The White Masai

by Corinne Hofmann

  So we get the licences without further ado. That’s the first step. My husband can now sell, but I’m not allowed to be in the shop or even to discuss a purchase with a customer. I know that this isn’t going to work and persuade my husband to come with me to Nairobi to get me a work permit and register the shop name. We decide to call it ‘Sidai’s Masai Shop’, which leads to long arguments with Lketinga. Sidai is his middle name, but he doesn’t want to use the word ‘Masai’. But now that we’ve got the licence, there’s no going back.

  When we get to the competent office in Nairobi we have to wait for several hours before we’re seen. I know how important this is and try to make sure my husband understands too. If they say ‘no’, there’s no changing it. They ask us why and for what reason I need to be able to work. I take pains to tell the woman in charge that we are a family and that as my husband has never been to school I have no choice but to work. She agrees on this, but to be certain of getting a permit, apart from the licence, I need to have brought some hundred thousand Swiss francs into the country and so far I’m still twenty thousand short. I promise to have the money sent from Switzerland and to come back and leave the office with high hopes. I’m going to need money anyhow to buy in stock. We set off home exhausted.

  When we get back dog-tired there are already a few warriors waiting for us making spears for sale. Edy is one of them, and we’re delighted to see him again after such a long time. While we’re talking about old times, Napirai crawls over to him happily. As it’s late and I’m tired I invite Edy to come over for tea tomorrow. After all he was the one who helped me back when I had no idea how to find Lketinga.

  No sooner have the warriors gone than my husband starts berating me with allegations about me and Edy. Now he knows why I spent three months in Mombasa on my own and didn’t come looking for him sooner. I can’t believe what he’s suggesting and simply want to get away from him so I don’t have to listen to his horrible allegations. I take Napirai, put her on my back and charge off into the night.

  I’m wandering aimlessly around when all of a sudden I find myself in front of the Africa Sea Lodge. I’m immediately overcome by the need to phone my mother and tell her what’s happening to our marriage. I sob down the phone, telling my surprised mother how miserable I am. It’s hard for her to advise me just like that so I ask her to see if someone from our family could come out to Kenya. I need some sensible advice and moral support and perhaps it would help Lketinga to start trusting me. We agree to talk again the next day at the same time. I feel better after our conversation and make my way back to our little home.

  My husband of course is readier for a fight than ever and demands to know where I’ve been. When I tell him I’ve been talking to my mother and that someone from my family is coming out, he immediately quietens down.

  The next evening I’m relieved to hear that my older brother is prepared to come out and will be here in a week with the money I need. Lketinga is curious to meet someone new from my family, and as it’s my oldest brother he’s already respectful and in a better mood. He starts making him a Masai armband with his first name embroidered in glass beads. I’m impressed by how important James and he consider this visit.

  My brother Marc checks in to the Two Fishes hotel. We’re all delighted, although he can only stay a week. He asks us over to the hotel for dinner often, and it’s wonderful although I don’t dare think about his bill. Of course he sees my husband at his best; the whole week long he touches neither beer nor miraa and never leaves my brother’s side. When Marc comes to see us he’s amazed to see where his sister, who was once so elegant, is living. But he’s impressed by the shop and gives me a few good tips. The week passes far too quickly, and on the last evening he has a long talk with Lketinga. James translates every word. When Lketinga promises earnestly and solemnly not to plague me with his jealousy again we’re convinced that the visit has been a complete success.

  Two days later James has to leave too. So we take him as far as Nairobi and go back to the Nyayo Building to see about the work permit. The atmosphere between us is good, and I’m certain everything will work out. The name has been registered; we have all our paperwork. We find ourselves back in the same office with the same woman as two and a half weeks ago, and when she sees the money everything is fine. I get my work permit, and she absolves me from the need to renew it for the next two years. During that time I have to get my husband’s name on my passport and a Kenyan identity card for my daughter. I don’t mind. The main thing is that I have a work permit for two years, something that lots of people wait years for, but despite having now brought enough hard currency into the country we have to pay two thousand Swiss francs out of it as a fee.

  In Nairobi we go down to the Masai market and buy lots of stuff. Now we can start up the business properly. In Mombasa I seek out factories where I can buy jewellery, masks, T-shirts, kangas, bags and other goods at decent prices. My husband mostly comes with me and looks after Napirai, but he rarely agrees with the prices. Sophia is surprised when she comes to see the shop. After just five weeks back at the coast we’ve got everything, including the work permit. She hasn’t got anywhere yet.

  I get five thousand flysheets printed up, introducing the shop and showing how to get there. They’re aimed primarily at Germans and Swiss, and most hotels allow me to leave them in the reception. In two of the biggest hotels I rent window cases to display some of our goods and of course, display one of our unusual wedding photos. Now we’re ready.

  The next morning at nine a.m. we open the shop. I take an omelette and bananas along for Napirai. It’s very quiet. Only two people show up briefly in the shop. By midday it’s very hot, and there are no tourists to be seen on the street. We go off to eat in Ukunda and open up again at two p.m. Every now and then a few tourists wander along the street to the supermarket, but they don’t notice our shop.

