Woke at six and lay listening to the stampede of the goats leaving their night enclosure. Made sweet black tea, much improved on yesterday’s. Off we set again, the gang of four, with a bunch of young male goats that needed to drink at the river. Asked lots of questions by Erot about farming and animal-keeping in my country, did my best to answer and recall things like crop rotation, fallow fields, and my meagre experience of a dairy farm and some woolly sheep in Dorset.
Learnt that a woman from our awi (extended family) – wife of Erot’s second son – had gone early that morning to the Merlin dispensary because she was having labour pains but was only seven months into her term. We passed a tiny boy dragging an even tinier baby goat behind him as it died, holding it like a rag doll as its mouth frothed and its little eyes blinked; it had been born prematurely and Erot remarked sagely that the same fate was likely to happen to his daughter-in-law.
Through the forest to the river, stopping to look up at an eagle’s nest. Yes, they also kill eagles if they can, otherwise they lose their small animals to them. River lovely and cool; after the goats had perched on the steep bank to stick their heads in we all washed our hands, faces and feet. Then back past dead sorghum field and over some snake tracks to drop off our little herd before setting off to another village. It’s not a strenuous life, not for men at least, but there is a lot of walking in the hot sun without food or water and they really are very tough, without exception.
Met two women who are followed everywhere by a goat in a collar that thinks he’s a child because they brought him up after he was orphaned and continue to feed him everything they eat. He reminded me of my grandad’s scrap-eating sheep in Tasmania except he knew his limits better (I can’t imagine him making such greedy head-down charges at those ladies’ skinny legs without ending up in the pot). The discussion about which herdsboys had shot the goat went on with these two, it’s definitely the local whodunnit, and Erot explained that though none of boys had admitted it they would definitely find out who was responsible.
The tour led on to a community that makes bricks. They knock down a termite mound under which the dirt has already been finely processed by the drones, then mix water in with their feet to make a mud pit. Bricks are pressed into wooden frames, sun-dried and then baked in a wood-fired oven. Before the oven is lit there must be a sacrifice of a goat to the ancestors – the old, old ancestors as opposed to living ancestors, people who died more recently and are remembered – to ensure that the firing is successful. The ancestors drink the blood spilt on the ground, the people can eat the meat, and the successful bricks go off in a hired truck to Turkwell where, cosmopolitan place that it is, people like to stay in brick buildings. Plenty of children stood around the mud pit staring at me and doing a version of ‘show and tell’ to each other: on offer today were two wild birds’ eggs, to be boiled later; the old home of the king and queen termite, evacuated but still well formed until a small hand crushed it; and a dead yellow and grey bird that was being slowly pulled apart, insides and all.
We walked on to another meeting point, not yet full, and rested on a log. Lokale showed me how beehives are made from hollowed logs and how the insides are coated with sugar solution to attract the bees in. When they want to eat honey they light a fire underneath the hive to drive the bees away, then climb up and take it. Most man-made beehives are privately owned but anyone can climb up the handy pile of sticks left as a ladder beneath the natural ones and poke their stick in for honey.
Songs are sung to educate, counsel or comfort, I am told. We walked to yet another meeting place where lovely smiling women were singing an entreaty to a prize bull, thanking it for its health and blessings and promising to name children after it. Songs to prize bulls are also apparently sung by irritated men to prompt the question, “What is troubling you?”
A man asked why women from other places (i.e. me) didn’t shave their heads like those in Turkana, and I explained that where I’m from long hair is considered beautiful, yet at the same time I think the Turkana women’s hair – shaved on the sides but left long in a strip down the middle like a collapsed Mohawk – is ibus noi, very beautiful, and shows off their strong faces – all true. Then a small boy who was twirling in a multi-ended brown rag asked where I was from; Erot told him, “She’s one of ours” and he replied that he’d never seen me before but then left it at that. Another woman said she felt pity for me and why had I not been given a chicken today, but they told her I’d refused one and I told them how happy I was so that they would get on with their chatting and busa-drinking. Pungent busa is starting to smell tempting with my raging akoro (hunger) but the new fantasy tormenting my midday thoughts is a cold coke in Turkwell. Amazing how in ‘real life’ I probably never have real hunger or even appetite, and most of my eating must be out of routine, boredom, to socialise or to counter some other imbalance like too much coffee.
