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A Rough Welcome

Nairobi to Sotik

In the past it was taken for granted that when travellers said goodbye they became inaccessible for an indefinite period, only sending back the occasional message (a year or two out of date) in a cleft stick. But now we are expected to remain in touch with home, friends and problems; our escape is merely physical, the mental and emotional shackles staying firmly in place.

On and off, over the years, I have brooded on this constraint. Then suddenly I was vouchsafed a blinding glimpse of the obvious. ‘Ease of communication’ could be defeated by not telling anybody – not even one’s nearest and dearest – where one was going. If nobody knows which continent a traveller is travelling on, enjoyment of the present cannot be threatened by calamities back home, like news of your dog being run over, your house being burned to the ground or your bank going into liquidation.

In January 1992 I craved this degree of isolation. During the previous few years a combination of circumstances (not least my involvement in Rumania’s post-Ceausescu problems) had put me under some stress and my self-prescribed unwinding therapy was a cycle tour from Kenya to Zimbabwe via Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia – a carefree ramble through some of the least hot areas of sub-Saharan Africa. I therefore presented myself, for my sixtieth birthday, with a Dawes Ascent mountain-bike, the cyclist’s equivalent of a Rolls-Royce, named Lear. Then I bought a ticket to Nairobi and told all concerned that I was about to indulge in a four-month mystery tour.

At once all concerned rose up in arms. I was being, they alleged, perverse, selfish, irresponsible and neurotic. They needed to keep in touch, to know that I was safe. The illogic of this attitude escaped them. If I were unsafe – diseased, injured, jailed, robbed, murdered – their knowing about it would not materially alter my situation but would distress them. So my insistence on not keeping in touch was a kindness; every sensible person assumes no news to be good news.

I was, I suppose, trying to create an oasis in time. However, it didn’t work out quite like that; if you leave your own problems behind, other people’s come along to fill the vacuum – a lesson that lay in the future as my airbus took off from Heathrow on 2 March. It was three-quarters empty: worrying for Kenya Airways but agreeable for us passengers. After a tolerable dinner and several free Tusker beers I slept well, lying luxuriously along three seats.

A pair of Heathrow scaremongers had warned me that most Nairobi airport officials are surly predators. But as we landed at 7.30 a.m. I had another concern: would Lear be grievously maimed by the baggage-handlers? Most cyclists are capable of attending to their machines’ injuries; I am not. Anxiously I asked a tall, handsome uniformed official – his precise function unclear – where bicycles could be collected. He gazed down at me reflectively, then wondered, ‘Why did you bring a bicycle? It is better for old people to travel in vehicles.’ Already I was streaming sweat, in no position to dispute his next comment. ‘It is too hot to cycle. Even for us it is too hot before the rains. Why did you come with a bicycle in the hot season?’

For cat-sitter reasons (my home is owned by three cats) this journey had been started a month earlier than originally planned. That a traveller’s timing should be determined by feline whims is plainly absurd but it seemed unnecessary to expose this deranged area of my psyche to an airport official. Meanwhile, as we chattered unproductively, someone might be bikenapping Lear …

The young man nodded towards the conveyor-belt and said, ‘All luggage comes there.’ Spatially a bicycle could not ‘come there’ so I hurried to the Information kiosk where a small round amiable man observed, with a twinkle, that in Kenya lions eat cyclists. Then, intuiting that I was in no mood for banter, he indicated a nearby doorway.

In a grey concrete hanger I found decrepit tractors drawing trailers of luggage through greasy diesel clouds. At last one of them returned with Lear – only Lear – on board. When I eagerly leaped forward, the tractor-driver required no documentary proof of ownership; perhaps my joyous relief was proof enough. Beside the kiosk I set about unwrapping Lear from those many layers of plastic sheeting in which he had been dressed for his journey. Despite this precaution, two nasty gashes marked the saddle and the right-hand gear lever had been dented. Mercifully, neither injury affected his performance. A small but fascinated crowd gathered to watch me adjusting the handlebars before beginning a humiliating struggle to screw on the pedals.

Eventually, the tall handsome official was moved to intervene. ‘You don’t understand bicycles,’ he said triumphantly, taking over the spanner. ‘They are not suitable for women. Pedals must be straight and you are putting them on crooked. It is better if you use vehicles and sell me this bicycle. In Africa we can’t buy such strong bicycles.’ A jolly air-hostess, off our flight but showing no sign of fatigue, fell about laughing and diagnosed, ‘She has a hangover! So many Tuskers, now she can’t see straight!’

By the time I had loaded Lear – his pannier-bags go as hand-luggage – all my fellow-passengers had disappeared and so had the customs officers. At Immigration a charming young woman gave me a three-month visa, said it could be extended indefinitely and sounded sincere when she welcomed me to Kenya. No one was interested in my health documents. So what was all that about ‘surly predators’?

Huge brash advertisement hoardings infest the road into Nairobi and I winced on passing an ‘interpretative centre’ offering The African Experience. My immediate destination was a Christian guest-house on Bishop’s Road where a room plus three palatable buffet meals cost only £8.50. Having locked Lear to my bed, the day could be spent ambling around Nairobi; after an intercontinental flight one needs to take it easy.

