No Hurry in Africa

by Brendan Clerkin

  One is supposed to receive an alien’s card after this process. Its main use to me would be for much cheaper entry to the country’s game parks (it was finally ready for collection three months after this!). At least I did not have to endure the requests to slip a few shillings to the officials that Leo experienced when he went looking for a visa. It was astonishing the amount of bureaucracy and corruption one encountered.

  The real stroke of luck on this trip to Nairobi was that, by pure chance, I found out about an ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro planned by an Irish organisation known as Childaid. An ascent of ‘Kili’ had been top of my wish list long before I even landed in Africa, but up until now, I did not really have a group to climb with. I had ‘met Fr. Jimmy absent’ (as they say in Kenya), an industrious Irish Kiltegan priest with whom I stayed on occasions when I was in Nairobi. To pass the time whilst waiting for his return, I went for a cup of tea with some Irish Mercy sisters living nearby. It was there that Sr. Mary (not to be confused with Sr. MM) told me out of the blue about Childaid’s sponsored climb to raise funds for her Nairobi slum projects. When I pricked up my ears at this information, she encouraged me to get in touch with them. Everything happens for a reason, as the Africans believe.

  On my last day at Nyumbani until I would return from my break, Mwangangi introduced me to another distant relation of his whom, as it happened, I had found myself sitting next to on a bench outside the offices. He turned out to be a former minister in President Jomo Kenyatta’s governments of the 1960s and 1970s. Now a weather-beaten elderly man, he lived near Kwa Vonza. He was sporting a big brown trilby hat and was resting his arms on an artistically carved walking stick. He rather resembled a fading mafia godfather, I irreverently thought. With great pride, he told me his story.

  ‘I was originally a freedom fighter at the end of the colonial era,’ he began. ‘Back in 1960, I flew to London as an Akamba representative for the independence negotiations with the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. Macmillan had recently delivered his famous “Wind of Change” speech, signalling Britain’s intention to withdraw from Africa.’

  Mwangangi interjected at this point,

  ‘He helped draft the “Lancaster Constitution,” you know, the one that the referendum this year was trying to supersede.’

  I could see a touch of the politician in the retired minister yet, as he emphasised points with his hands and spoke with pride and conviction.

  ‘Kenya’s population has risen from eight million, at the time of Independence, to thirty-five million now.’ He paused briefly. ‘Name me one country in the world that has the capability to keep up with that,’ he challenged me.

  Nancy and a few others ushered him away on a tour of inspection. He had come to Nyumbani to have a look around and see for himself what was going on. It was these random encounters that happened when living in Nyumbani that I would miss, as well as the camaraderie and close friendships I had with many Africans working there.

  Because I was preoccupied with other things, the only reason I was even aware Christmas was nearing, was because Ilsa and Yvonne asked me to dress up as Santa Claus for the street-children of Kitui at their Centre on Christmas morning. I was delighted to agree, I loved that kind of tomfoolery. We went searching for anything that could be cobbled together into some manner of costume, but without much success. Around Kenya, there were no decorations to be admired, no Christmas tunes to be enjoyed, no exchanging presents, certainly no snow—absolutely nothing of a seasonal nature. The street-children did not even know who Santa Claus was. Most Africans had never heard of him. Reluctantly, we scrapped the idea.

  The Diocese threw a big outdoor Christmas party (probably the only one in Kitui) on the 23rd. We passed the night dancing, or in my case, trying to. All the young African nuns and priests were moving around a lot more rhythmically than I was. Fr. Paul struck up a few songs on the guitar towards the end of the night. My friends in Ireland, I was to learn later, were speculating that I was not coming home for Christmas because I had a few black babies on the way. The story was that I was too busy starting a tribe of my own.

  I spent the afternoon of Christmas Day with the street-children. It was comical to hear me talking with the children of Kitui village, making full use of my limited Kikamba. There were lots of misunderstandings. It was not always just a matter of language. One young boy told me he was eleven years old, and when I asked him the same question a while later, he said he was nine years old. Half of them can only guess even the year in which they were born; indeed nobody knows for sure. What these children do know is how to survive—by whatever means. I sometimes paid a street-boy a few shillings (around ten cent) to keep my bicycle from being stolen on the street in Kitui. Of course, it was himself I was bribing not to steal it!

