Escape the city's captivity to breathe and recharge in nature

Mt Longonot. [File, Standard] Mt Longonot is a landmark, nature's wonder. It's visible from the highway and I have admired it for the 40 years that I have been using Nairobi-Naivasha Road. Its caldera looks like a giant hole dug by aliens. It seems still active with plumes of steam and clear fault lines showing how lava once flowed. Memories of high school geography follow as you ascend; volcanos, magma, fold mountains and interlocking spurs. But we forgot about climate change and more serious issues. A good example is that every year frost is used to kill maize, potatoes and even grass in my village. Its name is withheld for security reasons. That was never covered in our geography syllabus. My village is a beneficiary of global warming with less frost but less rain. But I loved the global exposure; industrialisation in Germany's Ruhr region, taming floods in the US Tennessee Valley or irrigation in California's Napa Valley. In my Form 4 geography exam, I was to draw a map of New York's Manhattan Island showing its bridges and tunnels! Luckily, I drove through them years later. There wasn't much about the East like the rise of China. I will check the current geography content. Enough of the past. Nairobi is a boiler, a pressure cooker that gives you no time to breathe. It's a city that shocks you with lots of activities even during the holidays. If not in a traffic jam, you are busy in the office or at home with something. Traffic jam along Globe overpass, Nairobi, November 23, 2022. [Elvis Ogina, Standard] The city teaches you to feel guilty when not busy! It takes control of your life. Noted how bumping into old colleagues on the streets ends with a quick exchange of business cards that are never used: "We shall talk" usually means "we shall never talk" and "wacha niende" (let me go). It needs a concerted effort to detach yourself from the city and its capture. Curiously, even rural folks are part of the capture with "watu wa Nairobi" getting lots of attention at funerals and other functions. With the belief that Nairobians have money, the mystic of the city endures even with devolution and new cities. We used to visit the countryside regularly but with the cost of fuel, mobile phones and M-Pesa it's not as frequent. Others argue that once parents pass away, the raison d'etre for visiting the countryside goes. You stick to the city with chamas, mbuzi eating or watching TVs which are getting bigger! With movie theaters closed or turned into churches, it's no wonder "home theatres" are popular. The state of the economy means that home is the best place to save on costs hopefully surrounded by very understanding family members. Yet by nature, we are outdoors, more like our hunter-gather predecessors. Unfortunately, there are no outdoors. All open spaces in the city are taken. Even affluent suburbs like Karen or Muthaiga have no public parks beyond golf courses, where you can sit and breathe. It's worse in crowded suburbs like Githurai or Mlolongo. Noted how the overpass at Mlolongo is parked, it's a "park." We are creative, indoor gyms and rooftop living spaces are now the in-thing. You can breathe from there. But there are alternatives. A herd of Buffalos at the Nairobi National Park. [David Gichuru, Standard] Why not breathe by exploring our breathing spaces like national parks, not bars? Do your maths, it's cheaper and more healthy. How many bottles of beer can pay for a visit to Nairobi national park? Unfortunately, we are made to believe that such breathing spaces are for mzungu. My most recent breathing outing was climbing Mt Longonot, a test of my endurance and age. It's a much easier task than climbing Kilimanjaro, which I did 20 years ago to Uhuru Peak, the highest in Africa. The trip to the rim of the caldera took me about one hour. The views at the top are breathtaking, admiring wide open spaces and a realisation that even the once uninhabitable dry and arid land is now being built up, land reclamation is real. The greenhouses and geothermal wells around Lake Naivasha are breathtaking too. I always wonder if I can be allowed to develop a golf course inside the caldera. The land around this volcano is being settled, the settlers say the mountain is unlikely to erupt in their lifetime! Join me next time and breath and feel like you are on creation day. Visiting such places is not for school children and mzungus, it's for all of us to admire nature, breathe and recharge. Reflect and perhaps remind ourselves that we are part of the great cycle of life. How do you breathe? Have you allowed the city to hold you hostage? The cost will quickly come up in leaving the city for such an outing. But the spirit of Harambee liveth.

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