The White Masai

by Corinne Hofmann

  Eventually my husband calms down but sits there on the bed upset and unhappy, and I sort of understand. In his world the family name is the most valuable present a man can bestow on his wife and children, and I reject it. For him, it as good as means that I don’t want to belong to him. I take him by the hand and tell him earnestly that he really doesn’t need to worry, that we’ll be back. I’ll send a telegram to the Mission so that he’ll know which day. He explains to me that he feels lonely without us but that he really would like to have a healthy wife again. When we come back he wants to come and meet us at the airport. That pleases me enormously because I know what an effort a journey like that is for him. Then he tells me that he’s leaving Nairobi now to go home. I understand and accompany him to the bus station. Standing there, waiting for the bus to depart he asks me once again worriedly: ‘Corinne, my wife, you are sure, you and Napirai come back to Kenya?’ I answer with a smile, ‘Yes, darling, I’m sure.’ Then the bus leaves.

  I’d only managed to ring my mother the day before to tell her we are coming. She was obviously surprised but delighted that she was going to see her grandchild at last, so I want to make both of us pretty. But it’s hard to leave such a tiny impetuous baby alone. The shower and toilets in the hotel are at the end of the corridor, and when I want to use the toilet I’ve no alternative but to take her with me. I go to the receptionist and ask her if she’d look after the baby for fifteen minutes while I take a shower. She says she’d be glad to but right now half of Nairobi has no water because of a burst pipe. She says maybe the shower will be working better this evening.

  I wait until six, but nothing happens. On the contrary everything’s started to stink. I decide not to wait any longer because I have to be at the airport by ten and go to a shop where I buy a bottle of mineral water with which I wash Napirai first, then my hair and then what I can of the rest of me.

  We take a taxi to the airport. We don’t have much baggage even though the temperatures in Europe at the end of November are going to be wintry. The stewardesses look after us well and keep stopping to admire the baby and exchange a few words. After we’ve eaten I get a baby bed for her, and she falls asleep. Tiredness overcomes me too and when I’m woken again it’s for breakfast. The thought of being on Swiss soil again fills me with apprehension.

  White Faces

  With my baby wrapped in her kanga on my back we pass through immigration without problems and to our mutual delight find my mother and her husband Hans-Peter waiting for us. Napirai is interested by all the white faces.

  On the trip up into the Bernese Oberland I notice from my mother’s face that she’s worried by my appearance. When we get home the first thing I do is take a bath: a hot bath at last! My mother has bought a little bathtub for Napirai and washes her. When I’ve been in the hot water for about ten minutes all of a sudden my whole body starts to itch. The little cuts and scratches all over my body have opened up and started to discharge. These are mostly cuts from my Masai body decoration, and in this damp climate they don’t heal well. I climb out of the bath to see my body covered with red blotches. Napirai is crying and her grandmother in despair – the baby too is covered with red spots that itch terribly. My mother is worried it might be something infectious and books us an appointment with a specialist for the next day.

  He’s amazed to diagnose our complaint: scabies, an extremely rare disease in Switzerland. There are little mites under our skin which the extreme heat has set moving and which is what causes the itching. Obviously the doctor wants to know where we could have caught this. I tell him about Africa. When he discovers my other wounds some of which have cut up to half an inch into my flesh, he suggests I should have an AIDS test. That’s a bolt from the blue and knocks the wind out of me, but I’m prepared to do it. He gives me several bottles containing liquid that we should apply to the scabies three times a day and tells me to call back in three days’ time for the results of the test. Those three days not knowing are the worst thing of all.

  The first day I sleep a lot and go to bed early with Napirai. The next day the phone rings and it’s the doctor for me personally. My pulse is racing as I take the receiver waiting to hear what my fate is. The doctor apologizes for calling so late but tells me he just wanted to relieve my anxiety: the test is negative. I’m overwhelmed with thanks! I feel as if I’ve been given a new lease on life, and a feeling of strength returns to my body. Now I know I’ll get over the after-effects of the hepatitis. Each day I step up my consumption of fat and eat everything my mother puts on the table.