Where I had turned off the Uhuru Highway towards Bishop’s Road, a thousand or so men and women were singing in perfect harmony near the corner of Central Park, one of Nairobi’s many wide green spaces. Evidently something was being celebrated and I soon returned to that junction, known as Freedom Corner. The crowd, which had been standing, was now sitting or kneeling and at once several people urgently requested me not to stand.

This was no celebration but a movingly civilised demo, supported by all classes and age groups. On a dais under a canvas awning five elderly women – the mothers of sons ‘wrongfully imprisoned’ for the past six years – were into the fourth day of a hunger-strike protest. At intervals they spoke to the crowd, vehemently and pleadingly, arguing for their sons’ release. Yet the atmosphere was entirely free of aggression; this gathering was resolved to provoke no violence from any source, hence the directive to sit or kneel, to seem physically passive though spiritually assertive. One could not imagine a more orderly crowd, listening attentively to the mothers and their supporters – members of the opposition party, or coalition of parties, known as FORD (Forum for the Restoration of Democracy) – then rhythmically clapping while singing plaintive hymns. Three Whites were openly filming the scene under the impassive gaze of thirty-two heavily armed policemen, standing some fifty yards behind the dais in the shade of a blue-gum coppice. Emboldened by this free-ranging media activity, I gradually moved, on my knees, from the edge of the crowd to the front of the dais.

That was unwise. Half an hour later two lorry-loads of the dreaded paramilitary GSU (General Service Unit) troopers arrived to reinforce the police and we were savagely dispersed. The troopers were armed with rifles and sub-machine-guns, the police with rifles and three-foot-long wooden clubs, crudely hewn out of thick branches; all wore tin helmets and carried flimsy-looking plastic riot-shields. Without warning the sitting crowd was charged and as I scrambled to my feet I could hear all around me the sickening thud of wooden staves on innocent backs. Twice I was struck hard across the shoulders as we all fled in panic, leaving the mothers to be tear-gassed and beaten (one into unconsciousness) until in desperation they stripped naked – completely naked. This culturally symbolic gesture got massive media coverage and shattered Kenya; no amount of speechifying or hymn-singing could have drawn so much attention to their sons’ cause. To be seen stripping naked is a woman’s ultimate protest against injustice and it incorporates a powerful curse against those inflicting the injustice.

That barbarous attack gave the green light to hundreds of young males – cheered on by an interesting number of young females – who now felt justified in retaliating not only against the security forces but also against the affluent layer of society those were defending. In the city centre many shops were looted and I saw several vans, belonging to firms suspected of donating large amounts to the Kenya Africa National Union (KANU), being stoned or petrol-bombed. Yet to me, comparing the vibes with Northern Ireland’s, there was an element of pretence, of fun and games, about that afternoon’s lawlessness. For hours open-backed, orange-painted police lorries patrolled the streets, pursued by gangs throwing sticks and bricks and bottles and verbal abuse. Occasionally a lorry stopped and policemen swarmed over the sides to chase the youths, who fled at Olympic speeds wearing broad grins. Meanwhile Nairobi’s élite were out on their skyscraper balconies, cups of coffee or glasses of something stronger in hand, observing the fray as an entertainment. I decided then that I do not, and never will, understand the role of violence in modern Africa.

It takes more than a riot to separate me from my evening intake of beer. By finding the back entrance to an up-market alcohol store – the front entrance was securely barred against looters – I acquired four bottles of Tusker. These had to be smuggled into my guest-house where a conspicuous notice in the hallway forbade the bringing of alcohol or tobacco on to the premises. East Africa’s Christianity still bears the stamp of those earnest evangelicals who imported it a century ago.

Prudence prompted me to get off the streets before sunset; at the best of times Nairobi is unsafe after dark, especially for foreigners, and my way back to Bishop’s Road led through one of the unsafest areas, between Central Park and Uhuru Park. Having left the excitement behind, I became aware of my throbbing shoulders. The day’s activities had coated me with sweat and dust but, alas, Nairobi was then drought-stricken; only the guest-house kitchen had water, drawn from some distant source by two donkeys. Unfortunately a bathroom adjoined my bedroom and the stench from the 100 suggested that this was no recent shortage.

Most of Kenya’s Christian Churches had by then come out openly against President Moi and in favour of multi-party democracy, and my fellow-guests seemed twitchy as we gathered in the dining-room. Among those missionaries my inelegant cycling garb marked me as an outsider and I was handled, conversationally, with caution. A few dozen mildly manic Christians were sitting around balancing plates on laps while solicitously offering one another more filtered water and blandly discussing non-political topics. About half were Whites – from Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland – whose female component vied for the attentions of a tubby, bouncy Kenyan bishop. Black church workers from up-country – teachers, nurses, lay-preachers – loudly discussed fund-raising. Four Nigerians, in Nairobi for a theological conference, were conspicuous because several shades darker than the average Kenyan and many shades more sophisticated. They also seemed outsiders and spontaneously we got together over our kedgeree and salad. These high-powered theologians immediately sought my opinion of Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Kung and other pioneering Christian thinkers; then, realising that this was an unequal meeting of minds, they turned down the heat with typical African courtesy. A history lesson followed. In West Africa, they proudly told me, the Freetown and Lagos grammar schools had always upheld European academic standards and at Fourah Bay Institution, affiliated to Durham University since 1875, Hebrew and Greek had formed part of the ordination course since the 1840s. By 1890, West Africa’s seventy-six Anglican priests included several Durham or Cambridge graduates. In East Africa the missionaries never demanded the same educational standards of Blacks as of Whites, or even tried to give a sound theological training, and the first barely literate deacons were ordained only in the mid-1890s.

