by Leylah Attar
Had Mo stopped here to take in the same view? I wondered. Even though she was gone, I felt closer to her for having been there. It was like touching the shadow of her soul.
“Thank you,” I said to Jack. “I don’t think I’m ever going to forget it.”
The blue of his eyes held me for a heart-skipping instant. Everything seemed hushed and bare.
It was a while before he spoke, and his voice was soft but loaded. “Me neither.”
Losing someone you love tunes you in to the fragility of life—of moments and memories and music. It makes you want to embrace all the foolish, inarticulate longings that pull at your heart. It makes you want to grasp un-played notes of un-played symphonies. Perhaps that was why Jack and I clung to that moment, eyes locked, breaths stilled, listening to something that only we could hear, something that lived in the fleeting space between hello and goodbye. It made me want to freeze-frame the rippling grasslands below us, and the play of light across Jack’s face.
AS WE DROVE away from the crater, the towering trees gave way to a high, windswept plateau.
“One more stop before we head back,” said Jack, turning into the entrance of a Maasai village.
It was a collection of thatched-roof huts surrounded by a circle of thorn bushes to keep out wild animals and predators. Jack retrieved a duffel bag from the trunk and swung it over his shoulder.
“You don’t travel light, do you?” I said, when I saw all the stuff stashed in his car.
Spare wheels, coils of thick rope, a washbasin, pots, pans, utensils, a portable stove, spare gallons of petrol, water, electrical tape, mosquito netting, camping gear, flares, a first aid kit, a paraffin lamp, matches, tins of food, pliers, tools, gadgets. And a rifle, with what looked like a long-range viewer.
“I come prepared when I’m out in the reserves.”
“So, what’s in the bag?” I asked, following him down the path to the village.
“Coffee, from the farm,” he said. “For Bahati’s father. He’s also the village elder. Interesting guy. Wise, stubborn, insightful. He’s set in some ways, but incredibly progressive in others. Eight wives, twenty-nine children, and counting.”
“Seriously? So, the Maasai are polygamous?”
“Yes. They determine a man’s standing first by his bravery, and then by the number of wives, children, and cows he has. Each wife usually has a home within the same boma or village. Bahati’s village is not as traditional as some of the other Maasai bomas. It’s a designated cultural boma, which means a lot of tours stop here so people can visit the homes, take pictures, buy souvenirs. That kind of stuff.”
A group of Maasai men emerged to greet us. They were draped in brilliant reds and blues, their skin the shade of acacia bark. They were as tall as Jack, at least six feet, but with slim, wiry bodies, and eyes that looked permanently yellow—probably from wood smoke. They wore long braids, dyed with red clay, and had distended earlobes adorned with beads and ornaments. Upon seeing Jack, their stiff gaits loosened and their smiles widened.
“Jack Warden, no entrance fee,” one of them said. “Your girlfriend? Also no fee.”
“Asante. Thank you,” Jack replied. “Come along, girlfriend. Let’s follow the moran.”
“The moran?” I ignored the ‘girlfriend’ part.
“It’s what they call their warriors.”
We maneuvered around piles of cow manure, stirring up the flies, and stopped outside a loaf-shaped hut. The morans presented us to a dignified looking man with a checkered red and black sheet draped over his shoulders. Loops of silver and turquoise earrings hung from his earlobes. He sat on a low, three-legged stool and flicked a fly whisk back and forth across his face. Men and women squatted around him. The morans stood to the side, leaning on their spear shafts, some of them balancing like storks, on one leg.
“Jack Warden,” said the man, spitting into his palm and holding it out for Jack.
“Olonana.” Jack shook hands.
I tried not to think about the gob of spit sealing their greeting.
“This is my friend, Rodel.” Jack steered me forward until I was standing before the chief. “Rodel, this is Bahati’s father.”
Oh God. Please let this be a spit-less hello.