  Time drags, though, as I no longer feel at home here. We go for lots of walks, visit my sister-in-law Jelly and take Napirai out in the snow for the first time. She seems to like life here a lot, except for all the putting-on and taking-off of clothes.

  After two and a half weeks I realize I don’t want to stay beyond Christmas but the first available flight is on January the first, 1990. By then I’ll have been away from home for nearly six weeks. Nonetheless parting is difficult because once again I’m thrown back on my own devices. I’m going back with nearly ninety pounds of luggage. I’ve bought or sewn presents for everybody. My family has given me lots too, and there are Napirai’s Christmas presents to pack. My brother has bought me a baby-carrier to go on my back.

  A Fresh Beginning?

  When we arrive in Nairobi my nerves are stretched to breaking, not knowing whether or not Lketinga will have come to the airport to meet us. If not and I’m left on the street with Napirai and all the luggage, it won’t be easy to find somewhere to stay in the middle of the night. We say goodbye to the stewardesses and make our way to passport control. We’re barely through when I spot my darling with James and his friend. I’m overjoyed. My husband has painted himself magnificently and done his long hair beautifully, standing there wrapped in his red cloth. He throws his arms around both of us in delight, and we set off for the accommodation they’ve already booked. Now Napirai has problems with all the black faces and starts to cry. Lketinga is worried in case she no longer even recognizes him.

  When we get to the hotel they all want to see the presents straight away, but I only unpack the watches because we want to be on our way tomorrow and everything is carefully packed. The boys retire to their room, and we go to bed. We make love, and at last it no longer hurts. I’m happy and hope once again that everything will turn out for the best.

  Amidst all the chat on the way home I discover that they’re going to build a proper big school in Barsaloi. A plane arrived from Nairobi with Indians on board who stayed a few days in the Mission. The school is going to be built on the other side of the big river, and lots of workers will come in from Nairobi – all Kikuyus – but nobody knows when they’re going to start. I tell them all about Switzerland and of course about the scabies because my husband’s going to have to be treated too or else he’ll just infect us again.

  Lketinga had brought the car as far as Nyahururu and left it at the Mission there – I’m astounded at his courage – so we get back to Maralal easily, although suddenly the distances seem vast to me. We return to Barsaloi the next day, Mama welcomes us happily and gives thanks to Enkai that we have returned healthy and well from the ‘iron bird’, as she calls the aircraft. It’s good to be back home.

  There’s a hearty welcome for me in the Mission too. When I ask Father Giuliani what all this is about a school he confirms what the boys told me and that the building work is actually going to start in a few days’ time. There are already people here putting up barracks for the workers to live in. The building material is coming on lorries via Nanyuki-Wamba. I’m astounded that such a major project is actually going to be realized, but Father Giuliani tells me it’s part of a government plan to end the Masais’ nomadic way of life and make them settle down. The area is suitable because there is always water in the river and enough sand to be mixed with stone to make cement. The presence of a modern Mission building also contributed to the government’s decision. The days go by happily,
and we take regular walks over on the other bank of the river to watch what’s going on.

  My cat has grown. It would seem Lketinga kept his promise and fed it, though apparently only with meat because it’s as wild as a tiger. Only when she snuggles up next to Napirai in bed does she start purring like a tame moggy.

  After two weeks the first workers from outside arrive. The first Sunday most of them turn up in church as the mass is virtually the only entertainment for these townsfolk. The Somalis have put up their prices for sugar and maize drastically, which has led to a lot of arguments and a village meeting with the elders and the little boss man. We take part too, and people keep asking me when the Samburu shop will finally open again. Some of the workers who’ve turned up ask me if I wouldn’t consider using my car to fetch beer and soft drinks. They say they’d pay me well as they get good wages and have nothing to spend them on. As Muslims, the Somalis won’t sell beer.

