A Visit

A few weeks after my excursion to Maralal, I hopped off a Stagecoach bus at a roundabout near Barclay’s Bank and hailed a taxi to the Kunste Hotel, at the outskirts of Nakuru. The Kunste was a spacious, brightly lit establishment with a central courtyard and a breezy verandah.

Teachers for Africa was holding its first in-country meeting there. When I arrived, some of my colleagues already were milling about or sitting in the lounge drinking Tuskers. I said my helloes and was greeted warmly in return, but I was feeling somewhat monastic, so I settled into my room and sat down to read and write. After an hour or so, feeling fatigued, I lay down on the bed and fell into a light sleep.

I woke at dinnertime. The distant clatter of cutlery beckoned to me as I locked my door and strode down the hallway. The restaurant was a beehive of conversation. I continued on to the verandah, where I ordered a cold Tusker from the bar and sat on a sofa among people my age, Ross Galati, Michelle Fama, Anne-Marie McGranahan, Helene and Soren. The Vandervoorts, an elderly couple in their seventies, sat on the sofa opposite. I don’t remember who else was in that company, but what happened next is indelibly imprinted in my memory.

The sun had already set and the courtyard was cloaked in inky black night. A loamy breeze wafted in, crickets called from concealed places. Then, suddenly, a beautiful young woman stepped onto the verandah.

My heart leapt. 

She wore a floral-print dress, and had shoulder-length hair bleached blonde by the African sun. She was lithe, graceful. She glowed with warmth and confidence, like a sudden burst of spring after a long winter.

Instinctively, I nudged Ross in the ribs and gestured with my chin. 

"What?" he said.

He was not seeing what I saw. I wish I had a photograph of that moment, but this one must suffice, as it was taken around the same time and is the same perspective I had of her when we first met. When I saw this photo, several weeks later at the TFA office in Nairobi, my heart leapt once more, and I had no qualms about snatching it from the photo album and tucking it into my shirt pocket. Already, I was thoroughly enchanted by her.

She sat down opposite me, next to the Vandervoorts, who seemed to know her well, as did Anne-Marie. Her name was Christy, she told those of us who had not met her yet. The conversation continued, but I only half listened as I cast furtive glances at her. She had beautiful, soulful eyes, and when she smiled, her eyes smiled too.

I learned that, like Anne-Marie and the Vandervoorts, she was in her second year with TFA. She had skipped out on the Phoenix orientation, as well as the Nairobi orientation in August, to be with family she had not seen in almost a year. TFA had stationed her in Nairobi National Park, working for the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, an organization that rescued orphaned elephants, rehabilitated them, and returned them to the wild.

She was calm, confident, already seasoned by life in Kenya. 

The remainder of the weekend was spent mostly in meetings, but I deftly found ways to be near her. One afternoon, during a long break, I looked out the window of my room to see her alone at a table in the courtyard, reading a book. I immediately snatched up my copy of Les Miserables and charged downstairs. When I reached the courtyard, I saw her in the distance, sitting cross legged in a chair, her book open before her. It was like a scene out of a Victorian novel.

I sauntered along a footpath, as if minding my own business, and when I neared her table, she looked up from her book at me. I closed the distance between us, said hello, and asked if I might join her.

At one point, I gathered the courage to ask her if I could visit her in Nairobi during Christmas break.

"I want to see the elephants," I said.

She smiled, perhaps at my pretext, and agreed. We did not set a definite time or day, so I sensed her acceptance was only half-hearted. When I returned to Kenegut, I thought about her a lot, and my journal entries reflect apprehension at the turmoil of emotions she might stir up in me if I were to pursue her.

But pursue her I did. Shortly after the start of our month-long Christmas break, several us--Michelle, Ross, Soren and Helene--were camping out in Anne-Marie's Nairobi apartment. One afternoon, we were talking about colleagues stationed in the area, and I asked Anne-Marie where Christy lived.

"She just moved to Langata," Anne-Marie said. "I haven't visited her yet."

I told her I had plans to visit.

"I have her number, if you want to give her a call."

Because landlines were notoriously unreliable in Kenya at the time, I was honestly surprised to get her on the line, and even more surprised that she agreed to see me. That afternoon. 

"Meet me in the parking lot of the Karen Hotel," she said. "I'll be in a red Renault wagon."

The plan was that I would spend the night at her place and drive with her to the Trust the next morning to see the orphaned elephants. I packed my meager belongings, thanked Anne-Marie for her hospitality, and traipsed down the road to hail a taxi. The driver turned to me and said he would have to take a longer route because of student riots at the university. I thought he might be taking advantage of me, but when we turned a corner in Westlands, we encountered a wall of angry students. The driver hastily put the car in reverse and took a very circuitous route to the hotel, one that too us past the Kenyan president’s residence.

I arrived about fifteen minutes late. The only red vehicle in the parking lot was one that looked like a miniature ice cream truck. As I approached the passenger side, there she was, sitting behind the wheel. She was lovelier than I remembered.

I opened the passenger door. She smiled, and we both said our hellos. I apologized for being late and told her about the riots downtown. 

"Were you in any danger?" she asked.

I told her about the mob of students we encountered. Her concern for me was touching.

That evening, we ate at the Horseman Restaurant in Karen. After three months of eating mostly ugali, sukuma, and lentils, I tried very hard not to weep over my dinner. I had ordered a zebra steak, at Christy's recommendation, and it was one of the best meals of my life.

