I no longer know what to do. I’ve got my visa, but Lketinga’s gone. Priscilla and two warriors are sitting in her hut. I tell her what happened, and she translates for the others. Eventually Priscilla tells me that, although Lketinga is really nice, it’s better that I forget him. Either he really is sick or the others threatened him with something that made him go back to his mother because he couldn’t stay in Mombasa. He needed a medicine man. I couldn’t help him and in any case it would be dangerous for a white to set herself up against all the others.
I’m completely at a loss and don’t know what or whom to believe anymore. Only my instinct tells me that Lketinga was sent off against his will before my return. That same evening the first warriors turn up to start paying court again. When the second one comes out with it and says I need him for a boyfriend because Lketinga was a ‘crazy’ and won’t be back their cheek angers me, and I throw them all out. When I tell Priscilla she just laughs and says that’s how it goes, I shouldn’t be so uptight. She obviously hasn’t grasped that I don’t want just anybody and only gave up my whole life back in Switzerland for Lketinga.
The next day I write a letter to his brother James in Maralal. Maybe he’ll know more. But it’ll be two weeks before I get an answer. Two long weeks without knowing what’s going on. I’ll go mad. On the fourth day I can’t take it any longer. In all secrecy I plan to pack up and undertake the long route to Maralal alone. Then I’d see what I’d do, but I wasn’t giving up. I’d show them. I don’t tell even Priscilla what I’m planning because I no longer trust anybody. When she goes off to the beach to sell her kangas, I pack my bag and set off for Mombasa.
Once again I put another eight hundred miles behind me before I’m back in Maralal. I take the same boarding-house room as last time, for four francs, though the landlady is astonished to see me again. I lie down on the cot in the spartanly furnished little room and think: what now? Tomorrow I will go and see Lketinga’s brother.
First I have to persuade the headmaster to fetch James for me. I tell James everything that happened and he says that if he’s allowed he’ll take me to his mother. After a lot of persuasion the headmaster agrees, as long as I can find a car to take James and me to Barsaloi. Pleased at having got so far with my modest English, I ask around Maralal for someone who has a car. The few who do are almost all Somalis, but when I tell them where I want to go they just laugh at me or demand astronomical prices.
On the second day I bump into my saviour from the time before, Tom, who went and found Lketinga. He too asks me where Lketinga is. When I explain he understands, with some astonishment, and says he’ll try to find a car, because my skin colour just puts the price up fivefold. And indeed, by lunchtime we’re both sitting in a Land Rover he has hired, including its driver, for five hundred Swiss francs. I let James stay behind, as Tom has agreed to come.
The Land Rover takes us out of Maralal along a desolate red clay road. After a while it leads into thick forest of giant trees covered in tropical vines. We can’t see more than six or seven feet into the trees, and soon even our trail is only recognizable from car tracks. Everything else is overgrown. Sitting in the back of the Land Rover, I can hardly see anything. Only our shifting angle of incline hints that the path is steep and winding, When we emerge from the forest an hour later we’re faced with enormous lumps of rock. There’s no way to pass! Until my two companions get out and manage to move a couple of them! Then we set off again, slowly, over the debris and scree in our way. Now I appreciate the price I paid, and from what I feel rather than see, I’d be ready to pay more. It seems miraculous that the vehicle can get over it at all in one piece, but the driver is a genius and we do it.
Now we pass occasional manyattas and see children with herds of goats or cattle. I’m getting excited. When will we be there? Is it somewhere out here where my darling lives? Or has the whole exercise been in vain? Is there still any hope? I say my prayers quietly. My saviour, however, is calm. Eventually we cross a wide riverbed, and a couple of bends away I spot a few blockhouses and above them, on a height, a huge building that rises out of the landscape like an oasis, green and welcoming. ‘Where are we?’ I ask my companions. ‘This is Barsaloi town, and up there is the new Mission building. First we’ll go to the manyattas and see if Lketinga is at his mother’s,’ he tells me. We drive past the Mission, and I’m amazed by the amount of greenery because it’s so dry, like a steppe or semi-desert.
