Watched young goats enjoy a thick hail of falling ng’itit from the tree Erot had spotted last week and now shook with his very long hooked stick, stuck in the high branches and firmly tugged on.
Saw them assisting a goat and a sheep to deliver, the sheep needing some serious hands-on and hands-in help but finally, exhausted, popping out a slimy little one. I applauded the mostly male midwives but was nearly put off my chai by the yellows, pinks, reds and general rawness of it all.
An elderly man arrived who had heard our voices while sleeping in a nearby riverbed last night and wanted to visit the strangers. He was from the ada karin next door where all the camels are. These camels are marked by a big branded circle with a line coming off the top like a saucepan handle and two smaller strokes bisecting it on one side, where 3 o’clock would be – a good-looking marking, though often not the only one on a camel, especially an older one which may have passed through several owners and been part of several dowry packages. This man, Logyel, talked to Erot about a missing camel and then to us about the fascinating old days when lions and other wild animals roamed and people banged pots at night to frighten them off. This place Kacha Imeri, their grandfathers had told them, was named after a leopard who ate a smaller leopard in that riverbed and became a certain colour – imeri – as a result.
It is a tragedy, though not one felt by them, that the many splendid animals that were once here now only exist as shadows in place names, songs and stories. As well as Kacha Imeri being named after leopards, Kos Pir (the huge laga just before Turkwell town) is named after the hippos that were once there and a nearby hill after the black monkeys which are either gone or very scarce. Instincts tell you it’s wrong and tragic that these creatures have been hunted out, gradually at first with spears and bows and arrows, then in a 1970s climax with the arrival of guns; but when you have spent enough time watching how people’s lives in this precarious environment revolve completely around squeezing enough food and water for their livestock, and by extension for their children and entire family, you feel a growing understanding for their slash and burn approach to any animal competition.
Logyel told us about the origin of camels in this land: a wise old man asked Lake Turkana to open up so he could cross and steal camels that he knew were being kept on the other side (where Borana and Gabra live); the lake obliged and he and his brothers dashed over and back with stolen animals to set up Turkana’s now huge population. Luckily it closed just as the rightful owners gave chase, denying those people’s pleas for it to open again.
For our next trick we took Frederic’s vehicle to Turkwell to collect the old man David who was apparently sick and stranded there. It was jolly to pile into the landrover like a very eclectic family (plenty of wives, visitors and luggage jumped in with us). Having unkindly suspected that the old fellow might just be drunk, we were a bit humbled and very sorry to see him in a terrible state in a hut on the outskirts of town. He was completely immobile from terrible arthritis in a hip, was screaming and cursing in pain and had wet himself. We carried him and laid him out on a Merlin foam (my old mattress) in the back of the car and went straight to the dispensary. Emmanuel the nurse was efficient in bringing strong Panadol to the patient in the care, nothing else was advised or recommended (no Ibuprofen available) and off the ambulance went to town.
To restore strength to miserable David and us, his escorts, we went straight to the hotel-cum-shack for chai and mandazis. Then very slowly home, the patient screaming funny expletives with every bump. The best one was, “MY JESUS FUCKING SHIT!” We were accompanied by Simon the proud herdsman, with his amazingly individualistic spear made from a twisted and multi-forked piece of wood that looked like an antler and had many little carvings all over it so that it looked like an Inuit or First Nations artefact. He did a very poor job of holding David’s hips and knees steady over bumps, but at last we crawled to a stop in some good shade near (yet a safe distance from) home, and offloaded him carefully but in a way that seemed to be nearly killing him. Poor thing, and hopes of interviewing him for his lucid thoughts on Turkana past and present seemed to be dimming.
At an ekriam mariam in Konipad I helped women braid another’s hair into tight string-like twists where it had been left a few inches long in the strip down the middle. We used ash and twisted two strands in the same way I’d done with the fertiliser sack string. I remarked that it was another seminar in my course at the University of Turkana; they love this joke and usually comment on the irony that just as Turkana want to go to mzungu colleges and universities, sometimes mzungus want to come to theirs.
Returned to sit with men and discuss the history of busa, the fibre holding these gatherings together, the muddy liquid which everyone loves but some – including the missionary-influenced and us outsiders – suspect is a destructive force acting from within. When towns like Lodwar and Turkwell became developed, especially in the decade or two after Independence, is when people here noticed that the drink and the knowledge of how to make it began to emanate into the bush. In the ‘interior’ places which are far from town and rarely incorporate the small-scale agriculture or trade which provides busa’s raw ingredients (mainly sorghum), drinking is very little they tell me. Here it seems to be the backdrop to any kind of social interaction. Certainly it replaces food and provides energy for adults and children who won’t eat between morning and evening, and sometimes will eat only in the evening; in this respect it seems largely to do the trick. But the addicts are there, spending food money on drink or neglecting their children while intoxicated. Drunk children are also considered to be a social and family problem: Erot says that women are beaten for feeding their children so much busa that those children become lazy and useless at home, unable to help or keep the herd intact.
Kokoi the famous emuron was mentioned again, this time when we asked how the climate and land is changing. Whereas I had previously been told it was a mystery why the rains are getting shorter and the droughts longer, we were told by one old man that some believe that since Kokoi was arrested by the colonial British. Kokoi was the seer who was uniquely brilliant at predicting rain and advising people on prudent courses of action, and since his arrest not only has there been no emuron of equal worth, but the climate has never again been as reliable, predictable, or supportive to the Turkana people.
There were so many shooting stars above us as we ate our spicy lentils and rice, an ambitious but over-salted meal I cooked and shared in vats with our mob. It was dark and sleepy and everyone retired early. We took a jerry can to the riverbed for a precious shower.