I smiled and gave the man a curt bow, keeping both hands plastered to my sides. He nodded, and I let out my breath. Apparently, his spit wasn’t just for anyone, only those he held in great affection. And he was obviously fond of Jack because he summoned another stool for him, while I was waved away.
“She sits with me,” said Jack, grabbing my hand and pulling me back.
No other stool made an appearance and after a few beats, I realized that Jack really did mean for me to sit with him. Or rather, on him. And so I perched awkwardly on Jack’s lap, while the women and children laughed at me.
“Kasserian ingera.” Olonana didn’t use the familiar Swahili words for hello that I had grown accustomed to—habari or jambo.
“Sapati ingera,” replied Jack.
I wondered if anyone else greeted the chief this way—solemn and sincere, while balancing a squirming woman on his thigh.
They exchanged a few words. Then Olonana raised his whisk to a man whose bent, wizened form was barely discernible against the dark entrance of the hut. He was dressed in a long green cloth, but what stood out was the leather pouch hanging around his neck. It was adorned with white beads and cowrie shells, different from the ornaments that everyone else was wearing. He also had a necklace of crocodile teeth that rattled when he moved.
“That’s Lonyoki. The oloiboni,” Jack explained in a hushed voice. “I guess you could call him their spiritual leader. A vision seeker and medicine man. The oloiboni is charged with divining the future. He oversees their rituals and ceremonies.”
“So he’s like Rafiki.” I stopped shifting and decided to suck up my ridiculous lap-sitting stint as gracefully as possible.
Jack blinked before catching on. “You’re talking about the shaman in that movie, The Lion King. What’s with you and all The Lion King references?”
“What do you mean?”
“You were babbling about Mufasa last night.”
“What?” Oh God. “What did I say?”
“Something about him being the king of the jungle.”
I was glad that Rafiki, a.k.a Lonyoki, a.k.a. the medicine man, chose that moment to pound his club into the ground. It had a polished wooden shaft with a heavy knob at the top, carved in the shape of a serpent’s head. Puffs of red dirt stirred at his feet. Everyone turned their attention to the woman who rose from the crowd and disappeared into the hut.
“What’s going on?” I asked Jack, realizing that we had interrupted some kind of a village gathering.
“A coming of age ceremony,” he replied. “No matter what happens next, I want you to remain expressionless. Do not show any emotion. Do not look away. Do not flinch. You hear me?”
“Why? Wha—” I broke off as the shrill screams of a girl filled the air. It was coming from inside the hut. Whatever was happening to her was excruciating—painful and agonizing. And yet no one made a move to help her. They all waited, huddled outside, blank faces turned to the dark, open doorway. A chorus of women started humming, as if to drown out the sounds, or maybe to offer her comfort.
“Jack, what is going on?” I whispered.
“The transition from girlhood to womanhood. Female circumcision.” He clamped his arm around me as he said it, containing my burst of outrage. “Listen to me.” He leaned close and spoke slow and steady in my ear. “It happens, even though the government has banned it. It is a deeply rooted tradition, but Olonana and his people are moving away from it. What’s happening in there is symbolic. The girl is receiving a ritual nick on her thigh. It’s nothing compared to cutting out part of her genitalia. The screaming is important. She must scream loud enough for everyone outside to hear, or they won’t feel like she has earned the status being conferred on her. They circumcise the boys too, in thei
r teens, except they are not allowed to make a single sound. Doing so would bring shame to them and their family.”
The whole thing was tough and harsh to take. When the girl’s cries stopped, I realized my fingers were squeezing tightly around Jack’s.
“Do you know them through Bahati?” I asked, letting go of him like I’d touched a hot stove. “Olonana and his people?”
“Olonana’s family saved my grandfather during the war when he was injured in hostile territory. They sheltered him until he recovered from his wounds. Goma and I always stop by and pay our respects whenever we’re in the area.”
“That’s why you took Bahati under your wing and taught him how to drive?”
“I didn’t know he was Olonana’s son at first. Most of his kids live out here, in the bomas.”
