Baobabs

 
 

My first encounter with a baobab was in  The Little Prince, which I read for a class in high school. I thought it was an invention by the author, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The name baobab alone seemed too exotic to be real, not to mention the tree's odd shape and remarkable pace of growth. Sensing our skepticism, the teacher told us to look it up.

In those days that meant reaching for a dictionary, or better yet, grabbing the “B” volume of the maroon or navy blue-backed encyclopedia series (depending whether you favored World Book or Britannica).  Today, if you look up baobabs on line, you’ll find something like this (compiled from several sources):

Adansonia digitata L. - a deciduous, tropical tree, characterized by swollen trunks and branches used to store water. Fire and drought resistant. Grows in arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid tropical climates. Fast growing and long lived. Can reach heights of 25 meters and live for thousands of years.

In The Little Prince, the baobabs get a pretty bad rap. They symbolize something very evil and threatening, the spread of which can lead to catastrophe and destruction for the Little Prince’s world (or asteroid, to be more precise).

Saint-Exupery wrote The Little Prince in 1942, not long before joining the Free French Air Force in North Africa as a pilot. He was shot down and killed in 1944 during a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean. His plane and body were recovered only decades later.  The timing of his writing of The Little Prince leads some analysts to suggest that the baobabs in the book represent the spread of Nazism.

Here is a quote from the book:

“You must see to it that you pull up regularly all the baobabs, at the very first moment when they can be distinguished from the rosebushes which they resemble so closely in their earliest youth.”

Sometimes," he added, "there is no harm in putting off a piece of work until another day. But when it is a matter of baobabs, that always means a catastrophe.”

The illustration is striking, and is evidently the one of all those in the book on which Saint-Exupery spent the most time.

Saint Exupery's illustration of what would happen to the Little Prince's asteroid if he did not pull up the baobabs as soon as they appear. From Chapter 5, The Little Prince

It’s been more than 70 years since Saint Exupery wrote the Little Prince. The war to which he gave his life is long past, though perhaps not all the threats of other wars and evil forces.

Though our world’s climate and landscapes have changed significantly since that time, and are doing so at an ever-escalating rate, the baobabs stand firm. Far from threatening to break up our planet, they stand out as a symbol of resilience and adaptability. They can grow in sparse environments. And because they only keep their leaves about three months of the year, baobabs can take on a skeletal appearance only to spring back to life when their leaves re-emerge

Britt and Valerie in front of a baobab

I love baobabs. I love the way the name bounces in your mouth. I love their odd shape and grandeur. I love the way they dot the rugged landscape of southern Kenya. I love the fact that according to legend the baobabs got their funny look because they were jealous of the other trees, so were plucked out of the ground and put back in upside-down. They aren’t beautiful, really, but are striking and compelling. Even when they look half dead, they stand out among the blue hills, red earth, golden savanna, or green brush that characterize the area between Tsavo East and West National Parks and the Kenyan coast, where you see lots of baobabs.

Because my career is currently taking me more in the direction of research on the importance and future of trees, forests, and agroforestry, I’ve recently learned that baobabs also are very useful – including just about every part of the tree. The fruits, sometimes called monkey bread, have up to 20 times the vitamin C of mango and 30 times the calcium. The bark is used to make cloth and rope. The leaves are nutritious and used for condiments and medicine. People sometimes live inside the enormous trunks, and animals live in the crown.

We ran into a leopard napping on the wide branch of a huge baobab in Tsavo West Park, making good use of its height and the cool shade of its leaves. We took photos of ourselves in front of one baobab standing alone on the savanna with Mt. Kilimanjaro just visible in the mist behind it. And we came across baobabs in the bend of the road, as we traversed the very bumpy but beautiful trail from Tsavo to Diani.

For people who have grown up with baobabs, their longevity and steadfastness can be a great comfort. For the rest of us that perspective can be a good lesson.

