EPISODE ONE

BACK ON THE ROAD, THE MOSQUITO GETS ITS BITE BACK, AND CHRISTMAS LOOMS

I’m standing on the very lip of the African Great Rift Valley, leaning on my motorbike. This has become one of my favourite landscapes – after the Sahara Desert, of course. This topographical wonder splits Africa from top to bottom, from Jordan to Mozambique, surely one of the finest geographical features of this wonderful continent that has so fascinated and engaged me for 36 years. 

I’ve just ridden a winding rocky trail, difficult travel, through a forest on the slopes of the highland hills, riding up to 3050 metres, according to my phone. 10,007 feet, I calculate. Now, on the edge of this wonder, I am gazing eastwards upon mile upon mile of green bush land far below; over 4000 feet below just here, so deep is this great cleft. 

It suddenly strikes me, as it does more frequently these days, that I’ll soon be 75! By popular convention I am supposed to be old enough to ‘know better’ than this continuous footloose exploration of the world around me, but really, this is the only thing I know. The thing I’m best at. The activity that’s kept me young enough to still be doing it! An old mzee mzungu on his piki-piki. (Old white man on a motorbike in KiSwahili) “How OLD are you?” I’m often asked now, for elderly Africans are a tiny minority in countries with average life expectancies often in the 50s. Astonished strangers exclaim in surprise. “So old!” I chuckle inwardly, and bask in the respect that old people usually enjoy in African cultures.

Anyway, why would I follow convention? Why start now?

This travelling has been the major influence of my life: this odd desire to see beyond the next hill, meet unknown people, have new experiences. It’s the activity I do best. Certainly the one that engrosses me and takes most if my money and keeps me forever curious. 

With a glance eastwards, I throw my leg over the bike and ride on, spinning down the curling road that weaves 4000 feet down into the depths, green this El Nino year that has brought floods to many across the  African continent. There’s a weedy green lake in the middle of the hazy Kerio Valley. Elephants wander the bush country below. I know they are there. Last year I crossed the burning valley on foot, a huge effort, pushing through the thorny scrub, blood spattered and dusty – and disturbing a couple of giant elephants breaking boughs from trees. They gazed at us in wary interest from about 100 yards away, HUGE they seemed, and returned to their grazing, probably well aware that they could outrun us, or attack if the need arose, three puny humans of not much threat, on foot in difficult bush country. One of them ‘old enough to know better’ anyway. I’ll walk down again tomorrow, 3500 feet into that furnace, where I’ll buy the best mangoes in the world, and return to the Kessup plateau weary, red as beetroot but satisfied with another story to tell. 

Today, already day ten of this year’s safari, I am riding back to Kessup to visit my hiking pal, William, a wiry ex-policeman, with no extra ounce to his skinny frame. He lives on next to nothing on his acre or two of shamba on the fertile plateau, caring for his cow, Dutch, that I bought for him a year and a half ago. He’s so proud of his well bred cow and will not leave home for more than a day or two, leaving Dutch in another’s care, for he believes she’ll pine for him! Dutch is pregnant now, “Eh, I sacked the veterinarian! He failed to make Dutch pregnant THREE times! I wasted several thousand good shillings. Then I took her to to the secondary school where they have a good bull of the same breed. Now she’s pregnant! Free!” When Dutch gives birth, scheduled for April 5th, he hopes it’ll be a female calf, “In our belief, a development here, a swelling…” he indicates the side of his torso as if it were his cow’s, “we believe it will be female.” If it’s a male calf, he’ll sell it after two years, but a female will start a dynasty that has the potential to make him financially independent at last. He can sell milk to the schools around his village. A small investment for me – far beyond the reach if most here, and certainly beyond the resources of an ex member of the Nairobi  Flying Squad, who resigned from the force after a vicious attack by a machete-wielding criminal that left him in intensive care for many weeks and slightly disfigures his face. His cow, and maybe more of them, holds the chance of independence into his old age. He’s 58 now and appears to me to live on fresh air and the pennies his daughter, a nurse now in Australia, sends home. This is the way for so many on this continent. Dutch cost me £375 – a lifeline for William’s future; a couple of months electricity bills for me at home… 

He’s waiting for the sound of my Mosquito, my little 200cc magic carpet that flies me over these highland landscapes – and across the neighbouring countries, these past six or seven winters. I bounce down the track to the campsite/ guest house on the very edge of the valley, here on the plateau some of the way down the steep escarpment. He sees this view every day of his life; his opinion probably more of the inconvenience of living in this terrain than my delight at the extensive shimmery view. 