Everyone stood as the girl emerged from the hut, flanked by two women. One was the lady who had entered the hut earlier, probably to deliver the ritual cut, and the other, I assumed to be the girl’s mother. The girl was given traditional beads and a ring made from animal skin as a sign of her passage into womanhood. The oloiboni presented her to the village, ready for marriage, and all the responsibilities that went with it.
“She is so young,” I remarked.
“She is one of the lucky ones,” replied Jack. “A few years ago, she would not have been able to walk out of there for days.”
“So, what convinced them to do away with it? With female circumcision?”
“It’s not something that happened overnight. Eventually, it came down to persuading the men that sex with an uncircumcised woman is more pleasurable—that far from promoting promiscuity, having an intact clitoris makes a woman more receptive to their advances.”
“It’s a patriarchal society,” Jack continued, catching the expression on my face. “Their way of life may seem strange and harsh, but every culture evolves with its own set of values and practices that change with time and circumstance. The women are pushing back and becoming more independent. A lot of them have started working with overseas organizations, selling their bracelets and jewelry. They’re turning their traditional bead-working skills into something that generates an income.”
We merged into the shuffle of villagers that were heading for the livestock enclosure in the center of the homestead. Most of the cattle were out to graze, but there were a few left behind, along with some goats and sheep. A cow was held down and shot in the jugular with a blunt arrow. The blood that spurted from the neck was caught in a calabash and served to the girl that had just undergone the ceremony.
“The Maasai rarely kill their cattle,” explained Jack. “But they will extract some of the blood and staunch the wound right away. The cow will be no worse for the wear, and the blood is used as protein to help the weak regain their strength . . .” He trailed off because the blood-filled calabash was being passed around and Olonana offered it to him next.
I watched as he took a sip and passed it on. Thankfully, he skipped me and for that, he had my eternal gratitude. Sushi was about as adventurous as I was willing to get, but hats off to him for going all Dracula on it.
“You drink when you’re offered,” he said. “It’s a sign of respect.”
“Between the blood and the spit, the exchange of bodily fluids is clearly a winning theme,” I remarked under my breath, but Jack heard me nonetheless. I’d always thought I was fair and open-minded, but my prejudices were starting to surface, and it was making me irritable and uncomfortable.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have accepted the invite to the communal orgy we’re headed for?”
“What?” I stopped in my tracks.
The little boy walking behind me nose-dived straight into my bum. It was a cushioned landing for him, but he had a hard head, and I rubbed my arse as everyone passed us by.
“It’s part of the celebration.” Jack checked out my tush with great interest, so I glared at him, even though a part of me ached whenever I caught a glimpse of this Jack—the fun, laid-back Jack who’d been buried under the rubble of a mall.
“It’s an eating orgy, Rodel,” he said. “They’re going to slaughter a goat in honor of today’s ceremony.”
“And I’m supposed to eat it?” My bum was sore, I was tired, and the flies seemed to have a thing for me. I was hungry, but not that hungry.
“They’re going to roast it.” Jack laughed. “But first, they dance,” he said, as we found ourselves at the edge of a circle of villagers.
A moran entered the circle, poised and regal in his scarlet sheet and turquoise cape. He started jumping, spear in hand, while the rest of the men emitted a low-pitched drone. As he jumped higher and higher, they raised their pitch to match his leaps, until he got tired and another warrior took his place. Then the women took over the singing. A lone woman crooned a line, and the rest of the group answered in unison. A lot of the ladies wore ornate, beaded collars around their necks that rocked up and down when they flapped their shoulders. As the men jumped, fierce and proud, attaining impressive heights, everyone heaped praises upon them. It was a very male display of muscle, virility, and stamina. I sneaked a look at the women to see if they were taking notes.
Holy crap, they were. They were totally into it. Especially the girl who had undergone the symbolic circumcision ceremony. She was being nudged and elbowed by the other girls. She was The Bachelorette, the debutante, the Belle of the Boma. I wondered if she got to choose her husband, or if it would be decided for her.
