The intersection of Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way on the edge of the campus at the University of California at Berkeley.

At the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft sits a guy, cross-legged, as if he is meditating the countless pedestrians that rush by on their way to the University of California at Berkeley campus. The man has a dirty face, a scraggly beard, and tattered clothes. He is homeless; he needs a good bath, and a nice warm meal.

Yet none of the passersby seems to notice him, even though his life is just as sacred as that of the success-bound college students with their Cal–emblazoned gear and khaki shorts. If you listen carefully, you can hear this man utter a greeting and a “God bless you,” at times sounding more heartfelt than the President of the United States during the state of the union address. There may be wars being waged on other political and social fronts throughout the world, but here, there is none against homelessness and poverty.

When I came to this country eleven years ago, I was shocked by the sight of homeless people on the streets. In the Netherlands, few people are homeless, and those you do see lingering in the streets at night are probably homeless by choice. So coming here, I couldn’t help staring at homeless people out of fascination. Why were they living under bridges and in the corners of monumental buildings?

Hanging out outside Crepes-A-Go-Go in Berkeley.

“Look away, don’t make eye contact”

That was the usual advice, since the last thing you want to do is provoke a homeless man. He could be mentally ill, after all. “Don’t mess with homeless people,” was the mantra of indifference rooted in the perception that homeless people were probably there for a reason. So I looked away, and lived out the American dream in a quaint suburban house with an American husband and two blond cherubs, my Dutch-American children. On our trips into the city, I no longer stared at the toothless faces and the grimy hands that extended towards us from below on the sidewalks. I even told my children to look away and ignore the problem.

Homelessness was as far removed from our quiet middle-class lives as the moon is from the sun.

But then, on a glorious suburban day, our polished world caved in during the dot-com crash. Within months, we saw our reserves dwindle. Paying the bills became increasingly difficult. And after two and a half years of unemployment, scraping by on menial jobs and macaroni and cheese, I realized how easy it was to lose everything. Homelessness was not exclusive to the losers, the outcasts and the mentally ill. Homelessness could happen to boring suburbanites who hit a patch of bad karma.

People like us.

Seeing again

We still had a roof over our heads, but the future of our house and our health insurance were the demons that kept us awake. We anticipated the abyss, an abyss I had become all too familiar while helping out in a soup kitchen.

At first I was too busy helping out with the cooking and serving, but as these tasks became more routine, I had time to observe the haunted souls who dropped in. For the first time in years, I did not look away, but stared and registered.

There was a single mother with three children who should have been in school at that hour. They were all coughing, and although they were probably living out of their car or sleeping in a flee-infested shelter, the mother insisted on manners – the manners of a society that had completely abandoned them.

“Johnny, put your hand in front of your mouth when you cough.”

“Ellen, darling, use your napkin.”

“Paul, say ‘thank you.’ Now listen, let’s pray and thank the Lord for this
food.”

The children put their dirty hands over the white paper plates, closed their eyes and surrendered to the tranquil moment ordered by their mother. My eyes wandered off to a boy my son’s age who walked in alone. I filled his plate and asked whether his parents would be coming. He looked at me, both suspicious and afraid. The staff had instructed us not to ask questions.

The boy was silent, so I did not press him for an answer as to why he was there. I was curious though, and bringing a second dessert, I sat down with him and asked him about school.

“Don’t go to school much anymore,” he grumbled. “Both my parents work, but there is little food in the house, and my mother thinks it more important to come here. This is my first hot meal this week.”

At the end of the meal, I looked up as a woman walked in, impeccably dressed in a pearl necklace and high heels – the kind of woman one might expect to see in a bistro downtown. I shot a glance at our staff leader for the day, a Vietnam vet whose stories could fill the pages of a novel, although he never talks about the war. When the woman walked away to find a private corner – some of which carry a urine scent so heavy it made me gag, the staffer told me, “You know, we’re not here to judge. We’re here to feed. God knows where she’s at.”

“Maybe she lost her job and has to pay her parents’ nursing home bills, while also having to provide for her own family,” he added. “Judging is easy, feeding is a whole lot harder.”

As he said this, a man scraped the food off his plate into a plastic bag under his table and returned to fill up again. That was against the rules, but I didn’t report it, for that would have been a form of judging too. If the bag of food would tide him over for the rest of the day, I didn’t care about rules.

I struck up a conversation with a couple holding a newborn baby in their arms. They lived on the streets, but were remarkably upbeat for people who were raising a baby in the elements.

