This journey starts a week ago on a chilly, bright and windy morning at the airstrip where I go to earn my daily bread.

I love the ritual that daybreak flights entail; Ali, the Gabbra askari – who is usually just finishing up his dawn prayers – once alerted to the presence of the car by some vigorous honking, tiptoes barefoot from his mat and bounces gingerly across the gravel to the iron entrance gate, which he quickly opens, granting access to the field. This he does with a consistently joyful and enthusiastic, “Jambooo, habari za asubuhi!” the morning greeting.

I drive 10 km to work from home in a very bumpy and middle aged, short chassis Land Rover, over a dirt road that was laid by the bowels of the Kenyan governments’ ministries. We are lucky if the track is graded twice in a decade. Cars are hugely expensive in Kenya, especially when our roads shake them apart every day, and I often pray for something faster and more comfortable (or alternatively a road roller to miraculously appear), but for now this is my car … and I do love it really.

Once parked I stretch and listen to the vertebrae in my neck pop back into place before walking over to the assigned airplane (there are 4 at Tropic Air Kenya) to preflight. This takes about 15 minutes with an additional five or ten minutes to warm up the engine and taxi out. Then comes the first takeoff of the day which (when it’s early enough, and the air is still dense and undisturbed) is an experience that rivals few others! Cold air means good performance and at this time of day there is never anyone else around, the air traffic from Nairobi is only just getting airborne 100 miles away and the radios are still silent.

We are experiencing our “winter” in Kenya at the moment; one and a half months of deliciously cool air that start without warning and are usually over before you know it. It is a time of year that requires many layers of fleeces and jackets, all to be peeled off in the course of the day. For the longest time I had trouble understanding the change in temperature, I mean after all, this is the Equator: 12 hrs of light followed by 12 hours of dark, year in, year out, with no endless summer days, nor long winter nights. So why should we have this little chilly season in July and August? As a kid I thought it had to do with my perception that the larger mass of the African continent lies below the equator and so somehow we were being influenced by that southern hemisphere winter season sending icy spikes across country our way. That is still only a theory.

While training as a pilot I learned about aphelion and perihelion. We are at aphelion at this time of year, which is “the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is furthest from the sun” (that description came from my computer’s dictionary). Perihelion being the opposite. I prefer this explanation for why we get this nip in temperature. The sun is further away, and though it’s angle of incidence hasn’t changed much, it is cooler here. I am sure it is more complicated really, involving the ITCZ (inter tropical convergence zone) and the trade winds (or “kaskazi” and “kuzini”, as they are known on the Swahili coast). Whatever it is, I like the effect and look forward to it every year.

The airfield (Nanyuki civil) sits at a mile above sea level on the western slopes of Mount Kenya. At this altitude in Africa the intensity of the sun is hard to ignore. In January, when we are closer to the sun, midday can feel like being under a fiery grill. My Scotch Irish biological makeup appreciates July and August immensely and for once there is the brief opportunity to put on some substantial clothing.

The first order of the day after this particular takeoff was a pick-up of a family on safari in the North, at a camp called Sarara. It is a journey of forty minutes in the 14 seat, turbine Cessna Caravan, and in that short time on visits mountains and deserts.

This plane came to us at Tropic Air from Brazil via Florida. A young guy, named Carlos, did the Atlantic crossing in it flying from Bangor, Maine to the Azores, then to Malta and Luxor and finally Nairobi. It is a good plane for the bush with lots of power and impressive short field abilities combined with a fast cruise.

Sarara has to be the jewel in the crown of Kenya’s wildlife destinations. It is a luxury, tented safari camp nestled into the base of a bowl of mountains at the southern end of the Matthew’s Range. These mountains rocket up out of the bleached, lowland scrub that is the savannah bush-land, culminating in emerald tops of cloud-belt forest. The highest of these is Ouarges which reaches 9,000 feet in a knuckle of bumpy peaks covered in tropical stands of dense cedar and wild olive and towering sycamore figs. There are dangerous Cape buffalo crashing around on its steep slopes and enormous elephant on the plains below. Leopard – that elusive cat – are found in abundance here, along with many of the other typical African “game” such as giraffe and the less common Grevy zebra. There are people here too; the nomadic Samburu and Rendille and Borana tribes. All are unique and magnificent in their own ways. The Samburu in particular are plentiful around the Matthews; an elegant folk who still lead the traditional cattle herding lifestyle, retaining ancient knowledge handed down through oral traditions of storytelling and legend. Around Sarara these people live very much in the way they have lived for hundreds of years.

Let’s go back a few steps for a minute, to just after takeoff back home on Mount Kenya. We first fly past Nanyuki town which straddles the equator. This small town bustles with trade and houses military bases for the Kenya Airforce and Army. The British Army too have a base here where they come to prepare for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Within seconds of leaving Nanyuki we are in the northern hemisphere, flying over the broad northern shoulders of the mountain. The high altitude climate is ideal for dairy farming and wheat that can be harvested twice a year without irrigating. The newest farms are agribusinesses with greenhouses and drip irrigation, producing cut flowers and vegetables for daily export to European supermarkets . They make tidy profits by exploiting the cheap labor and the all year growing season.

