It’s much easier for me now to see to my morning toiletry needs: I have a basin to wash in, and the WC-hut is only one hundred and fifty feet away. Life has become a lot easier, if a lot less romantic.
The other thing is that when Lketinga is in the shop now I can go and have a lie down. While things are cooking I can also serve in the shop. For the first week it’s all wonderful. I’ve got a girl who goes and fetches water from the Mission for me. I have to pay, but on the other hand I no longer have to go down to the river. Also, the water is clear and clean. However, word soon gets around that we’re now living in the shop, and soon people are coming incessantly asking for drinking water. It’s customary in the manyattas to give people some, but now I’ve nearly used up my whole four gallons by lunchtime. There are forever warriors sitting on our bed waiting for Lketinga and to be offered tea and food. As long as the shop is full of food, he can hardly say we don’t have anything.
After such visits the living space is a tip: dirty pots or gnawed bones all over the floor, brown slime on the walls and my woollen blanket and the mattress covered in red-ochre from the warriors body paint. I have more than a few arguments with my husband because I feel I’m being exploited. Sometimes he agrees with me and sends them to his Mama’s, but at other times he turns against me and goes off with them. We’re going to have to find a way of fulfilling our duties of hospitality without being taken advantage of.
I’ve become friendly with the vet’s wife and get invited round for tea occasionally. I try to explain my problem to her, and to my astonishment she understands what I’m saying straightaway. She says it’s a custom of the manyatta people and that in ‘town’ the number of guests has had to be seriously restricted. There the laws of hospitality only apply to family members and very good friends and not just anyone who’s passing. That evening I pass this on to Lketinga, and he promises to follow suit.
During the next few weeks there are several marriages in the neighbourhood. Mostly it’s older men marrying their third or fourth wife: always young girls whose misery can be seen written on their faces. It’s not unusual for the age difference to be thirty years or more. The happiest girls are those who become a warrior’s first wife.
Our sugar goes quickly, not least because two hundredweight of sugar is part of the price paid for the bride, and several more pounds are needed for the celebration. Eventually we’re left one day with a shop full of maize meal but with no sugar. Two warriors who’re due to be married in a few days’ time are standing there with no idea what to do – even the Somalis have run out of sugar. Reluctantly I set out to Maralal, accompanied by the vet, which is pleasant at least. He wants to pick up his salary and come back with me. I get the sugar quickly and pick up the miraa I’ve promised Lketinga.
The vet is late, and it’s nearly four in the afternoon before he turns up. He suggests we take the jungle route, but I’m not happy with the idea, as I haven’t used it since the rain. But he reckons it should be dry now so we set off. There are lots of mud puddles, but that’s no problem with the four-wheel drive. At the ‘death drop’, however, it’s another story; the rain has washed away the earth to leave huge gullies. At the top we get out and walk down a bit to see how best we can manage it. Apart from one gully about a foot wide running right across the track, I see no real problem getting down, with a bit of luck.
We attempt it. I stick to the upper level, hoping not to slide into a gully where we might get stuck in sludge. We manage it and breathe a sigh of relief. At least it’s relatively stable over the rocks. The car bumps and grinds its way over the boulders. The worst is behind us, now there’s just sixty feet of scree.
Suddenly something underneath the car starts rattling. I keep going at first then stop because the sound has grown louder. We climb out, but there’s nothing obvious. I take a look under the vehicle and discover what’s wrong – on one side the springs are broken in all but two places, there’s practically no suspension left, and the broken bits are dragging along the ground, making the rattling.
Once more this car has let me down! I’m furious for allowing myself to be persuaded to come this way. The vet suggests we just continue as we are, but I rule that out. I try to work out what to do and fetch cables and pieces of wood out of the back. Then we bind everything up tight and shove the pieces of wood in between so that the cables don’t get worn through. I drive like that slowly as far as the first manyattas, where we unload four of the five sacks and store them in the first hut. The vet warns the people there not to open the sacks, and we drive carefully on towards Barsaloi. I’m so annoyed by this damn car that I give myself stomach cramps!
