Reunion in Barsaloi (2 page)

A
s we get off the plane, the air that greets us is not the moist tropical air that had first hit me back then in Mombasa. The air here is hot and dry. As we line up in queues for passport control I can’t get rid of the queasy sensation in my stomach. I can’t help but think back to how this was the point where, fourteen years ago, it all nearly went wrong for my daughter and me. I was all but sweating blood as I was forced to answer all their questions: why are you leaving the country without your daughter’s father? Where is your husband? Why doesn’t your daughter have a Kenyan child’s identity card when she was born here and her father is a Samburu? Is this really your daughter? Question upon question until I was nearly crazy. I could hardly believe my luck when I got on board the plane. And now here I am, handing my passport over once again to one of these officials. He gives me a friendly smile, but my heart is pounding.

At least this time my daughter isn’t with me. I considered it too dangerous to bring her along as she is not yet an adult. Under Kenyan law she belongs to her father, and under my ex-husband’s tribal law she in fact belongs to her grandmother, his mother. Then from the Samburu point of view, Napirai is the perfect age for marriage at fifteen. Even nowadays the girls get married horrendously young and then are grotesquely mutilated by the so-called ‘female circumcision’. I was simply not willing to take the risk of anything like that even coming into question. In any case, Napirai had no wish as yet to see Kenya again. Obviously she asked about her father and about our family history, but she is also wary of what has become unknown territory for her.

The immigration official takes my passport and runs it over a computer scanner – progress has made inroads here too. Five seconds later he stamps it and with some relief I enter Kenya, along with my two companions.

We have booked a room in the Norfolk Hotel for the first night. It’s a hotel with history: built in 1904 in country-house style, during the colonial era it was the fashionable place for rich white settlers, business folk and big game hunters. It must have seemed like an oasis in this wild untamed country. There are photographs of famous people such as Roosevelt and Hemingway all over the walls. The gardens are a sea of tropical vegetation but with old-fashioned horse-drawn carriages in the drive. It’s the first time I’ve stayed in such a smart hotel in Nairobi and daren’t even think what it might cost. Without doubt, one night here has to cost a month’s wages for one of the staff.

In the old days when I had to come to Nairobi, which was always an ordeal, I would look for something in River Road. It wasn’t the best part of town then and still isn’t. Back then I would pay just four or five Swiss francs for a night’s accommodation. If you’re married to a Samburu warrior and have to earn your money locally, there’s no question of handing out what has been so hard earned for an expensive place to lay your head.

This time around, however, I’m with Europeans and my publisher wants the trip to be relatively comfortable. He’s not exactly in his twenties anymore, nor has he fallen head over heels for a Masai woman.

We have dinner in the evening on the terrace. Behind us is the bar, to which the gentlemen used to withdraw with their cigars and was strictly off-limits to the ladies. None of this feels like Africa to me, even if there are more black business folk eating here than there would have been a few years ago. Apart from anything else, once my initial curiosity has worn off, it’s all a bit too sophisticated and makes me want to get on with the trip. I have no regrets therefore when we press a tip into the white-gloved hand of the doorman in his bottle-green uniform and take our leave with a smile.

W
e pick up two rented Land Cruisers with drivers and finally head off to my ‘old home’. First we have to fight our way through the traffic chaos of Nairobi: a heaving throng of cars, lorries, the people-carrier taxis called
matatus
and the brightly coloured stinking long distance buses. Black clouds of exhaust smoke almost suffocate us. At the same time I’m fascinated once again by the way everybody is out to earn a couple of shillings. The newspaper sellers stand by the side of the road ready to weave amongst the lines of cars as soon as they come to a standstill. Somebody else is squeezing his way between the traffic trying to sell watches, torches and caps. I fancy one of his red head coverings and roll down the window to bargain with him. The salespeople rarely have enough time. We quickly agree on a price but he has no change and the traffic behind is pushing forward so we drive off. But our hawker isn’t about to let a sale go that easily. In the rear-view mirror I can see the young lad running after us with giant strides. We’ve probably gone some 1,300 feet before a roundabout gives us another chance to stop. We’ve scarcely come to a stop when the hawker is by our window beaming in at us. In astonishment I buy my hat and our driver takes another one. That makes the smile grow even wider. I wish some of the salespeople back home in Switzerland could see someone as happy as this. We don’t have people running after customers amidst the stench of exhaust fumes, but sometimes even so it takes little short of a miracle to get a friendly smile from some of our salespeople.