Hearing me approach, he hastens down his scrubby shamba, kept lanky for Dutch to graze. And here’s Dutch shadowing him. I must greet both! The cow looks healthy, and so she should, since she gets first dibs at any good fortune that comes William’s way. I must admire her before our greetings and brief news of the past twelve months. Then I ride on into the neighbouring guest house, where as always William has beaten down the price of my room – and this year it’s almost embarrassing as the Kenyan shilling, 150 to the pound sterling in March, is now exchanging at 195… I have a small room at the side of the compound, with a view of 20 miles across the Kerio Valley below. “We’ll walk down tomorrow! Then on Thursday we’ll walk right along there, see where the forest is, and back up to the top.” 

“But tomorrow, we’ll come back by ‘means’!” I say. “I’ve only been here ten days and I’m not acclimatised to the heat, the sun or the altitude yet…” We are standing at around 6500 feet above sea level and even now, I can feel the restriction of oxygen. “I’ll adapt in a few days and maybe then we can walk down and up in a day, but not yet!

The next day, we do indeed scrabble down into the oven of a valley. It’s gravelly and I AM more cautious than I’d’ve been a decade ago. Injuries DO mend slower now, there’s no hiding the fact! But I’m still determined. And I know the satisfaction I’ll have when I sit down for my beers tonight. It’s hot as hell, and despite Mr Currter, the awful old oversized shirt that Marion bought for me last year in the secondhand clothes market – it’s written on the tail: ‘Currter 4’, probably the late owner – despite the shade of the grubby white shirt, my skin soon glows. We hike down the unstable path to the long dust and rock road that sweeps through the valley, and after mugs of sweet chai, hail a taxi motorbike and then a 12-seater minibus – joining the 16 people already aboard, back up the winding hill road to Kessup.

“The goodness is, we both like to walk!” The day after, we walk along the plateau, up and down on the red dust between small fields of maize and local vegetables, on which people live. We visit William’s aunt, youngest sister of his aged mother. In these rural areas of multiple children and often polygamous marriages, Josephine is William’s age-mate. They schooled together. They haven’t seen one another for years, so there’s news to exchange over tea and passion fruits on the grass of her compound, greeted by neighbours and relatives. We walk on, the sun beating down. I can feel my cheeks beginning to glow despite the hat. Soon we will clamber up the escarpment, back up to the regional town of Iten, where international runners train at the altitude of almost 8000 feet. A drunk joins us from shack bar at the roadside. He’s been on the dreadful gut-rot of a local rum, ‘KK’ – Kenya Kane. It’s a frequent killer. “You saved me JB!” exclaims William several times a day as we walk. “You stopped me from the KK and wirigi and smoking too! Now I take tea, and I even gave up the bulsa (local beer from maize). Look at me, so much healthier!” But the drunk with us hasn’t had the benefit of my advice. He’s garrulous, a bit smelly and has a sharp-edged voice. He’s proud that he can run, so he spurts ahead, then stops and shouts, “I can RUN!”

“Well, run along then and run home to sleep!” I tell him, as William laughs. Eventually, with no thought process working at a logical level, it seems he does just that. He begins to run ahead up the curling red dust road. “Hey, look,” I say several minutes later, catching sight of him most of a mile ahead, “he’s still running!”

We wind through lovely forest hillsides, the sun shaded by thick growth, until we join the tar road into Iten. There we buy potatoes for our guest house supper – the cook roasts them very well – and get a couple of boda-bodas back down the escarpment to the Kessup plateau and our evening beers. This time, I AM tired! Yesterday the valley hike, down three and a half thousand feet, and today the plateau and mountain walk, up 1000 feet at the end. 

