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From the Jungles of Manhattan to the Wilds of Kenya By MEREDITH GORDON
Imagine a native New Yorker leaving her home and a blossoming stage career to
live in Africa. On a lark. Drama alumna Lucile Schoettle Ford (Group 4) has
spent the past 10 years working as a wildlife conservationist, political
advocate, and AIDS worker in Kenya. She is living
the kind of life that movies can only imitate.
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| Lucile Ford and leonine friend, Kibongi, at the Kenya Wildlife Service Animal Orphanage, Nairobi.
(Photo by David Mascal) |
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One might say that Ford's formal education is not the stuff from which
wildlife conservation careers are normally made: She spent four years as a
drama and dance major at Interlochen Arts Academy and two as a drama major at
Juilliard. Her Juilliard audition pieces were Dark of the Moon
and Uncle Vanya, but she believes it was
the improv that got her in.
"They told me that my character's boyfriend had just left her, and that I was
to come back home from work to an empty house," she recalls. "There happened
to be a set on the stage of a kitchen, with a loaded clothesline running
through it. Lucky me! I came through the door, mimed putting the groceries
down, clutched the man's T-shirt to my face and smelled it, loudly." Patti
LuPone, who was watching Ford's audition, ran into the hall afterwards to tell
her she was "in."
As a student, however, Ford found her time at Juilliard difficult. "Some of
the teachers were wonderful," she recalls, "but the division was very young
and finding its feet while I was there." She left after two years, but says
that she really liked her classmates: "I felt that we were brothers in arms
together. I would really like to hear from them, hear how they're doing."
After Juilliard, Ford went on the road, singing professionally. "I was lucky
enough to work with B.B. King, Muddy Waters, lots of the old blues greats,"
she says. Then she went back to acting in New York, became a member of several
performers' unions, signed with an agent, and started to get work. "And just
when it looked like I was on my way as a professional actress," says Ford,
"along came Bill Woodley." Woodley had joined the Kenya National Parks as a
19-year-old in 1948, and spent the following 44 years working in Kenya's game
reserves. When he and Ford met through a mutual friend in 1990, he was
renowned as the senior warden of Kenya's Tsavo West National Park. "We got on
like a house on fire," says Ford, "and he invited me to come out and see
Kenya. I flew out for a visit, fell in love with Kenya—and Bill's son." Ford
extended the visit and did not return to New York for six months, when she
returned to pack up her things and move to Kenya officially. "I went directly
from a Manhattan apartment to living in a mud hut with a thatched roof, no
electricity, running water, or stove, in the remote northern area of Tsavo
East National Park."
Ford's work is, in her own words, "amorphous," with constantly changing
responsibilities and environments. She began her work in "the bush" for four
years, assisting the warden in reclaiming a sub-headquarters station closed
since 1947 and making it functional. She also helped in keeping the park's
dirt roads passable, stopping bush fires, and trying to keep out the poachers.
In addition, she accompanied the warden on problem-animal control. "When a
buffalo, lion, or elephant would raid a village and threaten to kill people,"
explains Ford, "the animal would need to be hunted and shot. This is not sport
hunting; it is about protecting people from getting injured or killed by
wildlife, which would make [people] want to eradicate all
of the wildlife in their area." Other fieldwork included counting the
wildlife population from a two-seater plane over a period of several days. "It
was exhausting work," says Ford, "but great fun!"
After four years in the field, she moved into Nairobi, the capital of Kenya,
and began working on various projects at park headquarters, with more emphasis
on the policy issues of conservation. As a member of the Hirola Task Force for
the past eight years, she researches the numbers, habits, and trends of this
most endangered species of antelope and advises the National Parks on the
species' needs and how best to save it from extinction.
Once, an elderly, distinguished visitor from the Frankfurt Zoological Society
was impressed with the capture and transport of 30 hirola antelopes and
complimented Ford on her work. "He asked which zoological society I had
studied under in wildlife management. I thought for a moment," recalls Ford,
"and said—Juilliard???"
