The Lore

I'm Darren.  Yup, I'm apparently the first hyrax account on the internet.  

That wasn't a goal in my life.

I'm from a small town in Washington State.  But in 2011 I was building an "Earthship" in Guatemala with a buncha dirty hippies on the side of mountain.  After a long day of pounding dirt into tires, I went a cyber and logged into my email.  My neighbor in Waxahachie Texas had sent me an email: "Your renters bailed in the middle of the night."

I was in trouble.  My only income at that time was from people paying rent in my house.  I had put all my belonging in storage, quit my jobs and was wondering the Americas.  I created a Craig's List advert right then and there: "House For Rent in Red Oak, TX" "If you send me first and last month's rent via PayPal I'll tell you where the key is hidden."  

Reader: The ad worked. I got a couple grand in my PayPal and I replied with an email: "I don't know you, but the key is in a coffee can, behind the log on the left side of the tallest tree in the back yard. I'll collect the next month's rent in person when I get back to USA."

It was a Kenyan dude and his family.  I was invited to visit Kenya after a few meetings with my new renters.  

I'll tighten this page as I get time, but for now, the long and short of it is that I had a goal to start a real bona-fide charity using puppets.  Yes puppets.  These puppets would be used to create HIV and AIDS prevention education in sub-saharan Africa.

But as a white dude who has travelled a lot, and seen a lot of charities and missionaries and etc. I always believed guys like me shouldn't go anywhere with delusions of grandeur to help the helpless... its a wierd flex.  But I did beleive I would go where I was invited.

I was invited to Kenya by my renters.  The connected me to some people.  I joined the Rotary Club in DeSoto Texas, and within 3 years I was running a full fledged 501 (c)(3) Non-profit and landed in Nairobi again with legit project partners.  It wasn't an idea anymore.

By a stroke of pure luck, my project partner was married to the woman who created Kitengela Glass.  They had a LOT of extra buildings on the property, and Eric Krystall, the former president of the Rotary Club of Nairobi and his wife Nani Croze said "you can live here if you want."  I was like "yes! Which house do I get?"  and they said "The Massai House, its the oldest house on the property and its covered in hyraxes."  

I've lived there ever since.

In 2019 one of the groundskeepers had a baby hyrax in a bucket.  A mother hyrax had been found dead the day before. The orphaned hyrax was kept in a bucket in his house overnight I think.  The next morning one of the farm hands had mentioned there was a baby and I came over and took a look at it.  "It needs to be with other hyraxes" and so I took it to a spot on the property that had hyraxes.  I tossed it in a crevice and the darned thing just ran out.  It had to have been like 7 or 10 days old... but you see, there are dogs on the property, and they will eat or at least kill any hyrax.  And this thing had no instinct to stay away from dogs.  So I ran and caught it again and found another crevice where I knew hyraxes hung out.  I stuck it there.  And it ran out again.  This went on for a while. I really wanted it to be safe, so I finally remembered that there was an old building with a heavy door that hyraxes lived in.  So I went in the building, found a nice safe spot up high in the rafters, and tossed the baby hyrax up there.  I ran out, shut the door and left the area.

I went and talked to Nani for a while, with her and her dogs, and we chatted about the day.  I finally got up to leave and walked home.  On the way home I heard a "squeak squeak squeak" and watched the darned baby hyrax run up the path from the old building toward me.  She ran right up between my feet, stopped, and looked up and squeaked at me.  I was about 50 yards away from Nani but she saw the whole thing.  "That's it!  She's chosen you!  You have to raise her now! She's yours!"

And so began my life with a hyrax.

Lots to add here, but if you scroll back my instagram you can see most of it.

Squiggy didn't live long.  She passed away in her sleep during a nap one afternoon.  I was devastated, still am.  I took her body to a vet and he was also perplexed.  He had taken care of hyraxes before and was fascinated with them.  "By all acounts she was thriving, but you know they do have some heart issues..."  So I never found out the cause of death.  I had 16 of the best months of my life with that little critter.  

I'll add substansively to this blog as time goes on.  I currently have our puppets on TV and reaching about half of all children with access to TV in Kenya.  About 20million unique viewers a month are learning disease prevention and child safety through my charity.  I don't make money on the charity, because I am half an idiot and wierdly strict about how money is spent (wisely) - and so I supplement my life by hryax merch, and I also opened what appears to be the only real functioning comedy club in Africa.  Haven't made a dime there either, but it's running.  

So I am fulfilling my life's goal.  When I was a teenager I watched the beginning of The Muppet Movie a zillion times.  Dom Deluise tells Kermit The Frog that he should go to Hollywood to make millions of people happy.  Kermit imagined that idea..."millions of people happy."  

I was inspired to share Kermit's dream.  By age 19 I had a job teaching puppetry in 140 cities in 9 months.  I was well on my way...   

I'm really stoked on life, I love what I do.  I never thought the coolest animal in the whole wide world would be part of my life.

Squiggy is gone, but the rest of the hyraxes have somehow become my little friends, wild as they are.  They used to watch me and Squig together every day.  Maybe they remember that I am a friend to hyraxes.  Ok gotta go.  Enjoy!  Buy some hyrax stuff! I really need it!

Check out projecthandup.org to see my charity.