A veil of clouds dulled the sky. Kondo was waiting at the pier for the ferry from Mwanza to arrive. His son, Ramadani, was returning to Ukerewe, not to attend a wedding or an elder clan-member’s funeral, not even for a school holiday. Ramadani was coming to stay for good, to fulfill his duty as the village chief’s firstborn son. It was time for Kondo to prepare his son for his destiny. Kondo was old, and in recent years, fatigue had taken hold of him for longer and longer periods of time; it was important to train his son before the Spirits of the Lake separated him from the land. He had patiently waited for the boy to complete secondary school. The wait was over.
As the ferry glided across the lake, Ramadani saw Ukerewe through the waving flag on the prow. He was filled with joy at the thought of seeing his family and friends. And yet, as the island drew nearer, he felt his chest clench. His instincts told him that he wasn’t born to be village chief and spend the rest of his life on the island. He wanted to become a veterinarian; however, his destiny had been charted at the time of his birth. To refuse the position he was born into would break his father’s heart and would mean being cast out of the clan.
* * *
Kondo saw Ramadani disembark and tears sprung forth, caught in the wrinkles of his weatherworn face. He wiped away the moisture in a hurry and smiled at the young man who approached. When his son was near enough to look into his eyes, Kondo noticed that a shadow of anxiety darkened them.
“Well, son, are you still illiterate?” he joked.
“I’ve learned to read and write, if that’s what you’re asking, and in the sand no less!” Ramadani laughed and embraced his father.
On the trip to his ancestral home, Ramadani looked out the car window. The familiar landscape streamed past through the dust that was raised by the vehicle’s wheels and set in motion by the wind: trees, paths, small groups of huts, women carrying jugs of water or returning from the fields with baskets of vegetables balanced on their heads, running children. Kondo was quiet until Nkamba appeared on the side of a path, walking hand in hand with Adimu. Kondo slowed where the road narrowed, and Ramadani had plenty of time to observe the girl. He knew who she was, and a memory from boarding school in Mwanza passed through his thoughts. Adimu squinted in the direction of the village chief in his car with an older boy by his side.
“She is still here,” Kondo sighed. “It has been seven rainy seasons since her birth. One of the most delicate problems I shall be leaving you.”
“Who?” asked Ramadani, distracted.
“The zeru zeru, son!”
When they arrived home the entire clan, friends, and neighbors waited to celebrate the return of the village chief’s son. Among the many faces that greeted Ramadani from across the room was Zuberi. His presence annoyed the young man, and Ramadani turned his eyes away. Though many rainy seasons had passed, he remembered well when the witch doctor killed a rabbit to prepare a potion to cure his typhoid fever. Ramadani had begged his father to prohibit Zuberi from sacrificing the little animal. His prayers went unheard. As soon as the adults left him alone, he had vomited all traces of the potion from his body. He got better all the same a few days later. The memory of his furry playmate, magnified by his recollection of the revolting taste of the liquid Zuberi forced in his mouth, was so vivid that he shuddered.
Zuberi attempted to approach the boy, but Ramadani turned to talk with the first person at hand.
Many people brought gifts. His mother, assisted by his sisters and other women of the clan, prepared a bountiful feast—grilled tilapia and meat stews, onion and tomato salad, and isombe[12]. People peppered him with questions, congratulations, and advice. Everyone wanted to ask him something or praise his father for being an outstanding chief, wishing him equal success when the time was right. The village girls, hopeful that one of them would be his bride, danced for him, their wrist and ankle bracelets jingling. With reluctance, Ramadani accepted being the center of attention and did his best to appear happy and appreciative. However, so as not to yield to feelings of despair, he repeated to himself that nothing had been decided. Kondo was still alive and, for the moment, he was free.
The guests did not leave until late. When Ramadani finally withdrew to his room, he opened the big suitcase he had brought from Mwanza and pulled out books and magazines on zoology and ethology and natural science manuals. He set the volumes on his palm-leaf mat and, on his knees, contemplated the creased covers and touched them lovingly.
