Namesek’s first wife spoke to us from her atabo (domestic area outside hut) where she was sitting with the cute egg-headed little boy who is Namesek’s youngest and who was getting a splinter out of her foot with a thorn. We asked her about drought and how it affects health, plus how as a woman she cushions the family from its impact. Such a strong-looking woman did not disappoint in her answers, and spoke also of the traditional ways of reacting against sickness – mostly goat slaughter and then use of blood or other parts in healing – and some of their pitfalls – most alarmingly the bleeding they get when they try to relieve constipation with sticks, something we smiled and nodded to hear (but not comprehend) first hand, then looked shocked at after Lokale’s faithful translation.
For a family so close to town they seem to use the Merlin-supported dispensary there very little but we learnt why through the old neighbour who’d burnt herself badly when her sufriya (cooking pot) tipped boiling water onto her arm. The burn needed dressing but even a simple service like that at the dispensary was unaffordable to her: costs for service, or ‘user fees’ as they are known to those charging them, are 200 shillings for an adult and 100 shillings for a child, exclusive of any medication or other things that need to be bought. It sounded very high indeed – she would need to weave four mats which would take a couple of days of solid work each – to afford it and we decided to check if this was true with a visit to the misson/government/Merlin-run dispensary the next day. Since we had what she needed we disinfected and dressed the burn and gave her the antibiotic powder, gauze and tape she could use to keep it clean for the next few days.
We went back to find Namesek’s fisherman brother at his place near the lake and hear more about the changes he’s witnessed and those he anticipates. He was still weaving the same net and spoke to us from a scenic perch in a beached wooden boat about all this before singing a great song they used to sing as they set off for fishing. Tragically and in further testament to the changes, he couldn’t at first remember it all, but eventually he got the hang of it and he loved it when we joined in by shouting the chorus line of “Anam!” (lake). We liked him a lot so gave him 500 shillings towards his own net, something he was upset not to have at the moment, the one in process being for a richer man. In the sand dunes he pointed out the angry white camel famous for chasing ‘the mamas’ as they return from the lake with water. Frederic did his best to provoke it but must have looked less of a pushover than a small-framed local mama trying to balance a 20 litre jerry can of water on her head and navigate through sandy dunes scattered with the odd thorny scrub.
Happy with having seen, heard and captured everything we had wanted for the documentary we decided to go on a jaunt, just our sturdy gang of three (us and Lokale). Nariokotome is where some pivotal hominid fossils (homo erectus) were found by Richard Leakey and co. in the 1980s, and digging and discoveries have gone on ever since, so we headed there – on the western side of Lake Turkana, north of our Kataboi base – to see what the cradle of humanity looks, smells and feels like. There’s no sign so we just drove to the approximate area, then were surprised to see a small fleet of land cruisers and some mzungus gathered by the side of the road. A very unremarkable spot – just yards from the road, the usual black sandy lava’ish soil and a few cairns as markers – but the very place where a breakthrough homo erectus skull fragment had been found in 1984 by Leakey’s team, 1.6 million years old and the trigger for successive waves of amazing fossil discoveries in the area that have changed what we know about our ancestors.
The people wearing bandannas, sensible shoes and shirts covered in pockets and ventilation flaps were the French archaeologists currently camped in the area for their annual dig, continuing to comb the place’s huge and largely untapped haul of information on our past. We stopped and the team leader, Frenchwoman Helene Roche, marched purposely over with a determination that we later discovered was because she’d heard of two rogue archaeologists digging surreptitiously in the area in a way that could easily undermine their own work, and she thought we were them. After this had been cleared up and we’d struck a more positive rapport, Helene kindly invited us back to their camp for lunch. What serendipity. We followed in a very dusty convoy to their impressive and comfortable tented camp on the sandy banks of the dry Nariokotome river, sturdy green canvas tents under acacia tortilis trees and a central mess area with two very long trestle tables, one for eating at and the other for sorting fossils on. It was a joy to have some varied and interesting conversation, especially of the privileged sort that perfectly complemented the Richard Leakey book (Origins Reconsidered) we’re reading, in which the camp and even the people we sat with are mentioned. Everyone seemed glad to briefly exchange their own Turkana focus for someone else; we heard about their dig and they watched our Turkwell film and gave constructive comments and appreciation. Their food (not the mention the novelty of actually eating lunch) was a delight after our bland diet of dry biscuits and starchy suppers. We had salad, tuna, fresh bread, chocolate and coffee for what felt like the first time in months, and ice cold water from a solar powered freezer, the stuff desert dreams are made of…
They talked of all the mad mzungus they’d crossed paths with and offered lunch to in Turkana, all on crazy missions and some of whom they doubt survived. Like the two emaciated, amoeba-infested forty-something German cyclists living their mid-life crisis but finding it impossible to pedal or even drag their hi-tech bikes through the volcanic sand of the lake shore. Or the American ethnographer with raging malaria who reached his wits’ end living in a Dassanetch village (just north of Lake Turkana in Ethiopia) and hired a motorbike to find the rumoured white archaeologists and speak English to them (only to find they were all French). Hopefully we won’t be added to this list; we swapped details and promised to meet again in Nairobi or Turkana, then hit the road for more dust swallowing all the way to Kataboi.
Looking like we worked in a concrete mixing factory and feeling like we’d eaten a sandpit we went straight to the lake to wash when we arrived back in Kataboi. Some young fishermen had a huge Nile perch, four foot long with an open mouth that a football could have passed through, but it had been in the net for over a day and was rotten so they just cut some inner organ out and ditched the rest. This mystery organ and plenty of smaller fish in bundles were loaded onto the bonnet of Frederic’s car and we gave them a lift to town. The car now blends ripe goat with rotting fish smells, ‘surf and turf’ style.
At home the moon appeared (and then sunk in the west) as a fairy tale golden crescent and as we sat quietly at the car scribbling, downloading material and charging things off its battery I noticed how many shadowy figures pass through the bush with the confidence of people striding along a clear pavement in daytime. Alone, with a goat, in pairs or in groups they march along. One group were singing merrily and headed straight for our compound to ask mzee Namesek to resolve a dowry dispute (some in-laws wanting an extra goat or something). It made me so glad that this is a live-in project, that we have the chance to witness how even in the darkness of night, when people in planes overhead or vehicles passing through might imagine that there must be complete stillness in this vast place legally termed a ‘no man’s land’, there is in fact the constant hum of humanity, walking, talking, eating, dancing and living together.
We added some trade to the mix of night-time activity, asking if they might be willing to sell the beautiful big atabwa (wooden bowl) my heart had landed on when we first arrived. The one hanging on the inside wall of our hut among assorted wifely possessions including an axe, empty fertiliser sacks, empty plastic cooking oil containers, necklaces and that big lump of fat (which turned out to be the coating of a sheep’s stomach and was used to fix all sorts of dried out wooden things, to add flavour to meals and to give women’s beads that distinct smell that they consider alluring). Yes, they would sell it to us, for 2,000 shillings (and I threw in a bag of maize flour for luck) and they explained how for the sake of flavour roasted meat and meat soup can’t be eaten in plastic or metal containers and should only be eaten in a bowl like this. Everyone was happy, especially me with the glorious carved, painted and decorated bowl, chiselled from a single piece of wood. The mama we paid – Namesek’s first wife – studied the two thousand bob bills with the careful scrutiny of a customs official, then stashed them somewhere unseen, patted her kilo of flour with satisfaction and swept off back to her hut.
To sleep with the soft noises of far-off singing being carried across the empty flat landscape between lake and mountains and straight through the thatched walls of our hut.
