A conversation with Dr. Jason Lewis

Do you know that a lot of the people who have been to Africa or have lived in Africa before share a passion for the magical continent? Here I am sharing a great conversation I had with my good old friend and colleague Dr. Jason Lewis, assistant director of the Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University. We touched base on a few things that he experienced when he was living in Nairobi. Click on the play button below to listen to the edited audio of that conversation.

Conversation transcribed:

Deming: "This is beyond safaris, where we explore what is often neglected in a conventional safari in Africa and discuss the reasons behind what we see there today. If you are traveling to Kenya or any other African countries, one of the first questions you may ask is 'Should you be concerned about safety there'? Today I'm with my long term friend and colleague Dr. Jason Lewis, assistant director of the Turkana Basin institute, here at Stony Brook University. Hopefully he can help us answer some of the questions that you may have. Jason!" 

Jason: "Good morning!" 

Deming: "Tell us something about what you do."

Jason: "I am a paleoanthropologist, which means I study the evidence of humanity's evolution and prehistory. And I do this work mostly in Kenya, but I also have projects in Tanzania and in France. And I have worked in other countries before, such as in Ethiopia and Djibouti."

Deming: "So you lived in Kenya before. What was it like?"

Jason: "So I was fortunate enough to live in Kenya for about a year and a half, and that was from 2014 through 2015. And I was there with my wife and daughter. She was two years old at the time, my daughter. And we lived in Nairobi because we had some free time in our professional schedules here in the US. We lived in a very nice apartment in Nairobi, very close to the (National) museum (of Kenya. Everything was very safe. We even had 'our own' Chinese restaurant in the apartment compound. [Deming: laughter] It was very convenient. It was very nice! And our daughter went to a Montessori school, and made a lot of great friends and had a great time. It was a very enjoyable experience to be able to take our daughter to see the wildlife, going out on game drives, viewing amazing animals, elephants everywhere, zebras, and the 'Big Five', if you will, that make Africa so unique."

Deming: "How do you feel about being immersed in a different culture?"

Jason: "It's a very humbling and eye-opening experience to go from western contexts to first Nairobi, which is one of the most rapidly developing cities in the world, both in terms of infrastructure and population. But also (it is) becoming kind of a tech and business hub of east(ern) Africa, which is awesome to experience. And then going out into other more rural areas, and meeting people from many different cultures, whether they are Maasai, or Samburu, or Kikuyu, or Turkana, and understanding how we often don't get exposed to the subtleties of what makes Kenya Kenya or what makes Ethiopia Ethiopia, and how they have a lot of languages and cultures, and different histories in different parts of the country, and learn(ing) how they are all interacting with the developing economies within east(ern) Africa, is really great!"

Deming: "For our audience who are wondering whether they should go and experience all that, what suggestions do you have for them?"

Jason: "Going to Kenya is a great idea. I go there three or four times a year. I go all over the country. I would say that be prepared for adventure(s), meeting lots of great people. And know where to go, where not to go, what to do, what not to do. And don't let the headlines that you hear on CNN scare you about going to Africa in general but especially to east(ern) Africa, because they are only concerned with the big (and) scary things that they can make a lot of headlines about."

Deming: "Ok! Thank you so much Jason for joining us today!"

Jason: "Thank you, Deming!"

Deming: "And we hope that this conversation can address some of the concerns that you have about traveling to Africa. Stay tuned for more stories!"

Please feel free to make comments below and let us know what your experience was if you have been to Africa, or what else you want to know about Kenya or Africa in general!

A pair of Abyssinian ground hornbills (female and male) in the Turkana region of northern Kenya