April, May, June
When the political leadership of Nairobi decided to run a new high-voltage line between Lolgorien and Talek, it ended up awfully close to the borders of the valley where Chief Olemeeli the Well-Travelled ruled, and which he seldom or never left. The chief viewed this operation as an act of war. He rode his bicycle over to argue with the workers about running their lines elsewhere. To his horror, he discovered that there was already electricity there; light bulbs glowed everywhere he looked. The power came from a diesel unit; after all, it takes electricity to make electricity. Olemeeli tore an iron bar from the hands of one of the workers and managed, in a single blow, to sever the cable to the unit.
It was a move as enterprising as it was stupid. The four hundred volts in the cable grabbed hold of the iron bar – and of the man holding it. Olemeeli’s heart did somersaults inside his body before it stopped permanently.
There weren’t many people who grieved the chief’s death. He’d had only weak support to start with, and over the years it had done nothing but grow weaker thanks to his decree banning electricity. The only woman on the village council had argued for washing machines, stoves and water closets. When she added the future potential of Netflix, she got all the men except the chief on her side.
Since Olemeeli had decided his vote was the only one that counted, the powerlessness lasted until his death. Now the question was what his successor, his oldest and only son, thought about the matter. Or not. For the son had discovered some feelings he could have for other men rather than for women, and in light of said feelings had found a perfectly delightful and like-minded fellow in the village. They shared a secret that could bring five to seven years in prison as long as they stayed in Kenya, or life on the inside should they flee to any neighbouring country. Rumour had it that you could love whoever you liked in South Africa, which was a four-thousand-kilometre walk through enemy territory away. It would definitely be worth it, but of course this also ruled out inheriting his father’s position.
For the first time in nine generations, then, the next chief would be selected by a vote of the village council. Majority ruled. Six men and one woman meant a total of six and one half votes, so it couldn’t result in a tie.
In the midst of all this, the popular and much-missed medicine man returned. His name was already being floated in the village council as a potential new chief, and he was called for an interview. During the interview he said he was planning to build an escalator to the medical hut on the hill (or, rather, from it). A little while later, after it had become clear to the council what an escalator was, they all realized it required electricity. And that there would be power left over for other things. Like for example washing machines and – most importantly – Netflix.
Thanks to his vision of an escalator, Ole was elected the new chief by a vote of six and a half to zero. From that moment on, his name would be Ole Mbatian the Modern.
So many good things happened one after the next in the life of Ole Mbatian the Modern. The silver necklaces he’d brought from Sweden for his two wives had a magical effect. While one kissed him on the cheek, the other pointed out in a kind voice that this was the first time he’d shown either of them any appreciation, and late was better than never. If he happened to be in the neighbourhood of her hut some evening soon, she might consider letting him in.
Ole officiated the wedding of his son Kevin and Kevin’s Jenny. A big moment for all three of them. The chief realized he liked confiding in his daughter-in-law about the technical aspects of a relationship. After all, she was the one who’d picked out the necklaces for his wives. What did Jenny think about his continuing to give them nice things on occasion between the short and long rains? He had a lot to pick from now that the electricity was flowing. Dishwashers, refrigerators, toasters …
Jenny said that the chief was thinking along the right lines, but wrong. As she understood it, he had half a century’s lack of appreciation to catch up with. But kitchen appliances fell under the category of useful items, not presents.
‘Vacuum cleaners?’
‘Think again, father-in-law. Carefully.’
Ole thought again.
‘Earrings?’
‘You’re a fast learner.’
At first there was general suspicion of the new medicine man. To be sure, Kevin was a Mbatian, one who had come straight from heaven besides. But everyone in the valley knew his story. En-Kai had sent him down in a totally unfinished state. He wasn’t a warrior; he knew only one of the three proper languages and nothing about the healing powers of nature. The predecessor had lamented his son’s medicinal shortcomings to Olemeeli each time they gathered over a bottle of Glenfiddich, and it wasn’t as if the villagers didn’t have ears to hear.
But now Ole Mbatian was the chief. He said that his son had learned everything and a bit more during his travels. To such an extent that he gathered disciples around him. Or one disciple, in any case. A mzungu named Malte.