There is a lovely and touching film called “Baobab” that speaks to the pain of wars and separation in Sudan and South Sudan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRpEawpqXZs). In it, one of the characters says something like this:

“Bring your children to the baobab, my son. Tell them it has been living for thousands of years, never greedy with its shadow or water. Tell them it did not discriminate between people based on color or tribe. Teach your children to be similar to this tree…”

Bring your children to the baobab...

The Girls of Kibera Girls Centre

The girls of Kibera Girls Centre, trying to beat the odds

Being poor and female in a developing country is no picnic. And Kenya is no exception.  

The statistics on women in Kenya are sobering. Average life expectancy is only 50 years, and dropping due to high HIV/AIDS rates. For poor women, there is little or no access to health services, less chance of a secondary school education, and no chance of inheriting property. Forced child marriage, female genital mutilation, and exposure to violence or sexual abuse are all far higher than you want to know.  

For those living in the slums of Nairobi, the situation is even worse.

Main road on the edge of Kibera, littered with trash and flying toilets

Kibera is Nairobi’s largest slum, and said to be one of the biggest in Africa. It is densely populated (estimates from half to one million people) and jammed with small huts made of tin, wood, or anything else people can scrape together. Because it is not formally recognized by the government, there are no services: no water, sanitation, schools, electricity, health facilities, police, trash pickup, paved roads, etc.  Human sewage runs in ruts. There are huge piles of trash, including “flying toilets,” which is a term for plastic bags filled with feces and discarded.

Children make up a large proportion of Kibera's population, but face a deck stacked against them

According to the Kibera Law Centre, average life expectancy in Kibera is only 30 years. Violence is rampant, 66% of girls routinely trade sex for food (some starting as early as age 6), and only 8% of girls go to school.

It’s a grim picture.

Yet, when I visited the Kibera Girls Centre recently, I caught a glimpse of the strength of human resilience and ingenuity.

Note: I did not go into the vast network of dank alleys. I was with a group led by the Kenya Girl Guides Association (the Kenya Girl Scouts), which manages the Kibera Girls Centre. We were packed in one car and stuck to the bustling main roads on the edge of Kibera, which team with commerce and activity.

The Kibera Girls Centre is located on the edge of Kibera, on land lent to them by the national railroad. The only permanent structure is the latrine/showers building made of bricks. The rest of the buildings are made of metal sheeting and sort of resemble circus tents. They include a kitchen, storage house, classrooms, office, library, computer center, and sewing workshops. There is a small flower garden, named for one of the volunteers/benefactors of the school, and a vegetable patch, which was fairly barren the day we visited.

The small, green gardens, with flowering trees and bushes are a haven from the violence and filth of the slum

The purpose of the centre is to offer schooling and vocational training to girls from Kibera between the ages of 15 and 25 years. They have a program called “learn and earn” which helps the girls to pass school exams and pick up a vocational skill/job. The curriculum also addresses issues such as health, violence prevention, empowerment, and character development.

Learning and earning, by the end of their second year, these girls will have made enough to buy their sewing machines

In their first year of study, the girls are exposed to different vocational training possibilities, ranging from sewing to cooking, environmental studies, craftsmaking, and computer skills.  In their second year, they are pushed to engage in one of those vocations. The school has an on-site catering business and an on-site sewing business that makes, among other things, uniforms for the different ages of Girl Guides (daisies, brownies, juniors, seniors, etc.). Those who choose sewing are set up to purchase their machine by the end of the second year of training.

The funding for the school comes from a wide mix of sources – many attracted through different foreign embassy contacts, groups like the rotary club, and other NGOs. They also have many benefactors, who organize annual fundraisers.

On Saturdays, the centre opens its doors to the younger siblings of the girl students, offering them lunch and activities.

The Kibera Girls Centre is an inspiring place. It sits as a haven of peace and potential for girls living in what would seem to be a hopeless situation. But the most striking part of the visit is the girls themselves. They live in conditions and face challenges most of us cannot even imagine. Yet they are lively and lovely. They are shy but proud.

