Zamba

by Ralph Helfer

  “We’re looking for the Manga,” I said.

  “Mganga,” said Pippa, pinching my arm. “Mganga.”

  Pippa began talking directly to Rashid in Swahili, trying to explain our purpose there.

  “I tell you to shut up!” he said, waving his saber. “It is not allowed!” he roared. Pippa crouched farther down in the seat. Then he turned back to me.

  Staying as calm as I could, I murmured, “Well, yes, we, ah, were wondering if you could help us? We need to meet your, uh…Mganga.”

  Not taking his eyes off Zamba, he said, “He will not see you.”

  “Why?”

  “You are white.”

  “That’s what the old lady said,” I whispered to Pippa.

  I saw the sheik getting a bit disturbed and thought it would be wise to change the subject.

  “Why are those men fighting?” I asked.

  “They fight to let their camels drink the water. But there is only so much, and I own the well. They want to own the water. Only Mugu can own the water, but the fools claim the water is theirs. This stupid drought has lasted far too long. We are digging more wells but it takes time.”

  “Where we came from the land is bursting with water. Floods everywhere,” I said.

  “It is the way in East Africa. For centuries the NFD suffers and the south is drowning. But you have your droughts, too. It is the way of Allah.”

  “What will happen here?” I said.

  “Some will die so the animals may live.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  “The camel gives us food, clothing, milk, transportation. In some cases they are worth more than their owners.”

  “Shouldn’t you try to stop them?”

  “No. It is better to let them kill each other. Then there will be less fighting.”

  I don’t understand that kind of thinking.

  Rashid, deep in thought, lowered his saber and slowly put it back in its sheath. He watched Zamba sitting quietly in the back, eyes on me. I felt the gun would not be necessary now. Finally he beckoned to one of the men standing by the camels. He looked like Lawrence of Arabia.

  “This man’s name is Abdulrahmin Mouhamoudin,” he said. “He doesn’t speak very much English, but enough. He will take you where the Mganga is. Whether he will see you or not is a question that has no answer.”

  Rashid motioned to have his camel brought up to him. Once mounted, he turned toward us. “I will leave you now. May Allah be with you on your quest.”

  And with this he, his harem, and twenty or more men mounted their camels and followed.

  “Thank you,” I yelled.

  A wave of his hand was his acknowledgment. Pippa, Zamba, the guide, and I watched as they disappeared over the horizon.

  I turned toward the man who was to take us to see the Mganga.

  “Your name is…? I asked.

  “Abdulrahmin Mouhamoudin.”

  “Abdul…what?” I asked, as politely as I could.

  He replied, “Abdulrahmin Mouhamoudin.”

  “Do you have something shorter? We mzungu—well.” I gestured like a simpleton.

  The man looked at us in disgust. “Choose any name and I will answer to it.”

  Pippa and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Lawrence.”

  “Agreed,” he said.

  “How long will it take?” I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “How far?”

  Again a shrug. “You’ll see.”

  He didn’t want to sit with Zamba, so he jumped up on the roof of the car with the luggage, wrapped his headscarf around his face, took his shuka, and covered himself completely.

  “Which way?” I yelled up.

  A long, bony finger appeared through the cloth and pointed. Putting the Rover in four-wheel drive, we followed the pointed finger.

  The country we drove through was a vast desert of sand and rock, with the occasional tuft of grass. The NFD was indeed smoldering hot. I had never felt such heat.

  Our course was taking us parallel with a high ridge of mountains, as barren as the desert they looked down upon. We passed a few dried-up, deserted camel wells. Scattered debris lay all around, left over from what was once a small encampment. Doom palms that had received their nourishment from the once-flourishing underground spring were dead.

  A bare heel pounding on the side of the Rover was a signal to look up and see which new direction the bony finger was pointing.

  “How much farther?” I asked.

