Blood & Milk (4 page)

My eyes burned as they adjusted to the dark, and I strained to see. I was on my knees because of the low ceiling while Damu crouched easily. He carefully put the bucket of water in the corner opposite his bed, then mixed a white powder with water in a small bowl and handed it to me. It looked like glue paste. “Eat.”

This was probably the most hideously disgusting looking meal I’d ever eaten, but I was starving hungry and very, very grateful Damu had given me food. “Thank you.”

He grabbed my hand. “No. This hand. Never that hand.”

“Oh.” I bowed my head. “Sorry.” Jesus. I had so much to learn, but I was grateful I’d not offended any of the leaders or, God forbid, Kijani. I had read somewhere it was taboo to eat with your left hand―it was, after all, the hand used for wiping one’s arse. Apparently. But I’d simply forgotten. As I ate the ground oatmeal goo with the fingers on my right hand, I briefly wondered what would happen if I’d been left-handed…

I wolfed down half of the porridge and held out the bowl with the remainder. “For you?”

My eyes had adjusted, and I could see the smile on Damu’s face. He nodded at me. “Eat.”

I didn’t want him to go hungry, but wasn’t going to argue because I had no idea when I would eat again. He was obviously waiting for me to finish using his one and only bowl, yet even in the darkness of his hut I could see the confusion on his face. “You offer me the food?” he asked.

“Of course.” I mean, seriously, he’d offered it to me first. I was just being polite. He’d given me shelter, water, food, and conversation.

“Alé has kindness.”

Oh. He’d used the name I was given, which was now, I assumed, my Maasai name. “Damu has kindness.”

His grin was instantaneous, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. I held out the empty bowl. “Do I clean?”

He ignored that, whether he didn’t understand or if he was just in a hurry, I wasn’t sure. He simply added more ground meal and water to the bowl and ate his breakfast.

I figured it was a good time to freshen up the best I could, so I rummaged through my backpack for a clean shirt. I rolled on some underarm deodorant and, peeling off my shirt, pulled the new one on. When Damu was done eating, I followed him outside and he pointed to one of the houses. “You this way.”

I went blindly, wherever he was telling me I had to go. We walked to one of the far off huts where there were ten or twelve women sitting on the ground in a bit of circle. Each of them was busy, either stringing beads or weaving threads, and their conversation stopped as we approached.

Damu spoke to them, words I couldn’t understand―though I think I heard the name Kijani―before he turned to me. “You be here.”

Okay then. So Kijani had said that I was to sit with the women. I nodded, indicating I understood, and without another word, he walked away. I stood there with twelve women staring up at me, their faces neutral. They didn’t seem to hate me, but they weren’t exactly welcoming either. I knew it had to be me who bridged the gap. I found a place in the dirt, shaded by the hut. “May I sit here?” I asked, patting the ground. Some spoke in Maa, but others nodded and I knew without doubt, if it weren’t for Kijani’s instruction, I wouldn’t have been welcome.

I must have been truly bizarre to these women, even a little frightening. So I gave them a smile and put my hand to my chest. “I am Alé.”

Of course this made them laugh. I’d just called myself milk. But their smiles were contagious, and it seemed to break the tension because they went back to their conversation like I wasn’t even there. Except for one woman who nodded at me. She had a shaved head, beaded earlobes, and from the number of necklaces she wore, I gathered she held some kind of rank and respect amongst the women. She wore a red tartan dress, had bare feet, and sat on an animal hide. She was smiling at me now. “Kafir. Eyes of Kafir.”

I put my hand to my eyes. “I have two different coloured eyes,” I said, using two fingers on the number and pointing in turn to each eye. I didn’t know if they all spoke English, so I hoped they understood what I was saying. “Who is Kafir?”

The woman spoke in very broken English, but I was very grateful she was even speaking to me. “Kafir roam our land. No kill him; he protect us.”

Oh, some guy protected them so they didn’t kill him. That was nice. The women started talking again as they continued with their handiwork, breaking out in laughter and song as they made bracelets and clothes, and it truly was a privilege to watch. They were such a happy people. They literally lived with the barest of things, such primitive means, but to this outsider, they seemed content.

I tried to imagine the women I’d known in Australia, and even the men, living like this, and the idea was comical. Most of the people I knew thought they wouldn’t survive without Wi-Fi, the latest model phones, and their morning hit of over-priced, over-rated “organic” soy latte.

The woman beside me finished a strand of white beads. I nodded toward it. “Very beautiful.”

They all laughed again, and I didn’t even mind that they were laughing at me. One of the women across from me picked up a single strand of string. “Alé make beads.”

I grinned at her. “Can I?”