  When the workers keep coming by I start thinking seriously about doing something to earn money again at last. I get the idea of opening a sort of disco with Kikuyu music, where we could grill meat and sell it along with beer and soft drinks. I talk it all over with Lketinga and the vet, with whom he’s started spending a lot of time. Both think it’s a great idea, and the vet reckons we could sell miraa too as people are always asking for it. In next to no time it’s settled, and we decide to start up at the end of the month. I clean up the shop and knock out fly posters, which we pin up around the place and distribute among the workers.

  The feedback is huge. On the very first day a few people come to ask why we can’t start that very weekend. But that’s too little notice as, apart from anything else, sometimes there’s no beer to be had in Maralal. We do our usual trip there and come back with a dozen cases of beer and soft drinks. My husband sorts out the miraa. The car is so packed that the journey home takes longer than normal.

  When we get back we store all the goods in the main part of the shop because our previous living space out back is going to be the dance floor. Before long the first customers are there looking for beer. Then the little boss man turns up and demands to see my disco licence! Of course, I don’t have one and ask him if I really need to. Lketinga has a chat with him, and he promises that the next day, for a consideration of course, he’ll sort things out: for a handful of cash and a few free beers he’ll grant us our licence.

  At last it’s the day of the disco, and everyone is very worked up. Our shop assistant knows a bit about technology and has taken the battery out of the car to fix it up to a cassette recorder: we have sound! In the meantime a goat’s been slaughtered, and two boys are butchering it. We have lots of volunteer helpers, and Lketinga is spending more time delegating tasks to other people than dealing with them himself. By half-past seven everything is ready: the music’s playing, the meat is sizzling on the grill and people are queued up outside the back door. Lketinga takes the entrance money from the men, women get in free, but most of them stay outside peeking in and giggling. Within half an hour the shop is full, and workers keep coming up and congratulating me on the idea. Even the foreman comes up to thank me for my efforts, saying his people needed a bit of entertainment, particularly as for some of them it’s their first job far from home.

  I enjoy being in the company of so many happy people, most of whom speak English. A few Samburus from the village turn up, even a couple of the elders who sit on upturned crates, wrapped in their blankets watching the dancing Kikuyus with unfettered amazement. I don’t dance myself even though I’ve left Napirai with Mama. A few people ask me to dance, but one glance at Lketinga is enough to persuade me against it. He sits there discreetly knocking back beer and chewing his miraa, all the rest of which is long gone.

  At eleven p.m. the music is turned down, and some of the men say a few words of thanks, addressed to me in particular, the mzungu. An hour later the last beer is gone, and even the goat has almost vanished. Our guests are in a good mood and the party goes on until four a.m. before everyone goes home. I fetch Napirai from Mama and stumble home with her exhausted.

  Counting up our takings the next day I realize the profits were a lot more than we made from the shop. My good mood is soon ruined, however, when Father Giuliani roars up on his motorbike and asks what sort of a ‘hellish racket’ was going on in our shop last night. Quietly I tell him about the disco. He says he doesn’t mind if it’s only twice a month, but he insists on getting to sleep after midnight. If I don’t want to rub him up the wrong way, that’s something I’ll have to bear in mind the next time.

  A Failure Of Trust

  When a few men come over from the river and ask if there’s still a beer to be had, I have to tell them no. Then my husband appears and asks the three of them what they want. I explain, but Lketinga goes up to them and says that if they want something in future they’re to ask him not me. He’s the man around here and decides what’s to be done. His tone of voice is so harsh that they retreat docilely. I ask him why he has to talk to them like that, but he gives a nasty laugh and says: ‘I know why these people come here, not for beer. I know! If they want beer, why don’t they ask me?’ I had realized that sooner or later we were going to have a fit of jealousy even though I haven’t spoken to anyone for more than five minutes! But I restrain my rising temper; it’s bad enough that these men have gone off with a bad impression when the whole of Barsaloi is talking about our disco.

