Lake Naivasha

We took a vacation. It was about two hours drive from Nairobi, a popular vacation spot, and my birthday. We couldn’t have known that the tin box of a room that we slept in on the first night was owned by half of a feuding family, or that we’d be awakened in the middle of the night by children of white colonials on a drug binge partying like the open-air wooden bar was a London club. We also didn’t know that Lake Naivasha’s most premium shores were distributed among Moi’s cronies, or that hippos kill some 30 Maasai fish poachers per year as they swim neck-deep in the shallows, by biting each man in two with their huge jaws. But buffalo were said to be the most deadly local animal, lying low in the bushes and lashing out with their great horns without warning. Hippos, we were told, could be outwitted if you just ran zigzag.

These are just a few things we became educated about. Luckily, they were just incidental to our lovely weekend.

We wound up running off from the terrible Camp Carnelli after arguing with the owners about their mismanagement. Running being perhaps the wrong verb, since rather than use the road we found a boatman on the shore willing to take us directly over to the other side of the lake with all of our luggage. A short walk should land us up at Crater Lake Lodge, on another small lake nearby. Of course, we hadn’t banked on our guide being of nomadic Samburu stock, for whom “short” is perhaps under two hours, nor the devil thorns lurking in the scorching hot sandy earth we hiked across in our sandals. Julius, the guide, had apparently grown up walking some 40 km to school each day, also under threat of buffalo attack which took his best mate as a child. We learned a lot about Julius. He also carried our suitcase the whole way on his shoulder.

Making up for the sweaty journey, it happened that we had to walk right through a private game reserve. Like walking past some cows on a farm, we hiked by a herd of zebra who paid us no mind, while giraffes magically emerged from among the trees which camouflaged them nicely. I’m a novice to the safari experience, so for me it was something surreal, even bizarre, hallucinatory. We’ve dismissed most animals from our everyday vicinity to the extent that I felt that I’d walked not back in time so much as onto another planet. But why? What a sad and limited life we humans have constructed separate from the animal kingdom. These private reserves are nice because the Maasai graze sheep right through them, and a lack of predator animals makes it possible for people to actually live and work in the reserve. Also, you don’t need a car but can simply walk through.

After trodding about an hour under the hot sun, we made it to our destination. A beautiful small lake of paradise, filled with flamingos and home to at least two kinds of monkeys.

After that, we mostly slept, ate and lounged in the cabin known as a banda. Not bad. It’s funny, though, watching the groups of tourists come and go from such a place. It reminds me that the tourist is often so isolated from the environment, kept separate by design- nice Kenya, pretty things to see, eat and drink, hakuna matata, no problem. It is so much more interesting to know the story of where you are, who lives there, what happened to this place during and after colonialism. In Kenya I notice touches of Britain everywhere – and even the colonists themselves and their descendants are still around, if lying low – like a quiet but powerful animal sated and enjoying its repose. I find it decidedly strange. In a resort area like Naivasha, they serve brown sauce and fat sausages and beans for breakfast. The camp that we vacated initially was owned by a white Kenyan family. What’s their story, why have they stuck around, and how exactly do they fit in – or not – with the rest of Kenya? – these questions fascinate me here. In India one finds British influence everywhere – maybe even more so – but as for British people, well, they’ve long since fled.

It’s hard for me to imagine skimming the surface of a place like most of the heavy-camera-wielding Europeans vacationing at the lodge or passing through to take in the scenery. But in two days – most of it lounging on the porch of the cabin – that is pretty much what we did. As I learn more about this country, I hope to unravel a bit more history of this region. Every time we tap in just a little bit, it bubbles up to the surface and begins to overflow like a hidden spring. It seems there is so much to know, but even more urgently, so much that seeks to be known. There is a story – there are so many stories – of Kenya, of Africa, which haven’t been told, or haven’t been repeated enough times and in enough ways to purge the land of its disfiguring by foreign historymakers; or that is how looks through my eyes. In Kibera, the people we meet crave to be known proudly and truthfully, they are tired of the ugliness of the portrait they’ve been handed. All over, there are people muted by tales of atrocity, starvation, violence, and they continue to be defined by these stories told by outsiders. Until now, that is, until now.