  The finger shook violently, urgently pointing the way. But the owner of the finger couldn’t be bothered with idle chatter. When, two hours after the last direction, we hadn’t heard anything from Lawrence, I reached up and grabbed his foot. He must have thought it was Zamba because he screamed, kicking my hand free, and nearly fell off the Rover.

  “What! What! For the love of Allah!”

  He had fallen asleep! The finger now urged us in another direction. His nap had cost us about an hour’s driving.

  We had been driving for most of the day, nonstop except for a couple of potty breaks, when we heard something fall off the top of the Rover, and a stream of clearly obscene Somali from behind us. When we came to a stop, we discovered Lawrence lying in the sand about a hundred yards to our rear. Apparently he had not only fallen asleep again, but had fallen off the roof as well! He walked toward us dusting off his clothes and cursing, but he had learned his lesson: he didn’t fall asleep again.

  Zamba may have had something to do with our guide’s newfound alertness. Occasionally poor Lawrence’s foot would slip down the side of the Rover, and Zamba liked to sniff it, and sometimes even take a lick. Lawrence would nearly jump out of his skin, letting out a pitiful yell.

  We traveled all day into the interior, a wasteland of sand and rock. We saw no animals, no vegetation. But as the evening glow of the desert sun was slowly dropping beneath the ridge, there appeared an outcropping of large rocks and a patch of palm trees. In and around them were about a dozen striped tents. Situated in the middle was the inevitable camel well, bigger and sturdier than any we had seen so far. The scene was quiet and pleasant. An occasional camel bellowed, and some goats bleated. Camel bells chimed in the breeze, and tribal dialect could be heard coming from the tents.

  The bare foot came down again and knocked against the Rover. I looked up and asked, “Where is…?”

  “Up there,” came the response, as he pointed to a large, broad-striped tent blowing in the wind. “Mganga—but be ready for him not to see you.”

  As we came to a stop, Lawrence climbed down from the top of the Rover and spoke to a few men standing close by. With the draped window, no one could see Zamba. One of the men went into the tent and reappeared a few minutes later and spoke to Lawrence, who brought the news over to the car.

  “He will not see you.”

  “Why?”

  “You are infidels, white, and not of our kind. Let’s go.”

  We had come so far! I was not to be discouraged, and urged him to try again, “Please tell him we have been driving for days just to meet him.”

  Lawrence shook his head. “We are lucky to have found him at all. We go.”

  “What is the hurry? Can’t we at least stay the night, rest up before we head back?”

  “No. We go now.” He climbed back up on the car and pointed his long bony finger for us to get in.

  I looked at Pip. She was as exhausted as I was. Then I had an idea.

  “Lawrence, what did you tell him?”

  “You wanted to speak to him. He said no.”

  “Did you mention Zamba?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said no!”

  Going around to the back of the Rover, I undid the rear door and jumped Zamba out. The change in the distribution of weight almost dislodged Lawrence. The men in the camp saw Zamba, yelled, and ran in many directions.

  “Lawrence, go tell the big Bwana t
hat Zamba wants to see him.”

  “By Allah! He is sure very big much more outside of the car.”

  He slid down and entered the tent. We heard a few words, and then out came two Arab Askaris, holding the tent flap open for another man. He was an impressive person, quite tall, heavy, and bearded, wearing a white turban and many rings on each finger as well as a dozen or more necklaces. His shuka was a simple brown wrap thrown over another brownish wrap. A small pigsticker knife in a sheath was secured in his massive leather belt.

  He approached Pippa and me slowly. His men put out their hands as a sign of caution, but he waved them away.

  Apparently this was the Mganga. He stood looking at us, with an occasional glance at Zamba, who was relieving himself by a group of doom palm trees.

  The Mganga wore a look of deep concentration. His thick dark eyebrows met at a point in the middle of his forehead. I figured he was trying his psychic powers on us. I may have been right.