Happily we get to the shop without further ado. Lketinga immediately crawls under the car to see if what we told him is true. He doesn’t understand why we unloaded some of the sugar and lets me know that he’s not going to be around later. I make my way into the living room and lie down, dog-tired.
The next morning I go to find Father Giuliani to show him my car. Rather crossly he tells me he’s not running a car repair shop. He says he’d have to take half the car apart to weld the parts back together and he really doesn’t have the time. Before he can say anything else, I turn around and leave in disappointment, feeling let down and left alone by everybody. Without Giuliani’s help I’ll never get this car back to Maralal. Lketinga asks me what Giuliani said, and when I tell him that he can’t help us his only reply is that he always knew the man was no good. I can’t exactly agree: he’s saved our bacon more than once.
Lketinga and the boy serve in the shop, and I sleep all morning. I’m not very well. By midday the sugar is sold out, and it’s hard work preventing my husband from driving back in the faulty car to fetch the rest. In the early evening Giuliani sends his watchman to tell us to bring the car over to him. Relieved that he’s changed his mind, I send Lketinga up with the car while I’m cooking. At seven p.m. we close up the shop, but Lketinga isn’t back yet. Instead I’ve got two unknown warriors outside the front door. By the time he returns I’ve already eaten. He was back home with Mama looking after the animals. Laughing with pleasure, he brings me the first two eggs from my chicken, laid just yesterday. Now I can expand my menu. I make chai for the visitors and crawl exhausted under the mosquito net into bed.
The three of them eat, drink and gossip while I fall asleep. In the middle of the night I wake up bathed in sweat and thirsty. My husband isn’t next to me, and I don’t know where the torch is. So I crawl out under the blanket and the net to grope my way to the water canister when my foot bumps into something lying on the floor. Before I can think what it might be, I hear a grunt and exclaim in shock: ‘Darling?’ In the light of the torch, which I’ve managed to find, I make out three figures lying asleep on the floor. One of them is Lketinga. I climb over them carefully to get to the water canister. Back in bed my heart is still pounding. I can hardly get back to sleep with these strange men in the room. The next morning I’m freezing so much I won’t come out from under the blanket. Lketinga makes chai for everybody, and I’m glad to get something hot inside me. The three of them laugh at my nocturnal adventure.
Today the boy is in the shop on his own, because Lketinga and the two warriors have gone off to a ceremony, and I’m stopping in bed. At lunch Father Roberto drops in with the other four bags of sugar. I go into the shop to say thanks but find myself immediately feeling dizzy. I go and lie down again. I’m not happy leaving the boy on his own, but I’m too miserable to keep a watch over him. Half an hour after the arrival of the sugar there’s the usual chaos. I lie there in bed, unable to sleep with all the noise and talking. In the evening we close up, and I’m on my own.
Actually I’d have liked to go down to Mama, but I’m feeling cold again. I can’t be bothered to cook for myself and lie down beneath the mosquito net. There are still loads of the insects, and they’re as aggressive as ever. During the night I get shivering fits, and my teeth chatter so loud I imagine they can be heard in the next hut. Why doesn’t Lketin
ga come home? The night drags on and on. At one stage I’m shivering horribly, only to break out in a sweat moments later. I need the toilet but don’t dare go out. Out of necessity I pass water in an empty tin.
Early next morning there’s a knock on the door. I ask first who’s there, because I’m not about to start selling, and then I recognize the familiar voice of my darling. He realizes immediately that there’s something wrong, but I calm him down: I don’t want to pester them up at the Mission again.
Full of high spirits, Lketinga starts telling me about the wedding ceremony of some warrior and then that there’s going to be a Safari Rally passing through in two days’ time. He’s already seen a few cars. No doubt a few drivers will stop by to ask about the stretch as far as Wamba, he says. Somehow I doubt it, but despite how miserable I feel I let myself get carried away by his enthusiasm. Later on he goes to see how our car’s getting on, but it’s not finished yet.
