No Hurry in Africa (27 page)

Sitting of an evening, lazily drinking sundowners with Helmut and Jurgen in the extremely pleasant surroundings of Sipi Falls, it was almost impossible to imagine the horror of those days. Amin was responsible for the massacre of an estimated 300,000 people—perhaps as many as half a million, according to some human rights groups. Perhaps his most brainless act was to expel the 50,000-strong Indian community, saying God had told him to transform Uganda into ‘a black man’s country.’ This precipitated an overnight economic meltdown, because the Indians ran many of the shops and businesses of Uganda.

From 1971 until he was ousted in 1979 after a pointless war with Tanzania, he had banned hippies and miniskirts, attended a Saudi royal funeral wearing a Scottish kilt, forced four Englishmen to carry him around in a sedan chair at a summit of African leaders, and periodically jumped into swimming pools wearing full military uniform. I could not help wondering if the low standard of geographical knowledge I had encountered in the country was related to the fact that one of his many titles was Professor of Geography! He was known to Western reporters simply as ‘Big Daddy’ for his massive frame, and indeed, he was the heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda in pre-Independence days while he was serving in the British Army.

Given his bulk, he was also a useful prop-forward in rugby. As we climbed Kilimanjaro, Pat Close had told me that a retired Scottish meteorologist he knew propped against the future dictator, when Amin was playing for the East Africa Rifles. The Scot had found the young Amin to be physically formidable; but he was very polite and deferential, and was a great lover of everything British and in particular, Scottish.

‘Had I known that he would later be rather partial to human liver lightly grilled, I would have been a bit more concerned when our scrums collapsed!’ said the Scot.

Amin was, by his own account, quite partial to live women also. He was believed to have sired over fifty children.

‘In communist countries, you do not feel free to talk; there is one spy for every three people. Not here. No one is afraid here,’ he told foreign journalists in the 1970s. ‘It’s like Ugandan girls. I tell them to be proud, not shy. It’s no good taking a girl to bed if she is shy. Do you get my point?’

After several extremely pleasant days at Sipi Falls, I was running out of money. I was planning to return to the bank in Kampala, the one with the request to leave your gun at the door; it was the only place in Uganda I knew of where my ATM card could take out Ugandan shillings. It was then I discovered that due to bureaucratic restrictions, my American dollars could not be exchanged because the notes were over five years old; in short, they were worthless.

I had to get back into Kenya as soon as possible. In my attempt to reach the border crossing, south of Sipi Falls, I had to resort to haggling and barter with the conductor of the bus.

‘The best price is 2,000 shillings,’ the conductor insisted after I haggled him down a bit.

That was equal to about a euro. I looked in every pocket and every envelope I had, and amassed just over 1,000 Ugandan shillings. I had a moment of inspiration. I pulled out a packet of spare AA batteries I kept for my hand-held radio. Reliable batteries are a precious commodity in East Africa, as most of their battery-operated imports run out of energy faster than a paper airplane. His face lit up. He knew the batteries were worth far more than the original asking fare.

‘If you give me a black pen and some paper as well,’ the conductor advised, ‘then we have a deal.’

‘No bother,’ I agreed, and hopped on the bus.

At the bus terminal in the decent sized settlement that is Tororo, I needed another bus onwards to the border crossing. A Ugandan man noticed my desperation as I was going round in circles, vainly trying to find someone that might exchange my small amount of Kenyan shillings or my six-year-old American dollars to pay for the fare. He was a big man, yet another hawker trying to offload some of his merchandise on me, I surmised. In fact, he was selling strips of rubber. I was not in the mood to entertain more endless banter over their hard sell.

‘Look, at the moment I have no use for a strip of rubber, thanks, and nothing to pay for it anyway.’

‘OK,
bwana.
I am not trying to sell you anything. I am a member of the Pentecostal Church.’

Oh God, I sighed not exactly prayerfully to myself, I’m not in the form for this right now either.

‘There is only a single
mzungu
like you in this town,’ he continued, ‘I will bring you to her. She will help you with your problem.’

He guided me down some dirty backstreets, around the back of a building, and up a dark flight of stairs. There was a young English lady from the Home Counties working as a nurse. They knew each other from the church. After exchanging stories of what each of us was doing in Africa, I explained my predicament to her. She immediately handed over much more than the anticipated fare, but it was still only about three euros worth. I thanked her profusely, and the big African guided me back along a few streets to the correct bus for the border. Tactfully, I tried to hand him the amount above what I needed for the fare. He refused point blank. They were the two Good Samaritans of Tororo. Most of the Ugandans I had met were decent, friendly people.

