The White Masai (7 page)

I feel more secure when we get to the Lodge. It’s really rather splendid, not as pompous as the one that Marco and I stayed in on the Masai-Mara. This is more modest but fits in better with the surrounding countryside. Compared with the native dwellings in Maralal, it’s like a mirage appearing in the desert. We stroll in, but it’s as dead as the tomb. We sit on the veranda, and indeed there at the water hole, just a hundred yards away, are herds of zebra. Over to the right a group of female baboons are tumbling around with their little ones. In their midst I spot an occasional huge male. They’re all trying to get at the water.

Eventually a waiter strolls up and asks what we want. Jutta chats to him in Swahili and orders a couple of Cokes. While we’re waiting she tells me with some satisfaction: ‘The manager of the Lodge will be back in an hour or so. He has a Land Rover and is sure to take us on up, so we may as well sit back and wait.’ Both of us retreat into our private thoughts. I look at the hills all around. I’d give a fortune to know on or behind which of them Lketinga was. And if he could feel my presence.

We end up waiting nearly two hours before the manager arrives. He’s a pleasant, unassuming, dark black man with no pretensions. He tells us to climb in, and a fifteen-minute shuttle takes us to our destination. We thank him, and Jutta shows me her workplace with pride. The house is a long concrete box divided into different rooms, two of which are nearly
finished. We can live in one of them. The room has just one bed and one chair. There are no windows so if you want to see, the doors have to be left wide open all day. I’m amazed that Jutta can feel at home in such a gloomy room. We light candles in order to see anything in the gathering darkness. Then we lie down together on the bed and make ourselves as comfortable as possible. I soon fall asleep from exhaustion.

We are woken early next morning by people noisily beginning work. First of all we clean ourselves thoroughly at a basin filled with cold water, which takes some courage but then I want to look pretty when I finally see my Masai again.

Ready and raring for action, I want to head down to Maralal and take a closer look at the town. Given how many Masai warriors were around when we arrived, the one Jutta knows has to be among them. I manage to infect Jutta with my enthusiasm, and after the ritual cup of tea we set off. Every now and then we overtake women or young girls heading in the same direction carrying milk in calabashes to sell in town.

‘What we need now are patience and good luck,’ says Jutta. ‘The main thing is to keep wandering around until we’re spotted, or I recognize someone.’ There’s not a lot to wander around. The single street runs in a sort of square with shops on either side. They’re all half empty, and most of them sell the same stuff. In between the shops there are a few boarding houses where you can buy something to eat or drink in the front room. The sleeping quarters are at the back, little compartments next to one another, like rabbit hutches. Then there’s the toilet: an earth closet, usually. If you’re lucky there might be a shower with a dribble of water. The most impressive building is the Commercial Bank, all concrete and fresh paint. Next to the bus stop there’s a petrol pump, but up until now I’ve only seen three cars: two Land Rovers and one pickup.

Our first tour of the village is rather fun. I look into every shop, and one or other of the shopkeepers tries to talk to us in English. All the time a whole pack of children drags along behind us laughing and talking excitedly. I only understand one word: ‘
Mzungu, mzungu
– white people, white people’.

About four o’clock in the afternoon we set off home again. My initial high has evaporated, even though logically I know I was never likely to find Lketinga on the first day. Jutta humours me: ‘Tomorrow there’ll be a whole new set of people in the village. Very few people actually live there,
and they’re not who we’re looking for. New faces show up every day. Tomorrow a few more people will know that there are two white women here because the ones who were here today will tell others out there in the bush.’ Jutta thinks it will be three or four days at least before there’s a real chance.

The days pass, and everything that was new and exciting about Maralal loses its appeal as I get to know every last corner of the place. Jutta showed my photos of Lketinga to a few warriors, but we got nothing more than suspicious looks. By the end of a week nothing’s happened except that we start to feel stupid doing the same thing every day. Jutta says she’ll come with me one more time, and then it’s up to me to show the photos around on my own. I pray that night that something will happen and that the whole long journey won’t have been wasted.