“We’re okay, really,” said the 19-year-old woman, whose eyes were bloodshot.

“The worst part is that people in the streets don’t look at us anymore,” she said. “They look away as if we’re dirty, or worse, as if we’re air. The baby attracts more attention, but as soon as we catch someone’s eye, they look away again. We might as well be dead.”

An elderly woman thanked us for the meal as she walked out. Her mouth had holes where her teeth should be. Her hair is a tangled web. And her T-shirt proclaims: “Proud to be an American.”

“Interesting T-shirt you’ve got there,” I said, unable to resist in this basement of America’s downtrodden. She caught my irony and said, “Honey, I never bought it. Got it second-hand. Don’t care much for the text, but I like the colors. God bless you.”

A month later my husband landed a job with a software company. We have slowly been able to crawl away from the snake pit of potential homelessness and hunger.

Now, I make eye contact with every homeless person I see.

And if I happen to be carrying food, I give some to the man who’s sitting at the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph.

He is always grateful and has the grace to acknowledge me. He does so even when I don’t give him anything at all.

He’s just homeless, and still human.

In The Fray Contributor

The Saturday market along the main road through tiny Fatehpur Sikri brings the whole town out in search of clothes, toys, supplies for the home, and more.

On the January night when I flew into Delhi, my ride didn’t show up at the airport. I flagged  down a cabbie who tried to get me as drunk as he was, and who tried to get me to switch accommodations to his choice of hotels. My arrival in Delhi was pretty typical — the stuff of many a travel story set in India. In the end, it wasn’t the nightmare it could have been.

My driver was an eager conversationalist despite his slurred, broken English. After assuring him repeatedly that I did not want a swig of the whiskey he’d received from a German tourist, and that I did not want to go to a different hotel, he went out of his way to find the correct address amidst the narrow lanes of Delhi’s Paharganj neighborhood. We parted cordially outside my hotel, wishing each other a happy new year. The experience typified what I both love and hate about India — the often threatening unfamiliarity and superficial chaos of the place; that friendliness could be either genuine or concocted to take advantage of me, a gullible foreigner; the allure of new sights, sounds, and smells; the joy that is often found once the inconveniences are overcome.

This was my third visit to India. My first trip had been thirteen years earlier, when I visited Chennai with my family. While Mom and Dad handled the travel arrangements, that brief trip whetted my appetite for all things Indian. After growing up in Washington, D.C. and small Wyoming and Iowa towns, it was my very first trip abroad. Without a doubt, it left a lasting impression. My next trip was five years later, as part of a semester-long college Buddhist Studies program. We spent the duration of our stay in the small town of Bodh Gaya in the northeastern state of Bihar. There, I was able to experience India on a deeper level than many travelers are afforded, although I was still granted the security of belonging to a large group of students and professors.

I could tell that this third trip was going to be different. Graduate school had offered two years of intensive reading, writing, and researching. In pursuit of my M.A. in South Asian Studies, I debated and discussed Indian history, contemporary politics, media, religious beliefs, social movements, literature, and cultural practices. After three years of Hindi language classes and dozens of Bollywood movies, I had set off to India as someone who no longer a tourist. I was newly aware of the preconceptions and ignorance I had carried with me on my earlier trips, and I was finally ready to see a new side of India.

I would also be on my own in a country viewed with awe and wariness even by seasoned globetrotters. Prior to my arrival in India, I had been visiting my brother in Vietnam. On a touristy boat ride in Ha Long Bay, a middle-aged American man who had lived for extended periods in the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam commented, “I’ve always wanted to go to India, but it seems like it would be so hard!” A Canadian couple told me, “We’d like to do some traveling in other places before we go to India.” A twenty-something Australian woman, halfway through a year of solo traveling, said she was impressed that I would be going to India on my own.

Having been there before, however, I felt I knew what to anticipate. I had even half-expected to be stood up at Delhi airport, but I still didn’t like it.

It was a warm winter day in Nawalgarh, Rajasthan. On a narrow side street, a group of boys played marbles. When I was asked to join them, I couldn’t say no.

The unfamiliar and the familiar

Every traveler to India has an “India-is-so-crazy” story (“There were people riding on top of the train!”). Just as many have an “India-is-so-enlightening” story (“Their way of life is so spiritual and real!”). There are numerous “India-is-so-poor” stories (“Begging children followed me for 20 minutes!”), and “Indian-culture-is-so-old” stories (“The temple is the same as it was a 1,000 years ago!”). Learning about India showed me the flaws and limitations of accepted Western understandings of this country. Perhaps it is no different than China, Russia, Brazil, Nigeria or any other country with a complex, vast or long-lived civilization. Even so, India stands apart in my mind.

