Sweet voices filled my head. It was a lovely sound. Where was it coming from? I snapped awake and sat bolt upright. It was dark and it took a moment to remember that I was in a shed in the compound of the orphanage. We had to leave. It was still dark, but why were there voices? Why was there singing? I reached over and felt for Jata beside me. She was there, still sleeping, a soft whistle coming as she breathed in and out.
The door creaked open and a beam of light entered, and before I could even react, Mueni poked in her head.
“Are you still here?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“You need to go soon, before you are discovered.”
“Yes, of course. Jata, you must get up.”
She yawned and stretched, and I threw off the burlap sack I’d been using as a blanket and got to my feet.
“This is for you,” Mueni said. She handed a banana to me. “I wish there were two, but I only get one for breakfast.”
“I cannot take your breakfast,” I said.
“There will be porridge. I will have some of that. You take this.”
Reluctantly I did as she asked. Jata needed to eat.
Mueni opened the door wider. “It is time.”
I slung the bundle over my shoulder, handed the banana to Jata and picked up our water container. We followed Mueni out into the yard, hidden by the walls of the shed. The voices were much louder now. Mueni peeked around the edge of the building.
“Go now,” she urged. “All is clear.”
“Thank you so much. We will not forget your kindness. Someday we will come back for a visit,” I said.
“I will look for you both.”
Staying low, trying to keep the shed as cover, we reached the gully.
“You first,” I said to my sister.
Jata waved to Mueni, who waved back. They exchanged a last smile, and then Jata ducked down and was gone. I waved as well and then followed after my sister. Quickly we circled back the way we’d come, along the wall until we reached the road.
“Where do we go now?” Jata asked.
“To Kikima, of course.”
“But how do we get there?”
“Today, we ride.” I pulled the shillings out of my pocket. “We will take a matatu.”
“All the way that remains?”
“As far as our shillings will take us.”
The matatu station was a crazy mass of people and vehicles. Hundreds and hundreds of people were pushing and shoving, trying to get on the matatu that would take them to their destination. If there was sense, I couldn’t find it. Matatus both small and large rumbled in and out, almost bumping together as they passed. Their conductors were busy, screaming destinations and collecting fares. There were vendors selling everything from newspapers to roasted maize to sunglasses and maps of the world. Who would buy a map of the world at a matatu station?
I felt overwhelmed, pushed in on all sides by the sounds and smells and movement. The few other times I had been in such a place—and I had never been in a station so large—I was watched by my mother and father. Here I was the one doing the watching. I tightened my grip on Jata’s hand as we wove through the crowd.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to one of the conductors. “Can you tell me where I can get a ride to Kikima?”
“Over there,” he said, waving to the far side of the station.
“Thank you, sir.”
He had already turned away before I finished speaking.
“Come, Jata.”
We walked along, trying to avoid the hordes of people rushing on and off the vehicles.
“I want a mandazi,” Jata said.
“We do not have the money …” I began. But then I remembered that she did have the money. “I do not need one, but you can get a mandazi with the money Omolo gave you.”
“He said I need to buy two—one for me and one for you.” She pulled the money out of her pocket, balancing the few loose coins on the palm of her hand.
I wanted to say that we would be wiser to pool our money so we could ride closer to Kikima, but I didn’t. This was what Omolo had wanted—and I really did want a mandazi.
“Come.” I led her to a little stall that had a shelf filled with mandazi. “You make the purchase.”
I allowed her to step forward and talk to the woman who was selling. That was what my mother always did with us. She said that we needed to know about money. I watched but allowed Jata to make the purchase on her own.
She turned around holding two mandazi, with a smile so bright that it was worth the price even without the treat—although I did want the treat too. Jata had eaten most of the banana this morning, and I’d had only a bite. I knew we had at least three more oranges in my bundle, but we would save those for the ride.
She handed me one mandazi. “Thank you,” I said, and took a big bite. The pastry was fresh and warm and sweet, and it practically melted in my mouth. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted in my life! I took another bite and another. I hardly needed to chew as the soft dough slid down my throat and filled my stomach.
When I finished, Jata tore off a piece of hers and offered it to me.
“I had more of the banana,” she said. “You give me more of everything.”
I took the piece from her and ripped it in two again, handing back half. Together we popped the last two pieces in our mouths.
“It is time to go to Kikima,” I said.