Next day we’re on our third circuit of the village when a man comes up and speaks to Jutta. The big holes in his earlobes lead me to recognize him as a former Samburu warrior. A lively conversation ensues, and I get the happy impression that Jutta knows him. His name is Tom, and when Jutta shows him the photos of Lketinga he looks at them long and hard before saying: ‘Yes, I know him.’

I feel like I’ve had an electric shock. But because the two are mostly speaking Swahili, I understand next to nothing. I keep asking Jutta: ‘What is it? What does he know about Lketinga?’ We go into a restaurant and sit down for Jutta to translate. Yes, he knows him, not very well, but he knows that this man lives at home with his mother and takes the cattle out every day. ‘Where does he live?’ I ask in excitement. It’s a long way, he says, about seven hours on foot for a fit man. There’s thick jungle on the way, which can be dangerous because of elephants and buffalo. Even then, he can’t be absolutely sure that the mother still lives at the same place – Barsaloi – because people move about with their animals, depending on the water supply.

Hearing this makes Lketinga seem as distant as ever once again, and I’m at my wits’ end. ‘Jutta, ask him if there’s any way to get a message to him. I’m ready to pay.’ Tom has a think and says he can take a letter from me tomorrow evening, but first he’d have to tell his new wife, who’s still new to Maralal and doesn’t know anyone. We settle on a fee, giving him half now and the other half when he comes back with some news. I dictate a letter for Jutta to write in Swahili. The Samburu says we should
be back in Maralal in four days’ time because if he finds Lketinga and he wants to come with him, they would be back during that day.

Four long days, during which I pray every evening. By the last days my nerves are at breaking point. On the one hand, I’m really excited; but on the other, I know that if it hasn’t worked, I’ll have to go back to Mombasa and try to forget the love of my life. I take my bag with me because I’ve decided to spend the night in the village rather than Jutta’s house. One way or the other, with or without Lketinga, I’m leaving Maralal tomorrow.

Jutta and I traipse around the town like before. After three hours we split up and go in opposite directions to give ourselves more chance of being spotted. On one circuit I fail to bump into Jutta at the usual halfway point. I stroll on, however, until all of a sudden a little boy runs up to me calling, ‘
Mzungu, mzungu
, come, come.’ He’s grabbing at my arm and pulling my skirt. At first I think something’s happened to Jutta. The boy pulls me towards the first set of boarding houses, where I’ve left my bag, speaking in Swahili all the time. Then he points behind the house.

W
ith my heart hammering, I follow the direction he’s pointing and peer around the corner of the houses. And there he is! My Masai! Standing there next to Tom and laughing at me. I’m speechless. Still laughing, he holds out his arms and says: ‘Hey, Corinne, no kiss for me?’ Only then do I shake myself out of a stupor and rush towards him. We fall into each other’s arms, and it is as if the world stops turning. Then he holds me at arm’s length and says: ‘No problem, Corinne.’ The same old words that right now make me want to weep with happiness.

Then Jutta appears from behind me to share our delight. ‘There you are, then, together again! I recognized him straight away and brought him here so that the two of you could greet each other without the whole village looking on.’ I thank Tom with all my heart and tell him we’re all going for tea, and then the two men can eat as much meat as they want, all on my tab! We go into the room I’ve taken, sit on the bed and take a look at the menu. Jutta has spoken to Lketinga and told him that there’s no problem for him to eat with us because we’re not Samburu women. He consults with Tom and in the end agrees.

There he is at last! I can’t take my eyes off him, and he keeps his big beautiful eyes on me. I want to know why he didn’t come to Mombasa. It turns out he really didn’t get any of my letters. Twice he went to see about the passport, but the official just laughed at him and teased him. The other warriors took against him too and wouldn’t let him join in their dances for the tourists. If he couldn’t dance he couldn’t make any money and saw no reason to stay any longer down by the coast. So after about a month he decided to go home. He didn’t believe anymore that I was
coming back. Once he tried to telephone me from the Africa Sea Lodge, but nobody would help him, and the manager told him the phone was for tourists only.