After dinner a small energetic Kikuyu woman of indeterminate age herded us all into the adjacent sitting-room for a Holy Time. Beaming ferociously at her captives, she set about arousing fervour: ‘Have we any soloists who can please Jesus by singing beautiful hymns?’

We hadn’t. My eyes wandered to the television set high above us, near the ceiling. Julie Ward’s father was being interviewed outside Nairobi’s imposing courthouse. On that flickering screen the poor fellow seemed to have St Vitus’s Dance. The Luo teacher beside me muttered angrily, ‘Why so much fuss about this one murder? Only because she was White and killing her is bad for the tourist trade. Every day Kenyan people are murdered in Kenya and there is no fuss!’

Inexorably our shepherdess drove us towards a semblance of fervour. ‘Now, all together, let’s clap for Jesus! And now we’ll stamp the feet for Jesus! Show him how your love for him carries you away!’

I glanced around the room; my fellow-Whites seemed as much at ease with this charade as their Black colleagues. Then I caught the eyes of the Nigerian quartet and it was clear that they, too, were planning their escape.

At last our opportunity came: ‘Now let’s sing and dance for Jesus! Everyone hold hands and jump around for joy!’ Within five minutes I had jumped to and beyond the door. The Nigerians, at the far end of a long room, had farther to dance but soon passed my bedroom, laughing quietly. The source of their amusement was not hard to guess.

I hadn’t planned to linger in Nairobi and Day One did not tempt me to change my mind. At dawn, psychopathic drivers were already racing each other up and down Cathedral Road. Negotiating the junction to cross Kenyatta Avenue brought me out in a cold sweat. On the Uhuru Highway, which would lead me out of the capital, I funked cycling and walked. Then came a four-lane motorway in the making; on both sides of this Prestige Project unschooled children swarmed between homes ingeniously constructed in varying combinations of tin, plywood, cardboard, canvas and plastic sheeting. A local man who had appointed himself my escort (‘There are criminals here!’) complained that before the official opening of the motorway this area would be ‘tidied’: the shacks bulldozed, the inhabitants banished beyond sight of foreign visitors.

In Britain’s anti-racist circles it is often said that Afro-Caribbean children should be shown photographs of African city centres where sleek limousines create traffic jams between skyscraping architectural extravagances. These, it is argued (usually by people who have never set foot in Africa) would enhance Black children’s self-esteem, allegedly damaged by pictures of shanty towns, mud huts, medicine men in sinister attire, women carrying water from distant wells and other such ‘stereotyping’ images. Yet city centres like Nairobi’s illustrate the most shameful aspect of modern Africa, not its achievements. Millions live in shanty towns, patients must depend on medicine men and women must carry water because African politicians are so addicted to motorways, limousines and architectural excesses. However, facing such facts is as distasteful to extreme anti-racists as to the West’s donor governments, the World Bank, and the many UN and other agencies who find it expedient to evade or distort African realities.

Where construction work was still in progress two lanes of the Prestige Project were closed to motor traffic but open to cyclists, pedestrians and beasts of burden. Scores of fine-boned donkeys, their crosses conspicuous on short, sleek oaten coats, carried charcoal, brushwood, vegetables or plastic jerry-cans of water, three or four on each side. Some were teamed in twos or threes to draw crude wooden carts, each bearing several tar-barrels. Elsewhere, Kenyan donkeys look privileged; here many were overworked, underfed and dreadfully afflicted by sores. Urban life takes its toll among all species.

In the busy scruffy little town of Limuru I tried to buy a newspaper but already the day’s editions had been sold out, a measure of the interest taken in the Mothers’ Protest and its sequel. Turning west off the motorway towards the Mau Escarpment, my spirits rose as I pedalled upwards – slowly, being not yet accustomed to the weight of the panniers. Soon the tarred surface gave way to loose large stones, ridges of sharp rock and stretches of deep dust – suffocating and blinding when the occasional truck passed. Lear had to be pushed for two gruelling hours through apparently uninhabited grey-green scrub, the gravelly soil desiccated below thorn trees, the silence broken only by raucous or plaintive or alarmed bird-calls. At intervals a group of children or a couple of youths waited hopefully for some passing driver to buy their little cellophane bags of mangoes or small hard sweet pears; evidently this bush concealed dwellings. One smiling young man presented me with three pears and said, ‘No money from Mama!’ In Africa numerous benefits accrue to the granny generation.