I led Jata back through the crowd, searching for the right matatu. The drivers all yelled out encouragement to the potential passengers, trying to convince them that their bus was the best. I tried to ignore the voices and looked instead for the names posted in the windshields. There were so many places I’d never heard of—Kalawani, Tawa, Tuvilani, Nzaini and Emali—but there was no Kikima. Still, there were so many matatus that I wasn’t worried … yet.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out our remaining shillings. They were a crumpled ball, dark and worn from where my fingers had held them, wedging them in and making sure that they were safely buried deep in my pocket. Slowly, deliberately, I straightened them out. Three notes—three fifty-shilling notes—for a total of one hundred and fifty shillings. Would that be enough? There was only one way to know.
“There is our matatu!” Jata exclaimed.
She was pointing at a bright orange bus. On the windshield was its name and motto: MUM—YOU ARE GREAT. But I couldn’t see where it said Kikima.
“That is a fine matatu,” I agreed, “but we need to locate the one going to Kikima.”
“It is that one, I am sure,” Jata said. “Come and look.”
Before I could stop her, she ran toward it. She was so much smaller that she was able to move through the people quickly. She stopped by the matatu and I ran to her side. There, in the side window, was a smaller sign: KIKIMA. Jata burst into laughter and started jumping up and down. I felt like doing the same. This was the matatu—and she had known it all along.
“I knew our mother would lead us home,” Jata said.
She was leading us home. We would travel the last part of our journey with our mother. We were returning to her home with her.
If we had enough money.
A conductor was standing at the door, taking fares. The bus was already filled with people, and the roof was piled high with items.
“Good morning, sir. We wish to travel to Kikima,” I said.
“You are most fortunate, since that is where we are going. The fare is two hundred shillings for each of you.”
I let out a big sigh. My heart and my hopes sank.
“Do you not have enough money to pay the fare?” he asked.
He must have read my reaction. I shook my head.
“This is not a charity. You must pay to ride.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How much money do you have?” he asked.
“One hundred and fifty shillings.”
“That is not even enough for one, but I could take you partway.”
“That would be good.”
“And that partway could be longer if you ride on the roof instead of inside.”
I had often seen people doing that but had never done it myself. Our parents would never have allowed that, and when we were with them we would never have needed to do it.
The conductor saw my hesitation. “Or you can ride inside—just not as far.”
“We will take the roof,” I said, handing him the money.
“Climb up, and make sure you help the little one. And stay low so nobody sees that I’m letting children ride on the top.”
Jata started up the ladder on the side of the bus. I climbed up after, shielding her from a fall. The conductor handed me my water container and I placed it on the roof, then followed up myself.
The roof was full of all manner of items. Barrels, boxes and bags, even a bed, a chesterfield and a cabinet were all tied in place on the rack. There was a spare tire tied down at the front. That would be our seat.
“Sit,” I said to Jata, directing her into the center of the tire so she was surrounded by its rubber walls. That would be the safest place. I sat on the rack itself, leaning against the tire, easily able to reach out for Jata if needed.
The engine roared to life and the low rumbling became a full shaking. I leaned over the side and watched as the matatu started to move. Slowly it edged its way through the other buses and the people dodging between them. It slipped through impossibly small spaces, practically pushing vehicles and people out of its path.
When we came to the gate, the conductor and the gatekeeper yelled back and forth. If it not for the smiles and laughing, I would have thought they were fighting. Instead they were sharing a joke until the man opened the gate to allow us to pass. The conductor continued to talk to the gatekeeper as we rolled by and started off. Finally he ran after the matatu and jumped aboard as it began to pick up speed. We were off! We were either on the last leg of our long journey or else the first leg of one that I didn’t think I had the strength to finish.
The streets around the station were hardly less congested than the station itself. There were so many people and vehicles. Despite the crowds, the matatu began to pick up speed. Occasionally I could feel the driver apply the brakes, but mostly he used his size and his horn to open a way through.
We quickly left Machakos behind. The stores and stalls, people and homes spaced out. The driver passed several slower-moving lorries, swerving onto the other side of the road and back again before hitting any oncoming traffic. From up top I could see how close he sometimes came to running headfirst into those vehicles. But I wasn’t afraid. It wasn’t that I trusted this stranger, but I had lived through so much already that I had no fears of a crash. Somehow we had been protected, and I knew we would remain protected all the way to our destination. It had been our destiny to reach Kikima.
