On Our Way Home, The Long Way…

(Pics at bottom of post...)

When we were getting ready to leave Zambia for Edina almost 7 years ago, I suggested to Molly, only half joking, “Let’s Sail Home!” Beyond the great experience this would have been, it was driven in part by the intuitive sense that getting on an airplane in Africa and less than 24 hrs later being in Edina is just too big of a jump.  Alexandra Fuller, a now American who grew up in Southern Africa, writes…

“It should not be possible to get from (Kenya to Edina) in less than (1 day), because mentally and emotionally it is impossible. The shock is too much, the contrast too raw. We should sail or swim or walk from Africa, letting bits of her drop out of us, and gradually, in this way, assimilate the excesses and liberties of the States in tiny, incremental sips....”  Scribbling the Cat  - Page 72

My almost-always-game wife did not go for boarding a boat in Angola and making our way north across the Atlantic and we did make the miraculous jump home in a day.

I remember well the couple weeks it took to adjust to driving being a passive activity rather than a fully engaged activity that requires nerves of steel, to the abundance of choices that came at us every day, to the general order and rule following that we Minnesotans embrace, taking on the general busyness that we so pride ourselves on and a hundred other differences.

2 weeks from today we will make that jump again, but after only 3 months here and living in a modern city (Nairobi) the shock will not be quite as great.  But still, as I sit in the tropical jungle that is our backyard today, it is amazing to me that we will make that jump again.

On a personal level, perhaps the greatest gift of our time here has been our stay at Amani Gardens.  When not traveling this has been our home.  While a simple, but beautiful place, the experience has been made, as it always is, by the people here.  The staff have been our friends and family and, while coming from very different places, we have found much common ground – Robert, Frank, Lucy, Newton, Rosy, Donald (or “D’Trumps” as Bennett calls him) and many more have been faithful and fun friends. (There is a pic below of note Molly wrote to one of the staff that captures some the strong sentiments that developed in a short time.)  In addition to the Kenyan staff, the Erickson family that manages the property and who happen to be from Minnesota, have been another unexpected treasure.  Clara and Bennett and their four kids could always be found messing around starting at 4:00 teatime and spilling into dinner and often the night.  All of this was an unexpected gift. 

Since our last blog we have had a few memorable adventures.  A couple weeks ago I had meetings scheduled in Arusha, Tanzania that coincided with a visit from our college friend Mo Hislop.  Wanting her to see the real Africa, we rented a Land Rover with a tent on top and set out on what in the end turned out to be a 4 day, 2 country, epic road trip where we tasted some of both heaven and hell. 

On the “Hell” side of the ledger, specifically tasting:

1) Thinking it was a cool sip of water, I took a deep drink of…..Kerosene.  Now, this would be bad happening in your driveway at home.  It was REALLY bad happening on nameless, muddy road somewhere between Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro.  I’ll spare all the details, but we made it to a hospital in Moshi, I was fine, but miserable the rest of the day/night, and no long term damage done.

2) On our last day, within reach of Nairobi, our 1982 Rover breaks down due to a way too big of bump I hit going way too fast. We made it back to a small town and in true Africa fashion, our car was parted out and fixed all over the city, and then put back together.

3) Once we were back on the road we found ourselves on one of the worst stretches of road in all of Africa – The Mombassa Highway – in the rain.   I’d always known it was bad but since we would only be on it for a little more than an hour I figured it was ok and worth saving the extra 2 or 3 hours another route would have taken.  I was wrong.  It was the most harrowing 1.5 hours of driving I think any of us have ever experienced.  We witnessed unnecessary accidents/near accidents the whole way.

What made all these experiences that much more harrowing was that they all happened against the back-drop of the Garrissa attacks that had occurred the day we left Nairobi.  147 students were killed by Al Shabab terrorist – it was a sad, sad reminder of the crazy world in which all of us live and how quickly things anywhere, but particularly here, can go wrong. 

We did get back safely with some lessons learned and, as mentioned, experienced some “Heaven” as well, namely.

1)    Watching Kilimanjaro (18,000 feet tall) break out of the clouds on Easter morning

2)    NOT dying or getting really sick from drinking Kerosene.

3)    An evening and morning of thousands of animals in Amboseli National Park and an amazing, unexpected Easter brunch at a lodge.

4)    While stranded and waiting for our car repairs, watching Clara and Bennett gather up half a dozen local kids and all of us reading the Easter story together.

5)    The bond that comes from having done something that, like in any good story that has moments of tension and you don’t know how parts are going to end, but that in the end turns out ok.

(A big shout out to Mo for coming over, trusting us, and for smiling and laughing (almost) the whole way.)

We are leaving Kenya tomorrow morning and will spend our last two weeks in Malawi and Zambia visiting our clients and staff in these countries.  After the busyness and terror attack induced tension of Nairobi, this feels like a great ending to what on the whole has been a very memorable 3+ months.  

On the work front I am leaving incredibly encouraged by what we are doing and have a much clearer vision for what the next chapter of PFS should look like.  I am excited to get back with my team in Minnesota and continue to find ways to help reinvent Africa’s food future. 

For those who wonder, “What exactly does Partners in Food Solutions do?” We had an excellent story that ran last Sunday in the StarTribune.  It does a good job painting a picture of how and why we are connecting the expertise from leading food companies to Africa based food companies. 

We look forward to our return home and seeing you soon.

The Dykstra Family.