  Zamba had finished, and made his way to my side. He sat on his haunches and looked directly at the Mganga. I saw something I had seen him do before, on rare occasions, like his meeting with the blind girl, Dawn. Instead of looking at the medicine man, his eyes drifted to a point above him. There was a moment of tense, heavy silence, and then the Mganga gestured for us—me, Pippa, and the lion—to enter the tent.

  The inside of the tent was filled with rugs, tapestries, brass pots, a pile of coconuts hanging from a camel saddle, a huge stack of figs, and a number of cups of fat with sisal pushed down into the muck for wicks. Masses of pillows were scattered throughout.

  Lawrence followed us in and showed us where to sit. Zamba was given a large rug to lie on next to the entrance. For the next hour we spoke, through Lawrence, about many things. But whenever we asked a question regarding the Mganga’s psychic abilities, he would answer it with another question that was totally unrelated. He wouldn’t relinquish control of the conversation.

  “How did you know you were able to read people’s thoughts?” I asked.

  “Where did you acquire the lion?” he asked back.

  He wasn’t completely closed to us. He told us how he lived, and where his family came from. After an hour he rose, his head nearly touching the top of the tent. He spoke to Lawrence, bowed his hands in a prayerful gesture, and left.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “You have been given a tent and food for the night. Tomorrow we will speak with him again.”

  The tent we were given was very comfortable. Food was brought: goat cheese, some strange and delicious fruits I had never seen before (or since), as well as figs, coconuts, and camel milk. We ate gratefully, and sleep came easily soon after. Zamba slept with us.

  In the early morning, we were again called to sit cross-legged in the Mganga’s tent. One of his men brought us some camel milk mixed with herbs and spices. The Mganga apparently had prepared himself for some sort of a reading. He looked for a few minutes at Zamba, who was busy licking his paws. I strained to see something in Zamba that was not there before, but I couldn’t see anything special. I thought maybe I had hoped for too much.

  But then, as the man stared at Zamba, my lion turned his head and again stared at the spot directly above his head. He did this for some time, and then unselfconsciously returned to his preening.

  The Mganga sat cross-legged before us on the carpeted floor of the tent and spoke to Lawrence, who translated. “He has asked me to say exactly what he says. I must not interpret what he says, but repeat his exact words. What I speak—it will be as if he is speaking to you through me. So instead of ‘he wants,’ I’ll say, ‘I want.’

  “You, as well, are not to interpret what I say. You are to listen exactly what my words are.”

  The Mganga leaned forward and looked us directly in the eye. His voice was deep and penetrating, and he spoke in a monotone. As I listened to Lawrence’s voice and looked at the Mganga, a strange thing occurred. It was as though I could understand him, as though he were speaking English. I looked at Pippa and saw that she, too, was feeling the same thing. Lawrence’s voice became the Mganga’s voice, his words the Mganga’s words.

  This is what he said: “All that I will say, you will not believe, because you will not understand. And one must understand before he can believe.”

  He took out a beautiful container made of polished wood, and began to turn it in his hands. I could hear whatever was inside rattling around as it turned.

  “I am one of ten brothers,” the Mganga continued. “None of them has been able to do what I do. Many people have tried, none have succeeded. I do not know how I do what I do, nor why I am allowed to do it. I do know that what I do is true and real and is not to be questioned. If you sit with me, you must open your mind and heart, and in so doing, your spirit will come forth and tell you of what I say.”

  From the container he poured a few Arab beads into his hand, touching and rolling them between his fingers. He chose two from the ten or twelve in his hand and set the others in their own pile.

  “Things come to me and I give them to you. If you do not want to know these truths, then you must leave now. Otherwise, all that I see will be spoken.”

  We had no doubt that we wanted to continue, although we had no idea what we would hear.

  “Only when one distances himself from the world of noise and chaos can the mind hear the other side. The readings come from the earth around me, through me, not from me. They pass through me and I pick from them what I feel is important to have and give out. All of life is one. It is like a spider’s web. When one thing disrupts the web, it is felt by all. I feel I must be a single thread in the web of the world. How else would I feel the vibrations?”

