Africa, My Passion

by Corinne Hofmann

  ‘This Sunday after the match I’m going on the visit. My family will get there first and I’ll come on the bus after the game. I just hope nothing goes wrong and they’re all still friends when I get there,’ he says with a grin.

  Innocent is looking at his watch and says it’s time for them to go and do their three hours of voluntary community service. I ask them what they plan to do today and Joseph says: ‘Down at the club they split us up into groups and each group does something different every time. Today we’re going to see kids in jail, under-eighteens who’ve been locked up. We try to talk to them, to get them interested in sport, to make clear to them that the life they’ve been leading is a road to nowhere. I can speak from experience. But now I’m a role model for these kids and that’s a great feeling. We sit down with them and they ask us questions. Some of them want to know how I got where I did, to be playing in the top league. I tell them about MYSA, explain how it all works and if any of them are interested I do what I can to help them find a team to play for. Sometimes we take them food or just a football. But some of them don’t care. There are boys who don’t want to talk to us, won’t take any of the food we bring. They just want to be left alone and you can’t force them to listen. It’s a tough time for these kids. They don’t even know if their parents will have them back or if they’ll have to go and live in a home. In any case they’ll have to go to a special school where they are watched, and do hard work. It’s meant to be a punishment.’

  I ask the two of them if players from other clubs do voluntary community service. That has them laughing out loud and they tell me, ‘No. We’re the only club in the Kenyan top flight that does something for their community. Our wages are 50 per cent based on doing this work, but we enjoy helping others. But it can be hard because when they’ve seen us players in person, they all want to go to a football game and that’s not possible. We can’t afford it. Sometimes we’re allowed to take two fans each. But they enjoy it so much they want to come to the next game too. Even when we’re playing away, we set off really early so we can do community service in whatever town we’re visiting. Sometimes we’ll go into a primary school and give them a training session. The kids really love that. We’ve only got big thanks to MYSA and we want to give something back on that account,’ the pair of them agree emphatically.

  They have to go now so I ask them in conclusion what their greatest dreams are. The two of them agree: what they want more than anything else is to play in Europe. ‘You know, Corinne, we’re doing okay but we’re still young. We can’t afford to save much money because we have to support all our relatives as well as ourselves. It’s important for us to get somewhere while we’re still young. We need a contract for several years so we can make a name for ourselves and then later, when we come back to Kenya, we’ll have something to build on. We’re role models but that means we have to keep up standards. We can’t let ourselves sink back into poverty after a few years. That would be disastrous. That’s why we keep up good relations with the media and people like you who’ll tell people about us in Europe and maybe that way we’ll get a chance. That really is our dream.’

  I’m not in the slightest surprised that Mathare United, which is made up of young, talented and strong-willed men like these, has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

  FINALLY, NAPIRAI MAKES IT TO BARSALOI

  After a hectic and busy month in Nairobi I head back home, the moving stories I’ve been told running through my head. But my conscience is nagging me because I spent such a long time in Kenya without going up to Barsaloi to see my beloved African family. I would love to see them all again after six years – Lketinga, Mama, James and all the others. But I simply couldn’t go without my daughter. In letters to them I don’t mention my recent time in Kenya because it would cause too many impossible explanations.

  But after all the interviews in Nairobi I realise that in any case I will have to go back to sort out some questions I still have. It’s also important for me to see the people who shared so many details of their private lives with me for a second time so that I can get a bit more perspective. There may be little things I missed or need to check more thoroughly. I still have a lot of emotions and impressions swirling around in my head and need to sort them out.

  It’s nice to be back home though and I can appreciate my comfortable existence a lot more than before the trip. Whenever I’m back here I spend all my time dreaming of more adventures, particularly in Africa. But then when I’m away for long periods at a time, no matter how beautiful and amazing everything is, I get homesick. I just remember to keep thanking God that I have the choice. Most people in Switzerland could board a plane and fly off to Africa easily enough and come back a few weeks later. It’s not the same the other way round. Only a very few Africans could ever manage to take a holiday in Switzerland, and it certainly wouldn’t be easy for them. That is one of the thoughts running through my head as I sit and write down my recollections of my experiences.

  I read aloud my stories from the slums to my daughter who sits there in amazement, completely unable to imagine life like that. She knows of course that her African family live an extremely modest existence but at least in comparison with the slums they are relatively free and close to nature. Every story I tell her just increases her interest in Kenya and she asks more and more questions. I’m really pleased by her interest because there’s nothing I’d like more than to take my daughter back to show her the country where she was born. I’m certain that it would change a lot of her attitudes and she would understand my own past better. For years now I’ve been lighting a candle for my African family in a church nearby. I pray for Mama, and of course for Lketinga, Napirai’s father, to live long enough for Napirai to be ready to see them. Above all I worry that it might soon be too late for her to get to know her wonderful grandmother.