On the edge of the escarpment tarmac reappeared, allowing me to freewheel for miles, weaving between the sort of mega-pot-holes that unnerve drivers but leave cyclists relaxed. The steep slopes above the road were darkly pine-covered; far below on my left stretched the Rift Valley’s immense heat-hazed flatness. Even while descending at speed I was aware of the rising temperature.

A small township on the valley floor marked the junction where I was to turn west for Narok. Here a mud-brick, tin-roofed shack-bar tempted me to pause for a Tusker, in defiance of colonial folk-wisdom. Crude wooden trestle tables and benches wobbled on the earth floor and a vast earthenware jar of cold water, covered with drenched sacking, served as refrigerator. The owner, Ruth, was a vigorous, voluble Kikuyu woman, long since deserted by her husband and now feeling let down by her 14-year-old son.

‘I saved and saved to send him to boarding-school but he won’t study. I tell him he can leave school and go to Nairobi and look for his father to feed him. My daughter is 9 years old and a good student. I will spend the money on her. Kenya needs educated women. The men are lazy and weak, only pretending to be important. The women know how to work. So our girls should learn how to work with their brains, then they can take over the government and show men how to do things sensibly!’

As I was applauding this viewpoint, an anti-AIDS poster on the opposite wall caught my eye. It depicted an emaciated young man surrounded by his grieving family. ‘That came from Uganda,’ said Ruth. ‘Even in the villages there people are dying. Here it’s a city disease, brought by Americans – and now they try to blame us! To save money for education I had to work with many men, now I won’t have truck-drivers or city men though they pay most. I have a brain, I can see how this disease goes. If you get it money won’t cure it – OK?’

Emphatically I agreed, then wondered if I should remark that by now working with any men is dangerous. But I hesitated to throw my White weight about. Kenya is – or was then – reluctant to admit the extent of its AIDS problem. In 1988 a rash of sensational Western press reports, describing the epidemic sweeping through East Africa, caused a 30 per cent decline in tourism earnings – normally around £220 million a year and Kenya’s main source of hard currency.

A strong cross-wind tempered the sun’s ferocity as I followed a narrow, smooth tarmac road through Hell’s Gate National Park. Few vehicles disturbed the peace and there were neither dwellings nor people, only scores of fat placid zebra and statuesque eland, and hundreds of graceful Thomson’s gazelle wandering through the sparse bush. To me those last are among the most beautiful of creatures, their russet flanks darkly striped, their horns elegantly curved, all their movements exquisite. Even as a child, long before conservation became fashionable, it baffled me that Europeans could regard the unprovoked killing of such animals as a boast-worthy personal triumph.

Hell’s Gate National Park, recently established at the expense of the local Masai’s grazing rights, is named after that spot on Lake Naivasha where a German explorer, Gustav Fischer, was forced by the Masai to retreat in 1882. The earlier explorers of the Lake Victoria region had cautiously skirted Masailand because these pastoralists, who migrated from Southern Sudan a few centuries ago, long remained determined to prevent any European encroachment on their territory. However, by the early 1890s the clan quarrel between the Ilmasai and the Iloikop – combined with epidemics of cholera, smallpox, rinderpest and consequent famine – had so reduced Masai numbers and vitality that the British were able to negotiate a treaty with Olonana, their laibon or religious leader-cum-chief. The subsequent construction of the Mombasa-to-Uganda railway bisected Masailand and, when the settlers arrived, the Masai were banished to two reserves, north and south of the railway. As settler demands increased, the colonial authorities compelled the Masai to leave the northern reserve and move south. Ever since, they have grazed that reserve and parts of northern Tanzania, but having to share their territory with protected wildlife naturally causes some conflict between tribesmen and game wardens.

In regions with any considerable Masai population I was to hear frequent references to ‘those stupid backward people’. Their conspicuous presence, wandering proudly across the landscape in traditional dress, irritates those eager to seem Westernised. There must also be some underlying envy. In general, the Masai spurned Christianity, one of the colonists’ main control levers, and for generations remained untempted by mission education, ‘status’-bestowing European dress and first names, the cash economy and its concomitant consumerism. Supremely confident of their superiority to everyone else, Black or White, only they have preserved their integrity as Africans. When they meet the mzungu (foreigner) their gaze is direct, calm, assured, untroubled by the confusions that beset too many of their more adaptable fellow-citizens. But inevitably Masailand is now changing. It has become a sad region where a tribe long celebrated for its dignity, courage, endurance, physical beauty and independence of spirit is gradually being overwhelmed by the demands of game parks, agribusiness and tourism.

At 4 p.m. I rejoiced to see a bank of dark cloud spreading up from the eastern horizon. By then I was flagging; that deceptive wind had not really protected me from the perilous equatorial sun. Longingly I watched those clouds; their blackness seemed promising. All afternoon my destination had been visible: a jumbled range of blue mountains rising dramatically from the level plain. Near the edge of the plain, hundreds of fenced-in acres were planted with artificially fertilised and irrigated grass and wheat; a Nairobi tycoon had recently developed this ranch, I later learned.

