The White Masai (20 page)

A
week after the wedding we go to Maralal to find out about getting a shopkeeper’s licence for Lketinga. This time a friendly official says things ought to go quickly. We fill out all the forms and are told to look in again in three days’ time. As we’ll urgently need weighing scales for the shop, we head off to Nyahururu. I also want to buy wire netting so that we can display our wares on the shelves better because I want to offer our customers potatoes, carrots, cabbage, oranges, bananas and other things.

But we can’t find any scales in Nyahururu. It turns out they’re very expensive and only to be had in Nairobi. Lketinga is not very happy, but we definitely need scales so we catch the bus to our despised Nairobi. There are scales everywhere there but at widely differing prices. In the end we buy the cheapest on offer – three hundred and fifty Swiss francs for a heavy set of scales with all the weights – and head back to Maralal. Once there we start going round all the wholesalers and markets to find out the best available prices for what we want. My husband finds everything too dear, but I reckon that with a bit of sharp haggling we can get the same prices as the Somalis. The biggest wholesaler offers to organize a lorry to deliver our goods to Barsaloi.

Hoping for the best, we go into the office on the third day only to find the official says there’s just one little problem: we have to get a certificate from the veterinary surgeon in Barsaloi that the shop is clean, and also before he can give us a licence we have to have a portrait of the president which has to hang in every shop. Lketinga wants to curse the man, but I restrain him. In any case I want to go back home to settle the rental agreement for the shop and arrange things so that we can stock up
properly. We also need to find a shop assistant because my command of the language is too poor, and my husband can’t add up.

That evening we go to visit Sophia and her boyfriend. She has just come back from Italy, and we have lots of news to exchange. In passing she lets me know that she is three months’ pregnant. I’m really pleased to hear it because I’ve come to believe that I’m in the same situation myself. I’m just not one hundred percent certain like she is. Sophia has regular morning sickness, which I don’t. She’s astonished to hear about my business plans. But I have to earn money because the car is a huge drain on my cash reserves.

We do the rental deal in Barsaloi and are now happy shop-owners. I spend days cleaning the dusty shelving and nail the wire netting to it. I’m throwing out the old planks in the back room when I hear a hissing and see a green snake’s head disappear behind the remaining bits of wood. I run out in panic shouting: ‘Snake, snake!’ A few men take a look, but when they see what I’m talking about, nobody dares go into the room anymore.

It’s not long before half a dozen people have gathered, but no one knows what to do until a big Turkana man with a long stick comes along. He goes in and carefully starts poking around in the woodpile. He knocks one piece of wood after another out of the way until eventually a snake about a yard long shows itself. The Turkana attacks like a madman in an attempt to kill it, but the snake eludes his blows and slithers out of the door towards us. Like greased lightning a Samburu boy stabs the creature with his spear; and it’s only then, when I realize how dangerous the situation was, that my knees start to shake.

My husband comes back about an hour later, having been to see the vet who gave him the certificate on the condition that within a month we install an earth closet toilet outside the shop. Another thing! A few people, mostly Turkanas, volunteer to dig the nine-foot deep hole and build the rest but, including their materials, the bill comes to six hundred Swiss francs. There’s no end to the outgoings, and I hope I start to see some income soon.

I tell Fathers Giuliani and Roberto about my plans to open a shop. They’re delighted because for half the year there’s not even maize to be had. I don’t mention my pregnancy, not even in a letter home to Switzerland. Although I’m very happy, I know how easy it is to become sick here, and I don’t want to upset anybody.

At long last the great day is here, and we set off intending to come back with a lorry-load of goods. We’ve found a pleasant shop assistant, Anna, the wife of the village policeman. She’s sturdy and has already worked in Maralal and with a bit of work can even manage some English.

In Maralal we go to the Commercial Bank to find out if the money I’d asked for from Switzerland has arrived yet. We’re in luck, and I withdraw the equivalent of nearly five thousand francs to buy our supplies. Lketinga has never seen so much money in his life. We ask the Somali wholesaler when a lorry will be available to come out to Barsaloi. He says because the riverbeds are all dry at the moment the journey is no problem for the heavy lorries and there’ll be one available in two days.

