CAMPING ALONE IN QUEEN ELIZABETH

Ranger with large elephant gun: "Now promise me that you will not leave the campsite sir"

Stupid American :  "Oh I wouldnt think of leaving the campsite, I promise"

Ranger: "Normally we would never leave someone alone out here, but we are low on rangers.  There are wild animals out here and they will kill you if you venture into their habitat"

Vern: "Understood, I'll just read my book and cook myself dinner and retire to  bed"

Ranger:  "Good we will see you in the morning.  The lions will roar this evening but dont worry they will not venture into your camp"

Vern: "Oh good! Thank you", yawn "I think I might actually retire early, see you in the morning"

I still have no idea why these cats let me camp alone in the bush, but they did and I certainly did not go straight to bed.  The pictures below were taken way closer than I should have been and that elephant was only about 15 meters away.  Probably one of the dumbest things I have ever done walking alone amongst these animals but let me tell you it ranks up there with highlights of my life.  The whole time my heart was beating out of my chest.  If that elephant had decided to charge I would have had two options - jump in the river and be eaten by the crocks or stare him in the eyes to alter his will.  Neither one would have had happy endings.  And yes the lions were roaring throughout the night and the hippos were actually chewing the grass around my tent.

QUEEN ELIZABETH NATIONAL PARK 1) cool hippo skull 2) these guys were not happy when i came around a corner and spooked them 3) sooo tired 4) shhhh i think i hear something 5) steaming and smelly he must be close 6) yep thats close, heart was seriously beating 7) chasing these giant chickens was fun 8) i tink he was tinking i was a little to close 9) hmm wonder what that is 10) still wondering

LET IT GO

An old friend mentioned a few days ago, “I’m not sure why you go and what it is your looking for out there” and inwardly I thought to myself…..

“Only don’t, I beseech you, generalize to much in these sympathies and tenderness - remember that every life is a special problem which is not yours but another’s, and content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own.”  Henry James


The minivan pulls away from the frenzied taxi park and I take one last look to see if Moono will take the 10 birr note that I had offered.  Time  slows…… sluggish enough that, now, 6 weeks later I can recollect  the scene wholly: foreground, background, my empathy,  his wounded pride.  Its all here within me at this moment.  Black exhaust smoke trails the van as we move out of the taxi park.  Men bark the names of destinations. The street teems with life: women sell fruits, water, and cookies carried precariously in boxes on their heads; men hawk newspapers, books, pencils, and pens; the marriage of charcoal and roasting coffee beans fills the air; children  hurry off to school.  In the early dawn of morning busyness awakens from its brief slumber.  I’m jammed into the rear seat with four others; Ali is in the front oblivious to my most vivid image of Africa.  Moono now begins to hurry after the van yet cannot catch up, and still running, gestures for me  to throw the money down.  The man next to me says, “let it go”.  I release it, and as it floats down to the ground, time slows all the more.  In those moments between my fingers letting go, the bill landing on the ground, and Moono picking it up I accept my place of ignorance and I embrace the reality that my logic and reasoning does not belong here.  I can have no understanding of a situation that I cannot even contrast and compare with.  I accept it and still have no answer for it.

Without going far into detail I will tell you that Moono was a boy of maybe 9 or 10  who met us on the street and spent an evening with Ali and I in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.  He was bright, articulate, and he had one of those beautiful laughs that bowled him over and made you smile deep inside because it took over his whole self.  He was a lovely boy.  On our side of the world he would probably go on to be something that only those entitled with innate ambition and intelligence can aspire to.  He met us in the morning before we moved on to our next destination and expected a tip for the prior night of leading us around Bahir Dar.  10 birr was not enough for him and his pride would not let him accept it.  But pride is always defined by circumstance, and as our vehicle finally pulled away that morning I watched him cast his eyes aside, pick up the bill, and put pride in his back pocket and 10 birr in his front.  10 birr (75 cents) that would help feed him and his mother and 10 birr that would be a forever image to me of how life is not fair and how I can never narcissistically believe that I can understand anything beyond my own personal experience.

…..I thought to myself that deep down  I’m always trying to realize a better person within.  A person whom makes judgments from experience gathered.  Judgments garnered from a disposition inherited from a beautiful, selfless mother that encouraged such.  And it’s here in Africa, within a society where struggles are found within all aspects of life, that I earn and learn the most.  I’m not Mr. Henry James and I prefer to find the problematic answers to my own algebra while also looking for the resolutions for others.  That is why I go and that is what I’m looking for “out there”.

