Life on the ranch

It’s been eight week since I set foot on Kenya’s equatorial turf and more than a fair share has happened.  Time has slowed down and my senses have heightened; I suppose I am getting used to living in the bush. Though, there are a few things that I hope I never get used to – I hope I will never take for granted.  Things like the wildness of the wilderness (and the constant possibility of bumping into a buffalo or ellie or puff adder around the corner), not being able to see any lights at night aside from the stars, the varied vastness of nature and all the different ways to experience it…

It’s rather hard to put into coherent words, and sometimes an image gives life to stories in a more truthful way. So, here are some snapshots of the best moments of my introduction to the wild kind of life over the past 2 months.

Lion cubs at play

"I'll hide, you seek..."

In this life – the wild, bush life - we all know game drives are a daily routine, especially when all the roads leading to and from you are gravel and lined with animals, so even an admin trip to the head office just a few kilometers away to deliver an envelop becomes an eventful wildlife experience.  The other amazing thing about the bush (aside from being totally surrounded by it) is that you will never experience the same thing twice, and so each new day is truly new, and each moment in the wilderness unique indeed.  

"Got ya!"

On one particular drive a few weeks ago, I saw something I’d never seen before. We came across some adolescent lion just before dusk. They were playing as siblings do, in that sparring, annoying but loving manner.  Pouncing in the long grass, chasing each other and hiding among the trees before darting out and grabbing each other’s tails in their mouths! It was as if they didn’t know we were there, or they were just having too much fun they really didn’t care we were there. I took this shot as one of the cubs stopped reaching up to swat leaves and rested on the branches, posing mischievously.

"Peek-a-boo!"

A view from the top

Mount Kenya in all its colorful glory.

One of the best ways to experience a landscape is from the air. You see things from a different perspective and are able to take in the enormity and entirety of a view. I was lucky enough to join George and Lucilla Stephenson, the owners of Laragai House, on a helicopter ride around Mount Kenya the other day.  We set off with our hot flasks planning to make a tea stop somewhere on the mountain.  I wake up to Mount Kenya in the distance each morning, with its gentle and gradual slopes climbing to a jagged peak coated in glacial ice. Nothing could have prepared me for the majesty I was about to experience. This time of year the skies are clear, so we were in for a sight. We were off; that initial hovering of the helicopter as it leaves the ground and remembers the element it functions in is one my favourite feelings. We soared over the Kisima wheat fields, the Ngare Ndare cedar forest and undulating foothills and made our way closer to the summit. The higher we got, the more sparce the land beneath us got, turning from thick forest, to high-altitude bush, to grass, to bare volcanic rock and ice. We were at nearly 17,000ft. The azure and turquoise lakes layered on the mountain side caught our eyes, and the swaying through crevices and gorges gave a whole new meaning to vertigo (the height and thin air making us even more giddy and light-headed). We made a short stop, couldn’t drink our tea as we were feeling funny, and went for a short walk to feel our feet on the ground again.  After hearing from our Tropic Air pilot, Jamie Roberts, about a rare little colourful chameleon called a Mount Kenya chameleon that is only found on the mountain, I kept my head down and my eyes peeled hoping to find one. No such luck this time, but I did snap a shot of this view before we hopped back in the helicopter and flew home. I won’t forget these colours, and have already planned to hike up the mountain to get a closer view of it all. 

The Chilli Jam lesson

It is quite a major thing getting used to a whole new way of life – new surroundings, smells, insects, weather patterns, sounds, fears, tasks, wardrobes, routines… and a whole other ball game adapting your senses to your new context. One rather interesting and underestimate challenge is refining your taste to the local food.

We all know we are what we eat. So much of life is centered around food, and so much of who we are is tangled together with cuisine and eating habits. Meal time in almost every culture across the globe is a time of meaning and sharing, and even though it is a necessary ritual (no food = no energy = no life), it is also mostly a celebrated one. Local food, traditional dishes and ‘home’ cooked meals are rooted in a deep sense of comfort, belonging, familiarity, health and well-being. And so begins the redefinition of who I am by completely adapting my taste…literally. (And how fitting: I am writing this with my first cup of South African rooibos tea – my absolute favourite and what I’ve been brought up on – since arriving in Kenya nearly a month ago.)

On my first visit to Kenya over 6 years ago, I was introduced to the seemingly unanimous local habit of putting finely chopped fresh chilli onto every dish served. (As if equatorial Africa's climate is not hot enough already, now one has to inject their food with a healthy (or rather unhealthy at times) dose of fire!) But, oddly enough, I have been inspired by chilli (and not because it is an aphrodisiac)...

I am classing my transformation of now trying and actually enjoying chilli (and I mean serious, real chilli) as a willingness to grow, an openness to new things and an enjoyment in change…something anyone, anywhere and in any situation can learn from. And so I though it approporiate to share this magic recipe for Laragai’s Famous Hot Red Chilli Jam (which I have taken the liberty of naming).

This chilli jam is enjoyable on pretty much everything from Beef Wellington to buttered toast... Florence – one of Laragai House’s chefs who has been doing this for 15 years, demonstrates how it is done…

Laragai’s Famous Sweet Chilli Jam

Makes 1litre

Ingredients:

• 500g long fresh red chillis (stems trimmed)
• 3 garlic cloves
• 750mls white vinegar
• 640g castor sugar

Method:

1. Halve 100gm of the chillies and place in the bowl of a food processor.
2. Halve and deseed the remaining chillies.
3. Coarsely chop and place in the food processor.
4. Add garlic and 250mls of white vinegar.
5. Process until finely chopped.
6. Place the chilli mixture, remaining vinegar and caster sugar in a large saucepan over a low heat.
7. Cook, stirring for 5 min or until the sugar dissolves.
8. Increase the heat to high and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 35-40min or until the sauce thickens.
9. Pour into sterilized airtight bottles and seal.

