Leaving Home Alone at 17: The Return to Africa PART 1

My freshly broken-in hiking boots were swinging against my legs in a steady rhythm as I meandered through the streets of Amsterdam, three weeks before my 18th birthday.

I was alone, exploring my little heart out in the 23 hours I had in this wild, foreign, and yet very freeing city. The last time I had been in Amsterdam was when I was 12, during the Pride parade, and that is a trip I will never forget...

But that is a different blog post, so let's get back to the airport before my next flight departed for Arusha—a small town just off the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, where once, a long time ago, this was a home of mine.

Here I was, returning 13 years later to stay in the middle of the Serengeti with Marianne Whilhamine von Zedwitz Leibenstein Brühl Zastrow, my 85-year-old Countess grandmother.  There was limited (and I mean limited) electricity, water, and internet as well as no English speakers. I mostly grew up in Uganda, a country nearby, but finished schooling in the United States for the four years previous to this trip and let me tell you, it was good to be home.

The greatly missed smell of Africa hit the very second I stepped off the plane onto the radiating tarmac. I made my way to find Obedi, a driver sent by Shosho (Kikuyu for grandmother) to bring me out to her school in Mutakuja. Well, I'm going to save you the suspense and let you know—he wasn't there.

I had, luckily, made friends with some volunteer doctors on the plane who were going to the local hospital KCMC, and they offered to give me a very generous ride. So we adventured out into the African bush in the dark to find Mutakuja Secondary School of Sustainability.

No maps. No phones. No road signs. Three hours later, bouncing along on dirt roads cut through and around massive dried mud holes, asking Maasai for directions about "turning the corner at the hut".  My life was back to normal. 

And alas, when I found the school I had been traveling 50 hours to reach—no Shosho. 

The askari (a Masaai warrior hired to guard the property) showed me to a small room for the night. I didn't really sleep in my tiny bunk room, with no fan and no bedding, at 35°C (90°F) but its an adventure I will never forget.

I learned the next morning that the school was on holiday, and my grandmother had accidentally sent Obedi a day early, then headed up the mountain for some respite from the heat. So I followed her up the mountain.

Shosho:

It was during this time, living with this legend of a woman, that I learned the building blocks of life without understanding any of it.

Then I left to summit Mount Kilimanjaro...