Hello... This is Africa Calling! Find Yourself in Tropical Paradise!
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As far back as I can remember, Africa wove her spell over my heart.
It wasn’t the pictures of far off lands as shown so beautifully in National Geographic. It wasn’t stories preached at church of starving refugees that needed help. It was far more immediate than those. I was three weeks old when my parents walked off the plane holding my brother and me. And just like a duck I was imprinted with Africa. Her sights became my reference for beauty. Her animals became my playmates. Her sounds and smells taught me of daily life. Her people became my reference for family and friends. Her triumphs were mine as I watched her growing alongside me. Her wounds were mine too. And although I never bled as so many of her people have my heart shed tears as I watched the agonies they suffered.
I never thought I would leave. Funny that; most of my contemporaries did and despite every good intention, most did not return. I thought I was different. How could I not come back? Africa was as necessary to me as breathing. My heart beat to her rhythms, her songs rocked me to sleep. Her people were my brothers and sisters, my mothers and fathers. She was my home. And you always go home.
Twenty-five years later. The pull of Africa did not recede, but the pull of everyday life interfered and overwhelmed. Somehow there was time or money but never both at once. I was reduced to memories and to telling the stories to my children, imprinting them with the same love. One day inspiration struck. We found a big glass jar and painted a picture of Africa on it and started saving money. We started to learn Swahili. Jambo — hello; Asante — thank you; Wapi choo — Where’s the bathroom? We determined a time frame, summer of 2006. That would be the year I would show my children their roots and the place of my heart.
March 30, 2004 the phone rang. It was my father. “Can Lisa (my 14-year-old daughter) leave for Kenya in two weeks? We’ll probably be gone for about a month.” Calmly I replied that I would have to check with her father and the school. Then I hung up the phone and started jumping up and down screaming. One of us was going to Africa. NOW.
Lisa reacted the same way when I picked her up early from school that day. The many details loomed but somehow, all the necessary items were crammed into her suitcase. Then the big day arrived and we saw her off at the airport. Her little sister was sobbing and clinging to her. I pulled her aside, and with my head turned so she couldn’t see my own tears, I reminded her that we needed to send sissy off with a smile. Bravely we managed until the plane took off, then we both cried. Samantha for missing her sister, me because I was left behind.
A week later the phone rang. There was a bit of an echo, then I heard a familiar voice. “Hello. This is Africa calling.” The voice of my father reached across the miles. The floodgates of time opened. Memories washed over me and I shivered with the intensity.
“Where are you?” I managed.
“We are at Seremino.” For a moment I felt disoriented. Seremino is a dry riverbed in Northern Kenya, a place with a few acacia trees, a good place for stopping to avoid the heat of the day in the Northern Frontier desert. There has never been any sort of outpost there and emphatically no telephone.
“What are you doing there?” I asked, visions of a breakdown, or more unusual, a flood passing through my head. “Just making chai (tea) and having a rest,” was the reply. They may have been traveling in greater comfort and with far more gadgets than we ever did but some things stay the same. Sitting under a thorn tree with heat waves shimmering the air, the smell of dust mixed with old goat droppings and the sweetly pungent tea simmering over the fire, is a common experience for people in Africa. But most of the wayfarers don’t have a satellite phone to chat on while they rest.
I couldn’t help wondering what the locals might feel if they came upon this sight. Some of them have rarely seen white people much less technology.There are those who call them primitive. I prefer to see them as people who have learned to live off the land without need of all the trappings of so-called civilizations. Could we make our homes out of thorn trees, our fires out of twigs or dung and feed our families on less food than my pets have to eat?
I asked my daughter how things were. “Fine” she said, the stock answer of teenagers everywhere. I got off the phone as quickly as possible knowing the fortune being spent just to tell me she was fine. I would get my news when she returned.
Their final destination was an outpost on the shores of Lake Turkana several hours further on. This lake was “discovered” by a German Count in 1888. Most people would expect the lakeshore of a large freshwater lake to be lush with foliage and cool from the breezes that blow over its waters. Not so this lake. It is surrounded by viciously sharp, black volcanic rock, vomited from the throat of a distant volcano eons ago. The sparse vegetation is mostly thorny acacia trees blown sideways by the fierce gusts of winds that blow when the sun goes down. Dry desert surrounds Lake Turkana, hostile to man and beast. Hot blasts of heat mock dry riverbeds while sucking moisture from the air. Daytime temperatures of 120 degrees are common. It is amazing that any life survives. Just when you are certain the world has ended leaving you alone on a dead planet, a herd of goats will meander over a rise followed by a silent black figure.
About the time you think you must go mad from the vicious heat, swirling dust and back jarring bumps, your vehicle crests a slight rise and you lose your breath. Before you is an immense lake, shimmering like a mirage. Viewed from a distance the lake this day is gray/blue, mysterious. Other days it is a deep green, colored by algae blooms that prompted early travelers to name it the Jade Sea. The road, a mere track, approaches the lake through the lava fields then turns northward. The traveler wonders where this road leads, if anywhere. There is no visible end, just mile upon mile of dusty dirt track.
The Place of Trees.
Eventually, the road winds into the desert outpost of Loyangalani — the place of the trees.
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By Bobbi Buchanan, Arkansas, Correspondent, Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com
About the Author
Bobbi Buchanan, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent. Join the Travel Writers Network in the logo at www.jetsettersmagazine.com