As the road rose and the sun sank, the air cooled and I revived. Here, on the scrubby hillsides, unkempt shambas (small farms) surrounded the square huts of Masai families who had been forced to settle and cultivate – a shaming occupation for pastoralists, some of whom hire Kikuyu women to work for them. The road wound from ridge to ridge, each higher than the last, and the pedestrian traffic consisted mainly of Masai. An aura of privilege and aristocratic poise surrounds even the younger generation – tall, lean young men with features that seem carefully sculpted. Each carried a long herding stick and a short polished knobkerrie, the only weapon now allowed to men who in former days would never have been seen without a spear. Some, too, had ear mutilations that involved the lower half being completely cut off, not merely elongated. So there is no hope for the local donkeys, many of whom have cropped ears – only one-third left – as this is believed to check braying.

Towards sunset the breeze became a strong wind, thunder growled above the distant Aberdares, lightning danced among the swelling clouds – and at last a deluge came, quickly dissolving my patina of salt crystals. The map showed no village ahead and neither the terrain nor the weather favoured camping. I realised then how different was Kenya from tourist-free Cameroon where I had trekked in 1987. There, at sunset, one can be sure of a warm if puzzled welcome in any remote compound. Here, only some extreme emergency could adequately explain a mzungu’s seeking hospitality in the bush. Because tourists are amply catered for by Kenya’s smart hotels, the notion of any White curling up happily in the corner of a hut would shock and upset; I knew that intuitively. On my return to Kenya four months later, for a longer period, I realised that this potential for embarrassment between the races is not entirely based on the existence of an organised tourist industry. A half-century of White settlement created a racial chasm unknown in Cameroon.

It was almost dark when I panted on to the highest ridge-top, by then resigned to camping damply. But there – hurrah! – stood a guest-house, surrounded by a six-foot wooden fence. This was the biggest building in a newish trading centre not marked on any map. In the empty wick-lit bar I was welcomed wonderingly by Ed and Gin. Gin spoke no English; Ed’s was quite fluent. He wheeled Lear across a wide flooded yard to our £2 room – the walls and floor concrete, the barred window unglazed, the tin roof supported by stout beams, the only furniture a hard but comfortable single bed with clean cotton sheets. This being a modern establishment, three toilet bowls had been installed in cubicles at the far end of the yard and there were two open-air wash-basins with chrome taps: an expensive mistake, Ed admitted, since running water remained a pipe-dream. The usable latrine was a hygienic forty yards away, in the bush.

Supper consisted of a one-egg omelette and a small tomato. The family had already eaten, Ed explained apologetically, and there were no left-overs. Abraham arrived as I ate, introducing himself as ‘a Christian pastor’. He was tall, fortyish, quiet spoken, careworn and teetotal, but tolerant. ‘From Nairobi is seventy miles,’ he observed, as Ed opened yet another Tusker. ‘You need much liquid, cycling in the hot season.’

My companions were pessimistic about Kenya’s future. ‘We have eighteen millionaires and eighteen million paupers,’ quoted Ed. ‘That’s our problem!’

Abraham added, ‘But the West helped to make this problem and still subsidises our corrupt leaders – why?’ Then he fulminated against the staffing of Nairobi’s Kenyatta Hospital (the biggest in the country) by expatriates whose monthly salaries exceed what Kenyan doctors can earn in a year, even Kenyan doctors more highly qualified than the expatriates. Ed laughed and said, ‘Some Whitemen like Africa very much – here they can get big pay for a little learning.’

Both men were riveted by my ‘very big adventure’, as Ed described it. They pored over the map by lamplight, considering my proposed route. Then Abraham straightened up and sighed. ‘For most of this way,’ he said, ‘you’ll be on the ukimwi road.’

Ed translated. ‘In KiSwahili, we say ukimwi for AIDS.’

Abraham accepted another Coca-Cola and asked, ‘Are you going to help people about this plague?’

‘How can I? I’m only a traveller, not a medical person.’

‘That I understand,’ said Abraham. ‘But I meant help with information. You are from the West, educated, old enough to be respected. You must know all about this plague and many of our people are ignorant. They need information and may listen to you. You must help them. I have thought about this in my own work, as parson. By changing the way only one person behaves, we can save many lives.’ He moved the lamp closer and stared at me. ‘Now you don’t like what I’m saying. But you cannot follow the ukimwi road and be silent! There is no medicine for this plague, only information to stop it. You have that information and must share it. All our Western visitors should do this but for tourists it’s not so easy, especially young tourists. They cannot talk about certain things without giving offence. But for you, an old woman staying in villages, there will be many opportunities. I believe God has sent me here tonight, to give you this guidance.’

When Abraham had left, carrying a dozen Coca-Colas for his son’s birthday party, Ed asked me, ‘Why do you look so worried?’

I prevaricated; it would be difficult to explain that the role of ‘educated White woman informing ignorant Africans’ did not appeal to me. Yet I saw, too clearly for my own comfort, that Abraham had reason on his side. One day out from Nairobi, my therapeutic journey seemed at risk.