We stock up. The lorry costs three hundred francs so we have to make the most of its ten-ton fully laden capacity. I order eighty two-
hundred-pound
sacks of maize meal, fifteen two-hundred-pound sacks of sugar: an absolute fortune for here. When I go to pay the bill Lketinga takes back the bundle of notes and says I’m giving the Somalis too much. He wants to be in charge of everything. I’m on the verge of getting annoyed with him for running down everybody else when he can’t even count. He stacks the money up in piles, and nobody else understands what he’s playing at. In my best angelic tones I persuade my husband to give me the money back, and in front of him I count out the money again. When there’s three thousand shillings left over he says angrily, ‘See, it’s far too much!’ I calm him down explaining that this is the rent for the lorry. He looks crossly at the three Somalis, but in the end the goods are paid for and put aside for us until the lorry gets here. I drive around the village, buying two hundred pounds of rice here, two hundred pounds of potatoes there and cabbage and onions somewhere else.

By the end of the afternoon our lorry is finally loaded. It’ll be close on eleven before we reach Barsaloi. I put the breakable items, such as bottles of Fanta, cola and mineral water, into the Land Rover along with the tomatoes, bananas, bread, Omo, margarine, tea and a few other bits and bobs. The car is jam-packed. I plan to take the jungle route rather than the main road so that I can get back to Barsaloi in two hours. Lketinga is going with the lorry driver because he believes with some justification that otherwise things might disappear en route.

The game warden and two women come with me. The car is so loaded up I soon have to switch to four-wheel drive to manage the uphill
stretch leading to the forest. It takes time to get used to driving with so much on board, nearly seven hundred kg in all. Every now and then we lurch into puddles of water, which in the thick forest never quite dry out.

The meadow where I came across the buffalo is empty. I struggle in Swahili to talk to my front-seat passenger about our business plans. Just before the oblique ‘drop of death’ there’s a sharp S-bend, and when I turn into the narrow bit suddenly there’s a huge grey wall in front of us. I brake like mad but the weight gives the vehicle so much momentum that it rolls on steadily – towards a great bull elephant. ‘Stop, stop the car!’ screams the game warden. I try everything, including the handbrake but that no longer works very well. Eventually we come to a halt just ten feet away from the animal’s enormous backside. The elephant slowly tries to turn around on the narrow path. Quickly I engage reverse gear. In the back the women are screaming, they want to get out. By now the elephant has turned around and is staring at us with its big button eyes. He swings his trunk high in the air and trumpets, the powerful tusks making him even more threatening. Our car slides slowly backwards, we’re now twenty feet away, but the game warden reckons we’ll only be out of danger when he can no longer see us: in other words, once we get round the bend. Because the car is packed full and doesn’t have a rear-view mirror I can’t see behind us and the game warden has to give me directions. I only hope I’m interpreting them correctly.

At last we’re far enough back that, although we can still hear the elephant, we can no longer see him, and only now do I realize my knees are knocking. I daren’t think what would have happened if we’d crashed into the monster or if the engine had conked out when I tried to reverse.

The game warden can still smell the elephant. Ironically this is the one day he doesn’t have his gun with him. We’re about ninety yards away now, but we still can hear him bending back trees. When it goes silent we wait, and then the game warden creeps forward to the bend in the road. He comes back to tell us that the elephant is defending his turf and quietly grazing along the path, having knocked over small trees on either side.

Gradually it grows dark, and horseflies start sticking to us and biting. Nobody but the game warden dares to get out. After an hour the big bull elephant is still blocking the path. I’m getting annoyed because we still have a long way to go, and I’m going to have to negotiate the scree slope heavily laden in the dark. As nothing has happened to change things, the
warden picks up some big stones and creeps along to the bend where he starts throwing them into the thick forest, causing thumps and rustling. It works: before long the elephant has left the path.