I imagine our knowledge of India has not changed much since the days of European colonialism. The idea that the country is somehow timeless has created equally timeless stereotypes. India calls to mind images of poverty, exotic wild animals, destructive natural disasters, kings and extravagant palaces, religious fanatics, oppressed women, idyllic rural farm life, the horrifying slums of its megalopolises, and superstitious, uneducated masses trapped by the caste system. The failure of the Western imagination to evolve in this regard has resulted in the all-too-common tendency of travelers and writers to present an India that is exotic and alien. At the same time, it is easy to see why countless negative stereotypes of India persist in the Western mind. After all, stereotypes are inherently simplistic and superficial. In general, these things do characterize most foreigners’ experiences there, mine included.

As I dutifully traveled between the major tourist destinations described in my guidebook — Delhi to Rishikesh to Nainital to Agra to Jaipur — it was difficult to see the deeper aspects of Indian society. Instead, the glaring differences between Indian life and U.S. culture jumped out at me. In India, there were cows and monkeys and piles of garbage on the streets. I was regularly surrounded by noisy crowds unused to the concept of personal space. Shops, cars, trains, temples, and homes often appeared to be in disrepair. Temples and mosques and their openly religious followers were everywhere. Tenacious rickshaw wallahs, shop owners, and begging children confronted me every day.

Even after my previous visits and all my studying, and despite my love for the country, it was hard to feel fully at ease. I was acutely aware that my white face and red cheeks, brown hair, and blue eyes made me stand out in a sea of brown skin and black hair. I knew that I was ridiculously privileged, and that no matter what I did it would be impossible to see “the real India” — that tantalizing myth of the extreme travelogue. Street kids called me tomater, Hindi for tomato. I was cursed out for the United States’ treatment of Cuba. I was forever being overcharged for anything I bought. Sometimes I thought I might be better off ignorant of India’s history, languages, politics, cultural beliefs, and religious practices. My knowledge did not prevent me from enjoying myself, but it did make me realize that seeing India through the filter of stereotypes provides some comfort and assurance about the world, and one’s place in the world, that I was sorely missing.

New ways of seeing

A conversation with an amiable rickshaw driver towards the end of my trip proved to be a wake-up call. I was walking through the fabled Pink City of Jaipur in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, in search of lunch on a sunny and pleasantly warm day. Outside the magnificent City Palace, standing by his black and yellow rickshaw, was a stocky young man wearing a dark green button-down shirt. He watched me approach and we made eye contact.

“Excuse me,” he said in English. “Maybe you can tell me. Why are foreigners always so rude to Indians?”

Now, that was a good question.

I don’t know why I had a hard time answering him. Some foreigners feel like they’re often taken advantage of when they get into conversations with Indians during their travels, that something unpleasant — usually a sacrifice of their time or money — will be required. Did I feel some need to feign ignorance to avoid offending him, or was I thrown by his assumption that all foreigners (myself included) were rude? Before I could stammer an answer, he went on to tell me that one day, in a coffee shop, he had seen a foreign traveler sitting at a table with a thick guidebook. He approached the foreigner and offered his advice about where to go in the city. He was a native of Jaipur, had driven a rickshaw for years, knew all the sights, and was eager to speak with pride about his city. He had no intention to coerce the man into his rickshaw, he told me. It was his day off, after all.

Instead of thanking him for his suggestions, the foreigner flew into a rage. “Leave me the fuck alone!” he shouted at the rickshaw driver. “I don’t need your help! Get away from me!”

The rickshaw driver went on to describe many other occasions when his offers were rudely rebuffed by foreign travelers. “How would that make you feel,” he asked me. As I thought back to the times I had snapped at rickshaw drivers or pushy street vendors, I answered, truthfully, that it made me feel terrible. “Yes, it is terrible,” he agreed, insisting that rejecting a rickshaw ride could be done politely, with a smile and a bit of humanity.

And he was right. I had been consciously taking an even-handed approach with rickshaw wallahs, shop owners, pesky kids. They were all fellow human beings who didn’t deserve to be treated like servants or pets. But this conversation got me thinking seriously about how I appeared through the eyes of these people. I saw them every day. Even if I thought I was treating them respectfully, was I seen as just another bossy, tightfisted, standoffish, white foreigner with pockets full of money?

