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Durango rallies for Chef Safari

Locals raise more than $10,000 to help family flee Africa violence
Mahogany Grille Chef Arnold “Safari” Ngumbao displays food art he created for an event at the Strater Hotel in 2013. Locals have raised more than $10,000 to help him bring his family to Durango from Kenya because they have been the target of violence there.

The violence in various parts of Africa has been in the news for years, but for one Durango man, it is all too real and personal.

Chef Arnold Ngumbao, nicknamed “Chef Safari,” originally came to Durango as a guest chef at the Mahogany Grille at the Strater Hotel. At the time, he was the chef at a five-star resort in Zanzibar, a part of Tanzania. A year and a half ago, he came back to become the executive chef at the hotel.

“He came over here for a better life, and what he made, he was sending back to his family,” said Mark Daigle, president of First National Bank of Durango.

But the violence there, much of it initiated by the terrorist group Al Shabab, has become of grave concern to Safari in recent months.

“Anybody who is connected to an American or receiving cash from America there is susceptible,” said Rod Barker, owner of the Strater Hotel. “His wife, Lucy’s, roommate was shot and killed. Lucy and the kids fled from Mombasa to Nairobi (Kenya) to be safe.”

Safari and his wife have five children. Their 15-year-old daughter, Grace, arrived in Durango in May.

“Their two other teenaged children are in a boarding school that is supposedly safe right now,” said Guyneth Zimmerman, Barker’s executive assistant. “But they still have two young children at home, Sasha, 3, and Angel, 6.”

Getting the family out became a priority. Barker had arranged for three-year visas for the entire family when Safari first came, so there still is a year and a half remaining on them. He’s consulting with people at Durango Mountain Resort and The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, who have a lot of foreign staff, about how to extend the visas or make them more permanent.

As Durangoans are wont to do, a plan was quickly made to raise the airfare.

“This community raised more than $10,000 in three days to bring them out of a nasty situation,” Daigle said Friday afternoon. “All kinds of people, many who don’t even know Safari, have helped. The staff at the bank held a burrito sale this morning and raised $700.”

Interim housing has been found, but more permanent housing and other needs still need to be supplied.

“They’re leaving their home with what they can carry on an airplane,” Daigle said.

That won’t begin to get them settled in Durango.

“The kids are school-aged and have never lived in a place with winter,” Barker said, “so there are a lot of needs right there.”

He’s hoping to get the family on an airplane early next week.

abutler@durangoherald.com

To help

Donations to help Chef Safari’s family get settled in Durango may be sent to FUMC, 2917 Aspen Drive, Durango, CO 81301, with “Safari family” in the memo line. Donations are being funneled through First United Methodist Church, so they are tax-deductible for donors and don’t impose a tax liability for Safari.

Dec 24, 2014
First American Christmas


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