Life under acacias at Fisherman’s Camp, Lake Naivasha

Dave and I and a couple dozen other orientees finally pulled off the dusty, potholed road and entered Fisherman’s Camp along the shores of Lake Naivasha. We were about to begin our three-month orientation course, Kenya Safari.

“We lived in our tent under shade trees: eucalyptus—heavy-scented, with clouds of billowy dark leaves—and umbrella acacias, with horizontal layers of airy, delicate leaves and three-inch needle-sharp thorns. I’d seen acacias only in exotic African photos, and then at Lake Naivasha I found myself living in a tent under those trees.” (from Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 1)

Wattles, whistling thorn trees, umbrella trees, thorn trees—they’re all acacia trees, just four of more than a thousand species of acacias.

The yellow-fever acacia, also known as fever acacia, grows at Fisherman’s Camp. Its smooth bark is bright yellow or greenish-yellow, and it appears especially brilliant when sunshine filters through the trees’ leaves.

This link will show you photos of yellow-fever acacias. They’re quite fascinating.

I also invite you to take eleven seconds to watch this video clip, filmed at Fisherman’sCamp, where you’ll see not only this tree’s unusual bark, but also a Colobus monkey, a striking creature with black and white silky fur.

I’ve often wondered why those trees go by the name “fever” acacias. Recently I investigated, and here’s what I discovered. Because fever acacias grow in moist areas (along rivers, near lakes, in swampy areas), and because early European settlers living nearby often fell ill with malaria, they mistakenly blamed the trees for their fevers—and thus the name, fever acacias. In fact, however, malaria-carrying mosquitoes also breed and live in such moist areas. Mystery solved.

Come on back next week. 

I'm eager to introduce you to more of 

Kenya’s beauties at Fisherman’s Camp!

Grab your canteen—filled with filtered water, not tap water—and a roll of TP!

“Our group of fifty trainees and staff drove out of Nairobi,

the capital city, in a northerly direction,

into the Great Rift Valley,

and eventually arrived at Fisherman’s Camp

on the shores of Lake Naivasha.”

(from Chapter 1, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

Are you ready to start this journey around Kenya with me? I’m excited to show you scenery along the way. 

Don’t forget your canteen—filled with filtered water, not tap water! Remember to bring your own roll of TP! Toss your sunglasses, hat, camera, hand sanitizer, and insect repellant into your backpack, too.

Before we set out, first I must make two confessions.

First confession: I goofed in my book. I wrote that for the first phase of our orientation course, we camped at Fish Eagle Camp. Not true. We camped at Fisherman’s Camp. A wooden sign posted at the entrance says both “Fisherman’s Camp” and “Fish Eagle Camp.” Apparently, they sit beside each other. I suspect that’s why I got confused.

Second confession: My husband and I lost all our pictures from this two-week period, but I will show you a couple of my own of the region as well as exquisite photos, taken by someone else, along the route we took.

I’m ready—are you?

Climb up here beside me in the back of this dark green 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser and remember, in Kenya, a former British colony, people drive on the left side of the road.

You’ll see scenes thoroughly familiar to me—typical roads, road signs, and vehicles.

You’ll also see red clay paths, rural villages, shambas (little farms), and roadside shops.

Watch for African trees and shrubs, the Great Rift Valley overlook at 8,000 feet (it’s always cold up there), and scenes from down in the Rift Valley (it’s always hot down there). (Click here to read about the Great Rift Valley. It’s fascinating.)

You’ll also see several pictures of an unnamed mountain peak, and one labeled generically “volcanic peak.” That’s spectacular Mt. Longonot, an enormous dormant volcano with a vast crater.

In these photos, you won’t see a picture of the market town of Naivasha [niy-VAH-shah], which we drove through to get to Fisherman’s Camp, but I heard from my friend Shel Arensen, author of the novel The Dust of Africa, that Jim’s Corner Dishes in Naivasha has the best cabbage and chapati in town and still gives customers torn-in-half paper napkins!

