Reunion in Barsaloi (15 page)

T
oday is not just Sunday but also Albert’s birthday. Of course he tries to hide the fact and of course he doesn’t get away with it. I’ve made sure of that. At breakfast we’re already singing ‘Happy Birthday’ with Giuliani’s strong voice dominating all the others. Then the priest has to get ready for mass, which leaves the rest of us with an hour to kill. Klaus grabs his camera equipment and we set out along the track on which the cows came home the previous night. Before long we arrive at the dried-up river bed that runs between the magnificent rocks. Klaus and I decide this is the best spot to capture Albert’s birthday for posterity. We sit down on the rocks and Klaus films me handing him his birthday present. After all, not everyone can say they’ve celebrated a birthday on a dried-up river bed deep in the African bush and opened a present bought on Bahnhofstrasse in Zürich. Albert is rather touched and we all have a laugh together.

But as ever we discover that even this little birthday ceremony attracts attention: no sooner have we sat ourselves down than a couple of children pop up out of the ground and sit a few feet away watching us without expression. It’s half an hour before their attention wavers and they gradually steal silently away.

We arrive back at the Mission with the first churchgoers. Almost all of them are women and girls in traditional dress. Most have children with them. First of all the little ones are given a cup of
utschi
– runny maize porridge – and then they and their mothers sit down on the benches in the church. More and more people arrive to fill up the
manyatta
-church. Some of them stop for a moment and give us – particularly Klaus with all his photographic equipment – scowls; others, however, pay next to no
attention to us. Most of the children are wearing just a simple red school skirt, but the women have done themselves up and are wearing their best clean brightly coloured kangas. Their faces are glistening from the fat they’ve rubbed into them and they have coloured headbands around their foreheads. Some even have the giraffe-hair necklaces, which are seen more and more rarely these days and normally only worn at big festivals.

However, if seems that for these women coming to church on Sunday is a festival in its own right. They sing and clap along to the wonderful African hymns with such joyful gusto that it warms the heart. The hymns are accompanied by a little drum and two tambourines made out of willow branches and labels from bottles. The songs are all rhythmic and lively and some of the women get so carried away that they bob up and down with their heads just like they do during the traditional dances. Most of them sing out loud and clear and all of them are in tune. This all goes on until Father Giuliani comes out with a metal box, takes his altar cloth out of it and spreads it on an ordinary table. He lays this simple altar table with a coloured cloth and sets down a chalice of wine and the salver with the host on it.

By now this round hut, identifiable as a Christian church only by virtue of a simple wooden cross and a few paper pictures of Mary and the baby Jesus, is absolutely packed. There are even a few old men in the back row, which says something for Father Giuliani. To get a Samburu man into church takes some doing. In between the hymns Giuliani speaks to them in Swahili, which is simultaneously translated into Maa by one of the Samburus. Towards the end of the mass the host is dispensed and another hymn sung. Then in conclusion everyone shakes hands with their neighbour. I look at the striking faces of the women present and gather that coming to church like this is not just a change of routine but a genuine pleasure. The mass over, Giuliani puts his altar cloth and vessels away while his translator hands out chewing tobacco to the elders for their journey home. As a church service, this was for us an impressive experience that will leave a lasting memory.

B
ut now it really is time to be heading back to Barsaloi. After a long drive we approach the outer suburbs of Baragoi, the main town of the Turkana. I can’t help thinking of the unprovoked attack that took place a few years ago. It was from here that the Turkana set out to attack the Samburu. We turn off the road just before we get to the main settlement and all at once it starts bucketing with rain. We can hardly see the surface of the road under a brown river rushing towards us. Luckily this is just the earliest stage of the rainy season and the ground is still extremely dry so it doesn’t immediately turn to mud and we can drive on. I only hope it isn’t raining in Barsaloi or else we’re going to have problems getting enough fires going to cook all the food for the party. Giuliani reassures me but says it will definitely hit the film crew down at Wamba.

After a long slow journey on the wet tracks we pass the place where Lketinga and I, years ago, got stuck with a dead car battery. It took Lketinga several hours to run back to ask Giuliani for help while I waited out here in the scorching heat alone with a baby. Four hours in all! But all that came by was a herd of zebras and a few ostriches. Giuliani remembers the occasion and shakes his head and laughs: ‘Now, Corinne, that wasn’t the only time I had to get you out of a fix!’

Soon after, we reach Barsaloi and to my relief it’s cloudy but there’s been no rain. Father Giuliani has to hurry, though, if he’s still to get across the potentially dangerous Wamba River. We agree to meet up for one last meal in Kenya together in Nairobi, say our goodbyes and he sets off towards Wamba at high speed.

The drivers are already fixing up the sleeping accommodation at the parking spot next to the Mission. We head over to the corral where there are already lots of party guests waiting for us. James looks obviously relieved to see us: ‘Thank God, you’re back. We’ve been cooking all day and there’s masses of food. The first guests arrived this morning already and everybody’s starving. But I told them there’d be no food until you got back!’ I ask how Lketinga’s been and find he’s been working hard. He and his older brother have slaughtered four goats between them and divided up all of the meat to be cooked at the various huts.

