Having always been interested in wild things, I asked a dear friend, a doctor in Seattle, why he’d dubbed me Savage back in our college days. “All the Irish were savages until the Danes came and civilized them, and built all their cities for them,” he emails. “Some remain so.” (I take heavily into consideration that this fellow hails from Denmark, a country known only for its pasty and porno, as he has often been teased.)
I guess he doesn’t call me Savage for nothing. For here I am a few years ago, hurtling down the A2 or Nanyuki Road to Corey & Jo’s Camp in the Samburu National Reserve. Liesl is driving and she drives like a trucker. Well, we are in a truck, so that figures, but it feels like we’re riding a mechanical bull going at full throttle. (Liesl and I have enjoyed a fast and lasting friendship for the past two decades, thanks to many an escapade in Manhattan and beyond. A ten-year veteran of East Africa, she co-owns VirginBush Safaris with her closest pal, Cindi, and they’ve made a great success of it.)
We buck, careen, skittle and soar along the ruts and ridges, heading north and narrowly missing a roadside collision course of farmers, donkeys, trinkets spread out on red blankets, pop stands, gas canisters and acacia trees. “Keep your eyes out for guys with AK 47s,” Liesl cautions me as I rattle and roll in the Land Rover. Huh? “Somalis.” Apparently, warlords and vagabonds are looking for some action across the Kenyan border.
The camp is worth the ride, mostly for its setting along the Isiolo River where marabou storks idle and for the weathered family affair that it is. Everything is a bit musty and dusty, including us. Everything except for Corey and Jo, the husband-and-wife team who run the show.
The British-born, plummy-voiced Jo strikes a pose in a floppy hat and flowery silk tea dress, calling to mind a garden party with the royal family at Windsor Castle. Tall, dark and quick on his feet, Corey is picture-and-pitch perfect as the rugged safari guide who knows about every bird, bush and wildebeest in the area. The couple home-school their son and daughter, both sandy-haired, tawny-skinned, blue-eyed and eager to show off their pet goat, Nigella. Nearly every night, intriguing visitors from the neighboring Elephant Watch and Intrepids Club swing by for sundowners (happy hour), so Corey & Jo’s is alive with personal color.
Yes, we soon find, everything in the camp is a bit raggedy around the edges, especially the surprise that awaits me in my bed (and we’ll get to that shortly). But that feeling of being in the bush, unadulterated wind, river, sky, flora, fauna, everything so close to how God made it is the relief Liesl and I have been looking for. And roughing it a bit is all part of the parcel.
At the heart of this very parcel is Ndgewe, a smooth operator if I've ever met one. He is Corey and Jo’s Jack-of-All-Trades, a stately African man who makes a mean martini and knows everything there is to know about wildlife and, I dare say, the wild life. Ndegwe’s got a knack for making us feel at home and for plying us with sensational stories around the campfire.
Nothing gets me going like well-spun yarns about what to do in the wilds of Africa, especially when facing natives of the four-legged variety. My friend, Anthony, a one-time big-game hunter turned safari guide and conservationist, speaks the law of the land: “If you get hurt by a wild animal, it’s your fault, not the animal’s.” Yet aren’t we all perversely preoccupied with such peril? Think of that exhilarating scene in the film version of OUT OF AFRICA where Meryl Streep and Robert Redford are out hunting only to encounter a hungry lioness.
“Okay,” I corner Ndegwe in the care-worn lounge with faded Persian rugs, a dusty chandelier and a bamboo, tropically-themed horseshoe bar. He is mixing up a batch of Jo’s Juice, not a whisper of fruit in it. “A tiger is coming at you,” I blurt, “a big, fat tiger.”
“First, madame, no tigers here in Kenya.” He smiles indulgently and Liesl let’s out a hearty roar, safari veteran that she is. “But a leopard. Now, there is a beast, you need to show him exactly who you are!” I edge closer to Ndgewe, as bewitched as a five-year-old. “You get behind him, and then you grab his tail like this, swing him around and around until he is so dizzy, he can’t see you!”
Rolling my eyes cartoonishly, I am captivated nonetheless.
