In early February I met Natalia Rios, Larry Fishbourne, and Laikyn Graham at JFK Airport for a flight to Nairobi, Kenya. The young New Yorkers were the members of the Kili Initiative’s 2019 team and I was their ‘chaperone’.
The Initiative’s goal was to broaden their horizons by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.
The trio knew nothing about me other than I was old and Larry from Red Hook asked why I had been chosen as this position.
“Firstly I a teacher and mountaineering isn’t my expertise, however the director thought I could provide guidance.” I couldn’t tell them the real reason.
“How so?” demanded his sister Laikyn.
“I don’t know, but I’ve traveled everywhere in the world.”
“Meaning?” Natalia narrowed her eyes. I was several generations upstream from hers.
“That I will always be there for you.”
“How do you and the director know each other?” Larry looked at the travel board. Our flight was boarding for departure.
“Tim and I met in Tibet. It’s a long story.”
“We have a fifteen-hour flight ahead of us. Do tell,” demanded Nathalia.
I showed a Polaroid from Lhasa.
“In 1995 my baby brother had died of AIDS and I set out on a pilgrimage to the holiest places in the world to speed his soul across time. Tim and I met in Chengdu China.” I had told the story hundreds of times over the years.
“I’ll give you five hundred words or less version on the way to the gate.”
The story ran from Bangkok-Chiang Mai-Kumming-Chengdu-Lhasa-Kathmandu to Varanasi.
They laughed at the right places and I cried thinking about swimming in the Ganges to expiate my brother’s sins. Mine were indelible.
“I’ll tell the longer version around a campfire in Africa.”
“We can hardly wait,” yawned Natalia.
Once on the plane I called my family in Thailand.
“Be careful,” warned my wife.
She was scared a lion might eat me. My younger sister shared the same fear and thought I was foolish to climb Kilimanjaro, then again there is no fool like an old fool.
People did die on Kilimanjaro and lions are man-killers, however ever since I had been chosen to go to Africa, I had been dreaming about hyenas gnawing on my bones.
The carnivores were everywhere in Kenya, especially at night.
My nightmares had included a high-pitched laugh from the killers and they were hah-hah laughs either.
Forty minutes later the 777 rose from the runway and the airplane veered east over Long Island. The flight was not full and we stretched across the 3-seat economy section. Natalia and Laikyn slept like queens, while Larry and I watched movies during the long flight. Neither of us shut an eye.
We arrived in Nairobi at dawn.
No one was waiting outside the terminal. Thousands of miles from the USA. I called Tim in Geneva. No answer. The three young people looked at me. I stepped closer with a smile.
“Where are we?”
“Nairobi,” answered Laikyn.
“Exactly and we are in Africa. The mother continent.”
“Africa.”
“The word sounded different here.
I called Sadique, our Kili Initiative connection.
“Traffic is bad, but I will be there soon.”
I told my young friends all was good.
They smiled with the trust of an old man.
Fifteen minutes Sadique showed up with an apology.
“No worries”, said Larry.
We piled into a van. Our destination was the Nairobi YMCA.
The rundown hostel had a swimming pool. I swam in the cool water. Nairobi was equatorial, but high on the plains like Denver. I toweled dry and dressed for lunch, at which we met the Kenyan crew.
Juba, Jackman, Vanessa, Ubah, and Maureen.
They were young, although none of them said anything about my age and after the meal our group walked through the parks to the city center.
“I don’t see anyone smoking,” I commented crossing a bridge over a pond.
“No one smokes in Kenya,” said Vanessa, a Kibera native. “You can not smoke most everywhere and there are no ads. Do you smoke?”
“Rarely. Like maybe a cigarette once a month.”
“That is a good thing. Only White People can afford cigarettes.”
I was the only M’zoongoo in sight. My friend and Kili Initiative founder, Tim Challen, had warned of this phenomena, but it felt good to be a minority.
Fast Steve was a trek guide for the Kili Initiative, but also belonged the rescue crew of Nairobi.
“I work for Kili Initiative, because if I do I am safe. If I do not then I have two options. Working or not working. If I work I am safe, If I do not, then I have two options.”
He believed in safe after saving lives at January’s DusitD2 compound attack. He was a true hero even if he was an Arsenal fan.
He took us the the site of the old US Embassy. The 1998 bombing destroyed the building and killed hundreds, mostly Kenyans. Another car bomb hit the US embassy in Tanzania. A memorial honored the dead.
“Where were you on 9/11?” asked Larry.
“I watched the second plane hit from my rooftop in the East Village.” I had been 49. I looked at the names of the Nairobi dead from 1998. “So many people.
“I was three years old. The only way to end terror was through peace.”
“I believe that too, but sometimes a gun cures violence.” Larry came from Red Hook. He was telling the truth.
The projects had suffered dramatically during the Crack Epidemic. Things were better now.
“Is there anything you want to see?” asked Old Steve.
“Yes, the old train station. I have a thing for them.”
“We can go there tomorrow.”
The rail terminal was in the near distance. I thought about going alone, but we were a group and I was a member of that group. I said nothing, as we wandered back through the city.
We ate a meal at a Turkish restaurant.
When I went to the bathroom, the waitress handed me one sheet of toilet paper. She did the same for all of us. We laughed about this through park.
Families were enjoying the day.
Jubah related his hanging in the park as a child.
“This was our paradise. We walked from Kibera. Two hours. Africans like to walk.”
Our team talked about themselves with caution. They were unsure of everyone, but we had a month to find who we were. Both for the others as well as ourselves. I wondered who I would be to not only them, but myself. Truthfully I really didn’t care about who I was, since old men are invisible to the young and that is not necessarily a bad thing in 2019.
