Our last day of adventure in Africa began with a canoe journey. After a short drive out to the coast of Mombasa Island, the ten of us on this trip seated ourselves in three canoes. Expertly, the African sailors paddled us along the coast. Our wooden canoe was tiny; I seem to remember it being only about two feet wide. We all sat as still as stone in it, terrified of causing the fragile boat to overturn.
The sea was a sparkling blue, the sun beamed warmly down upon us, and the only sound was the gentle swish of the paddle entering the water. It was superbly tranquil. The only nagging thought was that the next day we would be returning to our everyday, mundane lives.
We turned towards the mangrove swamps. It was high tide, so all but the top twenty feet of the trees was submerged. We sailed in between the trees, occasionally ducking under some low-lying branches. Among the trees were some large platforms on stilts, atop of which were Africans fussing over large barrels. These were people illegally distilling alcohol, otherwise known as moonshine. They were friendly, calling out jambo as we passed. We neglected, however, to take them up on their offer of a drink.
Our guides stopped the canoes under a particularly luxuriant mangrove tree. They passed us coconuts which had a straw and some flowers inserted in a hole in the top. We relaxed under the shady tree, sipping coconut milk and eating fresh pineapple and bananas. It felt like the Garden of Eden.
With our tropical snack over, we sailed to a beach on the – island? mainland? We had lost track. This was the site of a primitive village. We were escorted by some African children to the village square, where we sat on a log. Some drummers came on the scene and began to beat out a lively rhythm – whereupon several teenaged African girls, dressed only in bikinis, ran in front of us and began to dance. I promptly turned away to watch the enjoyable sight of the African toddlers trying to dance to the rhythm.
Then the girls stepped aside as a new performer arrived on the scene – the chief/witch doctor of the village. He was a wizened old man wearing an endless number of robes, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, and a host of other bizarre objects attached to various parts of his anatomy. With astonishing agility, he began to leap and dance to the music, waving a staff which had an animal’s tail tied to the end of it.
The girls came forward, begging us to dance with them. I shrank back in alarm, then saw an escape route. I stepped over to the witch doctor and asked if I could dance with him. He grinned happily and passed me his staff. With my tzitzis flying I leapt and danced with the witch doctor to the sound of the drums. It wasn’t your average Tuesday morning.
The dancing finished and we made our way back to the beach. Along the way, the African children swarmed around me, taking it in turns to look through the viewfinder on my camera. Several of them were begging me for money. Some of our group gave out food, and my father and I remembered guiltily the ripped shirt that he had thrown in the garbage on Motzai Shabbos.
Arriving at the beach, we discovered that our canoes had been replaced by a motorboat. We stepped aboard as the woman who drove it powered up the motor. Then we zoomed along the water at what seemed like warp five compared to the canoes. As we bounced over the waves, the pilot pointed out the sights of Mombasa.
To our joy, she let us each take a turn at piloting the boat. The speed at which it moved was quite remarkable; it was very James Bond. Putting on the gas during a tight turn, however, I managed to nearly overturn the boat!
We returned to the Silver Star at midday. The rest of the group was planning to tour Mombasa during the afternoon, but my father and I elected instead to visit a nearby crocodile farm at Mamba Village.
At the entrance to the farm were several crocodile skulls and a large sign, which read: “The Management of Kenya Crocodile Farms Ltd. do not take responsibility for any damage caused to the property of the visitor or any injuries, whether minor, serious or fatal.” Oh, joy.
Inside, we found several thousand crocodiles, separated into different enclosures depending on their size. There were yearlings of only two feet long, youngsters of a few feet, and adults of ten or twelve feet in length. There was also a separate enclosure of mutant crocodiles, with twisted, deformed bodies, some lacking tails.
Large signs directed us to “Big Daddy,” the flagship crocodile of the farm. We eagerly made our way to the enclosure. Peering over the extra-high walls, we saw him.
He was the biggest reptile that I had ever seen. From the tip of his snout to the end of his tail he measured sixteen feet (five meters). He lay on the bank of his pool, a much smaller female lying next to him. A guide explained that the first female which they had placed with him had disappeared by the next morning.
A sign said “Camel Rides ~ 50 Shillings.” Never one to turn down an opportunity to come into contact with an animal, I duly paid the fifty shillings and went to the camel sitting in a nearby hut. Getting on its back was considerably easier than mounting the saddle of a horse. After all, the camel was sitting down. Furthermore, there were two large poles affixed to its back, which made for a much better grip than the reins and saddle-blanket of a horse.
Then the camel stood up.
At first, I thought it was throwing me over its head. Camels stand up by first raising their back legs. I was flung forwards at an angle of 45 degrees, desperately clutching the poles so as to avoid flying forwards over its neck. I had just about salvaged a grip when the camel lurched up on its front legs, and I was flung backwards. The African guide was laughing at the somewhat colorful language that had escaped my mouth.
Some weeks previously I had taken a ride on a horse, and had been somewhat unnerved at being so high off the ground. But if I had thought that riding a horse was like being on a skyscraper, then sitting atop a camel was like being in the troposphere. Far below I could make out the specks that were the camel guide and my father. Clouds drifted past my face in the thin air. Stars twinkled overhead.
After a short but enjoyable ride, the camel returned to its shed for it to sit down and enable me to dismount it. If anything, the camel sitting down was even more terrifying than the camel getting up. Still, it was another important life experience under my belt.
