The sights and scenes of cities I have visited

It’s Tuesday morning. We are all assembled at the parking lot ready to leave for Naivasha where we will be spending days two and three of the Social Innovation Safari. I am in a van with a fellow Kenyan, two Ugandans and the Iraqi who has by now become my friend. We talk about everything from immigration laws to African presidents. The road to Naivasha is wide and well carpeted. The driver is having an easy time. We are sixty kilometers from Nairobi. The road is hugged on both sides with expansive grass fields that are uncultivated in some parts, habited by zebras and gazelles in the other and graced with the beautiful sight and height of feeding giraffes feeding on leaves of high braches of savanna trees. The flora and fauna of Camp Carnelleyes Naivasha is beautiful and inviting. We alight and embark on a one hour nature trail through the savanna as we bond and sweat from the scorching sun while at it. It is one pm.

The grass looks famished. Brownish with fading tints of green. The sand is dry and makes a crunchy noise with every step that befalls it. We tread on and note different types of gazelles feeding together a few meters in to the nature walk. They look happy and at home. They don’t even know they are wild. They hop away when we get closer. I am thirsty. My throat is dry. I could use a drop of water from a divine and spiritual stream from a mysteriuous stream in the savanna. It is then that I recall a folk tale my grandmother had told me when I was a kid about how the rabbit had found a way of covering a stream in the middle of the village with twigs and branches to bar other animals from fetching water from the stream. The rabbit would then avoid working hard to get other important items and would lie to other animals of his ability to magically produce water from the covered spot where he had fenced and marked as sacred and spiritual. The rabbit battered food and clothes for water. Walking further into the savanna, I came across a stream with dirty brown water. On the other end was a group of zebras crossing. They had littered the water with their violent and vigorous steps. At this moment I couldn’t help but wonder how I ended up in the middle of the savanna four hundred kilometers away from home, under the scorching sun, thirsty but having a good time with fun and outgoing people. The nature trail led us to a restaurant in the middle of the savanna close to Lake Naivasha where we were treated to a hefty lunch with lots of refreshments.