Souvenir Hunting for the Curio[u]s

THERESE AND I BOUNCED THROUGH HYENA-SIZED POTHOLES in our rented Suzuki Sierra on a dirt road clearly marked on the map as one of Kenya's best. It was our second venture from our Nairobi base, this time to Masai Mara National Park, the northern, Kenyan extension of Tanzania's famed Serengeti. We had returned to Nairobi to fortify our supply of insect repellent and rent a new tent, and to attempt to cool some of the rancor that had erupted between us during the previous week's camping safari in Amboseli, in the shadow of Kilimanjaro.

Therese, despite her vast wanderings, is one of those travelers who create inflexible itineraries that to the hour spell out where one should be and what one should do. While I consider part of the joy of travel the 45 minutes it takes to check out of a Third-World hotel while the desk clerk writes down in triplicate the serial numbers from every dollar bill I pay with, and then repeats the task in two more ledgers, and then disappears for a period to get a manager's approval, and then asks me to sign the receipt, and then takes my receipt to the manager to certify that my signature matches that on my passport, Therese explodes at such inefficiency. She sees it as an impediment to travel rather than as travel itself, and it throws off the entire rhythm of her vacation. Even after three weeks in Kenya, it was common for Therese to say to me, "Wait right here. I'm just going to run across the street for a sec to buy toothpaste." A big fight would then ensue when I would tell her that there's no such thing as "a sec" on the entire African continent and hadn't she learned that when it took four hours to rent the car that had been reserved and paid for in advance, or when the wait for our lunch check earlier resulted in her having to cancel plans for visiting two museums and a dress shop she had listed on her day's schedule.

My utter enjoyment of the trip's distractions only served to make her a more irritable companion, and I think that's why she reveled in my discomfort when we arrived at our first campsite at Amboseli. Her small two-person tent was obviously designed for two persons more intimate than we were, and certainly for two people of Therese's diminutive stature, not mine. Her fleshier construction allowed her to sleep without a pad on rocks and zebra turds more comfortably than bony me, and I finally abandoned our rip-stop nylon prison to sleep in the car. That's when I discovered that the Avon Skin So Soft that everyone had sworn was the best insect repellent in the world was of no use in darkest Africa, and I spent most of the night chain smoking, slapping myself against blood-sucking, six-legged, winged predators and listening to the contented snoring emanating from Therese's tent.

Equipped with a new tent of my own, a thick foam pad, and a half-gallon of 100% Deet from a Nairobi camping supply store, we set off on the second leg of our road journey.

Throughout Kenya's countryside, locals appeal to tourists' rapacious desire for native tchochkes by setting up "curios shops." Every kilometer or so on primary roads signs reading "Curios!" or "Sale on Curios!" or "Authentic African Curios!" beckon tourists into little shops that sell bauxite chess sets or wooden salad servers with giraffes and rhinos carved in their handles. After a stop at one such souvenir stand, I surveyed the sea of curios and tried to picture a typical evening in a thatched Maasai family hut, a father and son in their traditional warrior drapery and beads, playing chess as the mother served them up a Cobb salad with her zebra fork and spoon.

As we tooled along the highway into Maasailand we spotted another roadside sign, this one telling of a Maasai village, authentic in every way, with an arrow pointing toward a spot five kilometers off the beaten path. Anticipating new adventure, I adjusted my perky safari hat to a rakish tilt, threw our little Suzuki into low four-wheel drive, and set off into the bush in search of African culture.

As promised by the sign, there was the village. Over the mud wall, we could see the thatched roofs of the small grass huts of the Maasai who lived there. We parked in one of the ample spaces reserved for tour buses in the vast parking lot and walked up to the gate in the wall where a sign listed visiting hours and the admission prices for adults, children, and seniors.

Before we could get back in the car a man appeared at the gate and beckoned us in. "No thank you," I told him, "we just stopped by to look, but we're leaving now."

The man looked perplexed, and thinking he didn't understand my English, I made a little walking motion with two fingers and, pointing to the car, pantomimed driving with my hands on an imaginary steering wheel and then pointed again, off in the direction of Masai Mara.

"Don't you want to come in and look around?" he asked me in perfect English.

"Not really," I told him.

"I don't understand," he said. "Why did you come here?"

"I expected something different," I explained, and Therese and I hopped back in the car. The man followed us, and as he approached the Suzuki, a group of 10 or 12 villagers followed him out of the gate with trinkets and fabric and postcards and salad servers and gathered around the open windows.

The man continued with his incredulous interrogation. "I don't understand. Why did you come here if you don't wish to come in? Why are you leaving? This makes no sense."

Yet again, I explained that we were just exploring, that we didn't wish to stay, that we were going right away, but again he asked us our reason for coming there.

"We were just curious," Therese told the man, and before the last syllable of the word passed her lips the error in her choice of vocabulary was obvious to both of us. Two dozen arms thrust enthusiastically through the windows dripping with beads and waving bauxite rooks and knights.

"CURIOS! CURIOS!" shouted the crowd. "CURIOS!" Some of the merchant villagers transferred their wares to one hand and with the other grabbed our shirts and held their goods to our faces, screaming "CURIOS!" like a threat.

I slipped the car into reverse and slowly released the clutch, creeping carefully out of the car park. Therese rolled up the windows to keep the anxious retailers at bay, and with a false smile on her face, waved a sporting little goodbye from behind the glass. Despite her attempts to look unfazed, however, I knew: This was just another example to her of why one should never stray from one's well-thought-through itinerary.