It’s time to set out. Brace yourself—many of the roads ahead of us will be pocked with major potholes. Click here to view photos of the journey from Nairobi to Lake Naivasha. 

I’m eager for you to see 

the beautiful Kenyan countryside, 

a place I love. 

Is this what you’d envisioned?

Armed with chocolate and Esther’s instructions on how to stare down a leopard

Last week I told you about how, in the years leading up to the new assignment my husband and I took in East Africa, all Wycliffe trainees had to pass a more-than-strenuous survival course called Jungle Camp. (If you missed it, click on Angst over anticipating our three-month orientation course.)

What I didn’t tell you last week was the part of Jungle Camp that paralyzed me with fear. Each participant had to be prepared at all times for any eventuality because at a time unknown to them, one by one they’d receive a tap on the shoulder and be led away into the wilderness where he or she would have to survive, alone, for 24 hours or more.

At the moment of the shoulder tap, whatever a trainee had—in his pocket, in her water canteen, tools or supplies he had (knife, compass, rope, etc.), whatever clothes she had—would have to suffice.

Can you imagine?! You’d have no way to get help in an emergency. Even without emergencies, you’d have to build a fire, catch and butcher and cook your own meat, find a source of water, and coexist with jungle creatures all night, hearing their calls, listening to their footsteps getting closer and closer, hearing a snake slither through the underbrush.

I could understand the rationale behind such training—Bible translator friends of ours in South America, for example, used such skills to set up their work in isolated areas within Stone Age-type cultures.

In addition, in South America I had worked with two young women who fled from guerrilla soldiers and had to survive in the jungle, on the run, awaiting their rescue. (You’ll want to read about that in Chapter 39 of my new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.)

           

Yes, I understood the importance of such rigorous training.

But I dreaded having to go through such training myself!

However, before Dave and I set out for Africa, I received good news! Wycliffe’s orientation courses had changed over the years, at least in East Africa. No longer were they such strenuous survival courses. Instead, they focused mainly on orientation to our new countries and cultures.

Dave and I would still have to rough it for three months—living in tents, listening to wild creatures in the night, hauling water, cooking over a fire, and hiking, among other challenges.

Our orientation, called Kenya Safari, would be easier than Jungle Camp, but I dreaded it because I was not athletic, possessed no aspiration for adventure, and loathed roughing it. Moreover, I had already paid my membership dues and joined the over-the-hill society.

With only a vague idea of what to expect during the orientation, I did know I’d never experienced anything like it and that I’d need more strength, stamina, and tenacity—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—than I’d ever needed before.

For two years I had prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and psyched myself up for Kenya Safari but, by on the day of our departure, I still didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself.

Nevertheless, somehow (well, not somehow, but by God’s grace) my worries and doubts coexisted with faith that God would get me through if only I’d depend on Him and cooperate with Him.

The Bible says, “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15, NKJV). I told God I’d keep my mouth shut and take care of the quietness part if He’d take care of the confidence part.

So, armed with a chocolate bar and my friend Esther’s instructions on how to stare down a leopard, on September 9 Dave and I set out on our three-month orientation, Kenya Safari.

With a clenched jaw, mixed emotions, and plenty of jitters, I gave God a stern reminder that I was counting on Him. (from Chapter 1, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

“. . . Maybe courage is not at all about the absence of fear but about obedience even when we are afraid,” writes Katie Davis Majors.

“Maybe courage is trusting when we don’t know what is next, leaning into the hard and knowing it will be hard, but more, God will be near,” she continues. “He is the God Who Will Provide. He will provide His presence, His strength, or whatever He decides we most need.”

Angst over anticipating our three-month orientation course

September 9 through December 2, Dave and I participated in Kenya Safari, Wycliffe’s field orientation course designed to teach skills for living in remote settings.

We had worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators in South America fifteen years earlier but, because we’d made a short-term commitment then, only three years, we didn’t need to take an orientation course. This time, though, in Africa, we’d made a long-term commitment and had to take the course.

In South America, did we hear stories! Friends and coworkers told us about their orientation, called Jungle Camp, in a remote locale in the Chiapas area of southern Mexico.