  Lketinga watches me all the time sceptically. From time to time he takes the Datsun and goes off to visit his half-brother in Sitedi or some other relations. Of course I could go with him, but with Napirai I don’t feel like squatting in the fly-infested manyattas next to the cows. Time goes by, and I wait until at last James will be done with school. We urgently need money to buy food and petrol and with all these people from outside here now we can easily be earning it.

  Lketinga is off somewhere else nearly all the time because it seems there’s always someone or other from his age group getting married. Every day warriors turn up with tales of some upcoming wedding or other. He sets off with them and I don’t know if he’ll be back in two days, three or maybe not for five.

  When Father Giuliani asks me if I’m prepared to fetch schoolchildren again as it’s the first day of the holidays, of course I agree. Even though my husband’s not around I set off, leaving Napirai with Mama. James is glad to see me and asks how the disco went – news of it has reached even here. I’ve got five boys to bring back. We go shopping, and I drop in briefly on Sophia. She’s back from Italy but is planning to move down to the coast as soon as possible. It’s too much effort living here with Anika, and she can’t see much of a future for her. I’m sad to hear it because now I’ll have nobody to look forward to seeing in Maralal; we’ve been through some tough times together. But I understand and am even a little envious; I’d love to see the sea again! As she’s moving soon, we say our goodbyes now; she’ll send word of her new address.

  We get back home just before eight p.m. My husband isn’t back so I cook for the boys after they’ve had chai with Mama. It’s a jolly evening exchanging stories, Napirai is very fond of her uncle James, and I have to keep telling them about the disco. They sit there listening with sparkling eyes, imagining themselves there too, and in fact the next one is due to take place in two days’ time, except that with Lketinga not here it can’t happen. This weekend the workers are to be paid, and everyone keeps asking me to organize a disco, even though there’s only one day left. I don’t want to risk it without Lketinga around, but the boys persuade me, promising that they’ll organize everything if I buy the beer and soft drinks.

  I’m reluctant to go to Maralal and so James and I go as far as Baragoi, the first time I’ve been to this Turkana tribe village. It’s almost as big as Wamba and actually has a beer and soft drinks wholesaler, even though it’s dearer than in Maralal. But the whole thing only takes us three and a half hours. One of the boys writes out flysheets which they go out and distribute, and everyone starts
to get excited about the disco. We haven’t managed to sort out the meat though, as there were no goats to be bought and I don’t dare use one of our own, even though they belong partly to me. When I take Napirai down to Mama I notice she’s not as happy as usual because Lketinga isn’t around. But I have to earn money, don’t I? That’s what we all live off.

  Once again the disco is a great success. There are even more people because the schoolboys are home. Even three girls dare to come in. With the boys there and my husband not, the atmosphere is actually much more relaxed. Even one of the young Somalis comes in and has a Fanta. I’m pleased by that because Lketinga is always going on nastily about the Somalis. I feel as if I belong and can talk to lots of people. The boys take turns to sell the drinks. There’s a party mood, and everybody gets up to dance to the bouncy Kikuyu music. A lot of them have even brought their own cassettes. For the first time in two years, I even dance myself and feel as if I’ve let my hair down.

  Unfortunately we have to turn the music down at midnight, but the party atmosphere lasts until two a.m., when we close up, and I hurry down to the manyatta with a torch to fetch Napirai. I have problems finding the gate in the thorn fence and when I do my heart almost stops when I see Lketinga’s spears planted in the earth outside the manyatta! My pulse is racing as I bend down to crawl in. Immediately I hear the grunt that tells me how ill tempered he is. Napirai is sleeping naked next to Mama. I say hello and ask him why he didn’t come up to the shop. At first I don’t even get an answer, then he starts shouting at me, cursing me and looking deranged. He doesn’t care what I say; he doesn’t believe any of it. Mama tries to calm him down telling him the whole of Barsaloi can hear him. Even Napirai starts crying. But when he calls me a whore who sleeps with Kikuyus and even schoolboys, I grab Napirai, wrap her naked in a blanket and run home in tears. I’m starting to become afraid of my own husband.