The Samburu National Reserve, northernmost of Kenya's
game parks and hard by the Somali border, begins in Isiolo, a bustling frontier
town shared by Borans and Somali Muslims. Here the rutted tarmac comes to an
end and a plague of bone-jarring potholes gives way to clouds of red dust
raised as the bobbing pop-top safari van winds its way through astonishingly
beautiful landscape. |
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Suddenly, the leader raises its trunk,
trumpets loudly and begins to move away. The others turn and follow, slowly at
first, then in a full run, little ones and big ones, strangely silent despite
their size and number. They pass in a ragged line not 50 meters away, white
tusks gleaming in the brief equatorial twilight.
The driver, a veteran guide of nearly two decades, raises a hand. Listen! A
loud crack, then another, echoing back and forth across the vastness. More
shots, five or six in all. His face betrays fear. "Bunduki," he says.
"Guns!"
In an instant the van is bouncing along open terrain, then speeding over a
rumpled gravel path to the lodge. Safely within the compound, the guide huddles
with others in animated conversation, well disguised in Kiswahili. Minutes
later, he reappears. "Another van . . . engine trouble," he
explains. "We heard backfiring."
Maybe. Maybe not.
The driver, a veteran guide of nearly two decades, raises a hand. Listen! A
loud crack, then another, echoing back and forth across the vastness. More
shots, five or six in all. His face betrays fear. "Bunduki," he says.
"Guns!"
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In an instant the van is bouncing along open terrain, then speeding over a
rumpled gravel path to the lodge. Safely within the compound, the guide huddles
with others in animated conversation, well disguised in Kiswahili. Minutes
later, he reappears. "Another van . . . engine trouble," he
explains. "We heard backfiring."
Maybe. Maybe not.
In Kenya, things are often not as they seem. Here, many mysteries have
clues found in striking contrasts--a land of plenty with crushing poverty;
modern in some ways, ancient in others; vast open lands and teeming cities;
and, sometimes, the tranquility of a peace-loving people shattered by
gunfire.
So, too, the government, much like the oddly assembled wildebeest that
migrates from the Serengeti Plain in Tanzania to Kenya's Maasai Mara, seems
made from disparate and sometimes conflicting parts. It is first a fledgling
democracy--albeit with stark shortcomings--but, in a place where the past seems
always near, it also is constructed of the culture and practices of millennia.
And, overarching all, the incongruous trappings of the not-so-distant British
colonial era. |
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William P. Mayaka '73 has carved a central place for himself amid Kenya's
disparate parts and has, with extraordinary deftness, built a remarkable career
of public service to his homeland.
On June 1, 1963, Mangu High School near Nairobi was on recess, and Bill
Mayaka, 17 years old, was at home with his family in Kisii. On this day,
after 70 years of British rule, Kenya began ruling itself--a landmark now
observed as Madaraka Day. His father, Zachary Angwenyi (by tradition,
Mayaka's grandfather gave him his name), was the senior chief of Kisii's
Kitutu location and was among those in charge of the celebrations. Although the
new freedom brought a fresh rush of patriotism, Mayaka had known, long before,
that he would devote the work of his life to Kenya.
In the early 1960s, in anticipation of emancipation, an eloquent young Kenyan
statesman, Tom Mboya, organized "student airlifts," finding public and private
funds to bring some of Kenya's brightest youngsters to study in the United
States.
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Mboya's plan received support from President John Kennedy and from the
heads of a number of U.S. colleges, including Colby president Robert E.L.
Strider. One of these promising young students was Charles P. Angwenyi,
Mayaka's cousin. Angwenyi graduated from Colby in 1964, continued his education
at the University of Massachusetts, and then returned to Kenya. By 1980 he had
been appointed chairman of the National Bank of Kenya, a key post from which he
played a central role in the development of Kenya as an economic power in East
Africa. Colby gave him an honorary doctorate in 1988, three years before his
untimely death of a heart attack. Charles and Susan Angwenyi's son Peter
enrolled last fall and was named Colby's outstanding freshman man in the Class
of 2000 in the spring.
Charles Angwenyi encouraged Mayaka to attend Colby. "He believed strongly in
the power of education," Mayaka recalled, "especially a liberal arts education.
And he dearly loved Colby." In 1969, Mayaka followed his cousin to Mayflower
Hill. [CONTINUE]
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