“And an elephant, she charges towards you, you must run between her front legs and dive out from under her belly.” For some reason Ndegwe is wearing a turban and its gold tassel is shaking with mirth. “Stop it, I can’t take it,” I sigh. “No, no, the buffalo, he’s the most dangerous of all, madame! I can say, you cannot be too brave with the buffalo.”
I have already heard tall-but-true tales about Cape buffalo, considered by many of those in the know to be the most lethal of the Big Five (game that’s the most dangerous to hunt and also includes lion, leopard, elephant and rhino). My friend Moeller tells a riveting account of a bull buffalo goring him in the side, yet he managed to beat it away with the butt of his rifle while diving into a thorny bush that ripped him further asunder.
Narrow escapes – they set our imaginations on fire and our hearts thundering. Still, all this time I’ve been going to Kenya, more than ten years now, nothing has settled in my being so vividly as Ndegwe’s tall tales of rules to live or die by when encountering Mother Earth’s wildest of natures.
Meanwhile, after a particularly loud night with residents from nearby Buffalo Springs, Ndegwe escorts me to the tent with a flashlight as our only weapon. I toodle off to bed only to be attacked in the night by an extremely dangerous and damaging creature. Chiggers. Chiggers in my mattress have surfaced to cover my legs with bright red, welt-like bites.
Those wee little savages.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
THE SON ALSO RISES
“He’s such a gorgeous, gorgeous boy,” says Patricia in her heavily Polish-accented English, spoken softly. “Tiger Boots. We like him very much, he’s serene (she pronounces it seren), happy all the time, and I can see the two of you, the hand of God brought you together.”
We are at One of a Kind, the pre-Montessori neighborhood school where my son spends three afternoons a week, and Patricia, who resembles a beautiful young gypsy with her long black curly hair, is his favorite teacher. Upon listening to her, I’m on the verge of crocodile tears as I gather up the object of our affection, a young Russian prince, for our walk home on a shy summer evening.
I don’t really know how much to believe in fate or destiny, but odds are that, yes, something divine did have a hand in Tiger and I finding each other, late in my life and early in his. Who could have guessed or imagined or designed such a fit between us? Me, a single, 51-year-old, frowzy and frisky blonde Irish-American writer with ample attitude and adventuresomeness; he, a wary, blue-eyed, nine-month old child of unemployed, unmarried, Russian teenager-parents who’d relinquished him at birth to Baby House No. 2, one of three orphanages in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Only magic accounts for this match of mother and son…and a welcome surrender to the elements. Earth, wind, fire, stars, water, sky, sun -- all the glory be’s to which our passionate and pagan selves are indebted. Tiger is that elemental to me now, a two-year-old boy who takes on sunrise with cheer and chat, gleefully conversing with Coco and Spencer (his monkey and teddy) as he throws them at my bed. Who loves Cheerios and gogurt (yogurt) and coloring and perfumed lotion and Wellies. Who never leaves the house without a ball and book in tow. Who considers apples his most precious companion -- in a pocket, in the stroller, in the car, on the move.
Joy, joy, joy, that’s what Tiger lives and breathes. I am lying on the couch; he comes over to me, opens my hand and puts his cheek into it so that I am cupping his face. He nestles into me, sighing and giggling. He never gives up on me.
But I nearly panicked the first time Tiger came at me; I had never been party to anything like it. We’re in February; my son is 16 months old. He’s been attending One of a Kind for a little over a month and, although accustomed to crowds of kids from his orphanage days, is suffering a bit from separation anxiety whenever I drop him off. Squeaks, some hot tears, but nothing too heart rending.
The first Dublin snow is on the ground; the evening is dry and crisp and stirring. Having just arrived at the school to pick Tiger up, he sees me from another room, shrieks like some creature being drawn and quartered, limb by limb. He cries and claws his way to me, nearly clambering over the child gate. Patricia tries to lift him over and he cries even harder.
