Amboseli

 We’re sort of making this up as we go. As I mentioned before, we obviously gave up on the idea of making it to the US for our July-August vacation. Sad not to be with family as we normally are during these weeks, seeing photos of things the family are doing without us, but we understand it wouldn’t be the same even if we were there. The pandemic has fundamentally changed everything. So we remain in Kenya for the time being and making the best of it.

There are worse places to be. In fact we’ve said that on numerous occasions that this is an amazing country with so much to see and do. By not traveling outside, we can take advantage of seeing more of what is inside.

One challenge, of course, has been managing the lockdown restrictions. In addition to the inability to travel internationally, for weeks travel in and out of the city has been prohibited. We hadn’t had too much difficulty balancing work/school and Nairobi life in lockdown but as school ended, we gradually began to sense that we were all increasingly feeling stir crazy. When Nairobi opened in July, we jumped at the chance to escape for a few days on safari, not knowing how long the opening would last. There would be an assessment of the situation in early August and there was a strong chance that the lockdown on the city would be re-established.

We had some friends that were headed to Amboseli National Park. We’d been there before last year and it was amazing. Nestled at the base of the highest free-standing mountain in the world, the park is primarily in Masai country. When we were there last March, the views of Mt. Kilimanjaro were stunning. This time of year, we anticipated that we might not be so fortunate. But we were hopeful that the clouds would allow us a glimpse from time to time.

Another difference this time is that we were going to drive. Not only were we looking to minimize the Covid-19 exposure of air travel, we have been wanting to see more of the country anyway. The other bonus of driving is that you have much more flexibility what you bring (the last time we flew the limitation was about 10 kilos per bag). And you get to use your own vehicle on the game drives, which is not only cheaper but you have more flexibility as to when you come and go. I also felt like I knew the park well enough to find my way without a guide, with or without the monstrous mountain as a helpful landmark.

We arrived at the park after about a four-hour drive. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. The roads were pretty good and traffic seems to be lighter during the pandemic. Our room as near the one we had last year, with a mountain view, only there was no view. We had our memory from last time which assured us that it was out there someplace.

The hotel was far quieter this time. The only tourists were those from Nairobi given that there was no international travel into Kenya. These places have been struggling financially to stay afloat, particularly when Nairobi was locked down. Though there aren’t enough tourists in Kenya to maintain the tourist industry throughout the country but we’re hopeful that, now that residents in Nairobi can travel, it will keep most of these places in business – supporting the thousands of jobs that depend on it.

Amboseli is mostly about the elephants. Though there’s a diverse animal population, the numerous large herds of elephants sort of steal the show. For us it was just wonderful to be out of the city and to reconnect with nature. Driving around, seeing the animals, feeling the cool, dry air, it was just what we needed.

 

 

One of the disadvantages of being self-guided is that you miss out on the radio chatter between the guides. They inform each other when there are key sightings. They are also aware of the tendencies of animals over time so they can anticipate, for example, when lions might be given where they have been hanging out. We don’t have that knowledge so we sort of had to wing it. We were fortunate enough to find lions on our own. Even though we didn’t use it as much on this trip, another tactic is to move towards groupings of safari vehicles. It often means that there’s something worthwhile going on.

 The lodge seemed to do a pretty good job of respecting the Covid-19 protocols. Staff wore masks. Tables in the restaurant were a safe distance from each other. Hand sanitizer was everywhere and overall it felt like a safe activity. It was win-win as we had a great experience, far safer than being in Nairobi, and we knew that we were helping the economy in our own, small way.

 After three nights, we made our way back to Nairobi. We were anxiously awaiting the government announcement as to whether the lifting of movement restrictions in Kenya would be maintained or whether we would return to lockdown. Cases had risen significantly since the recent opening so we weren’t overly optimistic. I had several vacation days to use up before the end of the fiscal year and it was also the girls’ school holiday. We feared that we might be spending this time cooped up our apartment. The announcement would come within a couple days of returning to Nairobi. 

Non-vacation

We’ve reached the end of July. We would ordinarily be in the US right now on holiday. I would be in Idaho doing some manual labor on a house we bought late last year. The kids would be in Indiana playing with their cousins. My wife would be hanging out with her mother. We would reunite in Idaho to hang out with my family, go camping, etc. Alas, none of that is to be. Having passed the halfway point, it appears that 2020 is sort of becoming the year that wasn’t.

Having said that, it’s not like we’re doing nothing. May usually begins a season of special days for us. We had Mothers’ Day and my birthday. In June we had Fathers’ Day. July will be the birthdays for both girls. Priya’s is in August. It’s different celebrating these things during a pandemic obviously and calls for a bit of creativity.

This year for Moms’ Day the girls prepared breakfast for their mother entirely on their own for the first time (they provided it for me as well). Not only was it cute, it’s something that we’ll need to encourage for the future – hopefully with fewer bits of eggshells in the eggs.

