With 3 hours of sleep and a 4:30am wake up call - we are late to leave. Our driver has been waiting for us for over an hour, but somehow is consoling us - “God will provide!” Rose says we will be fine, and we somehow are. As we are boarding the plane I meet Richard, an air traffic controller and giant of a human, and as I am Facetiming Josee, he gets in the shot to say hi, and offers to take a picture of Emma and I getting on our private plane. The happiness is palpable. 4 days later I will be crying to Richard as we hold hands on a layover, pre-Mara. This trip is too much for me.
The plane takes off, with only the two of us as passengers, and we start seeing animals IMMEDIATELY. I start crying. I can’t believe we are doing this. We put in headphones and do make up, sometimes you just have to feel like you are in a movie (wow are we tired!), and 45 minutes later, we land.
We are greeted by two boys our age in an open air land cruiser with nearly every item (water bottles, guide books, KLEENEX BOX) upholstered in green and beige canvas. There are zebras surrounding us. Is this real? I have not seen this much space before. We cannot stop taking pictures. (By the end, zebras are “whatever.” - simple plains game…)
“Shall we start with coffee in the plains? And then game drive to the lodge?”
We touched down two minutes ago in the middle of a field and are now being served french pressed coffee and fresh chia seed muffins in the middle of the African plains. The boys’ names are James and Jeremiah, they are Maasai, only notable disguised in their Western-influenced attire by a few facial tribal alterations that you stop noticing 20 minutes in, and their superhuman ability to spot lions miles out and fight them off should the occasion rise. Their accents are beautiful, this place is beautiful, they are beautiful. Emma, seemingly reading my mind (as she does), asks:
“So when does the rest of our safari group get here?”
They tell us this is our group for the rest of our time here - Ol Donyo only does private tours. We scream. This cannot possibly get better. For the half hour ride back to the lodge, we see more zebras (their striping an optical illusion to confuse the lions who only see in black and white - James’ favorite of the animals), antelope, giraffes (”lousy moms”), and A LION PAW PRINT (Jeremiah tells us his dog was just eaten by a lion :((((). The boys have to get out of the car and circle it for us on the ground because we are so inept at noticing it ourselves. City girls. They touch on marriages (arranged, multiple wives if you have the means) and James’ scarring (beautiful asymmetrical circles on his cheeks, one directly below each eye - burns to trick contagious flies to land on instead of an eye where disease can spread), we tell them we will have so, so many questions - they say it’s fine. They have no idea.
Back to the boys. They have beautiful eyes, skin, teeth and hands, they are lean and move like athletes. They speak incredible English, with accents that are warming to hear. James is outgoing and sarcastic, he already grasps the nuances of American humor. He likes to be challenging and makes jokes about the car engine dying, being lost when it is night time and we are disoriented, Black Mambas, and where he is going to seat all of his wives in the car. He is incredibly comfortable and established in the craft. Jeremiah is only a touch younger, but feels as thought he was born professional. You couldn’t pull him out of it if you tried. He is soft spoken, but speaks deliberately, is controlled with his delivery, and peaceful to be around. He is lovable because of his sweetness. He is taller, lean, adorned in Maasai beads, and usually keeps a hand in his pocket when he speaks. He is Maasai in and out, a fierce protector of the culture. When he gets tired, his accent thickens. They are both incredibly optimistic - Emma and I believe, to a fault.
We pull up to the lodge with 12 staff members waiting to greet us. They pour us champagne, they explain how the lodge functions, with its onsite filtration system supplying re-purposed bath and shower water to fill man-made watering holes and effectively creating its own ecosystem. We fill out an equestrian form notifying the stables we know everything and nothing at all about horseback riding, sign our lives away, and are taken to our room. It is one of the most beautiful lodges I’ve seen - private pool and star gazing deck included. As we are settling in, we see an elephant approaching the watering hole, (the staff is so good at getting excited with you), and after a quick freshen up, Jeremiah is waiting to escort us down to the hideaway. In the hideaway Jeremiah takes the time to fill us in on Maasai culture - tooth popping (the middle bottom tooth removed for whistling), running, how they tell direction (bird’s nest placement in the trees). We have some lunch in the lodge overlooking the plains and see a giraffe-elephant watering hole showdown, followed by one of the best massages of our lives with angels Ritah and Winnie (more on them later - their head massage that made me feel like I was on drugs….“She massaged me like she loved me!”). I swim and drink tea and change into the most safari outfit I have.
