With a big smile he tells us the whole of Barsaloi is excited about our arrival and that Mama won’t believe it until we’re standing outside her manyatta. She is delighted and keeps saying she always knew she would see me again. Albert asks him about the motorbike and James’s eyes light up. He’s very proud that only he and one old friend from school have managed to learn to ride a motorbike. It makes things vastly easier for him to be able to use it on the long journey between his school and his family. Unfortunately he can only afford to use it at weekends as otherwise the costs in petrol and upkeep are too high. He is the headmaster of a small school a few miles beyond Barsaloi and the journey takes forty-five minutes. It’s hard to believe that a head teacher can’t afford to drive home on his motorbike every night, but that’s northern Kenya – Samburu country – and as far as James is concerned it’s normal enough. He’s happy enough to actually own a motorbike.
Obviously I have to give him news of Napirai. Why did she not come with me? How big is she now? Does she ask after her African family? Is she going to come and see them one day? Does she like school? Question after question, and I do my best to answer them all. I tell James the truth, that I want to get a first impression myself, to bring back photographs and some video to inspire Napirai to come and visit. If everything goes well, she’ll definitely be with me next time.
The time flies by and before we know it we’re all being called in to dinner. We’re the Lodge’s only guests. Even back in the old days I never ran across any other tourists here but somehow it still manages to function. This is the first time James has been here and he’s interested to see how they lay out the cutlery on either side of the plate.
The starter is toast with mushrooms and I have to laugh because I know the Samburu don’t eat mushrooms. James asks cautiously what sort of a dish it is, looking rather embarrassedly at the little piece of toast. I’m laughing so much I can hardly explain to him. All the time I can hear Lketinga’s words: ‘White people’s food is not proper food, you will never be full by eating it.’ He would make exactly the same face that James is making now. Eventually I pull myself together and tell him what it is, and that it’s only a starter. ‘Okay,’ he says, ‘No problem. I’ll try it. I’m a guest after all, and a guest should eat what’s put in front of him.’
After a few minutes, however, I rescue James from his toast as the second course – a tomato soup – is already being served. He finds that somewhat better although still unusual. And then at least a piece of meat arrives. At last that’s something he understands even if it is a bit small by his standards. But there’s nothing I can do to persuade him to touch the last course – a wholly alien chocolate mousse.
Throughout the meal we’re all talking and laughing and I ask tentatively about Lketinga. James replies: ‘He is not bad in this time.’ It seems things are going okay for him and a month ago he married a second young girl. I’m surprised as nobody mentioned this in any of the recent letters. James explains that Lketinga only decided on another marriage recently. His first wife – or second after me, depending on your point of view – is sickly and has had a number of miscarriages. Until now Lketinga has only one daughter in Kenya, Shankayon, and he would like more children, having waited long enough for them. His sick wife left Barsaloi a few months ago to go back to her mother.
This is all unexpected news to me, and a bit disconcerting: I hope my turning up doesn’t cause any extra difficulties. But when I tell James of my fears, he smiles and says: ‘No, no, there won’t be any problems.’
He says that Lketinga didn’t want to be without a wife by his side when I arrived as this might have given me the wrong impression. And as he wants more children anyhow, it’s all for the best. I find the first part of this a bit much but am still pleased that Lketinga has a wife from his own tribe at his side. She’s probably a young girl not much older than our daughter Napirai!
It may be hard to imagine for us Europeans but in Samburu culture there’s no real alternative for the men but to choose young brides. Girls are often married off to men up to forty years older than them and when they die their wives are not allowed to remarry. They may still have children but they are given the name of the widow’s late husband and never told who their real father is. Marriage for love is relatively unknown among the Samburu. Lketinga and I were a major exception to the rule. I know that he found that something strange and wonderful but at the same time confusing and unsettling.
I’m fascinated to know how things with his new wife came about. I knew the other wife when she came into our shop as a girl to buy food. Years later I was delighted to spot her again on the video that Father Giuliani took during our marriage ceremony. I would have liked to meet her again as a young woman and the mother of Napirai’s half-sister.
We go inside from the terrace for a last glass of wine. James sticks to Coke as he isn’t used to wine and anyway has to get back to Maralal on the motorbike. Gazing into a flickering fire I listen attentively to James telling Albert and Klaus about the first time he met me. It was outside the school in Maralal just after I had finally found Lketinga. He took me down to the school to meet his little brother and to tell him that we were off to Mombasa together. James, who was about fourteen at the time, had to be fetched out of class and was very shy, coming over with his head down, scarcely daring to look up at us.
And now here he is trying to describe what he felt back then: ‘I was very unsure of myself because I thought this white lady was my sponsor. I knew that an American lady financed our school and couldn’t understand what she was doing standing there in front of me. What did it all mean? I was very nervous. It was only when my brother told me Corinne belonged to him and had come here to find him that I realized what was what.
‘But even that seemed crazy to me. My brother with a white woman who wanted to come and live with our Mama? I could see problems ahead: my big brother had never been to school and knew nothing at all about the white people’s world. Everybody else back home too knew only the traditional Samburu way of life. It was different for me because I’d been to school and I could see only problems ahead.
