How it all begun…
As a boy, growing up in the village was fun but. Adventures were abundant coupled with some misfortunes but we took all with a stride. After the passing of our father, our mother relocated her family from Nairobi city (where I was born) into the village. It was a near nightmare for me. My brother whom I follow had been enlisted in school (in the city) at an early age, which meant that I was left at home alone when he did go to school.
Although my elder sisters were around, their presence did not help much in my feeling lonely and empty day in day out, so that was that. I ventured out to make friends with other boys but it was not always easy and thus endevoured to become my own friend. That is what lonely is all about.
Curiosity and search for adventures became my friends. My mind was always pre-occupied with desires to know how children in faraway lands spent their lonely days. I would walk to the nearby river (main source of water) and I would drool and phantomize the journeys taken by the water as the river flowed away from me into unknown destination.
Sometimes I would walk along the river banks following the river course with hopes of discovering some new place the water was always seeking to go to. Fear and loneliness would then drive me to return home.
My search for adventures and the desires to know about myself brought me closer to nature. While at the river, other young boys would bring their family goats and cattle for a drink. I loved the soul searching sounds made by the animals as they jostled to beat each other for a spot in the river. While the animals took in their water, we made friends with the boys and ventured to make skin dipping swims in the river. Skin deeps because in the village those days under wares were a preserve of initiated boys and men.
Jumping into the river from the banks was always a delight. The brown silt carrying waters was handing many treasures including frogs and fish. Small girls would come to the river accompanying their mothers or elder sisters with to fetch water for home use or to do their family laundry or both. One such encounters were eminent, scampering into the bushes with our short pants and shirts in our hands would be a training in 100 meter dash. It was fun.
Eventually, my Adventures were curtailed when I was enrolled into primary school (in the city) where I joined by brother. Walking to and from school brought some new adventures. Along the way, there were many squatter (Farming on road reserves as well as riparian land along the rivers) farming lands with sugarcane and bananas. Ravaging these farms became our new adventures as we walked home from school. Once in a while, some wealthy resident along the way would have some fruit trees visited by us when the seasons were favourable.
As I grew older and advanced in grade school, my curiosity for knowledge of foreign lands and people grew and I joined the Macmillan Library, a public library on Banda Street in Nairobi. There I would browse books about Ethnic peoples of Guyana, Fiji Islands, the Mayan and American Indians as well as historical books. My desire to travel to these faraway places and meet these people grew day by day.
Sometimes while on my library adventure and visits, I would hear some sound of music filtering into the library and was curious to know where this was coming from. After the library, I would follow the music and this was I discovered Garden Square near KICC. Garden Square was a restaurant that hired Congolese Live bands to entertain revelers during the week ends. I then added Garden Square on my list of places to visit while going to the library. Lingala Music interment in French fascinated me. With no radio back home, I would always dream and long for the weekend to visit my favorite spot. Just to mention here that with no money and being too young to be allowed into the restaurant, I always joined other young people and jobless adults watching and listening from the KICC grounds ( re-named COMESA grounds) Baba Gaston and Super Mazembe were the bands playing at Gardens Square.
Music and the Lingala/French languages were then added into the list of my desired journeys into adventure. It was not long before my library days took me into Uhuru Park and here apart from the man-made lakes. I discovered Park Inn (A restaurant and Bar the serviced the many people who came to the park to enjoy the grounds and fanfare for families. Les Mangelepa, a popular Congolese band of the 70s and 90s was resident. I vowed that one day into the future, music and French language would feature in my life.
After completing my primary school, I joined a famous secondary school in Nairobi where the school had a marching band. This did not fascinate me much but I loved the sounds that rent the air as the band played at their rehearsals and during school events. While at the school, I discovered the school music teachers had guitars and my world was reopened. I taught myself how to play the guitar with some help from older boys. I was getting closer to my dream of being a musician.
I Joined the Wildlife Club in the school and we learnt a lot about nature and wildlife conservation. The impact of environmental degradation as well as effect of poaching on Kenya and African Environmental Protection Capacities. We were honoured to have visiting speakers of thee likes of Cynthia Moss and the late Dame Daphne Sheldricks who opened our eyes into Conservation powers of the young people in Africa. In form 3, I became the vice chair of the club and with much help and sponsorship from the club patron (one JOHN KIRKWOOD), we organized holiday trips to Kenya’s National Parks and Game reserves. I was eventually enjoined with nature. My childhood dreams were actualizing.