After three hundred yards we turn off the road and rattle over the steppe. Two minutes later the car stops, Tom gets out and tells me to come with him. He tells the driver to wait. A few adults and several children are sitting under a big, flat-topped tree. My companion goes up to them while I wait a little way back. They all glance over at me. After a long chat with an old woman, he comes back and says to me: ‘Come, Corinne, his Mama tells me, Lketinga is here.’ We walk through tall, prickly plants until we come to three very simple manyatta houses set about sixteen feet apart. There are two long spears stuck in the ground before the middle one. Tom points to it and says: ‘Here he is inside.’ I don’t dare move, so he bends down and goes in. I’m so close to him, I can’t see past his back, but I hear Tom speak and then Lketinga’s voice. That’s enough for me, I squeeze in past him. The happy, surprised, almost incredulous look on Lketinga’s face when he sees me will remain with me all my life. Lying on a cowhide in a little room behind the fire in the smoky half-darkness, he suddenly erupts with laughter. Tom makes way for me as well as he can, and I crawl into Lketinga’s outstretched arms. We hold each other tight for ages, and he says: ‘I know always, if you love me, you come to my home.’
Seeing each other again like this, this reunion is better than anything else so far. At this very moment I know that I will stay here even if we have nothing but each other. Lketinga speaks to me from his heart and says: ‘Now you are my wife, you stay with me like a Samburu-wife.’ I’m overjoyed.
My travelling companion looks at me sceptically and asks if he should really go back to Maralal in the Land Rover alone. He says I’d find it hard here, there’s not much to eat and I’d have to sleep on the ground. And there’s no way I’d make it back to Maralal on foot. I couldn’t care less, and I tell him: ‘Wherever Lketinga lives, I can live too!’
For a second it goes dark in the hut. Lketinga’s mother is pushing through the little entranceway. She sits down opposite the fire and looks at me gravely for a long time. I’m aware that this is a decisive moment, so I say nothing. We sit there, holding hands, our faces glowing. If we could radiate light the hut would be bright as day.
Lketinga says only a couple of words to his mother, and I can make out ‘mzungu’ or ‘Mombasa’. His mother looks at me unblinkingly. She is very black. There is a pretty shape to her shaven head, and she wears coloured pearls for earrings and around her neck. She is plumpish with two long, enormous naked breasts and a dirty skirt covering her legs.
Then all of a sudden she reaches out her hand and says: ‘Jambo’. Then she breaks into a torrent of speech. I look at Lketinga. ‘Mother has given her blessing. We can stay with her in the hut.’ Then Tom takes his leave, and I go to fetch my bag from the Land Rover. When I come back there is a whole crowd of people around the manyatta.
Towards evening I hear a tinkling of bells. We go out, and I see a huge herd of goats. Most just pass by, but some are driven into our wicker corral. There are about thirty in the pen, which is reinforced with thorny branches. Then the mother takes a calabash gourd and goes to milk the goats. There is just enough milk for the chai, I discover later. The herds are looked after by an eight-year old boy. He sits down outside the manyatta and looks at me apprehensively as he swallows a couple of cups of water thirstily. He is the son of Lketinga’s older brother.
An hour later it’s dark. The four of us are sitting in the little manyatta, Mama in front near the entrance with Saguna, a frightened little girl of three who is the boy’s little sister, next to her. She cuddles timidly up to her grandmother who is now her mother. When the first girl of the eldest son is old enough, Lketinga explains, she will belong to his mother to help her in her old age with gathering wood and fetching water.
The two of us sit on the cowhide. Mama pokes around amid the lumps of flint in the ash until she gets a glow, then she blows slowly but continuously on the sparks. For a few minutes there is acrid smoke, which brings tears to my eyes. Everybody laughs. I get a fit of coughing and have to push my way out into the open air. Air is the only thing I can think of.
Outside the hut it’s as black as pitch. But the millions of stars look so close you might pluck them from the sky. I enjoy the sensation of peace. Everywhere there’s the glow of fires in the manyattas, including ours now, and Mama is cooking chai, our evening meal. After chai, my bladder begs for attention, but Lketinga laughs and says: ‘Here no toilet, only bush. Come with me, Corinne!’ Deftly he slips out, pushes a thorn bush aside and opens a way through. These thorn bushes are the only protection against wild animals. We go some three hundred yards away from the corral, and he points with his rungu club to a bush that from now on is to be my toilet. At night I can pee closer to the manyatta, because the sand soaks everything up but never the rest, or else we’d have to offer a goat to the neighbours and move away, which would bring great shame.
