Flirting with Kenya

Vince and I are in Kenya and Ric is in Tanzania

Our originally conceived self-drive road trip itinerary began in Kenya. We were planning to rent our 4X4 in Nairobi and drive to Amboseli National Park which, along with magnificent game, has the best views of Mount Kilimanjaro from the ground. From there we would drive to the Masai Mara and then cross the border into the Serengeti in Tanzania for the second part of the trip.

looking into Kenya from the border mark

But then just as we were finalizing the booking with our travel consultant Tracy came the news of the anti-Christian pogrom in northern Kenya. 147 Christians murdered by the Islamist group al-Shabaab. We are Christians and we would be driving alone on desolate roads in Kenya. We decided traveling in Kenya would be too risky. So we changed our plans and settled on an all-Tanzania trip. Not much of a settlement really. Tanzania was awesome. We saw the Great Wildebeest Migration including six river crossings and we did get to see Kili from both the ground and the sky.

But while on a game drive in the northern Serengeti we did manage to "step" into Kenya after all. No visa required.

Around the campfire 36 years later

36 years ago I sat alone in front of a camp fire somewhere in the Masai Mara / Serengeti and made a decision that would change my life. I decided to marry Vince!

Who knew that 36 years later almost to the day I would be sitting around a similar camp fire back in the Serengeti with Vince by my side celebrating our 35th year of marriage?

Remarkable.

Ye gads! My husband is morphing into a birder!

I like birds. I really do. But I do not consider myself a birder. I mainly go on safari to see the mammals.

I know this from experience after my first safari in Kenya and Tanzania in 1979. We had several UC Berkeley professors on our trip as the safari had been organized by the university. A professor of botany, zoology, geology, archaeology, etc. And there was a professor of ornithology too.



During the first couple of weeks of the trip I would move from Land Rover to Land Rover for the daily game drives in order to drive with a different professor on each drive. The professors would use the time in the truck to share his or her knowledge about their respected subjects. They lectured at night around the campfire too but there was something special about seeing their words come to life right in front of you.

One day I got in the truck with the ornithologist. As we drove around the park we came upon a huge pride of lions eating an antelope of some kind. What luck! It was gross but I knew it was a special moment.

I popped my head up through the pop-up window to take some photographs and I realized I was alone on my side of the Land Rover. I looked behind me and everyone else was hanging out the opposite side of the truck with their binoculars raised up watching some bird in a tree. And they were way more excited than me. It was then that I realized I would never find a bird in a hand worth more than a lion in the bush! I was not one of them. After that, I only drove with my own kind.

My husband Vince I am afraid is becoming more of a birder every day. He actually told me in Rwanda that he didn't mind that there weren't any rhinos or lions in Akagera yet because he finds the birds much more interesting! I may have to move to another Land Rover.

Christmas Crèche 2014

Top:Italy, Germany, Brazil (figures) & Mexico (creche),
bottom:France, Russia, Kenya

I have a collection of Nativity scenes and creches which I purchased during my international travel over the years.

 

Top:Israel, Ireland, Denmark, bottom:Argentina, Ecuador, Slovakia

There is no rhyme or reason to the countries represented by my collection. I do not have one from every country I've visited. Not even from every country I've traveled to at Christmas.

Top:Provence, middle:Venezuela, bottom:Austria

Some of the "Christmas countries" are represented for sure ... like Italy and Ireland.

Alex's homemade creche (top), Bethlehem,
 Palestine (middle), Quebec (bottom)

But I do not have a creche in my collection from Greece or Switzerland for instance where we also visited at Christmas time.

A lot of it had to do with opportunity. If I saw one tucked away in a shop in Venezuela in the summer, I bought it. If I didn't see one at a craft market in Sweden at Christmas, I didn't.

