I’m an ETHS
graduate, but one who spent half my high school years hanging out with New
Trier boy from Kenilworth who was a huge distraction. Somehow I made it to
DePauw University where I got seriously radicalized. But actually I’d been
primed for ‘enlightenment’ by Evanston Township High School where that multi-racial, multi-cultural,
multi-class community provided me with more than adequate preparation for my
making a graceful move eventually into the global community.
Which is
what I did after winning a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Fellowship to study
in Nairobi, Kenya, at the University of Nairobi. It was there that I felt
compelled to stick around and get another degree (I’d already gotten one at
DePauw and another at National Louis University).
But that
third degree would cost more money; so when the fellowship funds finally ran
out, I got a great job as a journalist writing locally about the Kenyan (read
African) arts scene. Of course, that would include my writing stories about
former colonials and other Europeans as well as about Asians, and other
visiting tourists (like Mike Jagger, Jesse Jackson and even British royalty
like Sarah Ferguson, former wife of Prince Andrew, the Queen’s youngest son) to
name-drop just a few of the ‘celebs’ that came to Kenya who I interviewed).
But my focus
was and continues to be writing about Kenyan Africans, both visual artists and
performers, particularly theatre people.
But early
on, I fell for an African classmate of mine at Nairobi University who I thought
would be my Samora Michel (the handsome freedom-fighter from Mozambique who was
assassinated by South African pro-Apartheid forces a while back). But not
quite.
In any case,
Gacheru is a great man and he gave me (or I gave him) a beautiful son who is
now a Major in the US Army based in Vicenza Italy.
The ETHS
grad might look like a globe trotter since she flies back and forth from
Nairobi to Chicago twice a year, but really I’m slightly schizophrenic since I
seriously has two homes.
Yet Evanston
will always be the ‘home in my heart’ and the one that I may return to
eventually. The town has gotten so very cool, I must say! Some will contend it
always was super cool, but I was always keen to escape… which I clearly did.
But now I am
here for a few more days and I have fallen ‘head over heels’ for Evanston. I
have a wonderful brother Tom who’s here and I also have many incredible friends
in the neighborhood.
So Evanston
may have to welcome me back home sometime soon. That’d mean I’d finally get to attend
one of those crazy high school reunions….
Until then,
I’ll simply say ‘bon voyage’ while I get set to fly back to a country that unfortunately
is in a bit of turmoil, having just had a contentious national election in
which the loser refuses to concede defeat. People have died as a consequence. But
hopefully we will see peace happening there soon. We pray there will be
forgiveness on all sides and concern to see that beautiful country move forward.
But for
those of you who may have had plans to one day realize your planned safari to
Africa--Please do not fear coming to Kenya, since irrespective of momentary
turbulence, it is a breathtaking country that you can easily fall in love
with…possibly just as I did several decades ago.
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