There are no other guests in the whole guest house. “There’s no money!” says William. “But our president, he’s doing well. If he can stop corruption, he will be a good president, but…” his voice tailing off tells me just how hard that will be. “But he made a speech. He said, ‘I will subsidise production, but not consumption’.” Wise words indeed. Like me, he will subsidise a cow for future prospects, but not idle consumption of newer ‘devices’… 

***

But I’ve started my journal already ten days into my 90 day trip. What of the first week and a half..?

I’m well accustomed to the routine of my journeys to Africa by now – I guess this is at least my 36th time. This trip, though, I tried a new route: appalled by the standard of ‘hotels’ around Bristol airport, I opted for a late afternoon flight that would see me overnight in Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, where a smart hotel cost £95, about the same as a laminate and cardboard-walled dump at Bristol amongst the tacky coffee sachets and cheap tea bags, with the manager having noisy sex with the receptionist through the plywood floors (yes, that was last year, and I swore never again!). The other Bristol option is the efficient but utterly faceless American chain hotel for no less now than £175 – greed-flation at its most aggressive. So, Schipol it was. And what a delight: friendly, bright and so satisfyingly well designed – and a ten minute walk from Departures (turned, of course, into a bureaucratic obstacle course and two passport stamps by Brexit. Huh.)

Next morning, I was early away to Paris and on to Nairobi, arriving in the mid-evening. Pity my luggage didn’t come with me… How infrequently I carry more than my little backpack on travels is now fully justified by the frustrating experience of trying to retrieve my bag – holding, amongst other things, a new helmet, waterproof and goggles; two Christmas cakes for the children here and in Uganda; a kilo and more of cheese, chargers, and books; but most crucially the photo books and photo prints I bring back for all the smiling Africans, who are so happy to receive them, even ten months later. Air France responds with typical meaningless computer-generated palliatives and mitigation, constantly asking for my patience, while doing nothing. I recognise, over two weeks after arrival, that the only way to get my bag will be to return to Nairobi (at least three days’ journey and 400kms away) and search the baggage room myself. It’s a large room filled to the ceiling with several hundred abandoned bags about which no one is doing anything! I saw it when I went on my second night to the airport… 

For days, I have washed the same shirts, pants and socks and spent hours attempting to replace chargers, medication, ear plugs, clothes and the rest. It’s possible I may return to Nairobi in January. Maybe I’ll trace the bag. Meanwhile, fortunately, I can use the old clothes and bike gear that remains in Kitale with my Mosquito. On my flight alone, 37 bags were missing – and forty irritated, weary travellers jostled to register their losses with the one clerk available in the arrivals hall. The romance of travel. Lesson: check no bags. Now I have to spend hours assessing the replacement value and submitting a claim to Air France for about £700 worth of belongings… 

****

Two nights at the old fashioned United Kenya Club in Nairobi, with its gardens, tired but rather charming rooms, and its parking spaces from a colonial era: Chairman; Deputy Chairman; Deputy Vice Chairman; Vice Treasurer, and its funny old rules. But it’s right downtown and a delight at £21 a night. NOT the Old Forge Motel at Bristol! (warning: don’t!)  Then a wearingly long bus ride up to Kitale, a nine-hour ordeal. The major highway across East Africa, from the ports of the Indian Ocean at Mombasa, the only link to Uganda, Rwanda and onwards, is single carriageway, and we must travel at the speed of the slowest – and the big articulated trucks and tankers are slow on these rolling high altitude mountains. The bus has few springs and is unrelentingly bumpy, the pain alleviated only by a few trotting zebras, monkeys awaiting scraps from passing cars and the signboards of ‘The Equator’ adding a certain exoticism to the laborious journey. 