We were welcomed with songs and dancing, which brought out the life and smiles in this group of girls

We were offered home-baked goods and presented with a welcome dance performance. Accompanied only by a drum, the girls sang and moved, closing their eyes and flowing with the beat.  Clapping we moved with them and were moved by them. And somewhere, among the metal buildings and budding flowers there was something resembling hope – not for miracles, but for beating some of the odds and bettering some of the lives of the girls of Kibera Centre for Girls.

2012 Recap

As the clock struck 12 on New Years Eve to welcome in the year 2012, we were not, as had long been our tradition, surrounded by good friends and champagne. We were not rounding out an evening of excellent food and too much wine. We weren’t rolling up the dining room carpet and dancing on a floor sticky with spilled drinks. We weren’t even wearing funny hats.

Instead, we were on an airplane – all four of us, plus my mother.  We were looking out the windows, as the plane was just making its descent, scheduled to land mere seconds after the turn of the new year.  We were landing in Lima after spending Christmas in the States to start what would be our last (partial) year in Peru. 

And because it was Lima, where every festival or holiday is celebrated with enthusiasm, our landing aircraft offered us a bird’s-eye view of the hundreds of neighborhood fireworks going off all over the city. 

Only our younger son was disappointed – as he would have preferred to spend the evening  partying with his Peruvian friends. The rest of us thought it was a lovely display.

And either way, it was a fitting way to mark the start of an unusually eventful year in the Gwinner household – a year that included:

1 trip to the Galapagos Islands (amazing)

1 college graduation

1 high school graduation

Numerous visits from dear friends and family

Several work trips to Europe, Africa, and Asia

1 move out of our large, lovely, Lima apartment

1 long trek to Choquequirao, Machu Picchu, and other amazing parts of the Andean highlands, as our farewell-to-Peru trip

1 college drop off in the States

1 move into our wacky and enormous Nairobi house

1 change of jobs from head of housing finance for the Latin America Caribbean region to head of housing finance for the Sub-Saharan Africa region

1 switch from heading communications about potato and sweetpotato to freelance writing on all sorts of agricultural development and climate change topics

1 unexpected trip back to Lima to recover our dog – abandoned at the last minute by the company that was supposed to move him to Africa 

 Lots of encounters with wild animals in the bush, on the savanna, and in our yard

An exotic getaway to Zanzibar

Several safaris

Some snorkeling and diving on the southern coast of Kenya

2012 also brought us many goodbyes. We left behind dear new friends in Peru, and had all-too-brief reunions with old friends in DC, NYC, and other parts of the world. We said goodbye to our two sons, and started life as empty-nesters. We said goodbye to our jobs in Lima and many wonderful colleagues. 

We said hello to a new country, new continent, and promise of many new adventures.

Now, we say hello to 2013, to a new list of challenges, discoveries, and memorable moments.

Happy New Year.

A Different Kind of Christmas

Diani Beach, Kenya, December 25, 2012. This is the first time in many years that we are not spending Christmas in Washington, DC, with a routine of Christmas Eve service, followed by late dinner, and sleep-in to Christmas morning, followed by presents and late lunch with a jolly assembly of friends and family.

Even when we lived in Peru, we made the trip back to the US annually. We would regroup our scattered nuclear and extended family to see familiar faces, experience cold weather, and smell the scent of Christmas trees.

But this year is different. We’ve got just one of our two sons with us, and no added family or friends. We’re celebrating in the southern hemisphere, where the rains are finally letting up and hot season is starting to set in. Instead of wishing for snow, we’re experiencing the white sand beaches and clear blue water of the southern Kenya coast. There are palm trees, exotic flowers, and monkeys in the gardens. We have sunburns from snorkeling and drink Tusker beer lazily.  We work out at the gym, and enjoy the luxuries of spa massages and private yoga classes. We are in a resort hotel, where the guests are from all over the world, and many don’t celebrate Christmas. 

We drove from Nairobi, and rather than going through Mombasa, which is bound to be blocked with traffic jams this time of year, we took some back roads. We spent two nights in the Taita Hills and Tsavo National Park, encountering numerous packs of elephants, antelope of many kinds, and exotic birds. We saw hippos munching on grass and encountered the elusive Tsavo lions – famous for being mane-less, man-eaters, and larger than the ones you see elsewhere.