Note: for a milder tasting sweet chilli jam sauce, replace half the chillies with 250 red capsicum, halved and deseeded.

The lesson from the chilli: adventure and change is a good combination, even when it comes to something as simple, yet as fundamental as food. 

Diary: The Great Migration

A long time it had been budding and blooming at the back of my mind that I would follow my childhood dreams of Africa. (Not the exact dream of living in a cave with a bear – and don’t laugh, the cave was attached to the wooden house where I was going to live. I think I was a bit confused as bears don’t come from or even live in Africa? Nonetheless, the childhood dream I’m speaking of is one of wilderness and freedom…and there were many a pastel picture drawn of jungles and wild animals all in the trees, and of me wearing shorts with no shoes as evidence). I suppose I have always had it somewhere embedded in me that I would be able to live barefoot, wake up to the birds’ morning chorus, and have my home amongst the lion and leopard and elephant all vying for a space in the world, yet living together naturally.

So, when I decided I was going to quit my job, sell my car (my only real asset) and move to Kenya to work on a ranch at a lodge with my boyfriend, it felt normal. It felt like it had always been part of the plan. Despite leaving everything I know behind: my friends and family, my lovely wedge heels and neon nail polish, red cappuccino’s and champagne honey, highways lines with watsonia’s and Cape mountains peppered with proteas; I was peaceful, and the thought of moving was one full of hope and promise.

Ready to go, with all 64kgs of luggage and
 two hats on my head.

After a few weeks of planning, sorting, packing, storing, selling, and repacking – making sure I had enough khaki and neutral tones that disguise dust well, and my new boys shoes (literally), brown Merrells (awful-looking but good-gripping ‘safari’ shoes…obviously with no heel) – I managed to squash my life into 2 suitcases and a trunk, and off I went to the airport. The last journey on the highway to Cape Town International Airport felt a bit like a pilgrimage, like I was following a star to a destined place. Although, far less glamourous than a pilgrimage implies. I was wearing 2 hats on my head (as there was no more space in my luggage) and sweating from pushing my trolley load of luggage when I waved a happy but teary good-bye to my surrogate SA parents (my aunt Lindy and uncle Cam). The hats were still on my head when I tried to wangle my way out of paying a ridiculous fine for being 34kg’s overweight (in true African style!). But, there I was, carrying more than my body weight in luggage across half the continent, 2 hats on my head and a big smile across my face.

I arrived to the stinking heat of an equatorial summers afternoon. There are no adequate words to explain the absolute pandemonium of Nairobi traffic. It is almost as if the chaos is a uniform way of life, where each mad driver is as mad as the next, and they all somehow know when to swerve and when to break. Maybe it is survival instinct at its peak. What is most ironic, and even impressive, is that the Chinese – possibly the most organized and meticulous people on this earth, have just built a massive highway system in Kenya, and the perfect new roads (with no signage or road markings) have sparked even more bedlam! It seems nothing can tame the Kenyan drivers (there were taxi’s driving into oncoming traffic on a one-way double carriage way!). Anyway, I made it through alive, had a day to sort out my new cellphone and buy some essentials, and then was braving the roads again to reach my final destination – Borana Ranch in Laikipia, on the foothills of Mount Kenya.

My new back garden getting some rain
(and plenty of thunder).

I finally got to Borana Ranch after 4 days of transit, had my bags kindly carried into the very sweet little cottage with a view that was to be my new home, hopped on the Landy with the guests for a walk and a drive, walked next to four elephant and a baby, saw a herd of 150-plus buffalo swimming in the dam, had a 5-star dinner at a lavish dining room table with far too many glasses and knives and forks and spoons and plates in front of me and a cozy fire glowing behind me, and eventually tucked into bed, only to be woken in the morning with a small knock on the door and a tray of Kenyan tea and coffee waiting on the step...a wonderful welcome to my new chapter of life.

The next few days involved having sundowners on the real Pride Rock; seeing eight teenage lions feasting on a giraffe carcass with vultures and eagles swirling up above and waiting patiently and ominously from the tops of trees for their turn; waking up daily to a doorstep delivery of tea and watching the sun slowly enliven Mount Kenya in the near distance; setting her glaciers alight; and discovering my new standard drink (aside from a GnT) – a Lake Malawi Shandy: half soda water, half Stoneys, a dash of Angostura bitters and a squeeze of lime.

After just one week of the altitude, the sun and the dust, I had Tom (my boyfriend) cut off all my hair before I went to sleep on the night marking my first week in Kenya. The new boyfriend-cut-safari-style was a very necessary adaptation to my new environment – now the wind can’t tangle it and the sun can’t dry it out too much.

Sunrise out my bedroom window. 

What’s left after selling my belongings, migrating to another country, and chopping all my hair off? Well…just picking up a new language (Swahili), starting a new job, living with a boy in my room, learning how to handle a rifle, getting used to checking for scorpions in my shoes, remembering to look for eyes when I shine my torch on my way back to the cottage at night, and reminding myself daily of how lucky I am to be where I am, living like I’m living.