Chapter Five: Acquaintances

Ole Kuney 

Today we visited a long-time friend and medical colleague named Ole Kuney. We first overlapped at KCMC (Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre) in Moshi. In 1998-2000 Betty and I were on staff at KCMC. Our allocated quarters were fine and even the ‘servants quarters’ relatively commodious. But we had no need of servants. Our friend Ole Kuney was in special training for ophthalmology at KCMC. He lived in a dorm, but missed his family. So, Betty and I invited them to occupy our servants quarters during that time. One of the kids was one year old Melita. See previous letter “Melita Ole Moinget: Maasai M.D.” for an update on him.

Ole lives in a remote, dry part of Maasailand south of Kilimanjaro. He is a very active promoter of Maa interests BUT is distinctively disconnected from the current political party establishment. It’s a lonely road. Though not a party man he is optimistic about the role of Tanzania’s new President, Samia Suluhu Hassan. Presumably there is a delicate balance between her and the party “old guard.”

Rural Maasai ways have lagged behind the times. For example a girl in secondary (boarding) school, while home at her kraal on vacation falls at risk of becoming pregnant and/or married. Ole has built a dormitory at his place where such girls can stay during school holiday and keep their academic career intact. He is still out-of-pocket, but hopefully committed.

The drought is fierce and the rains weeks away. Nevertheless, the stock (cows, sheep, goats, etc.) seem to find sustenance in what looks like dead brown stubble. They do not look malnourished. I would guess that western stock would be less tolerant.

In Tarangire the plains game are concentrated near the river be-cause there is no other water source within their reach.

We are now getting ready for a reminiscence road trip to Kenya.


Mike Rainey

Mike Rainey was a member of “Teachers for East Africa” in the 1970s. He stayed on, setting up an agency to conduct semester abroad programs for US college groups. He (with wife Judy) focused on the Samburu people and wildlife conservation.

While we were never connected organizationally we shared so many commonalities as to feel like siblings. Close mutual friends were Paul and Margie Robinson.

Mike and Judy retired and have built their own rustic home in the “bush” south of Nairobi. We visited them en route from Nairobi back home to Arusha. The setting took my mind back to my parents’ start in Maasailand a century ago.


Elkanah Odembo Absalom

While Paul Robinson was director of Saint Lawrence University Semester-Abroad program, one of his American (SLU) students alerted him, and thence me, to an interesting Kenyan studying in US. This was Elkanah Absalom then studying in Texas. At that time I was on leave in US and attending TWO offspring weddings in New Mexico (next door to Texas). So I invited Elkanah to come so we could exchange perspectives on health development (and family).

The happy outcome was Elkanah joining the CHWSU team at AMREF. He joined me and Penina Ocholla in a very compatible troika.

In later years Elkanah went on to become Kenya’s Ambassador to France and then to USA. We had a lively visit with him in DC. His role there was of course vastly more complicated than at AMREF!

His friendship has been an enduring blessing.


Paul Robinson

Paul Robinson was a mission kid in Congo. He attended Rift Valley Academy (RVA). He with Margie returned to East Africa for field work on his PhD from Northwestern University. I accompanied him on his foray into the NFD to study the Gabbra people. Our lives have been happily intertwined ever since.

Paul was for a few years Director of the Saint Lawrence University Semester-Abroad program in Nairobi. Our son, David, assisted Paul on the program for two years. Paul also collaborated extensively with Mike Rainey in putting American students in the field. Then he directed the Wheaton College “HNGR” Program (Human Needs and Global Resources). Our two extended families are like overlap-ping Afro-American clans.

Roy and Helen Stover and Pat Barnett

The Barnetts are a “four generations-in-Africa” missionary clan. Barnetts have been residents of Eldama Ravine since 1905.

Our two families have been intertwined in many ways. For ex-ample, third generation Stanley lived with us in US during med. school days. So, we visited third generation Barnett girls Helen (Stover) and Pat. The three of them run a variety of enterprises there, including a short-term in-country retreat for missionaries.

From Ravine we descended to the Rift Valley floor and followed it through Nakuru to Naivasha. There we had a brief visit with sever-al ex-RVA-ites who have formed a residential community there.

The evening found us back in Nairobi at the motel facility of the Aero Club at Wilson Airport. The ‘20s decor and the traffic of small planes made for nostalgic reflections.


