The White Masai

by Corinne Hofmann

  The days pass quickly, and Esther and Priscilla spoil me. One cooks while the other fetches water and even washes my clothes. When I protest they say only that it’s too hot for me to work. So I spend most of my time on the beach, waiting for some word from Lketinga. In the evenings Masai warriors often come round, and we play cards or try to tell stories. Gradually I notice that one or other of them is showing an interest in me, but I don’t reciprocate because there’s only one man for me. None of them is half as beautiful and elegant as the ‘demigod’ for whom I’ve given up everything. When the warriors realize I’m not interested, I hear a few more rumours about Lketinga. It seems everyone knows I’m here waiting for him.

  On one occasion when I politely but firmly turn down the offer of a ‘friendship’– read ‘love affair’– he says: ‘Why are you waiting for this one Masai when everyone knows that he took the money you gave him to get a passport and went off to Watumu Malindi and drank it all with African girls?’ Then he gets up and says I should think again about his offer. I tell him angrily to get lost and not come back. Even so, I feel lonely and betrayed. What if it’s true? All sorts of thoughts run through my head, and in the end all I know is that I don’t want to believe it. I could go to the Indian in Mombasa, but I can’t summon up the courage because I wouldn’t be able to bear hearing what he might tell me. Every day I meet warriors on the beach, and I hear more stories. One even tells me that Lketinga is ‘crazy’ and had to be taken home where he married a young girl and won’t be coming back to Mombasa. And if I need comforting, this guy’ll always be there for me. My God, I think, will they ever leave me alone? I’m beginning to see myself as a deer lost along lions; they all want to eat me up.

  In the evenings I tell Priscilla the latest rumours and calumnies, but she says it’s just normal. I’ve been here three weeks now without a man and these men’s experience is that white women never live for long on their own. Then Priscilla tells me about two white women who’ve been living in Kenya for years and run after almost every single Masai. On the one hand, I’m shocked – on the other, astounded – to hear that there are other white women here and that they even speak German. The news awakens my curiosity. Priscilla points to another hut in the village and tells me: ‘That belongs to Jutta, a German. She’s somewhere in the Samburu District working in a tourist camp at present but will come back for a short while some time in the next two or three weeks.’ I’m more than curious about this mysterious Jutta.

  In the meantime the chat-up lines keep coming, and I’m really no longer comfortable. It seems that a woman on her own is considered fair game. Even Priscilla can’t – or won’t – do anything about it. When I say anything to her she laughs almost childishly, which I can’t understand.

  A Trip With Priscilla

  One day Priscilla suggests that I go with her for a couple of weeks to her village to see her mother and her five children. ‘You have five children?’ I gasp in astonishment. ‘Where do they live?’ ‘With my mother or sometimes with my brother.’ Priscilla only lives on the coast to make money, selling jewellery, and twice a year she takes it home. She and her husband haven’t lived together for years. Once again, African ways amaze me.

  When we come back, I think, maybe Jutta will be here and agree to go. The trip would be one way of getting away from the Masai men’s attention. Priscilla is delighted, as she’s never brought a white person home before.

  With the decision made, we leave the next day. Esther will stay behind to look after the house. In Mombasa Priscilla buys several school uniforms to take to her children. I take only my little rucksack with some underwear, a pullover, three T-shirts and a spare pair of jeans. We buy our tickets, but as there’s lots of time before the bus leaves in the evening I go to the hairdressers and have my hair braided African-style. This takes nearly three hours and hurts a lot, but it seems a lot more practical for the journey.

  Long before the bus is due to depart dozens of people are milling around it, loading every conceivable type of baggage onto the roof. By the time we leave it’s pitch dark, and Priscilla suggests we get some sleep. It’ll be at least nine hours to Nairobi; then we have to change and it’s nearly another four and a half hours to Narok.

  I can’t get comfortable and the journey seems to last forever, so it’s a great relief when we arrive. But even now there’s a long trek on foot ahead. For nearly two hours we march, always slightly uphill, through fields, meadows, even a forest of pine trees. From the landscape alone, I could almost imagine myself back in Switzerland; there is not a human being to be seen.