For my birthday, in addition to receiving a few books, a shirt, a cake and handmade cards, I was presented with a Vidhug. I’d never heard of it before but it’s basically an app that allows people to submit video clips of their birthday wishes. It’s pretty cool and quite wonderful to see all these faces from different chapters of my life. A couple years ago a friend of ours pulled something together for my father-in-law’s birthday but he had to do it the “old fashioned” way. He received mpegs from people and used some video editing software to pull them altogether. It was massively time consuming but a really cool thing in the end. Having this app makes it all pretty easy. It was a half hour of people from my past and present: 15 different countries and 8 US states. Newborns to 90 years of age. Greetings came in English, French, Dutch and Kirundi. There were house pets. A horse. A mounted elk. Fresh cookies. Singing. Some champagne. A birthday cake. It’s going to serve as a really nice archive. Quite the treasure, I have to say.

noticing more birds in lockdown - a black kite out our bedroom window

stork on our roof

* * *

A few weeks ago our soon-to-be 7-year-old lost her second incisor. She now has no front teeth. I distinctly remember those days with slightly affected speech and the frequent rubbing of the tongue over the gap. I was against the idea of a tooth fairy but somehow it happened for our kids. This is an interesting fairy in that it tends to use the currency of the country where the tooth was lost. When the previous tooth was lost, our inquisitive little daughter left a list of questions for the fairy under her pillow along with the tooth. Among other things she asked for a description of what she looked like and some other things about her job. And she asked her to leave the tooth since she wanted to keep it. The tooth fairy complied with the demands.

I wasn’t nearly as demanding back in the day. In any case, this time things got a bit more complicated because we lost the tooth sometime between the extracting and the going to bed. It was likely my fault. I pulled the tooth in the late afternoon and what I didn’t realize was that she set it on the coffee table. In the meantime Priya had made some meringues that we snacked on while watching a Star Wars movie. Unfortunately the meringues were the exact same color as the tooth. Given that I am notoriously tidy, after the movie I proceeded to clean up the coffee table, likely scooping up bits of meringue with the tooth. I’m not really sure but I think that’s what happened.

Tears ensued as it became apparent that the tooth fairy might not have the tiny calcified structure to retrieve from beneath her pillow. Ugh. When I realized that I may have been the culprit, I proceeded a gag-inducing search of the two rubbish bins where the tooth might have ended up. Unfortunately it was the proverbial needle in the haystack. Later, when I went to kiss her goodnight, the tears streamed again and her cute, sad eyes guilted me into a second failed, albeit brief, attempt at finding the tooth. I finally gave up and we convinced her that she’d still get her compensation due even without the tooth.

catching the early morning solar eclipse in July

 * * *

 In July the Kenyan government decided to open up a bit. We spent a nice Covid-friendly evening at some friends’ house celebrating the 4^th of July. It was good to get out and see some new faces, albeit without the hugs and handshakes. It was a hint of freedoms to come - though were not there yet by any stretch of the imagination.

the posse of kids playing in the courtyard

Part of the opening is to allow internal travel within Kenya. That’s a pretty big step and we’re going to take advantage of it, just in case they reverse the decision next month. We’re planning to go to a national park with some friends, driving rather than flying to make sure that we are in contact with as few people as possible. It will be interesting to see how this will work with pandemic restrictions. It’s not the same as going to the US but we’ll take what we can get at this point.

masks down for the photo - hiking in Nairobi with friends

 

Jean

I honestly can’t keep up. So much stuff keeps happening.

I recently saw that Jean Kennedy Smith passed away at the age of 92. Jean was the last surviving sibling of John F. Kennedy. She was U.S. ambassador to Ireland in the 1990s and played a pivotal role in the Northern Irish peace process. As with the death of the former Burundian president, Jean’s death is one of those things that resonates with me a bit more than some others since I have a connection.

I’ve known about Jean for quite some time. In addition to the fact that she was a member of a famous family, and was famous in her own right, she was also a staunch supporter of the organization I work for. In fact she was on the Board of Directors for a long time. But the first I met her was in November 2012 in New York. She hosted a dinner for a couple of my colleagues and me at a restaurant near her home in Manhattan.

Why would I get a chance to have dinner with her? There’s no doubt that Jean had a fascinating, and sometimes tragic, life. Over the years she increasingly became focused on her support for humanitarian causes, particularly with the disabled. Though she maintained a lower profile that much of the rest of her family, she was keenly aware that her notoriety could be used to make a difference. Through some acquaintances she became involved with our organization, first as a donor and eventually serving on the board. In that capacity, she said that she felt that it was important to stay connected with the work being carried out in the 42 or so countries where we have a presence. One way to do that was through personal connections with those “on the ground”. Inviting us to dinner while we were in town for meetings was one way to do that.

I was working in Burundi at the time, one of the poorest countries on earth. Over the years I’ve made regular trips to the US to attend meetings at our headquarters in New York and periodically travel to Washington DC to some advocacy work on Capitol Hill and with US funding agencies. During the times when my job would involve spending a lot of time visiting projects in poor and/or remote areas and talking with beneficiaries, many of whom were suffering the effects of abject poverty, it was always a sort of whiplash to suddenly find myself at a fundraising gala at the Waldorf Astoria or meeting White House staff regarding US policy in East Africa. A chance to have dinner with the former US ambassador and sister of John F. Kennedy was one of those moments. I have to say, the breadth of experience that my job provides me is a richness that I try never to take for granted.