I am standing in the hallway, maybe 50 yards from Tiger, and I freeze. It’s a hot-and-bothered freeze; I am flushed and melting and sweaty. I can’t seem to move, for all of a sudden, my heart has literally dropped through the school floor into the basement. I want to run away and run to him; I need to be right there and anywhere but here. No one has ever needed me like this and I am aghast…and in awe. It is horrifying and heavenly; frightening and fantastic. And when we reach each other, my heart is back up where it belongs, ticking and humming, no longer underfoot. I hold Tiger close.
As for being a mother and beloving a son, I have since, and quickly, let go of any squeamishness, but not at all my sense of the sublime. Sweet surrender.
We are at One of a Kind, the pre-Montessori neighborhood school where my son spends three afternoons a week, and Patricia, who resembles a beautiful young gypsy with her long black curly hair, is his favorite teacher. Upon listening to her, I’m on the verge of crocodile tears as I gather up the object of our affection, a young Russian prince, for our walk home on a shy summer evening.
I don’t really know how much to believe in fate or destiny, but odds are that, yes, something divine did have a hand in Tiger and I finding each other, late in my life and early in his. Who could have guessed or imagined or designed such a fit between us? Me, a single, 51-year-old, frowzy and frisky blonde Irish-American writer with ample attitude and adventuresomeness; he, a wary, blue-eyed, nine-month old child of unemployed, unmarried, Russian teenager-parents who’d relinquished him at birth to Baby House No. 2, one of three orphanages in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Only magic accounts for this match of mother and son…and a welcome surrender to the elements. Earth, wind, fire, stars, water, sky, sun -- all the glory be’s to which our passionate and pagan selves are indebted. Tiger is that elemental to me now, a two-year-old boy who takes on sunrise with cheer and chat, gleefully conversing with Coco and Spencer (his monkey and teddy) as he throws them at my bed. Who loves Cheerios and gogurt (yogurt) and coloring and perfumed lotion and Wellies. Who never leaves the house without a ball and book in tow. Who considers apples his most precious companion -- in a pocket, in the stroller, in the car, on the move.
Joy, joy, joy, that’s what Tiger lives and breathes. I am lying on the couch; he comes over to me, opens my hand and puts his cheek into it so that I am cupping his face. He nestles into me, sighing and giggling. He never gives up on me.
But I nearly panicked the first time Tiger came at me; I had never been party to anything like it. We’re in February; my son is 16 months old. He’s been attending One of a Kind for a little over a month and, although accustomed to crowds of kids from his orphanage days, is suffering a bit from separation anxiety whenever I drop him off. Squeaks, some hot tears, but nothing too heart rending.
The first Dublin snow is on the ground; the evening is dry and crisp and stirring. Having just arrived at the school to pick Tiger up, he sees me from another room, shrieks like some creature being drawn and quartered, limb by limb. He cries and claws his way to me, nearly clambering over the child gate. Patricia tries to lift him over and he cries even harder.
I am standing in the hallway, maybe 50 yards from Tiger, and I freeze. It’s a hot-and-bothered freeze; I am flushed and melting and sweaty. I can’t seem to move, for all of a sudden, my heart has literally dropped through the school floor into the basement. I want to run away and run to him; I need to be right there and anywhere but here. No one has ever needed me like this and I am aghast…and in awe. It is horrifying and heavenly; frightening and fantastic. And when we reach each other, my heart is back up where it belongs, ticking and humming, no longer underfoot. I hold Tiger close.
As for being a mother and beloving a son, I have since, and quickly, let go of any squeamishness, but not at all my sense of the sublime. Sweet surrender.
Friday, October 2, 2009
OUR LOCAL
On Sunday, Larry burst into our local (pub) as if his pants were on fire and boomed, “Where you’ve been, you beautiful creature from hell?!” Everyone seemed to feel he was talking to them; even Tiger reached up to be swooped into Larry’s arms, but it turned out he had eyes only for Tanya. Tanya who, in her fifties, has but six teeth to her name.
As I watched their reunion unfold at Kiely’s, though, I was taken by how Tanya’s demeanor and body language changed. Suddenly, I glimpsed the fetching girl she must once have been as she giggled and shied away from and slapped at the veteran hands Larry offered. Quite a pair.
