Here is the travel story I submitted to the Facebook group, We Love Memoirs' travel story contest. Alas, it didn't win, but I thought I'd share it here anyway. It was fun to put together. Also, our African safari in the fall of 2013 was amazing. As usual when I travel, my goal is to write a poem a day. A Travel Story in Poems Preparing to Go Even while I am on the elliptical reading my New Yorker I wonder: should I add more shirts? should I pick out some silver jewelry? do I need a pair of high heels? While my Pilates trainer says my form is excellent, I visualize the piles of shirts, pants, undies, jackets on the sofa, shoes scattered on the floor, and stuff bought especially for this Kenya and Tanzania trip: insect repellent, bite itch eraser, and a new camera with built in telescopic lens. Even while I do my last stretches I know I have more to do: put my toiletries in travel containers, get out my contact lens solutions, lay out my travel … [Read more...]
Drum rolls for my guest Marie Abanga
I'm so pleased to introduce my guest Marie Abanga, author of My Unconventional Loves: My Hurts, My Adulteries, My Redemption, a book written in a voice so raw and open it almost takes my breath away. Here she tells how she created her book almost in complete secrecy because of what she calls her "embarrassing and shameful revelations." Please welcome Marie. I am so glad she persevered and successfully completed her memoir project. My Memoir Writing Journey by Marie Abanga Hi there, my name is Marie Abanga, author of the memoir My Unconventional Loves: My Hurts, My Adulteries, My Redemption. I was so happy when one of my favorite authors, Madeline Sharples, offered to host me on her blog. She asked me to do a post on my memoir writing journey for other beginners like myself. I sort of knew what memoirs were and had read several. But I had not come across one with such embarrassing and shameful revelations like I included in mine. There may be worse ones out there, but the authors … [Read more...]
Poems and photos from Africa trip
While I've been awaiting comments on my novel from my beta readers I've been editing poems and gathering photos to illustrate the poems from our trip to Africa last summer. I know I have a long way to go, but I thought I'd try a few out on you. Your comments are most welcome. And I hope you enjoy the photos. Boni A young person greets us at the airport in a light blue and red two-piece dress and hair tied in long tight braids at the back of his neck. So many beads in primary colors adorn his head, neck, wrists, and fingers, at first I think he is a girl. He introduces himself as our guide Boni, as he drives us to the lodge. He will lead our game tours during our stay in Kenya's Samburu district, promising we'll see this area's big five: lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and lions. Boni's forte is tracking. As he drives he looks out the right side of our truck for footprints and fresh dung on the bumpy red dirt roads, clues to which animals we're … [Read more...]
Africa Trip Part 5 – Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
Because we only stayed in Lake Manyara one night and had the same guide, Ray, from our arrival there until we left Tanzania at the Kilimanjaro airport two days later, I've decided to lump our days in both places together. Plus, their landscape and weather are similar dry, dusty, with mostly red clay soil. After a long plane ride to Lake Manyara, Ray picked us up in an enclosed truck with an open roof where we could stand up and take our photos by leaning out through the top. However, since I'm so short, I had to continually climb up and down from my seat so I could get my camera and head out there. Once we arrived at the national park and had our picnic lunch we proceeded to look for game as we've done for the last eight days. And while I was beginning to feel ready to stop this, I began to click away with great enthusiasm, climbing up and down off my seat, and soon as I saw more elephants, giraffes, and a lion relaxing in a tree. We stayed at the Lemala camp at … [Read more...]
Africa Trip Part 4 – Serengeti, Tanzania
After a plane ride, a long drive in a car with a young and sophisticated woman at the wheel, careful and thorough customs checks when leaving Kenya and later arriving in Tanzania, and another plane ride, we arrived in the Serengeti. It turns out the Serengeti is located just a couple hours drive from where we were in the Masai Mara, but because of some kind of feud between the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments the nearby border was closed causing us to unnecessarily spend hours and the big bucks to get to our first Tanzanian destination. However, all was forgiven when our guide Nathan met us at the airport. Throughout our three-day stay there, he took us on what I thought were the most interesting game drives of our entire time in Africa imagine seeing a mother and baby rhino before we even arrived at our next tent camp, the Olakira. On that first drive we also saw two kinds of vultures, storks, hippos, elephants, and Masai giraffes. But the rhinos were the find … [Read more...]