Kondo and his wife stood outside their son’s doorway. Ramadani’s mother turned to her husband, who gestured to leave them alone.
The father slowly entered the son’s room. “There are many animals on the island,” said Kondo, moving closer and resting a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “And they can all be yours!”
The father knew his son’s passion without fully understanding it. He could fulfill his duty as leader while filling the courtyard with animals, if that’s what he wanted.
“Yes, father.”
After his father left the room, Ramadani rummaged among the heap of magazines that he had spread out on the floor and chose an issue of National Geographic. By the light of a kerosene lamp, he leafed through the magazine, looking at photos he had seen many times but which never ceased to amaze him. He thought of Adimu. He knew she squinted when she saw him because, besides lacking pigmentation in her flesh, she lacked it in her eyes, that albinism affects the eye structure and optic nerve. She reminded him of his classmate Josephat. He was just like her with his coppery blond hair and pale white skin. Ramadani remembered his own discomfort when he discovered Josephat’s desk was next to his, his certainty that his soccer team would lose their matches with Josephat in the lineup, his fear of using the silverware in the dining hall that Josephat might have eaten with. He closed the magazine and sighed. Here he was, back on Ukerewe. Forever. The hope he’d harbored during the party disappeared when faced with the reality—he was no longer free; who was he kidding? He was finished with school, and he would live on the island and do what was expected of him. On Ukerewe. Forever. Forever, he repeated to himself.
19.
The doors of the white jeep swung open, and a man and a woman stepped out. They were doctors from a humanitarian organization and traveled from village to village to examine and vaccinate the children on the island. News of the vaccination campaign had spread among the population of Ukerewe, and Nkamba and her granddaughter were waiting with many others under the great baobab.
Adimu was immediately drawn to the woman doctor. It was the second time she had ever seen a person who looked like her. White. She thought of the stranger who bought her the ice cream cone. This one, the doctor, was tall with blond hair that was straight, rather than curly, like hers.
The two doctors set up the small field clinic. The children watched, transfixed, as the white tent started to take shape and strange objects were extracted from the back of the jeep that the children gathered around. When they realized they would have to go inside of what seemed like a mysterious gaping cave—the “tent”—they whined and clung to the multicolored fabrics their mothers wore while the women tried to comfort them. Many of them had never met a mzungu. But Adimu had. And the one she had met had given her a treat, was a nice lady. So, unlike the other children, Adimu released her grandmother’s hand and went straight toward the doctor, her eyes glued to the woman’s skin. She put her own arm next to the doctor’s leg—they were the same color. The doctor drank from a plastic water bottle and handed it to one of the waiting children by the jeep and said, “Share it with the others.” Adimu touched the woman’s thigh and discovered the doctor and her grandmother had the same consistency. The doctor turned, squatted and said, “Hello there!” as she gave a gentle pinch to Adimu’s cheek.
Adimu shyly smoothed her dress. When the woman patted her head, Adimu hugged her legs and gazed up. “Zeru zeru?” she said, seeking eye contact with Nkamba.
The mothers nearby giggled, hearing the child refer to the foreign woman by th
at term. Adimu tried to laugh as they did.
“She is not zeru zeru. She is normal,” Nkamba said with reproach, taking hold of Adimu’s arm and pulling her away, clearly embarrassed by her granddaughter’s inappropriate words.
Adimu didn’t understand why her grandmother was angry. The woman was white, like her.
The grandmother apologized to the physician for Adimu’s naughtiness. Challenging her bibi’s authority, Adimu hid in the vehicle. Nkamba tried to make Adimu get out of the jeep, but the girl stubbornly ignored her. Adimu planted her feet and snorted, resisting her grandmother’s attempts to pull her out. Only when the woman doctor called her did Adimu jump from the car and run toward the tent. Nkamba followed her, walking as quickly as she could.
It was particularly warm inside the tent. The doctor wiped her forehead with a handkerchief, took a syringe from a box, removed the cap, and gave it to Adimu. “Look, you have the needle, so it can’t hurt you,” she said in perfect Swahili. “Now, look at me.”
