» posted on Saturday, August 27th, 2022 by Linda Lou Burton
That Farm in Africa
Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas – The second thing that has me longing to go Africa is due to a woman named Karen, who “had a farm in Africa.” It was Karen Blixen, pen name Isak Dinesen, who wrote “Out of Africa.” It was Meryl Streep’s lovely sing-song recitation of the first line of that book that stuck with me from the 1980’s, when she and Robert Redford made the movie of the same name.
It was not until I actually read the book however, that I began to get a real sense of the magic of east Africa. Sydney Pollack turned Karen’s “love story” into a relationship with a good-looking English hunk. Yes, there were magnificent scenes of Kenyan scenery, and episodes of bravery, and tenderness, and the awful tragedy of losing both her lover and her farm. But that’s not the full story of the Karen Blixen to be found as penned by her own hand; though she was born in Denmark, Africa was the home of her heart. Her book, written in 1937 a few years after she was forced to leave, begins like this:
I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the North, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up, near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold…The geographical position, and the height of the land combined to create a landscape that had not its like in all the world. There was no fat on it, and no luxuriance anywhere; it was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet, like the strong and refined essence of a continent. The views were immensely wide. Everything you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequalled nobility…Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.
Dinesen, Isak. Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass. New York: Vintage International, 1988, pp 3-4.
Why do I want to go to Africa? I want to see THAT place. I want to sit on Karen’s front porch, looking across that broad lawn where her people, the Kikuyu squatters and the Somali servants who helped to run the farm; who picked the coffee and cared for the house, but most of all, who were a central part of her daily life – gathered every day. Her connection with the people of Africa is the real story.
When Karen lost her farm and returned to Denmark in 1931, her property was sold as large parcels for homes; the suburb that emerged is now called “Karen.” The original farmhouse changed hands several times, for a time housing a college; it was turned into a museum after the movie came out. Many of Karen’s original furnishings have been restored, and tours are offered continuously every day between 9:30 – 6.
I’ll be there soon.
Karen Blixen Museum, Nairobi, Kenya