  Then in May I get a letter from my brother-in-law James which changes everything:

  Dear Corinne and Napirai,

  I really hope and pray you are both well. We praise the Lord that our family is all well and we are content. Stefania, my wife, and I and our children are all in the best of health and Lketinga and his wife and children are happy too.

  Once again I want to take the opportunity to thank you and Napirai for everything and say how much we value it all. Please excuse me, Corinne, for not being in touch for so long. You have been supporting us for so long, Corinne, and just by writing about us you’re still doing so every day. It is just great and I pray God to bless your handiwork.

  Lketinga’s family get the money you send regularly and he thanks you for it. My family also thank you for your contributions you make to us and to Mama. I have no words to express my thanks properly but this is the best I can do.

  Dear Corinne and Napirai, it is very important to me to tell you how much we appreciate you. My children and Lketinga’s children talk about you often. Some of them know you personally, Corinne, from when you visited with Albert and Klaus when you were writing your book Reunion in Barsaloi. The older members of the family think of you and pray for you daily. Mama tells me always to be sure to send her love to you when I write and whenever you write back, I immediately read it out to her.

  Corinne, I am so pleased to tell you that during the last really bad drought which lasted up until a few months ago, we did better than most people in Barsaloi and the rest of the Samburu region. That is simply down to the fact that you have never forgotten your Samburu family and have supported us so generously. I also want to mention our godfather Albert who has also been very generous in helping us.

  Dear Corinne, this is a day when I remember a lot of things, particularly going back to those years between 1987 and 1989. Do you remember the day when you went to visit Mama in Loruko, a few kilometres from Barsaloi? Lketinga and I weren’t around at the time. But you knew Mama and you and she managed to communicate using sign language and reading each other’s lips and eyes. It must have been God’s will that brought you to the Le
parmorijo family. I remember Lketinga arriving a bit later and the two of you sitting down and discussing your wedding. I am still amazed to this day that you chose to adopt the Samburu culture. You immediately chose to get married like a Samburu woman. You built a manyatta in our corral, a ‘white house’ we call it because it looks green at first when the outside is all plastered with cow dung and then when it dries out after a few days it become white. All the women in our culture getting married for the first time build a house like that. You did too, which just showed us how extraordinary you were.

  Now I want to tell you about a dream I had a while back, about a house in the middle of our country. You should know Barsaloi has changed now. You can buy land and I have done so. I have a piece of land that nobody can take away from me. With a lot of hard work, the help of God, and help from you too, I would like to build this house I dreamt of. It will be painted white and called Corinne’s White House and it will survive all of us. This house and your books will remind our children and our grandchildren of you and the support you have given to the people of Barsaloi in the Samburu country.

  From time to time maybe you will come and visit us and maybe Napirai one day will make it. The house will be there, a safe place ready to receive guests. When I am finished the ‘White House’ will sit there in the middle of our other houses and all our animals.

  Corinne, this is my big dream, because we have to do something to thank you for all the support you have given us, and thank God too for being so good to us. I am certain that one day, sometime in the future, Napirai will come and find a room waiting for her inside.

  PS: I’ve enclosed photos of all the family with their names written on each one, so you can see all your African family.

  Yours,

  James and family.

  I’m emotionally bowled over by the letter. Just reading it has made my eyes fill with tears. I feel all the more ashamed that I failed to make it to Barsaloi.

  That evening I read Napirai the letter on the telephone and have a lump in my throat as I say the words. I find it hard to control my voice. There’s a long pause in which I can hear her breathing on the other end of the line. Then I hear her say the sentence I have waited so long for: ‘Mama, you should go back there, I mean, we should go back there! I’m coming with you.’

  I can hardly believe it. ‘Thank you, Napirai, I’m really pleased you want to take such a brave step. I’m 100 per cent convinced that you’ll make them all so happy, and that you’ll be happy there too. I wish I was with you right now to put my arms around you and hug you.’

  She just laughs and immediately brings me back down to earth, saying, ‘I just hope nobody will expect too much from me. After all, as far as I’m concerned, they’ll be strangers. I can hardly remember anything from back then. I was so small when you took me away.’

  But I’m so happy, all I can say is: ‘Don’t worry. We’ll manage it, just like we’ve managed everything else.’

  Napirai writes: As long as I can remember my mother has been reading me letters from our family in Barsaloi. I’ve always been fascinated to hear their latest news or to see a photo of my father and the rest of the family. Obviously these days I read the letters myself too. And when we write back I always add a few words in English for my father.

  I’ve often wondered what it’s really like in Barsaloi and how things there might have changed. But above all for all these years I’ve wondered about my father. What will he look like now? What will he be like? What do we have in common? Questions such as these keep running through my head. Obviously my mother has always told me lots about him, told me stories about her past. And all this time I’ve obviously had my own conception of my family back there in Kenya.