Christy lived in a guest house in Langata, a suburb of Kenya. Compared to my little blue hovel, her home was paradise. She had a kitchen with a refrigerator, a stove, and running water; a bathroom with a hot-water shower and a toilet; a television; a fireplace. 

I slept blissfully on the couch that night and woke the next morning to sunlight streaming through the patio doors. Christy was up and about in her room, so I slipped outside and sat in a safari chair on her back porch. As I was taking in the surroundings, a Rhodesian Ridgeback the size of a pony came trotting around the corner. I froze; it froze.

"That's Chumley," Christy said behind me. "He's a sweetheart."

At the sound of his name, Chumley bounded toward me, tail wagging, and nosed me in the crotch.

After a quick breakfast, we headed for the elephant orphanage. We entered the park through an east gate off Magadi Road and followed a dirt track that meandered a few miles through tall brush. We rounded a corner and there was the parking area, with Daphne Sheldrick's house in the distance. 

Daphne was a white-haired grand dame in a billowing dress. She was friendly, but it was clear from the beginning that she was a no-nonsense woman, as she must be to live alone in a wildlife park. Her husband, David Sheldrick, was warden of Tsavo National Park before his death of a heart attack in 1977. Daphne had established the Trust in his memory.

That morning, we visited the orphans. Some of them were sickly, while others were well on their way to being rehabilitated. There were only a few visitors at the mud wallow, the hour when paying tourists were allowed to visit with the elephants, so Christy was relaxed as the orphans cavorted about. 

She told the visitors to blow into the trunks of the orphans, as that was how elephants remembered someone. Sure enough, the orphans raised their trunks when the visitors approached. When a sickly calf ambled up to her, Christy put her hand in its mouth. It was a way to soothe the orphan, which had lost its mother to poaching. She was definitely in her element.

Daphne approached us after mud wallow. For reasons I cannot remember, Daphne had to leave for South Africa that weekend, so she invited Christy to house sit. Christy agreed, and Daphne gave her the option of sleeping in the house or in a camp tent about one hundred yards away, in the bush.

"I would sleep in the camp tent, if I were you," I chimed in.

"Not by myself," she said.

"You're welcome to stay, too," Daphne said, smiling faintly, and she turned to walk back to the house.

We drove back to Christy's place to gather some belongings, and then to Karen Dukas to get some supplies for the evening: pork chops, potatoes, asparagus, wine. That night, I cooked dinner for us in Daphne's kitchen. We ate on the back porch, listening to the sounds of an African night.

Around midnight, after a few glasses of wine, we braved the march to our tent. Our flashlights zigzagged, searching out predators, as we walked the longest one hundred yards of our lives in the pitch black of an African night in the middle of a wildlife reserve. Inside the tent were two single mattresses fitted with sheets, blankets, and pillows. We tossed our belongings inside, then Christy pointed up and said, "Look."

Above us was a ribbon of white. The Milky Way, a white streak across the night sky, throbbed and fluttered. I looked at her, her neck outstretched, vulnerable; she dropped her gaze to look at me. I spoiled the most romantic moment of my life by lunging at her for a kiss. Our lips glanced off one another, and she turned away, stifling a laugh.

Needless to say, I was thoroughly embarrassed.

I don't remember what was said next, but shortly after we ducked mercifully into the tent and settled down for the night. I spent a few fitful hours reliving my debacle, while hyenas mocked me with their distant, demonic chuckles. Eventually, I fell asleep, only to be woken at dawn by the distressed braying of a nearby zebra.

Both of us shot up from the blankets and looked at one another.

"Open it!" Christy said, pointing at the tent flaps.

I flung open the tent flaps to witness a zebra clattering across rocks less than fifty yards away. Suddenly, a lioness lunged out of the bush onto the zebra's back. The zebra's hind legs collapsed, and she went down, whinnying. Another lioness appeared and leaped in. Grunting, they dragged the struggling zebra into the bush and disappeared from view.

We looked at one another, astonished.

A Samburu guard appeared near the house, staring down at the kill site. Without looking, he motioned for us to come to him. Quietly, carefully, we did. 

"Do you see it?" I asked.

"Just there," he said, pointing.

I didn't see a thing and told him so.

"Come," he said, and he marched off toward the kill site. 

Christy and I hesitated briefly, then we fell in behind him. About fifty yards into the bush, we came across the carcass. She had claw marks on her back and two puncture holes in her neck. 

"Where are the lions?"

The Samburu pointed into the bushes. "They are just there."

I looked, saw nothing.

"At night," he said, "they will come to finish."

A few hours later, during visiting hours, a cheetah appeared, gazing forlornly at the carcass, but it was too shy to come any closer. Giraffe sauntered in that afternoon to drink awkwardly from the water that had pooled on the rocks where the zebra had been taken down. The lions were nowhere to be seen.

Heeding the Samburu's words, we stepped out on the back porch shortly after sunset and listened to teeth tearing into flesh, sinew, and bone. The lions had returned, and their grumblings reverberated in our chests, as if we'd been located. Fifty yards away, a carcass was being devoured, and there was nothing between it and us, except a low wall. 

We slept in Daphne's house that night.

This story ends here. But our story did not. I stayed with Christy almost a week that early November in 1996. I eventually got over that fumbling attempt at a kiss. The next several months, I would emerge every Friday morning from my little blue hovel in Kenegut, walk six miles to the nearest paved road, and ride creaky matatus and patchwork buses for five or six hours, over some of the most dangerous roads in the world, just to be near her. 

Almost twenty years later, I am still by her side.