July 3, 2009
The past weekend was the FSD mid-term retreat. Destination: Hell’s Gate! So now I can say I went to Hell’s Gate in Kenya (which is a legitimate reason according to my program director to choose to go to this location over the national park in Nakuru, which some of us were rooting for as the retreat location). In short, the trip was amazing!
Hell’s Gate is near Naivasha, and it has some geysers, cool rock formations and animals. We stayed at Fisherman’s Lodge, which was truly wonderful. A hot shower, flushing toilet with a toilet seat and lots of typical American food like pizza, spaghetti, etc…. I never thought I would actually miss American food so much (usually it’s Japanese food that I miss)—this is certainly a first.
We spent 6 or 8 hours on the matatu to get there, so by the time we got there on Thursday it was dark. We just ate dinner and relaxed. Our first full day was on Friday, and I went with a lot of the other Duke students on a bike ride through Hell’s Gate National Park. I think the total distance that we biked was about 22 km. Anyways, we rented bikes and went through the park with a guide. We saw zebras, giraffes, water hogs, buffaloes, impalas and maybe a few more critters that I can’t recall right now. It was cool to see wild animals so close!
I am cursed when it comes to rental bikes. Last time I rented a bike in Argentina, I biked the whole time with a flat tire, so I was determined to choose a nice, sturdy bike for this excursion. Apparently I have poor judgment when it comes to rental bikes and the one that I picked had major issues with the gear. Every time I tried to change the gear it would go nuts and after a while cease to function. This was a problem. Obviously. On the way to the part of the park where the really cool rock formations were, I somehow made it. At one point my bike broke as my group and tour guide rode ahead. Since I was alone and quiet, a water hog followed by her babies crossed the road right in front of me, so the breaking bike issue almost felt like a blessing in disguise. Until I began my return trip that is.
But before I get to the return trip, brief description of the parts in between. We did some hiking and went to the area where there are some very interesting rock formations. Tomb Raider II was filmed here. Apparently, the film crew rented out the whole national park for 3 months to do the shooting. (Hopefully I’ll put pics up relatively soon…) After the rock formations, we went to visit a Masaai village. It was a very tourist-y thing, but it was still nice. They made fire for us, they sang and danced, and they demonstrated some intense stick throwing (their enemy-fighting techniques). I bought a bracelet and was ripped off pretty badly.
And THEN came the return trip. Since my bike was broken, one of the guides, Julius, traded bikes with me. So I started riding on this new bike. 30 seconds into it, I hear a pop. Flat tire. Fabulous. Julius just told me to take another guide, Chris’s bike, and that he would come later on the park ranger’s car, or something of the sort. The crappy bike I was using earlier was then passed to Chris. So, Chris had my crappy bike that I had used earlier, and I had Chris’ bike, which was also in bad condition. It sucked. 11 km is a long way to go on a dysfunctional bike. Everyone went past us so Chris and I were left behind. I thought, “There is no way I am going to make it home on this damn bike.” The sky looked ominous, like it was about to storm.
We kept going, stopping every minute to trade bikes so Chris could fix it. The bike would be repaired for some time, and then stop working. Bike 1 (the crappy bike I had in the beginning) could eventually be used on the lowest gear, which meant that the rider had to pedal like crazy to go a foot forward. Bike 2 sometimes worked great and then had a similar problem.
So we were slowly biking along and then Chris suddenly told me to stop. I look up and I see a herd of about 50 buffaloes right in front of us. They were crossing the road. I stopped. I asked Chris, “Are they dangerous?” He responded, “They’re unpredictable.” Great. 50 buffaloes vs. 2 people with malfunctioning bicycles? The outcome is clear. Buffaloes can only see about 7 m in front of them, but they could smell us and the whole herd was now turned towards us. We stand there for about 5 minutes. They are still staring. Even Chris seems slightly surprised that they’re still looking. Chris adds, “The mothers are especially dangerous when their with their children.” I see some baby buffaloes. We continue standing still. It’s actually pretty damn frightening, because buffaloes are huge, and there were 50 of them facing us.
He decides we should walk back in the direction that we came from. We backtrack and we wait. Finally, the buffaloes decide to continue crossing the road. Chris and I take our bikes through the grass to go around the buffaloes to get to the other side of the road.
After making it past the buffaloes, we trudged along with the broken bikes. Somehow, I made it. Luckily, one of the bikes decided to kind of start working towards the end, so I took advantage and raced back to our lodge. On the way, kids and adults on the road would repeatedly point out that my bike was broken. Some offered to fix it. I just waved them off, and kept on pedaling, fast as possible, before the bike could change its mind.
The following day, we visited Crescent Island, which is actually a peninsula and not an island. This was where the movie, “Out of Africa” was filmed. There are lots of animals on the island, like giraffes, zebras, impalas, etc. Apparently, before the movie was shot, none of those animals were there. All the animals were moved to Crescent Island from other places just for the movie. Crazy. There are no predators, so the population has steadily grown, and the guide told us that when there are too many, the animals are just moved to other places.
We spent three nights there and in addition to seeing the sites, I had a really great time bonding with my fellow Duke students. The group is made up of a really diverse assortment of people. I actually only knew one other person in the group before this experience. I’ve learned just as much from interacting with the group as I have from interacting with my host family and other locals. I’ve gotten to know people that I would have never encountered on campus, and everyone on the trip has surprised me again and again. Most of the first impressions I had of everyone have been wrong. I’ve been humbled and inspired by everyone in the group, and I am really thankful. I’ve written about feeling content most of the time here, but the support provided by the group has played a huge role in that. It’s been so helpful and enlightening to discuss different challenges, successes and issues/concepts that we’re grappling with, about development, culture, aid, corruption, etc.
I think I wrote about forming meaningful relationships in an earlier post. I am so happy now that I have been able to form so many—with my host family, the program coordinators of Project Africa, the women I work with, and with my fellow Duke students. It may sound awfully corny, but I’m really glad to have been able to share this experience with people that I’ll be able to continue to seeing back at Duke and hopefully beyond.
I think I have a pretty good gut instinct when it comes to knowing to whom I can become really close—people I just have good friendship chemistry with. In the past, I’ve had a tendency to not make an effort to get to know people that I didn’t have that gut instinct with. I also tended to avoid large group situations. Although partly because I didn’t have a choice, this time, I decided to make an effort to get to know and appreciate the group, and I am so glad I did ☺