As we enter the corral I feel almost overwhelmed. People come running up to me from all sides calling out as ever: ‘
Supa, Mama Napirai
,
seian a ge?
’ I shake hands all round and get spat on in blessing a few times. Most of them I recognize at least by sight. There are three dozen women clustered around Mama’s hut alone waiting patiently. I only get to greet Mama by shaking her hand like all the others. I’m pleased to see, however, that she’s wearing her new flowery coloured skirt. She’s sitting with her daughter by the door to the hut smiling happily.

James suggests we get on with dishing out the food. Before long the goats will be coming home and then the women will all have work to do. Nonetheless, according to tradition, the men have to eat their fill before the women can start. We’re a bit embarrassed that everything’s been ready for hours but they’ve been waiting for us to get here.

Lketinga is wearing his new red shirt. He takes my arm and leads me into one of the rooms in James’s house where giant platters laden with boiled rice, beans and meat are laid out. I’m very impressed by the lengths they’ve gone to. It looks like enough food to feed five hundred. Papa Saguna stands by the door where there’s a queue of men with plates. Lketinga has a brief word with him to say it’s time to start. His brother takes enormous pains to make sure the food is all served out properly, while Lketinga tells me how they were busy all day getting things ready so our guests could really enjoy the party. I’m astounded by what they’ve managed to lay on and how smoothly everything goes.

We Europeans, however, find ourselves standing around looking lost as it all looks more like a charity food handout than a party. When I lived here the parties were different. Because we lived outside the village all the parties took place on the open savannah and the guests sat and ate in little groups spread out picturesquely across the landscape. Then when they had
eaten their fill, they lined up in groups of the same age to dance to rhythmic singing, and there was a kind of magic in the air.

Today, however, the family and their corral are integrated into the village and the meal is being served inside the four walls of a house, and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any dancing. Perhaps it’s because this is a leaving party rather than a wedding feast or the celebration of a birth or some other more joyous occasion.

I go back to Mama’s
manyatta
and sit down on the ground between her and her daughter. She’s dandling Saruni on her lap with a serious look on her face. Different women keep coming up to me for a chat, some of them asking if I’m now coming back to stay with my ‘
lepayian
’, my husband. Others, understandably, want to hear news of Napirai. Some of them suggest I should bring her back here and both of us should stay for good. I can hardly tell these good-natured souls that my daughter has become so Swiss she would almost certainly hate it here. Instead I tell them that the next time I come to visit she may well come with me to find out more about her African roots.

The women are by and large happy to sit and wait patiently until it’s their turn to eat. James comes over and at least hands out some chewing tobacco. For a laugh I put my hand out too, but when I put the bitter stuff in my mouth, there’s a great commotion. Mama makes it abundantly clear with energetic gestures that I should spit it all out immediately. Lketinga’s sister spits on the ground next to me and tells me to do the same. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about as virtually everybody else is chewing away at the stuff. James tells me it’ll give me stomach problems. Apart from anything else, I’m still too young: only the old women chew tobacco. I don’t really understand any of this there and then and it’s only later in the hospital in Wamba that I find out more. But I do what I’m told and spit it all out on the ground. Some of them laugh and clap their hands but a few of them give me dirty looks.

One woman in particular grabs my attention because I’m certain I’ve never seen her before. Her shaven head is unusually shiny in the sun, her eyes are set wide apart and there are two sharp vertical lines in her forehead between her eyebrows. Her lips are puckered closed. She reaches out her hand to me, however, as if she’s known me for years and asks after Napirai, her eyes twinkling almost maliciously. There are really nasty vibes coming from this woman. There’s something about her aura I don’t like
and I make an excuse of getting up to go and see how long it’ll be before the women can finally get to eat. On the way to the house I spot Lketinga’s young wife with two other girls behind Mama’s
manyatta
. She watches me with interest. I wonder what on earth’s going on in her head.

Lketinga is keeping careful watch over the shrinking queue of waiting men. James asks me to come into the house so that at last we too can eat. But I don’t want to start until the other women present are allowed to. I’ve spotted a few of the men already queuing up for seconds. I ask James rather tetchily when it’ll finally be the turn of the women and children, who’ve been sitting there looking on for more than an hour already, all with their plates in their hands. James says simply: ‘It’ll be the turn of the women when all the men have had enough.’ I’m starting to get angry now because the goats will be coming back soon and then the women won’t have time to eat. I go over to stand next to Lketinga to see if I can get him to have some sympathy for the women. ‘
Pole, pole
– slowly, slowly,’ he says in an attempt to calm me down, ‘the last ones will soon have had their fill.’ Then he goes over and has a word with his older brother.