We raced forward, the ground at the side of the road a reddish blur. If we could find a way to stay aboard for the entire trip, I knew we would be there within an hour. One hour and we would be in Kikima. And then what? We would try to find our grandparents. I would ask questions of people until they were able to direct us to them … if they were still alive. Many years had passed since my mother had had contact with them and they had to be very old.
“Do you still see the string?” Jata asked over the rush of the wind.
“Not now, but the driver can see it. Have no worries.”
“I am not worried. Our mother is taking us home.”
For an instant, I forgot that she was referring to the name of the matatu.
“It is like you said—our father and mother will guide us,” she said.
It did feel like they had been watching from overhead. There was no other explanation. We had got here through more than my efforts.
“I cannot wait to be welcomed by our family,” Jata said.
“Yes, that will be most special. But first we must find them.”
Finding them was a task I could control. Being welcomed was still in question. Would we be accepted and embraced, the children of the daughter who had defied her parents, the children of a Kikuyu father they did not approve of, the grandchildren they did not even know existed?
Walking had moved my legs and left my mind quiet. Whenever those questions had arisen, I had pushed them aside. Now my legs were still and my mind was active, and there was no escaping them. I opened my bundle, pulled out two oranges—leaving one remaining—and handed them to Jata. “You peel them for our remaining breakfast.”
She started to peel, tossing the pieces over the side. No worries about a lion following our path now. Perhaps those little orange peels would help us find our way back to Machakos if there was no place for us in Kikima.
I sat there and for the first time allowed that thought to sink in—what if we were not wanted in Kikima? What would we do and where would we go? There was no place for us at the camp anymore. I would not travel across the country twice just to end up back where we’d started. We hadn’t gone through all this to go back to the beginning. If we stayed in Kikima, at least there was peace. We would be free of the violence. And we would be in the home village of our mother, so at least a small piece of her would still be with us. We had followed the string.
Wherever we were, Jata would remain at my side.
The matatu slowed and I had a rush of fear that it was to let us off. But I looked down the road and saw three people waving it down. When we came to a stop, the trail of dust we had been leaving behind caught up and surrounded the vehicle. Up top we were clear of the hovering red cloud.
After a minute, we started moving again and the conductor appeared, clambering up the side and tossing a bag onto the roof.
“Enjoying the ride?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. This is a good place to ride.”
“It is my favorite,” he said as he tucked the bundle under a rope and made sure it was secure. “This is where I always ride when I am not the conductor. It is mostly above the dust, and you have air in your face and lots of space. I think we should charge a higher fare up here than we do down there.”
“Can we still ride farther?” I asked.
“Still farther. But why did your parents not give you more money for this ride?” he asked.
“We have no parents,” I said.
“Orphans—there are many. You have never been on my vehicle before.”
“Never.”
“Why are you going to Kikima?”
“Our grandparents live there.”
“And you live with them?”
“Yes.” I hoped so badly that I wasn’t lying.
“Tell them to give you more money next time. Now I’d better be a conductor.”
More people on the road ahead were waving for us to stop. The conductor climbed down the ladder and was gone.
Repeatedly the matatu stopped to let passengers and parcels on or off. The conductor appeared and disappeared, putting things on or taking them off from the roof. Most stops were quick, but others—such as when he had to untie and lower the chesterfield—were longer. Each time we stopped, I wondered if this was where he would tell us that our fare would take us no farther. But each time, we traveled on.
Despite the bumps and the stops, Jata had fallen asleep, held safely in place by the rubber of the tire. I wished I could fall asleep too and wake up in Kikima.
The road had gradually become rougher. We passed over dried riverbeds, between huge boulders, down rutted roads and through mountains. Along the way, the homesteads grew smaller and were set farther back from the road. Crops, where they grew, seemed to be suffering. There was as much brown as there was green. Had the rains failed, or did they simply not come here very often?
Once again the matatu slowed. There were no people waiting by the roadside, so I had to hope that passengers inside were wanting to get off. The conductor appeared at the side—perhaps to get a parcel for that passenger?
“We are stopping for you,” he said. “Your fare has passed.”
I roused Jata and gathered my bundle. “Are we far from Kikima?” I asked him.
“Closer than your shillings should have allowed.”
When the matatu came to a full stop, the conductor offered Jata a hand to get her started down. Then he took the water container from me, handing it down to Jata on the ground. No sooner had I landed beside her than the matatu started moving again. The conductor ran alongside and then jumped into the open door, hanging out and looking back at us.