***

So, ‘home’ to Kitale and warm welcomes from my Kenyan family whom I left nine months ago. For some days, Rico and I worked on the Mosquito, still with an irritatingly elusive fault. I say ‘we’, but of course, Rico worked while I dutifully watched… 45 years a biker and the engines are still a mystery. Rico’s a professional engineer though, so he identified the problem: worn parts in the carburettor and parts were sent up from the Suzuki dealer in Nairobi – rather efficiently – by the overnight bus. Now the Mosquito has its bite back. On my last trip, the bike broke down mid-February, abandoning me, memorably, to public matatus and boda-boda taxi bikes. The cause was a ‘Woodruff’ key, the tiniest piece of hardened metal in the crankshaft, less than half the size of a little fingernail. Of such is life. For the want of a nail…

***

Now we’ve all gathered for Christmas. With Adelight and Rico and Maria, now growing to a chirpy seven years, is also delightful Shamilla back to stay. She’s Adelight’s twin sister’s 13 year old, a pretty, quiet, warm-hearted charmer. As is often the case in African extended families, she’s making her home here in Kitale where there’s better schooling. Anyway, she’s always welcome in this household and has spent a good deal of her life growing up here. Marion, now with a Bachelor’s degree in Tourism and Hospitality (a distinction, no less) from Voi University down towards the coast, returned to the fold a few days ago, and yesterday, the 23rd, Scovia, Adelight’s junior sister and one of my favourite Africans, arrived with her quite lovely one and a half year old boy, Deon. He’s intelligent and curious, very quiet but deeply observant and very charming. Recently having learned to walk, he trots about as if a string puppet, jerky legged and arms outstretched, serious faced and eyes everywhere. An utter delight.  

Down in Mombasa, two more of the many girls adopted and raised by Rico, have no time to make the extensive journey up here to join us. Maureen, whom I visited in 2021 also now has a BA, in journalism and media. Education is the only way to rise above the poverty trap of African life, and these young women have embraced their opportunities, given them so generously by Rico and Adelight, to make the best of their good fortune, and government education sponsorship. They’ve grown into independent, intelligent young people – with a future. We’ll all have Christmas together then head to Uganda for New Year. 

***

Meanwhile, in Sipi, Uganda, we’re in daily touch with Alex and Precious at Rock Gardens guest house – my project to make that family independent too. I met Alex and Precious in 2017 and immediately recognised extreme integrity and determination, despite the vast obstacles spread before them in such a crumbling country. Trained in hotel management – when he could have become a doctor or such if he lived in a country in which families had sensible numbers of children (Alex, like most children in the most child-populated country in the world (50% under 15 years) has eight direct siblings and three by other mothers; Precious is one of 13) – Alex shared with me his dreams of turning a plot of land in Sipi, a location popular with tourists thanks to its waterfalls, into a guest house. Naively perhaps, I decided to assist him, not realising just what a commitment I was making! But Alex has used every penny of the considerable investment I’ve made in their future to the best effect. I’m so proud that after a long period in which he believed customers would come, but I began to despair, he’s beginning to get regular bookings and terrific reviews on Google Map and (the horrible, all-invasive, IMO) bookingdotcom (which I must type that way to avoid an automatic link to your device as you read this). All reviews commend the warm family welcome, the traditional feel (designed largely by me!) and the delicious food of Rock Gardens. One duo, a pair of Australian ladies stayed last week and loved it so much that not only do they intend to return, but on asking why Alex had to go ten miles to get fish for their supper and hearing the explanation that he had no way to preserve food, donated money to purchase a freezer! So other recognise his hard work, trustworthiness and charm too.

Next week, we are ALL travelling round the mountain to Sipi for New Year, a return visit to the one that Alex, Precious, my absolute favourite, the charming, delightful seven year old Keilah and my namesake, Jonathanbean Cheptai, made to Kitale last year. I’m looking very forward to seeing what I now think of as my grandchildren. Our party will be me, Adelight, Rico, Maria, Shamilla, Marion, Scovia and Deon. We’ll be joined by Adelight’s close cousin, Reuben and his Dutch wife and her son. AND… Alex has a booking from some tourists who will have to join what I am sure will be a happy band and provide them with a very memorable New Year! But all this has put stress on the nascent resort. Alex is desperately constructing more rooms, getting beds made, fitting toilets and buying bedding and so forth. Happily, Uncle Jonathan is there to be ‘The Money’! We’re all looking forward to a cheerful expedition after Christmas.

For now, it’s a home Christmas holiday without the commercial competition of my northern world. We’ll drink some wine, give a few simple gifts and be together as family. Family of which Uncle J is part and parcel.