Fruit sellers with small piles of tomatoes, carrots, onions or bananas sit behind little wooden counters or by the side of the road, trying to sell
their wares. Life in Nairobi is bright and colourful and despite the vast numbers of people it doesn’t seem so hectic to me as a European city.

Eventually we get outside the city centre and now the effects of so-called progress are much more in evidence. Everywhere there are new supermarkets and businesses. Advertising hoardings for televisions, mobile phones and the latest films dominate the highway. Right by the side of the road there are beds and wardrobes for sale on display, with the occasional goat wandering amongst them grazing on bin rubbish or banana skins instead of grass. Laughing children in blue school uniforms troop along the roadside. But on the outskirts of the city a sea of corrugated iron roofs is still evidence of a huge and sprawling shantytown where the poorest of the poor live.

Our drivers have to be careful because the state of the roads, even here in Nairobi the capital, is catastrophic. We jolt through one pothole after another and in parts the road is completely unsurfaced. Every time we pick up speed we find traffic coming towards us on our side of the road. As a result the 105-mile journey to Nyahururu takes nearly five hours, although we have also taken a winding detour via Naivasha in order to get a view of the magnificent Rift Valley.

The Great Rift Valley – nicknamed the ‘great ditch’– stretches several thousand miles through Africa: a great tear in the earth created millions of years ago when unimaginable subterranean forces pulled the plates of the earth’s crust apart and the land between them sank. As a result, the land frequently drops away in breathtaking cliffs and vast gorges.

Standing on a not altogether reliable-looking extending wooden platform built for the large numbers of tourists I have a spectacular view of the vast plain and the mountain range in the distance. Directly beneath my feet is the thick deciduous forest that gradually thins out in the distance to a few thorn acacia trees and the red ochre earth. Looking at this view I get the first feeling that this really is home. At last this is something I recognize of the Kenya I love. The colour of the earth, the shapes of the trees and the sensation of overwhelming space reminds me of Barsaloi and a wave of happiness washes over me, pulling me onwards. But we still have a long way to travel before we reach my African home.

It is evening by the time we get to Nyahururu, which at 8, 081 feet above sea level is the highest city in Kenya. On the right hand side of the street I recognize the old lodging house we used to use, the Nyahururu Space Haven Hotel, although the blue-painted façade is now pink. It’s
immediately opposite the bus station so it’s incredibly busy around now. Minibus drivers parp their horns to attract customers. This is a major transport hub. Arriving here from Maralal used to be like reaching the first outpost in Kenya of the ‘big wide world’. Spending the night in Nyahururu on the way back from Nairobi was for me always a milestone marking the end of civilization, though I was always happy because I knew that in just sixteen miles I would be in Samburu country, my African family’s homeland.

I absolutely have to go into the bus station to try to find the old bus I used to take. The appearance of three white people with photographic equipment and video cameras immediately creates a stir and we’re surrounded by people asking questions or trying to sell things. I ask after the brightly painted old Maralal bus and am disappointed to be told that only
matatus
make the journey nowadays. It’s a shame because I had imagined myself getting on that very bus next morning for the four-hour trip to Maralal just like in the old days. Even the process of loading up the bus used to fascinate me: the way they packed tables, cupboards, mattresses, water containers, boxes and other random possessions inside and on top of the bus. Now and then there would be an extra frisson to find the first few brightly decorated warriors with their long red hair mixing with the other passengers.