  At long last I see smoke rising in the distance and make out a few dilapidated wooden shacks. ‘Soon be there,’ says Priscilla and explains that she has to fetch a case of beer as a present for her father. I can hardly believe my eyes when she gets the case and plonks it on her head on top of everything else. I can’t wait to see how these Masai live; Priscilla has told me they’re more affluent than the Samburu tribes to which Lketinga belongs.

  When we finally get up to our destination there’s a huge ‘Hallo’, and a crowd of people rushes towards Priscilla then suddenly stops and stares in silence at me. Priscilla apparently tells them all that we’re friends. First of all we have to go to her brother’s house because he speaks a bit of English. The dwellings are all bigger than our village house, with three rooms, but everything is dirty and covered with soot because they cook on open wood fires. Chickens, puppies and cats run around all over the place as do children, everywhere you look: kids of every age, bigger ones carrying the little ones piggyback. Priscilla hands out the first presents.

  The people here don’t dress as traditionally. They wear normal clothing and live as farmers. When the goats come back from the fields it’s my duty as guest to pick out the one we’ll have for a welcome dinner. I can’t bring myself to hand out a death sentence, but Priscilla tells me that it’s traditional and considered a great honour. For all I know I’ll have to do this daily and whenever we visit anyone else. So I point out a white goat, which is immediately rounded up. Two men cut the poor animal’s throat, and I have to turn my eyes away from its death throes. Already it’s got dark and cooled down. We go into the house and sit around the fire burning on the earth in one of the rooms.

  Where the animal is being roasted or boiled, I have no idea. I’m all the more surprised therefore when I’m presented with a whole foreleg and a huge bush knife. The other leg is put down in front of Priscilla. ‘I can’t eat all this,’ I tell her, ‘I’m not starving.’ She laughs and tells me we’ll simply take the rest with us and eat it tomorrow. The idea of gnawing at this leg again for breakfast doesn’t thrill me. But for form’s sake I eat what I can, although I get laughed at for my lack of appetite.

  Dog-tired and suffering from backache, I ask where we’re going to sleep. We’re given a narrow couch that we’re supposed to share. There’s no sign of any water to wash with, and without a fire the room is terribly cold. I put on my pullover and a thin jacket to sleep in. I’m even glad to be squeezed next to Priscilla; at least it’s warmer. In the middle of the night I feel an itch and wake up to find tiny creatures running all over me. My first instinct is to leap off the couch, but it’s pitch black and freezing cold. There’s nothing for it but to stick it out until morning. At first light I wake Priscilla and point to my legs. They’re covered in red bites, probably from fleas. There’s not much to be done since I haven’t brought a change of clothes. I want to wash but when I go outside I’m taken aback: the whole area is covered in mist and there’s a frost on the lush meadows. I could almost be on a farm in the Swiss Jura mountains.

  Today we’re off again to see Priscilla’s mother and her children. We tramp across hills and fields, meeting children or old folk here and there. The children keep their distance from me but the older people, women mostly, want to touch me; some hold my hand and mutter something I don’t understand. Priscilla says most of them have never seen a white woman before, let alone touched one. That turns
out to be why when our hands are together they spit on them: it’s a particular honour.

  After three hours’ walk we finally reach the hut in which Priscilla’s mother lives. Immediately children charge towards us and hang on to Priscilla. Her mother, who’s even rounder than Priscilla, is sitting on the ground washing clothes. They obviously have a lot to talk about, and I try to get the gist of at least a bit of it.