She threw the string to me and all of them laughed and clapped, but I still didn’t mind. I watched how the others started, how they tied off the thin leather strand, and I threaded the beads.

And I have to admit. I rather enjoyed it.

As the morning wore on into the afternoon, the children came a little closer to me, but only for a second. I think they were seeing which of them was the bravest. I helped with the beading, I helped grinding grains on a flat rock with a worn stone, and I did everything the women did. They rarely spoke to me, yet I was comforted by their seeming acceptance of me.

I watched out for Damu, catching sight of him every now and then. He was never far away, always by himself, never with the other Maasai men. While they were off tending cattle and goats, Damu did the work the women did, not the work of the men, and I couldn’t help wonder why.

He’d been given the demoralising duty of babysitting the stupid white man, and Kijani spoke down to him. They treated him like an outcast. I assumed there was some cultural reason for this but didn’t dare ask.

When the sun was low in the sky and my stomach was torturing me with pangs of hunger, Damu found me. “Come,” he said, nodding toward his hut.

If I’d been excited by the prospect of dinner, I shouldn’t have been. Damu soon mixed together some of the porridge we’d had at breakfast, and handed me the bowl. But I was so hungry, I was appreciative for anything. “Thank you, Damu. I am very grateful.”

I sat on the dirt floor where I’d slept the night before and ate my meal. Damu sat patiently and silent, waiting for me to finish. I handed him the empty bowl, graciously feeling the weight of food in my belly. As he prepared his own meal, I could see the small bowl container from which he scooped the white powdered grains was almost empty. “What do you call the food?” I asked him.

He added water and stirred, then looked at the white goop in his bowl. “
Ugali
. Ugali is thick.
Uji
is thin.” He showed me the different consistencies. Uji was just a runnier, milk-like consistency, so he added more flour to make it into ugali. Ugali looked like thick porridge or mashed potatoes. “Ugali eat at dinner. Uji drink at morning.”

“Ugali, uji” I repeated, pronouncing it as he had. “Where do you get the grain from?”

“Share. Everyone share.”

Fair enough. The entire tribe rationed out equally. But something bothered me, though. “Am I eating your share?”

Damu just continued to eat. “Responsibility to me.”

Oh Jesus. I was costing him half his food. I smiled at him, hopeful the horrible way I felt didn’t show on my face. I was determined to search out more food tomorrow. I sat back, leaning against the wall, and watched the last slivers of colour fade from the sky. The food in my stomach and possibly jet lag insisted I lay down for a second. I pulled my backpack under my head and closed my eyes, willing the dreams to come as much as I wished they never would.

The hardest thing about saying goodbye to someone was seeing them every night in my dreams.

It was my most favourite, and equally dreaded, part of my day.

The next day started the same. We walked for water, which I determined was a job for female tribe members. The men and young boys herded their cattle and goats down into the valley, watching over them carefully. So why were Damu and myself allocated to duties with the women and girls, I didn’t have a clue. Not that I minded. Hearing the laughter and songs of the woman ahead of us, and the walk itself, were beautiful. And the river water was the closest thing to a bath or shower as I would get, so once Damu had collected his bucket full of water, I went downstream a little way, stripped off to my underwear and went in. I figured drinking the water yesterday hadn’t ill-affected me in anyway, so it had to be okay. I was sure to be quick though, not wanting to anger Kijani if we were late again.

I didn’t think I’d broken any Maasai rules about stripping down and swimming in their river. Damu never insisted I stop. In fact, he laughed at me when I shook my hair like a dog. I didn’t need to speak Maa to understand a few universal things: smiles and laughter were good; glaring, yelling and pointing a spear at my head was bad.

I was aiming for a day when Kijani didn’t want to kill me.

I waded out of the water, pulled on my shorts and shirt, then sat down to once again struggle with putting dry socks on wet feet.

I pointed to Damu’s tyre sandals. “Your shoes are much better than mine.” I held up my $180 sneakers. Back home, these were the newest and best sneakers on the market. Here, they were more of a pain in the arse. I had to wriggle my foot and use both hands to pull the stupid shoe on.

Damu laughed again. “I think no.”

“You prefer these?” I said, tying the laces. “Yours are much easier.” I jumped to my feet. “Come, we don’t want to be late.”

Damu smiled as we walked back to the manyatta. His long, graceful strides weren’t easy to keep up with, even with him carrying a bucket of water, but I was determined to walk at his pace. I certainly didn’t want him in any trouble on my account.

“It’s very beautiful here,” I said to him as we walked in the warm Tanzanian morning. I’d seen the Lion King as a kid and didn’t really think much of the landscape, until now. The animators got the details right, the vastness and the colours.

