Softly Calls the Serengeti

by Frank Coates

  Charlotte was enthralled. Kibera had a vibrancy like no other place she’d ever been.

  People stared at her, but there was no animosity in their glances. Far from being populated by indolent layabouts, Kibera was a hive of industry with most people too busy to gawp.

  By mid-afternoon, Charlotte had spoken to a dozen people and was regretting having allocated so much time to her excursion. It was hot—too hot—and the afternoon too long. She was debating whether to ring Mark and ask him to collect her early, when Joshua introduced her to Mama Hamza. The old lady’s smiling eyes were piercing. Charlotte felt Mama Hamza could plumb the depths of her soul with those eyes, but she had a warm and welcoming manner.

  Charlotte heard of Mama Hamza’s work with the women in Kibera; how she had managed to transcend the tribal barriers to address the underlying problems that the women of the slums had to contend with daily. But she said she was not interested in wasting time talking of her achievements; she was more interested to hear why Charlotte was in Kibera.

  ‘I’m studying all aspects of Luo life,’ Charlotte said. ‘Even in the slums.’

  ‘Do you believe that a Luo in Kibera can be the same as a Luo in Nyanza Province?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

  ‘All of my work has been with women. Women of all tribes. In Kibera, we are bound by common problems: poverty, domestic violence, drunken husbands, greedy and aggressive landlords. In this case it doesn’t matter if you’re a Luo or a Luhya or a Kikuyu. I try to tell my women we are all Kenyans, and if they must feel a part of a tribe, then we are members of the Kibera tribe.’

  They discussed her community support group, one of the many, Charlotte discovered, that had been established by concerned Kibera residents and without outside funding or official support. Many, like Mama Hamza’s Kibera Women’s Association, became so successful that non-government organisations wanted to become aligned with her. The KWA provided family-planning information, health education, remedial classes for children who had dropped out of or been forgotten by the education system, and a range of microfinanced assistance packages.

  ‘So you see,’ Mama Hamza concluded, ‘we help people in many, many small ways. We are small and we want to remain small. I have seen too many people come into Kibera with briefcases. They have money, but do nothing.’

  ‘I’m only here to study. I have no briefcase and no money,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘Why come to Kibera to do your research?’ Mama Hamza asked. ‘Why not to Nyanza, the Luo homeland?’

  ‘I’m interested in speaking to Luos who have seen Luo life on both sides, Kibera and Nyanza. That’s why Joshua is helping me. He’s seen it from both sides.’

  Mama Hamza looked curiously at Joshua, who turned away as his mobile phone bleated an incoming call. He took it, and his face fell as he listened.

  ‘What is it, Joshua?’ Charlotte said.

  ‘It’s…There’s something happening at KICC.’ He swung his head around as if searching for an immediate escape. ‘There is trouble coming. You must get out of Kibera!’

  Henry snapped to attention and gave his usual friendly salute as Riley climbed out of the taxi. It was after four o’clock and he didn’t want to be late to meet Charlotte in Kibera.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Riley,’ Henry said as he swung the hotel doors wide.

  ‘G’day, Henry. Nice day.’

  ‘Yes, sir, it is.’

  Instead of entering the hotel, Riley headed towards the hotel car park with a brisk step.

  ‘Mr Riley, sir!’ Henry called after him. ‘Excuse me, sir, but may I ask where you’re going?’

  Riley smiled at Henry’s odd question and worried look. ‘I’m just going out again for a bit. Why, what’s up?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, Mr Riley, but there’s some trouble in town.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘To do with the elections. The GSU is there.’

  ‘The GSU?’

  ‘The General Services Unit. If the GSU is there, it always means trouble. There may be rioting.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going into town, Henry, but thanks anyway.’

  ‘That’s a relief, sir. If you stay away from town, you’ll be fine. And Kibera, of course.’

