Reunion in Barsaloi (16 page)

We talk over our plans for the remainder of our trip. Albert has to head to Nairobi from where his flight leaves in two days’ time. I want to spend another week in Kenya, however. There seems little point in going back to visit the film set, and as it looks as if the rains might be starting any minute, we decide to all go to Nairobi together tomorrow. The only other place I absolutely want to revisit is the hospital in Wamba where I was admitted on several occasions and where they saved my life when it was hanging by a thread. It was also the place where my beloved daughter Napirai came into the world. I want to take a few photos to bring back to her. She was the first mixed-race child to be born in Wamba. My companions understand why I want to go there and so we map out a route to Nairobi that goes via Wamba.

W
hile we’re making our plans for the next day we catch the sound, faint at first then growing louder, of hands clapping and people singing. It sounds like warriors dancing somewhere nearby. All of a sudden my tiredness is blown away and I suggest we go out to try to find them, to give Albert and Klaus the opportunity to see this typical dancing at first hand. I wrap a thick blanket around myself to keep me warm and to provide a bit of anonymity. The last thing we want to do is interrupt them. But when we reach the Mission gate we discover to our amazement that it’s locked. We had no idea we were locked in at nights. Disappointed, I’m about to give up and head back to the tents when all of a sudden Albert discovers a touch of the warrior in him and, despite the late hour, goes knocking on the Mission house door. It works: they open up the main gate for us so we have a chance to see the dancing. Back in the old days I watched many dances like this and every time I found myself absolutely entranced by these slim, gracious male bodies leaping high into the air amid stamping feet, their rhythmic singing and clapping of hands.

We run through the moonlit village in the direction of the singing and after a few minutes reach an area of flat ground where the little group has assembled. We sit down under a thorn tree so as not to be recognized and interrupt things. There are just a few girls and young men and quickly realize that these are ‘boys’ – that is still uncircumcised and therefore not yet with the status of ‘warrior’. This could lead to complications tomorrow, because as a woman ‘married’ to a former warrior, it’s not right for me to watch uncircumcised boys dance, but I’m too carried away by
the magic of their movement to care. Albert and Klaus seem equally entranced by the theatrical display before their eyes.

I remember those exciting, marvellous days when Lketinga was still a strong, handsome warrior, the tallest of all of them and the one who leaped the highest, with his long red braided hair flying in the wind. After hours of dancing the warriors looked wild and unapproachable, some of them falling into a sort of trance. These boys here are a long way from that, having just begun to learn the traditional dance.

Unfortunately it’s not long before we’re spotted and we hear the word ‘
mzungu
’. A few of them come over to say hello, while others keep dancing, but a few of them drift off. Not wanting to disturb them, we take ourselves off, but it was a fine way to end the party.

It’s only a little bit later, lying in my tent, that it really comes home to me that this is our last night here. It takes forever to get to sleep and inevitably I shed a few tears. I can only hope I don’t start crying again tomorrow when it’s time to say goodbye.

T
he next morning the drivers start getting everything together while we go into the Mission to see the priest. He shows us the Samburu jewellery that the women who work in the project he runs together with James have made. As the sale of the jewellery already brings in more or less enough to feed the women and their families it means there is more left over from charitable donations for the priest to spend on hard luck cases in Barsaloi or special projects such as installing new water standpipes. Things that benefit everybody. It’s good to see that money given to charity ends up in good hands here. He tells us that we’re welcome to come back any time and hopes someone will let him know when the film comes out as it’s bound to interest people. We promise to keep in touch and do what we can from Europe to support his work here. We thank him for his hospitality, shake hands warmly and head off.

Down in the corral, Lketinga is sitting outside Mama’s
manyatta
, all ready for his journey. We crawl into the hut and once again James sits down next to me to help me say a few things to Mama. I don’t know when or even if I’ll ever see her again. At first we talk about things we’ve been through together and one old story leads to another. Amongst other things that come back to me is the time during the great rainstorm when Mama stood outside holding on to her hut to stop it being swept away by the winds and the floodwater. James translates for me and Mama laughs softly. Lketinga adds that he remembers the great flood well and the two children whose lives he saved. Old stories keep coming back to us, one after another.

Eventually James says Mama wants to give us her blessing so that our lives will be preserved and our journey will come to a happy conclusion.
As the oldest of the family, Mama rises early every morning when everyone else is still asleep and gives her blessing to the whole of the corral, blessing each and every child by name. Even the goats have to be blessed so that they all come home safe and well every evening. Then she goes back to bed until everyone else gets up. When the children who look after the animals leave the corral with them they have to be blessed again. That is particularly important.