I emerged into a chilly pale world. Above the eastern horizon lay long lines of pale primrose cloud; young pale green grass grew by the roadside; a pale blue sky arched over an immense undulating expanse of low, dense grey-green bush. Now I could see that this was not a ridge-top but another wide plateau, tilting westwards. For twenty-five miles the traffic-free road to Narok descended gradually through country inhabited only by massive tusked warthogs, dainty gazelle and a multitude of brilliant birds darting and swerving through the tangled vegetation.

Narok in its broad valley, overlooked from the north by forested slopes, seemed almost metropolitan: a large, straggling, crowded place, untidy and undistinguished. As in all East African towns, one is aware of an imported way of life having been suddenly grafted on to a culture unprepared to receive it. This alien flavour is strengthened by the visual assertiveness of decaying colonial offices, incongruous European-style churches, thriving Asian business premises. East Africa, when taken over, was not at the stage of building administrative centres or running commercial enterprises. Apart from the Arabs’ coastal cities, it had no centuries-old strongholds of indigenous culture, like Kano and Timbuctoo; it is hardly surprising that its towns lack character.

In a cramped, ill-lit hoteli, four meat samozas and four cups of sweet weak milky tea broke my fast. (Hotelis offer food but no accommodation, which is rather confusing for the newcomer.) Neither the staff nor my fellow-customers – three men eating mounds of rice and strips of gristle – spoke English. Faced with a language barrier, Kenyans tend to be aloof, almost hostile, I fancied later, wandering around Narok in search of groundnuts. But perhaps I was mistaking unease for antagonism. Abraham had warned me that ‘uneducated Kenyans’ (many Africans are fond of this academic class distinction) expect elders to behave with dignity. And travelling by bicycle is not dignified for any European, least of all a female elder; one rarely sees an African woman cyclist.

Just beyond Narok I paused to observe a small Masai cattle-fair. On a dusty common, encircled by soaring blue gums, a few score cows and calves – long-horned, glossy though thin, as beautiful to look on as their owners – were being denigrated by Nairobi traders whose trucks waited nearby. The Masai listened in haughty silence. ‘They won’t bargain,’ said the elderly Kikuyu by my side, who had also stopped to watch. ‘When they don’t get their price they are happy. They want not to sell, they only try because of the drought. They love their cattle more than their families. They are primitive people with no education.’

As he spoke, several Masai women of all ages converged on me, offering bead necklets and wristlets. They were quietly courteous, despite my declining to buy. A young man then appeared, wearing a red plaid cotton tunic, slit up the sides to reveal his copper flanks, and a complicated phoney-looking head-dress of twigs and leather thongs. In happier times he would have been a moran, jointly responsible, with the rest of his age group, for defending herds and homesteads. Five US dollars was his price for being photographed but he too accepted ‘no deal’ with a polite smile, then spotted a safari van in the distance and hurried towards it. Many such vans stop briefly in Narok, en route for the Masai Mara Game Park. Ed had grumbled that Asian tour operators and the Masai gain most from Kenya’s tourist industry. He couldn’t see that the Masai deserve as big a slice as they can get of the tourism cake, their traditional resources having been so grievously depleted by the development of game parks, Kenya’s main tourist attraction.

It was already cruelly hot, at 9.30, as I pushed Lear up a long precipitous hill towards the turn-off on to a traffic-free (I hoped) earth road. Near the junction, outside a posh new Tourist Lodge-cum-petrol station, two minibus-loads of Germans, returning from Masai Mara, were queuing to photograph jewellery-laden Masai women and ersatz warriors bearing pretend spears. Ingeniously, the broad wooden blades had been covered in glittering tinfoil.

My earth road was indeed traffic-free; after a few smooth miles the surface became acutely motor-deterring. Again I was on a high, wide plateau, cooled by a steady breeze. No dwellings were visible but small herds of cattle wandered through ragged scrub, avidly cropping the short new grass. An occasional cow ambled on to the road to drink from muddy lakelets, then stood surveying me with that intense bovine curiosity which seems so absurdly flattering – why should one be of such interest to any fellow-creature? Previously, young warriors guarded the herds; now, in this area, no predators remain and the children in charge – usually boys, sometimes girls – smiled at me shyly, or waved from a distance; none begged for money. The Masai are shocked to hear that in our ‘advanced’ countries it is no longer always safe for children to roam alone.

Soon after midday a hamlet appeared, another of those isolated settlements where dispossessed Masai have reluctantly put down roots. Tin-roofed shacks of rough-hewn planks or concrete blocks lined the road and between them flourished many gawky papaw trees, which need no care. But all the maize was too close-planted and disastrously weedy. As I sought some non-alcoholic drink an ancient Asian Muslim, wearing a long white gown and embroidered skull-cap, stared derisively at me from his cubby-hole clothes shop. The other store was a Masai grocery, stocking only soap, Vick, salt, razor blades, weevil-infested biscuits, blighted Irish potatoes and warm Coca-Cola. A degenerate-looking young man charged me double for a Coke (fair enough in the back of beyond) and then tried to short-change me. The mzungu’s arrival had drawn the entire population on to the road but it did not form a welcoming crowd and my usually successful efforts to surmount the language barrier received no co-operation. As a group of ragged youths gathered around Lear, discussing his unfamiliar features without reference to me, I mused on the vulnerability of cyclists: the loot itself provides the getaway transport.