Back next to the manyatta the thorn bush is moved into place again, and we sit back on the cowhide. Washing here is not on because there’s only enough water for the chai. When I ask Lketinga how we’re to keep ourselves clean, he says: ‘Tomorrow, at the river, no problem!’ Inside the hut it is warm now, but outside it is cold. The little girl is already sound asleep naked next to her grandmother, and the three of us attempt a conversation. People here go to bed around eight or nine p.m., and we too snuggle down as the fire is gradually fading and it’s getting hard to see one another. Lketinga and I cuddle together. Although we’d both like to do more, obviously nothing can happen in the presence of his mother and in this total silence.
The first night, unused to the hard earth, I sleep badly, tossing and turning from one side to the other and listening to every little sound. Now and then a goat’s bell tinkles, ringing, it seems to me, like church bells in the silence. Some animal howls in the distance. Then there’s a rustling at the thorn fence – quite clearly – someone’s trying to come into the corral. My heart’s pounding, and I’m straining to listen. Someone’s coming. I crawl flat on my stomach to the entrance and look out at two black girders – no, they’re legs – and the tips of two spears. At that moment a man’s voice rings out: ‘Supa moran!’ I prod Lketinga in the side and whisper: ‘Darling, somebody is here.’ He makes strange noises, more like grunts, and for a split second stares at me almost angrily. ‘Somebody is outside,’ I tell him pointedly. Then there’s the voice again: ‘Moran supa!’ Then there’s an exchange of words, and the legs suddenly move and disappear. ‘What’s the problem?’ I ask. The man, another warrior, wanted to spend the night with us, which normally wouldn’t have been a problem, but because I’m here it isn’t possible. He will try to find room in another manyatta. I should go back to sleep.
The sun rises at around six a.m., and men and animals rise with it. The goats bray loudly, wanting out from their pen. There are voices everywhere, and already Mama’s place is empty. We get up an hour later and drink chai. This is almost torture because the flies wake up too with the morning sun, and if I put the cup on the ground dozens immediately cluster around it. They buzz continuously around my head. Saguna seems not to notice them, even though they settle around her eyes and in the corners of her mouth. I ask Lketinga where they all come from. He points to the pile of goat dung that’s built up overnight. In the course of the day the dung dries out, and there are fewer flies. That was why I hadn’t found them so persistent the night before. He laughs and says wait until the cows come back, then it’ll be much worse; their milk attracts thousands of flies. The mosquitoes that appear after it rains are even nicer! After chai, I want to go down to the river to wash at last. We head off, me armed with soap, towels and clean clothes, while all Lketinga carries is a yellow canister to fetch water for Mama’s chai. We walk about a mile down a narrow path to the wide riverbed we crossed the day before in the Land Rover. Big, luxuriant trees border the river on both sides, but there’s no sign of water. We wander along the dry riverbed until rocks appear round a bend, and here indeed a little stream emerges from the sand.
We aren’t the only ones here. Next to the little stream a few girls have dug a hole in the sand and are patiently using beakers to fill their water canisters. When they see my warrior they drop their heads in embarrassment and giggle amongst themselves. Twenty yards further along a group of warriors are standing next to the stream washing each other. Their loincloths are laid out on the warm stone to dry. They fall silent at the sight of me, although they are not obviously embarrassed by their nakedness. Lketinga stops and talks to a few of them. Some of them stare at me openly, and I don’t know where to look. I’ve never seen so many naked men who don’t seem to realize they are. Their slim elegant bodies shine magnificently in the morning sun.
Not knowing how I’m supposed to behave in an unfamiliar situation like this, I stroll on for a few yards and sit down by the sluggishly flowing stream. Lketinga comes up to me and says: ‘Corinne, come, here is not good for lady.’ We walk on around another bend in the riverbed to where we can’t be seen, and here Lketinga takes his sparse clothing off and starts washing. When I go to do the same, he looks at me in horror: ‘No, Corinne, this is not good!’ ‘Why not?’ I ask. ‘How am I supposed to wash if I can’t take my T-shirt and skirt off?’ He tells me that to expose my legs would be indecent. We argue gently and in the end I kneel down naked and give myself a thorough wash. Lketinga rubs soap on my back and into my hair, all the while looking around to make sure there really is no one watching us.
The ritual of washing takes a couple of hours, and then we go back. There’s lots going on by the river now: several women washing their head and feet, others digging holes to fill with water for the goats to drink. And still others are patiently filling water canisters. Lketinga sets his down too, and a girl immediately fills it for him.