At around two p.m. I hear an incredible roar, and when I get to the shop door all I can see is a cloud of dust. The first test driver has just shot by. Before long half Barsaloi is out on the streets. About half an hour later a second roars through and then a third. It’s a weird feeling to be here at the ends of the earth in a totally different time and suddenly grabbed by civilization like this. We wait and wait but that’s it for today. These were just the test cars. In two days’ time there’ll be thirty or more cars roaring past. It’s a pleasant interruption to our routine, even if I am mostly lying in bed with fever. Lketinga cooks for me, but I can’t even look at food without feeling ill.
On the day of the rally itself, I feel awful. I keep losing consciousness for short periods, and for hours now I’ve no longer been able to feel the child inside me. I’m seized by panic and cry when I tell this to my husband. He leaves the house in a state of shock to fetch Mama, who talks to me while feeling my stomach. There’s a grim look on her face, and I ask Lketinga in tears what’s wrong with the child, but he just sits there uselessly and only talks to Mama. Eventually he tells me his mother believes someone must have put an evil curse on me that keeps making me sick. Somebody wants to kill me and the baby!
They want to know which people I’ve spoken to in the shop recently, if the old Somalis were here, if one of the old men grabbed me or spat at me, or if anyone showed me a black tongue. The questions weigh me down, and I’m getting hysterical with fear. Only one thing’s going round in my head: my baby is dead!
Mama goes off, promising to come back with good medicine. I don’t know how long I lay there sobbing, but when I open my eyes I see six to eight old men and women gathered around me. Incessantly I hear ‘Enkai! Enkai!’ Each one of these old people rubs my stomach and murmurs something. I couldn’t care less. Mama holds a beaker to my lips containing a liquid I’m supposed to down in one. Whatever it is, it’s burning hot and so fiery that it shakes my whole body. At that very moment I feel something thrash and kick in my stomach and grab it in shock. Everything’s going round in circles. All I can see is these old faces, and I wish I were dead. My last thought is that my child had been alive, but now it’s surely dead. I call out: ‘You’ve killed my baby! Darling, they have now killed our baby.’ I feel my strength evaporate, and the will to live with it.
Once again ten or more hands are placed on my stomach, rubbing and pressing, there’s loud singing and praying and suddenly my stomach lifts a little, and I feel a little twitch inside. At first I hardly dare believe it, but then it happens again and again. The old folks seem to have felt it too, and their prayers grow softer. When I realize that my little baby is still alive, the will to live that I thought I’d lost flows back into me with new strength. ‘Darling, please go to Father Giuliani and tell him about me. I want to go to the hospital.’
Flying Doctor
Giuliani turns up shortly afterwards, and I can read pure horror in his face. He speaks curtly with the old folk and then asks me which month I’m in. ‘Beginning of the eighth month,’ I answer blankly. He says he’s going to try to get hold of a flying doctor on the radio and leaves. The old folk go too, except for Mama. I’m left lying in sweat praying for myself and the baby – my whole happiness depends on this little entity’s life.
Before I know it I can hear an engine, not a car’s but an aircraft’s: an aircraft landing here out in the bush in the middle of the night! I hear voices outside, and Lketinga comes in all excited. Giuliani appears and says I should grab just a few things and get on board because the landing strip won’t stay lit up for long. They help me out of bed. Lketinga gets the essentials together, and they carry me to the plane.
I’m astounded by how bright it is. Giuliani has used his generator to power a giant floodlight. To the left and right oil lamps and flaming torches have been used to mark out a flat piece of road, with big white stones laid out beyond. The pilot, a white man, helps me into the plane and beckons Lketinga to get in with me. He wants to come but can’t get over his fear.
My poor darling! I shout to him, telling him to stay here and look after the shop, and then the door closes. We take off, and for the first time in my life I feel safe in such a tiny aircraft. In twenty minutes we’re over the hospital in Wamba. Here too there are lights everywhere, but at least there’s a proper runway. When we land I see two nurses coming out with a wheelchair. With some effort I clamber out, using one hand to support my stomach, which has dropped down low. As they push me in the wheelchair towards the hospital I’m once again overcome by self-pity, and the kind words of the nurses only make things worse and leave me sobbing all the more. At the hospital there’s a female doctor waiting for me, a Swiss! I can see the worry in her face, but she reassures me everything will be okay.