‘Lketinga is older than I am. He was a warrior while I was just an uncircumcised schoolboy. I could hardly tell a warrior what I thought. The problems began back in Mombasa already and just a few weeks later there was Corinne standing outside the school again, alone this time, once again looking for my brother, who was by this stage not well in the head. She asked me to take her back to my family in Barsaloi.
‘I said I’d help even though it was going to cause a lot of problems just to get out of school for a couple of days. We’re normally only allowed out of school during the holidays or when someone back home has died. It really wasn’t easy. Thank God she eventually found another alternative and got there on her own.’
And he looks across at me and laughs. Much of what he’s just told us has given me a whole new perspective on the turn of events back then, while at the same time bringing it all sharply back into focus.
Tomorrow morning it will be time to take the biggest step of all, the last leg of the journey, from Maralal to Barsaloi and my first meeting with Lketinga since I fled from him fourteen years ago. I can’t help feeling uneasy. The fire in the lodge hearth has burned low now, and we’re all feeling tired and drained from the long journey and the initial excitement of meeting up. We agree to meet James early in morning outside the post office to go shopping together for essentials.
We retire to our rooms and I’m pleased to find a small fire burning in the hearth here too. Before long I’m in bed under the mosquito net waiting for sleep to take me. But as everything goes quiet I’m only too aware how wound up I am inside. Instead of sleep all that comes to me is a deep feeling of sadness. The more I think about it the more certain I am that when I see Mama and Lketinga tomorrow I’ll burst into tears, and that would be a terrible faux pas in Samburu eyes. Tears are reserved for bereavement.
I get up again and sit outside on t
he doorstep soaking in the nighttime tranquillity. It’s almost a full moon. Strange noises emanate from the bush but I can see nothing. Then comes the nearby growl of a great ape and suddenly in the distance I can hear the singing of Samburu warriors. Somewhere out there dozens of warriors and girls have gathered to dance in the moonlight. In the wind the sound of their singing dips and rises, and in between I can clearly hear the stamping of feet, now and again interrupted by a short sharp cry. I sit there remembering how these beautifully decorated young men would leap into the air while the young girls would bob their heads and their heavy necklaces in time. I used to watch my husband dance like that and every time it never failed to excite and move me.
The sadness and the sense of uncertainty have faded now and I feel happy and free. I’m ready now to meet the family tomorrow and can even look forward to it. At peace with the world again I crawl back beneath the mosquito netting, sniff the sweet smoke from the fire and fall fast asleep.
We meet up next morning at the post office as arranged and are immediately surrounded by the same young men as yesterday still keen to test their marketing skills. To our surprise someone gives Albert, who we have told them – to spare me any hassle – is my father, a traditional hardwood rungu club.
But it’s not until James has had a few words with the youths that we’re left to go round the market more or less in peace to find a nice warm blanket for my mother-in-law. I have two other blankets in my luggage, an orange-red one for Lketinga because I know he likes this colour, and a checked one for his older brother. The Samburu men wear them as warm clothing. For Mama we buy a good thick wool blanket.
Then we take the cars to a wholesale food store and order a 55-pound sack of rice and the same of good quality maize meal, as well as various cooking fats, powdered tea, sweets, soap and other bits and bobs. At the same time we order up several pounds of tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, onions and oranges. We have to take something for ourselves too unless we want to live on goat meat.
Just before we leave, James runs across to the tobacco shop to pick up six pounds of chewing tobacco, which for the old folk is almost more important than food. A woman dressed beautifully in traditional clothes climbs into one of the cars with us, delighted to be given the chance to get a lift for the long journey. It goes without saying here that if there is a spare seat in a car someone must fill it.
From Maralal to Barsaloi
At last we’re on the road. James is leading the way on his motorbike. There’s a new road because the old one is now definitively impassable. It’s a pity as I’d like to have shown it to my companions. The new one was just finished a few months ago and makes for a relatively easy ride. For the past few years they’ve had to put up with a five-hour detour by way of Baragoi.
Soon we leave the last few mud holes and puddles of rainwater behind us as the road starts to climb mercilessly. James’s motorbike kicks out a thick cloud of black smoke. A few people on foot pass us coming the other way towards town, the woman carrying calabash gourds filled with milk to sell. Every day they walk hours in each direction in order to make a small profit.
The hollowed-out calabash gourds are light and have been used as containers since prehistoric times. The Masai and Samburu use strips of leather decorated with coloured beads or little shells to strengthen them. To keep them reusable the women scour the interior every night with a red-hot firebrand that sterilizes them. That’s why the milk usually smells a bit smoky, but back in Mama’s hut it always tasted wonderful to me.
The men are usually pulling one or more goats behind them, sometimes even a cow, taking them to market in Maralal. They only part with animals when they urgently need money for ritual celebrations, weddings or hospital bills.
Even when our driver has to engage the four-wheel drive this is a much more comfortable way to travel than the old bush road. There are no elephants or buffalo breaking suddenly out of the jungle to bar our path. After an hour or so of driving up hill and down dale we get to a small manyatta village called Opiroi. A few women sitting outside the huts with their children look at our cars while the little kids, either naked or wearing just T-shirts, wave from the side of the road. The little square is dominated by a half-finished church. We press on, however, because we want to get to Barsaloi as quickly as possible. Every now and then we drive across the dried-up beds of little streams; water is still scarce here.
