain, Mt. Meru. A couple of months later Jenn, Priya, our friend
Joey and I set out for Arusha. (I took down my blog entries from prior to 2010
so I can’t reference it here but it was a fun and eventful 3-4 days.)
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| Mt. Kilimanjaro pre-hike dinner |
By then Jenn was locked in on the idea of climbing Kili. And
my family had firmed up their travel plans by mid-year and the trip was set for
November 2016. My brother was the only family member opting in on the climb and
he arrived first. The rest of the family would arrive a week later for a safari
and then a couple days in Zanzibar.
Curtis met us in Arusha and our climbing team
had assembled. It was Jenn, Curtis, Priya, a Tanzanian friend, Meja, and me.
It was a rainy, yet mostly enjoyable hike. I say mostly because Priya became
sick on the third day of the climb and, accompanied by a guide and Meja, who simply threw in the towel, headed down and were unable to summit.
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| rain... |
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| Mt. Kilimanjaro |
But Jenn showed some fortitude and was every bit as strong
as I was on that last push to the top (my brother was considerably more fit
than we were). Supposedly only about half the people that start out make it all
the way and we ended up with three making it out of five. Would have been great
for all of us to summit but oh well. (Again, my (more detailed) blog on the climb is
archived but not posted so you’ll just have to use your imagination.)
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| on top |
In 2007, Priya and I moved to Kibondo in northwest Tanzania.
During that time we were a bit disconnected from the Dar es Salaam friends but
by 2008 we were back in town and picked up where we left off, albeit with a
different employer. We would hang out with Jenn off and on until she left for
the US. I don’t remember exactly when she left but as I recall it was late
2009, before we moved to Burundi in 2010.
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| at our friends' wedding in Tanzania |
But Jenn and I stayed in touch while I was in Burundi. In
fact, she began working in the same building as my organization’s headquarters
in NY so we would usually meet for coffee when I was in the City, for a while it
was about twice a year. I was happy when she told me that she had met someone
and that things were getting serious. Priya came with me to NY on a couple of occasions and November 2012 we had dinner with them in Harlem. He
seemed pretty cool and there obviously was no reason to think that at some
point things would take such a dark turn.
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| Harlem, 2012 (Kiran as a baby) |
The last time I saw her was last year when I was in NY for
meetings. We had coffee together on 42nd Street. She seemed good, as
usual. We talked about careers, parenting, etc. She said that the next time I
come, I absolutely had to bring Priya and the girls. Better yet, she said, I
needed to move to HQ so we could hang out in the City.
She’ll never know my girls. I’m sad. And angry. No woman
should have to go through what she went through, not only how it ended but in the
months and years prior. Shouldn’t happen to anyone but particularly
someone who dedicated her career to women’s protection and empowerment.
I will
miss her.
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| New York, 2018 |