Then we wander round the village because I want to see the shops. There are three square mud huts that are supposed to be shops. Lketinga talks to the owner of each, all of them Somalis. They each shake their head: there’s nothing to buy except for some powdered tea and Kimbo-brand tins of fat. The largest shop has a couple of pounds of rice. When we start to pack it up I discover that the rice is full of little black beetles. ‘Oh, no,’ I say. ‘I don’t want this.’ He says sorry and takes it back. We now have nothing to eat.
A few women sitting under a tree are selling cow’s milk from calabashes. So at least we can buy milk. For a couple of coins we get two full calabashes, about a litre altogether, and take them home. Mama is delighted to see so much milk. We make chai, and Saguna gets a whole cup of milk, which makes her happy.
Lketinga and Mama discuss the situation, and I am genuinely left wondering how these people feed themselves. From time to time the Mission distributes a pound or two of maize meal to old women, but there’s nothing to be had there for the moment. Lketinga decides to slaughter a goat that evening when the herds return. But in the midst of all this new experience I’m not really hungry.
We spend the rest of the afternoon in the manyatta, while the mother sits under the tree, chatting to the other women. At last we can make love. Cautiously I keep my clothes on, because it’s still day and someone could come into the hut at any time. We perform the brief act of love several times that afternoon. I’m not used to it all being over so quickly and then almost immediately starting again, but I don’t mind. I don’t regret it, because I’m happy to be with Lketinga.
In the evening the goats come home, and Lketinga’s older brother, Saguna’s father, is with them. He and the mother have a long serious conversation during which he every now and then fires wild looks in my direction. Later on I ask Lketinga what was going on, and he tries to explain his brother is just very worried about my health, saying it wouldn’t be long before the District Manager comes out and starts wanting to know why a white woman is living in a hut like this. It isn’t normal.
Within two or three days everybody for miles around will know that I am here and come to see me. If anything happens to me, even the police will turn up, and in the whole history of the Leparmorijos – that’s their family name – nothing of the kind has ever happened before. I reassure Lketinga and promise him that I’m fine and everything is in order with my passport if the District Manager comes. So far I’ve never been seriously sick in my whole life, I tell him, so let’s go and eat a goat and I’ll do my best to eat as much as I can.
As soon as it’s dark the three of us head off, Lketinga, his brother and I. Lketinga has a goat in tow, and we walk about a mile from the village into the bush, because Lketinga is not allowed to eat in Mama’s hut if she is there. I’m accepted perforce because I’m white. I ask what Mama and Saguna will eat. Lketinga laughs and says certain bits of the animal are for women and men don’t eat them. When there was meat to be had, she’d be up late into the night, and they’d wake up Saguna too. I’m satisfied, although I’m never quite sure that I understand everything properly because our conversation in English mixed with Masai and gestures with hands and feet is not exactly fluent.
At last we reach the spot, and they fetch wood and cut green branches from a bush which are arranged together on the sandy earth to form a sort of bed. Then Lketinga grabs the complaining animal by a hind leg and a foreleg and lays it down on its side on the green wood. His brother holds the head forcing its mouth closed and stabs it. The animal jerks fiercely but briefly and then stares motionless into the starry sky. I have no choice but to watch it all close up, because I’m not going to wander off in the dark. I ask why they don’t cut its throat rather than stabbing it so gruesomely. The answer is brief: amongst the Samburus no blood must be allowed to flow until the animal is dead. That’s the way it’s always been.
Now it’s my first time to watch an animal being butchered. They make an incision at the neck, and as the brother pulls at the fleece it forms a sort of trough which immediately fills up with blood. I look on in horrified amazement as Lketinga actually bends over this pool of blood and takes a few slurps. His brother does the same thing. I’m grossed out but don’t say anything. Lketinga points and says: ‘Corinne, you like blood, make very strong!’ I shake my head. No.
After that everything goes quickly. The fleece is deftly removed, the head and the feet severed and laid on the bed of green branches. The stomach is opened carefully, and a horrid stinking green mass – the contents of the stomach – falls out onto the ground. My appetite has gone completely. The brother continues butchering while my Masai patiently blows on the fire. After an hour we’re ready to pile the cut-up pieces of meat onto a sort of pyramid built of sticks. The ribs, all in one piece, go on first because they don’t take as long as the rear legs. The head and feet go straight onto the fire.
