jetlag and other accoutrements

It has always amazed me that the jetlag experienced on the return from a trip never even comes close in magnitude to the overtiredness experienced as a result of toying with the biological clock on the way over. The effect of this phenomenon for you, the reader, is that you receive my post regarding the Africa trip today rather than about three or four days from now.

Take a moment and imagine the most beautiful landscape you have ever seen in the US. Now make it pitch dark outside and begin thinking horrendous sheets of rain across the windshield of a cramped and overpacked Toyota minibus, winding its way through the black on the left-hand side of a road barely two van-widths wide, avoiding pairs of glowing lights moving toward it at an alarming rate (which are the only things visible). This was arrival at Brackenhurst, about 40 minutes outside of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. By the time we boarded the minibus (hereafter referred to as the van), our group of seven had been traveling for roughly thirty hours – thirty long hours which included eight hour flights between Detroit and Amsterdam, Amsterdam and Nairobi. Our entrance to the country was, however, thankfully expedited by our wounded team member, Shannon (who went over with a busted leg, played up to be a bit worse than it was when in the face of Kenya airport security).

Our surreal adventure to our residence at Brackenhurst could never have even hinted at what the stay would be like. On the first day we were there, after the rainy night, I stepped outside at about 5:00 AM (couldn’t go back to sleep). It was light outside, but the sun wouldn’t creep over the edge of the mountain for another two hours or so. What I saw engaged me immediately in filling up one of my seven rolls of film in the twilight. Everywhere there were flowers and plants that I had never seen before. Something interesting to look at waited behind everything and around each corner. I spent a long time enjoying the thick, springy grass under my feet. I put my finger down into it a few inches before it actually reached something solid. It took me a while to realize that I was only viewing the Brackenhurst compound, and that in the cold season. Well-manicured as it was, it was such a small part of the real beauty of the East African countryside.

My Whitman-esque reverie in the surrounding nature was cut short by the wakening of the others later in the morning. We received a delicious welcoming breakfast at the house of the McKelveys (who run the place) and after hearing a bit about Brackenhurst and African safety we began the three days or so of intense rehearsal involved in slamming together an off-Broadway musical on command. Two of the people with us (one being the director) had been in the show before, which was a great help. We spent those days engaged almost entirely in rehearsal; brief intervals between rehearsals were usually taken up with Kenyan hospitality at the Dining Hall. The way we were waited on hand-and-foot for every meal (not to mention in our rooms) surpassed all expectation among our group – indeed, it surpassed any service I have personally experienced anywhere. I ate better there than I regularly (or irregularly) eat in the US.

We had arrived on a Monday night and we were expected to have a show together by Friday evening. Miraculously, we did. We performed “Smoke on the Mountain” for three audiences that weekend. Two of those performances were at an amphitheater in the Village Market, an upper-class sort of shopping mall near the Nairobi city limits. I was amazed at how well the show was received, given our difficult-to-understand accents and the extremely Southern-American brand of humor that fills the dialogue. Most of our audience members had not seen the like before; and if they had, I doubt they had seen much like our pre-show music. Think Gershwin, etc., as performed by myself (in overalls and an oversized bowtie) and Alyssa (gorgeous girl in a fabulous red dress and a white boa). I’m not sure any of them knew what to think. Thank God they applauded anyway.

With the show running well, we relaxed the schedule during that first weekend and went out to see a tea plantation. Immediately I was transported, practically into colonial America and the tobacco crop days. There was the rich British plantation owner, and there were the acres and acres of tea bushes being worked by Africans for (quite literally) pennies on the hour. That was my first encounter with a real culture shock in Kenya. It shocked me more to find out that the people working the plantation (about 12 hours a day for about $2) were financially better off than the majority of the population. We enjoyed a tour of a small indigenous forest while at the plantation and returned to Brackenhurst after quite a decadent afternoon lunch. On the way back I started to notice more of what was around; the shack-like market constructions all along the road, the faces of hundreds of people living, working, buying and selling. Then the advertising. The juxtaposition looked like Western Expansion in the process of vomiting on abject poverty. It was most certainly an odd and unreconciled picture in my mind.