The majority of people in this region are subsistence farmers, they grow maize and beans and potatoes. Theirs is a tough life, with prosperity tied intimately to the amount of rainfall. For the past few years the rainfall on Mount Kenya has been erratic and hard to predict, with long dry spells and only spots of poor rain.

There are plantation forests above these farms that ring the mountain below the national park and its indigenous forest. These plantations are managed by a corrupt and inefficient forestry department. Illegal logging in the National Park and failure to replant felled areas are all apparent from the air.

Soon enough as we carry on to the North the land breaks away from the high country into escarpments and eroded valleys, becoming all of a sudden arid and less populated and wilder as we fly. There is a step of grassy plains country, some large, privately owned wildlife sanctuaries and then the dramatic forested hills of the Mukogodo Masai before Mount Kenya’s foothills make a steep descent into the low country of the Samburu bush and the Ewaso Nyiro River ecosystem.

As we cross this river (which is dry at the moment) and approach the Matthew’s Range it is hard to imagine that there is strife below. The drought here is severe and much of the land is overgrazed. The national parks have been invaded by the herders and their cattle, competing with the wildlife and other herders for the little grass that remains. Outbreaks of violence over this grazing are becoming commonplace. From the plane you would not know it of course and the views of dramatic rock outcrops and painted plains of many different soils are beautiful. All this framed by austere and pristine mountain ranges.

Aproaching the mission village of Wamba I saw smoke on the slopes of Oarges and flew closer for a look. The indigenous forest is so dry that in the area close to people fire has broken out. Once landed at Sarara, I asked Mark Lenenyengera about the forest fire. He said it was probably an accident caused by honey hunters who use smoke to put the bees to sleep when they rob the hives. There is no service to deal with wildfires here, and one can only hope it rains before too much damage is done.

Kenya is suffering from Climate Change. When I talk to my neighbors, even the oldest among them do not remember a drought persisting this long. It is causing stress across the nation that manifests in many forms, all linked to food insecurity. On the web I have been reading on the NOAA website forecasts of an El Niño event, which tends to mean rain for much of East Africa. If rain does come this year, I pray it is gentle and long lasting.

I often wonder, looking down from above, to what degree local factors play a part in the drying we are experiencing and how much of it is part of a much bigger picture. By local factors I mean things like deforestation in the high country, or overstocking of sheep and goats and cows by the pastoralists like the Samburu in the lowlands. Global warming is evident on Mount Kenya where the glaciers have receded visibly in the last decade. I feel like our hot times keep getting hotter and the precious cool time just gets shorter, year after year.

Flying is such a privilege, isn’t it? I often forget this, and I get wrapped up in guilt for sitting all day in a gas guzzling machine polluting the air. I try to reconcile this conflict I have by acknowledging what a unique opportunity it is to share with others the beauty of the Earth we live on.

The pick up at Sarara went well, and the family enjoyed the spectacular views on their flight back to Nanyuki where their onward connection to the Masai Mara would meet them. Ironically my next flight was to the Mara too, and empty, but the economics of their holiday meant they would change planes for a scheduled service. Inefficiencies like this frustrate me.

I waited on the ground in Nanyuki long enough to refuel and get this picture of Robert the engineer and myself in front of the plane, next stop, Kichwa Tembo.

To be contd…

Today I was chatting to Tony Serve (or “@perthtones” as he is known online) via Twitter. He lives in Perth, Australia, and-among many other things-is a radio presenter. Birds of a feather flock together they say and Tony has become a new found friend online, for he has a love of Africa that I share. He inherited this love from his stepfather who was a District Commissioner on the Kenyan desert island of Lamu during Colonial times. Tony has been highly encouraging as a reader of my microblogging on Twitter, and has shared some of his world and interests with me via the internet, including his remarkable Swahili vocabulary. He gave me the impetus to write more than the prescribed 140 Twitter characters here on wordpress.com.

So why the not-so-micro blog now?

Well the answer to that question may lie in my existential paradox. Let me see if I can explain a little.

Growing up in Africa as a non-indigenous Kenyan (or “mzungu”) can be contradictory in itself. I’m finally over the identity crisis of my teens and the burden that privilege can bring. All my rights of passage have been contemporary ones, if such things exist today.

You can imagine these things; the typical modern high school ones of drinking and experimentation, peer pressure and the search for self. Or the ones that might come a little later, like learning how to manage a checking account, dealing with crashing your father’s car or establishing a dreaded credit rating!

I have always been an introspective person that has bemoaned our loss of ritual in the world.  I have had my crises, and my misadventures in life and with love. I’ve tasted disillusion and a longing for a people to call my own. Perhaps these are some examples of what few rights of passage we postmoderns have available to us now, yet in stark contrast many Africans undergo a far different set of experiences.