I would display them under Christmas trees and on tables all over the house along with my family heirloom Nativity scenes.

my family's creche growing up, a snow globe from my Sunday school students,
and a Bohemian glass painting from the Czech Republic

South Africa

Regardless, they are all in storage back in the USA and not here with me in Joburg, including the ebony set I bought in South Africa in 2012.

a wood burl creche and carved figures
from the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt

But that means we are without a Nativity scene to display at Christmas this year.

hand-carved figures from a woodworker's shop in Florence

And that's just not right. So I needed to buy a new one to add to my collection for Christmas 2014. But I didn't want to get a second South African creche.

creche and Advent tree

Luckily we will be in Rwanda on Christmas Day. And just as luckily I found Rwanda Aid, an NGO in Rwanda that brings hope and opportunity to the people of Rwanda through various empowerment programmes, one of which is to provide street children with the skills they need  to craft lovely little Nativity scenes to sell. So I bought one.

buy a creche made by children for Rwanda Aid

If you too would like to support Rwanda Aid at Christmas by buying a Rwandan creche, you can do it online here. God bless us, everyone!

A Shared Love of Photography

At a Plein Air photo workshop at

Philip Johnson's Glass House in CT

 

One of the things that connected Vince and I practically from the first moment we met was our love of photography. We both enjoyed going out to the countryside or the beach on the weekends with our Nikon F3's or walking around New York City day and night and just taking pictures. Old cemeteries were some of our favorite haunts! Pun intended.

We started going on photography outings together on the weekends and he even lent me his very expensive Nikon camera lenses when I went on my photo safari to Kenya and Tanzania in 1979. Man, that's trust!

Photographing the Gates in Central Park

From the rooftop at the NYAC

We both came by our love of photography naturally. Vince's father's first civilian job was as a photographer for the Boise (Idaho) Sun. He learned to take photographs in the US Marine Corps during World War II when he was a combat photographer in the Phillipines and the Pacific theater. Many of his photographs can still be found in World War II history books. Coincidentally, my Uncle Ray was a World War II aerial combat photographer too, but with the Army Air Corps in the Aleutian Islands.

Second Place, The "Gilded Cage", GC of Irvington-on-Hudson

Vince inherited his father's darkroom equipment once his dad stopped using it and for a time we had it set up in one of our guest room bathrooms making it an ad hoc dark room. We mostly developed black and white film. He also inherited his father's entire photographic equipment collection. That included a 4X5 Speed Graphic which we actually took with us on trips when we were first married. We have gorgeous photographs of historic buildings in Paris and London and other cities in Germany.

I remember once he set up the Speed Graphic on a tripod in front of the Acropolis in Athens in order to take a picture and a quasi-Communist government official made him take it down and put it away. He had no problem with our 35mm cameras. I am not sure what he was afraid of, but we didn't argue. He looked like a Greek Stalin to me.

judging photography at the Jupiter Island GC in Florida

I turned my photography hobby into a garden photography hobby when I served as a Garden Club of America Photography Judge for five years. Most of the pictures I took during that time were required to include plant material as part of the composition and the photos depicted different prescribed themes or inspirations like "A Sense of Place" or "The Sound of Trees." It was alot of pressure. I am much happier now just taking pictures again for fun!

The potager garden at the Royal Saltworks,

Arc-et-Senans, France

I resisted "going digital" for as long as I could, but the winds were blowing at gale force and I finally succumbed once I found out that one of the benefits of digital photography is that you can change the ISO after every picture! Sold.

But digital cameras are so complicated. The year we bought our Nikon D200, we went to France for two weeks and purposefully went through each and every single button and knob and setting that was annotated in the almost 200 page manual. We were experts for about a week and then ... if you don't use it, you lose it. Anyway, we always bring 'the big camera" - which is what we call our new Nikon digital 35mm camera - and all our lenses, filters, tripods and other paraphernalia when we travel and we spend alot of the time just walking around wherever we are and taking pictures.


Our recent trip was no different ...

 

There are thousands more! The problem with digital is that you snap away with abandon. As opposed to film developing, digital is free and only as limited as your memory card. But when you get home ... hours and hours in front of the monitor looking through your images. Pay now or pay later.

Visa or No Visa?

Zimbabwe - Zambia border crossing

Good thing I checked.

American citizens need a visa to enter Mozambique. This may seem obvious to you but in my defense there does not seem to be a hard nor a fast rule as to whether or not someone holding an American passport - even one with a South African permanent residence visa attached - needs an additional country travel visa to cross into another African country. Zimbabwe and Zambia require a visa. Botswana and Namibia do not. Not sure about Rwanda and Malawi. But Kenya and Tanzania? Yep. No for Lesotho and Swaziland.