When I was the one bearing the brunt of a negative stereotype, it became easy to see the folly in thinking in terms of over-generalizations, no matter how convenient it might seem. People, and certainly entire countries, cannot be explained in such simplistic terms.

Everyday life in everyday stories

Now that I’ve returned home, I’ve changed the way I view and understand India, as well as the way I talk about it. I am much more conscious that the experiences I’ve had are minute tiles in a vast and ever-changing mosaic — that India is more than my shallow experience there. I make an effort to address the inevitable questions about its poverty, the caste system, and Hinduism, while also telling them something new about India that they’ve probably never heard before. Instead, I tell them something that is more familiar to their American lives. During my visit, I sat in a coffee shop in Lucknow with a crowd of locals watching India-Pakistan cricket matches — the biggest sports event in the country, and the equivalent of Superbowl Sunday in the States. I talk about going to the movies at Jaipur’s Raj Mandir Cinema, packed with locals for the opening weekend of the latest Bollywood hit Rang de Basanti. I relate how I spent many a morning in parks and restaurants reading the newspaper alongside Indian men, discussing the latest political news or sports scores. I talk about staying in a small town in the deserts of Rajasthan with a welcoming family whose 10-year-old son taught me to fly the small paper kites I saw over towns all across northern India. I reminisce about sitting around evening fires all along my journey, late into the cold night, discussing religion, friendship, marriage, family, and the mundane aspects of everyday life.

Such familiar activities are part of many travelers’ experiences, but they seem to fall through the cracks in favor of wowing friends and family with stories of wild adventures and foreign drama. Their stories further the myth that life abroad is utterly alien. Instead, the tall tales I tell are about how normal India can be.

In The Fray Contributor

Shortly before eight o’clock in the morning, marathoners get ready for the start of the race. (Elizabeth Yuan)

“Hot and hilly. And amazing.” When people ask, that’s how I sum up the International  Peace Marathon of Kigali that I ran on May 14, 2006.

When Liz’s alarm went off, I groaned and slowly sat up. “How ya feelin’?” Liz asked.  “Completely exhausted and depleted,” I answered. I had been sick with stomach problems the day before and wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to run the race. I took some Cipro, tried to rest and rehydrate, but I still wasn’t feeling well.

Two of our Rwandese friends, Robert and Banga, met us and our two American friends, Hunter and Alice, and we all six piled into the car for Amahoro Stadium, where the race would begin and end. I had just finished a small bottle of Gatorade and was clutching another bottle of water and an energy bar. Robert was behind the wheel wearing his cool white rasta cap, and his car was booming to hip-hop music, which immediately gave me a mental lift.

The idea behind the marathon is peace, and it was the brainchild of a Luxembourg woman, Bettina Scholl-Sabbatini, who has been to Rwanda nearly 20 times and loved it. Her group, Soroptimist International of Europe, undertakes projects geared towards women in developing countries, and the marathon was conceived under a program called “Women Building Peace.” The inaugural race last year was so successful that organizers wanted to make this event an annual one.

At the starting line, Liz and I met a few of the other foreigners, among them Simone Kayser, winner of the Marathon des Sables, the weeklong 155-mile (250 kilometer) ultra marathon across the Moroccan Sahara. Most of the runners around us were Africans, mainly Rwandese.

I lined up at the back of the pack. The race began and the overall pace was F-A-S-T. I was the last one out of the stadium, and I had to remind myself for the first few kilometers not to worry about trying to keep up.

The fastest of the half-marathoners, many of them running in bare feet, stampede past the rest of the crowd about a half-mile into the race. (Elizabeth Yuan)

About five minutes later, the half-marathon started. The runners approaching from behind sounded like they were part of a stampede. I glanced over my shoulder and then quickly faced forward. They were upon me. Arms brushed mine as legs flew by, jarring me slightly out of rhythm. For a moment, I really thought I’d get trampled.

The equatorial sun beat down hard. By 8:30 a.m., it was already 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius) and very humid. I love heat!  But running 26.2 miles (42 kilometers) in that temperature with the sun bathing my head for at least the first half was taxing. Runners soon poured water on their heads and in their mouths and then back on their heads. I did the same.

Sometimes I was carrying two water bottles at once. Whenever that happened, I soon lost one to a thirsty runner along the route. “Give me water,” the runner would plea, with an outstretched hand and a rapid pace.