Ejaribuni means I’ll try, and I certainly will, measured here by how much I pick up the Turkana language. There have been some very public grillings of long Turkana greetings, repeated until I get them perfectly, in all their convoluted totality, after which they laugh and pronounce my mouth to be ‘light’ and suitable for catching their language.
We stayed the whole afternoon and discussions ranged from how good the hyena and herb stew of last week was, how three suspicious-looking men had been seen yesterday and larger animals (camels, cattle, donkeys) that roam unattended might be at risk of being stolen, and how white men were brave in war, or at least won many. A filthy but delightful baby boy played with me, poking my pink toenails and stretching out with complete abandon in the dust. Like his family, who all seem amazingly supple and able to find infinite comfort propped up on an elbow or wooden head-rest while I wriggle around in a tree root trying to find peace for my muscles.
There was an interesting discussion about the woman with the premature labour pains who went to the dispensary this morning: she is back, her pregnancy is safe, but she was diagnosed with malaria and all her bones ache. She was given drugs (quinine presumably) and was taking them but they made her hearing very weak and, frightened, she stopped the course. I asked Lokale if the doctor hadn’t explained what the side-effects would be and in his endless lucidity he explained: “Doctors, once they’ve dispensed, that’s it, they think they’ve done their job. And they assume that people will understand what they know, so they don’t trouble to explain.” Then he shooed the cute baby away because he said he was disturbing me and that “everything he is saying is meaningless”. Which was true, but I lost a little teacher and at that moment my closest friend.
My rejected marriage proposal from the old man was again discussed, then a camel-praising song was sung for a new arrival. Erot quizzed me about the wild animals of England, pitying their small size and numbers and seeming especially sad that we don’t have ostriches. Some discussion about the coming referendum on Kenya’s proposed new constitution and the yes and no debates linked to the vote on August 4th. Lokale was called upon as a worldly wise voice and gently explained the issues to a mama. Happy, she went away to explain to the others how they should vote (yes). It seemed to be the usual case of them taking a pick-and-mix approach to the outside world as they deliberated over whether voting was worth the walk into Turkwell and which of these ‘down-Kenya’ matters made any difference to them when they had water to fetch and animals to care for.
I asked Lokale what he thought Turkana might be like in 20 years time and he described the Maasai who are “still wearing their sheets, but use motorbikes to get between their homes and their cattle”. We were brought back to the moment by an old lady’s beautiful song about the hyena they killed and ate last week: she sang of its beauty, its grace, its fine coat, even of how it looked like her husband (much laughter at this); she reproached them for killing it and lamented with her song the death of something so beautiful.
There was a heated discussion about a green mango that had materialised: give it to her (me); wash it first; let her wash it; it’s not even ripe. Then an ashamed silence as it was cut and found indeed to be unripe and unfit as a gift. I would have eaten it green but said nothing.
Set off for home after dodging the advances of a very drunk, bleary-eyed forestry ranger who announced in English that it was “Impossible!” I should stay in this place without more authorities knowing about it, but was luckily too obsessed with getting his huge lips around another cup of busa to do anything about it. Walked the long walk home and learnt a lot more about the trees from Erot who has interpreted my interest in health care as an interest in ethnobotany, telling in itself. Then he quizzed me on landmarks: “Are we near or far from home?”, “Where did we leave the dry riverbed for the river this morning?”, and “Where did we split the little goats into two groups?”. I got two out of three correct and promised to get smarter and not lost.
Crawled into tent and drank water from my jerry can in huge, un-observed gulps.
Went to cook with women when it got dark, sitting on our haunches round the small fires surrounded by three stones to put our pots on. Quite magical sitting and chatting with them, sharing everything except the berbere /pilau spice I’d brought which they were terrified of. A wind was picking up and a storm brewing, lightning flashing in the far-off hills and drops of rain starting to fall. Willowy Erot appeared and began making rain plans like Noah before the flood. Only one akai out of the five had a fully thatched roof so we were all to go there and stay together if the rain picked up, which sounded quite fun. He described tomorrow’s plan to go to Turkwell – everyone at the afternoon ekriam mariam had been instructed to do this because the chief had demanded their presence for a visit by mzungus (white people). We’ll go as one family, goodness knows what the mystery whites will think of me. Took a photo of myself to see what I looked like and it was pretty horrible: over-sunned, no make-up, slightly fierce and dirty looking. I erased it.
