Retired wildlife scientist Karl Lundberg hears a lion roar across the darkened savanna. The old man smiles and reflects on the many moments lions have padded through his life. Next to the campfire he feels safe. As the night wears on, he hears more roars until his camp is surrounded. He wonders if he has enough wood to keep the fire burning through the night.
In reality, Lundberg isn't in Africa. He's in a nursing home in Washington State and is being stalked not by lions but by Parkinson's disease. He's deciding whether to stay in the United States, where he has access to good medical care, or return to Africa, where the elderly are honored and respected.
That's a summary of the opening sequence of my first novel, most of which is set in East Africa; I spent the first 18 years of my life there with my missionary parents. I attended an American school in Kenya and then college in the United States. After graduating, I lived in the Amazon for several years but eventually found my way back to Africa. While I was a teacher in Kenya, I met Barb, who became my wife. We worked for 10 years as linguists in a remote corner of Sudan.
We left Sudan for England, and at Oxford I earned a doctorate in anthropology and oversaw research in 20 African countries. For the last 14 years before retiring, I was a professor at Houghton College in western New York. Each year I directed a semester abroad program, taking students to Tanzania for experiential learning.
So, my heart is in Africa. Time and again I've turned to the continent for inspiration and comfort—even more so in the eight years since my diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.
My condition has progressed, and I've lost much of my coordination. I had to stop playing racquetball for fear of crashing into the wall. My golf game disintegrated because my hands jerked when I was putting. I continued to walk in the forest with my fox terrier, Molly, but over time my gait became stiff. When I try to walk around the house, my body freezes up and I struggle to get started. Once I do get moving, I am awkward and often bump into furniture.
But my biggest concern is mental. I know the brain is like a muscle: Use it or lose it. I was determined to use it, but I lacked a purpose. It was my wife who suggested I write a novel. During my tenure at the college, I had written some scholarly pieces and even memoirs, but I had never attempted fiction.
Contemplating the idea, I recalled some of my adventures in Africa—hiking to Lake Malawi, wrestling with pythons, living with traditional Murle people in Sudan—and thought I could work them into the book. I decided to set the story in Tanzania and center it on a character with Parkinson's disease. In the novel Karl Lundberg returns to Africa, where he shifts to a plant-based diet, exercises in the open air, interacts with local people, and encounters wildlife—and gradually feels his despair lift.
The lions become a stand-in for his disease, always lurking, always a threat, but also beautiful and impressive in how they inspire him to live fully and joyfully despite the fear and uncertainty of an incurable condition.
Writing the novel encouraged me in a similar way. I've learned to embrace and adjust to the changes brought on by Parkinson's disease instead of fighting them and to be grateful for each day and for the robust memories of my time in Africa.
Jon Arensenlives in Fillmore, NY, with his wife and dog. He enjoys bird-watching, walking, reading, and revisiting adventures of years past. He lives vicariously through his children and grandchildren, who continue his legacy of living and working overseas. His novel, Lions on the Prowl, was published by Old Africa Books in 2021.