When James has finished telling us all this Mama looks at me and with a strong voice full of warmth says: ‘I shall pray for you, pray that you live to be as old as I am. I shall pray for Napirai. Give her all our love and tell her my love is great. Look after her well and give her grandmother’s fondest wishes to her.’

I try to memorize each and every word but find tears once again welling in my eyes. Her words move me and I ask James to tell her how much I’ve enjoyed being able to visit her and how wonderful it’s been to see everyone again. If God wills it, I hope she will still be alive when I come back with Napirai. We hold each other’s hands as we talk with just the hearth between us. My voice is shaking and I find it harder and harder to get the words out. I can feel my eyes filling with tears and I try to wipe them surreptitiously, not wanting to embarrass Mama with my endless sobbing. She thanks me for my words and gives me a warm handshake. But noticing my battle to hold back my tears, she gives me a quick smile and says: ‘Have a sip of tea, that’ll help!’ I take the cup off her thankfully. It’s really hard not to cry, saying goodbye like this. Once again I ask James to make clear my tears are a sign of my deep affection for her.

As he’s translating Albert and Klaus’s farewell wishes, I sit there and watch Mama’s face, illuminated by a ray of sunlight falling through the straw roof. The smoke from the fire mingles with the sunlight and sitting there with a baby in her arms she exudes an aura that’s almost mystical. There’s so much dignity and personality to this woman that I sincerely hope one day I can bring my daughter and her grandmother together. Mama is the strongest link binding our family together. The old traditions live on in her. She embodies something that everyone here respects. We are all moved and impressed by her.

We sit there for more than an hour before eventually crawling out of the
manyatta
, which has begun to get hot inside, back into the open air. Some of the women and children have gathered in the corral to say
goodbye to us. I feel a tightness grip my chest; all I really want to do is burst into tears. But Klaus amuses the children again with his digital camera and takes a few last souvenir pictures.

I stand between Mama and Lketinga’s sister. Both of them have long faces and the sister keeps pressing her head against my shoulder as if she too is trying to hide her true feelings. Mama is wearing her pretty flowery skirt and her new blue shawl and uses both hands to lean with great dignity on her long stick. James in his babbling way tries to cheer everyone up again before giving the sign that it’s time for the blessing. We Europeans stand between him and Lketinga while Mama closes her eyes and starts praying. After every sentence we respond ‘
Enkai
’. Then, at the end of this little ceremony, which has had a profound effect on all of us, I embrace Mama for the last time and stare silently into her eyes. For a few seconds she presses her head against mine and says: ‘
Lesere, lesere
– till we meet again’.

Now it’s time to say goodbye to James, Stefania, the children and Lketinga’s sister. In the distance I spot my ex-husband’s young wife and our eyes meet. I get the feeling she’s trying to say something to me with those eyes, but what? I have no idea. I hope only that her life with Lketinga will be pleasant enough. I have come to realize once again just how funny, witty and caring he can be, when he wants to. Perhaps my visit and all the laughter we’ve shared will make him a bit more civil towards her. Who knows?

James tells me to send their best wishes to my mother, her husband Hans-Peter and the rest of my family and above all to Napirai.

On our short walk to the car people thrust out their hands to shake and call ‘
Lesere
, Mama Napirai,
lesere
’.

As we drive slowly out of the village, people on either side of the road wave to us. I’m overcome by a feeling of sadness and pleased that at least Lketinga is with us so everything isn’t over all at once. This visit has been like a window for me to look back through at all the emotion and excitement of my former life. Even if a lot has changed in the meantime, there are still many things that have remained the same. I didn’t feel at all distant from the people here; on the contrary, it was like coming home. My African family and the other people of the village took me to their hearts like a long-lost daughter. And that’s what makes it so hard to leave.

Nobody in the car says a word. Lketinga sits looking straight ahead and seems somehow older and gaunter. It worries me because I recall how just
a couple of days ago he took Albert to one side and confided in him: ‘Albert, I have really changed my life. I’m happy now.’

When we get to Opiroi, Lketinga suddenly points to a group of women and children and says: ‘Look, it’s Mama Natasha, don’t you want to stop and say hello?’ Of course I do! We used to visit one another often and it was on one of those visits that I gave her daughter the name Natasha. Her husband is Lketinga’s half-brother and I liked him a lot too: we could laugh together for hours. He knew absolutely nothing at all about the ‘white people’s world’, thought cigarette lighters were surreal and called them ‘burning hands’, had never drunk Coca-Cola and was suspicious of its brown colour. When he tasted his first fizzy sip he spat it out as far as he could in disgust!