On the one hand I’m touched by all the effort he made: on the other, I’m absolutely furious at his so-called ‘friends’ who only caused problems instead of helping him. When I tell him that I want to stay in Kenya now and not go back to Switzerland, he says ‘It’s okay. You stay now with me!’ Jutta and Tom the messenger leave us to get on with our happy attempts at conversation. Lketinga says it’s a shame that we can’t go back to his home because there’s a drought and not enough food. Apart from milk there’s nothing to eat, and in any case there isn’t a spare house. I tell him I don’t mind as long as we’re together. So he suggests that first we go back to Mombasa. There will be time enough for me to get to know his home and his mother, but he wants to introduce me to his brother James, who goes to school in Maralal. James is the only one of the family to have been to school. He can tell James he’s gone back to Mombasa with me, and when he goes home in the school holidays he can tell their mother.

The school is about a mile from the village. They have strict rules. Boys and girls play in separate playgrounds. But they all dress alike: the girls in simple blue dresses, the boys in blue trousers and white shirts. I wait to one side while Lketinga goes over to the boys. Soon they’re all staring at him and then at me. He chats with them, and then one of them runs off and comes back with another boy, who goes up to Lketinga and greets him respectfully. They talk for a bit, and then both come over to me. James holds out his hand with a friendly smile and shakes mine. I put him at about sixteen. He speaks very good English and says he sorry he can’t come into the village with us because they just have a short break and they aren’t allowed out in the evenings. The headmaster is very strict, he says. Then the bell rings and in the blink of an eye they’ve all gone, including James.

We go back into the village, and I suggest we might retire to the room in the boarding house, but Lketinga laughs and says: ‘This is Maralal, not Mombasa!’ It seems that a man and woman don’t go into a room together until it’s dark and then as inconspicuously as possible. It’s not that I’m desperate for sex – after all, I know what it’s like – but after all these months I could do with some physical contact.

We stroll around Maralal, and I keep a respectable distance, as this seems the thing to do. Every now and then he talks to other warriors or
a few girls. The girls are all young and with pretty jewellery and quickly cast a curious glance in my direction and then giggle, whereas the warriors look me over in more detail. I seem to be the subject of most of the conversations, which makes me uncomfortable because I don’t know what anyone’s saying. I can hardly wait for it to get dark.

At the market Lketinga buys a little plastic bag with red powder, pointing at his hair and his war paint. On one of the other stalls someone is selling little stalks with leaves, tied together in bundles about eight inches long. There’s a real argument going on between the five or six men examining them.

Lketinga heads for this stall too. The salesman takes some newspaper and wraps up two bundles. Lketinga pays a fat price for them and quickly sticks them under the kanga cloth wrapped around him. On the way back to the boarding house he buys at least ten sticks of chewing gum. When we get to the room I ask him about the plant. He beams at me and says: ‘
Miraa
, it’s very good. You eat this, no sleeping!’ He gets everything out, pops a bit of chewing gum in his mouth and separates the leaves from the stalks. He uses his teeth to strip the bark from the stalks and chews it along with the gum. I watch in fascination how elegantly his beautiful long thin hands move. I have a go, but it’s far too bitter for me, and I spit it out immediately. I lie down on the bed and feel happy just watching him and holding his hand. I feel as if I could hug the entire world. I’ve attained my goal. I’ve found my one great love again, and tomorrow we’ll go back to Mombasa and start our wonderful life together.

I must have fallen asleep only to wake up and find Lketinga still sitting there, chewing away. The floor looks like a bin or worse with leaves, stripped stalks and spat-out green lumps all over the place. He looks at me with a steady gaze, strokes my hair and says: ‘No problem, Corinne, you tired, you sleep, tomorrow safari.’ ‘And you?’ I ask him. ‘You not tired?’ No, he says, before a long journey he can’t sleep, that’s why he’s eating
miraa
.