We are lucky to live in an amazing country – known by some as the cradle of mankind and certainly punctuated with beautiful landscapes.

Merry Christmas from Kenya!

Pole pole

Sign cautioning drivers to go slowly

Though many things may look and seem familiar, when you are a stranger in a strange land, there are often subtle differences in the way things work or happen. And you quickly find out that even if the local way of doing things seems inefficient or strange, that’s just the way it’s going to be. Generally speaking, you’re not going to change it. Instead, it’s you who will have to change. You’ll have to adjust your expectations, shift your attitude, and learn to be flexible.

You will also learn to be patient. Patient with the unexpected, patient with jams and hurdles, patient with a slower pace, and patient with yourself.

In these moments, I fall back on one of the few Swahili expressions I know, “pole pole.” Pronounced poe-lay poe-lay, it means slowly, slowly. Just saying it can have a soothing effect and give you the momentary pause needed to take a breath and take stock of the need to be flexible and go with the flow.

Pole pole is actually part of a longer saying that goes like this: “Pole pole ndio mwendo, haraka, haraka haina Baraka.” It means, “slowly, slowly indeed we go, hurry, hurry has no blessings.”

This is not to say there aren’t times when faster, faster would be better. Here in Nairobi, you can literally sit for hours in stuck traffic or wait endlessly for service. Standing in line can feel like a national pastime, and even things that are designed to be automated can backfire and require multiple approvals, phone calls, or visits to customer service.

But to me, pole pole is more about frame of mind.

As a working mother with young children, I spent years saying, “hurry, hurry – c’mon, c’mon.” And I remember the day it came to a peak when I nearly collided with another working mom.  We were both dashing up the elementary school steps from opposite directions to pick up our children in their afterschool program. Reaching the top, we looked at each other, stopped for an instant, and laughed. I said, “don’t you feel like you are always running”? And she answered, “yes, and that no matter what you do, you are always running late!”

In those days, my annual New Year’s resolution was always the same: not to drive through yellow traffic lights. We lived in Washington, DC, where the common practice was to charge on through them. So, I was at risk of being rear-ended for stopping when the light was yellow. But it wasn’t really about traffic rules, or being a good doobie. It was about reminding myself to slow down, in a life and a city where everything was, “hurry, hurry.”

Now in Nairobi, we live a life of many privileges, but also one that requires patience and cool heels. Getting things done is a multi-step process Power outages are frequent, and Wi-Fi connection is sporadic. The roof leaks. We’ve had rats in the attic, bats in the stairs, and monkey pee on our living room floor. And we encounter frequent communication barriers that come from speaking the same language (English) different ways.

But little by little we learn. Pole pole we make our way, and are far better for having taken the time to do so.

Driving on the Left

One of the tricks when you first get used to driving on the left is to follow another car, and also remember that the center line should be on the same side as the driver.

In Kenya, cars drive on the left hand side of the road. It’s a legacy of the British colonial rule. Some people will (half) jokingly tell you that cars drive all over the road here. It’s partly true. It’s not that unusual to encounter a car heading straight at you in your lane, coming from the other direction. There is a tendency to pass on blind curves and hills, especially on the part of matatu drivers, who have a well-deserved reputation for terrible driving. And there’s the occasional, confused expat.

I was pretty nervous about driving on the left, initially, even though other newcomers had told me it wasn’t very hard. It does help a lot to drive a car designed for left-side driving. We once drove a French rental car in England, and that was truly terrifying. There are several helpful tricks, too, which had been shared with us. One is to remember that the center line should always be on your right, or on the driver’s side. Of course, this presumes that the road has a center line, which is not always the case. Another is to follow other cars, which is easier when there’s plenty of traffic. But, what we found best for us was simply to keep saying to ourselves, “I’m driving on the left, I’m driving on the LEFT.” I know it sounds goofy, but it’s surprisingly effective.  It’s particularly helpful when you are coming out of a parking spot, and need to make sure you get launched in the right direction.