Jungle Camp was more than an orientation course—it was a survival course. They told me that participants who didn’t do well in the three-month course were disqualified as members of Wycliffe.

They told stories of building their own shelters in isolated jungle settings, of making their own mud stoves, and of learning how to butcher whatever jungle critters they could find. They told stories of lots of hiking, and/or riding mules over rough mountain trails, and paddling up rivers—some trips taking two or three days—and sleeping in hammocks strung from trees.

Mickey Richards wrote this of her 1973 experience with her husband in Jungle Camp during their five weeks of Main Base, the easiest part of their training:

“On an overnight trip . . . we stayed in the home of a family in a village we visited. We had dinner with the Tzeltals [an indigenous group]. . . . After singing songs and talking with people [in the Tzeltal language], we were shown our sleeping quarters. Behind the house was a wooden building of ill-fitting boards, and it was there we slept. 

“Our bed was a set of wooden boards set up on sawhorses. We wore our clothes to bed that night, the same clothes we had worn during the day. We had brought our own blankets . . . but nothing to put under us, and it was extremely uncomfortable. . . . 

“We could hear their hogs outside the building making grunting noises most of the night. Fleas were rampant, and they got inside of our pants and made us miserable.”  (Read more from her blog post as well as from her book, A Joyful Life in God’s Hands, The Mickey Richards Story.)

After several weeks at the Main Base, participants set out for Advanced Base, designed to increase their skills and toughen them physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for the jobs they would soon begin in equally primitive locales.

Transitioning into Main Base started with a long hike (for some it was an overnight hike). The following is Rich Mansen’s account of that from his new memoir, Trail Posts: Defining Moments of My Life:

We all hiked together, campers, children and a few staff. Our destination: twenty miles across the savannah and into the rain forest, closer to the mountains and the Guatemalan border—yes, farther from the comforts of Main Base. 

Mid-morning we crossed the first stream. Some got to ride over on a mule, the rest slung their boots across their shoulders and crossed on bare feet. Young children had it made—two or three on a mule or resting in the lap of a lady in the saddle. 

By lunch break, sweating, aching and with canteens nearly empty, we didn’t care whether we ate or not. Flimsy straw hats shaded sunburned noses. We had tied our pant legs to keep out ticks, but they got in anyway. What a sorry sight—everyone sprawled on the ground, trying to catch a few moments’ rest or quietly picking off ticks. . . . 

The next day we all spread out in search of suitable sites to build our champas. Each family or pair of singles had to locate at least 150 feet away from anyone else. Karis and I found an ideal place close to the river, our only source of water, and close to some wild cane. This was to be our new home turf. 

The following day, we cut a short trail to the river and dug a latrine and garbage pit. Next, we started building our champa, using only machetes—no hammer, no saw, no nails, no rope. The wild cane served a multitude of purposes, from covering the roof to building furniture. Vines hanging from tall trees took the place of nails and rope.”

(I encourage you to read Rich’s Trail Posts: Defining Moments of My Life. Many years after this account, I worked with Rich in Colombia, South America. I wrote about my three years there in my new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.)

Jungle Camp training got only more difficult from there.

Let me say that again:

Jungle Camp got only more difficult from there.

The stories I heard scared me out of my wits.

I could never do such things!

And then, some fifteen years later,

I found myself setting out

on my own orientation course,

this one in East Africa,

called Kenya Safari.

Oswald Chambers, writing of those who face big challenges, told us to thank God when we catch a vision of the reality of who and what we are compared to what we know God wants us to be.

He’s referring to our recognition of our immaturity, inexperience, and inadequate training; our less-than-perfect physical, mental, and emotional condition; the state of our spiritual health.

He writes, “You have had the vision [of what you could be], but you are not there yet. . . . It is when we are in the valley . . . that most of us turn back.

“We are not quite prepared for the blows which must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision.

“We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to have the vision ‘batter’d to shape and use’ by God?” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

Come back next Monday

and I’ll tell you about setting out for

our orientation course, Kenya Safari.