You can get your tourist visa right at the point of entry in many cases - the airport or at the entry border if you're driving - but who wants to waste the time? Processing a visa can take hours if you're driving into Mozambique. It is the stuff of legends. Best to do as much in advance as possible.

Here is a handy-dandy chart which breaks it down by whether one needs a tourist visa, business visa or official visa. Better double-check before you head out though. I have a feeling it may change with the political wind.

Luckily Vince found a great place in Pretoria that can expedite a visa application in a day. Sometimes while you wait. Which is just what we needed for our Easter weekend road trip to Mozambique.


Good thing I checked.

PS if you are driving there in a rented 4 by 4 as we are, you need more than just a visa. You will also need a letter from the rental car company saying it is okay to bring the car into Mozambique, a ZA sticker on the car, a copy of the car registration, reflective clothing in case you get a flat, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Wild about Wildlife!

Galapagos

When I went on an African safari in 1979 to Kenya and Tanzania I thought it was a once in a lifetime experience. I never dreamed I would someday live so close and be able to see animals in the wild practically right at my very doorstep!

So in the ensuing years I took every  opportunity to see wildlife in its natural environment.

Brooks Lodge in Katmai

Sami reindeer

Brown bears, moose, and bald eagles in Alaska, blue-footed boobies, iguana, penguins, and giant tortoises in the Galapagos, giant sloths and parrots in Costa Rica, kangaroos in Australia, puffins in Nova Scotia and Alaska, condors in Patagonia, and herds of reindeer running across the tundra in Lapland.
 
 

Glacier Bay

We swam with manatees in the mangroves of Florida, with giant sea turtles in Hawaii, and with seals in the Galapagos. We kayaked with otters in Glacier Bay and sailed with dolphins in the Caribbean. And my all-time favorite, whale-watching! In Alaska, Hawaii, Baja Mexico and off the coast of Maine and Massachusetts.
 

And if I couldn't find them in the wild, I would settle for seeing them in zoos and wildlife parks like the koalas, wombats, and duck-billed platypuses who eluded us in Australia or the stealthy jaguar in the Yucatan.



My mantra since we have moved to South Africa has been, "every day we do not see wildlife is a day wasted!" That of course is a gross exaggeration. There is much, much more to Africa than the animals, but my point is now that I am here, I feel the draw to go on safari again every single day.

Tomorrow we are going back to the wild to Kruger National Park and Thornybush Preserve. Can. Not. Wait!

Shebeens and the SAB World of Beer

SAB is not just a brewery; it is a World of Beer. So we set out to explore the world on Saturday with our friend Ric who is visiting from the US!

The tour at SAB, makers of Castle, Peroni, Pilnzner Urquell, Grolsch and Miller Genuine Draught among others, showcases the history and culture of the brewing of beer at its downtown "World of Beer." And you get two free beers at the end of the tour in their very nicely appointed bar!


The first record of brewing beer is found on a wall in, you guessed it, Africa. I am beginning to think everything originated in Africa! Egyptian hieroglyphics dating back more than 5000 years allude to its production. Initially, brewing was, for the most part, a household project carried out by Nubian women. 

Later, Egyptian Pharaohs provided their laborers with a daily ration of four loaves of bread and two jugs of beer. Rameses III took pride in consecrating to the gods more than 400,000 jars of beer. The tradition of women brewers is still practiced in the tribal rituals of South Africa. We tasted some traditional Bantu beer which the women store in a calabash and the men drink (first, women second) directly from the calabash or from a gourd ladle.

We wandered through displays and videos of the history of beer through its evolution in Europe and the establishment of unlicensed shebeens in the heyday of mining in South Africa. Shebeen is an Irish word and was first used to describe home-grown illegal saloons by the Irish miners who emigrated to South Africa to work in the gold mines.

There was a recreated shebeen in the museum which we were able to tour. I realized I had actually been in a real life shebeen once before in Kenya in 1979. Our safari group was staying at a lodge very close to the hometown of one of our safari drivers who invited a few of the more adventuresome of us to come have a Tusker with him at his local hang-out. I remember thinking upon entering the all-male establishment that I will probably not tell my mother about this excursion when I return. She would not have been happy!

The shebeens are licensed now and most of them are not dangerous anymore. We had our taxi driver drop us off at one of the safer shebeens in Soweto when we toured there and it was fine. I could have told my mother about this one.

Cheers!