ROCK’IN ALONG A ROUGH ROAD
Story and photos by Sally McKinney
HighOnAdventure.com   November 1, 2012

Soon Billy Giles, Walter’s long-time client and friend, pulls up a chair. An easy- going guy with bushy, white hair, Billy traveled with Walter two years before. Walter and Billy are leaders, the alpha and beta males in my new social group. Quick-witted and kind, they’d be fun to travel with, yet I hardly know them. Walter believes camping is the best way to see the animals. I’m not at all sure I can cope with camping, so I joke with him.

“Will a butler bring drinks to my tent every night?" I ask. "I don’t really expect this service, but the airy chatter helps cover my fears."

After a previous camping experience (27 years before). I decided I was too old for camping. On a guided Maori trek through a New Zealand rain forest, I hiked all day. At night in the cold tent, I could hardly sleep on the hard ground.Walter picks up on my hesitation, and quickly reassures me. “After we put cognac in your bottled water, you’ll sleep like a baby!”

Tactfully, Walter asks Billy whether I might join the safari that he and his family have planned. We all work out an affordable price, and I’m thrilled! I then tell Walter I want to go dancing in Africa. Since this request comes from a 77-year-old woman who’s joking around, I’m not sure he takes my request seriously.

Helpfully, Walter follows me to the travel agency. Again, heads look up from the computers as we climb the stairs, as if I were trailed by an exotic pet.

Travel agent Tami Wampler is tapping rapidly on a keyboard with sharp, fuschia fingernails. Planning my two-month journey is a challenge. She links flights to/from Indianapolis, Dulles, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Lusaka, Harare and Lilongwe. When my focus on this complexity lapses, I give Tami the right date in the wrong month for the flight back home.

Fortunately, Walter catches the error before she sends it to the printer. When Tami comes around us to pick up the print-out, she reaches out toward Walter.

“Just couldn’t wait to touch your hair!” she explains.

While visiting libraries for KILEO, Sally McKinney meets with library staff in Arusha. Photo credit Billy Giles.

Walter’s early life was a shaky journey over rough African roads. The only child of a single parent, Walter “grew up poor” but learned to share what he had, whether it was pencils, notebooks, jackets or food.

As a teenager, Walter worked on the streets, rounding up clients for Tanzania tour companies. Working as a ranger in Arusha National Park, he learned to talk on the radio, chase down poachers, and guide park visitors on Mt. Meru climbs.

A visiting Makonde (tribe) band performs at the campground on last night of safari.
Photo credit Alice Fagin

When the American woman, who would eventually become his wife, met Walter, he was her guide on a Mt. Meru climb.

“He looked so cool,” Shawn Miya recalls. She had forgotten she had to pay the Arusha National park fee in U.S. dollars. When Walter realized her distress, he went out of his way to help convert the Tanzania shillings.

“If it wasn’t for Walter, I couldn’t have climbed that day,” Shawn says.

A pair of zebras gets better acquainted

Left: Best buddies Billy Giles and Walter Miya climb Mt. Kilimanjaro a second time. Photo credit Billy Giles (i.e. someone held Billy's camera).

During their four days on Africa’s second-highest mountain, the couple discovered they had much in common. Whenever they talked, Shawn was impressed by Walter’s knowledge of plants and animals. She recalls learning that the little dik- diks mate for life. She remembers that they stayed up late talking one night, despite the high-altitude cold. On the way down the mountain, Walter held her hand, helping to steady her on slippery parts of the trail.

A pair of zebras gets better acquainted

Walter was surprised to learn he had a half-brother named Roy. In order to meet him, Walter knocked unexpectedly on Roy’s front door. When they compared their lives, they learned they’d both been working in Tanzania national parks. Realizing the value of this experience, together, they launched Safari Arts Expeditions (www.safariartsexpeditions.com).

“I think I was in love with him by the time we came down,” Shawn confides. Shawn and Walter believed it wise to become better acquainted over time.

Walter was surprised to learn he had a half-brother named Roy. In order to meet him, Walter knocked unexpectedly on Roy’s front door. When they compared their lives, they learned they’d both been working in Tanzania national parks. Realizing the value of this experience, together, they launched Safari Arts Expeditions (www.safariartsexpeditions.com).

Walter Miya once more guides people on a tough climb. Photo credit Billy Giles

Shawn and Walter were married in Dar es Salaam, settled in southern Indiana, and had two children, Zion and Aikaeli. In order to increase educational opportunities in Tanzania, the couple formed the non-profit Kilimanjaro Education Outreach (a.k.a. KILEO www.kileo.org ). In 2010, they organized the first annual Taste of East Africa benefit. In early 2012, Shawn and Walter sold most of what they owned, crammed the rest into 12 suitcases, then flew from Indiana to Tanzania to settle there with their children, Zion and Aikaeli.

When I arrive in Tanzania in May, 2011, Walter Miya’s family shows me warm hospitality. In Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Marangu and Mwanza, I sleep on the family’s fanciest sheets in their air-cooled guest rooms. Someone rises early to boil water, then mix it with cool so I can use pails of this to bathe. Between meals, my hosts offer me cold drinks or snacks, a piece of ripe fruit.

In Mwanza, while staying with Joanne and Martin Miya, my worries about camping fall away. Walter’s father assures me that Walter’s staff will put up the safari tents, also buy, cook and serve the food. All I’ll have to do is sleep, eat and ride around in a jeep, snapping pictures. How hard can it be?

When the safari jeep pulls into the campground in Serengeti National Park, I notice that the tents are sitting on close-cropped grass. At least I’ll be able to see (and run from) any snakes, my greatest fear. Before coming to Africa, I’d seen zebras, giraffes, baboons, ostriches and lions only in zoos. Here, we are intruders in a wild place without fences where the animals roam and hunt for food.

Billy and Walter had a nocturnal visitor on safari two years before. While they were trying to sleep, a noisy hyena showed up to forage for food, rattling anything not tied down. Before we sleep, Walter instructs us to rise early for a game drive. Just before dawn, I awake to chirping birds. No hyenas in sight. The sky is a vacuous gray. Beyond the campground, in the grassy savanna, wild African buffalo are lowing like cattle.

Billy Giles uses a borrowed guide book to identify a bird

Walter looks tired. He’s standing, staring into the distance, outside his tent, and I realize he’s been working long hours. Each day, he manages the safari operation, loading and unloading equipment and food. We move from one park to the next. Each night, he takes my camera battery and charger to any electric outlet he can find. Each morning, he returns my equipment with the battery fully charged.

On my first morning in Serengeti, we bounce along one of Tanzania’s roughest roads. Barely awake and craving a second coffee, I gaze out the open window. A rosy, crescent sun—unreal—seems to float behind an acacia tree. We spot a gawky giraffe looking back at us. Driver Charles Msaky points to a leopard resting on a branch, half-hidden in dappled shade. Through the windscreen I watch, elephants cross the road in single file, as if practicing for a parade.

Billy Giles uses a borrowed guide book to identify a bird