  This hut is the most modest of all those I’ve seen. It’s round like the others and knocked together out of various planks, fabrics and bits of plastic. I can hardly stand up indoors, the fire in the middle fills the entire room with choking smoke, and there’s no window. I drink my tea outside because otherwise my eyes would be smarting and tears running down my cheeks. I ask Priscilla, somewhat worriedly, if we have to spend the night here. She laughs and says, ‘No, Corinne.’ Another brother with a bigger house lives a half hour away: we’ll spend the night with him. There’s no room here anyway, because all the children sleep here and there’s nothing to eat but milk and corn. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Just before dusk we set off for the other brother. Once again we get a festive welcome. Apparently, they hadn’t been told Priscilla was coming and bringing a white visitor. This brother is very friendly, and I can have a decent conversation with him. Even his wife speaks a little English, and they’ve both been to school.

  But once again I have to select an animal. I don’t know what to do because I don’t want to eat the tough goat meat again, but on the other hand I really am hungry. So I steel myself and ask if there’s anything else, explaining that we white people aren’t used to so much meat. They all laugh, and his wife asks if I would prefer chicken with potatoes and vegetables. ‘Oh, yes!’ is my immediate reaction to such a magnificent alternative menu, and his wife goes off and comes back with a plucked chicken, potatoes and a sort of spinach. These Masai are proper farmers; some of them have been to school, and they work hard in the fields. We women and children eat a really good meal together, a sort of stew that tastes quite wonderful after all the mountains of meat.

  We stay here for almost a week, using it as a base to visit other people. They even provide hot water especially for me to wash in. Even so, our clothes are dirty and smell appallingly of smoke. I’m beginning to get tired of this life and wish I were back in Mombasa with the beach and my new bed. When I tell Priscilla I’d like to leave, she tells me we’re invited to a wedding in two days’ time. So we stay.

  The wedding is a few miles away. One of the richest Masai there is marrying his third wife. I’m surprised to find out that the Masai apparently can have as many wives as they can feed. It reminds me of the rumours about Lketinga: could it be that he really is married? The thought preys on me, but I tell myself he wouldn’t have kept it a secret from me. There’s some other reason behind his disappearance, and I have to find it out as soon as I get back to Mombasa.

  The ceremony is impressive, with hundreds of men and women. The proud bridegroom is presented to me, and he informs me that if I want to get married he would take me as well. I’m speechless. He turns to Priscilla and actually asks her how many cows he’d have to pay for me. Priscilla manages to put him off, however, and he leaves.

  Then, accompanied by the first two wives, the bride arrives: a stunningly beautiful girl painted from head to foot. I’m shocked by her age, for she can’t be older than twelve or thirteen. The other two wives are probably no more than eighteen or twenty. The bridegroom isn’t exactly an old man, but he’s probably at least thirty-five. I ask Priscilla: ‘How can people get married when they’re little more than children?’ That’s just the way it is, she says; she was not much older herself. I feel a sort of pity for the girl, who looks proud but unhappy.

  Once again my thoughts turn to Lketinga. Does he have any idea that I’m twenty-seven? All of a sudden I feel old, unsure of myself and certainly not very attractive in these grubby clothes. The numerous offers directed to me via Priscilla do nothing to diminish the feeling. I don’t fancy any of them, and in any case Lketinga is the only one I can imagine as a possible husband. I want to go home to Mombasa. Who knows, maybe he’s turned up in the meantime. One way or another, I’ve been back in Kenya a month now.

  Jutta

  We spend one more night in the hut and head back to Mombasa the next day. I stride toward the village with my heart in my mouth. Even at a distance I can hear unfamiliar voices, and Priscilla calls out: ‘Jambo, Jutta!’ My heart takes a little leap of joy at her words: after nearly two weeks with barely any conversation the arrival of a white woman is welcome.

  She greets me coolly, however, and speaks to Priscilla in Swahili. Once again I’m left understanding nothing! But then she turns to me with a smile and says in German, ‘So, how do you like life in the bush? If you weren’t covered in dirt, I wouldn’t have believed you were up to it,’ and she looks me up and down with a critical eye. I tell her that I’m glad to be back here because my hair itches and I’ve been bitten all over. Jutta laughs: ‘Fleas and lice, that’s all that’s wrong with you! But if you go into the hut with them you’ll never get them out!’