Art Davis

I was born at Kijabe Hospital in 1925. My birth-attendant was nurse Mrs. Davis, wife of Elwood Davis the doctor in charge of the hospital. The Davis’ son, Linell, followed them to the mission field. Hence Linell’s son Art was a student of ours when we taught at RVA in the ‘50s.

Art, in turn came back as a missionary under AIM. He and his wife Ellen had a rich ministry among the Pokot people. Art became quite a “fundi”(craftsman) in establishing water wells. So we had a great chin-wag during a brief stop-over near Naivasha.


Griffith “Steve” Stephenson

A slightly older schoolmate at RVA was “Steve” Stephenson. Our parents were good friends, though they served in different parts of Kenya. The Stephensons were Canadians and worked among the Kamba people. After RVA Steve attended Prince of Wales secondary school in Nairobi.

When World War 2 started Steve enlisted in the “Kings African Rifles,” a largely Black colonial (British, white-officered) military force. Because of his having grown up among the people he fit in very well with the troops. He was posted to ex-Italian Somaliland where he led a camel-mounted scouting troop.

After the war he joined the colonial civil service. In 1961 when I was posted to Monduli, Tanganyika as District Medical Officer I found Steve there as District Commissioner (DC). In December 1961 Steve was in charge (in Monduli District) of the pomp and circum-stances surrounding Tanganyika’s attainment of Independence un-der Julius Nyerere. Steve orchestrated the event with the skill of a Hollywood producer. In his feathered white pith helmet, white suit and war medals he cut quite a figure. At midnight the flags were ex-changed on the boma flagpole. Monduli had no electricity for their illumination, but we improvised. We removed a headlight from my Land Rover and used it as a spotlight to track the descent of the Union Jack and then the ascent of the new Tanganyika Flag.

There were mixed sentiments. For the Brits a mixture of satisfaction and nostalgia. For the majority of Maasai there was as much puzzlement as pride!

With the “Africanization” of the civil service Steve moved over to join the Tanzania National Park service. One of his responsibilities was to build and inaugurate Mikumi National Park, a gem of wildlife habitat. He was for a time Warden of Serengeti National Park.

While DC at Monduli Steve had met Yvonne Casely who was a teacher of our kids at Arusha Primary School. They were married and thereafter our paths crossed interestingly and happily in many ways and many places.

On our recent trip to Kenya we visited Steve and Yvonne at their retirement home in Nairobi. Though Steve’s speech was limited, his eyes still twinkled as we recounted old times.

He passed on a week or so later age 102. Such memories are permanently precious.


Dilly and Ruth Andersen

In the 1920s in the ranks of AIM missionaries was a Danish man named Andrew Andersen. He was a very creative man, doing “ap-propriate technology” fifty years before the title became a fad among the “Development Set.”
Andrew passed on his engineering aptitudes to his son Earl and in his turn his grandson, Herbert, more commonly known as “Dilly.”
When Betty and I taught at RVA (51-55) Dilly was one of our most satisfying students. He went to college in US and then has spent the rest of his life practicing “appropriate missiology” in Kenya and beyond.
He is a legendary practical problem-solver. Whenever a problem arises with water, power, soil, pests, vehicles, walls, roofs, culture or history, the default is “Ask Dilly.” He and Ruth are “family.” So they anchored our trip in Kenya. Our first stop in Kenya was at their home at 8,000’ on the north slope of Mt Kenya.


Nicky Blundell-Brown

Nicky while yet a young lady came to visit AMREF. Her connections were with the upper echelon and my work was in the field. So my memories of her in the ‘70s-80s were rather scattered. But, throughout Nicky has been to me like an elfin “spirit” providing continuity, context, and catalytic influence to AMREF affairs.
Though of very “British” background she developed a warm personal rapport with Kenyans at all levels of the organization. Through working with her husband Tim she became familiar with the tourism sector of Kenya’s economy, especially in connection with remote “camps” such as Sarara in Samburu country. (Hence our visit there as Nicky’s guests).
She is my only strong “connection” to the AMREF of old and she is valiantly trying to help me understand and relate to the AMREF of 2021.

Penina Ocholla

I rejoined AMREF in 1978 with the aim of strengthening the emphasis on “community.” My boss Chris Wood brilliantly “hi-jacked” from the Ministry of Health a talented and enthusiastic nurse-tutor named Penina Ocholla.

Our mutual compatibility carried us through the many uncertainties and travails of the evolution of “Community-Based Health Care.” A delightful memory from our Saradidi Reunion is of Penina dancing in the sunset to Luo music aboard the cruise boat.

Yes, Penina made life a “dance.”
 