  I had my Christmas dinner in the shade of a mango tree at the street-children Centre, eating with a spoon out of a bowl as I sat on a shaky wooden bench. It consisted of goat’s liver—a ‘specialty’ they had reserved for me. Slaughtering a goat for Christmas dinner was a big deal in these parts. In truth, I was utterly tired of having tough sinewy goat meat by this stage. (The Irish missionaries slaughtered some scrawny chickens for dinner that night, the only alternative to goat, and not much more appetising.) All afternoon, there was dancing with the two Dutch girls, six young African nuns, Fr. Paul and fifty very excitable street-children—every one of them outside gyrating rhythmically to the lively modern ‘bongo flava’ music of Kenya’s favourite singer, Mr. Nice. Not in person, of course, but on tape. It was shaping up unlike any Christmas I had ever experienced or was likely to experience again.

  The missionaries’ Christmas dinner was being hosted that evening in the Mercy convent where two long-serving Irish nuns called Sr. Nora and Sr. Helen ran a school and a dispensary near the mission house. Eighteen of us were gathered. After praying grace at the start, the craic was like something out of Father Ted. The missionaries were animatedly reminiscing about funny things that had happened over the last forty years. Any yarn I could tell paled in comparison. We were all in stitches throughout the stories; sometimes there were several narratives going on at once. They were spraying punch lines thick and fast, like bullets from Al Capone’s machine gun. I really wish I had been able to remember some of them or written a few down, but I had consumed slightly too much whiskey for the details to register. It had been a Christmas dinner to try to remember.

  At the time, it struck me that life in Kitui District was much the same as it was in the Nativity story; the same desperation many families suffer, and the way their farm animals are omnipresent. The people’s empathy with the Nativity story was obvious in their sheer joy at celebrating the Christmas Vigil Mass. However, in every other respect, it was just another day to them.

  CHAPTER 10

  RESCUE ON THE HIGH SEAS

  ON SAINT STEPHEN’S NIGHT Ilsa, Yvonne and I enjoyed a memorable bus journey down to Mombasa on the coast, where we were planning to take a break for the next week. We were aboard a bus called ‘Bush Senior,’ perhaps a clue to its age. Some passengers were singing along to the catchy African tunes on the radio and dancing in the aisle in amongst their goats and hens. Passing through Tsavo Game Park about half way to Mombasa, they fell silent; by now, it was dark and we were hurtling straight through a herd of elephants. Somewhere near the town of Voi, the driver knocked down a zebra. All the while, a number of passengers were sitting on the roof of the bus. It was like a night-time animal safari. Zebras up close, by the way, look just like stripy donkeys.

  We were staying in a simple chalet at Tiwi beach, ten kilometres south of Mombasa. The accommodation was fine, although it came as a surprise to find saltwater flowing from the taps. Tiwi beach is everyone’s image of Paradise—long stretches of fine white sand, warm turquoise sea, coconut trees, and empty of people. We had it to ourselves; the big resort hotels are ages from Tiwi. To top it all, there was European food. It never felt so good to eat potatoes, pizza, and lobster. In the morning time, l
oitering monkeys stole breakfast straight out of my hand as I ate crackers on the porch with the girls. They were rampant colobus monkeys, whose most distinctive features are the bright sky-blue testicles of the male. By this stage, I considered them pests just as the Africans did.

  Off Wazini Island, a small island an hour south of Mombasa down near the Tanzanian border, we organised a trip on an Arab sailing dhow. Hundreds of years ago, this island was the main centre in Africa for trade between the Chinese and Arabs. Our particular interest was snorkelling with the dolphins at the coral reefs. I loved it. The boatmen threw us overboard without bothering to ask could we swim. There were no life-rings on the boat, or lifejackets, or indeed any other paraphernalia remotely connected with safety. Swimming among all the varieties of exotically patterned fishes, and the tremendous coral formations themselves, was exhilarating. It was just the tonic I needed after recent days at Nyumbani.

  The girls were eager to walk around some of the city while we were in Mombasa. So was I, for I had seen relatively little of it that weekend with Leo and Kimanze. The following day, Ilsa, Yvonne, and I had just finished touring the historic old town, and the fairly imposing 400 year old Fort Jesus (built by the Portuguese) when, directly below the Fort we spotted a place where some young locals were swimming in the narrow channel that cuts Mombasa Island off from the mainland.

