A Vision of the Four Elements, Part 1 - Earth

En route to Kakamega Kay and I advanced our clock through seven time zones until we reached the Kenya Comfort Hotel in boisterous Nairobi late on our second evening of travel. A few hours later we waited in Peter Thiong'o's vintage taxi for the gates to open at Nairobi National Park.

We started our 'safari' at daybreak. Before long a water buffalo blocked the road in light too dim for a photograph. Peter waited for it to amble off, averting a mismatch between the little sedan and an irate bull.

Out on the savannah our guide jubilantly proclaimed it a lucky, lucky day when he spotted a rhinoceros. Do 'massive' and 'exquisite' fit together comfortably?  Peter allowed me to roll the window down for a photo. Tall grass obstructed the camera focus, but we tasted the wild aura of Africa.


Black rhinoceros

Some of the creatures seemed to invite petting, but you never know whether something with claws and fangs might be admiring them too. The Park insists that no one gets out of a vehicle.


Impalas

Zebras

Remains of an eland

Lion resting with full belly

Peter ventured down a side trail to discover a rare view of fully visible lions immobilized by a recent meal. It was as close as he'd ever been to these monarchs. We argued over how far I could open the window as he backed the car around. The cats got restless.

Time and distance carry their psychic as well as their physical dimensions. We did not intend to test feline reflexes against electric window speed. We parted peacefully.


Baboons pilfering picnic barrel

At one place in the Park dismounting is allowed, where a kind of détente prevails with scavenger baboons who claim sovereignty over the picnic area.

Further along we came to the congregation center of another Park denizen that helps itself to trash. Marabou storks frequently scavenge landfills and the street-side debris of Kenyan towns.


Marabou storks

A pair of hunters-on-the-wing surveyed surrounding grasslands from a treetop perch.


Black-shouldered kite





They bore only the slightest resemblance to the fleet-footed but flightless ostrich.

 

 

Ostrich

The ostrich seems modeled more on the lines of a giraffe, but it does come from an egg.
 

 

 

African tickbirds satisfy themselves and the giraffe.

 

 A remarkable diversity of gentle and ferocious creatures coexists, but elephants no longer roam these plains. At a large pyre of ivory ash in the Park Kenyan authorities burn tusks confiscated from poachers nationwide.


Hartebeest

Zebras on the road

A dammed stream

An electric fence traces the boundary around the Park's forty-five square miles. Nairobi skyscrapers sprout incongruously along its northern flank. The Earth waits existentially.

Traversing a remote valley we came upon a rhinoceros family in a damp wallow. The parents closed protectively around their calf in an earthly microcosm. The sight made Peter the happiest man in the land.

Peter Thiong'o drops us back at the hotel.

Nairobi thrums with the aspiring lives of 3 million people, where Karen von Blixen (Out of Africa) managed a coffee plantation only a century ago. The Earth quivers.

We flew to Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria, en route to our sojourn at the Kakamega Care Center, giving kids a chance. They speak three languages: their tribal earthly tongue; the Swahili that unites them; the English of progressive life. We heard that 30 million people live along the shores of Lake Victoria in a constellation of countries.

We sifted thoughts of equity and fairness. We experienced hugs and smiles. We reverberated with William Blake's "for mercy has a human heart/Pity a human soul."

 

We pondered the muse of social engineering in the future of the Earth, whether wisdom has a soul, whether any comprehensible process is at play, the nature of restraint and the restraint of Nature. 

Like Earth we enjoy our own importance, the extent of our moments, the singularity and the oneness that forge our brief orbits.