“
Enkai
is good,” Damu said.

“What is
Enkai
?” I asked, wondering if it were another word for the weather.

He held the bucket in one hand and with his free hand, he drew an arc across the hills and sky. “The word…” He seemed to struggle with his English. “God,” he added quickly, as though he’d just remembered it. “Maasai God.”

Oh. I gave him a smile and said, “Enkai is very good.”

“Good for land, good for people,” he said. “Many rains, good for cattle.”

It was clear he was very proud of his life here. “It will be cold soon?”

Damu nodded. “In one moon, days be small.”

Ah. In one moon, so one full lunar cycle meaning one month, the days will be shorter. “Same for my country.”

“You be many places,” Damu said.

“Some, yes. I worked for a travel agent, I helped people organise holidays and tours, and it was expected that I travel a lot.”

“How many country?”

“Nine or ten,” I answered. “A few countries in Europe, America, Canada, Japan, and now Tanzania.”

He seemed a little reflective after that, as though he felt bad because I was more worldly than he was. Which was true. I
had
travelled more―a lot more, considering he’d never left his village―but he was Maasai. He had more history and culture in his little finger than I could possibly imagine. “But Damu,” I added with a smile. “There’s nothing in all the world like what you have here. It’s very special.”

He seemed to like that, but his smile faded into a frown. “Council law don’t agree.”

Council law?
“The Government?”

“Yes,” he said, as though that was the word he was looking for. “Try move us. Want our land for money.”

I had seen similar comments and articles that said Maasai were being driven off their land. Their nomadic nature, to live where the land takes them, made them easy targets for money-hungry governments. The Maasai would move their village when the seasons demanded it, only to come back to find it “owned” by someone else. They had no legal recourse, no money, and didn’t live by government laws.

It saddened me to hear Damu confirm this.

When we arrived back at the manyatta, we drank our breakfast of uji, and afterwards, Damu went about his chores and I went back to the ever-changing circle of women doing their crafts, beadwork, and sewing of tartans and leathers.

Some of the women from yesterday were now working on their homes, replastering the outside walls with a mix of dung and mud, singing and laughing as they did.

The ladies I sat with also sang and this time, made no fuss at my presence. I quickly took my place beside them, collecting up beads and string and set about doing my work. I’d only threaded a few beads when a small child of maybe five or six, wearing a cotton t-shirt as a dress, edged closer to me. I had no idea of this child’s gender―it didn’t matter to me. I smiled at them and they turned and ran, only to return a short while later, getting a little closer. This time I smiled at them and they didn’t run, so I said, “Hello.”

They squealed and ran away, making the women laugh, and I could hear other children laughing as well. I was pleased the children were working up the courage to come up to me.

Next time the child got closer, I put my hand to my chest and introduced myself. “I am Alé.”

They didn’t run. “
Mzungu
.”

I looked to the older woman from yesterday. “Mzungu?”

“White man,” she replied.

I smiled at the child. “Yes. Mzungu.” I held out my arm, and the child very bravely reached out to touch the skin on my forearm. Obviously they’d never seen a white person before. As soon as they touched me, they pulled back their hand. Their face lit up with wonder and broke into a huge smile. I found myself grinning as well. “I am Alé,” I repeated.

The older woman said, “He is Komboa.”

“His name is Komboa?” I asked, still not quite catching all her words. I’d rather question than get it wrong and offend someone. She nodded, so I looked at the little boy and gave him a smile and a wave. “Hello Komboa.”

He laughed and ran away, and I went back to beading, happy with the interaction. And then the older woman said, “Amali.” And the women around the circle each told me their names. “Nashuru.” “Yantai.” “Naasha.” “Leela.”

I bowed my head. “Alé. Thank you. Very honoured,” I said. I fought a smile for the rest of the day.

* * * *

And so the days went, each day’s routine the same. The chores always varied, but I spent my days with Amali, Nashuru, and Yantai mostly, doing whatever they were doing. Damu was never far away, and I likened his role in the tribe to a maintenance man: he did whatever was asked of him. He never went with the men, and he didn’t truly interact with the women either, but he was always around, always busy, always smiling.

Damu and I would talk, usually me asking a bunch of questions about their culture. I was learning some words in Maa, and he was learning new English words. I liked him. He was peaceful and content. He was proud but humble, he had next to no possessions, but he was happy with what he had.

And before I knew it, I’d been there a week.

I drank uji for breakfast and ate ugali as my only two small meals a day, and in one week, I knew I’d lost some weight. My shorts were too big, but I found I could roll the waistband over a few times to help keep them up. I also still slept on the ground in Damu’s hut, but I didn’t mind. I usually fell into sleep too tired to care.