And Kevin wasted no time in proving himself. He arranged to import Cape aloe from Lesotho to treat bacterial infections. It was said to have anti-inflammatory properties. Exactly how true that was didn’t matter so much, because Malte secretly enhanced the concoction with the proper amount of antibiotics. The results were sensational.
What had once been Ole Mbatian the Younger’s speciality, medicine to counter excessive births, became the speciality of his successor as well. Ole’s very effective mixture was time-consuming to produce; neither Malte nor Kevin could have found the right ingredients on the savanna even if they’d known what to look for. Their new recipe was as secret as the old one; only the medicine man and his assistant knew the details: tomato soup, basil, garlic, and one contraceptive pill per dose. In its crushed form, the pill looked surprisingly similar to the refined powder of the baobab fruit.
‘A daily dose of vitamin C is essential to attain the best results,’ Kevin might authoritatively inform his current patient. ‘With the help of En-Kai, we expect that your seven children will not increase further in number. Make sure to love the ones you already have even more.’
‘May En-Kai bless you,’ said the patient.
‘How would you like to pay?’ Malte asked. ‘Credit card, PayPal, dollars, or livestock?’
The brains behind this setup were named Hugo Hamlin. His newly launched, Nairobi-based company was called Sweet Sweet Health Ltd. His business idea was to commercialize medicine both natural and science-based at the same time. He hired his big brother as the medical expert.
Malte had to fight for one week to attain physician status there. Each day he visited a contrary woman at the licensing board, the one who held the power and the stamps in her hand.
She was called Almasi, and in all her rigidness was really quite adorable. Malte found himself drowning in her eyes.
‘Miss Almasi, the anterior chambers of your eyes are in perfect balance,’ said the ophthalmologist.
‘What a lovely thing to say,’ said Almasi. ‘I think.’
The step from this compliment to allowing herself to be invited to dinner was not a long one. The next evening, she returned the favour. And the day after that, all the stamps were in their proper places.
Since then they had been a couple on a trial basis. Almasi took a leave of absence. Malte bought an electric car. One reason for this was that Chief Mbatian the Modern had had the savanna’s first rapid charger installed in the village. Another was that the formerly so staid eye doctor had discovered that he felt young again each time he violated the speed limit (from Nairobi to the savanna in three hours and forty-four minutes). He felt even younger when he pushed the limits of the Hippocratic oath. Calling contraceptive pills vitamin C was merely a different sort of way to serve his fellow humans. Or so he told himself.
July, August, September
Hugo’s ambitions to use medicine to take over all of Maasai Mara and the northern part of the Serengeti had one shortcoming: Kevin couldn’t be in more than one place at the same time and he couldn’t treat more than one patient at a time. The solution was to expand the medical hut, with three treatment rooms in a row. When it was up and running at capacity, all patients were seen by the medicine man, before two of the three were passed along, one to Jenny and one to Malte. Each patient was given ten minutes to explain what was wrong, and then the medicine man and his assistants had a confab outside the hut – in Swedish, to be safe. This was followed by Kevin spending one minute per treatment room to hand out his prescription, with Malte or Jenny right behind him to take payment.
Their efficiency tripled, but Hugo wanted more. Perhaps frustration would have eventually taken hold of the creator if it hadn’t been for the escalator and what it led to.
In the strictest sense, it led to the expanded medical hut on the hill. Or away from it. Kevin’s friend, the Norwegian from the World Wildlife Fund (the one who had taught him to drive a car), took a picture of the escalator and posted it on Facebook, with a caption pointing out which direction it led. At which point someone shared it. At which point someone shared the share.
Hugo mostly stuck to the capital city, but he happened to be in the village delivering some medicine when the first tourists cautiously approached to have a look at the escalator. A white man? Could he have something to do with the escalator?
There were four tourists in all, two men and two women. One of the men introduced himself and the group. They came from New Zealand and were actually out on a six-week art tour of Europe.
Paris, of course. Rome. Florence. Madrid. London.
The goal of their trip was to enjoy what they already loved, but also to challenge themselves. Leonardo da Vinci was, after all, Leonardo da Vinci. Monet and Seurat brought peace to the soul, and the expressionists kept the viewer awake and alert.
They had imagined the trip’s challenges would consist of postmodernist and abstract art. None of them had any inclinations in that direction, but oh well – in for a penny, in for a pound.