Harar and Lalibela - 1) Camels in Harar 2) Blending in 3) Ali's sneaky camera work Lalibela church 4) Aisha and her sister 5) Some jackass (me) letting hyenas snatch raw meat from above his head 6) BA BOON 7) Lalibela church 8)having a beer with a sheep at the bar

Simeon Mountains Ethiopia - 1) This kid really wanted to sell me his hat 2) One of these shits stole my water bottle 3) Me, Ali, Peppermint Patty (aka poopstain, Ali), the big guy El Jefe our scout 4) a very hot day in the Simeons 5) two children shepherds 6) coffee ceremony and dinner at Ali's house 7)me and the boss man

Omo Valley - 1) moving the cattle across river for bull jumping ceremony 2) just a cool cat 3) now he gets to pick a wife 4)boys elder uncle 5) Hamer woman asking to be stick whipped, we will go into this later6) village house 7) cute Hamer kid 8) boo yeah! 9) crossing the river

So I find myself in Africa after I had made a promise (to myself) to stop, put the bag down, and go home and make a sedentary life. My hair is turning grey (and some is falling out), my body is breaking down, and I am much more dependent on my charm than ever before (luckily it comes in large doses). At 37 I’m supposed to take that next step, I think? Yet, I’m not quite ready to stand in that orderly line and get on that orderly bus that travels down the highway of social order at the posted speed limit. Tediously seeing life through the windows of my television or computer screen still does not interest me. Naa, I would rather crest the waves of a sea of entropy with myself steering the vessel on my own course. So the road calls and, with no guilt, here I go again searching for wisdom on the gypsy highway.




TRAVELING WITH THE HERD

The child’s head slowly bobs up and down, down, down until his neck is cradled by my sun-burnt red thigh. His mother’s onyx colored eyes are closed yet her grip on her boy is vice-like. Around her forehead she wears a beaded band of greens, blues, reds, and blacks of which the band links down to the base of her earlobes and attaches to heavy wooden ear plugs, the pull leaving a quarter inch hole large enough to see through-a one inch wide flat piece of bone protrudes from the midst of the band and extends over her brow; her dress is one large bolt of cow leather of varying stains of brown and grey, tanned with the acids of goat urine, which emit’s a strong indicative smell of the endemic tribes of the region; around her neck she wears the weight of no less than 100 necklaces quite dull individually but as a conglomerate bright and thoughtful; she wears no shoes. Across from me, her husband shoulders a Kalashnikov and handles a 6 foot spear as if it was an appendage. They are Samburu and they ride in our truck for free-a fair trade for not attacking the vehicles that traverse this stretch of dirt that spills south from the border of Ethiopia (there are no such deals with the cattle rustling Somali shiftas (bandits) that cross back and forth between the deserts that fringe upon their lands). The African sun pours down like a rain shower and I breath deep another cloud of frontier Kenyan dust. The woman passes me her child and hastily makes her way to the back of the truck and (you know what’s coming Ali) vomits. Samburu are not used to car travel. The couple exit the truck, take their child from my arms, and say, “Goodbye mazungu (white person)”. This is what you get when you travel with the herd and quite frankly I wouldn’t have it any other way!




YOU KNOW YOUR IN ETHIOPIA WHEN…..

-its 95 degrees outside and everyone around you is still wrapped in a blanket.

-putting it through the uprights is no longer a football term it represents successfully driving at an erratic speed between a herd of goats and a mule (one can replace mule with cows, camels, sheep, children, etc…)

-your hiking scout is armed with a rifle circa 1945 and is always pointing it at you and smiling.

-you mention the word chicken and your scout returns with a chicken and expects you to kill it, skin it, and dress it but you pay your mule driver 10 birr to do it for you.

-your mule driver is excited about making 10 birr (bout 70 cents).

-the tout that just got your bag off the bus after you told him not to get your bag off the bus and now wants a tip is wearing a shirt that says “I got lei’d in Hawaii!”

-you are shouting at the person selling you water because he is selling it at Faranji (white face) prices and you lose your temper over about 6 cents.

-your waiter double charges you for everything you ordered, swears it is the normal price, you ask a local if it is right, the waiter now realizes you have caught him in a lie and charges you the normal price and then is upset you did not give him a tip.

-a whole town (Harar) of Muslims is stoned on chat (look it up)!

-on average about 20 times a day you turn to Ali (aka poopstain) your travel partner and say “that girl is beautiful!” (Ethiopian women are smoking!)

-the “first class” bus makes a bathroom stop and all the men get the bushes on the right and the women get the bushes on the left.

-everyone you walk by yells “YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU, FARANJI, FARANJI, FARANJI, FARANJI and then asks you to give them your shirt, water bottle, headband, book, actually whatever you have or might not have.

-you are drinking the best coffee in the world and it only costs 15 cents

-you see a pothole free road with divider lines on it and believe that it could only have been divine intervention.

-two men are arguing and 20 are overseeing the argument.

-you share a seat in the pub with a goat (replace goat with mule, camel, chicken, etc…)

-the local Oromo women give you a look as if “I can kick your Faranji ass if I want to” and you believe they could.