I’ve been wanting to do this for the past ten years, and now it’s finally happening, a return visit to Kenya. I had originally hoped I could do this trip in November, but then the #416 Firetook place, and everything got thrown into chaos. The result was re-scheduling the trip for March of next year. This has given me time to build up the money to pay for my airfare, as well as to take care of a Tour/Safari that I’m planning to do when I first get there. This is the first of numerous essays about the upcoming trip, and its follow-up.

Word Count: 1,009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kenya Kurudi

(Part I)

 

 

I like to think that a person shouldn’t “Live in the Past.” For one thing, you never really advance as an individual, since as Bruce Springsteen so eloquently puts it;

“All he kept talking about was. . .

Glory Days… Well, they’ll pass you by. . .

Glory Days. . . In the wink of a young girl’s eye. . .

On the other hand, I do feel that a person needs to re-visit events, and places from their past at least once in life. If only so you can avoid the mistakes of your former actions. Additionally, from a more measured, and mature perspective, this should happen with age. Unless you’ve gotten older, but still try to avoid this “maturity” thing whenever possible.

The major impetus for returning to Kenya, besides a strong desire to go back there after being away for almost thirty-four years, was a clean-up this past April of the area in and around the little one-bedroom hovel I rent at theBenson Lodge/Hotelhere in Silverton. In the process of doing this, I ran across my passport, and noticed that it was getting ready to expire. Looking through the pages, I noted that I hadn’t been out of the country in the ten years it was active. Basically, this situation was downright pathetic since the passport hadn’t even been used once in all that time.

Now I love living in this valley for a variety of reasons, but also treasure those opportunities I’ve gotten to travel to different parts of the world. I like to think you only live once, unless you happen to follow the Buddhist religion. Which says you’ll keep coming back (reincarnation) on an ongoing basis until you get it right by being reborn as a higher being. This ultimately results in achieving Nirvana? Now if you lead a bad life, this sends you backwards in your next reincarnation?

Looking at the passport, I immediately decided at that exact moment that I was going on a trip outside of the country. Just as a side note, and I can’t emphasize this point enough, looking through the unused document had me emphatically thinking, “This situation is total bullshit.”

India beckons, and doing the Kailash Korain western Tibet has always been on my Bucket List. As long as we’re talking mountains, a trip to Patagoniais also in the offing someday. To my way of thinking the world is an open book, and every opportunity you get, one needs to visit as many places as possible in a single lifetime. Technically, one of my friends pointed out that all this traveling will increase your Carbon Footprint. Looking at it from a Fatalistic perspective (Global Warming, what’s that?), why not do lots of exploring if you’re presented with the probability of that happening?

A return to Kenya was the first place that popped into my head, and this had me exploring possibilities. This is not a problem since as most of you know, an active mind is not something I’m lacking.

The country has changed tremendously since the time I was living there. For one, U.S. Peace Corpsis no longer in Kenya, and this is due to a variety of factors. This Includes an unstable internal government, the fact that a lot of terrorist groups in East Africa use Nairobi as a regional hub to fly in and out of, and obviously, lots of changing priorities on the part of the U.S., and Kenyan governments.

The thing that kind of scares me the most though is the fact that the country is becoming over-populated. Don’t get me wrong, I love children, and always will, but when I left the place in 1984 the number of people living in a country the geographic size of Texas was 18 million. Now it’s 46.6 million. Sounds like some sort of creepy episode of the TV show, “American Horror Story”.No wait, saying that is kind of like trying to put out a house fire with gasoline. I like the show, but let’s look at it pragmatically shall we, every episode I’ve ever watched of AHS gives new meaning to the word, “trepidation?”

Fortunately at this point, it sure feels like everything is falling into place nicely. I’ve already purchased my plane ticket (buy your airline flights way ahead of time so you can get them at a cheaper rate), the passport has been renewed, and I’ve made a sizable down payment on a tour/safari I’m planning to participate in when I first arrive in the country. I’ve also contacted the county nurse so I can make sure of the type of immunizations I need before flying over there. As we all know, the threat of tropical diseases is nothing to mess with. Feels good to be taking care of all this third world travel stuff way ahead of time too.

Most importantly, I’ve already exchanged a series of emails with an old Kenyan friend of mine. We’ve sort of kept in touch over the years, but I’m feeling a bit guilty. I should’ve done a better job of communicating with him during all these years apart. I like to think I’m making up for lost time though.

As the saying used to go on that 60s “Batman” television show; Stay tuned Bat fans, same Bat channel, same Bat time next week. Something like that?