That morning I was given the name of the restaurant, the address and the time we were to meet. When in Manhattan I make it a point to walk wherever I go, even if my destination is dozens of blocks away. I was staying at The Benjamin, an old hotel on 50^th Street, one of my favorite places to stay when I’m in the city. I looked at the map and realized that I would have quite a walk ahead of me. I wasn’t so worried about the fact that I would be wearing a suit and tie so much as I was concerned about the beating my feet would take from walking a long distance in dress shoes. So I threw the nice shoes in a small backpack, laced up my running shoes and off I went.

The Benjamin

Given that it was November, the air was chilly and I was able to avoid working up a sweat by the time I arrived at the restaurant. I was early but I thought I’d go in anyway and wait inside. Like so many New York restaurants, the place was packed, noisy and a bit stuffy. The hostess greeted me as I walked in and I told her who I was meeting. She pointed me to an older guy who was sort of a caricature of the stereotype Italian waiter (I found out later that he was the manager). In a thick NY accent he told me to follow him. We weaved our way towards the back of the restaurant to a private room. As we walked he welcomed me to the restaurant, told me about how the Kennedy family was near and dear to him and told me that if I needed anything, just to let him know. I never get that sort of treatment in a NY restaurant so my assumption was that he probably thought I was someone important if I was meeting with one of the Kennedys. I didn’t want to do anything to spoil this false impression.

Even though her married surname was Smith, the manager kept referring to her as Mrs. Kennedy. Turns out that the room where we would be dining had seen its share of famous people over the years as the family regularly hosted small dinners there. But it wasn’t one of those restaurants that plasters its walls with photos of all the celebrities that have dined there. It was low-key, not crazy expensive and, in addition to serving wonderful Italian food, they were an attractive option for the Kennedys because they could slip in and out without drawing attention to themselves. The manager told me that Mrs. Kennedy was running a bit late, that I should order a drink and that she would be taking care of everything this evening.

Soon my colleagues would appear and not long afterwards Jean arrived. She apologized for being late, stating that she couldn’t blame it on traffic since her residence was just around the corner. The first thing I noticed about her was that when she was talking with you, her eyes would lock onto you as if whatever you were saying was of particular importance, even if it wasn’t. It may have been something she picked up as an ambassador but whatever the reason, it’s a pleasing thing to feel that the other person is engaged in what you’re saying.

After the pleasantries and introductions the conversation shifted to politics. The 2012 US presidential election was in its last days (Obama would be victorious in his re-election bid over his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney). She entertained a few questions about discussions she’d had with various politicians and other important people over the previous weeks. She talked about Mitt’s relationship with her brother Ted who had passed away three years earlier. Her interest was not only as a woman from a deeply political family but also because Romney was well known to them as governor of their home state of Massachusetts. It became quickly apparent, however, that Jean didn’t want to do the talking. She said clearly that she wanted hear from us: “The reason I invited you was to hear about what you are doing in your respective countries. You are the gladiators of this organization and it’s important for me to learn more about what you are doing.”

I do think it says a lot about her. Here is this woman – one of the most interesting people any of us had ever met (honored by President Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom the year before, the highest civilian honor in the US) and she was intent on pushing the conversation towards us. And she was sincere in what she was saying. For most of the evening she listened to us talk about the work that we were doing in our various countries. She asked good questions and wanted to know more about the drivers of the conflicts and the things that were creating the humanitarian needs that we were addressing. She would stop briefly and ask us how we liked the food, making sure that our glasses were topped up and say how the place had been a favorite in her family for years (she knew all the wait staff by their first names). But quickly she would get back on topic, exploring common threads between our contexts with a particular interest in connections to her experiences in supporting the disabled.

I was truly sad to see the evening come to an end. But after a yummy tiramisu and an espresso, we wrapped things up. As we started to make our way for the door I walked beside her and thanked her again for hosting the dinner. I (semi) jokingly told her that we needed to have dinner again and I could ask the questions the next time. She smiled and said she would love that. I then asked if I could have a quick photo with her. She elbowed me as she said something about never passing up a photo op with a handsome man 😊. I quickly took out my phone and handed it to a nearby waiter to take the photo. Jean immediately asked to see it. With a furrowed brow she said, “That won’t do.” She told the bartender to our left to move over so she could have a glance at herself in the mirror behind the bar. After making some small adjustments she said, “Let’s do that again.” The waiter obliged. She looked at the second photo, shrugged her shoulders and said, “That’ll have to work. We can’t take pictures all night.” I gave her a hug and headed on my way. Once around the corner from the restaurant, I slipped out of my dress shoes and back into my running shoes for the long walk back to the hotel. The air was crisp but it was good to be outside.

I saw Jean a few times after that, normally at large events. She was always very gracious but we weren’t ever able to speak for any length of time after that initial dinner. I’m sad to see her go but happy to have known her.

“I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)