The boys take us on an afternoon game drive and sun downer (happy hour in the bush), we see the elephants, make fun of James’ clear protective glasses, James comments on a “nice looking cow,” witness one of the most beautiful sunsets of all time, and make the boys take 800 pictures with us and of us that look like Annie Liebovitz shot them. Emma begins her habit of asking the boys “Is that a lion?” when she sees any animal. The boys inevitably answer “No,” and then she has to ask them “Are you sure?” as though she has an innate gift at lion spotting (meanwhile the guys are clocking activity about a mile out with no assistance). This happens about 1 million times.
Emma and I have a romantic dinner to the roar of lions, pack some thermoses, and hit the night drive at our summer camp for adults. Night drives are another freedom afforded during your time on a private reserve - there are no curfews, there are no rules to stay on the road, so your new boyfriends take you out in an open cruiser with a couple flashlights and filters and you hope for the best. Emma has expressed a major phobia of being attacked by the lion on said night drive, but about 30 minutes into our first one I will look over and find her completely asleep. We see so many animals, hyenas, especially - but we do not see lions. As an intermission, the boys take us to stargaze; one of the most fantastic skies I have witnessed. There is a different view of the stars and planets on that side of the world, James familiar somehow of all of them, and Emma and I lay on the ground to soak it in. We call attention to how we are essentially replicating that scene in the Lion King and, to absolutely no one’s surprise but our own, find out the boys loooooovvvveee The Lion King. “A bunch of royal dead guys are watching us?” After some more tooling around, and frantic combing of the landscape with flashlights, and more speaking of maa coming to terms there’s nothing out there tonight, we realize this is not the night for lions. Tomorrow is another day.
Day 4 - Best Day Ever
Our 6am wake up enters our room with fresh coffee. Today, we riiiiiide!!!! We wolf some food at the lobby, go with the boys to the equestrian center, which has been ransacked the night before by elephants. We meet Becky, who fits us and judges our ability with a few rusty laps around the ring - a quarter through lap 1 we are at a canter (a cause for celebration with Emma’s horse). We meet out in the plains with back up (hands from Ol Donyo, and their bigger horses) and are made immediately aware of how very in the wild you are. Giraffes and plains game are so close, and you realize you are essentially just riding another version of them. My horse is trying to push the pace, stop to eat grass, or fake pee so he can more grass, Emma’s is on perpetual holiday (were we riding each other’s spirit animals?). We learn a bit about Becky, who has given up her music career in London to follow her dream, 4 years in the making! to live in Kenya and work on the reserve. You really can do WHATEVER YOU WANT IN THIS LIFE. We enter from the bush onto the plains and once again in this great life of mine, I am met with the opportunity to ride a horse, fast, through a truly beautiful and incredibly open landscape. It takes my breath away.
We approach a gorgeous table set in the middle of the plains, and see out breakfast being cooked for us over an open fire pit. It is so picturesque it is unbelievable. We have coffee, eggs benedict, parfait, and some bubbles, and after some talk about boys, and some more bubbles, James gives us the nod. We gotta get to the boma.
Emma hops in the front of the cruiser to ride shotgun with James, for a reason I’m still not even sure of today, and the course of the entire trip changes. I take the back, back row with Jeremiah. And the four of us go on a road trip. We see ostriches, giraffes, pumbas, bustards (”B-U-S-T-A-R-D….”), but more important than the wildlife and landscapes, we enter our own microcosms with the boys during our hour ride. Oddly enough, each of us paired with closest match to our personality types, resulting in easy, flowing conversation and guards absolutely dropped. Out of respect for the boys and our friendship with them, most of what we talked about, will not make its way here - I have no fear of forgetting for the remainder of this lifetime.
We reach the village and without much (any) warning, the group of two women at the entrance begins to multiply and James looks over and says “Go! Go dance.” I don’t know what else I was expecting to happen, or if because I was so used to observing everything interesting over the past few days from a cruiser, but in we went. It is unusual to have people singing that in such close proximity, in patterns that make sense to them but not to you, and soon you have necklaces being draped on you and you are dancing, you are laughing, and you are very, very happy. The women started grabbing our shoulders with an extended arm (their right shoulder, to our right shoulder) as a sort of hug, of appreciation of acknowledgement.
We enter into a circle to introduce each other, There are about 15 of them and 2 of us, with Jeremiah translating and James taking pictures and talking to the village children. We try each others names out, and Jeremiah tells us a bit about their personalities - (one is the leader of the women, one is the funny one, she was basically the hype man of the dancing part, and one of them was straight up called “the fat one.” We laughed). I am able to replicate the pronunciation enough to be referred to as a “White Maasai” and am OVERJOYED. They find out Emma is from Nairobi and lose their shit (Jeremiah tells us later that they said ”We can tell from her hair!” - dead). They all want to know if we are married or have babies, we say “no.” And the CHIT CHAT BEGINSSSSS! I say I want a Maasai husband to mix things up a bit and am nearly led to a hut to marry someones son. I don’t know who intervened to stop it but I still wonder to this day….