Ole Moi Yoi

Onesmo ole Moi Yoi was born near Loliondo an end-of-the-line village on the indefinite border between Tanzania and Kenya.

He did well in school and sports. One day he qualified for inclusion as a runner in Tanzania’s Olympic team. But, on the same day he received notice of his acceptance, with scholarship, to Harvard College. After his BS at Harvard he went on to get his MD from Harvard Med.

He has had an outstanding career as a researcher. He is currently Director of ICIPE, a prestigious international center for study of in-sect physiology and ecology based in Nairobi.

Our families have been woven together in a variety of ways over the decades. So we got together at the Aero Club at Wilson Airport (Nairobi) for a lot of reminiscences.

The “Maasai-connection” endures.

 
Sylvie Emmanuel

At Sylvie Emmanuel’s we lunched on quiche and memories. Sylvie’s parents were medical researchers in Tanzania. Sylvie and her mother wrote a poignant memoir titled “From Kathmandu to Kilimanjaro: A Mother-Daughter Memoir.” Sylvie had married Nick, a Greek coffee farmer in the Moshi area. Nick was a dashing personality. He was a dynamic leader of the Mountain Club and other com-munity affairs. With “independence” (1961) came political questions about land tenure and thus hard times for some. But the Emmanuels somehow coped and stayed on in Tanzania, managing to keep their home.
 

Hugh Johansen

In the 1930s an RVA schoolmate was Gordon Johansen. His father Olaf was part of a clan of Norwegian immigrants to East Africa in the early 1900s. My sister Ruth Marie and Gordon re-connected when she returned to RVA to teach. They fell in love and married.

Gordon’s cousin, Hugh, has spent his life in the coffee business, managing and consulting in Kenya and Tanzania. He has resisted retirement and currently manages a coffee estate at Oldeani, on the southern slopes of the massif which constitutes the Ngorongoro Highlands area.

Changes in colonial status, World War II and finally Independence have kept ownership of these coffee farms in a state of flux. But the purely agricultural aspects remain quite steady. We enjoyed the “historicity” of both Hugh and his “settler-vintage” homestead.

En route to Hugh Johansen’s place we had a cordial visit at “FAME.” This is a private, charitable hospital at Karatu on the main road to Ngorongoro and Serengeti. Of particular interest to me was that FAME seems to have gained the cultural confidence of the Maasai people who are their neighbors to the East.

Both going and coming on this day trip we had traversed the town of Mto wa Mbu (roughly, “Mosquito Creek”). Among my memories there was participation in a short-lived research project. The hypothesis was that if you inoculated the salt supply with chloroquine you could reduce the prevalence of malaria there. The uncertainties were too many and the project was never really launched.


Mark Wood (son of Sir Michael Wood)

While I was District Medical Officer (DMO) Monduli I visited a remote dispensary on the plains between Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru and Mt Longido.

I took the opportunity to visit Mike Wood (founder of AMREF in 1959) at his farm “Engushai” on the slopes of Kili. His son Mark was present on vacation.

Mark went to medical school and specialization in ophthalmology. He has made enormous (though very low-key) contributions to eye health in Africa.

He (with his wife, avid birder “Finch”) is partially retired to a home in the “bush” between Arusha and Moshi. We enjoyed exchanging so many perspectives over a delicious lunch.

Eunice Simonson

In the 1950s my mother was invited to teach the Maasai language to a young Lutheran missionary starting out in Tanzania - then Tanganyika. The student was Dave Simonson. Thus began a long Shaffer-Simonson affiliation.

The most important link was our daughter Marilyn’s marriage to Dave and Eunice’s (Eunie) first-born named Steve. These notes are written in their home “Olasiti.”

Between us four (Roy and Betty / Dave and Eunie) we have witnessed a lot of history: Birth of two independent nations, indigenization of the leadership of two religious denominations, two attempted “coups,” digitalization of commerce and government, steady removal of hindrances to female advancement, a flood of educational opportunities, a slow but steady dilution of tribalism, steady decline in the prevalence of malaria and Africa’s part in the general “flattening” of the world.

Between us we enjoy multitudes of offspring and their spouses in four different countries around the world. We four have visited each other’s different homes (five in Africa) and had some hair-raising, yarn-generating safaris together.

Dave and Betty have gone on, but Eunie and I have oodles of memories to swap (and sometimes embellish!) and keep our brains tilled. Yes, we have quite a “quiver” full, “a goodly heritage.”

Chapter Four: Reflections

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