  Riley was almost to the garden when he caught his last words. ‘Kibera?’ he said. ‘Did you say Kibera?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But that’s not a place you’d be going. It’s the slum area out on—’

  ‘Henry. What about Kibera?’

  The doorman saw Riley’s worried expression. ‘It’s off Ngong Road, sir.’

  ‘I know where it is, Henry. Tell me what there is about Kibera that I need to know.’

  ‘W-well, if there’s trouble anywhere in Kenya, it always flies to Kibera. Those people there, they—’

  Riley dashed through the garden gate and sprinted to the Land Rover.

  ‘Hurry, Miss Charlotte,’ Joshua said, leading her down one alley and into another.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘If the trouble is at the voting centre, why are we worried about it here?’

  He wasn’t sure why he was concerned. There was no sign of any problems yet. He only knew that Kibera could be a very changeable place and there was an all too familiar electricity in the foetid air. He remembered the atmosphere immediately following the last elections: the explosion of violence; the looting; the rapes. He wanted to take no chances. A mzungu in Kibera with him as her guide was one matter. A mzungu woman in Kibera during a riot was quite another.

  ‘What time was Mr Mark to meet you?’ he asked.

  ‘Five. But he won’t be there yet. It’s only about four.’

  Joshua frantically tried to come up with a plan. He needed a safe haven until five o’clock. His father’s little house was the safest place in Kibera that he could think of.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, they were standing outside a door made from a patchwork of various timbers with a strong slide bolt aligned against a sturdy timber upright.

  ‘This is my father’s house,’ Joshua said.

  Charlotte nodded and waited.

  ‘He may not be home,’ he added.

  Still they waited. Joshua seemed reluctant to enter.

  The door opened. A tall, lean man in a clean white shirt and long grey trousers stood there. His sad eyes saw only Joshua, and as he stared at him an awkward silence grew.

  ‘This is my father, Simon Otieng,’ Joshua said to Charlotte.

  Simon seemed startled to see her, but took her outstretched hand. She found his callused fingers quite gentle, holding her hand as he might a bird.

  ‘Father, this is Miss Charlotte.’

  She said hello and Simon nodded, still looking bewildered by her appearance at his door. He spluttered an apology and invited her to enter.

  The shack was dimly lit from a small, high window above a packing-case cupboard. There was just one chair. Simon brushed the seat and offered it to Charlotte, then sat on a box on the other side of a narrow bench that served as a table. Two thin, cotton curtains were strung on wires along the edge of the beds. A dog-eared poster of Michael Jackson hung from a nail above one of them. A TV with what looked like a fencing-wire antenna sat on a small fridge beside the cupboard. Joshua remained standing, leaning against the fridge, arms folded.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Otieng,’ Charlotte said, wondering why she had never asked about Joshua’s family.

  The tension in the room was almost tangible. She stumbled on as best she could in a one-way conversation, but soon realised the tension was not due to her presence. It was clear that father and son were as strangers.

  Eventually, Simon asked Charlotte if she would like to have tea. She said she would.

  ‘Miss Charlotte,’ Joshua said, ‘can I leave you here with my father while I try to find out what is happening?’

  ‘Of course,’ she answered.

  He turned to leave.

  Simon stop
ped him at the door. ‘Joshua,’ he said. ‘My son, there is trouble coming.’

  It was the first time Simon had addressed his son since they’d arrived.

  Joshua looked at his father and nodded. ‘I know. That is why I must find a way to get Miss Charlotte out of here.’

  When the afternoon sun lengthened the shadows in Kisumu Ndogo, Simon turned on the kitchen light, which flickered and finally glowed yellow.

  ‘They say it’s the voltage,’ he explained when Charlotte asked about the dull glow. ‘Not enough to make it white, as it should be.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just like that.’

  Charlotte said she understood and asked if Simon would mind telling her a little about his childhood. ‘I am doing a study on the Luo people,’ she said.

  He appeared reticent and asked what she’d like to know.

  ‘Anything. Everything. Why not start by telling me about the customs around your birth?’