Melanie Wallentine, in white shirt and white cap, runs several yards past a sign indicating hills. (Elizabeth Yuan)

Rwanda is known as the “land of a thousand hills.” I’d say there are 10,000. Before I left Utah, a friend said, “I imagine you’ll hit at least 30 of them in the marathon!” I don’t know how many there were, but it was hilly!

And it was a four-lap course. So, by the third lap, I had those hills memorized. And, I knew I still had one more lap.

Early on, cheers from the side of the road sounded initially to me like, “C-rash! C-rash!”  And they seemed to contradict the kindness and gentleness I had experienced up until then in Rwanda. I was stunned. But, after about the 20th time, I realized the spectators and runners were shouting, “Cour-age! Cour-age!” and were offering full support.

Also early on, several young runners, primarily half-marathoners, grabbed my hand, shouting, “Quickly, quickly,” and pulled me along at their pace. I actually felt lighter, as if they were carrying a part of me. I don’t remember the last time I ran that fast in a long distance race. (Ok, never.) But, for a few minutes, I did feel like a deer prancing along in the woods. Still, even the lightness couldn’t counteract the reality that my breath was becoming labored. After a few minutes, I patted the person on the back, said, “Thank you,” and dropped back to my pace. But the gesture of support was endearing.

A few kilometers later, a young girl in pink began running with me at my pace. Her name was Lucy, and she was 15 or 16. We ran side by side for many kilometers. We talked a little, and I thoroughly enjoyed her company. At one point, someone in the crowd playfully taunted her, yelling in Kinyarwanda, “Hey, that white person is beating you! Hurry up!” Later, she seemed to get dizzy or disoriented. She muttered, “I’m … tired.” I handed her one of my gels and said, “Take this.”  It seemed to help, and I was happy I brought extras.

Melanie gives fellow marathoner Gaspard Nsengamungu, a native Rwandan, a little sponge help over the head. (Alice Hou)

Then out of nowhere appeared two or three of Lucy’s friends who were also running the half, or the “semi,” as they called it. They scrambled around me, so that I was in the middle, and we all ran together for a while, elbow to elbow. Another priceless experience.

There were constant shouts of “Umuzungu!” which means, “White person!” in Kinyarwanda. One time I turned to one of the shouters, pointed to myself, nodded my head and acknowledged, “Yes, Umuzungu …” That drew a few chuckles.

As I was completing the half, the stadium crowd began to roar. They could NOT be cheering for me, I thought. And then, the epiphany occurred. The first place marathoner must be right behind me. I looked back to see a Kenyan plowing towards me. I scurried across the finish line, so that I wouldn’t get run over. Yup, a Kenyan had won — and I still had two laps to go.

In my first three marathons, I still felt good when I reached the halfway point. In this marathon, I felt awful and wanted the race to be done. The third lap was mentally and physically the toughest. I was running out of gas and beginning to feel a bit nauseous. I told myself I wouldn’t quit unless it was medically necessary, so I’d better work on a strategy. “Carbs, water, and keep moving” became my mantra. I pulled out my SHOT BLOKS that my friend Edwin had given me before I left, and said, “Ok, these had better work.” Soon the nausea went away.

I was still tired but feeling a little more functional. I also thought of everyone who had supported me during my training. And I sent a silent Mother’s Day wish to Mom and Grandma. I thought of my late brother, Victor, and felt him near. And I thought of the people of Rwanda and knew they’d been through so much more pain than I could ever feel on a marathon.

Somewhere in that second half, a Rwandese guy started running with me. We ran side by side for much of the second half. I’m not sure which was more limited, his English or my Kinyarwanda, but it didn’t matter. We communicated just fine. When his energy reserves began to deplete, I shared my SHOT BLOKS with him, and we kept going. With about 7 or 8 kilometers (4 to 5 miles) to go, he began to hang back, but I kept my pace.

Melanie and the girl who joined her in the final kilometers of the marathon head down the homestretch toward the finish line in Amahoro Stadium. (Hunter Pape)

Just as I was feeling my own energy deplete with about 5 kilometers (3 miles) to go, a smiling little girl in sandals and a multi-colored dress started running with me from the side of the road. I thought she would just run a few steps, laugh, and then go back home. But, she kept running – and – running – and – running – and – running. Arms swinging hard, she took two to three steps for every one of mine. But she kept up with my pace. I looked down. She looked up. I smiled. She smiled. We ran.