The whole thing looks pretty vile, but I know that I have to get used to it. After a short time the ribs are hauled off the fire and bit by bit the rest of the goat is grilled. Lketinga uses his bush knife to cut off half the ribs and hands these to me. I grab them bravely and nibble at them, though it would probably be better with a bit of salt. I have difficulty biting the tough meat off the bones, but Lketinga and his brother eat noisily with accustomed speed. The gnawed bones are thrown over their heads into the bush and soon there’s a rustling noise. I have no idea who’s making off with the remains, but with Lketinga next to me I’m not afraid.
The pair of them now cut slices off the hind leg throwing them back on the fire to grill through. The brother asks me if I like it, and I reply ‘Oh yes, it’s very good!’ and keep on chewing. After all, I’m going to end up skin and bones myself before long if I don’t get something into my stomach. By the time I’ve finished my teeth ache. Lketinga reaches over to the fire and hands me a whole front leg. I look at him quizzically: ‘For me?’ ‘Yes, this is only for you.’ But my stomach is full; I simply can’t eat any more. They can’t believe it and tell me I’m not a proper Samburu: ‘You take home and eat tomorrow,’ says Lketinga good-humouredly. So I sit there and watch as they swallow pound after pound of meat.
When they have finally had enough, they use the fleece to wrap up all the leftovers including the head, feet and internal organs, and we walk back to the manyatta. I’m carrying my ‘breakfast’ home with me. The corral is fast asleep. We crawl into our hut, and Mama immediately rises from her sleeping place. The men give her some of the leftover meat. I can see nothing but the red ashes in the hearth.
The brother goes off to take some meat to his wife’s manyatta. Mama pokes around in the ashes and blows carefully to rekindle the fire. Of course that sends a cloud of smoke up again, and I start coughing. Then a flame flickers into life, and all at once the hut seems warm and cosy. Mama starts dealing with a piece of grilled meat and wakes Saguna. I’m amazed to see this little girl, plucked from a deep sleep, tackle the hunk of meat, cutting little pieces with a knife and putting them straight in her mouth.
While the two of them eat, the water for chai boils. Lketinga and I drink our chai with my leg of goat hanging from the ceiling above us. As soon as the pot is emptied of chai, Mama throws some little off-cuts of meat into it and stir-fries them until they are crispy brown, then she tips them into empty calabashes. I wonder what she’s doing, but Lketinga explains that this is a way of preserving the meat so that it lasts several days. Mama starts to cook all that’s left, otherwise tomorrow lots of other women will come and she’ll have to share with them and we’d be left with nothing again. The goat’s head, completely blackened by the ash, is supposed to be particularly good; she keeps that for tomorrow.
As the fire burns down Lketinga and I try to get some sleep. He lays his head on a three-legged, wooden stool about four inches high to stop his long red hair getting tangled and spreading the colouring everywhere. In Mombasa, where he didn’t have such a thing, he used to tie his hair up in a cloth. It’s a mystery to me how anyone can sleep with their neck stretched and their head on something so hard. But it’s obviously not a problem for him because he’s already fast asleep. I, however, am not having such an easy time; the ground is very hard, it’s not easy to ignore the noises made by Mama who is still eating, and mosquitoes buzz aggravatingly around my head.
In the morning I’m woken up by the pesky flies and a strange noise. All I can see through the doorway is Mama’s skirt with a fast-flowing stream gushing between her legs. It seems the women pee standing up while the men, as I’ve noticed with Lketinga, prefer to crouch down. When the noise fades away I climb out and make my way behind the hut to relieve myself in my own way. Then I wander across to watch Mama milk the goats. After the usual morning chai, we go down to the river again and fetch a gallon of water.
On our return there are three women sitting in the manyatta, but when they see Lketinga and me they get up and leave. Mama is in a bad mood because apparently other women had already come to call and she had neither powdered tea nor sugar nor even a drop of water. Hospitality requires that every visitor is offered chai or at the very least a cup of water. They all want to know about the white woman, she says. Nobody has bothered with her before, but now they won’t leave her alone. I suggest to Lketinga that we go and get some powdered tea at least from one of the shops. When we get back there’s a crowd of elderly people milling around in the shade near the manyatta. They have unbelievable patience and can wait around for hours, just chatting to one another, in the knowledge that sooner or later the mzungu will have to eat and the laws of hospitality demand that the old folks will get a share.