The way he says it, I get the impression that this
miraa
is the equivalent of Dutch courage, for Masai warriors are not allowed to touch alcohol. I can understand that he needs courage because he doesn’t know what lies ahead of us, and his experience of Mombasa was not exactly the best. This is his world. Mombasa may be in Kenya, but it’s not where his tribe comes from. I’ll help him, I tell myself, and go back to sleep.

The next morning we have to get up early to get seats on the only bus that goes to Nyahururu. But as Lketinga hasn’t been to bed, that’s not a problem. I’m amazed by how fit he is and the way he can just set out on such a long journey spontaneously with no luggage, wearing just jewellery and some cloth and carrying his stick.

This is just the first stage. Lketinga has secreted the rest of the
miraa
somewhere and chews on the same piece. He’s quiet, and somehow there isn’t the same atmosphere as on the bus Jutta and I arrived on.

Once again the bus lurches through thousands of potholes. Lketinga has pulled his second kanga cloth over his head so that only his eyes can be seen, and his beautiful hair is protected from the dust. I hold a handkerchief against my nose and mouth so that I can halfway breathe. About half way Lketinga nudges me and points to a long grey hill. It’s only when I take a longer look that I realize that I’m looking at hundreds of elephants. It’s a phenomenal sight: these giant creatures as far as the eye can see with their little ones among them. The bus comes alive with chatter as everyone stares at the vast herd; from what I can gather, it’s a rare sight.

At last the first stage is behind us, and by midday we’re in Nyahururu. We go for tea, or ‘
chai
’, and a lump of bread. The next bus to Nairobi’s in just half an hour, and we’ll get there by nightfall. I suggest to Lketinga that we spend the night there and get the bus to Mombasa in the morning. He doesn’t want to stay in Nairobi because the boarding houses charge too much. Given that I’m paying for everything, I find that touching and reassure him, but he still reckons Nairobi is dangerous and there are too many police. Despite the fact that we’ve been on a bus since seven this morning, he wants to do the longest stretch of the journey all at once. And when I notice how unsure of himself he seems in Nairobi, I agree.

We get something to eat and drink quickly, and I’m happy that at least he’s eating with me, even if he pulls the kanga across his face so that no one will recognize him. The bus station isn’t far, and we walk the few hundred yards. Here in Nairobi even the natives give Lketinga strange looks: some laughing, some respectful. He doesn’t fit into this hectic modern city. When I realize that, I’m glad the passport didn’t work out.

Eventually we get ourselves onto one of the sought-after night buses and wait for it to set off. Lketinga gets more
miraa
out and starts chewing again. I try to relax but my whole body hurts. Only my heart is at peace.
After four hours, during which I’ve dozed on and off, the bus stops in Voi. Most people, including me, climb out to answer the call of nature. But when I see the fouled state of the hole in the ground that serves as a toilet, I decide to hold on for another four hours. I get back on the bus with two bottles of Coke. Half an hour later we set off again. Now I can’t get back to sleep at all. We hurtle through the night on dead straight roads. Every now and then we pass a bus going the opposite way. There are almost no cars.

Twice we go through police checkpoints. The bus has to stop because they have laid wooden planks with long nails across the road. Then a policeman, armed with an automatic weapon, walks along each side of the bus and shines his torch in every face. After five minutes we’re allowed to continue again. I’m still trying to get comfortable when I see a sign that says ‘157 miles to Mombasa’. Thank God, not too far now to home. Lketinga still hasn’t slept a wink. This
miraa
obviously really does keep you awake. The only thing is that his eyes stare more than normal, and he doesn’t seem to want to talk. It disquiets me a bit. But then there’s the smell of salt in the air, and the temperature starts to rise. Nairobi’s cold and damp are just a memory.