When we reach Barsaloi I drive directly to the shop and unload in the light of the headlamps. Thank God a few people help me out. Then I go to our
manyatta
. A while later the boy from next door comes and tells me there are two lights in the distance. Lketinga’s big brother is on the lookout as well. Now everyone is excited: our lorry is coming. A Samburu lorry!

I go into the shop with the brother to wait there. The vet turns up too and brings an oil lamp from his log cabin. We set it on the counter, and immediately the place feels homely. I wonder where to put everything and what to display. More and more people stroll by, waiting for the lorry.

At last it rolls up with a threatening roar. It’s an overwhelming sensation for me, and I’m supremely happy that from now on Barsaloi will have a shop that will always have food. Nobody need go hungry anymore because there’ll always be enough to buy. Lketinga climbs out of the lorry proudly and says hello to a few people, including the game warden. He listens to his story with horror but then comes up to me laughing and says: ‘Hello wife, really you have seen an elephant?’ ‘Yes, sure!’ He puts his hand on his head and says: ‘Crazy, this is very dangerous, really Corinne, very dangerous!’ ‘Yes, I know, but now we are okay,’ I reply, looking for someone to help with the unloading.

We do a deal with three men who sometimes also work for the Somalis. First of all, the rice and potatoes have to be stored away, and the back room, which is to be our storeroom, is filled with the sacks of maize and sugar. Everything else is piled up in the shop.

Everyone works hard, and in half an hour the lorry is empty and disappears into the night back towards Maralal. We’re standing in total chaos surrounded by Omo and tea chests. The first customers arrive, wanting to buy sugar. But I refuse to start selling; it’s too late and we have to sort everything out first. We lock up the shop and go off to our
manyatta
.

The next morning as usual we’re sitting in the sun with the animals when a few women come up to the
manyatta
. Lketinga asks what they want: they want to know when the shop will be opening. Lketinga wants to open up straight away, but I tell him to explain that nothing will be sold before noon, because we have to unpack everything first and Anna isn’t here yet.

Anna has a good eye for arranging things on the shelves, and after a couple of hours the shop looks perfect. There are already some fifty men and women waiting outside for us to open. The wire netting works well. Below the counter I’ve laid out potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions, oranges and mangos. Two hands of bananas are hanging from the ceiling on a rope. On the shelves behind are different sized packets of Omo, tins of
Kimbo-brand
fat, powdered tea, toilet paper, which is later to sell remarkably well, various soaps, all sorts of sweets and matches. Next to the scales we place a sack each of sugar, maize meal and rice. We clean the floor once again and open the doors.

For an instant the sunlight blinds us, and then the women pour in, a multicoloured wave of people washing towards me. The shop is full to bursting. Everyone is reaching out kangas or homemade cloth bags. Anna begins to dole out maize meal, while I also serve meal or sugar. Most people just throw money down on the counter and ask for various things, which means we have to do some speedy sums.

In barely an hour the first big sack of meal has been sold and half the sugar. I’m glad that I wrote prices on everything first. Even so, everything is all over the place. The box that we’re using as a till is overflowing by evening and we’ve sold nearly twelve hundredweight of maize meal, four hundredweight of sugar and all sort of other things. As it starts to get dark we try to close, but one child or another turns up looking for sugar for supper. Eventually we close at seven. I can barely stand up or move my arms anymore. Anna goes home equally tired and exhausted.

On the one hand, it’s been a huge success: on the other, the rush has got me thinking, is it going to be like this tomorrow from morning to night? I have to go down to the river to wash, but when will I find the time?

By eight the next morning we’re back at the shop where Anna’s already waiting. Business is slow to start with but from nine o’clock until noon the shop is packed full. The boxes of mineral water, Coke, Fanta and Sprite are soon emptied. People here have had to do without for so long.

A lot of the warriors or boys just hang around for hours, either in the shop or just outside, chatting. The women and girls sit against the walls in the shade. Even the wives of the vet, the doctor and the bush teacher come and buy pounds of potatoes and fruit. Everyone is delighted to have such a great shop. Of course I can see that it lacks a few things.