They really are doing their best, but I’m a woman and I would like to see the women and children eat their fill too. I glance into the dining room and see three men sitting around the pots feeding their faces. The concrete floor is littered with gnawed bones. I’m relieved to see, however, that there’s enough left. At last the final few men leave the room and Lketinga calls the women over. Immediately there’s a great line of women heading in our direction. But they all form a queue without any fuss and wait their turn patiently. Then when they have filled their plates they stand around the chicken coops to eat on their feet, feeding bit and pieces all the time to the little children carried on their backs. The women chew the food first to soften it to a pulp, which they then pop into the hungry little mouths. I had to feed Napirai like that too once upon a time, as there was no such thing as baby food out here. I notice that any children who join the queue are chased away. When I mention it to James he tells me: ‘It’s up to their mothers to fetch food for them and they have to wait so that one family doesn’t get a double portion and another nothing at all.’

I wander around looking at happy satisfied faces everywhere. All of a sudden the man who pointed out Lketinga’s wife to me appears in front of me to say what a great success the party is, as so many people, particularly among the older people, have turned up. Apparently even the
woman who practices the so-called ‘female circumcision’ is there, which is considered a great honour as she’s held in high respect. I realize he’s indicating the woman who made such an evil impression on me in Mama’s
manyatta
. So she’s the one who inflicts so much suffering on young girls in the name of tradition. Now I understand why I had such a negative reaction on meeting her. I feel a shiver run down my spine at the thought that in different circumstances a woman like her might be mutilating my daughter.

There are still woman queuing up when the goats arrive back a little while later. Things all get a bit chaotic in the corral as it fills up with animals and some of the women and girls hurry off home with their full plates so they can get on with their work. I reckon it’s time for me to go back to the house and get something to eat now, when once again my ‘informant’ pops up to tell me Lketinga’s wife wishes to shake my hand. I’m curious so I go with him.

She’s standing with two other girls beside the half-finished
manyatta
. I hold out my hand to her and say ‘
Supa
’ as a hello. She giggles in embarrassment and hides half her face behind her hand. The man says something to her and she reaches out her hand to me shyly. I’m probably the first white person she’s ever touched. Her plumpish face still looks like that of a child. I say hello to the other two young girls and my ‘informant’ tells me they too are already married.

I’m really shocked by this. One of the girls is a whole head smaller than Lketinga’s wife and looks no older than twelve at most. I let the man know how shocked I am and he says: ‘Yes, it’s crazy but she belongs to that man over there.’ But before I can work out whom he means I see Lketinga charging over towards us with an angry expression. But before I can work out what he’s so upset about, he’s already cursing at us, giving a right mouthful to his wife too. She turns her head away in shame while I try to calm him down, saying I was really pleased to get to know his wife. But he won’t listen and insists that I don’t talk to her anymore: no good will come of it. I stomp off to James’s house in annoyance, with absolutely no idea what could have got Lketinga so worked up.

James is chatting with Albert and Klaus. His wife is standing a little way away from them while Saruni clings to her father. There’s no sign of Little Albert. When we ask where he is, James lays a finger on his lips and says: ‘Can anyone hear a little bell tinkling?’ We all listen hard and then
realize it’s Little Albert playing outside in the dark. We have to laugh when James tells us that they attach a bell to the toddler’s foot when he goes out so it’s easier to find him.

Stefania fetches a big pot of chunks of meat and sets it on the table. We all tuck in, James taking care to point out the best bits to us. By now we’re chewing at the meat on the bone too. There’s rice and beans to go with it.

In a while Papa Saguna comes in and sits down with us, filling a plate for himself. He never sits on a chair, just hunkers down, leaning back against the wall. Normally he’s very quiet but when he does speak he gets quite animated. It seems as if now he’s telling some good stories about the preparations for the party. At the end of his account he spits on the floor, like an exclamation mark! Everybody has a funny tale of their own to tell now and there’s a real party mood in the house. When Klaus and Albert say they’ve had enough to eat after just a couple of pieces of meat each there’s a gale of astonished laughter from the brothers.

As we’re trying to tell them about our visit to Father Giuliani, I suddenly remember my little tape recorder, which I used to record the magnificent singing during the mass. I turn it on and everyone pricks up their ears.

Little Saruni’s perked up and comes over to me, pressing the recorder to her ear in delight, her head nodding along with the music. She even manages to get her shy brother Little Albert to put the thing to his ear and we all sit there entranced watching the pair of them, his little eyes growing ever bigger and rounder.

Only Lketinga puts a bit of a damper on things, sitting there saying hardly a word. I get the feeling he’s already thinking about our departure because he keeps giving me long, penetrating looks. Suddenly out of the blue he asks: ‘What time are you leaving tomorrow?’

‘As soon as we’ve done our packing we’ll go in to see the priest in the Mission to say farewell and then come down to the corral to drink tea with Mama.’

‘Okay, no problem, Mama wants to give you her blessing and that of
Enkai
[the Samburu word for God]. I will come with you as far as Maralal.’ I’m surprised and delighted to hear this because it means we can stretch out the goodbyes.

By now Stefania and the children have already retired to the bedroom, and it’s nearly time for us to go back up the track to the Mission because
we’re all tired. Somehow it seems to me there was not much of a party spirit to the evening, even though the guests all seem to have had a good time and are keen to tell so.