We glanced at each other from time to time, and I was spurred on by her determination and enthusiasm — and her luminous smile.

As we entered the stadium, I took her hand, and we ran the final lap around the stadium. Some cheers rang out from the few remaining in the crowd. After we crossed the finish line, I picked her up and swung her around. She wasn’t out of breath at all. I gave her my last SHOT BLOK and some water. Through a friend, I asked the girl’s name and age and “Is your family worried about you?”

With stoic confidence and poise, the seven-year-old responded, “No. I told them where I was going.”

Out of 253 people, 96 finished. I came in at around 5:08 with a small handful of people behind me. Trust me, I was just happy to finish. It was my most difficult marathon so far.

What a thrill to run a marathon in Rwanda! I would encourage any runner who truly wants an exhilarating running experience to run a marathon with Africans — in Africa.  There’s nothing like it.

Melanie’s roommate was InTheFray Contributing Editor Elizabeth Yuan, who was among the majority of runners who did not finish the race.

In The Fray Contributor

Reticulated Giraffe running. There are three subspecies of giraffes that live in East Africa: the Reticulated, whose spots are very clearly and cleanly marked; the Maasai, who are the tallest (up to 18 feet), darkest in color, and with spots going all the way down their legs; and the Rothschild, who are slightly smaller and lighter in color and have white “stockings.” (Marian Smith)

Matasha’s daughter squealed in delight when she saw the image of herself on my digital camera.  

The miniature screen showed her — the tallest child in the group — surrounded by almost ten other skinny, dusty, grinning children. Matasha, my Maasai guide, towered over them, tall and proud, his robes a bright pinpoint of red against the brown and tan colors of the savannah.

In the background appeared the interior of Matasha’s family compound. A massive fence of gnarled, sharp branches enclosed a cluster of round huts made from dung and sticks. The family corralled its herd of cattle in the middle of the huts each night, protecting them from the lions that roam the stretch of plains between Kenya’s Chyulu hills and the majestic Mt. Kilimanjaro.  

This was Campi ya Kanzi, 400 square miles of Maasai-owned land bordering the Tsavo West and Chyulu National Parks near the Amboseli Reserve in Kenya. Last summer, I stayed there with my boyfriend, Dan, and various members of my family, for four days at the beginning of a three-week-long safari through Kenya and Tanzania.

I squirmed the first time I saw where Matasha lived, unable to fathom why anyone would enjoy living in a hut made from dung. But at the end of my three weeks in Africa, after staying at other safari camps, I came to realize that the Maasai at Campi ya Kanzi were more than content with their traditional lifestyle and the dung huts that came with it; their culture was successfully withstanding any encroaching Westernization.

But I also realized that this fortunate state of affairs was allowed to happen only rarely. At most of the camps, ecotourism was simply a substitute word for high-priced wildlife-viewing expeditions. Locals weren’t given any stake in this version of tourism as nature conservation. At the same time, any notion of trying to preserve the local culture was practically unheard of. It was only at very few places, such as Campi ya Kanzi, that a pampered stay didn’t leave me with an uneasy conscience.

At Campi ya Kanzi, guests slept on feather pillows and Italian linens, enjoyed indoor plumbing in our canvas tents, and were supplied with soft white robes and slippers to wear at night. Each day, we woke up to a soft “Good morning” and the smell of freshly brewed coffee and sweet biscuits waiting on a tray on our private porch. During the day, we drove through endless miles of rolling bush, picnics packed in the trunk of our jeep, looking for wildlife with the help of our expert Maasai guides. And as the orange African sun began to set, we stopped on hilltops for our regular “sundowners” — wine and snacks — before heading back to camp.

The camp was the dream-come-true of Luca and Antonella Belpietro, a young couple from Brescia, in northern Italy. Ten years ago, Luca convinced Antonella to leave her chic life in Italy for the raw beauty of Kenya — the place where Luca had traveled extensively as a boy. Together, they discovered the Maasai-owned land in southern Kenya and formed a partnership with the 3,000 herdsmen living on it. With the Maasai’s help, Luca and Antonella built a main house and six cottages — with thatched roofs, rough wooden beams, and canvas sidings — for a maximum of 14 guests at any one time. They named the place Campi ya Kanzi, which means “Camp of the Hidden Treasure” in Kiswahili, and then invited people to come and see why.