Not far beyond the hamlet I lay in the bush for an hour, reading my Nancy Mitford Omnibus – carefully selected as ideal escapist literature – and marvelling at the quantity of sweat flowing off my body; when I stood up, the dusty patch where I had lain was turned to mud. Then suddenly clouds rode to the rescue. On an earth road these provide instant relief; on tarmac the heat is retained and radiates up, relentlessly, for hours after the sun has been obscured. Happily I pedalled on, the track plunging in and out of mini-ravines and the bush now an impenetrable tangle, through which protruded aeon-smoothed monoliths of bare rock.

Two hours later my cloud-shield delivered a tropical storm of blinding violence. I was then pushing Lear up a steep slope through deep yellow dust and within moments he had been immobilized by sticky mud tightly packed under his misnamed mudguards. Mercifully the hilltop village of Olololunga was near; through horizontal sheets of gale-driven rain I could dimly see a long, low concrete building. The stricken Lear had to be half-dragged, half-carried to the shelter of this health-centre from which, as I arrived, an unconscious little boy was being borne to a pick-up truck by distraught parents. (The district health-worker was not available that week; he had gone to a wedding in Narok.) For twenty minutes I cowered on the veranda, sodden and shivering, watching the truck’s desperate struggle to reach the hilltop. Time and time again the driver tried every manoeuvre he knew but each ended in a skid, the wheels slewing to left or right. Finally he gave up and the patient was moved to a nearby house.

Abruptly the wind dropped and the rain lightened. Olololunga lies at right angles to the road and, leaving the health-centre, I hauled Lear up its sloping street – a wide cart-track, now converted to a rushing torrent. Clearly this trading centre had seen better days; the steps leading up to the dukas (very small shops) were perilously broken, the tin roofs askew and patched, the cigarette and patent medicine advertisements almost illegible. When I asked about lodgings blank stares were the only response. Where the village merged into grassland I hesitated, then saw a young Masai in Western dress carrying a crate of empty beer bottles from the last house. At once my spirits rose. ‘Tusker?’ I shouted hopefully.

The young man stared, then abandoned his crate and leaped down to assist me. His name was Tambo and his English rudimentary though fluent enough for the occasion. Here was no lodging-house (nor, come to think of it, could I see any reason why there should be one) but yes, this bar stocked Tuskers. Nothing indicated that his house was a bar so I made a mental note for future reference: ‘Even if no bar in sight, ask for beer.’

Tambo carried Lear, minus panniers, to the back entrance via a steep grassy incline. Then he showed me an empty storeroom smelling of musty maize and mouse-droppings; here I could sleep, free of charge, if I had my own bedding. And if I had my own lock the door could be secured. To please him I locked it, though the window had neither glass nor grille.

In the bar I collapsed on to a long horse-hair couch suffering from broken springs; it screamed in agony whenever anybody shifted position. At one end sat an ancient Masai woman, wearing a moderate amount of jewellery and a filthy tattered gown and clutching a bottle of Tusker. At the other end sat a burly dark-suited man, wearing a gold signet ring and a straw boater and drinking Guinness (expensive in Kenya) from a glass. The woman smiled at me, revealing a residue of jagged and blackened fangs, and we wordlessly shook hands. The man greeted me effusively in English and asked, ‘What is your mission?’ When I had explained myself he repeated, ‘But what is your mission, what are you working for? Who is funding you? Or are you sponsored, cycling for charity?’

Ed had asked the same questions; scores of others were to repeat them all along my route. To Africans the concept of unsubsidised solo travelling seems a weird aberration. Sometimes I tried to explain that Westerners can save money on Third World journeys. This four-month ‘African Experience’ was to cost me less than £420, plus £470 for my air-fare; and the days have long gone when one could survive in Ireland for four months on less than £900.

The Masai mama took no further interest in me; that Tusker was not her first and she tended to doze. Matthew, however, waxed autobiographical. After ‘the best’ education at a Nakuru mission school his politician uncle in Nairobi helped to set him up in the import business. Then a few years ago he sensed the coming slump (‘I have a sharp brain, I see ahead’) and Uncle arranged for him to go into an agribusiness partnership with two ‘brothers’, actually Uncle’s sons. ‘Tomorrow you’ll see our ranch, it was neglected Masai land, now it is producing well with a foreign grant for aerial spraying.’

‘A grant from whom?’ I asked.

Matthew ignored that and hurried on to family details. He had married at 21 and his bride produced their first-born before she was 17. ‘Soon we had four of each,’ said Matthew complacently, ‘which is sound economics. But eight is enough so I took my wife to Nairobi for the operation – she was only 30 and could have ten more!’

By then I needed another Tusker but Tambo had disappeared. I found him in the yard, beside a barrel of rainwater, painstakingly cleaning Lear. Having somehow unblocked the wheels and scoured the mudguards, Tambo was using a small paintbrush to clear every vestige of mud from gears, chain and brakes. I was speechless with gratitude. My Masai knight smiled up at me and advised, ‘Rain comes on dust, you leave road and stand!’