We head in to a smokey, dark hut to meet the leader of the tribe. She is a calm woman, speaks slowly, and feels like a mythical character. She has a shaved head, layers and layers of beaded necklaces, and hands that look like they belong to someone 20 years younger. We ask a million questions with Jeremiah translating, at one point a child comes in, only identified by a pair of arms flying in from the doorway stage left, to deliver a baby goat. Like, in a, “You forgot this I’ll leave it here” sort of way, but he did it as an ambiance-move which we LOVED.
Maasai women, like lions, are the ones you don’t sleep on. They build the houses, keep the houses, have the children, raise the children, prepare the food, manage the valuables and the money. Maasai have arranged marriages and in some cases, multiple wives, so her husband on this day, was watching the cows and was then going to stay with his other wife. Very different.
Then we meet the children. The only way I can describe it is as a frenzy. They are SO CUTE, joyful, and sometimes you just feel them touching your shoulders, touching your hair, they try to crawl into your lap. They don’t want anything from you, just lots of affection (this is across the board - you often see adult men holding hands down the street in Africa). Lots of laughing, high fives, and a few English phrases they have learned and want to try out. One of them you hear a lot is “I’M FINE!!!!!” which is so so funny to hear from such a tiny little voice. It typically follows a “Hello!,” not dissimilar to their “Jumbo!” and response of “poa!”… which also means “fine.” Lotttsssss of laughing. During this segment, Emma takes the “pic of the trip.”
We buy some beautiful Maasai necklaces from the makeshift marketplace, horns, bracelets, things to help us remember - the boys help us negotiate and pick out a few items. It really does start to feel like we are a team. And just like that, it is time to leave. But like most of this Africa trip, the only way you can reason leaving this amazing place is because another one is right around the corner.
The guys take us to a roadside spot with the same landscape we have seen most of the day. Red dirt, trees, shrubs, standard protocol around here - and lay out a picnic blanket and comfy oversized pillows. They play some Kenyan music, and pull out tins of food, one, specially labeled “Taylor and Emma, from Chef Kelvin.” We open it. The tin holds only passion fruits, both greens and purples, halved, and with their orange jelly insides dripping out. These had and will continue to be Emma and my obsession for the greater part of the trip. We are surrounded by angels. We lose it. We eat lunch, ask about the guys favorite meal, “Meat! Milk! Blood!” and find out that they never drink water and sometimes just don’t really eat at all. More confusion on our part. We finish up and all help pack up the car, and I don’t know why this was such a turning point for me, but this was when I knew we were all friends. Not Emma and I on a trip, but the four of us enjoying a day together. We take our usual spots in the car and carry on to the next portion of the day; “the drug deal.”
As we peel out to the main road, me with a Tusker in the back seat with Jeremiah, Emma up front with James, who is wearing her recently purchased Maasai necklace, the guys ask if we want to go see the town. Of course we want to see the town. We also want to try and score some Khat - a chewable root the boys made the mistake of telling us about with similar, stronger effects than coffee. “I don’t chew khat,” says Jeremiah, who in about half an hour, will definitely be chewing khat. We don’t think this is a part of Ol Donyo’s featured activity list, but, when in Kenya, you must do as the Kenyans do, and Emma and I are fulling interested in abusing our power as guests. While James and Jeremiah are asking townspeople for a lead, James dips into a local bar (”A bar! Can we go in?” -me, “No, girls aren’t allowed.” - James), and finally, as we give up and pull onto road, we see a man with a bundle of sticks and WE HAVE LOCATED KHAT. The adventure is complete. We each chew a stem, it has no effects whatsoever, and now, it is time to go home.
The ride home conversations doubles in intensity from the ride there. The combo of Tuskers, Sauv blanc, and comfort level has led to Emma and James arguing about gay marriage in Kenya and Jeremiah and I discussing some equally heavy topics in the backseat. This was one of my favorite hours of my favorite day. The front seat a hotbed of debate, I kept finding myself distracted talking to Jeremiah, as James is wagging his finger in the air at Emma yelling “I’ll tell you something!!!”! I don’t know why but I can tell he got this from his father and it makes me LAUGH. At one point, one of us brings up “You guys say ‘100 percent, for sure’ a lot.” And it sticks. We will be chirping this phrase for the remainder of our short time with the boys. It gets big laughs, every. damn. time.