That was what I had been looking forward to: arriving in Maralal along with a jolly bunch of locals. Every trip was an adventure, not even knowing if we’d get there. How often had I sat there in the dirt by the side of the road out in the wilderness, the only white woman amongst all the Africans, stranded because our bus had got stuck in the mud? We would cut down branches from the shrubs to lay under the wheels until they could get purchase on them and we could get going again.

Such a pity that the bus, which has so many memories for me, is no longer there. Like it or lump it, I would have to make the journey in the comparative comfort of our Land Cruiser. With a last look around the square we set off to Thomson’s Falls Lodging, where white people normally stay around here. It is an unpretentious but well-appointed lodging house, and as soon as we reach the entrance women from the souvenir shops are already swarming around us: ‘Jambo, customer, how are you? I’m Esther. Come to my shop!’ More women join in, all trying to impress their name upon us to make sure we go to the right shop
tomorrow and buy the right thing. Their problem is that tomorrow is Sunday and therefore from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon they will be in church, so they want us to wait so as not to disappoint them. I’m afraid there’s no chance of that: I have a family in Barsaloi who’ve already been waiting for fourteen years.

Before our departure we go to see Thomson’s Falls, the famous
236-feet
high waterfall. It’s funny that I’ve done this trip so many times and until now never thought to stop and see the tourist sights.

After our visit to the waterfall we manage to escape relatively easily as the women have locked up the souvenir shops. This is where it really begins to get interesting for me as our destination for today is Maralal and if everything works out as planned, James will be waiting for us there. In his last letter he suggested he might come part of the way to meet us to show us the new road to Barsaloi.

I’m really looking forward to seeing him again and curious to know what news he’ll have. Above all, I’d like to know how Lketinga feels about my visit. Is he happy about it or are there likely to be problems? Even though he has since married a native girl, I’m certain he still regards me as his wife. I’ve simply no idea how he’s likely to react. I hope we manage to find James okay and he can reassure me.

We start out on an asphalt-surfaced road that goes as far as a little village called Rumuruti before turning into a rough track. From now on we’re in Samburu country. All of a sudden the vegetation is different, as if there was a line drawn by a ruler across the landscape. Up until now we’ve been travelling through mostly green agricultural or meadow land, but from here on the land is arid and the colour of the earth begins to change from beige to red. The temperature rises too.

There are no more tarmac roads here, just rough tracks. Our vehicles leave a huge cloud of dust behind us and we’re getting shaken to the bone. When my companion comments on the state of the road I can assure him with a laugh that fourteen years ago it was much worse. The bumpy ride cheers me up and I get happier by the moment. I have incredibly vivid memories of this road and all the hazards along it and I ask the driver to let me take the wheel. If I can’t travel this road on the big old bus then I’d at least like to remind myself of my beaten-up old Land Rover. We bounce along the road and I have to really concentrate to make sure we avoid the biggest potholes at least.

From the corner of my eye, however, I can’t help noticing the first
manyattas
some distance from the road. Every now and then a few white goats pop up in front of the car. They’re slow to get out of the road, and the eyes of the children minding them follow us. Most of the boys carry a stick horizontally behind their back in the crook of their elbows. The little girls, on the other hand, laugh and wave at the white ‘
mzungus
’. After two hours we come to a little village, identifiable only by a couple of shops on either side of the road and a group of people in brightly coloured clothing standing in front of them. No, there is one more thing that indicates human habitation that we didn’t have earlier: plastic! It is tragic to see how much inroad plastic has made into Kenya. Fifteen hundred feet before each village the first signs of it appear: starting with just pink, blue or clear plastic bags hanging on the shrubs, but then the nearer we get the worse it is. There are plastic bottles impaled on virtually every thorn on every bush. At first glance it almost looks like they’re in bloom, but a second later the tragic truth is all too painfully evident. When I was living in Kenya there was virtually no plastic here. If someone got hold of a plastic bag from a tourist, they would have looked after it as if it were something precious and used it again and again. Now they hang on the bushes in their thousands.