Certain Freedom On The Edge in Kenya

Oct 14, 2016

By Jeff Bullard

kenyaCertain Freedom On The Edge in Kenya

I had travelled very little in life, almost all of it within the geographical borders of New York State and most of that between the rounded mountains of the Catskills, the tumble of the Adirondacks, and the rocky Eastern shores of Lake Ontario. The world is a comfortable, dependable, predictable place when it amounts to roughly 150 miles by 150 miles. It also becomes routine, dull, and even a little oppressive. Still and all, it was MY world and what I knew.

You might think that such a small, intimate world would be accustomed to many of those born and raised there taking their leave, escaping into the wider world all around. To be sure, that occurred, enough to not be unusual, but not enough to be common. So, when the opportunity to leave New York and live in Kenya presented itself, pursuing that opportunity became a rich source of unsolicited advice, unsought opinion, and even outright discouragement.

I had wanted to explore the wider world beyond Upstate New York for some time, but did not have a good idea of how to do so. No one in my family or group of friends had travelled much, if at all. One uncle who had travelled extensively had done so by making a career with US Air Force. Joining “the Service” did not appeal to me, much to my uncle’s and father’s dismay. But, in a tangential twist of reasoning, the concept of esprit de corps Dad continually espoused bloomed into the idea of serving in the US Peace Corps.

You can imagine the usual paperwork, interviews, and bureaucratic back-and-forth that took place over the course of six months. Eventually, I was assigned to be a high school teacher in Western Kenya; specifically, the tiny hamlet of Kipsoen clinging 1,000 meters atop the escarpment, above the floor of the Great Rift Valley. The edge of the world.

Everything I had been sure – and assured – of: the world I knew and the person I was certain of, quickly melted away under the equatorial sun of the African plains.

The landscape: Isak Dinesen describes it as, “the views were immensely wide — everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequalled nobility.” (Out of Africa, 1937). The culture and the people: time and interactions had an easy, open, welcoming quality. Telling time was upended: What was 7:00AM on a clock in New York, was read as “sah moja” (the first hour, or 1:00AM) in KiSwahili, the national language of Kenya. The attitude toward Life: “Hakuna Matata” (there are no problems), as Pumbaa and Timon sang in Disney’s The Lion King, is an actual truth in traditional Kenyan thinking. In short, travelling halfway around the world took me worlds away from what I’d learned and from where I’d come.

Going all that distance and in the melting away, the removal, of all the fixtures and accoutrements of growing up in my old world, there was space for new outlooks, attitudes, and growth. It wasn’t a smooth, quick, easy, nor always a conscious process. Among some of the oldest peoples on the planet, on the oldest continent, I found a new start.

That is where I found my freedom.

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About the Author

Jeff Bullard

Country boy living in the Big City. Father of three. Librarian, Beekeeper, Storyteller, Romantic. On a journey to the Boddhi Tree by way of "the 'hood" and "the sticks."

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