lamu 7.15

the barely-cool breeze ripple across the brown thatch, faded pink tin, and moorish-coral stone rooftops. touts shouts from the pier carry past my ears, the swahili tongue rhythmic and foreign.
donkeys laze past in the dusty streets, noses keen for scraps from discarded bins; mysterious black burka clad women reveal only their eyes as they glide past on the narrow paths; a black hawk with sharp white beak swoops down, its midnight black body silhouetted against the calm deep blue waters of the indian ocean, and then, is gone, like everything.

lamu island 7.14

wandering narrow stone streets, catching quick glances down crumbling alleyways festooned with ramshackle wiring, windows opened to the brilliant equatorial sun and wind, boats queued in the busy harbor, all crafted meticulously by hand from trees felled long ago, will all eventually return to the same sea. wandering through an old islamic gravesite at the north end of stonetown, where the alleyways give way to sand, brush, shrubs, simple thatch houses, my eyes were averted to the dates drawn onto simple memorials; imperminence, lives lived and extinguished, dreams, sorrows, happiness.

journey to Lamu 7.13.10

all huge journeys must come to a close, and today's epic closed with an orange sunset
low in the eastern sky, throwing the facades of Stonetown into an otherworldly glow as
the slow local ferry packed with brightly colored kenyans sputtered its way into port.
the timing was perfect after an arduous 9 hour journey from steamy, hectic mombassa....snapshots of a day's journey in east africa....
...young soldiers in crisp, green uniforms straddling machine guns as our armed escorts through the bandit-ridden country, approaching the lawless somali border posts
...brightly clad nomads selling camel milk in jerry cans on the side of the dusty, broken road
...clapboard and cement block towns, too numerous to name, strung out along the lone dirt road traversing this parched land; concrete painted with cell phone ads, children playing with makeshift toys in the dirt, market sellers yelling, jostling for livelihoods
...a bus groaning under the weight of a standing room crowd, cracked windows barely moving the stifling, dusty air; africans laughing and carrying on, unnoticing the discomforts which can so easily fill and control the western mind, for hours on this broken, desolate road
...my pack falling from the overhead rack and directly out the bus's open door as we careened down the early morning Mombassa road, the truck screeching to a halt and conductor dashing madly to retrieve it before it sprouted legs and ran off into the bush, all before i even realized what was happening (luckily, the pack is still with me...)
...and finally, lying in bed, indian ocean breeze filterning in through the broken window slats, fishing boats metallic clanking lulling me to a dreamy end to another day in africa...

camp life 7.6.10

rhythm of camp life established.
my small tent my home, my small oasis.
bucket shower in the evening amongst the scrubby brush, my toes mingling with the brown earth.
nothing electronic, no clock, no phone, no electricity, nothing. simplicity.
simple meals, carrying jerry cans of water from the farmer's tap down the valley; cows, sheep, laundry drying over leaning wooden fences. crickets and birds, brilliant radiant blues and browns,
the cliff faces offering up their splendors from morning till dusk; our small group perched at the top of the cliff watched the eagles soar on thermals and laughed.

Independence Day 7.4.10

Waking up in the bush, the shadows of a towering baobob tree greeting the sunrise,
open savanna revealing itself in the morning rays;
school children in the valley below singing songs in swahili to greet the dawn;
walking dusty paths, stopping to observe the african silences;
riding pillion in a motorbike taxi, clouds of brown dust billowing about;
strangers stopping, turning to see this single, solitary mtuzugu, or white man,
in such a remote setting. I hold onto the bike, trying not to get thrown as it bumps along
the dirt tracks, narrowly missing small boys playing hooky from school, plump ladies carrying
brightly colored market wares.
TIA. This is Africa.

path.

"...as his pace slowed down, his heart quieted. He was wholeheartedly immersing himself, and this was his path. He turned around for one more glimpse of the only land and people he knew, and he saw them as mere specks merging with the shadows."

-Thich Nhat Hahn, Old Path White Clouds