Africa Trip Part 3 – Masai Mara, Kenya
After our two nights in Samburu, we flew to the Masai Mara region in the southeast corner of Kenya. Here at 6000 feet altitude, the weather was cool. And each night while there we experienced enormous rains, such that our guide Simon insisted on rolling up the sides of our jeep and giving us ponchos to wear. However, the animal and bird sightings there were spectacular. Even in the air before we landed we saw wildebeest, zebras, and giraffes below - though in Masai Mara the giraffes, instead of being reticulated with patches of color outlined in white, are spotted. The zebras, the common Burchel, are smaller with wider spaced stripes than the Grevy's (my favorite because of the swirly look). Every zebra has unique stripe formations. Simon picked us up at the airport and was our guide during our stay. He also took us on a game drive as soon as we landed over a landscape called the Savanna large plains with sporadic trees, mostly Acacia. And almost immediately he showed us … [Read more...]
Africa Trip Part 2 – Samburu, Kenya
We left our Nairobi hotel bright and early on Sunday morning, September 2, and flew via Air Kenya to our first safari stop, Samburu, Kenya. The flight was approximately one and one-quarter hours, and every seat in the twin-engine plane was full. We landed in Samburu on a dirt runway and as soon as we deplaned we met our guide, Bon-i. Take a look. No words could describe his wonderful African costume and beaded accessories. Almost immediately he piled Bob and me and our traveling companions, Joel and Susan, and our duffle bags, various backpacks, jackets, hats, scarves, and camera equipment into his open-sided four-wheel drive vehicle, and we set out on our first game drive. Bon-i, who is very knowledgeable about the game and birds and landscape of the Samburu reserve, told us right away his goal for us was to see the Samburu special five: Grevy's zebra (a larger animal with narrower stripes than the plain zebra), Somali ostrich, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk, and the beisa … [Read more...]
Africa Trip Part 1 – Nairobi
Since so many people have asked about our trip to Africa, over the next few weeks I'll share some highlights at: Nairobi, Samburu, Masai Mara, Serengeti, Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro crater, then back to Nairobi. Part 1 - Nairobi We arrived at the Nairobi airport at 2 am. The place was practically deserted and that was good, since the main terminal's welcoming hall, destroyed by a fire two weeks earlier, was nothing more than a large tent. We got our luggage quickly and met our tour group driver, Martin, outside. Since it was so early in the morning Martin said we should have no traffic, and we'd be at our hotel the Norfolk in about ten minutes.By the way, I keep wondering if the airport fire was a warning from the terrorists who attacked the mall in Nairobi several weeks later. But we'll never know about that for sure, will we? And then almost right after we left the airport we passed a horrific accident. The car involved looked like it went through a mangler, and we learned … [Read more...]
Favorite trip photos
I think I'm finally over the jet lag from our trip. Last night I slept without waking at four in the morning, and I feel very well rested today. I've heard that it takes a day for each hour we travel away from our time zone, and at one point we were twelve hours on the other side of our clock in Dubai. So it's close. Today it is exactly eleven days since we returned home. Although the main intent of our trip was to go on an African safari, besides visiting Kenya and Tanzania we also spent several days in London before Africa and a night in Dubai and four nights in Paris after our African adventure. It was a trip of a lifetime. I'll never forget it. I've already posted a few of my favorite safari photos and I promise to post more in the next weeks. However, today's photos show some our favorite sights in London, Dubai, and Paris. My third time on the London Eye. Try it. It's a great ride. Stonehenge - an amazing site The "silver guy" in … [Read more...]
Back to work
First of all I want to thank all my friends who participated in the Choices Guest Post Festival from the end of August to mid September: Susan Weidener Deborah Kalan Viki Noe Ace Antonio Hall Meryl Hartstein Chanel Brenner Eleanor Vincent Jerry Waxler Sherrey Meyer Linda Joy Myers Karen Levy Kathy Pooler You all certainly raised the bar over here. During the last three and a half weeks the number of views more than doubled because of your contributions. So it's time for me to get back to work. I need to keep the momentum going by posting myself and hosting guests as much as possible. Please let me know if you'd like to share your writing story on Choices in the near future. On Wednesday, my guests will be Cami Ostman and Susan Tive who will share about their anthology, Beyond Belief: what happens when women of extreme … [Read more...]