Our guide then gave me a baby crocodile to hold. Although it was only a few days old and measured only about a foot in length, it still possessed strong jaws and needle-sharp teeth, and I had to hold it with extreme care. When our guide placed the edge of his shirt near its mouth, it snapped at it and gripped it tightly.
A small additional fee gained us entrance into the aquarium and botanical gardens. The aquarium housed freshwater tropical fish taken from the African lakes and also marine fish native to Kenya’s coasts. There were angelfish, moray eel, butterflyfish, and clownfish swimming among anemones. There were also several poisonous species, such as the lionfish and the lethal stonefish which, as its name suggests, is cunningly disguised as a stone.
The botanical gardens proved to be far more interesting than I had expected. First we saw a selection of pitcher plants. These contain pitchers of sweet-smelling liquid at the ends of several tendrils. Insects, attracted by the smell, fly into the pitchers, whereupon they drown in the liquid and the plant slowly consumes them. There was also a potplant which grows its own pot from its leaves. Then there were sensitive plants, the fronds of which curled up tightly when we touched them. These were just a few of the countless weird and wonderful flora that we saw.
Our guide then took us to see a small reptile and insect collection. The reptiles were Kenya’s native species, now becoming quite familiar to us: green mambas, house snakes, and African rock pythons. Our guide told us that people would turn up with canvas sacks casually slung over their shoulder, and would pull out, with their bare hands, a green mamba to give to the collection. Most Africans either treat all reptiles as dangerous and kill them all, or take a careless approach with even dangerous snakes.
For me, the most fascinating part of this exhibit was a baboon spider, so named because its limbs are said to resemble those of the baboon. It was unquestionably the biggest spider that I had ever seen in my life, and that’s saying a lot. Its leg span was about eight inches and each leg was as thick through as a fountain pen. The body measured some three inches in length, and it had fangs that were half an inch long. When I tapped the glass of its cage, it reared up on its back four legs and then lunged forwards with its fangs as quick as lightning, striking against the glass. Ardent naturalist as I am, I was nevertheless relieved that I had not found any wild members of this species.
Finally, we watched the crocodiles being fed. Their keeper walked along a plank affixed above the main pool. He took a hunk of meat from a bucket and lowered it on a string until it hung about five feet above the water. Immediately about ten crocodiles swum over and began jostling and snapping to get the meat. It was a most exciting spectacle. Whenever one of the crocodiles was about to snatch the meat, the keeper would pull it just out of reach, and the crocodile’s jaws would slam shut with a loud whumph! Eventually, one crocodile managed to grab the meat, and the keeper repeated the procedure several times.
It was time to go. We made one final stop at Arik’s store to purchase some more souvenirs: a cow’s tail fly whisk, a chess set, some stools and various small shmonsers. Then it was back to the Silver Star for our final night in Africa. That evening, the entertainment was “Harry’s Disco.” I stayed just long enough to hear Jambo Jambo, the cheery African song that had become the symbol of the holiday. Then I wandered over to the sea’s edge with my father to gaze at the stars.
The waves were crashing over the shore as we looked out at the magnificent view of the night sky, unhindered by any artificial lighting. The stars in the Southern hemisphere are different to those that we see here. We looked at the Southern Cross, the bright pattern of stars used for navigation. Far out at sea, some ships were flashing their lights.
“Dad,” I said to my father, “I really want to thank you for bringing me on this trip. It’s been the holiday of a lifetime.”
“Well, I guess you deserved it,” replied my father, slightly unconvincingly.
“We’ve come out on this adventure to Africa,” I continued, “just the two of us. Here we are, looking out at the stars by the Indian Ocean. Aren’t we supposed to do some father-son bonding?”
“What do you mean?” asked my father.
“You're supposed to give me some deep philosophical guidance about life,” I said.
“How can I possible do that?” asked my father. “You’re in yeshivah, you’re living in a completely different system to that which I grew up in. How can I advise you about anything?”
“Come on,” I pleaded, “Can’t you at least give me some good advice for me to take with me in life?”
“All right,” replied my father, “I’ll try.” He paused for a few moments, then looked me straight in the eye.
“Always,” he said, “eat your dessert after the main course.”
And with that, he walked back to the room.
I stayed by the beach a while longer. I lay down on the ground and stared up at the thousands of stars shining brightly above me, listening to the sounds of the waves breaking on the shore. Then I returned to the room and went to bed.
Five-thirty the next morning saw us packing our bags and loading ourselves into the buses. Although our week in Africa had been a phenomenal experience, we were looking forwards to returning to the familiarity (and the hygiene) of our home in Israel.
Two hundred and fifty Israelis descending simultaneously upon Mombasa airport strained its resources considerably and created an exciting, if chaotic, scene. At ten o’clock we boarded the plane. Semodar was on the verge of tears; her husband’s tefillin had been lost. So much for our labeling of them as chilonim. If there was one lesson that we had learned in a week in Africa, it was that a kipa, or the lack of it, doesn’t mean very much.
In the daylight, we could look down upon Ethiopia and the coast of Saudi Arabia during our flight. A buzz of excitement sounded through the plane when we reached the border of Israel. When the plane touched down in Lod, there was rapturous applause and singing. It was nice to see the clear joy that everyone felt upon our return to the Holy Land. We traveled by sherut back to Jerusalem, during which I hummed Jambo Jambo. Eventually, we arrived home in Bayit Vegan. And with that, our adventure in Africa was finally over.
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