Earlier on the trip, the boys told us a story of being chased by a lion while riding into work on the motorcycle they carpool in on. We say we want to ride motorcycles, specifically their motorcycle, “The Chinese Gazelle.” They agree but think they need another motorcycle so the four of us can go out together. Then they say some things in Maa and laugh, to which Emma and I pipe in “ENGLISH PLEASE!!” and they make up some lie about securing the bike.
We pull up VERY LATE to the lodge, with the staff waiting for us, feeling like we missed curfew. We have completely lost track of time for our outstanding massage with Winnie and Ritah, but all is forgiven as we are “on Africa time.” We end up asking Rich, the manager, to please let us sign some waiver, ANY WAIVER, to let us ride motorcycles, and he says “absolutely not.” We threaten to take motorcycle rides in Nairobi, from strangers, instead. He says we can’t do that either. We threaten to basically kill ourselves, and he doesn’t seem to care (just kidding). We are heartbroken, but get over it as it is massage time, and peel out of clothes, take a quick shower to wash off the dust, and settle into our paired massage tables set up in our bedroom. We put on the fan, a sound that is nostalgic and soothing for me for reasons I am not sure, and all is well in the world. We talk through the whole massage with the girls. We start to talk about childbirth, about men, about women. They both start telling us stories that would blow you away - about the cultural stigmas and expectations when you have a child, and about the strength of women in Africa. They are in a league of their own. Deep in conversation well after the end of the massage, the girls join us on the patio to gaze over the landscape of Chyulu Hills, appreciate it all, and give us the best best hugs. Winnie pulls Emma aside, tells her “You have to be strong.” There are many more tears.
Our angels leave the room, we relax, I take a dip and take an outdoor shower. We head up in our robes to our rooftop and watch the blood-red sunset, we slowly get ready for our last dinner and night ride at Ol Donyo.
We are escorted to dinner (this is standard - you flash your flashlight out of your room when walking anywhere at night, a Maasai grounds security will chaperone you to the main lodge. The only English they speak is to ask “What is your name?”.. it is very sweet) and instead of the main dining room being set up, are escorted through a clearing with 4 outdoor fire pits surrounding a set table with Maasai shukas draped over each chair, lit candles everywhere, and antler chandelier hanging from a tree - all else pitch black in the night. We are sat with a couple from San Francisco on honeymoon (who we had seen earlier in the morning gracefully running sprints with Maasai escorts in the plains - beautiful), a Chinese tycoon and their helicopter pilot (had landed hours before directly on the property), and Ol Donyo management. At one point in the evening, we pull Chef Kelvin aside for a quick thank you that is cut short, and revisited later with a passed note from the boys. Feeling too much like we were back home with the light small talk at the dinner table, we pack some thermoses and meet up with the boys, who are waiting for us in the truck for the night drive where we will finally, FINALLY see a lion.
Half an hour into the night drive, James sees the flashlight catch something. We reverse the car, cutting through the some brush and sure enough, are greeted by a simba. The reality of a cat that could eat you, being a few feet away, in the middle of the night, starts to dawn on you in new ways. You lose them when the flashlight cuts out and it is …. frightening. We observe on our own for 20 minutes, totally quiet, except for the lion lapping up at the watering hole, and the boys say we have to radio the lodge so other guests can see him too. Five minutes later, the San Francisco newlyweds pull up and the husband, trying out new joke material in the most interesting of settings, yells out “Is that a mongoose!!?!?” Everyone laughs. This joke will also remain for the rest of the trip. Having now seen what we came here to see, the rest of the night drive becomes a combination of more deep conversation - even more nuanced to the boys and their lives a continuation from today’s drive. I am met with the sad, sinking realization that we only have hours left with these boys. Of all the boys in the world, these ones. As we pull up to the lodge for the last time, I remember James leaned back against the truck with his little poncho and his arms crossed, telling us matter of factly that we are “the best guests ever.” We exchange ‘Nakupenda’s’ and ‘Lala Salama’s’ and hug, really hug, them both goodnight.
Emma and I return to our room and head up to the star gazing lounge. She and I, laying under the African stars under a mosquito net with hot water bottles at our feet, start telling each other stories - details of our individual conversations with the boys (”That’s only because it THREATENS YOUR MASCULINITY!” ”YES….THAT’S TRUE!!!”), looking at all the pictures of the day, sharing videos and recordings we have taken. We find the boys on social channels, friending them both.Trying to hang onto them. It feels like the only way to keep the happiness alive - the hope of staying in contact with them. It our best day ever. At 2am, we blow out the lantern on the roof and head down to bed.