  Nonetheless I haven’t really been that all that intensively involved in thinking about Africa. The stories and letters have been all the contact I really needed with my father. But as I’ve got older I’ve become more interested in Africa.

  I was very moved by the last letter we got from James. I realised how important the two of us are for the family there. I feel the time has now come for me to make the journey, to seek out my roots. This letter has made me realise it’s the right thing for me to do. The time is right. I feel that with both heart and mind.

  I immediately start planning our trip. First of all, of course, I need to write to James so that they too can be prepared for us coming. The letter will then sit at the poste restante desk in Maralal for several weeks before somebody comes to pick it up. We can only go in the summer holidays, so I’ve only got a couple of months to get everything in order. I can imagine how excited they’ll all be when James tells the family we’re coming to see them. Mama won’t believe it until we actually get out of the car before her eyes in Barsaloi. And what about Lketinga, Napirai’s father? How is he going to react? But I don’t let myself worry about that; I trust God, and Lketinga. After all, once upon a time he really loved his daughter a lot. If she cried, he would pick her up and walk up and down with her for ages, singing Samburu songs to her. I’m certain that seeing her again after all this time will make him happy.

  Pleased and delighted though I am, I can’t help being a little bit worried at the thought of us two women travelling in a Jeep through the Samburu bushland. So I ask Albert, my publisher, and Klaus the photographer if they will come with us. Both have already been to Barsaloi with me, met my Samburu family and got on well with them. They immediately sign up and I feel enormously relieved, not least because on this trip I shall be responsible for my daughter.

  Seeing as Napirai has never even been to Africa before I decide to give her a gradual introduction to Samburu country. First of all we’ll head along the old road to Nakuru and spend the night there, before continuing via Nyahururu to Maralal and finally on to Barsaloi.

  We start making preparations like crazy but I’m still nervous about how little time we have. I’ve been waiting in vain for weeks now for a letter back from James. What if it’s got lost in the post? Maybe giving them such short notice of our arrival is asking too much. Maybe the timing isn’t right? Among the Samburu important events are coordinated with the phases of the moon. I have so many questions whirring round in my head that I can’t enjoy the lead-up to our trip. My daughter is concerned too and keeps asking me if I’ve got a letter yet.

  I’ve also sent word to Father Giuliani. Three weeks before we’re due to set off I at least get a reply from him that he’ll come to visit us when we get to Barsaloi. Napirai doesn’t have long enough holidays for us to go and visit him at the mission down in Sererit, which is several hours away by car. He seems to be looking forward to seeing us.

  Then at long last, after writing a second letter and not getting any answer, I receive an email from the new head of the church mission in Barsaloi. He sent it from the post office in Maralal and lets me know briefly that everybody is happy we are coming, particularly the Leparmorijo family. Napirai and I are both hugely relieved.

  ‘Thank you, dear God, for giving us such a comforting sign’, I pray. At long last we can start really looking forward properly to our adventure, and there’s a spring in our step when we finally board the plane.

  We land in Nairobi at the beginning of August. But even as we’re waiting in line for immigration control, I start getting butterflies in my stomach. I just hope nothing goes wrong, because after all in Napirai’s German passport it gives her place of birth as Samburuland, Kenya, and this is the first time she has been back on Kenyan soil since we fled all those years ago. I just hope we don’t have to answer any awkward questions or open up our luggage which is stuffed with presents. Despite all the years that have passed I clearly still have a lingering bad impression of the bureaucrats here. But then it was right here, at this passport control desk, that my attempt to flee Kenya with my baby daughter nearly fell apart. They bombarded me with so many hostile questions that I nearly froze in terror. Now here we are, shuffling gradually towards the desk and my hands are sweating. Napirai, on the othe
r hand, is totally calm. I look for signs of emotion in her face, but she seems absolutely normal.

  Eventually we’re through and nobody seems even remotely interested in our huge pile of luggage.

  Napirai writes: So, here we are on the way at last. That’s all I can think about. Here I am sitting in an airplane on the way to Nairobi. In just a few days’ time I’ll meet my family in Barsaloi. It’s crazy! I keep telling myself to calm down. I’m worked up enough just being on a plane. Ever since take-off I’ve been trying to distract myself, to think of other things and not constantly about what’s waiting for me at the other end. Even as we’re coming in to land, I find myself getting more and more nervous to the point where I’ve got stomach cramp. I just wish we’d already landed. Then finally the plane touches down on Kenyan soil, and I suddenly feel a wave of relief wash over me. I can’t wait to know what it feels like stepping out of the plane into Kenyan air. I can tell my mother is already very worked up about it. So am I, of course, although unlike her it’s not passport control I’m worked up about; it’s the fact that here I am in the land of my birth for the first time in twenty years. I thought the whole thing would have been too much for me, but somehow I’m managing. In fact, as we drive away from the airport I feel a great calmness descend on me. It feels good to be here. My nerves have gone.