To my astonishment we come across a herd of camels, frightened by the noise of our engines, charging off as if in slow motion into the bush. It would appear the Samburu have taken to keeping more of these animals.
At last we reach a high pass between two rocky hills and know that from here on the cloud of dust we kick up will be visible in Barsaloi, even though the village is still half an hour’s drive away. No doubt today the whole village is out waiting for us.
When we pause briefly Klaus suggests he goes ahead with one of the drivers in order to get good footage of my arrival and reunion. James agrees and says he’ll try to explain this to Lketinga. In the meantime Albert and I can take a look at the school down by the Barsaloi River. It was just being built when I left the village and there was nothing more than a few walls to see. Even today, we are soon to discover, there’s an awful lot lacking, but at least the local children have their own school.
Just as Klaus is leaving, however, my old uneasy feeling comes creeping back. What will Lketinga say when the first person he sees is someone he doesn’t know carrying a video camera? And what about the other people in the village? What will they make of it? Most of them have never even seen a film and don’t understand the concept. And Klaus wants to erect a tripod!
Despite my dreadful unease about the whole business, the thought of Napirai calms me down. After all, I want to capture as much as I can of the trip for her sake. This is the first time her parents have met in years. She has no memory of her time in Kenya and it all seems a bit strange to her. She’s caught between two cultures but actually only lives in one. My heart hankers more after Africa than hers does. She thinks like a white European but isn’t seen as one. It’s not easy for her and that’s why I want to bring back as much as possible in pictures and video so she can get an idea of her African family.
Even so, the nervous tension and feeling of uneasy anticipation has built up to almost unbearable levels by the time I make out in the distance the first houses of Barsaloi. It looks as if the village has grown a bit, but the sight is still so familiar that I feel I could have been here the day before yesterday.
The long low building of the school peeks out behind the shrubs and thorn trees. We drive slowly up to a gate where the head teacher is waiting to welcome us. The wall behind him is decorated with various murals, one showing a judge in his robes, another two children playing football while a third depicts a well-dressed man working at a computer on a desk. Above them is the inscription: ‘Walk out productive’. Out here so far from anywhere the image of the computer still comes across as comic, especially when we know from James that there’s often a shortage of paper and pens. Even he has no idea about computers.
The headmaster takes us around the school and I’m quite amazed how much they’ve achieved with the few means at their disposal. The classrooms are simple but well fitted out. The windows have wire grilles rather than glass. The headmaster’s pride and joy is the library with a few books. The children can come and fetch a book, which they can read in the rather spartan reading room. They aren’t allowed to take them home, however, because the smoke in the manyattas would damage them.
A few children are looking curiously through the grilles at their white visitors. In one corner of the playground others are lined up to have ugali, a sort of maize porridge, served on aluminium trays. I’m sure they’re all proud that their parents even send them to school, and I can’t help wondering what my daughter would think if she had to go to school here.
At last we drive gently down the steep bank of the Barsaloi River and cross the five hundred feet of
dried-up river bed. A few yards more and we’ll be there. Already I can see the first huts on either side of the road.
My heart is pounding as I try to take in as much as possible at once. Where will Lketinga be? Where will he greet me? Is he going to be in the middle of the village or in one of the huts, away from all the inquisitive eyes? There are so many new wooden huts that I don’t know where I should be looking. There are people everywhere. Ahead on the left I spot the Mission building. It looks smaller than it used to. The green banana trees are gone too. The church is finished, however. Children jump out of the road as our car passes by.
There they are! At last I spot our other vehicle and James’s motorbike. Our driver stops next to them. As I rather uncertainly go to get out suddenly two arms shoot through the open car window and grab me by the neck and I feel kisses all over my face and hear over and over again: ‘Oh, Corinne, oh, Corinne!’ I have no idea what’s going on, let alone who it is that’s hanging round my neck. James hurries up and guides the obviously emotional man away. One thing’s for sure: it certainly wasn’t Lketinga!
Lketinga
At last I manage to get out and can see around me. There, some sixty feet away, in the shade of a leafy thorn tree, I spot Lketinga. Tall and proud, he’s standing with one leg elegantly crossed over the other, the typical pose of the Masai.
I know there’s no way he’ll move an inch. It is simply not done for a traditional Samburu to come to a woman. So, with the eager eyes of the surrounding crowd watching, I walk up to him. There isn’t a thought in my head. I can’t think anymore. The only thing I’m aware of is the throbbing beat of my heart. Each step seems like a hundred.
Lketinga is every bit as tall and slim as ever. He has one hand on his hip, while he leans elegantly with the other on a tall stick. He is wearing a red loincloth with a yellow T-shirt and a white shawl with blue spots across his shoulders. As ever, his feet are clad in sandals made of old car tyres. In the hand resting on the stick he also carries his rungu, while from beneath his T-shirt on his right side protrudes the red leather sheath of his bush knife.
Reunion in Barsaloi Page 3