This was the day that really made the trip, as far as the story was concerned. Everything was background to this, because today our boots covered a lot of ground.

Up at 0600 for shower in the CLU and then the dry breakfast (KBR stuff doesn’t come on until 0730, which is surprisingly late but the personnel concentrate their PT during the coolest morning hours, which makes a ton of sense because the heat in the midday is stunning, as we’re basically only 2 degrees south of the equator).

Then I hop into a truck with a Kenyan driver, Capt. Steven McKnight, a civil affairs team leader who’s finishing out his year in five weeks, and one of his specialists. Based on McKnight’s brief the day before and the conversations I had with specialists about him, I am expecting to find out over the course of the day that McKnight’s the star of the piece.

Expectations were met and then some.

I get a long tape on him just in the hour drive to the local school where a Marine Expeditionary Unit engineering company, there for an exercise known as Edge Mallet, is spending a week rehabbing a school and doing a MedCap (making their field medical unit available to the locals in a concentrated fashion). He gives me tons of stuff. I take some notes but mostly just hold up the recorder from the back seat (he rides shotgun). His local knowledge is amazing.

When we get to the school, there’s all these Marines working the place over (fixing up a school the US military had helped build three years ago but which the local contracting methods had left in a bad state given some choices regarding cement, foundation rocks, and ceiling construction methods--all of which were either replaced or mitigated somewhat by these comprehensive repairs), plus a load of Kenyan troops, also similarly skilled (actual builders). I wander around with the recorder on, snapping tons of photos and interviewing the company officer in charge, a very cool and articulate female Marine, plus the school’s headmaster. After shooting the kids assembled, I pull out (after asking permission) a big bag of licorice my wife sent along, setting off a frenzy among the kids (primary school), so I end up pulling each stick into three pieces and shoving them into thrust palms, trying to focus on the littlest kids.

All in all, we’re there for what seems like a really long time but then I look at my watch and it’s only eleven.

McKnight wants to run me over to the local regional training center of the Kenyan National Youth Service. He’s had a lot of interactions with them over the year and sees them as a key local asset to build on in HOA’s civil action work. So we drive for a ways on the sandy roads (which are often unpassable in the rainy season) and come up on the training camp.

First a sitdown with the leader Sammy, with whom Steve’s obviously had tons of interactions. Then we tour the place and walk the fields (bananas, watermelons, and a sweet potato-like root plant which Sammy has cut down to demonstrate how the roots are harvested [we eat some raw]).

All in all we’re there about two hours, from 1130 to 1330 and out in the sun the bulk of the time. I’m reapplying screen and bug spray and wearing my Australian beach hat, but I am burning up all the same. It is a debilitating heat and it’s scary to think of what global climate change does to Kenya, sitting right on the equator.

We drive back to the base and I get another whole tape of discussion with McKnight, giving me about 5-6 hours for the day. It’s another great discussion, full of quotes.

Back at the base, we get some lunch and I chat up the various foreign LNO officers in the mess.

Then we all pile into vehicles (LNOs, McKnight, two force protection guys, Adm Moon and his aide) and head to the local Kenyan naval pier (pretty basic) to take three long-boat high-speed launches to the local port city of Lamu, across Manda Bay.

It’s a wild, 40-45 mph ride, and it’s better to be back than up front where the teeth fillings are being loosened with each bone-crunching wave slap. It’s like riding a horse or taking out the Boston Whaler I used to run my kids around on back in Narragansett, except we’re all business in terms of getting straight across the bay and then into this long cut-out channel that gets us direct to Lamu. The shorelines are right out of a Dr. Seuss book: a wall of mangroves with interlocking roots that constitute an almost solid wall. All the rock is the coral stuff, which is porous as hell but is still used as foundation stones, including all over the camp (every building is propped up from the ground, where the ants rule).

We land in Lamu and I’m snapping pictures throughout. Pleasant, largely Muslim city, but quite relaxed. Been here for centuries, but marked by a strange amount of both Indian and Italian influences.

First thing we do is pay office call on regional senior warden of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, who’s a big deal locally because KWS is probably the most respected lethal force in the country.

Then we walk through the city’s maze-like allies to visit a school where a civic action program was previously conducted (another comprehensive rehab). For me, same basic deal as the morning: but this time I don’t interview, and spend my time observing McKnight and Moon, figuring that would be the next layer worth exploring.

We bug out after an hour or so, wander some more along back allies (all very tight, with the force pro guys hovering like conscientious tour guides--me always lagging for shots).

I buy some wooden souvenirs (the dhow sign all ships carry locally, and a couple of greetings signs: hakuna matata [which means just what the movie said in Swahili] and the ever present “jambo” [hello]: I got a lot of laughs by holding up the sign preemptively to little kids). Eventually we make our way to an old hotel on the dock where I whip out a 1000 shillings (about $15 USD) and buy drinks for everyone, declaring William Randolph Hearst rich enough to do so. I realize I’m getting a lot of stuff here at basically no cost (lodgings, food, all that travel and most of all--all that time), so I’m trying to signal my appreciation (I’m buying the first round basically every night).

McKnight, Moon and I have a great discussion on the porch of this place, absorbing the Indian Ocean breeze at sunset.

We head back to our launches by passing through an area where the local boatmen are building their dhows by hands, with almost no tools (still). The navy guys all find that stuff fascinating.

Then it’s high-speed back (about 45 minutes) as the sun disappears and we’re back in our cars and then back at the camp for dinner. I’m still interviewing McKnight, this time penning on napkins.

After dinner, Moon does an all-hands, letting me take notes (a lot of trust there based on our hours of conversations). After dinner, I part with McKnight (he’s off early in the a.m.) and we promise to stay in touch. Seriously, this guy gets out of the military and Enterra might give him a good look WRT Development in a Box.

Then Admiral and I, who promised Mukala (the Kenyan BGen we had drinks with last night) that we’d come back the next night, head over to the Kenyan O club with all the LNOs in tow.

Another two hours of conversation til 2300 and it’s a lot of fun. Mukala is really a storyteller, so I do a lot of dueling stories with him, which delights him to no end (he keeps pronouncing with finger-wagging winks: “I like listening to this professor!”) as he jokingly encourages me to give up on Asia and start adopting Kenyan babies so we can be relatives.

Back to the hut at 2330, I download all tapes and pix, pack up, and watch a bit of Star Trek VII (Generations) before dozing at 0100.