  She says the best way to deal with fleas is to take a dip in the sea and then a shower in one of the hotels, a luxury she makes the most of whenever she’s in Mombasa. I ask doubtfully if that’s possible as I’m not staying in one of them, but she dismisses my fears: ‘There are so many white people that you can get away without being noticed.’ She even goes to get food at the hotel buffets, although not always the same one of course. I’m impressed by Jutta and amazed by all her little tricks. She promises to come with me later and disappears into her hut.

  Priscilla tries to unbraid my hair. It hurts terribly. The hairs have all become matted and stuck together with smoke and dirt. I’ve never been so dirty in my life and feel as bad as I look. After more than an hour – and hair falling in clumps – we succeed: all the plaits are undone. I look like I’ve been struck by lightning. Armed with soap, shampoo and fresh clothes, I call for Jutta and we go off together. She has pencils and a sketchpad with her. When I ask her why, she says ‘To earn money. It’s easy to make money in Mombasa, that’s why I’m here for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘How?’ I ask.

  ‘I draw caricatures of tourists. It takes ten to fifteen minutes, and I make ten francs a picture. If I can do four or five people in a day, I can make a decent living.’

  For five years now she’s been getting along like this; she knows every trick and comes across as hugely self-confident. I’m in awe of her.

  When we get to the beach I plunge straight into the refreshing brine and don’t come out for an hour. When I do, Jutta shows me the money she has made in the meantime. ‘Okay, let’s go shower,’ she says with a laugh. ‘You just have to relax and walk past the beach guard with an air of self-confidence, because we’re white, you always have to remember that!’ It works! I spend ages under the shower washing my hair maybe five times over until I finally feel clean. Then I put on a little light summer dress, and we go off for the traditional four-o’clock tea. All for nothing.

  That’s when Jutta asks what I’m doing in the village. I tell her my story, and she listens attentively before giving me her advice: ‘If you really are determined to stay here and want your Masai, then there are a few things that are necessary. For a start you have to rent your own hut – that costs next to nothing, and you’ll have peace. Secondly you should hang on to the money you’ve brought and start earning: for example, get customers for me to draw, and we’ll share the proceeds. Thirdly, don’t listen to any black on the coast. When you get down to it all they want is money. To find out if your Lketinga is really worth it, tomorrow we’ll go to the travel agent’s and see if the money you left is still there. If it is, then the tourist industry hasn’t totally corrupted him yet. I’m serious!’ If I had a photo of him it would be easy to find him, she reckons.

  Jutta is good for me. She speaks Swahili, knows her way around and has the energy of a fema
le Rambo. The next day we go into Mombasa, but not on the bus. Jutta has no intention of throwing away her hard earned money. Instead she sticks her thumb out at the roadside and, as it happens, the first private car to come along stops. They are Indians and will take us to the ferry. Virtually the only people to own private cars here are Asians or whites. Jutta laughs at me. ‘You see, Corinne, there’s something else you’ve learned.’

  After much searching we eventually locate the travel agent’s. I pray passionately that the money I left more than five months ago is still here, not so much because of the money itself but because I want confirmation that I haven’t got it wrong about Lketinga and our love. Apart from anything else, Jutta will only help me find him if he hasn’t taken the money. She obviously doesn’t think that very likely.

  My heart is pounding as I open the door and cross the threshold. The man behind the desk looks up, and I recognize him straight away. But before I can say a word he gets up and comes out to me holding out his hand saying, ‘Hello, how are you after such a long time? And where is the Masai man? I haven’t seen anything more of him.’ Those few words are enough to fill my heart with a warm glow, and after saying hello I explain to him that the passport didn’t work out and I’ve come to get my money back.

  Even now I don’t quite dare believe it, but the Indian disappears behind a curtain, and I glance nervously at Jutta. She just rocks on her heels, but in a second he’s back with bundles of notes in his hands. I could cry with happiness. The moment I take hold once again of this substantial sum of money I feel a new strength. My trust is restored, and I can shrug off all the rumours and other nonsense.