In the end, we both picked up left-side driving pretty quickly – in a matter of days. However, other associated habits have been harder to change. Looking over your left shoulder when you back up is really counter intuitive. And it's hard to remember which way to look when you are crossing the street as a pedestrian. Shifting gears with the left hand takes getting used to. Remembering to enter the car on the front right side as a driver (or on the left as a passenger) really takes time to master. We still mix that one up. But the craziest is keeping straight which side of the steering wheel has the turn signal or the windshield wiper command. There’s less consistency here. Cars from Japan have the turn signal on the right and wipers on the left, whereas those from Britain have it reversed. We have one of each, so often wipe the windshield to signal a turn.

As we master life on the left, there’s also a whole new vocabulary to learn. Again, this is associated with the British influence in Eastern Africa. Much of the car-connected terminology is British English. So, you fill the car with petrol rather than gas, store things in the boot rather than trunk, and clear off the windscreen instead of a windshield. 

As for converting the price of petrol from shillings to dollars, or liters to gallons, don't bother trying. Fuel here is expensive and the gas stations often run out. That's all you really need to know. 

Ah, but to wander aimlessly

Lane by our house where even a wandering muzungu is welcome to walk

One of my favorite ways to discover and enjoy a city is on foot. I love to walk. And it’s nice to mingle with the crowds and city activity at a strolling pace.

Unfortunately, as a white person in Nairobi, walking about is pretty much out of the question. It is considered far too unsafe.  To walk about as a white person is seen to be setting yourself up as a target for theft or further troubles.

This is in spite of the fact that you see Kenyans walking everywhere. Cars are prohibitively expensive for the vast majority. There’s no public transportation. There are small private buses, called matatus, which many people use to get around. They are generally very crowded and infamous for their dangerous driving habits. This is not unlike many other parts of the world – certainly it was our experience with “combi” drivers in Peru. But even the matatus are too pricey for lots of people.

So they walk.

Some walk hours each day to get to work and back. Even small children walk long distances to go to school. They walk rain or shine – both of which are highly common here. They put up with the dust and mud and passing vehicles that rarely cede the right of way.

Other than in the downtown area, known as the central business district (or CBD), there aren’t many sidewalks. So, people walk along the side of the roads. The paths are uneven, and frequently treacherous – with holes in unexpected places, various obstacles, and sometimes very little space separating the pedestrians from the passing traffic.

In our part of the city, the roads are windy and narrow. They make their way through lovely hills and valleys, across a surprising patchwork of residential constructions and urban agriculture. The median strips, the edges of roads, and the creek valleys are lined with small patches of corn, potato, beans, and cabbage. Garden plants are displayed for sale, and people will tell you that the area used to be covered with coffee plantations.

It’s very pretty and lush. But unless I am driving, it is considered out of bounds, because I am a mzungu. Mzungu is the term used here for white people. It is said to be derived from the Swahili word “zungu” meaning to wander aimlessly – or confusedly, according to some definitions.

So, you’ll note the ironic discrepancy between being named for being an aimless wanderer yet  prohibited from wandering aimlessly because of being a mzungu.

I talked about this with our housekeeper and day guard the other afternoon. I was sharing with them the fact that I regret not being able to walk places. They both looked at me incredulously. One of them voiced what they were both thinking: “Why would you want to walk when you can go anywhere you want with your car?” 

That was sobering.

It’s hard to justify to someone who cannot even dream of every having a car, why as a car owner there are times when you’d really rather walk. 

I didn’t try.  It seemed that any explanation I might offer could come out as trite, disrespectful, or just utterly naïve.

Have I completely given up on my penchant for aimless wandering? Not quite.  I’ve folded to local ways, finding and using the spots that are considered okay for walking: our immediate neighborhood, the well-patrolled Karura Forest, and places outside of town, where hiking is allowed and the threat of robbers, brigands, or large carnivores is minimal.