Thursday, August 29, 2013
Out of Africa Revisited: The Karen Blixen Museum in Kenya
Published in the Dallas Morning News
NAIROBI, Kenya — “I wonder if I’ll see Meryl Streep here,” I think as I first behold the squatty, sprawling gray fieldstone bungalow where once lived Karen Blixen, the real-life heroine of Out of Africa, a film that won seven Academy Awards. Now home to the Karen Blixen Museum, this elegant century-old cottage on the outskirts of Nairobi draws visitors from all over the world.
Streep, who played Blixen opposite Robert Redford in the 1985 Sidney Pollack film, was rumored to be on safari in Kenya, so it wasn’t altogether unreasonable to think she might wander in. George Clooney has even visited, but I wasn’t looking for movie stars; I’d come for Karen, whose true story is far more fascinating.
Exactly 100 years ago this December, Karen Christenze Dinesen, a naive 28-year-old Danish bride, boarded a ship in Naples, Italy, and embarked on a life-changing adventure in Kenya, where she would spend the next 17 years. Her story, later chronicled in her memoirs, Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass under the pen name Isak Dinesen, is one of a passionate, tumultuous 17-year love affair with Africa.
Her great adventure began when she married her cousin, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, and they bought a 6,000-acre coffee farm in colonial Africa. After they divorced, the baroness tried to hold the failing farm together. Over time, she fell in love with tall, blond, balding British aristocrat, safari guide and aviator Denys Finch Hatton. Although he loved her and periodically lived with her in this house, he was a free spirit who wouldn’t be tied down. Killed in a plane crash on his way back to her, Finch Hatton is buried in the Ngong Hills above her farm.
At the time of his death, Blixen was losing everything she owned to drought, fire and creditors. At night she would walk paths of the farm agonizing over how to save it. In despair, she attempted suicide and left Africa forever.
Time would soften the rough edges of her story and help Blixen heal.
Bror and Karen named their 1912 bungalow Mbogani, a Kiswahili word meaning “house in the forest.” In 1964, the Danish government purchased the house, which had several owners over the years, giving it to Kenya as an independence gift. Acquired by National Museums of Kenya, it opened as a museum in 1986. After closing for renovations, it recently reopened to the public. Surrounded by sweeping lawns and towering trees, the house looks surprisingly unchanged from when Blixen lived there from 1917 to 1931, as old photographs show.
Though Blixen sold most of her furniture to pay creditors, a few pieces have been recovered and donated to the museum, including a bookcase built for Finch Hatton’s books with money he gave her. On it, she engraved small brass plates with his initials. A cabinet in the dining room held medicine used to treat natives on the farm. Other furnishings are of the period; some, including a phonograph, cuckoo clock and dining table, are from the set of Out of Africa.
The house is roomy, with a library, dining room, foyer, lavatory, three bedrooms and kitchen. The dining room where Blixen twice entertained the Prince of Wales has a fireplace and French doors opening to a small patio with views of the Ngong Hills. A millstone table there was Blixen’s favorite spot to sit and smoke each morning.
Twice nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature, Blixen died in Denmark at the age of 77. Biographer Linda Donelson writes, “Every evening before going to bed, she opened the south door of her house and looked toward Africa.”
Blixen writes, “I have had so infinitely much that was wonderful … I have looked into the eyes of lions and slept under the Southern Cross … seen the grass on the great plains ablaze and covered delicate green after the rains. I have been the friend of Somali, Kikuyu, and Masai; I have flown over the Ngong Hills.”
Here in Kenya in this house, Blixen would awake each morning thinking, “Here I am, where I ought to be.” Today, standing on her lawn where thousands of natives once gathered for Ngomas, drum dances lit by bonfires, I feel the same way.
Janis Turk is a freelance writer who lives in Seguin.
When you go
The Karen Blixen Museum, 6 miles outside Nairobi, is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., including weekends and holidays, offering guided tours. The museum conducts research and has collected oral history about Blixen from the descendants of her workers. It also hosts a new exhibition that tells Blixen’s story from the African perspective and is building a new visitor center. museums.or.ke
Stay: Out of Africa fans will love spending the night on Blixen’s actual farm in the Karen Blixen Suite, adjacent to the Denys Finch Hatton suite at Hemingways Nairobi, a new 45-room boutique hotel property that opened in April on what were once the grounds of Blixen’s farm, less than a mile from the Karen Blixen Museum. All rooms have arresting views of the Ngong Hills. For possibly the best steak in town, dine at Hemingways Brasserie, where the executive chef, Barry Tonks, is the only chef in Kenya to have been awarded a prestigious Michelin Star. hemingways-nairobi.com
Downtown: For a downtown option, stay at the new 200-room Hotel Villa Rosa Kempinski opening this month in Nairobi’s commercial center. kempinski.com/en/nairobi/hotel-villa-rosa
Safari: Kenya’s best safari camps are just a short flight from Nairobi on small carriers such as SafariLink. For a family-friendly option, visit Sweetwaters Serena Camp in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in the shadow of Mount Kenya. serenahotels.com/serenasweetwaters
If you want the best chance to see the Big Five of wildlife and long for your own romantic Out of Africaexperience, go on safari where Denys Finch Hatton and Bror von Blixen-Finecke did: the Masai Mara. Stay in the Olare Mara Kempinski Masai Mara Tented Camp in the Olare Orok Conservancy, where you’ll find more than 2 million wildebeest, zebra and the world’s largest lion population (kempinski.com/masaimara). Other great options are Elephant Pepper Camp (elephantpeppercamp.com), Mara Leisure Camp (maraleisurecamp.co.ke) and Cottar’s 1920s Safari Camp (cottars.com).
Experience: The Mara is also home to numerous Masai villages, many of which welcome visitors. The Masai retain their native dress and fascinating culture.
EXPLORE KENYA by visiting magicalkenya.com
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