Rolex, our Maasai driver, has been to Nairobi to take tests...and he informs us that he'll go again as soon as he feels confident that he can pass the next level. Guides can earn bronze, silver, or gold medals for their knowledge of the animals and birds that roam their ancient hunting grounds. He's interested in the fact that I write books and says he wishes I'd brought one with me. Where did he learn to read? I ask. In school. His teachers, he explains, were Dutch, and they taught him well. On that first drive, we learn to recognize topi -"cowboys," Rolex calls them, "in blue jeans and brown boots

Topi See more photos from the safari on the safari photo page.

Glossy white eggs poke out from under a male ostrich. His black sheen looks more like fur than feathers. Four water buffalo stare with belligerent eyes under flat, curved horns. "The Beatles," our group dubs them. Someone points out the wart hogs we're watching are the sorority girls of the savanna with their high heeled prissy steps and perky tails in the air.

Guests to the Intrepid Safari camp sleep in comfortable tents under mosquito netting and look out over a river with hippos in it.    In the mornings, we wake up to the call of "jambo" at the tent door and a thermos of hot chocolate, coffee, or tea. We drive into the chilled, clear air under bright Maasai blankets. For a while, we watch a lioness with a wildebeest carcass and listen to the rough sound of her tongue as it licks something that looks like Saran Wrap.

But he also has a warning for us. "Don't flash the red blankets." Though experts say lions can't see color, he's watched them become agitated and thinks that somehow seared into their brains, passed on to their cubs, is a memory of the circle of warriors who've long hunted the male lion for its mane. "The lion never shows you his back," Rolex says. "He looks into each man's eyes and he knows which is the most coward person. He runs toward that one. Then the warriors together kill the lion. Every time, somebody dies. Sometimes even ten die." His words remind me of the true stories in Facing the Lion by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton about his own Maasai childhood. 

The radio crackles, and Rolex speaks into it. Except for an occasional "negative" and "over" and "roger," he uses words we can't understand. Then he starts the vehicle rolling. It's disconcerting to see a herd of greenish-gray jeeps converging on the same spot, but the guides' communication increases our odds of seeing something interesting-a hyena bringing down a wildebeest; a cheetah who has clearly spotted a vulnerable calf but (perhaps because of the jeeps) apparently changes her mind and stays near her cub instead. We're an appreciative audience for so many ostriches doing their mating dances that soon we easily recognize the pale blue of a female, the hot pink neck of a male.  

I feel mournful when it's time to leave this peaceful place  and make the short air hop back to Nairobi, where I'm soon embroiled in an unpleasant surprise involving books--more specifically a shipment of my books, paid for by me, carefully researched by a bookseller in Maine, insured by the U.S Post Office, a fact that lulls me into false confidence (since the post office representative tells the bookseller that they will only insure books to two countries on the continent, Kenya and South Africa). Armed with this false confidence, I spend a lot of time looking for the books that I'm sure have arrived and are stashed somewhere. Eventually I'm forced to conclude, no. They seem to have met the fate of many a shipment to Africa. Stuck in customs.

At 4 a.m. on the last morning, I remind myself of the glorious experiences I've had thus far. I meditate on the stages of grief (brought to us via Power Point by one of the consultants the day before) and decide I've reached Acceptance. Gamblers lose. Life goes on. I feel a great lightness as I let go. Books are, after all, extraordinarily heavy.

That day, Leonard heads to Ethiopia to see Jonathan and Hiwot, our son and new daughter-in-law, while I turn my face toward West Africa.

Senegal is a parade of surprises. As someone used to Ethiopian Airlines and Kenya Air, the first shock is how hard it can be to get there. Our route is through Abijan, an airport which has suddenly been declared unsafe, so the final six-hour institutes in Nairobi are punctuated by interruptions-

"We need your passport."

"Please fill out this form."

"Hurry downstairs; a photographer is waiting to take your picture."

The AISA family has gone into scramble mode to get us visas for an overnight stop in Ghana. After a bleary-eyed early-morning departure and minor airport mishaps, more AISA folks scramble to make sure we feel welcome in Accra.