Suddenly it showed up on Facebook, a picture of the most remarkable installation piece imaginable: an apparently fully functional escalator in a Kenyan village in a remote valley between bush and savanna. One that led in a counterproductive direction.
It was so unique that all the art lovers’ plans were turned upside down. They cancelled London and rebooked. And now they were here.
‘Can we just walk into the village, or is there an entry fee?’
Hugo Hamlin needed three seconds to consider.
‘Thirty dollars per person, or one hundred for a group of four. Half price for children under twelve.’
October, November, December
Hugo was so inspired by the escalator installation that he launched a reorganization. Kevin and Malte would have to handle the medicine man industry themselves, along with Almasi. Meanwhile, Hugo appointed Jenny as artistic director of what was to come.
She travelled around Africa to buy up some of the best contemporary African art. She had a generous budget, and the results followed suit.
She arrived home with furniture from Mozambique that was constructed of the remains of what could be found on military battlefields. And with Francis Bacon-inspired South African women in blue. And Nigerian creations woven from the trees and roots provided by nature. And much more besides.
It turned out that modern African art could not be collectively pigeonholed. It rebelled against war, postcolonialism, environmental destruction, and views of women – anything that stood in its way. Controlled and regulated by no one, neither in colour nor shape.
Hugo allowed the exhibit to blend in with the fenced-in Maasai village in such a tasteful way that village life itself became part of the artistic whole. All while Chief Ole Mbatian the Modern had a receiver installed on the top of a nearby hill to provide wi-fi to the entire valley. That is, it was free until Hugo discovered it. After that, the villagers continued to surf for free; everyone else had to pay according to the following fee schedule: three dollars for one hour. Ten dollars for five hours. Twenty dollars for one full day.
Maasai Mara’s leading and only permanent art exhibition brought in between two and four thousand dollars per day. Included in the entry fee were examples of the contemporary African artistic expression; for ten dollars extra, you could take a walk in the wrong direction on the escalator installation.
It was an immediate success. But that did not mean that the commercial director of the exhibition, Hugo Hamlin, was satisfied (he seldom was). The former adman always strove for more, without necessarily spending too much money in his pursuits. Accordingly, he called the artistic director to a meeting. He noted that the exhibition was lacking in tribal masks and suggested that the chief’s wives could produce such items behind a hut where no one would see them. By temporarily burying the masks in the ground, and fertilizing them with iron-rich water, they would become two centuries old within a week.
Jenny shook her head. But Hugo didn’t give up. He had more ideas.
‘What about Irma Stern’s unfinished work, then?’
The artistic director’s pulse increased for a moment, before she realized what he was talking about.
‘And where is this unfinished work?’
‘I was thinking you could make one.’
Jenny promised Hugo that when they had the time she would remind him all about provenance and authentication. But she didn’t enjoy being the constant naysayer. She wanted to give him some small thing.
As a result, five weeks later Hugo would reveal the exhibit’s latest addition, which was placed on a pedestal next to the escalator.
Laid Bare, a golden potato peeler. Which was purchased, the very next day, by an American tourist for eight thousand dollars.
Kevin and Malte’s operation reached new heights right alongside the art exhibition. The former eye doctor’s girlfriend permanently took over Jenny’s role in the organization. She spoke Swahili, had the right skin colour, and agreed with Malte and Kevin that medical results were more important than the truth.
Meanwhile, there was whispering in the wings. Kamanu, the medicine man on the other side of the border stones – the man who, according to Ole Mbatian, couldn’t tell a broken bone from a cold – felt that his way of life was under threat. In a short time, his roster of patients had shrunk by half. And he was still better off than several of his colleagues.
To be a medicine man was to have power. To be a medicine man without patients, however, was nothing but a disgrace.
Kamanu arranged an emergency summit with fifteen other medicine men from Maasai Mara and the Serengeti. He was of the mindset that there must be a way to bring down the threatening medicine man monopoly in the region. Those with the least painful joints were practically slaloming their way between local medicine men in order to go all the way to the man who seemed able to cure it all.
The others were in agreement.
After a brief discussion, it was decided that balance must be restored. But also that this couldn’t be achieved with arguments of a purely medical nature, because just about every single one of the damn patients was healthy again after a visit to Mbatian’s boy and his henchmen.