Just around the corner from where I live, Kiely’s, a famous rugby bar in Dublin that’s just down the road from the Leinster Team and the Bective Rangers Club for which my father played, boasts many a colorful character. Most of whom prefer the old-style Ciss Madden’s, a traditional pub which serves as Kiely’s sitting room.
On any given Sunday afternoon, Tiger and I head to Ciss’s for the papers, cappuccino, a Ribena and toastie for my son (black currant juice and a melted ham and cheese special with tomatoes and onions), or an Irish coffee for me on a particularly brutal winter’s day. (And winter lasts a long time in Ireland. Wet as Lake Michigan and bone-marrow chilly, the cold so permeates your entire being, your senses cloud over, frosted. It’s no wonder whiskey is the country’s preferred elixir; nothing else will melt you.)
Back to Ciss’s. It’s a classic neighborhood haunt and Sunday is no exception. Vera and Ian, a widow and son duo with a love of lattes, are usually stationed in the corner and eager to visit with me and Tiger, as we are with them. We talk cruises, house happenings, work, family and a smidgen of delicious Donnybrook gossip. (Long ago, Vera and her husband had a favorite table at Ciss’s. When he passed away, the pub gave the table to his wife as a keepsake.) A true Gentle Ben, Benny often comes in, fumbling for a bit chat. According to one source, Benny had a twin who got all the brains and “he got none of them.” But I find that Benny possesses a certain and solid knowingness. Last week, Tiger wasn’t with me. “Where’s Timmy?” he asked. “What do you mean?” queried Vera. “Oh, he means Tiger,” I replied. “Taidgh is the Irish for Timothy.”
“Tiger, Tiger, come here boy-o and give us a hug!” chimes Stephanie who often works the bar. With her sleek black hair and huge green eyes, she’s a fetching colleen and has become one of Tiger’s favorite babysitters. In fact, she’s now one of our favorite people in Dublin. Then there’s Jonathan, the pub manager, known for his warmth and jiving and over-the-counter freshness with the locals. He’s also known for his inimitable ways with danger, always narrowly escaping death himself while leading others to near-destruction. Last spring, in the Wicklow Mountains, our friend Scorch took a mad tumble off a bicycle when Jonathan braked unexpectedly to a full stop. Scorch hit a tree, flipped over a ditch landing upside down, and broke assorted pieces as Jonathan looked on innocently.
And on an early Friday evening, many of my neighbors and shopkeepers (the cobbler, the barber, the beggarman/thief) can be found toasting life as we know it in Ciss’s nooks and crannys. Adam also hangs out during happy hour. A Ryan O’Neal lookalike, he’s got a way with the ladins (Irish diminutive for lad, of course). “Howza (How are you?), you little beast? What’s your mummy done to you now?” he wants to know, dangling a ripe set of keys in Tiger’s face. My wee one leaps with particular joy.
I won’t go into it here right now, but fair warning: When a rugby match is on, whether it’s an All-Ireland game or a European match, Kiely’s and Ciss’s are what my friend Teresa calls “heaving.” Bursting at the seams with boys and girls, men and women, in a frenzied state of hullabaloo. They spill, just as their pints do, into the mean streets, assuring the entire neighborhood of ruckus and rawhide.
Yes, Ciss’s has been home to many a scene in the years I’ve lived in Donnybrook. This past year, Tiger has often been with me. But before he was with me, about 18 months ago, I was talking excitedly to Jonathan about my impending trip to Kazakhstan to adopt a son. The father of two young boys, he nodded and smiled, adding, “Ah sure now, if he’s any trouble, just bring him ‘round here and we’ll rare him.”
Hmmm. Tiger being reared in our local? That he is, in a way. The locals have so welcomed him to the neighborhood, embracing him with gusto and good cheer, fuss and fondness, casting Tiger under their spell once and for all. My ladin who came from so very far away to become family.
As I watched their reunion unfold at Kiely’s, though, I was taken by how Tanya’s demeanor and body language changed. Suddenly, I glimpsed the fetching girl she must once have been as she giggled and shied away from and slapped at the veteran hands Larry offered. Quite a pair.