And every night I dreamed the same dream.

It was of Jarrod, but that didn’t surprise me. My dreams were always of him. I dreamed he was here with me, walking through the long brown grass of the Serengeti, toward the river where Damu and I walked every morning. Jarrod looked beautiful, ethereal, as he moved in slow motion through the field. His hand skimmed the top of the grass, feeling it dance at his touch, and he gave me the most amazing smile. He never spoke, but I understood what he was telling me just fine. He was telling me I was where I should be, and in my dream I called his name but he couldn’t hear me. I longed to hear him speak, to smell his skin, and I ached to feel his arms around me. And when I tried to run to him, he was gone.

The dream never changed. I yearned for the ending to be different. I wanted to reach him, to touch him, to hear his voice. I longed to see his face, to hear his voice. But in my dream, as in real life, he was gone. Every morning I woke in a sweat, trying to get my bearings in the darkness of the hut.

Damu was often sitting upright on his mattress, watching me. I knew I’d woken him with my dreams, but he never questioned me. He never pushed me.

Instead, our early morning walks to the river would clear my head, and our conversations were the highlights of my day.

During my day, while Damu was doing his chores, I used a flat rock and rounded stone to grind the ugali to the fine powder for our porridge. It was a primitive mortar and pestle but just as effective. Amali gave me a gourd to store it in, and I went in search of Damu with my score.

“Look!” I said, holding out the makeshift container. He was carting firewood and threw down the load in his arms, the branches clattering to the ground. “I made this for us.”

Damu peered inside the gourd, much like a parent would look at art their kids made at school. “You make?”

I was grinning like an idiot, I was sure of it. “Yes!” It was hard to explain how it made me feel to contribute. I was giving something, on equal footing. As meagre as a small amount of ground porridge was, but I no longer was a burden to Damu’s rations. “Tomorrow we eat my ugali.”

“No.”

Oh. I felt like he’d slapped me. I couldn’t hide how deflated I was. “Oh.”

“No, no,” he shook his head, still smiling. “Tomorrow new moon. We drink milk. Tonight we eat ugali, tomorrow milk.”

“Oh,” I said again, this time with a laugh. “Milk?”

He held up three fingers. “Three days.”

“Is that some kind of ritual?” I asked. “Ceremony?”

“Milk three days of new moon, then meat.”

Meat. Dear God, I never thought I’d miss meat, but after seven days of polenta-like porridge, even the word meat made my mouth water. Hell, even three days of milk sounded great.

Damu put his hand on the gourd. “Keep. Store.”

His fingers brushed mine and the thrill of human touch made my heart flutter. It wasn’t a sexual touch. It wasn’t intimate in any way, but it had been so long since I’d felt the touch of another person… I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed that either.

* * * *

At dusk, Damu didn’t come for me as he normally did. I went to his hut anyway and set about making the both of us some porridge. Just before dark, he slid in through the doorway. “I wondered where you were,” I admitted.

He held up a small bowl. It was the bottom of a gourd that had been smoothed off. “For you.”

I couldn’t believe it. He’d made me my very own bowl. “You did this for me?”

Even as the darkness filled in around us, I could see his smile. “Yes. For you.”

I was so incredibly touched. It was probably the most incredible gift I’d ever received. It wasn’t the value of it or lack thereof, in this case, it was the acceptance. It was the gift of his time and skill, that he hand-crafted this bowl for me, and that something in this village now belonged to me. Because of Damu.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “En-ashê, en-ashê,” I said.
Gratitude. Gratitude.

He took the bowl and scooped out porridge for me, then he took his own bowl and did the same. We ate in silence, both of us smiling between mouthfuls.

And as we sat there in the darkened hut, I thought back to what I’d learned in my first week of living with the Maasai.

That it was strictly a patriarchal society. The men made the decisions that ruled over the tribe as a whole, and elders and leading warriors were at the spearhead of that. The men’s primary role was to look after and manage their herds and provide safety for the women and children. The men were divided into groups or age-sets of warriors—moran, who were the young warriors, and elders. They were proud and dignified and took their roles very seriously.

Women were regarded in much the same way as their cattle were. It was hard to get my head around, and I had to remind myself that I was here as a guest and it was not my place to judge. Women did most of the manual labour around the manyatta and were responsible for the upkeep of their homes, preparing meals, and looking after the children.

And despite their social standing within this community, the women were some of the happiest people I’d ever met. They sang and danced, they adored and respected their husbands. Many of the women shared husbands, as they were either the first, second, third wife, and each of the wives were like sisters to their fellow wives.