The solution would have to be a change of focus. The sixteen medicine men had vague suspicions that witchcraft was involved – just think of how rumour said that the boy had fallen out of the sky. Who could say for certain that he hadn’t come from the other direction?
There was no proof of witchcraft, or even any clear indications, but where there was a will there was a way.
One of the sixteen wronged medicine men in the group had a background that included four years at the university in Abuja. There he had learned how the internet worked. In the past, rumours of witchcraft and other serious matters could take months, sometimes years, to travel sufficiently far. Now every goatherd walked around with his nose in a smartphone, even in the valley where the backwards-striving Chief Toothless had ruled until very recently. Research suggested that general levels of intelligence were suffering in countries that had become obsessed with the internet in the past twenty years. The corresponding effect among goatherds on the savanna was that the number killed by wild animals had increased from two per year to ninety-six. It was, of course, impossible to protect goats, keep an eye out for buffalo and rhinoceroses, and watch Game of Thrones all at the same time.
The Abuja medicine man’s point was that they ought, for the common good, to start and spread a rumour on social media, one that would play to their own advantage. This rumour should seize on xenophobia and cultural decay.
He was the only one who fully understood what he’d just said, but when Kamanu nodded, the others did the same.
As a consequence of the medicine men’s meeting, it was soon possible to follow a cautiously growing protest movement against what Almasi, Jenny, Hugo, Kevin, Malte and Ole had built up along with the villagers.
The movement went by the name ‘Save the Maasai Kingdom’. There it was alleged that real art took its inspiration from the Maasai warrior’s shield or spear, the Maasai woman’s bridal dress, headdresses for various purposes, necklaces and ornamented bowls. The incorporation of foreign elements from Nigeria, South Africa and Mozambique was an abomination. The latter especially: everyone knew what Mozambicans were like.
Furthermore, the movement claimed that escalators on the savanna were a threat to the Maasai culture that went back centuries. And there had been a Scandinavian potato peeler of gold as well. And worst of all: it was said that artworks from Somalia and Egypt were on their way. If no one put a stop to this, everyone on the savanna would soon be speaking Arabic. Or some European language; there were indications in that direction too. ‘Save the Maasai Kingdom’ knew that the medicine man was assisted by a mzungu.
Kamanu and his fifteen conspiring colleagues could not attack Kevin Mbatian on purely medical grounds. But they could attack what surrounded him. The escalator and the artworks that were said to represent various different parts of Africa were, in reality, the manner in which ill-willed colonizers planned to re-enslave the Maasai soul, orchestrated by a medicine man who was possessed by evil spirits. In short, burn it all!
Now, social networking wasn’t as well-developed in Maasai Mara and the Serengeti as it was in many other parts of the world. The medicine man’s revenge on Ole Mbatian and his crew might instead be comparable in effect to planting a hedge of juniper with the goal of blocking the sunlight for one’s neighbour’s carrot patch years later. But the hedge was planted. And it was watered every day.
Still, the conspiring medicine men’s plan was doomed to fail. At least from a broader perspective than a slowly growing juniper bush. For, historically, modernism has an unfailing ability to rise again. The difference between this and a phoenix is that the latter recreates an identical copy of itself. When art rises from its own ashes, no one can predict what will happen.
January, February, March
Chief Ole Mbatian decided that the only woman on the village council would be given a full vote.
The smith protested. He was primarily afraid of women in general and his own wife and sister in particular, but as his main reason he offered that the group might break even when voting on important principles. Ole Mbatian the Modern had introduced majority rule instead of making all decisions on his own.
The chief took this to heart and solved the voting issue by removing half a vote from any member of the council who was a smith by trade.
That same evening, Jenny Mbatian admired her father-in-law’s courage.
‘And by the way, you’re on your way to becoming a grandfather,’ she revealed.
Ole Mbatian the Modern was absolutely thrilled.
‘A grandson!’ he exclaimed.
But Jenny and Kevin had already been to Nairobi for an ultrasound. Growing in Jenny’s belly was a future medicine woman.
‘She’s going to be a Maasai warrior too,’ said the pregnant one.
Ole took it better than either he or Jenny could have expected.
‘Well, modern is modern. Have you decided on a name?’
‘Irma.’