Just around the corner from where I live, Kiely’s, a famous rugby bar in Dublin that’s just down the road from the Leinster Team and the Bective Rangers Club for which my father played, boasts many a colorful character. Most of whom prefer the old-style Ciss Madden’s, a traditional pub which serves as Kiely’s sitting room.
On any given Sunday afternoon, Tiger and I head to Ciss’s for the papers, cappuccino, a Ribena and toastie for my son (black currant juice and a melted ham and cheese special with tomatoes and onions), or an Irish coffee for me on a particularly brutal winter’s day. (And winter lasts a long time in Ireland. Wet as Lake Michigan and bone-marrow chilly, the cold so permeates your entire being, your senses cloud over, frosted. It’s no wonder whiskey is the country’s preferred elixir; nothing else will melt you.)
Back to Ciss’s. It’s a classic neighborhood haunt and Sunday is no exception. Vera and Ian, a widow and son duo with a love of lattes, are usually stationed in the corner and eager to visit with me and Tiger, as we are with them. We talk cruises, house happenings, work, family and a smidgen of delicious Donnybrook gossip. (Long ago, Vera and her husband had a favorite table at Ciss’s. When he passed away, the pub gave the table to his wife as a keepsake.) A true Gentle Ben, Benny often comes in, fumbling for a bit chat. According to one source, Benny had a twin who got all the brains and “he got none of them.” But I find that Benny possesses a certain and solid knowingness. Last week, Tiger wasn’t with me. “Where’s Timmy?” he asked. “What do you mean?” queried Vera. “Oh, he means Tiger,” I replied. “Taidgh is the Irish for Timothy.”
“Tiger, Tiger, come here boy-o and give us a hug!” chimes Stephanie who often works the bar. With her sleek black hair and huge green eyes, she’s a fetching colleen and has become one of Tiger’s favorite babysitters. In fact, she’s now one of our favorite people in Dublin. Then there’s Jonathan, the pub manager, known for his warmth and jiving and over-the-counter freshness with the locals. He’s also known for his inimitable ways with danger, always narrowly escaping death himself while leading others to near-destruction. Last spring, in the Wicklow Mountains, our friend Scorch took a mad tumble off a bicycle when Jonathan braked unexpectedly to a full stop. Scorch hit a tree, flipped over a ditch landing upside down, and broke assorted pieces as Jonathan looked on innocently.
And on an early Friday evening, many of my neighbors and shopkeepers (the cobbler, the barber, the beggarman/thief) can be found toasting life as we know it in Ciss’s nooks and crannys. Adam also hangs out during happy hour. A Ryan O’Neal lookalike, he’s got a way with the ladins (Irish diminutive for lad, of course). “Howza (How are you?), you little beast? What’s your mummy done to you now?” he wants to know, dangling a ripe set of keys in Tiger’s face. My wee one leaps with particular joy.
I won’t go into it here right now, but fair warning: When a rugby match is on, whether it’s an All-Ireland game or a European match, Kiely’s and Ciss’s are what my friend Teresa calls “heaving.” Bursting at the seams with boys and girls, men and women, in a frenzied state of hullabaloo. They spill, just as their pints do, into the mean streets, assuring the entire neighborhood of ruckus and rawhide.
Yes, Ciss’s has been home to many a scene in the years I’ve lived in Donnybrook. This past year, Tiger has often been with me. But before he was with me, about 18 months ago, I was talking excitedly to Jonathan about my impending trip to Kazakhstan to adopt a son. The father of two young boys, he nodded and smiled, adding, “Ah sure now, if he’s any trouble, just bring him ‘round here and we’ll rare him.”