  ‘Oh, we Luos don’t worry about birthdays. But as far as I know, I was born in 1970.’

  As he warmed to his subject, Charlotte pulled out her notebook and began to scribble down what he told her.

  He described how, in the Luo way, a son was ‘the centre of the home’. It was an expression of love, but also of recognition that to the Jo-Luo a son ensured the family’s cultural heritage and oral history would be carried on to the next generation. A boy’s birth, especially that of a firstborn, was a most joyous occasion, invoking praise for the mother and congratulations for the father.

  The first act after the birth was the burial of the placenta, which bound the child to his ancestral land. The new mother was treated to a special gruel made from finger millet, and fed the stewed meat of a goat or even a bull to rebuild her body. When the mother emerged from her confinement, she and her baby wore headdresses of woodpeckers’ feathers so that the birds, whose calls were considered a bad omen for the child, would be kept at bay. The parents and the newborn were shaved to end the birthing cycle, then joined with their extended family in days of celebrations and self-congratulatory announcements to the wider community.

  And so it was for Akoth Otieng and his wife, Ayira, when their son, Gero, was born. He was a lively baby, which didn’t surprise many of their friends and family. What could the parents expect, the elders said, when they had tempted almighty Nyasaye with such a name? Gero meant ‘fierceness’ and if the child were later to become a warrior, then all would be well. But if the British continued to uphold the peace by means of a gloved fist, a fierce boy among the warlike Luo could only lead to anger and confusion for the child. Fortuitously, according to those who predicted disaster, before the child reached the age where he must be formally named, Ayira had a dream, and in that dream her beloved and long-dead grandmother visited her.

  Ayira’s grandmother had been an important member of the Luo community and in the dream she cautioned against the name, saying that she saw a cloud over the child and it would be wise for Ayira to choose another name. The old woman had been an early convert to the new Christian ideas spread by the eager missionaries and she suggested the parents turn to the New Testament for a more calming name. Akoth was not pleased but had to concede that it would be prudent to heed the voice of such a wise woman.

  On the rolling hills outside their village, where the wind off Lake Victoria blew hot and strong in the weeks before the rains, the extended family gathered for the juogi or naming ceremony. There, Gero became Simon in the first of what would be many ceremonies that mark a Luo’s life.

  But, as Simon explained, that was not how it turned out for him.

  Riley was at the top of Valley Road, at the end of a traffic jam that extended around the corner and beyond the roundabout. He spun the wheel and roared back the way he’d come. Ten minutes later he was bumping down a muddy, unmade suburban street, trying to get onto Ngong Road from another angle, and ran into another jam. He pulled out his phone.

  ‘Charlie, it’s me.’

  ‘Mark. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. And you?’

  ‘Well, it’s been kind of interesting.’ She explained her situation.

  ‘So, I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere tonight,’ she added.

  ‘I can’t get through anyway,’ he told her. ‘The police must have closed off the whole area.’

  ‘I’m okay at the moment. Joshua said it should be safe in the morning. Can I meet you on Ngong Road around eight?’

  ‘I’ll get there somehow, even if I have to walk.’

  ‘Let’s hope that’s not necessary. I definitely wore the wrong shoes if we have to walk.’

  ‘Charlie…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Please…I want you to take care of yourself.’

  There was a pause. ‘I will, Mark.’

  He felt he had to push the point home. ‘It’s very important, Charlie.’

  ‘Yes, Mark. I hear what you’re saying. Thank you.’

  ‘This is Samuel Muthami of SKY FM at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre where the counting of the votes from Thursday’s poll continues.

  ‘There have been some startling developments in the last hour or so. Scrutineers from the Orange Democratic Movement have discovered irregularities in the votes tallied in the constituencies compared to those appearing here at the central tallying centre at KICC.