In the surgery I lie back in the gynaecological chair and wait for the head doctor. I’m only too aware of how dirty I am and feel deeply embarrassed. When I try to apologize to the doctor he dismisses it and tells me that right now there are more important things. He gives me a thorough examination using only his hand, no instruments. I hang on his words to hear how my baby is.
At last he puts me out of my misery, telling me the baby is alive. But it’s far too small for the eighth month and we’ll have to do everything possible to prevent a premature birth, although it’s already positioned very low. Then the Swiss doctor comes back and gives her dispiriting diagnosis. I have serious anaemia and malaria and am in immediate need of a blood transfusion. The doctor tells me how difficult it is to get blood supplies: they have only limited reserves and I’ll have to find a donor to replace it.
I’m panicky even about receiving other people’s blood here in Africa where there’s an AIDS epidemic. I ask him worriedly if the blood has been tested. He tells me honestly that it’s only partly checked out, as most patients with anaemia have to bring in a donor from their own family before they’re allowed a transfusion. Most people here die of malaria or the anaemia that it causes. Only a small amount of blood comes from donors overseas.
I lie there in the chair, trying to put my thoughts in order. Blood means AIDS keeps going round in my head. I try to protest that I don’t want to risk this fatal disease, but the doctor gets serious and tells me in no uncertain words that my choice is between this blood and certain death. An African nurse appears who helps me back into the wheelchair and takes me into a room with three other women. She helps me out of my clothes and into a hospital gown like all the others.
First I’m given an injection, then the transfusion apparatus is attached to my left arm. The Swiss doctor comes in with a bag of blood and with a reassuring laugh tells me she’s found the last Swiss batch with my blood group. It will last until the morning, and most of the white nurses in the Mission are willing to be donors for me if their blood group matches.
I’m moved by so much care and attention and try to hold back my tears and say thanks. When she plugs me in to the transfusion apparatus it hurts like mad because the needle is so thick, and she has to try several times before she can get the life-saving blood to
flow into my artery. Both my arms are taped to the bed to stop me pulling the needle out in my sleep. I must look a sorry sight, and I’m pleased my mother can’t see the state I’m in. Even if it all comes out okay I won’t tell her any of this. With that thought I fall asleep.
All the patients are woken at six a.m. to have their temperatures taken. I’m half wrecked because I’ve only had four hours’ sleep. At eight I get another injection and around midday another transfusion. I’m lucky in that this has come from the local nurses. At least I don’t have to worry about AIDS.
The normal prenatal examination takes place in the afternoon – they feel my bump, listen to the baby’s heartbeat and measure my blood pressure. There’s nothing more they can do here. I can’t eat anything because the smell of cabbage turns my stomach here too. Nonetheless by the end of the second day I’m feeling much better. A third transfusion makes me feel like a flower receiving the first drops of rain after a long drought; slowly but surely life is returning to my body. After the last transfusion I risk a look in the mirror, but I no longer recognize myself: my eyes look enormous and sunken, my cheekbones protrude, and my nose is long and pointed. My hair looks long and thin and sticks to my head with sweat. And this, I think to myself in shock, is when I feel a lot better. But then I’ve done nothing but lie there without getting out of bed once in three days and now once again I’ve got an anti-malarial drip.
The nurses are very nice and come by as often as possible, but they worry because I still won’t eat. One of them is particularly nice, and I’m touched by the warmth and goodness she exudes. One day she brings me a cheese sandwich from the Mission. It’s been so long since I’ve seen cheese like this, that it takes no effort for me to eat it slowly. From that day on I start to manage solid food again. From now on it’s uphill all the way, I tell myself. They use the radio to tell my husband that the baby and I are out of danger.
The White Masai Page 24