“Follow us!” he yelled. “It is just up the hill. Not far. Follow the dust!”
The matatu raced away, disappearing into the dust cloud it created.
I picked up the water container one more time. How many times had I set it down and picked it up? More important, would this be the last time in this journey?
“Of course. I was just waiting for the dust to settle.” And waiting to settle my fears as well.
We started walking.
“Do you think it will be big or little?” Jata asked.
“What will be big or little?”
“Our grandparents’ home.”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“Not really.”
I was more interested in the door of the house—would it be open or closed?
We were not alone on the road. Women with heavy loads on their backs were slowly walking up the hill, and they were joined by pushcarts filled with produce and bicycles piled high with merchandise. We were not the only people heading in this direction.
“Look!” Jata exclaimed, pointing at a store. The window said, in big letters, KIKIMA WEST SHOPPING CENTER. “We are here!”
“I think this is just the outskirts, but we are close. There is more ahead.”
Jata’s steps became lighter. She was almost skipping she seemed so happy. My feet, on the other hand, felt heavy, burdened with worries she knew nothing about.
We moved to the side of the road as another matatu came up from behind. I turned and shaded my eyes from the dust. Many people were going to Kikima, it seemed. Up ahead were more stores, more vehicles and many, many more people. We had come upon the center of the town, and we were here on a market day. The square was filled with stalls, the ground covered with burlap and plastic to display merchandise. There were tomatoes and potatoes, onions and oranges, mangos and passion fruit piled high.
The square was crowded with people, young and old alike. Were any of these my grandfather and grandmother? Were my uncles and aunts and cousins standing around me? How would I know other than to ask? I looked around for the right person—somebody who was older, who would know the people of the community. At one stall I saw a woman old enough to be a grandparent, carefully stacking potatoes into little piles.
“Good morning,” I greeted her. “I am asking of you, do you know the Kyatha family?”
She shook her head. “I only know potatoes.”
We started walking again. The market space was crowded with only small aisles of dirt left open between the blankets and stalls. People bumped through and loud voices—those of the vendors and those of the customers—seemed to make it seem even more chaotic and crowded. I was reassured that every voice seemed to be speaking in Kikamba but that made it even more difficult as it was harder for me to understand and it strained my mind even further.
All along throughout the whole journey I’d only thought of reaching Kikima but not the difficulty of finding my mother’s family when we did arrive. It was so much bigger, more confusing than I had imagined. My head felt like it was spinning, my legs were shaky. All I wanted was to find an empty spot and quietly think, but there was no empty and no quiet.
I led Jata through the market, being bumped from behind, people and produce crowded in all around us, never allowing her hand to slip from mine. Finally in what seemed like the very center I stopped and put my water container down. It felt like we were in a small island of calm within the middle of a sea of chaos. I looked all around, trying to see an answer that wasn’t visible in my eye or clear in my mind.
“Do you see our grandparents?” Jata asked.
I answered with only a shrug. What else could I say?
“I do not know where they live,” I said to her. “I only know they are the Kyathas.”
“Did you say Kyatha?” a man passing by asked.
“Yes, do you know them?”
“I am Kyatha,” he said.
“You are?” I gasped, unable to believe my ears or my luck.
“Yes. Why do you ask for the Kyatha family?” he questioned.
“We are looking for our family. Our mother was a Kyatha.”
“Was? Has she passed?”
“Last week. Her name was Mutanu.”
The man’s eyes got wide in shock. “You need to wait right here. Do you understand?”
“Yes, we will wait.”
“Right here—do not move … understand?”
“Yes, sir. But who are you?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead he stared directly at us, as if questioning whether we would wait. Finally he said, “Your mother was my sister.”
“Your sister!” I exclaimed. “Then that makes you—”
“Your uncle. Now wait. Do not move.”
He rushed off. I had to fight the urge to run away, as well as the urge to run after him, not to allow him to leave my sight in case he vanished. That option was quickly removed, though, as he was almost instantly swallowed up by the crowd and disappeared. Where was he going and why did I let him leave?
“Is he really our uncle?” Jata asked.
“I do not know why he would lie to us.”
I tried to calm myself. I felt afraid, but I couldn’t allow Jata to sense my fear.
She took my hand and I looked down. “It will be fine.” She smiled. She didn’t need my comfort—she was comforting me.
