- Donna Duggan, 51, from Brisbane, Qld set up Maasai Wanderings, in East Africa, with her husband Nas
- Working together on the safari in Nas’ homeland was a unique experience, working up close and personal with lions, elephants, buffalo
- After his tragic death in 2017, Donna is keeping his legacy alive
Here she shares her story in her own words.
Watching the amber sun rise over the mountain peaks, my heart swelled.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ I said aloud.
It was September 2004 and I was working as a volunteer nurse in Moshi, a small town at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
‘I always felt safe and welcomed.’
Originally from Brisbane, I’d fallen in love with the East African country ever since first visiting back in 1995.
For the last decade, I’d been back and forth as a tourist and volunteer.
I always felt safe and welcomed.
A few weeks later, I met my neighbour Naseeb, or Nas, then 20.
He was an enterprising man, selling vibrant batik fabrics and beaded sandals, and taking visitors on hikes.
A handsome storyteller, he was always brimming with ideas and dreams.
‘I don’t have any fancy degrees,’ he told me, but I didn’t care because he was a quick thinker and great problem solver.
‘You went to the university of life,’ I joked.
‘I loved Tanzania so much.’
We soon fell in love.
Nas was willing to come to Australia for me, but I loved Tanzania so much that we decided to stay for a few years.
In May 2005, using all my life savings, we set up Maasai Wanderings, a safari and touring company to teach tourists about the vast wildlife and culture that made Nas’ homeland so unique.
Purchasing an old Land Rover, we began driving tourists to Maasai villages to experience the local culture.
Meandering through the desert, it was incredible to be up close and personal with the animals, including the lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros, and buffalo.
Wanting to give back to the community that had inspired our dream, we used our profits to build schools for kids in the area.
Nas and I moved into a little cottage with three bedrooms and a kitchen.
‘Do you live in a hut?’ well-meaning friends back home asked.
Sometimes, there was no power or water, but we had enough candles and buckets for those times!
I introduced Nas to my mum, Janet, then 54, and Dad, Robert, 55, when they came to visit, and my parents adored him.
In April 2006 we got married in a registrar’s office, just two weeks before I gave birth to our sweet son, Rami.
‘Simba is here,’ our trekking guides said of our sweet bub – and the nickname stuck.
Nas became Baba Simba – baba meaning dad in Swahili – and I was known as Mama Simba.
We loved going on safari with little Rami on our laps. Rami was fascinated by the animals and loved watching the monkeys in our garden. And our curious little boy especially loved cheetahs.
Our beautiful daughter, Eisha, came along in September 2012.
‘My princess has arrived,’ Nas said proudly.
Our life felt so perfect.
I’m the luckiest man in the world, Nas wrote in letters to my parents every week.
Adventure travel was picking up and word of mouth helped our business grow. We began expanding to Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Rwanda.
Nas took care of the operations, while I looked after the office.
Then, one day in November 2017, Nas was due to fly to Serengeti National Park for business.
I love you. I’ve always loved you. I can’t believe where we’ve come from and where we’re going to, he texted minutes before the plane took off.
But he tragically never made it. His Cessna plane crashed in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania, killing all the people on board.
I tried to hold myself together in front of the kids, but I was in a fog, crying myself to sleep every night.
Working without Nas was so painful, but I couldn’t let our staff down, or close the schools we were running.
Nas and I had built something so beautiful together and I knew I had to keep his legacy alive.
‘I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere,’ I said to my team.
Eisha, then six, kept asking when ‘baba’ was coming back.
Rami, then 11, became my amazing little helper, telling his little sister stories or distracting her with books.
But he missed his dad too. He often wore Nas’ T-shirts, while Eisha started keeping them folded in her pillowcase.
Time passed and we missed Nas desperately. To keep his memory alive, we talked about him all the time and had his pictures around the house.
We were back in Brisbane in March 2020, when the pandemic began and we couldn’t leave Australia because of travel restrictions.
Since then, we’ve made Brisbane our home, and I return to Tanzania every few months to help keep Nas’ dream going.
Over the last 20 years, we’ve supported 30,000 kids through the six schools that we’ve built.
Rami, now 19, looks so much like his father, and is studying advanced science at the University of Queensland, while Eisha, 13, who is still in school, has her dad’s sass and quick wit.
It has been seven years since we lost Nas, but we keep his memory alive, and I speak Swahili as much as I can to Rami and Eisha.
I know Nas would be so proud of me for protecting what we built, and for making sure all his dreams are fulfilled. He’s my guiding light.