  Again he poured more beads into his hand, felt them, and then separated a few out into the small pile.

  “It will not be necessary for you to ask me any questions. They will be answered in due course.”

  After some time, a number of beads had accumulated in the small pile on the rug in front of him. The large pile he returned to the container and set aside. He rolled and touched the smaller group in his hands for the rest of the time we were in the tent.

  As he rolled them, he spoke. “Each of these marbles carries the messages I am looking for. By rolling them in my hand, energy comes through clearly. Bwana, you and Pippa will not be together in the future. Your love for each other is strong, but another entity will separate you both in your early life.”

  Pippa gripped my hand tightly. That was not what we had planned. Tears came to her eyes.

  “Ralph, you have an ability that few others have, but your life has too many other things happening in it to allow your greatness to come through. You seek to communicate with nature, but it will be hindered by the multitude of things that come into your life. You have a compassion for all life. It is an attribute but also a detriment.

  “Zamba is a lion of the universe. He will not survive unless he is conditioned to cope with the knowledge you share with him in your life. The multitude of things in your life will hinder your ability to speak to one another.

  “The communication you seek is within your grasp through him but your world is far too congested for you to hear him. Listen in the quiet places and maybe you will hear him. You will not speak in your tongue or his to hear each other. You will speak within yourselves to hear each other. Zamba knows not of what I say here today, but he feels it and knows the feeling and warmth coming from it.

  “The communication you seek is found in the emotions of all living things, and in the energy of the earth. This is what you must learn to be able to speak to all things.”

  Each time the man made a significant statement, he dropped a bead into the container. Then he had one left. He looked at the bead, hesitated, and then dropped it into the bottle. What that bead represented, I will never know.

  “What…?”

  He waved his hand and set the container down.

  “I have welcomed you to my tent because of the unusua
l nature that you bring. Zamba and I are one.”

  For the first time he touched Zamba. He put his hand on his head and said a few Arabic words. Zamba’s head was down, as if in sleep.

  “Inshallah.” (“May God be with you.”)

  We bowed and thanked the man for his time and courtesy.

  We asked to pay, but he refused, asking only that we take with us his profound thoughts and use them to better our lives.

  Our Rover was loaded down with coconuts and figs. Palm fronds had been put on the roof and tied down to make shade for Zamba. A beautiful blanket was laid in the back for Zamba to lie on. Surely he had made an impression on the seer.

  Pippa and I drove for hours in silence. It felt as if we were emerging from a trance. What had just happened? Were we hypnotized? Maybe. I only know that whatever it was had a traumatic effect on both of us. If we were to believe the Mganga, then we had to believe that we would not be together.

  Zamba had no such qualms. He slept peacefully in the cool comfort of his palm-frond shelter.

  27

  I returned to the States from Africa in 1963. I was a much wiser man for the trip, and vowed to get back to that continent as often as I could. The experience had a much more profound effect on me than I could ever have imagined. I had grown up in many ways during the trip, taking in a “spark of enlightenment” from everyone I had come into contact with. The openness of the land and people reaffirmed my belief in the importance of respect for life and nature.

  As the Mganga had predicted, Pippa and I did in fact part ways, first when I came back to the States, and then again, in a much more permanent and devastating way than I ever could have imagined. About six weeks after I returned from Africa, I received a call. Pippa and a friend had been in an automobile accident. When the ambulance arrived with only enough room to take one person, Pippa had insisted that they take her friend. Waiting for them to return, she had a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died.

  The news shocked me to my very core. My relationship with Pippa had touched my life deeply, in every way. For me, she really did represent Africa and the possibilities of that continent. Devotion and love that deep don’t dissipate easily. It took me a long time to get over the loss. I was depressed for months, and found it hard to put Pippa’s death behind me.