  ‘You two should have a race across,’ I dared the girls, light-heartedly.

  ‘How far do you reckon it is?’ Ilsa asked, warming to the idea.

  ‘About half a kilometre probably,’ suggested Yvonne. ‘Come on, we’ll go for it!’ she said, to my surprise.

  Of course, I had to join them. We dived off the wall into the inviting water. When we were some distance from shore, one of the ferries took a different course from all the other boats sailing up the channel that day. It was coming straight for us.

  ‘We’re about to get mowed down!’ I shouted a warning to the girls.

  We swam like the clappers to avoid it, and just about got out of its way in the nick of time. I do not know if they had seen us before that, but one passenger gave us a friendly wave, apparently oblivious to the danger we were in. It was not the first time for me. Something similar happened to me once at Arranmore Island off Donegal, and once in Croatia as well.

  Ilsa and Yvonne had decided to return to Kitui by bus on the morning of New Year’s Eve to ring in 2006 with the street-children. After waving them off, I set out to meet Leo at Bamburi beach, just north of Mombasa, where I would be spending the night. However, just then I ‘met the ATMs of Mombasa broken,’ as they say locally. So with my last few shillings, I bought a bus ticket home—to arrive in Kitui on the second of January—with just enough money left to purchase some fruit at the heaving markets down the backstreets. The place was full of dodgy-looking characters. Mombasa is a bit like Cairo, chaotic, bustling and raucous. In the narrow streets and among the crumbling colonial era buildings, goats were competing with the hand-pulled carts and getting in the way of the three-wheeled tuk-tuk taxis, whose incessant horns were drowning out the prayerful cries from the Mosques. The prevailing aromas were of exotic spices and goat droppings. It is certainly a bit different from Letterkenny on New Year’s Eve, I thought.

  Then something rather unusual happened. I walked into a shop to buy a pen, only to be greeted by a man wearing a sarong-type skirt who had been kneeling on a mat, presumably praying to Allah. Having established where I came from, he began conversing with me in Irish! His grammar was a bit ropey, but this is roughly how the conversation went:

  ‘Ca h-áit a d’fhoghlaim tusa do chuid Gaeilge?’ I enquired, with a dumbfounded but pleased expression.

  ‘Blianta ó shin, bhi mé ag obair ar feadh tamaill le sagart Éire-annach. Táim liofa go leor go fóill, nach bhfuil? In aon chor, cad atá de dhith ortsa anois?’

  Apparently, he had once worked for an Irish missionary priest who had taught him Irish.

  ‘Ba mhaith liom peann gorm le do thoil, má tá ceann agat?’

  ‘Fan bomaite, chifidh mé’

  At this point he whipped out his own pen from his breast pocket (ever eager to spot an opportunity for a sale), and I handed him a few shillings for it.

  ‘Slán go fóill, chifidh mé aris thú,’ he concluded, as I left his shop.

  With his long dreadlocks, Leo was easy to spot on the beach. I crept up behind him and gave him a gentle fright. He was in high spirits and we were delighted to see each other again. I had to update him on Nyumbani and on his good friend Kimanze. Leo was along with another young German volunteer named Torsten and, being Leo, a few Rastas. We just chilled out in the heat, and had great fun messing with a beach ball in the waves.

  ‘I have started at another children’s project near here, Brendan. It is starting from scratch,’ he told me in his concise German manner. ‘There is a lot of work. But I like it very much. Torsten though, he has just had his bag stolen this morning. His passport, his camera, and his wallet are all gone.’

  He hit the closed fingers of one hand onto the palm of the other, clearly annoyed. Then he carried on matter-of-factly,

  ‘We will forget about that until tomorrow. Tonight, my friend, we will have fun.’

  ‘I’m up for that,’ I smiled, remembering our previous visit to Mombasa.

