Kitengela Glass

I spent the week after Masai Mara quenching my artistic appetite, by enrolling as a short term apprentice as Kitengela Glass Foundation and Trust (www.kitengela.com). I had met the eccentric owner, Nani, a few weeks prior and was thoroughly impressed with the operation. She has trained dozens of Kenyans in stained glass, glass painting, bead work, glass blowing, and metal work, building up a whole compound on a large plot of land bordering Nairobi National Park. My biggest feat was attempting to make glass. The guys who make the flat glass, spinning molten glass in the 1700 C furnace and then wielding the stick until arriving at the roller, let me try. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The stick ways a ton and your face is staring into the bowels of hell. It was comical but I was so happy to be given the chance to try. For the most part, I decided to stick to less painful endeavors. Most days, I was tutored by Mary, who although extremely busy took the time to show me various stained glass techniques from design, cutting, adding the lead supports, etc. I also dabbled in glass painting and mosaic work, and learned how to make lead cames. However, learning the latter came at a price as my trainer developed a crush on me, of which, as usual, I was unaware until he made it blatantly obvious by proposing marriage. It started innocently enough, buying me chapati and chai every morning for breakfast. However, he looked quite distraught when I left, slipping me his number on a tiny piece of paper, while his coworker sat back and laughed. While this is all fine and good, the subsequent 50 something odd calls bordered on stalkerish, culminating in the final display. For a moment of hilarity and albeit disturbia:"I love you maya, you tourched my heart when you came to kitengela. Am sick in love sweetheart. I would like to be engaged to you to ease my soul. Do not let me down please. If you have accepted let me know." The frightening thing is that my Kenyan and Tanzanian girlfriends did not seem too shocked by this overture. Interesting.

The rest of the time I amused myself with my surroundings. Daily pool visits were a must, and always eventful. During my first trip, the baboons were casing the pool when I got there, happy to see me with my bag of goodies that consisted of my towel, my phone, my camera, and some soap for my outside shower. No food. They shouldn’t have been interested. That’s when I realized that they are kleptos, the whole lot of them, and they were just excited to have something to steal. So as soon as I got in the water to start my laps, the biggest one started inching over to my bag. Seeing him scheming, I swam back to chase him off. But these guys are relentless. The next time I came up for air, I saw that there were now five baboons and a baby. Each with one eye on me, one on my stuff. So I chased them away and moved my stuff to a spot where they couldn’t reach. I then spent the next 10 minutes mimicking the one baboon that wasn’t skidish. He would scratch his head. I would scratch my head. He would bite his toe, I would approximate biting my toe (not flexible enough). I was amused for a while and then went back to swimming butterfly.

Evening ritual consisted of bathing in nature in a beautiful outside shower before embarking on the daily animal feeding frenzy. The variety of animals Nani has is astounding. They have the biggest hog I’ve ever seen. I wish I knew its weight. It’s about the size of a calf, but fatter. There are also 3 camels, 4 ostriches, 4 donkeys, 5 horses, 10 dogs who sit on your lap when you eat, a million geese who could smell my disdain for them, and various parrots that all said “Hello.”

Late evening was reserved for my musical ambitions. Nathan, one of the sons, was back home and an avid guitar player so I would accompany him on harmonica each night. Having become addicted, I have sense bought a harmonica and play during my travels. I love playing music but unfortunately chose to learn upright base and piano, not exactly traveling instruments. So I never get to play, just sing along when needed. Why did I not think of getting a harmonica before?!

All in all, my time in Kitengela was a valuable foray into the world of glass art and something I hope to add to in my artistic journey that resurfaces from time to time.