We did the last run of the show as a dinner theater at Brackenhurst. It was a success and I think all of us shared the mixed sentiments common at the end of a run of performances. At that time we began to be allowed some outside time and we were actually able to see a small piece of the country.

An overnight safari had been arranged for us on Monday and Tuesday. We spent the two-hour van trip to Lake Nakuru mostly in a common traveling game (the celebrity name game), which had been suggested by Shannon, for reasons we would soon discover. George, our driver, will always be remembered for his priceless remark early in the safari trip. When asked about the danger of having open windows in the African wild, George replied, “The baboons. They will shit in your seats and eat your lunch.” George had been taking people out on safari for twenty years, and it was clear by the end of our time with him that he had been cultivating a hatred of baboons for the better part of that time. Notwithstanding his personal issues, we saw not only baboons but rhinos, impalas, deer, gazelles, giraffes, zebras, and ostrich in the wild. Not only so, but on the second morning, we saw an extreme rarity in the park – an entire family of lions (7 in all). There were three females, three cubs and (incredibly) the father.

The park is named for its lake (Nakuru) and the lake is famous for the hundreds, yea, thousands of flamingos and pelicans that line its shore during the day. Of course, we went down and saw (and heard) them on a couple of occassions. I have never seen anything like it. Perhaps my favorite moment in the safari, though, was when George drove us up a ridge on one side of the park. I didn’t see anything particularly special on the way up, and when we got to what appeared to be the top, there was a picnic area George instructed us not to use because of animal danger. But then, he told us to get out. Not too far in front of where the van had stopped, there was a steep cliff. As I turned out to it, I was overwhelmed by the most breathtaking view I can remember seeing in my lifetime. The whole earth was a sprawling canvas stretched out below. I could see the miles-long lake on the right, all the way to its end in the opposite ridge; the plain and so many of the creatures we had just seen wound out directly in front of me; a forest and God knows what else faded off to the left and there was too much to see. I was trying to put it all in my eyes but I felt like I was emptying a pitcher into a medicine cup. I took pictures there but now I don’t remember why. There was really no use in it.

The safari wound up and we spent the rest of the time in the country with a little less activity. We visited two orphanages, one of which kept only babies (up to the age of three), a large percentage of whom were HIV positive. It was beautiful to see the volunteers giving themselves to these children in hopes of finding homes for them all, and I cried when they told us the stories of some of the kids. Many of them are simply found – in gutters, in bags, in bathrooms; abandoned in all sorts of places. Some had very little chance of living when they were found, and were quite literally rescued by the New Life center and now are healthy young children with families. It’s so difficult for me to understand a mother that abandons her child, but it’s obviously a hard reality. I wished I could take those kids with me. Or even one of them. I couldn’t hold them at all because I hadn’t been feeling well for the days prior to our visit.

So much else happened, so much that I really can’t write here because of time, and other things because of imperfect memory. We saw (and participated in) tribal dancing; there was a bonfire and a cookout on the grounds; food at the Sarova Lion Hotel on safari; the Phoenix Players’ show (Miss Julie) that abruptly ended in the middle due to a power failure in the building; the Indian food in downtown Nairobi; Meredith and Carmichael McKelvey, the two most precious children on the face of the earth; Swahili slang; the Wycliffe translators and the camp counselors; the more than humorous anecdotes about Jimbo’s episodes in our shower (breaking it, falling in it, etc.); the far more than humorous anecdotes about Shannon’s continued attempts to further injure herself; the end is listless, as they say.

I trust that the trip was effective in its purpose (to bring more cultural interest to Brackenhurst and thereby interest the local upper class), and will hopefully result in return trips. I, for one, cannot wait to go back as soon as it is possible. I don’t think I could have taken a trip with as amiable and colorful a group of characters as we were, and I am inexpressibly grateful to God for the opportunity, the blessing, and the ministry. I thank all of you who were praying for us and thinking of us on the trip. I am also thankful to all who read this journal and make such a long post more than worthwile for me. I apologize to all of you as well for the lack of recent posts. Perhaps this may redeem at least some of that silent time.

Feel free to ask questions! I’ll try to clarify anything I might have missed in a subsequent post.