  Nearby, local fishermen were wading in the shallows, casting their nets searching for fish. As the sun was going down for the very last time on 2005, I spotted a young Kenyan woman being swept out to sea, clinging onto an inflatable ring. She was drifting further and further out. Bamburi beach was packed with tourists looking forward to celebrating the New Year; they did not notice her. Her African friends were laughing at her from the shore and clearly did not realise the seriousness of what could unfold. Maybe they were from the interior. Having worked as a lifeguard on a beach while a student, I have a sixth sense honed over a number of summers for spotting potential danger.

  I briefly looked around me. Mombasa had obviously never heard of hiring lifeguards. I pulled off my clothes, raced into the sea, and frantically swam out to pull her in. There was indeed a strong current, but finally I reached her, and towed her back to shore fairly promptly. She was clearly shaken by the experience. Looking both embarrassed and relieved, all she said was,

  ‘My name is Francesca, thank you.’

  And we parted, just like that… By now, it was quite dark, and the sun was disappearing for the last time that year.

  We spent the night of New Year’s Eve on the beach, at one of the many bonfires. Camels were sauntering on the sand. Fireworks shot up tumultuously all along the beach and for miles along the coast in both directions. Rockets were being launched at any angle, some whizzing dangerously past our ears. Children chased after one another gleefully, and hawkers praised their merchandise,

  ‘Looky looky is free. Good price my friend. You speak Swahili, local price for you.’

  Leo, Torsten, and I were now the only wazungu amongst the horde surrounding the bonfire. The tourists had long since retreated to the safety of the hotels. As the stroke of midnight approached, everyone around me counted ‘one, two, three… ’ up to ten, and not from ten backwards. The stroke of midnight released a blissful holler of welcome to the New Year, and the crowd proceeded to sing a chorus of… ‘Happy birthday to you’!

  The three of us stayed awake for the first sunrise of 2006, and then we fell asleep on the beach. As I had paid over the last of my money to book the bus ticket back to Kitui earlier in the day, I had to spend the night outside anyway. I always do a New Year’s Day swim in the arctic-like waters off Donegal, and I continued that tradition in the Indian Ocean, having been woken up by the incoming tide soaking me. A bit more pleasant this year though.

  Back in Kitui, the famine worsened. The morning after the night-bus from Mombasa, I was sitting alone in front of the mission house when a woman arrived carrying a baby on her back that was snugly wrapped inside a bright shawl. She addressed me in Kikamba.

  �
��Waja?’

  ‘Aa,’ I responded telling her that I was fine, and asked in kind, ‘Uvoo waku?’

  ‘Nimuseo,’ she replied, indicating she was well also, before launching full steam ahead into a torrent of indecipherable Kikamba.

  However, I understood her message from her eyes. The baby possessed a disproportionately large head, and its ribs were showing. One has to be careful about setting a precedent in these situations, at the risk of sounding heartless. I did not want to bring every beggar from the village immediately down upon the mission house, which would inevitably happen. So I handed her twenty shillings (about twenty cent), enough to buy her and her child breakfast.

  Suddenly she took off her skirt and began gyrating. It is heartbreaking what some are prepared to do for food. This particular woman may well have spent the money on drink; she came back to me every day I was near the mission house afterwards. Fr. Liam told me she had a history.

  ‘That same woman once dropped another baby of hers on the lap of Bishop Dunne from Westmeath some years ago when he was Bishop of Kitui, right in the middle of an ordination ceremony. As you can imagine, Brendan, the gesture wasn’t really appreciated.’

  The problem was, as much as I wanted to give them what they wanted—and it was often only pennies in Irish terms—one can only ever meet a small part of their needs. Sadly, in many cases, their needs centre on the next bottle of Kenyan poitin. Yet I was always strongly conscious that, when weighing up whether to donate money, in genuine cases some people might really be close to death. The missionaries face such dreadful dilemmas every day, especially difficult when it is hungry mothers with starving children.

  During that first week of January, I stayed for a couple of days in Fr. Paul’s cottage. Also staying there was a twenty-five year old Akamba friend of Fr. Paul’s named Katuta, whose family Fr. Paul had been supporting. A somewhat philosophical fellow with a neat moustache, Katuta displayed a worldlier outlook than most Akamba, having lived in South Africa for the previous two years. Fr. Paul set off at the crack of dawn each day, his labours taking him around the far-flung Diocese. So with the two of us at a loose end, we scrounged the loan of a motorbike off an Akamba priest without being entirely truthful about our destination.