I was about to ask Jack when Olonana pulled him inside the circle. A high-pitched trill ran through the crowd as Jack kicked off his shoes. Apparently, it was a call to battle—to see who could jump higher. Olonana and Jack leaped facing each other, rising and falling. I caught glimpses of a sheathed dagger under the chief’s clothes as they rose higher and higher. It was a duel between the chief and his visitor, and Jack was all in.
There was an unrestrained fluidity about his movements, a rawness that stirred something hot and electric in me. He was muscle in motion. Dynamic, dominant, compelling. I could make out the warm lines of his body through his clothes—the expanse of his chest, the cut of steely thighs, the arms that had brushed past me in the bathroom last night. I dug my nails into my palm, hoping to wake myself up from the madness consuming me, spreading through my nerves like wild grass fire. There was something in the dust, something in the dry, low humming around me, that settled in my stomach and writhed like a fish gasping for a drop of water.
I suspected Jack held back in the end, out of respect for the chief. And the older man was wise enough to know it, because he invited the other morans to join them, declaring a shared victory for all. When the group broke, Jack found me. I avoided his gaze, acutely aware of the way his breath had turned quick and shallow, the fine sheen of sweat on his forehead, the heated glow of his body.
“Everything okay?” he asked, taking a big glug of water from a gourd someone handed him. No Coca-Cola here. “You seem flushed.”
“Just . . . from the sun.”
He passed me the water, and I took a sip. And then another. I wanted to douse myself with it. I had no business thinking sexy thoughts about this man. I didn’t want to, damn it.
We were invited into Olonana’s inkajijik, a traditional Maasai house. The entrance was a long, narrow arch with no door. After the bright afternoon sun, it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I felt around and found a knobby chair.
“Rodel.” Jack cleared his throat.
It was at that moment I realized I was clutching an old woman’s knee. Not a chair.
“I’m so sorry.” I jumped on Jack’s lap instead. It was turning out to be my safe haven.
Olonana and Jack conversed, while the old woman eyed me from her stool. She rummaged through a burlap sack then held something out for me. As I reached for it, something landed on my head. It was wet and warm. I was about to touch it when Jack grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t,” he said.
“What is it?” I co
uld feel it settling into my scalp.
“A drop of rainwater from the roof.” His spoke the words softly, in my ear. “The gods have favored you. Just smile and accept the gift she’s holding out for you.”
I did as I was told, retrieving a bracelet from the old woman. It was a string of small, round beads threaded through a leather cord. Jack tied it around my wrist.
“It says something.” I held my hand up to the light. There was a letter seared into each bead.
“Taleenoi olngisoilechashur,” said Jack.
“Talee-what?”
“There is a saying among my people, that everything is one,” said Olonana. “We are all connected. Taleenoi olngisoilechashur.”
I was momentarily taken aback that he spoke English, but it made sense that he would use the local dialect when he spoke to Jack since they both understood it.
“We are all connected.” I touched the beads, feeling their cool, smooth surface. “Thank you,” I said to the old woman, touched by her simple, meaningful gift. “Asante.”
She smiled back, revealing two missing teeth, a gap that made her look like a wrinkled baby.
“My mother speaks Maa, not Swahili,” said Olonana. “The word Maasai means the people that speak Maa.”
“Please let her know I love it.”
As I admired the blue, green, and red beads on the bracelet, a platter of hot, roasted meat was brought into the hut, along with a gourd filled with some kind of fermented drink.
“You will accompany my mother to the other hut now,” said Olonana, looking at me.
Clearly, the men and women ate separately, so I followed Olonana’s mother to a smoky inkajijik, similar to the one we’d left. A large wooden pole held up the roof. The walls were made of branches, plastered over with dirt, cow dung, and ashes. There was a sick calf being tended to by one of the women. All the other women were gathered around a large wooden bowl, chewing diligently on the meat. It was nothing like the prime cuts that Jack and Olonana had received.