Ten Centuries subscribers will note that it has been a while since our last post. Christmas and an extended visit to the United States have come and gone. Life took a slight detour in early January when chest pains and elevated blood pressure sent John to the emergency room while we were in California visiting our parents. He emerged from the hospital a couple days later with two shiny new arterial stents and instructions not to return to Kenya for over 30 days. I, on the other hand, needed to get back to work. So off I went leaving him to recuperate on the beach in Los Angeles, playing golf with my uncle and riding his bike hard enough to test his refurbished cardiac plumbing.

John, back on Lewa, watching the sun rise this morning with a tall, quiet visitor.

While John was away, my friend Lise Hansen from Denmark visited me on Lewa. She accompanied me without complaint through all the time-consuming, hurry-up-and-wait routines of living life in the bush. Hopefully the morning glow on Mount Kenya, the vast plains dotted with zebras, Oryx, eland, rhino and elephant, the occasional big cat and sundowners and dinner under a full moon on Mlima Nugu made up for some of the many hours she spent bumping along in a hot, dusty Toyota Land Cruiser.

With Lise as company I felt safe enough to get some exercise. One day we power walked on the airstrip. The next, and apropos to this post, we took off through Manyangalo, a community completely surrounded by Lewa, and hiked along the road, protected from rhino, buffalo and elephant by two six-foot tall electric fences. One thing about a walk through Manyangalo is that you are never without a chattering escort of curious children. First they giggle, shove and dare each other to approach and shake “the mazungus” hands. Once the ice is broken you are surrounded by kids hoping to have their pictures taken, to slap high-fives with you or to interact in some way. Inevitably several are toting toys that you would never find on the shelves at Target. These are the three most recent additions to my growing inventory of bush toys.

The universal wheel and stick toy.

In an expert’s hands.

A push toy that has seen better days but is nevertheless still in active use.

Not for the faint of heart. School girls play “toss the dead monkey.”