Old Africa Magazine

            I apologize for not updating for a while and I apologize even more for starting off the entry that way. I’ve been living with a missionary in the bush for the last three weeks working for a magazine called Old Africa. (oldafricamagazine.com)

Working for the magazine has basically taken me on a tour of colonial Kenya. I have met the only man ever to represent Kenya in downhill skiing at the Olympics. I went to Nairobi Royal Golf Course, a course in the heart of the city that shares a border with Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa. From one of the holes you can see over the eight foot wall that separates them into the dense forest of corrugated metal roofs. I’ve read all kinds of stories about pet lions and visits by the king.

It’s been a hippo filled time—until yesterday I think I had a 10-day hippo sighting streak going. Hippos kill more people in Africa than any animal other than mosquitoes (because of malaria) They look really funny, like obese sausages with skinny little legs. Usually their bellies almost drag on the ground. As a sign near Lake Naivasha proclaims, however, hippo feet are short and round but long enough to touch the ground. They can run up to 30 mph, which is faster than Usain Bolt. A single bite from a grown hippo can split a human into three pieces. On top of that they are easily annoyed.

My hippo sightings started on Lake Victoria. I left my tent to go to dinner and there was a hippo grazing a few feet from the tent. Luckily he was content to just chew grass and look at me. Most recently, there has been a large bull hippo wandering about the lawn of the house I’m living at every night. It’s as big as a small car but whenever we shine lights on it, it prances away, slightly frightened and annoyed, into the bush.

            The one bad thing is that hippos are very dangerous and this area also has a lot of African buffalo, which are the third most deadly animal, so I can’t go outside after dark.

            I’ll be volunteering for a few weeks in Uganda building schools after this, then I go back to Chicago. I'm excited to get back.

Aaron