Nairobi, Kenya
June 9, 2025
[NB: Our journey started a couple weeks ago. Previous installments are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here]
“He thought a little about the company that he would like to have.
No, he thought, when everything you do, you do too long, and do too late, you can't expect to find the people still there.”
- Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Beside the River Mara, we were woken by a chorus of honking hippos, barking jackals, shrieking monkeys, and meandering mongeese.
Rising before the sun, I strolled the lighted path toward last night’s bartender, still at his post brewing this morning’s coffee.
Like everyone we’ve encountered in Africa, this delightful man gave me a genuine smile. When I requested two cups to-go, he said he only had one.
Paper cups aren’t as common in places where people can’t compute not sitting comfortably to savor their coffee. Drinking it “on the go” seems to defeat the purpose.
One of the most impressionable lessons of this trip was imparted the night we arrived, and reinforced over subsequent days: that in Africa there is no hurry. Locals recognize that (in some sense) to be truly wealthy is to be unrushed.
By way of unnecessary apology, the bartender barista offered to give me the coffee urn for my tent. Before I could thank him, he was ahead of me. He accompanied me several hundred yards, carrying the dispenser up the path.
When we arrived, I expressed appreciation as he handed me the carafe. In the pre-dawn darkness, he responded with a smile bright enough to read by. His only concern seemed to be my happiness.
He needn’t have worried.
The Tree
We’re finishing a marvelous voyage. The terrain is terrific, scenery spectacular, and the fauna fantastic. But we could be anywhere and the trip would still have been wonderful.
My immediate family has always been close, albeit from a distance. We see each other far too infrequently.
Tho’ we’ve recognized this for years, last summer my mother decided to do something about it. When my step-father died in July, he bequeathed a reminder that even the longest lives are deceptively brief.
My mother called a few months later. She assured me she was doing well, and felt fine. She’d resumed traveling, and remained active.
But we never know how long that will last. For any of us.
Our family is fortunate. We don’t need much. If anything, we’re trying to ditch superfluous stuff we already have. My mother and I spoke a few months before Christmas, and agreed not to exchange gifts.
In recent years, buying presents felt perfunctory. We’d check boxes to ensure everyone had something under the tree. But what meant most was that we all gathered around it.
At some point, material belongings become a burden. As Epictetus put it, “wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
We don’t have many. But the most pressing ones are measured more on the hands of a clock than by bucks in the bank.
Time is what matters most. Our hours and days continue to dwindle (if we’re lucky). My mother wanted to make the most of those we have, by enjoying as many as possible with people we love. She had an idea how to do so.
“What would you think about going to Africa?”
I hadn’t considered it. But when she suggested my family and my brother’s join her for fourteen days in Tanzania and Kenya, I decided it would be rude to refuse.
Coming Clean
After being here a couple weeks, I’m glad my mother raised me to be polite. But she also taught me to be honest. So now it’s time to come clean.
Whenever I told anyone we were going to Africa, I received one of two responses. This trip was either a “bucket list” item for those who haven’t been, or a “life-changing” event for anyone who has.
I’ve never had a “bucket list”. As my wife will (ruefully) attest, checking boxes isn’t my thing.
But like all of us, I have only one life. One way or the other, it’ll change whether I like it or not. From inertia or intent, it’ll get closer or further from what I want.
But what is that?
The question came to me as we left the Masai Mara, and descended into the cup of Nairobi. But accompanying it was an embarrassing confession I must lift from my chest:
I wasn’t excited about coming to Africa.
Yet I couldn’t resist my mother’s offer. So I didn’t.
But part of me wanted to. Not because I had an aversion to Africa. I was simply indifferent, and there were other places (I thought) I’d rather go.
Yet I agreed because I wanted to spend two weeks with our family, and since I assumed everyone else would be thrilled by this exotic expedition.
To many (including your author as he recalls his idiocy), this must sound insane. Because it is.
In retrospect, I was being so dense that beams of light would’ve bent around me.
I was told this would be the “experience of a lifetime”… which was why I agreed to go. Friends assured me the animals were amazing, the lodging exquisite, and the scenery breathtaking.
Maybe it was. But I would’ve been happy to take their word for it.
I’m glad I didn’t.
The last few weeks are among the best of my life, and always will be. I wasn’t excited about coming to Africa. But I should’ve been.
Therein lies a larger lesson.
Self-Imposed Shackles
Sometimes we should welcome “life-changing” experiences even when we (think we) don’t want our life to change. Perhaps especially then.
Voltaire observed that it’s difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. Most shackles are self-imposed. We spend our lives seeking comfort, or dodging problems that don’t exist.
By doing so, we miss experiences that become blessings, even (or especially) if we accumulate cuts and bruises along the way. Our wounds create wisdom. But on this adventure, insight came from other avenues.
I’d grown comfortable… and become accustomed to playing it safe. Even worse, I’d convinced myself I was being “sensible” by minimizing risk. But this was usually a rationale for avoiding it altogether, and a sad excuse to do nothing.
I’ve done plenty of that the last several years. During that time, I’ve had friends, relatives, and (thru replies to these essays) strangers exalt my untapped talent… and remind me it’s best to pour it out before it inevitably evaporates.
Unknown Pails
This journey filled a bucket I didn’t know I had. I’m glad it did. But how many unknown pails remain empty?
Among the litany of blessings my mother has bestowed, this adventure was among the best. We went to fantastic places and made new friends.
But what I’ll remember most is the awe, love, and laughter she allowed her family to share amid scenes her provincial son was too indifferent to anticipate and too apathetic to appreciate.
My mother offered this experience as a gift to us and a present to herself. I hope she enjoyed it. Her elder son couldn’t have done so any more than he did.
After my misguided misgivings, I can’t think of a more marvelous way to be proven wrong… or to be so eager to admit it.
I guess Africa really is life-changing.
JD
You hid well your initial reluctance to travel to Africa. Your daily updates were eloquent, educational and entertaining. And your photos added visual affirmation of the rare and unusual sites that regaled you. Some of them deserve to be framed. You and your family had a very memorable experience.
Congratulations !!! 👍👍👍
Wherever is the place you and your family "go back to" after this eye-opening adventure (for Africans, it's just daily life...), you will NEVER see things the same way again !!! and remember:
{...investments in countries brandishing verdant-flags should be reconsidered VERY seriously
Once you made the proper one, bad terrestrial connections become mostly irrelevant, whatever you need for your peaceful life will be readily available at a walking distance !!!...}
NO RUSH, NO STRESS, best medicine for mind & soul !!!