But as we jaywalked across Ngong Forest Road and threaded our way through the Kibera slum toward Kamukunji Park to conduct the first public sankirtan in Africa, even stalwart Brahmananda looked scared. Me — I was shaking like a leaf! Just yesterday I had seen a guy in a breechcloth walking down the street with a zebra hide over his shoulder, fresh blood running down his back. This was a savage country, only recently seized back from the British by the murderous Mau Mau. In the 1960s, Jomo Kenyatta had launched his successful campaign to oust the Brits from this same Kamukunji Park, and here we were, heading for the very Freedom Tree under which he had rallied his people to revolt. Would this work?…There were seven of us: Brahmananda, Bhavananda, Naranarayan, Jagannivas, Chayavana, Aravinda, and me — seven white men acting out under the very symbol of the black man’s freedom from white rule. Oh boy.