Hmmm. Tiger being reared in our local? That he is, in a way. The locals have so welcomed him to the neighborhood, embracing him with gusto and good cheer, fuss and fondness, casting Tiger under their spell once and for all. My ladin who came from so very far away to become family.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Kenya, Here We Come...or Irish Logic is an Oxymoron
Here's the rub: In seven weeks, my adopted two-year-old son Taidgh, nicknamed Tiger, and I will be moving to Kenya from Dublin, Ireland. This blog, which I plan to update weekly, is really a toddler's tale of all the adventures/misadventures which ensue for us and those, for better or for worse, who surround us. (As for the subtitle, From Kazakhstan to Kenya, that is also my son's domain: He was born in Kazakhstan to Russian parents, holds both Kazakh and U.S. citizenships, currently resides with me in Ireland, and has already traveled around Europe, America and East Africa.)
Back to the matter at hand. Such a trip! Crazy, you say? Crackers? Nuts? Leave the first-world amenities for third-world chaos? That's what my good pal Mark in Mt. Kisco, NY, thinks. And, I admit, he's one smart cookie.
Here's a recent email exchange:
Mark: Buying a fuel-efficient car makes sense. Locking your doors at night makes sense. Taking vitamins makes sense. Moving to Africa? Doooo tellll...
Susan: How's this: Limited income; great way of life; full-time nanny $150/month; fab friends of 20 years; gorgeous country; wildlife; dashing safari guides; terrific weather (sun, sun, sun vs. rain, rain, rain -- and some of it horizontal!); fluent, Swahili-speaking son; more than fun for visitors; adventurous for me; time and means to write a book and more; perfect cottage on secure grounds in which to live; learning to drive Land rover stick shift on heinous roads; African culture; being a minority (good lesson for anyone); beautiful people in general...not to mention, time to get outta here.
M: Sign me up.
A week later in a phone conversation, Mark reneges. "There's famine and civil unrest in Kenya right now!"
"Well, I guess that's why it's so affordable," I insist.
"Affordable! That's quite a rationale. I don't get it."
I then explain patiently to my pal that Irish logic just doesn't exist (my father was from north Tipperary, so Ireland is half my homeland). One of my favorite gems from a man of the sod is, "Just because it isn't true, doesn't mean it didn't happen." Having lived here for six years, that sums up the nation's thinking for me.
"Besides," I confide in Mark, "Taidgh will have a magical childhood there. And so will I."
He snorts, somewhat appreciatively.
As for my darling son, Tiger's new favorite word these days is Hello. I believe that he extends that welcome every single day to the world at large, wide and wonderful and willing as it is.
Watch out. Here we come.
Back to the matter at hand. Such a trip! Crazy, you say? Crackers? Nuts? Leave the first-world amenities for third-world chaos? That's what my good pal Mark in Mt. Kisco, NY, thinks. And, I admit, he's one smart cookie.
Here's a recent email exchange:
Mark: Buying a fuel-efficient car makes sense. Locking your doors at night makes sense. Taking vitamins makes sense. Moving to Africa? Doooo tellll...
Susan: How's this: Limited income; great way of life; full-time nanny $150/month; fab friends of 20 years; gorgeous country; wildlife; dashing safari guides; terrific weather (sun, sun, sun vs. rain, rain, rain -- and some of it horizontal!); fluent, Swahili-speaking son; more than fun for visitors; adventurous for me; time and means to write a book and more; perfect cottage on secure grounds in which to live; learning to drive Land rover stick shift on heinous roads; African culture; being a minority (good lesson for anyone); beautiful people in general...not to mention, time to get outta here.
M: Sign me up.
A week later in a phone conversation, Mark reneges. "There's famine and civil unrest in Kenya right now!"
"Well, I guess that's why it's so affordable," I insist.
"Affordable! That's quite a rationale. I don't get it."
I then explain patiently to my pal that Irish logic just doesn't exist (my father was from north Tipperary, so Ireland is half my homeland). One of my favorite gems from a man of the sod is, "Just because it isn't true, doesn't mean it didn't happen." Having lived here for six years, that sums up the nation's thinking for me.
"Besides," I confide in Mark, "Taidgh will have a magical childhood there. And so will I."
He snorts, somewhat appreciatively.
As for my darling son, Tiger's new favorite word these days is Hello. I believe that he extends that welcome every single day to the world at large, wide and wonderful and willing as it is.
Watch out. Here we come.
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