Mama Natasha comes up with a little baby in her arms and calls out, ‘
Supa
, Mama Napirai!’ I throw my arms around her in mutual delight. Natasha had told her I was here. I ask how her husband is and she tells me he’s out with the cattle. The first thing she wants to know is news of Napirai. I have to show her how big my daughter is now and when she hears the Napirai goes to school she reaches out her youngest baby to me and says with a laugh: ‘Here, take this lad and put him in a school too.’ We all laugh. Lketinga translates for me that she now has seven children and they’re all doing well. I get the impression that she has a happy marriage, her husband always seemed so good-natured and he’s never taken a second wife.

The other women standing around Mama Natasha are all carrying babies in kangas on their backs. One of them is dressed in a tanned cowhide. A couple of old men come up to say hello and ask if I remember them. I nod, to please them, and they bless me with their spittle. Before we go on I dig out my two favourite kangas from my luggage and give them to Mama Natasha. She’s surprised and thanks me several times over, but I’m just pleased to have met another friend before we leave.

Our journey takes us past the half-finished ‘termite-church’ again and then up into thickly forested country. We’re shaken and thrown all over the place by the condition of the track. When it really rains here this track must rapidly get swept away and become impassable.

Just outside Maralal we make a brief stop as already we can see the rain in the distance. It’s grown markedly colder. Lketinga says a few sentences for his daughter Napirai on my tape recorder. No sooner has he finished
speaking than a torrential downpour breaks. We scramble for the cars and head for Maralal as fast as we can, before the road turns into a mud bath. Before long there are streams of water running towards us. The animals we come across stand there motionless in the flood of water pouring down on them, while people scurry for shelter under the trees. Our drivers have to be careful now to avoid the water-filled potholes because you can no longer see how deep they are.

In Maralal we aim to have a meal with Lketinga in one of the locals’ restaurants. I suggest the Somali restaurant because I have fond memories of it.

After my first bout of malaria I could scarcely eat anything for four weeks and was nearly dead of exhaustion. The seriousness of my illness was beyond anything the doctors in the Maralal hospital could cope with, and they doubted if I’d survive the journey to the much better one in Wamba. Not knowing what to do, Lketinga and my girlfriend Jutta carried me out to the Somali restaurant. It was their last hope and it worked. The meal of cooked liver with tomatoes and onions that was set in front of me was the first thing I managed to eat, albeit in tiny mouthfuls. It turned out to be the first step on my road to recovery.

We park right outside and when we walk through the door I’m astounded how big the place has become. It’s also extremely busy. Lketinga pulls the hood of his jacket over his head, like he always used to do if he didn’t want to be recognized. He asks me what I want to eat and passes on the order. Unfortunately liver is no longer on the menu, so I order goat meat with potatoes and sweet tea. Lketinga orders just naan bread and tea.

I can’t help wondering why he’s eating so little, and he keeps looking uneasily around him. It’s not exactly easy to find the right words to say goodbye in a place like this, and the two of us sit there more or less silently, even though our last few minutes together are flying by.

I ask him what it is he wants to do here in Maralal. He says he want to go to the bank to see if the money the film people promised him has been paid in. I try to say a few more personal words to him: ‘Lketinga, please look after yourself. Don’t start drinking again. I’m so pleased that in the last few days you haven’t touched a drop. I can see how you’ve changed your life and it makes me really happy. I’m going to tell Napirai, and one of these days she’ll come with me to Barsaloi.’

He just looks at me and says: ‘Okay, I will wait for you.’

It’s time to go and we leave the noisy bar. Outside it’s pouring down and Maralal is sinking into the mud. All around people are taking shelter, waiting for the rain to stop. How can I say goodbye to Lketinga properly here? To throw my arms around him, with all these strangers watching, would make him feel ridiculous. Lketinga throws a thin blanket over his hooded jacket and turns to me with a calm, serious look on his face, touches my arm and says, ‘Okay,
lesere
.’

He takes his leave of Klaus and Albert briefly and without turning round disappears into the crowd. We drive off slowly and I try to spot him but in the rain so many people have thrown blankets or other bits of cloth over their heads.

I feel suddenly sad. I may not love this man anymore, but he is still the father of my daughter and that makes for a lifelong bond between us. During this visit I have gained respect for him again. That our visit was a success has been largely down to him.

Thanks to the sense of humour he and James share, I’ve laughed more in the last few days than in the previous six months. That’s why I find saying goodbye like that almost tragic. His expressionless face told me he was sad too. But he now lives in his world and I in mine, and that’s how it suits both of us. The bond between us lives on in the daughter we share.