Join My Email List For Updates on the Book Project:

Exploring the Chinko river basin, Central African Republic: 2008-2014

I can’t think of a better origin story for an epic 5 year African adventure than roots that began in the flat lands of Kansas. I grew up a sheltered kid, homeschooled through high school and heavily involved in the social limitations of my church. My only escape from the monotony of daily life came from the books I read: books about adventure to far off lands. Africa became the greatest destination of my wanderlust dreaming.

At 19- years old I started an unexpected correspondence over email with a young Swedish man who was starting a safari company in a previously unexplored region in central Africa, called the Chinko basin. When he offered me a job I jumped on the opportunity. Within a couple months I quit my job at the bank I was working at, dropped out of college, and soon found myself leaving the US for the first time in my life, flying to a country I barely knew existed: the Central African Republic.

What was supposed to be a 9 month trip turned into 5 years of my life. And if not for the civil war and violence that ended my adventure there in 2014, I have no doubts I would still be there today.

I lived many lifetimes in Africa. Most of my time was spent living in the bush with my African companions. We carved new paths along nameless rivers in untrodden forests. They taught me how to survive in the harsh land; showed me edible plants and how to read the complex animal signs. The old hunters of the area took me to secret plateaus hidden in the rainforest, where we found ancient rock engravings of elephants and other animals being hunted by primitive humans. We slept next to campfires every night, under stars spread across unpolluted skies.

Every day was full of intimate animal encounters. I grew to appreciate waking up to the cuckoo bird calls in the morning, and the colobus monkey salutations from the trees in the evenings. Lions were always heard, but in the thick woodlands- rarely seen. Leopards too were a rare sight, but always present. Elephant and hippo moved about the thick forests and jungle rivers- wary of humans from years of relentless poaching. Buffalo taught us to walk carefully in the bush, and snakes made us think about each step. We kept a healthy respect of the large crocodiles in the rivers, but brash impulse pushed me into wrestling the smaller ones. Creatures that seemed best left to the fairytales were found here: the Lord Derby eland- largest antelope of the world- ruled our savannah woodlands, and the bright red and white striped bongo were lords of the rainforest.

The locals always spoke about rumors they had heard of giant apes living in the deeper forests down south. I knew they could only be referring to chimpanzees- a species that had never been spotted that far north of their known range. Still, I had fantasies of undertaking a giant foot expedition in those forests to confirm for myself the rumors. It would be a year after I left and African Parks took control of the area that a biologist would prove my suspicions true when he found numerous groups of chimpanzees living in secretive patches of forests.

Like Hemingway often spoke about- Africa had such a profound impact on me that I found myself growing to mourn the loss of my life there, even before I left. I love Africa more than I have ever loved a romantic partner. It has now been nearly a decade since I left the Central African Republic, and I still think about it every day. Without the roar of the lion or the whooping call of the hyena- my nights are much quieter these days. The only relief I have to this great loss in my life, is the hope that someday I will return. I eagerly await that day, perhaps when my children are adults, when I can resume that life I left on pause.

“Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just 'home.’ “ – Beryl Markham, from ‘West With the Night’