As a warrior, Lketinga feels uncomfortable among so many married women and old men and says he wants to show me the countryside. We head off into the bush, and he tells me the names of all the plants and animals we encounter. The whole area is bone dry, and the ground either rock-hard red earth or sand. The earth is cracked, and from time to time we come across what look like craters. It’s hot and I’m thirsty, but Lketinga reckons the more water I drink the thirstier I’ll get. He cuts a couple of twigs from a bush, sticks one in his mouth and gives me one, and says it’s good for cleaning the teeth and at the same time takes away the thirst.
My full cotton skirt keeps getting caught on thorns, and after another hour I’m really sweating and insist on drinking something, so we head down towards the river, which is identifiable from a distance because the trees next to it are greener and taller. But I search the dried-up riverbed in vain for any trace of water. We walk along the riverbed for a bit until we catch sight of a group of apes near some rocks. They scamper away from us, and Lketinga goes over to the rocks and digs a hole in the sand. Gradually the sand grows darker, slowly a little pool of water appears, which eventually clears. I satisfy my thirst, and we head back home.
My meal that evening is the rest of the goat leg. Sitting around in the twilight we converse as well as we can. Mama wants to know about my country and my family. From time to time the difficulties in understanding one another make us laugh. As ever, Saguna is asleep, snuggled up close to Mama. She has more or less grown used to my presence, although she still won’t let me touch her. By nine o’clock we’re ready for bed. I keep my T-shirt on but fold up my skirt beneath my head as a pillow and use a thin kanga as a blanket, though it’s little protection from the early morning cold.
On the fourth day Lketinga and I go off to look after the goats for the whole day together. I am very proud at being allowed to go with him. It’s not easy to keep all the animals together. When we come across other herds I’m amazed at how even the children know exactly which are their animals, although there are only about fifty goats at most. We stroll casually for mile upon mile, the goats nibbling at the almost bare bushes. Around lunch we drive them down to the river to drink before moving on. We drink the same water, and that is all we consume all day. We return to the house towards evening, exhausted and sunburned, and I think: once, but never again! I am amazed that people can do this, day-in day-out, all their lives. Mama, the brother and his wife are at the manyatta to welcome us back, and I glean from their conversation that I have won some respect, and they are proud that I could do it. For the first time I sleep soundly the whole night through.
The next morning I clamber out in a fresh new cotton frock. Mama is amazed and wants to know how many I have. I hold up four fingers, and she suggests that I might care to give her one, as she only has one and has been wearing it for years. That’s not hard to believe, looking at how dirty it is and the holes in it. But mine are far too long and too tight at the waist. I promise to bring her one back on my next expedition. Compared to the average Swiss woman, I have very few clothes, but here four skirts and ten T-shirts are an almost shameful excess.
Today I plan to do my washing in the meagre waters of the river. So we go into a shop and buy Omo. This is the only washing powder to be bought in Kenya and is used not just for clothes but for the body and hair as well. It’s not easy washing clothes with little water and a lot of sand. Lketinga even helps me, although the other women and girls watch and giggle. The fact that he’ll do that for me makes me love him even more. The men here do almost no work at all, certainly not ‘women’s work’, like fetching water, finding firewood or washing clothes, although they usually will wash their own kanga.
In the afternoon I decide to go up to the grandiose-looking Mission and introduce myself. A grumpy but astonished-looking missionary opens the door and says, ‘Yes?’ I muster my best English to tell him that I’m intending to stay here in Barsaloi and live with a Samburu man. He looks at me somewhat dismissively and with an Italian accent says, ‘Yes, and now?’ I ask him if it would be possible to go with him to Maralal from time to time to get foodstuffs. He replies coldly that he never knows in advance when he has to go to Maralal and in any case has to transport sick people rather than help with shopping expeditions. He holds out his hand and bids me a cool goodbye with the words, ‘I’m Father Guiliani, arrivederci.’
I’m left standing in front of the closed door, trying to come to terms with my first encounter with a missionary. I’m angry and ashamed to be white. Slowly I make my way back to the manyatta and my own poor folk who are ready to share with me even though I’m a total stranger.
I tell Lketinga about my experience, and he laughs and says those two missionaries are no good. The other one, Father Roberto, is a bit more approachable, though. Their predecessors had helped the local community more and always distributed maize meal when there was a famine. This pair would wait until it was too late. I’m sad not to be able to count on the priest for a ride, and I’ve no intention of begging.
The days pass by at the same tempo, varied only by the different groups of visitors in the manyatta. Sometimes it’s old people, sometimes warriors all the same age, and then I’m usually left sitting for hours without understanding more than the occasional word.