“It can’t hurt me. I have the needle,” she repeated to her grandmother, as if to reassure her. Adimu noticed the woman’s lips, which were thinner than hers, and wondered if their thinness made her not zeru zeru. Adimu was so intent on gazing at the woman doctor that she didn’t notice the injection.
After the vaccination, the doctor measured her, weighed her, checked her throat, and looked in her eyes. The woman helped her take off her shirt and touched her stomach and lower abdomen. Adimu watched with rapt attention as the doctor’s hands touched her body. On the parts hidden from the sun, her skin was just like the woman’s. When the examination was finished, the doctor told her to go and sit inside the jeep. “I’d like to talk with your guardian about adult things,” she said with an affectionate tone.
Once they were alone, the doctor asked, “Mama[13], who is the girl?”
“My granddaughter.”
“Do you know that your granddaughter is albino? Do you know what it means to be albino?”
“I do not know what it means for you, but I know exactly what it means for us.”
The doctor described in simple terms the scientific origin of Adimu’s difference, dwelling on how to prevent illnesses that she was particularly susceptible to. She gave Nkamba some tubes of total-block sunscreen, explaining that it was important for Adimu to always wear a hat, a long-sleeved shirt, and long pants rather than traditional attire. “Your grandchild is normal,” she added, looking straight at the older woman.
Nkamba lowered her eyes.
The doctor continued. “Albinos are considered supernatural beings only in small villages like this one.” She explained that a normal life was possible and that there were a surprisingly high number of cases of albinism in Tanzania, the highest anywhere in the world.
Nkamba was silent. She tapped one cracked finger on the tube of sunscreen in her hand.
The doctor shook her head. “Every difference, whatever it may be, is valuable. It enriches. An antidote against banality.” She had her doubts that the elderly grandmother fully understood the meaning of her words. She hoped at least some part of what she said would reach the woman. “In Tanzania there are protected communities where children with albinism can get an education, have friends, and escape persecution,” she said finally, handing Nkamba a piece of paper with a phone number. She took Nkamba’s hands in her own when she said, “Here’s the telephone number of a community in Tanga.”
Nkamba looked at the doctor’s white hands holding hers. The doctor had long, slender fingers and a thick circle of silver around her third finger. Nkamba took the paper, got up, and thanked the white woman several times. She considered telling the doctor about her first child. She had always wanted to ask someone who seemed to have the answers if it were possible that her daughter had returned through Adimu. She hesitated for a moment, lifting her gaze no higher than the foreign woman’s belly and then said goodbye with a quick duck of her head.
While the adults had been talking, Adimu did not wait in the car as she was told to do. Instead, she wandered around outside the tent. She wanted one final look at the white woman, and she hoped she would come out and caress her as she had done before. Then, bored of waiting, she went close to the tent just in time to hear the doctor say, “In Dar es Salaam, albinos like your granddaughter lead normal lives.” Albinos. Dar es Salaam. She repeated these words to herself a hundred times, determined to remember. Normal.
That night, after her grandmother had extinguished the kerosene lamp, Adimu remained awake, her eyes open, searching the darkness.
“Bibi, how can I become like her?”
“Like who?”
“Like the woman doctor.”
“You have to study very hard.”
Adimu wiggled on her mat.
Nkamba sensed her granddaughter’s thoughts. “You are not white in the same way as the doctor. You are black. Your white skin is a mistake. It should be dark like mine,” she tried to explain.
“Am I white or am I black? Or am I something different?”
The elderly grandmother used the silence to better concentrate. She tried to remember the doctor’s words from that morning, but they didn’t come. She moved her mouth and lips as if to speak, hoping that would help. Something kept her from talking with her granddaughter as she would have liked. She didn’t want Adimu to feel too loved or too understood. Nkamba wanted Adimu to grow up strong, without needing approval from anyone. It was her only chance of surviving after Nkamba was gone. Of this, she was sure. Who would love the girl after she died? She sensed her granddaughter’s anxiety, and it broke her heart. Although she wanted to hold her close, she held back.