  Eventually during the afternoon a group of Swiss turn up holding some of our flysheets. I chat to them happily, and they all want to hear my story. Almost all of them buy something. I’m pleased enough with our first day, although I realize we’re going to have to do something to make ourselves more noticeable. The next day I suggest to Lketinga that he goes out and stick a flysheet in the hand of every white person he comes across. He’s the sort of person people notice. It works. The Indian next door is mystified when he finds all the tourists going past his shop to get to ours.

  Today, day two, business is good. That said: it’s been hard with Napirai sometimes when she’s not asleep. I’ve laid out a little mattress for her underneath the T-shirt rail. As I’m still breastfeeding it’s inevitable, of course, that that’s what I’m doing when tourists show up. Napirai doesn’t like being interrupted and makes it clear and loud. We decide, therefore, to get a child minder in to the shop. Lketinga finds a young girl of about seventeen, the wife of one of the warriors. I like her straight away, particularly as she turns up in traditional Masai clothing and pretty jewellery. She gets on with Napirai and fits in with the shop. We bring her with us in the car each morning and leave her off at her husband’s in the evening.

  By now the shop’s been open for a week, and we’re making more money every day. But that means we’ll soon need to fetch more supplies from Mombasa. That’s a problem in itself because Lketinga can’t serve on his own all day – sometimes there are up to ten people in the shop at once – and that means we’ll need another shop assistant to fill in when either he or I aren’t there. It will have to be someone from our village because in three weeks’ time my husband is off home for James’s circumcision ceremony. As a member of the family I ought to go too, and I have great difficulty convincing him that we shouldn’t shut the shop down so soon after opening it. He only accepts that I should stay when my younger sister Sabine announces she wants to come and visit at exactly the same time. I’m thoroughly relieved by the news of her visit because wild horses wouldn’t drag me back to Barsaloi.

  Lketinga has no objections anymor
e and on the contrary will make the effort to be back in time to see her before she leaves. But we’re not there yet. First we have to find someone to help out in the shop. I suggest Priscilla, but he is immediately against that idea; he doesn’t trust her at all. I’m horrified and point out everything she’s done for us. But he won’t agree and instead brings a Masai boy back one evening. He’s from the Masai-Mara and has been to school, as a result of which he’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I don’t mind, though, as he seems honest and I agree that William will be our new assistant.

  At last I can sort out replacement stocks of T-shirts and carvings and leave the pair of them to run the shop. The child minder comes with me bringing Napirai. It’s hard work, going from one dealer to the next, looking at their goods and bargaining. I’m back around midday to find Lketinga at the bar of the Chinese restaurant drinking expensive beer, leaving William alone in the shop. I ask how many people have been in. Not many and they’ve sold only a Masai trinket. There are lots of tourists walking up and down the main street, and I ask somewhat tetchily if Lketinga’s been handing out our flysheets. William shakes his head and says he’s been drinking beer in the bar all the time and took the float from the cash till. That makes me angry, and when he strolls into the shop I can smell the beer on his breath. Of course we have a row, which ends up with him taking the car and disappearing. I’m feeling let down again: now we have a child minder and an employee, and my husband’s drinking the profits.

  William and I set out the new stock. As soon as we see white people he runs out onto the street and hands them a flysheet. Almost everyone he approaches comes into the shop and by five-thirty, when Lketinga comes back, the shop’s full and we’re talking up our wares to all sorts of customers. Of course people are asking about my husband so I introduce him, but he just stares through the tourists and instead demands to know what we’ve sold and for how much. His behaviour is worse than rude.

  A Swiss man buys some trinkets and a carved mask for his two daughters – good business – but before he leaves he asks if he can take a picture of me and my husband and Napirai. Of course I agree because he’s just spent a lot of money but my husband says he’ll only agree to be photographed if he gets paid. The pleasant Swiss man is annoyed, and I’m embarrassed. He takes two photographs and actually gives Lketinga ten shillings. When he’s out of hearing I try to impress on Lketinga just why you don’t ask customers to pay to take photographs. He doesn’t understand and accuses me of getting in his way whenever he tries to earn money. All the Masais demand money when they have their photograph taken, he says, why shouldn’t he and his eyes twinkle nastily. I tell him again wearily that the others don’t have a shop like we do.

  As new customers turn up I try to pull myself together and be pleasant, but my husband glowers at them suspiciously and if one of them so much as touches something he insists that they’ve bought it. William, cleverly and smoothly, tries to steer the customers away from Lketinga to save something of the situation.

  Within ten days of our opening we’ve earned the month’s rent. I’m proud of myself and of William. Most tourists come back the next day with other people from their hotel and word about the shop gets around, not least because our prices are cheaper than the hotel boutiques. I have to go in to Mombasa every three or four days to get more stock.

