We hang around for an hour with ever more people turning up. I hide myself back in the house until eventually Mama turns up with three elderly men. The three of us go and stand in front of the car, and Mama gives a little speech during which the others repeat ‘Enkai’ in chorus. It takes about ten minutes before we get a gob of spittle pressed against our forehead as a good luck charm. With that, to my relief, the ceremony is over. I press some utensil or other into the hand of each of the elders, although Mama just points at Napirai and says all she wants is our baby.
But thanks to her help I’ve won the day, and she’s the only one I embrace again before I climb behind the steering wheel. Lketinga hesitates until I start up the engine, and then he gets in sulkily. I drive off immediately without once looking back; it’s a long journey but it leads to freedom.
With every mile I put behind me I feel strength returning. I intend to drive all the way to Nyahururu and only then will I breathe freely. But an hour before we even get to Maralal we have to stop because of a puncture. We’re laden to the roof, and the spare wheel is underneath everything, but I don’t let myself get flustered: this will be the last time we change a wheel in Samburu country.
Our next stop is just outside Nyahururu, at Rumurutti, where the tarmac road begins. A police checkpoint stops us demanding to see my logbook and my international driving licence. The licence expired long ago, but they don’t notice and instead tell me I’ll have to get a new sticker with our address for the windscreen because that’s the regulation. I’m amazed; in Maralal nobody’s heard of such a sticker.
We spend the night in Nyahururu and next day ask where we have to get the sticker from. Once again the stress of Kenyan bureaucracy kicks in. First of all we have to take the car to a garage to get all its faults fixed, then we have to pay for a technical test. The car is in the garage all day, which costs even more money. On the second day it’s ready, and I’m convinced it’ll all work out but when we get to the test, the inspector immediately fails us for the bodged battery and the lack of a sticker. I explain to him that we’re in the process of moving and don’t yet have an address in Mombasa, but he’s not interested: without an address, we can’t have a sticker. I drive off, astounded by the stupidity of it all. We’ve spent two days hanging around spending money, all for nothing. But I’m determined to get to Mombasa, and we drive for several more hours until we find a place to stay in a village the other side of Nairobi. I’m tired out with so much driving, especially as I have to concentrate on driving on the left, but I still have to wash nappies and feed Napirai. Happily with the level roads we’re not used to, she’s slept a lot.
The next day we reach Mombasa after another seven hours on the road. The climate down here is tropical heat, and we’re exhausted as we join the queue of cars waiting for the ferry to the south bank. I fish out the letter I received a couple of months ago from Sophia shortly after she arrived in Mombasa. Her address is near Ukunda, and I hope she’ll provide us with a roof over our heads for the night.
It takes us another hour to find the new building where Sophia lives, but nobody seems to be home at this grand address. I knock next door, and a white woman opens the door and tells me Sophia’s gone to Italy for two weeks. I’m hugely disappointed and can’t think where we’ll find a place to stay until I remember Priscilla, but my husband’s not keen and says he’d rather stay on the north bank. I’m not happy with that as I had such bad experiences over there. We’re starting to get tetchy, and so I decide just to drive to our own village. But when we get there only one of the five houses is still in a habitable condition. At least we find out, however, that Priscilla has moved to the next village just five minutes’ drive away.
In next to no time we’re in Kamau village which is laid out in the shape of a horseshoe with the buildings all a series of joined together rooms like the boarding houses in Maralal, but with a big shop in the middle. I’m immediately taken with this village. The minute we stop the car children come out to look, and the shop owner’s peering from his window. All of a sudden Priscilla appears, hardly able to believe her eyes. She’s delighted, particularly when she sees Napirai. In the meantime she’s had another boy too, a little older than Napirai. Straight away she takes us into her room, makes tea and demands that we tell her everything. When she hears that we’re planning to stay in Mombasa she’s thrilled, and for the first time since we left Barsaloi even Lketinga seems to cheer up. She offers to let us stay in her room and use her water, which even here has to be fetched in canisters from a spring. She can spend the night with a friend, and tomorrow she’ll fix up somewhere of our own for us. Yet again I’m overwhelmed by her simple friendliness and hospitality.
After such a tiring day we go to bed early. Next morning, Priscilla has already found us a room at the end of the row, so that we can park the car beside it. The room is just ten feet square, and everything is made of concrete except for the straw roof. During the day we see some of the other inhabitants, all of them Samburu warriors, some of whom we recognize. Before long Lketinga is sitting talking and laughing with them, showing Napirai off proudly.