Within minutes the man reappeared, and he was not alone. There were others moving with him, pushing through the crowd. I tightened my grip on Jata’s hand to check my rising fears. Six men and three women stopped in front of us, and behind them were some children and finally an old man and old woman, walking slowly. The crowd parted to allow the old couple to come to the front.
“I am Kyatha, the father of Mutanu,” the old man said. “And this is her mother. Who are you?”
“We are her children,” I said. “I am Muchoki and this is Jata.”
“And where is my daughter?”
I took a deep breath. “Our mother—your daughter—she is dead.”
He staggered slightly, and the man who had spoken to us first offered a hand to steady him.
“How? When?” the old man asked.
“Only a week ago. It was malaria that took her,” I said.
The old woman—our mother’s mother—began to cry.
“And what of your father?” he asked.
“He was killed. In Eldoret, in the violence. We have no parents.”
“And how did you get here?”
“Mostly we walked.”
“From Eldoret?” the old man asked in disbelief.
I shook my head. “From the camp. From the place they put us in the Rift Valley, near Maai Mahiu.”
“That is over two hundred kilometers! You walked from there?”
“Yes … almost all the way.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“Yes, sir. We walked because there was no other way.”
“You have come so far to bring me such terrible news. I always dreamed that one day she would return, and now you have told me she never will. You have taken away the last thing of her I held—the hope that she would come back.”
Without thinking, I smiled.
“You think this is funny?” the old man demanded. “No. It is just that our mother always said that. She did not wish to return because she feared she would be turned away, and she said she wanted to live with the hope.”
“We would never have turned her away. Never.” The man reached out and took his wife’s hand. “You say that you are my grandchildren and that my beloved daughter is dead, but I do not know either of you. How do I know that what you are saying is true?”
“Can you not see?” his wife asked. “Look in their eyes.”
He looked at my sister, hard, like he was studying her, and then turned and stared at me too.
“I do not see my daughter when I look at you,” he said to me. “But there is something in the girl.”
“My father always said she was like my mother, and that was why he loved her so much.”
Tears were starting to form in the old man’s eyes.
“And you say you walked that far, not knowing where you were going, and still you found us here, in Kikima. How is that possible? Did you have a map?”
“No map.”
“Then how?”
“Our mother told us the way to travel. Before she died, she had decided to return.”
“If only she could have. There is so much I wanted to say.” He choked back a sob. “It is hard to believe you could come all that way on your own and find us.”
“We just followed the string,” Jata said.
He turned to her. “What did you say?”
“The string. We followed the string to find our way home.”
“It is nothing,” I explained. “She is telling you a story.”
“I know the story,” he said. “It was told to me by my father, as it was told to him by his.” He paused. “As I told it to all of my children.”
“And our mother told it to us,” I said. “It is just a story.”
“But it is a true story!” Jata protested. “Muchoki saw the string and we followed it here. Sometimes it was so thin that I had to squint to see it, and mostly I could not see it at all. But my brother could always see it.”
In my mind, I realized, I had always been able to see it.
The old man looked at me. “Do you see the string now?”
I shook my head. This was the end. It led me no farther. We’d always been moved forward by the vision in my head and the hope in my heart. Now there seemed to be neither.
“Do you have any money?” he asked me.
“We have none.”
“And the water container?”
“It is half empty and half full.”
“And food? Do you have any food?”
“Some beans and maize for a few days.”
“And nothing else?”
“One orange.”
He shook his head and smiled. “You had an orange.”
I turned to follow his gaze. Jata was sitting on the ground in a little circle with some other girls. She had peeled the orange and was giving out the pieces!
“You have come with empty pockets, empty stomachs and only enough water to last a day. Both of you wait here!” he ordered. With that, he turned and walked away, leaving us with the others.
“My sister,” the first man—our uncle—said, “was always so kind and gentle.” He pointed down to Jata in the dirt, talking and laughing with the other little girls. “My sister would have done that. Two of those little girls she has given that orange to are my daughters—your cousins.”
Suddenly the old man returned. He opened his hands and revealed a ball of string. He unraveled it until it dangled to the ground. Then he turned and started walking away, the string dragging behind him in the dirt. After a few steps, he stopped and turned back around. “Do you see the string?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“Then why are you not following?”
“Are we going … going to your home?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, we are not going to my home.” A smile came to his face. “We are going to our home. Together, we are walking home.”