Matasha, my Maasai guide, in traditional dress of red robes and beaded necklaces and bracelets. The spear in his right hand was with him always, a customary protection against wild animals when walking out in the bush. (Will Ebert)

Sustainable safari

Before I came to Campi ya Kanzi, I had been on a safari before, in the enormous Kruger National Park in South Africa almost 10 years ago.

I went with a friend’s family, and we stayed in unmemorable huts and drove ourselves around in a jeep, trying to avoid the seven-car pile-ups in which one or two cars would spot an animal and then five others would gather to form a rather — if I may say so — obnoxious crowd.  

This was no Kruger.  

For starters, there was only one other family and a honeymooning couple besides my family at Campi, and Luca and Antonella treated all of us as their personal guests. On our first day, they settled us into our tents, showed us around the grounds, and educated us on the history of the place. They also made very clear the camp’s mission — to raise money for schools and healthcare for the Maasai living anywhere within the extensive property, and to protect the wildlife.

That first day, Antonella explained that the wood for the camp’s construction came from sustainable tree plantations in nearby national forests, and that the water purifying system had been built out of the ubiquitous lava rocks of the Chyulu Hills. An organic vegetable garden provided the kitchen with its own natural produce, and the diesel generator* only ran for a few hours each day. Cards in our bathrooms told us that the little bottles of shampoos and soaps were biodegradable.

With an Italian eye for style, Antonella had decorated the lodge and the tents with local and traditional art: Beaded collars with strings of shells, ornate masks, and wooden carvings. Inside the main house, overstuffed sofas surrounded a large stone fireplace and heavy wooden chairs looked out across the open veranda to the mountains in the distance.

Most other camps lacked Campi’s rustic yet comfortable atmosphere.

Camp Kirawira in Tanzania, actively promoted its British colonial history, offering guests elaborate silver tea services laid out by local waiters wearing drab, grey uniforms and white gloves. Oriental carpets and old gramophones decorated the main house. Sure, the guides spoke flawless English and knew the Latin names of all the animals, but something didn’t feel quite right when a khaki-wearing man told us his tribe was Maasai. “Really?” I thought to myself and wondered where on the Serengeti he had bought his tan safari boots.

At Campi ya Kanzi, the Maasai were free to be themselves, red robes, spears and all. Along with the wildlife, they were the camp’s greatest assets.

Once, when we were in the bush on a game drive, Matasha called out to Stefano, our other guide and driver, to stop the jeep — he had seen an animal in the distance. I scanned the horizon eagerly, but even with binoculars glued to my face, I couldn’t see much besides trees and bushes.

Matasha said something to Stefano in Maa, the Maasai language.  

“Ah, yes,” Stefano said, looking into the distance with his own pair of binoculars. Then he translated. “A young giraffe — Maasai — born maybe three months ago.”

I continued to look, all the while silently grumbling to myself. Then, something miles away moved, and sure enough, through my binoculars, I could just make out the silhouette of a young Maasai giraffe, one of the three main subspecies that can be found in East Africa. My binoculars were no match for Matasha’s eyesight, however, so I took his word for it that the animal was three months old.

Matasha’s daughter, center, wearing my hat and sunglasses. Other children surround her, and in the background is the gnarled fence that forms the corral for the family’s cattle each night. (Will Ebert)

Conversations about conservation

At dinner time, the whole camp — all of us guests, Luca, Antonella, their three-year-old daughter Lucrezia, Stefano, and sometimes a few of the Maasai guides who spoke English — sat around the large wooden table in the main house. Animal sightings — herds of elephant, gazelles, giraffes, and zebras — were discussed at great length as was the more serious issue of introducing certain rare species back into the region.

On one such evening, Luca told us of some poachers who had hidden the skinned carcass of a hartebeest — a kind of antelope — in a large bush in the hills of the Maasai land. He guessed that the poachers came from the Wakamba, another tribe that competes for resources with the Maasai, often resulting in tension between the two tribes. Luca resolved to gather a team of Maasai to go find the men.

The fierce ownership Luca displayed that night was equal to that of the Maasai, even though Luca is essentially a guest on their land. The two parties have built an extraordinarily strong and respectful partnership, and that is what makes Campi ya Kanzi unique in my eyes. Of the $425 per person per night fee, $30 goes to a charitable foundation that supports the Maasai culture — Luca meets with representatives from the community several times a year and together they decide how to allocate funds to schools, healthcare, and social projects. The rest of the money goes to sustaining the camp and its employees, and paying the salaries of the Maasai who work there or as scouts, patrolling the land for poachers.