The girl turned over on her mat, unable to sleep. Am I really a mistake? she asked herself. She thought of how the children drank from the white woman’s water bottle, though they refused to have contact with her things. The woman doctor helps people and makes them better. That’s why she’s respected. I want to help people and be respected, Adimu thought. After studying very hard and leaving the island like Kondo’s son, she would return as a doctor and earn the respect of the entire village.
“Bibi?”
“What now, child?”
“Will you tell me a story?” Adimu asked, cuddling up next to Nkamba.
“Do you promise if I do that you’ll go to sleep?”
“I promise.”
“I’ll tell you a new one,” said her grandmother. “In a village at the foot of Kilimanjaro…”
Adimu curled on her side, her right hand resting lightly on Nkamba’s arm. The folktale told of an old widow who longed to have children and how the Great Spirit of the Mountain answered her prayers by offering her Kikete, a boy who didn’t like to work, and Kikete’s many brothers.
“The old woman called him lazy and other names and, because of that, the Great Spirit of the Mountain took him from her. The widow begged the Great Spirit to return Kikete to her, that she didn’t mean the things she said, but the Great Spirit was angry and Kikete and his brothers disappeared forever, and the old woman lived the rest of her life alone with no one to help her.” Nkamba looked at her granddaughter through the veil of darkness. There was a full moon, and thin bands of silver light filtered through cracks in the door and the peepholes that had been bored into the walls.
“Bibi, why was Kikete lazy?”
“Because the Great Spirit hadn’t created him to work but rather to look after his brothers.”
Adimu thought for a few seconds and then sat up. “You won’t do to me what the old woman in the story did, will you?” she asked.
“No, don’t worry. I know how much my Kikete is worth,” she replied, hugging Adimu. “Now go to sleep.”
A few minutes later, Adimu was dreaming in her grandmother’s arms while Nkamba remained awake. The doctor had written the phone number of the community in Tanga on a piece of paper. What if she lost the paper or it fell in the fire? Gently she slipped her arms from around Adimu, turned on the lamp and, using a knife, carved t
he numbers on the wall, copying the marks she saw on the creased paper. And in the morning, she'd bury the paper in the earth. It might grow like a healthy seed that sprouts into a mango tree.
The ferry ticket to cross the lake was more than she could afford, and she knew Sefu would not help with the costs. The best she could do was save as much money as possible. At least enough for Adimu to reach Tanga. That way when she died, Adimu would be able to leave the island; Adimu might be safe. She turned off the lamp and lay down, waiting for sleep to come. Her eyes remained open, and her heart was restless. She searched for the woman doctor’s words, the explanation for Adimu’s difference. Her mind felt blurred—as soon as she had collected her thoughts, she found she was right back where she’d started. However, she had not forgotten the doctor’s advice and was proud of herself for having always sensed how damaging the sun was to Adimu’s fair skin.
Nkamba’s thoughts drifted to a few days before when she’d taken Adimu to have her head shaved, as was the custom for children. She didn’t have a razor and even if she did, her trembling hands would have been useless. The women in the village competed fiercely to be chosen to shave the zeru zeru: her golden hair was a desirable reward. When woven into fishing nets, it brought better catches.
Nkamba and Adimu had gone to Siti, Arafa’s daughter. There were many mothers with their children in front of her hut, waiting their turn. As soon as Siti saw Sefu’s mother and the zeru zeru, she quickly finished shaving the adolescent who was sitting on the stool and beckoned Adimu. Siti laid down a large blue tarp—she didn’t want a single blond strand to be carried away by the wind or to fall on the ground and be lost. Adimu hated having her head shaved and looked to her grandmother for reassurance, then scrutinized the drop cloth as if she were afraid of falling inside it, as if it were a deep well that would trap her and she’d never climb out of it. She reluctantly sat on the wobbly stool. The sun’s rays sliced through tree fronds like sharp swords, and the child’s skin—bare and irritated from each stroke of the razor blade—took on a violet hue.
Then She Was Born Page 9