Ford has also stepped into the field of civil governance and was made
chairperson of the public relations committee of a residents' association that
fought "city hall." "We took the Nairobi City Council to court," explains
Ford, "and proved that Nairobi residents were not receiving the services that
their property taxes were supposed to be paying for. We won this landmark
case, now taught about in Kenyan law schools," she adds.
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Giving up an apartment in Manhattan for a mud hut in Africa — sheer madness … and lots of fun.
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Through her work in the residents' association, Ford became aware of the
H.I.V./AIDS victims living in her area and now focuses her efforts on finding
them assistance. "There are many slums in Nairobi," says Ford, "and we have a
few in our association's area. They have no medicine, toilets, running water,
or transportation to the hospital." Ford searched for two years before she
found a suitable non-governmental organization that could help in a practical
way. The organization trains local residents from the slum on general and
reproductive health care, enabling the trainees to provide community
diagnosis, medicines, a mobile eye clinic, AIDS and nutritional education,
condoms, and home care. Adds Ford: "We now have permission to dig pit latrines
on City Council land close to the slum and are fund-raising to build the
structure that will house them."
Though she faces dire situations daily and pursues solutions to serious
problems, Ford is very positive about her work and Kenya in general. She has
many fond memories of her adventures, including escorting camels from Somalia
to East Tsavo National Park, clearing unwanted baboons out of the house, and
replacing outside water pipes broken by thirsty elephants. "I could go on and
on about the things that are attractive about working in this field," she
says. "I guess that sheer madness and a lot of fun would be two of them."
Kenya's political situation might make some weary, but Ford retains a
practical attitude. Kenya recently had a change in leadership—"the most
peaceful hand-over of power in the history of the African continent,"
according to Ford—and the new administration is doing what it can do address
the complicated problems with infrastructure, education, investment, and
health. Neither her location in East Africa (an area cited as a center for
terrorist activity) nor the simultaneous embassy bombings in Kenya and
Tanzania in 1998 have undermined her confidence. She aided the cleanup efforts
in Nairobi after the bombing, but believes that terrorism can happen anywhere.
"I mean," says Ford, "who would have thought that Bali would be a target?
After that, I couldn't think of a country that could be immune to possible
terrorists attacks." When asked if she ever feared for her safety, her answer
comes quickly: "You must be kidding—I'm from New York City! In New York, I was
mugged, robbed, groped, and swung at by a total stranger—in front of
Bloomingdale's, for God's sake!"
Perhaps the only aspect lacking from her life in Kenya was the performing
arts, which has been rectified in recent years. "I started to miss using the
creative side of my brain," admits Ford." As it happened, she attended a play
at a nearby theater and met the man in charge. She offered to teach drama
courses—and was immediately handed a script and asked to be the lead. "I
reminded him," says Ford, "that I had just said that I didn't want to perform
anymore. He just smiled and said, 'You haven't read this script yet.'" Thus,
Ford reclaimed her place on the stage in Duet for One
and has since performed in several productions; she will play the
psychiatrist in the upcoming production Agnes of God
. Now a board member for a new theater company aiming for high-quality
productions on a shoestring, Ford comments: "Very reminiscent of the old days
of being in a starving acting company in the East Village!" She has also made
it her mission to help actors organize themselves to better share information
about classes, coaching, and auditions. She enjoys the theater community and
adds, "You don't need degrees as long as your arm to become involved and
effective here."
Having carved a remarkable life for herself in the years since leaving
Juilliard, Ford offers this advice to Juilliard students: "Don't be scared or
impressed by 'experts'; just go in and do your stuff, and be content that you
have done your best. No one can ask anything more of you—not even yourself.
Just work hard, put all your time and effort in, and you will be given
wonderful opportunities." She herself has lived by these words. Meredith Gordon is a development associate in the Office of National Advancement and Alumni Relations.
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