It was raining even in Lodwar, where I enjoyed showers, spinach and emails before stocking up on basics for myself and the family. Basics like maize flour, sugar, salt, oil (some emergency dates and peanuts for me) and some sandpaper for them to finish their wooden bowls with. I hoped this would be easier than the shards of glass they use to shave bowls smooth with, and which I had immediately cut myself on when I’d joined in to help. Not sure what Erot, his daughter-in-law Irene and her baby Esibitar did in Lodwar besides going to the hospital, but they appeared at the Merlin compound in the morning looking happy, the baby wearing a pretty green dress that would put all the other ragamuffins to shame. I noticed their strong smell as we drove, and saw through their Kacha Imeri eyes how enormous and full of people and commerce Lodwar town is. It was very unfortunate that the time Erot and Gregory arrived was also the time Merlin Lodwar’s warehouse decided to spill its entire contents into the yard for an audit: hundreds of new blankets, jerry cans, boxes of relief food and medicines were tossed out in a dusty pile, and I could imagine the stories they would tell when home.
The big riverbed (Kros Pir) before Turkwell town was flowing after the rains, and makeshift washing lines were all over the ada karin following a night I had luckily but completely by accident missed. As we crossed the river I remembered the story of the two nuns near Lokichoggio (north, near the Sudanese border) who crossed a swollen river in their 4x4 with the windows closed, rolled, couldn’t get out and both died… My tent had coped quite well with the rain, but had a funny smell and a huge colony of big orange ants – termites? – had settled under and inside my boots. (I had to go on a squashing spree with a tin mug after I lifted the boots and they spread like wildfire all over the tent).
Family pleased to see us, and the supplies, and we sat down to rest and catch up. The first thing Erot did was change out of his town outfit of trousers and a t-shirt, put on his red and blue checked sheet and pick up his wooden stick and headrest. Then he set off in search of another missing goat.
Sat with Lokale and wives one and two (Elizabeth Krien and Mary Najal) as they spat tobacco juice through the gap where their lower incisors have been removed for beauty. Younger women are quite flirtatious with this gap, spitting streams of water through it as far as they can, sometimes in competition with each other or when being courted by a man. We admired and talked about their other marks of beauty, the small vertical scars in neat rows on face back, arms or shoulders. They go to a woman renowned for doing this well, and not the same person as the one who makes cuts on people, usually children, for health reasons. The most common of these are rings of small scars around the heart, sometimes curving along the rib to follow the line of the scapula behind; this is to correct an irregular or ‘too fast’ pulse in a child, something which must be pretty common to them given how many children have the striking mark. Other rows of scars are lower, on the abdomen, and I know from being here last year that many are a routine way of tackling the swollen spleen of kala azar (leishmaniasis).
On the horizon to the west appeared the missing black and white goat being led on a string by a good-looking male relative who’d matched his purple sheet with thick gold pirate-style hoop earrings. The goat had had a miscarriage and wild cats had eaten the foetus. I asked if they thought she would be depressed by the loss of her child and they said no, but they would. Children arrived and demonstrated two brilliant and intricate games that need just sand and stones: lokai (the house) and lokora (the he-goats). Lokora was too complicated and both needed supreme hand-eye coordination to be any good at but I think I might master lokai before leaving and it would be a good trick to pass time in sandy places.
The naughtiest boy in the ada karin Longor (Marta’s), who drifts after his dad Erot with complete adoration, showed up with his first attempt at a bow and arrow and was not bad at all for his four or so years. Quickly Erot and the goat-rescuing friend whittled him a perfect mini bow with full set of arrows. Each sitting on his egcholo (a wooden stool that doubles as a headrest) they looked statuesque in the golden late afternoon, their Elysian fields of tall yellow grass all around. We talked about this amazing flush of grass, the first good year of rain in at least three, and I said I hoped it would continue in following years. They said they were glad I’d said that as I’d also said I hoped the missing goat would be found, and it had been. For some reason this sort of thing makes me nervous and I think I’ll refrain from making such oracle-style statements in public in future.
Goat rush hour began and I stood in the thick of things with the entire family, learning words for coat colours [nakwan, black; nakirion, white; nangor, pale brown; epus, blue (grey); nangorok, black and white; narengan, red (chestnut brown)] while they computed, joined, divided and milked the hundreds of goats in a perfect symphony. On the edges children and babies’ mouths went white around the edges as they drank still-warm milk passed out of the scrum in cups.
A visitor was staying the night and would share Lokale’s outdoor mat, hopefully providing some body warmth on what was a much colder night. We sat with him and wives 1 and 3 (Elizabeth and Marta) who seem very fond of moonlit chats. In her usual direct way wife 1 - the oldest, sterner and a paragon of hard work and reliability – asked me questions about marriage and the status of women: if a man in my country is only allowed one wife, do I think Erot is wrong to have three? If a woman runs off with a man without her parents’ consent, is she beaten like she would be in Turkana? I tried to explain that England is multi-cultural so while some families are liberal towards women, others are not, for instance people are disturbed by stories of honour killings in ultra-muslim communities. They wanted me to know the traditional punishment for an adulterous pair in Turkana: a bull is taken from the man’s family and slaughtered, then he and his lover must carry the very heavy stomach and all its contents around the ada karin of the wronged husband, flinging the undigested food and shit at all the huts to cleanse them, and being beaten by all the family as they go. Before all this the adultery will be made very obvious by all the goats “sitting down like dogs” when they are released from their night enclosure. Even Lokale believes this is watertight proof that an affair has taken place.
It seemed the older wife feels life here as a woman has many burdens that she wanted me to know about, but her life-worn attitude was balanced by the sexy, confident Marta. Young, beautiful and oblivious of such things, Marta laughs and performs during these dramatic renditions. But they both did know a woman and man the adultery punishment had been meted out to, in neighbouring Konipad, and that conversation got them onto the latest scandal that was emerging yesterday as we set out for Lodwar. The woman who’d been teaching me so patiently to make string and weave mats had been practically abandoned by her husband 18 months before when he moved down-country to Kitale for work. An older man, Erot’s age, asked her family for permission to take her; her parents agreed but she refused. She was secretly in love with that old man’s son and in the cover of the rain storm that caught us two days ago they’d run off together. Now the families were deciding what to do, but seemed to agree that the absent husband was largely to blame, a humane outcome I thought, and I hope the lovely round-faced woman will be spared the intestine-carrying, shit-spraying exercise.
There were a few light-hearted interruptions from the visitor, who seemed jovial but was shrouded in his blanket so I never saw his face. He wanted to know if there were donkeys and mountains in my country, if it was true that it’s night there when it’s day here (several people have asked me this already) and if didn’t think that when a male camel mounts a female camel, puts its tongue out and makes noises, it sounds like a vehicle? Then we talked about names for animals; they don’t seems to name any of theirs except Marta could remember a cow who was called Edward after a white missionary of the same colour. I asked if they would name any white/pink dogs or cows after me and they laughed and said no, but they will use me as a time marker, so they will always say that Esibitar started to walk at the time the mzungu came to stay in Erot’s house.
Sadly the bad smell in my tent is the rotting of the rain-soaked ancient foam, and there are far too many survivors of the ‘anticide’. And I have a bad stomach. Otherwise life is beautiful and I look forward to tomorrow’s appointment with the camel-milking women.