In this way, as the Maasai work to conserve the wildlife on the reserve, they benefit from even the smallest number of tourists. In 2000, Luca and Antonella also set up the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust that contributes specifically to wildlife adoption and to reimbursing the Maasai for any damages to their herds caused by predators.

Showing the Maasai the benefits of protecting lions in particular was difficult at first since cattle, which the lions hunt, are the Maasai’s livelihood. Dowries are given in cattle, boys are given their first cows when they formally become men, and families are considered wealthy only by the number of cows they own. But slowly the Maasai have come to realize that the more lions there are, the more consistent the stream of tourists contributing to Campi ya Kanzi’s trust which, in turn, helps preserve the Maasai culture.  

Years ago, Luca told me, a Christian missionary group tried to help the Maasai by building them a well so they would always have water. But after months of grazing their herds of cattle only on the surrounding grasses, the Maasai found that the land had become parched and the well was providing less and less water. The missionaries had meant well but their lack of cultural understanding blinded them to ways of helping that would still allow the Maasai to continue living their traditional nomadic life.

Matasha’s daughter, center, in a green dress, surrounded by other children. Behind them are two traditional huts constructed of dung, mud and sticks with a thatched roof. Inside, it is almost pitch dark and there are only a few fist-sized holes in the walls to let in light and release smoke from a small fireplace that burns in one corner. In the background is the corral’s fence, and behind that are the Chyulu Hills. (Will Ebert)

The pride of the Maasai

As guides, cooks, guards, and caretakers, the Maasai employees of the camp are not making their living by traditional means. But they do return to their villages on weekends and periodically throughout the year, and with the support of the foundation, they are all very likely living as closely as they can to their nomadic heritage.

When Matasha invited us to see his village, it became clear how respectful this reciprocal relationship between tradition and tourism can and should be. The visit with his family was not part of the tour — he was not being paid to show us a slice of Maasai life. Rather, he invited us as his guests. Matasha and his extended family live in essentially the same way his ancestors have lived for generations, and he was happy to show us the culture he was fighting to sustain.

In the dusty corral, Matasha’s wife watched over the assortment of children. By now, they had managed to extract the sunglasses and hat from my head and were gleefully chasing one another in their attempts to try them on. With his colorfully beaded wooden stick — a rungu — signifying leadership and power, Matasha motioned us toward one of the mud huts. Beaming, he told us it was his mother’s house.

Thinking about that day now, I can’t help but recall how the other safari camps spelled out in their brochures what it was like to visit a traditional village with their guides. They advertised it as an authentic experience, a unique opportunity to see where and how tribespeople had been living for generations. But when we realized that these “visits” actually entailed crowds of tourists piling into little vans to descend on these “villages,” where dollars could buy the beaded necklaces and postcards conveniently on display, we refused to sign up. It didn’t sit right, especially after Matasha had so generously invited us inside his own mother’s hut, where she slept, cooked, and lived her quiet life.

I must admit though that when I first saw Matasha’s home, it was difficult to reconcile the fact that I would be going back to a furnished, comfortable tent that night, while Matasha’s children would pile into their dung hut at bedtime. But seeing how happy they were — how proud — to live the way they did, brought home the fact that I was the only one feeling embarrassed about the disparity in our sleeping arrangements. Matasha and the other Maasai working at the camp saw the luxury of the guests’ lodgings every day, but they weren’t jealous. To them, our lifestyle was just another way of living.  

Part of the beauty of traveling is learning to look at things from a new perspective, however clichéd that sounds. For the rest of my stay at Campi ya Kanzi, I stopped feeling guilt-stricken when I returned to my tent at night. That I slept on a feather pillow was of little consequence to the Maasai at Campi. Rather, what mattered to them (and to me) was that my visit was helping sustain a traditional way of life they did not want to lose. My conscience slept easier after that.

Matasha‘s daughter, center, in a green dress, surrounded by other children. Behind them is Matasha‘s mother‘s hut, constructed from dung, mud and sticks with a thatched roof. To the left is Stefano, Luca‘s long-time friend from school in Italy, who works at Campi ya Kanzi as a guide. (Will Ebert)

Correction, April 7, 2006: This article originally misstated that Campi ya Kanzi uses a solar-powered generator for a few hours each day. In fact, the camp uses a regular diesel generator for a few hours each day when it needs to run some heavy-duty appliances. The rest of the time, it uses solar-powered electricity. (Go to the corrected text.)

In The Fray Contributor