  ‘ODM supporters are outraged—you may be able to hear them in the background. They are calling for a halt to the count until the discrepancies are investigated. Mr Samuel Kivuitu, the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, is refusing to budge, saying there is no reason to doubt the figures. He takes this stance in spite of his own admission that his telephone connections to the constituencies have failed for some strange reason. He’s had no contact with the polling stations outside Nairobi since earlier today, yet he still maintains the counting is accurate.

  ‘The police called for reinforcements and the General Services Unit have now arrived, but even they are struggling to hold back the crowd gathered outside.’

  In his father’s gloomy house, Joshua, who had returned shortly after sunset, sat in the flickering light of the tiny black and white TV, watching the Odinga victory sink from sight. He was numbed by what he heard. Odinga, the declared winner of the night before, had lost the presidency.

  In the TV studio, the lights reflected off Kivuitu’s thick spectacles, making his eyes look like those of an alien creature sent to earth with a death sentence for the human race. He smiled, he nodded reassuringly, but the words following his official declaration of the polls were unheard by Joshua. The margins, the percentages, the parliamentary seats, the electorates won and lost—none of it mattered. Only the presidential result mattered. And Odinga had lost. Behind it all was the charade of officialdom. The same officialdom that had ruled his life in Kibera since birth; the officialdom that Raila Odinga had promised to eradicate by making government more accountable. More human. More benevolent.

  Joshua looked at Charlotte, her attention on the scenes filmed earlier outside the KICC. Clouds of teargas drifted on the warm afternoon air. Uniformed men charged into the crowd, violently smashing the heads and bodies of anyone unwilling or unable to get out of their way. What could Charlotte know of the real effects of this election on him and his fellow supporters? She was a mzungu, a European, able to fly away from whatever consequences might follow this travesty. Could he blame her and her countrymen for this debacle? There were many who thought the source of all Kenya’s political woes sprang from the colonists’ legacy at independence. Joshua couldn’t see the connection. Not after all these years. Certainly not after this election, which had so obviously, so comprehensively, so callously, been stolen from them by some of their fellow Kenyans.

  He found his father’s sad eyes not on the TV, but on him. Despite the look, he thought it unlikely that his father shared his sense of loss about the presidential election. He wouldn’t feel compelled to fight against the injustice of it all.

  ‘Jos
hua, we must talk, you and I,’ he whispered in Luo.

  Joshua wanted to talk. He wanted to find some sense in what was happening; what had already happened. He was fearful for Charlotte, marooned in Kibera with a tsunami of trouble building around her. He was also afraid for Mayasa, who could be somewhere in the jungle of huts and alleys. Kibera required just one small spark to burst into violent flames. Anything might happen now.

  From what seemed like a long distance away, but was probably not far at all, came a howling sound, a confusion of angry voices. Joshua felt trapped in the house while every fibre in his body screamed to be out in the night with the others, baying in outrage. The shameful theft of their election victory demanded immediate condemnation or else the government and their Kikuyu conspirators could celebrate a cheap victory.

  He stood abruptly, needing to do something to relieve the feelings of guilt about his idleness, and bumped his head on the light globe, sending it spinning and the shadows with it. His father glanced at him but said nothing. Charlotte continued to stare at the TV screen.

  Joshua fidgeted with his mobile phone. He checked how much credit he had and, hoping it would be enough, dialled the number. He stepped outside into the alley and felt a wash of relief when she answered.

  ‘Joshua! Is that you?’

  ‘Mayasa! I’ve been wanting to call—’

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve been—’

  ‘I had no credit. I’ve—’

  ‘…worried to death about you. I love you. I’m at—’

  ‘…I’ve been to…What?’

  ‘I said I’m at my sister’s house.’

  ‘Before that.’

  ‘I said…I said, I love you.’

  ‘I love you too.’

  ‘You do? Oh, Joshua, I’m sorry. I should have told you about my father when we first met.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘I know it’s a problem for some people.’

  ‘Mayasa, it’s okay.’

  ‘He’s been admitted into the antiretroviral program.’

  ‘What’s that?’