We visited far off places like Meru National Parks, Tsavo East and West as well as Taita Taveta hills. Samburu Reserves and others. After graduating high school, I joined the employment world, working in accounting. I was not enjoying it at all. I missed the travels. As Providence would have it, an opportunity availed itself when a lecturer from the Kenya Utalii College came to place a newspaper advert for his Air Travel College at the advertising office where I worked (Major Media House in Nairobi). He tried to entice the lady cashier into enrolling for Travel and Tours Course at the Kenya Utalii College in Nairobi.
Being a married woman and a mother, the prospects of joining a college was not sitting well with the cashier. She shared this information with me during our lunchtime talks and jokingly challenged me to enroll for this course being a young single guy. Collecting the information from her, I did take up the challenge and history unfolded. I was called for an intake interview, where some of the pertinent questions from the panel was knowledge about Kenya Wildlife Management and Environmental Conservation.
Having been an ardent visitor to Kenya’s National Parks and a young conservationist during my secondary and high school day paid off. I sang the songs that the interviewing panelists were seeking to hear. I was not afraid of speaking my mind largely because I was working and here was just an effort to fulfill a challenge from a work colleague. They told me to await their response in a few months.
Before I received any response from the college, I resigned my job at the Newspaper Company. I was not enjoying myself at all. Here I must admit that when I look back, it was really irresponsible and was more driven by youth. I was elated after the interview because something told me then, that life had more for me than just pushing and crunching numbers.
Eventually the letter did come. I was admitted into the Tourism College to undertake a Tour Guiding and Management Course (although my previous desire was to take a Tours and Travel Course because it had Accounting as a major). Well here I was heading back to school.
At the College my life started making sense once again. The highlight of the Tourism Course for me was the fact that it offered two foreign languages, mainly French and German. I was over the stars in exhilarations.
The college had some music instruments. A whole band and all it required was players. With some colleagues, we formed a bank and aptly called ourselves “The Avocadoes”. I guess the Tourism Culinary magnet drew us to the condiment. We did well as a band and entertained the students during event as well as playing Pro-bono during evenings at the Utalii Hotel as well as being invited to grace weddings of prominent Hotel guests.
Tourism was really the thing for me and I felt whole while undertaking the course. Upon graduation, I joined employment at one of the leading Tour Operator in Nairobi. This was a European Company that dealt mainly with French and German speaking European clientele. Working in the French department as a Tour Guide as well as Airport Customer Service, this realized my dream of desiring to meet people from far off countries, learning their cultures and sharing my country and continent with them. Could I have asked more for a realization of a childhood dream??
BACK OFF! AM EATING..!
This is a mental retort that floats in every Tour Guide /Tour Directors mind during their career. What’s up with this? You may ask. Working as a Professional Safari Guide / Tour Director for the past 34 years, I have met quite a number of people of different nationalities, various cultural and racial back grounds and in all these encounters, my position is that of a researcher and answering questions. The mode and delivery of these question is divers but questions they are and answer must be given.
Every visitor comes with some inherent desire to know more about the country, its people and culture. They engage the services of a guide to help them arrive at their desires to acquire knowledge. Unfortunately for the guide, meal time offers the best opportunity to get answers to burning questions and thus the guide is usually on the Hot Seat.
Just as you have scooped a forkful of some veal escalope into your mouth, the question start pouring in. Remember you mouth is full, so you should not speak (so table etiquette says). So you quickly swallow the veal whole to ready yourself to answer the question. Remember this is not a yes and No session but lecture story type of answer. While you belabor to answer their question, the guest who delivered it, dives into their spaghetti Bolognese and enjoys it while hot as they listen to you mumbling off rhetoric. Meanwhile your escalope is gathering the cool Savannah airs and becoming cold.
One answer bring more question and soon, the waiter a heading for half consumed escalope to take the plate away. You matter to the in Swahili that you are not done and here the guest feel pity on you and promise to let you take you dinner, but by now, you are already revving to deliver more insights into the culture of your people as asked earlier.