Day 5
The sadness is palpable. We write each of the boys a letter that we really, really mean, pack up all of our things, wolf down a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, and greet the boys for a final drive before our 8:30am flight. No one is making eye contact.
It is mostly quiet. Bless their hearts, they are still trying to teach us about the fucking animals. We don’t care. We keep trying to tell them “our new guides will be terrible!” and they keep telling us no, that they will be great. So positive its embarrassing. James points out Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Chyulu Hills behind us and says, “These two mountains look at each other every day, but will never meet, but we had the chance to met each other.” We don’t even know what to say. We are handed a note from Chef Kelvin, apologizing for stepping away at dinner the night before, and am left wiping tears from under my glasses.
We get to hell, aka the airstrip, and James kills the engine. We say we are going to miss them, so much. James says we will meet again, “If not in this life then it another.” The knot in my throat swells. Something comes in from the radio, the boys whisper in Maa quietly and then turn around and tell us, “There are cheetahs nearby. We are going.”
We are screaming as we rip through the plains in the land cruiser, at a speed it was never intended to travel. Going what feels like 80 mph, we have our last adventure with the boys - another chance on the planes; a bonus round. Emotions are volatile at this point, so it feels like we have won the lottery, knowing at any minute this plane is going to come looking for us, and there is a much welcomed chance we may miss it. We approach the cheetahs, the most beautiful of the animals of Africa, with full bellies from a recent meal. They are graceful, the size of large dogs, and with tails that look like balancing features of a mobile. Their eyes are unbelievable. It was amazing to see them, and sad to have to drive away.
Back at the airstrip, with our final minutes left with the boys, Emma and I recap the trip, ask some final pressing questions that Emma videos, and Jeremiah jumps for us. It’s a sacred act, a ceremony for junior warriors to show off athleticism and “for funs” - but the basis of it is to impress the girls.“The higher you jump, the more ladies you have….” I could probably quote the event in it’s entirety because Emma snagged a secret video and we have rewatched it on our phones 100 times, easily. He is a sight to witness - lithe, graceful, controlled, after 10 high jumps, not a sign of fatigue. We understand the appeal. We ask James to jump and hear a muttered “No…. I am not allowed….” We laugh. James is married with two children, his wife would be pissed. We talk about off-topics concerning our new trip with new guides (”Concerning yesterday’s questions… just ask them about the wildlife….” - Jeremiah, to which James answers “Or they will ask if you trying to get them fired!’”), how we need to learn to run for next time (Jeremiah comforts - ”We will train you. We will train until you are the best.”) and how next time we will go on a bike ride together and take motorcycles out. We moan about not having enough time here.
There is silence and the boys say they can hear the plane. Emma and I think they are crazy, with our wrecked, American ear drums, and sure as hell, a couple minutes later, the plane lands. I am not okay. Emma and I are holding hands. Jeremiah is somehow driving the car for the first time ever, so I don’t think the guys are keeping it together either. With nothing else to say, James mutters, “Well, here we are.”
We get our bags and everything is a blur. We leave their notes on their seats, we are hugging and saying bye and nakupende-sana. I’m trying not to cry. The air controller asks “Are you Emma and Taylor?” We nodd furiously in choked response. How is this happening so fast? One foot in front of the other, up the grated collapsible stairs. Entering the plane the size of a stretch limosine, we turn to catch our last memories of the boys. As the door closes, I see them waving like parents at a bus stop, two hands each. The door clicks shut. I fall apart. I look over, and Emma's not much better, but with a maa beaded neckplate on, its comical. With tears pouring down our face, we shake into our seats between deep heaves, barely noticing the honeymooning passengers whispering to each other from leaned shoulders.
We take a window seat in the back of the plane to take in a final glimse. We see James and Jeremiah driving away, back to the lodge. But then - a hesitation. Are they stalling the cruiser? Jamming my face into the plane window to see, the plane spins, eclipsing them from sight. Emma, watching as intensely as I, whimpers quietly “Taylor, where did they go?”
The plane picks up speed as we prepare for take off. Bolting towards the sky as we become airborne, a hundred meters in our clear line of sight on the horizon we see the two most beautiful faces in the world. Shining up at us as we fly over, James and Jeremiah jump up and down from the roof of the vehicle, waving in furious celebration. A release as they realize we see them too. Pounding my open palm on the tear streaked insulated plastic window, I cry, more, through the purest moment of my life.
I am unsure of what I did so right in this life to experience something so special, but I am grateful nonetheless.EMMA AND T TAKE OL DONYO
After that, I am never the same.