Matthew’s taciturn wife Ella ran Olololunga’s hoteli, to which I was eventually invited, as a guest, for an excellent meal of beef stew, braised potatoes, greens and chapattis. In the lamp-lit bar, two earnest young teachers were awaiting my return. Both claimed to belong to minor tribes, thus distancing themselves from the regional Kikuyu/Masai land-based tensions. When they probed for my reactions to Matthew I was noncommittal. Only one spoke fluent English though both taught the language. Tobias said, ‘New problems are coming here, the Masai don’t like agricultural development. They don’t want compensation, they want the land for their cattle. When the government makes them take money, what can they do with it? They have no education, no way to use money. In this district we have too many young Masai ready to be dangerous – no land, no cattle, no work, only compensation money. And with that they can buy weapons from Ethiopia or Somalia.’

My views on the FORD campaign for a multi-party democracy were eagerly sought. Sleepily I explained that I didn’t understand Kenyan politics and therefore had no views on the subject.

Tobias scowled. ‘But don’t you understand that for us it’s bad? It’s making us kill each other! Our President sometimes does wrong and donor countries get angry and try to rule us with their ideas like in colonial times. Why not leave us to make our own mistakes? In the Cold War nobody cared about democracy in Kenya if anti-Communists were in power. Since Independence the West has supported tyrants in Africa – Amin, Mbuto, Barre, Banda – were they democrats? Do you think we’re so primitive and stupid we can’t see the way you play around with us?’

‘It’s my bedtime,’ I said, ‘you must excuse me.’ I stood up then and they shook hands and smiled – but not with their eyes, which remained angry.

At 5.45 the morning star shone solitary and brilliant in a violet sky and from rain-revived vegetation drifted an aromatic complexity of scents. Lear, after a soothing supper of oil, was functioning faultlessly on the level earth road – bone-dry, apart from numerous crater lakes. To the west lay a faraway frieze of low, rounded, dusky-blue hills, marking the end of this almost unpopulated plateau. In the dawn coolness, gazelle herds crossed the road just ahead of me, moving unhurriedly in single file. But too quickly the sun climbed and the bush lost its soft shadowiness, becoming again all harsh thorny angularity – until suddenly it was replaced by irrigated wire-fenced fields.

Here the surface improved, for the benefit of the ranch’s shiny new tractors and trucks, and a monoplane cruised low above the young wheat, trailing long yellow-green plumes of pesticide vapour. My watering eyes and itchy nose and throat stirred Rumanian memories. When a Landrover arrived at a cluster of buildings – also shiny and new – I dawdled to watch two agribusinessmen in pinstriped suits consulting thick folders while mud-stained foremen deferentially stood by.

At a crossroads on the edge of the plateau I was surprised to see a signpost – deformed and barely legible, one of only two observed in Kenya. It advised me to turn right for Bomet but said nothing about distance. Gradually the track descended, coiling around deforested slopes, their umber nakedness gashed by red erosion gullies. Beyond stretched hilly bush, much greener than usual, where two little boys were milking among the acacia. I hastened hopefully towards them with my half-litre mug and delightedly they sold me a litre of warm foamy milk for the equivalent of 50 pence, the standard price; bush cattle yield so little that milk costs twice as much as beer.

Forty miles from Olololunga we joined another Prestige Project and for the next three hours – the hottest of the day – Lear skimmed swiftly over velvet-smooth tarmac. This pukka road carried little motor traffic as it swept grandly, in expensively engineered curves, through a suddenly different landscape. Shambas crowded the fertile hillsides and narrow valleys and each ridge-top overlooked many other ridges, offering a study in green – dark green wattle groves, tender green tea-gardens, dull green plantains, emerald green young maize, faded green blue gums, pale green sugar-cane. When Herbert Binks, one of the earliest settlers, surveyed this region in 1901 he found the Kikuyu cultivators enjoying two or three harvests a year. In African Rainbow he records the purchase, by one settler, of 640 acres of the richest land for two rupees an acre, payable over fifteen years.

From beehive huts children came tumbling by the score to jump up and down on the verge, waving with both hands while chanting, ‘Mzungu! Mzungu! Mzungu!’ The adults were no less friendly; several cyclists pedalled beside me for a few miles, asking the usual questions, deploring the region’s politically unsettled state and warning me to be careful – ‘Bad men could rob and kill you!’ They were disbelieving when told that in Europe, too, we have bad men who rob and kill.

An uninhabited stretch, its precipitous slopes planted with coniferous junipers, separates this region from Sotik district. At a seedy T-junction trading centre, which I at first mistook for Sotik town, a disproportionate number of young Kipsigi males were hanging about, looking restive; on my dismounting to seek lodgings they yelled jeeringly, then gestured threateningly. I retreated towards two elderly nurses leaving a small mission hospital opposite the dukas and beer-halls. Quickly they looked me up and down, before curtly directing me to the Sotik Hotel, a few miles further on. Relieved, I sped downhill through a wood of blue gums and pungently resinous pines and arrived in Sotik proper with an hour of daylight to spare.