  Because lots of people ask for gold jewellery I see if I can find a suitable glass cabinet to display it. It’s not that easy, but eventually I find a workshop that’ll make it to order. A week later it’s ready for collection. I take all our woollen blankets along and park right outside the workshop. Four men carry the heavy glass cabinet out to the car, but in the ten minutes that I’d left it – locked! – the woollen blankets have been stolen. The lock on the driver’s side has been broken. The shop owner gives me old sacks and cartons so I can at least provide some protection, but I’m annoyed to have lost my Swiss blankets. Lketinga will be cross too to have lost his red blanket, and I’m in a bad mood as I drive back south.

  There’s just William in the shop, but he comes up to me proudly to say he’s sold goods worth eight hundred shillings. I tell him how pleased I am. There’s no way we can unload the cabinet on our own so he goes down to the beach to find friends to help and comes back after half an hour with three Masai who take the cabinet out carefully and set it upright. I give them all a soft drink and ten shillings each as thanks. Then I start displaying the fashion jewellery in the cabinet while they sit outside drinking their sodas with the child minder and Napirai.

  As ever my husband turns up when all the work’s been done. With him is the child minder’s husband. He calls his young wife over angrily, and I see the other Masai slope away. Somewhat taken aback, I ask William what the matter is, and he says the husband doesn’t like his wife sitting with other men. If he finds it happening again he’ll stop her working here. I’d like to get involved but know better and have to just content myself that Lketinga doesn’t start up again. I’m appalled at the husband’s attitude and feel sorry for the child minder who’s gone to sit further away with her head down.

  Thank God some customers turn up and William rushes off to deal with them. When I hear from their speech that they’re Swiss I go to talk to them. They’re from Biel! I’m curious to hear the latest from my hometown and we get chatting. Then one of them invites me over for a beer in the Chinese restaurant. I ask Lketinga if he minds, and he says generously: ‘Why not, Corinne, no problem if you know these people.’ Of course I don’t know the couple at all, although they are about my age and may know some of my old friends.

  We spend an hour in the restaurant bar before we say goodbye, but when I get back the same old interrogation starts up. Where do I know these people from? Why did I laugh such a lot with the man? Is he a friend of Marco or maybe an old boyfriend of mine? Questions and more questions and all the time it’s: ‘Corinne, you can tell me. I know, no problem, now this man has another lady. Please tell me, before you come to Kenya, maybe you sleep with him?’ I can’t listen to it anymore and put my hands over my ears while the tears stream down my cheeks. I could scream with rage.

  At last it’s closing time, and we go home. Naturally William heard everything and tells Priscilla. At any rate she comes over to us and asks if we’ve got problems. I can’t keep it in and tell her what happened. She tries to bring Lketinga to his senses, and I take Napirai to bed. In two weeks my sister will be here, and if I’m lucky my husband’ll be gone. Our quarrels keep getting more frequent, and all his promises and good intentions after my brother’s visit have come to nothing.

  I get up at seven o’clock every morning in order to be in the shop by nine. Travelling salesmen now turn up almost every day offering carvings or gold jewellery, which makes it much easier to renew our stock. I can only use them when Lketinga isn’t in the shop, however, because he behaves so appallingly. The salesmen speak to me first, and my husband finds that insupportable. He throws them out and says they should come back when they find out who the shop belongs to: it does, after all, say Sidai’s Masai Shop above the door.

  William, on the other hand, is a real help. He slips out after the salesmen and tells them to come back in the afternoon when my husband is in Ukunda. A whole week goes by like this until eventually Lketinga heads off home saying he’ll be back in three weeks’ time so he can meet Sabine in the last week of her holiday.

  Every day William and I drive to the shop together. Usually the child minder is already there or we meet her on the way. Even in the mornings now we get several tourists turning up: often Italians, Americans, English or Germans. I enjoy being able to talk to everybody so easily. William goes out onto the street to tout for trade without having to be asked, and he gets better and better at it. There are days when, amongst other things, we sell up to three gold chains with the Kenyan coat of arms. A dealer comes to see us twice a week so I can even place orders for customers.

  We close regularly at lunchtime for an hour and a half and go to see S
ophia. Now I can eat spaghetti and salad at her house with no problems. Her restaurant has just opened, although she still isn’t allowed to work there herself. I pay for William’s meal of course because it would cost half his monthly wages. The first time he realizes that he says he won’t come anymore, but without him I couldn’t take Napirai along, and as he works so hard I’m happy to treat him. The child minder goes home to eat.

  In the meantime I’ve been taking so much money that I have to take it to the bank at lunchtime. We have no more problems with the car either. Once a week I go shopping in Mombasa, and anything else I need we get from itinerant food sellers. I feel like a proper businesswoman again. For the first time everything to do with the shop is working well.

  In the second week of August Sabine arrives to stay at the Africa Sea Lodge. On the day of her arrival I go to the hotel with Priscilla and Napirai, leaving William in the shop. It’s great to see her again. This is the first time she’s been on holiday to another continent. Unfortunately I don’t have much time to spare, as I have to get back to the shop. In any case she wants to spend the day sunbathing so we agree to meet in the hotel bar in the evening. I bring her straight back to our village, and she’s amazed too at our living conditions, although she says she likes it.