Maybe it’s the gravitational pull on the equator with its intense sun, or the peaceful solitude of the countryside and the looming snow capped mountains that magnify these things for me. Kenya is a place where one runs into oneself. Paradox now is a place I am starting to grow into, and I think I like it.

For the last five years I have worked as a bush pilot in the safari industry. It has been an amazing time as it has opened up this country of my birth to me in a way relatively few people ever get to experience. The perspective from the air affords an overview of the land that is hard to emulate elsewhere. In these five years I have watched Kenya change. We have had social unrest, mass migrations within a growing human population, huge destruction of the indigenous forests and natural wilderness, times of flood and times of drought. Nevertheless Kenya remains a beautiful place with its diverse peoples, its deserts, high plateaus and mountains, and miles upon miles of  white, sandy beaches.

My education after primary school was global. There was a time of schooling in England, and then college in the USA at Antioch and also in Brazil, studying tropical botany. When I finally returned “home” not much time passed before I was moving again, but this time it was within Kenya’s borders, at work flying a tiny Cessna. During all this time detached-so to speak-from it all I have had a nagging desire to get grounded in a life and work that has it’s roots in belonging and community, and to devoting myself to the cause of our desperate environment.

So I begin to write this with a sense of coming into my own, and of finally acknowledging my true vocation. I am ready to be doing what I came here to do, which is to serve, for I believe in the words of Ghandi that say-and I paraphrase, ” It is in service to others that one finds oneself.”

Here is a brief sketch of my life situation today:

I live in what was, until very recently, a delightful wooded valley on the slopes of Mount Kenya. Then the char-coaling began. Our persistent droughts and burgeoning population have caused the local farmers to turn away from their fields and towards the natural environment for the little there is left to take from the land. The effect has been painful to witness. I mourn daily for the newly felled Yellow Fever and Olive trees that took so many years to grow and that provided habitat to so much diversity in natural life.

With the money I have made from flying tourists around our game parks and with a good deal of help from family and friends I have bought a little land in this valley and am building a thatched house here. This process has taught me much, and in developing my little patch of Africa I have tried to be ecologically conscious, building with local materials where I can and trying to maintain a minimal carbon footprint; which is another paradox given my aviation bound past and current mode of income.

On this journey of learning I am finding that it is my African neighbours that have taught me the most. They are-on a material level anyway-very poor. Though they struggle to survive, battling to live in a dignified way, their spirit has so much to offer. One would be hard pressed to find more generous people in the world.

Those who live here are mainly of the Kikuyu tribe. Their traditional culture is all but gone. Once in a while I’ll come across the bent over, old lady from down the way who retains ritual scaring marks on her forehead and cheeks from a bygone era. Kenya’s rural, new generation is often plagued by poverty, and all the troubles that come with it in Africa. This valley is no exception. The men, in general, are depressed, angry and alcoholic, which is thinly masked by the gentle, friendly and easygoing temperament that is so typically Kenyan. At night these unhappy men return drunk to their women and take out their life frustration in abuse.

The women on the other hand are pillars of the community, and ever so hard working, while frequently overburdened by unplanned-for children, HIV and  useless mates. The children…well they are children, like children everywhere. More connected to their source-the Earth-are these children than it is possible to describe. They are bright eyed and open, and so very happy to be alive. I experience no greater joy in my day than to see little Karuri, first thing in the morning, running from his mother’s shack on the adjacent plot to open my farm gate as I drive up in the old Land Rover. His legs, arms and face shiny with recently applied Vaseline, his school uniform a couple of sizes too big and his bare feet totally at home in the dust of the cattle trodden path.

I must close this now and do other things, but I want to state my intentions, which will evolve over time:

With our rapid improvements in technology and the immense goodwill that exists here at home and abroad today, and with help from family and friends, old and new, I know that by reaching out I will find what it takes to support me in doing my part to help improve this local environment. I take deep breaths here and let go of attachment to outcome while acknowledging that providing opportunities to raise peoples’ dignity in Africa is paramount, and that it starts with clean drinking water, proper sanitation and ecological/affordable housing. It must involve appropriate education and improved farming techniques that are adapted to deal with our now unpredictable climate. The trees in the valley are falling to make charcoal to be sold for money to buy alcohol first, and for the childrens’ families second, while the Earth gets drier and drier.

Together we will plant new trees here, remember how to harness animal power and implement other clean alternatives to fossil fuel. We’ll make plant derived natural products: like herbal medicines and Aloe vera gels, essential oils and much, much more for new sources of income. We’ll start adding value to our animal products, like to the milk from our goats and cows, by making cheese and butter, and to our local honey products by improved sanitary handling techniques. We’ll find better ways to make charcoal and harvest our firewood sustainably, and in community we’ll start to address whose pockets the earnings from the land go to. Over time, in many little ways, this small valley in Africa will return to a better place to live.