I might make an exception of some of the hawkers an odd time, though. It was along those roads to the Kenyan border that locals were offering hot cooked chickens for sale; indeed, they were thrusting them through the open bus windows on the end of poles. At another village, every single person was intent on selling coat hangers to passengers. It is always the same in East Africa; in one village it is all carrots; in the next village it is all four-foot hat stands; in the next, only signposts are for sale; in the next, it is newspapers, and so on. Nobody ever thinks to sell something different from the rest. And why they would ever think I needed to buy a wicker chair or a big woolly sheepskin through a bus window, I simply do not know.

I was aiming for the smallest border crossing I could find on the map south of Sipi Falls because I always found smaller border posts less officious. Areas north of Mount Elgon might have been susceptible to danger from the notorious rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, crazed rebels who have been known to commit acts of cannibalism. I had other worries. While walking up to the border post, I was still debating in my head whether I would be prepared to pay a bribe if it became necessary to be allowed back into Kenya. It might cause trouble further down the line if I was found out, but I knew people who had done it before.

In the end, at the border post in a no-horse town, after my several misadventures in Uganda, I managed to charm my way back into Kenya. After a bit of smiling and joking, the official handed back my passport, and with a handshake I was through… I did not have to return to Ireland, as I had been told I must a week earlier.

A
SINGLE MONGOOSE
ended my extensive hen empire. At least that was the story I was told towards the end of March on my return to Nyumbani from Uganda. In other versions, a large hawk had swooped on the hens one by one; sometimes I heard that an unidentified human had snatched some, apparently with my permission. Now hen-less, I decided to give away my goats too. This entailed cycling with one goat at a time tied to the back of the boneshaker. They were gifts for some of my Akamba friends—so that they could take advantage of some of the rather illogical economics of Kitui. Goat prices skyrocketed once the rains came; with all the new vegetation to munch on, the goats fattened up. Of course, everyone knows this is going to happen at the exact same time every year.

In the days after my return to Nyumbani, when I was not preoccupied with hen thieves and goat prices, I was worried about Damian. I had tried to ring him a good few times whenever or wherever my phone picked up a signal again. There was no answer. With increasing concern, I contacted Sr. Mary in Nairobi, hoping that she could update me on his whereabouts. She became fretful as well, for she had been assuming that we were still together in Uganda.

It was a few days later that I got a message on my phone from Sr. Mary. Damian had finally made contact with her. He was still in Uganda. It was about a week later that he crossed back into Kenya, and we were able to speak. He told me he had ventured deep into the rebel territory of the Lord’s Resistance Army after he gave up chasing his Norwegian girl. He had encountered an African man in Kampala who drove him to Gulu refugee camp in the far north. I knew how dangerous that could have been. I nearly felt like telling him off.

‘There is taking a risk,’ I said, ‘and there is asking for trouble!’

But I was pleased and relieved that he was back safe and well nonetheless.

Back in the office, I sometimes felt I was nearly becoming redundant. I had trained up Nancy and Nzoki so well in the use of the computer, especially in the use of Excel, Word and basic management accounting functions, that by this stage they were doing a lot of the work that I had been doing initially. They were enjoying the challenge, preferring to do the work themselves. Also, because extra funding from abroad would not be released until the land deeds were officially handed over, Phase II was being further curtailed, at least for the time being. Things at this point were just ticking over. I was beginning to feel that there was a certain lack of continuity to the planning and running of Nyumbani since Kiragu vacated his position. Certainly, there was not the same urgency.

I wanted to find a new role for myself, and I did not have far to look. The impressive water system of pipes, dams, tanks, and boreholes that had been installed allowed, for the first time, fruit trees and a variety of crops to be grown on Nyumbani’s farm. So instead of managing the finances, I decided to become an organic farmer. Regardless of other developments on the site, there would be a need for continuity on the farm. Nature abhors a vacuum; it was important that something was happening. Nyumbani was experimenting by trying to create a microclimate on its desert farm—for example, by creating layers of vegetation of differing heights, and trapping moisture by different methods. A lot of scientific analysis had been devoted to this possibility since well before Christmas.

I was learning new skills. I spent a couple of days ploughing cleared bush with two powerful oxen in the hope of planting a fruit orchard in the expectation of more rains coming. The immediate result was blisters and aching arms. This is really how the early white settlers lived, I was thinking. I was reminded of Elspeth Huxley’s beautifully written memoir,
The Flame Trees of Thika.
I too was furrowing virgin bush by steering these great patient, stubborn beasts, with a gang of Africans around me busily planting the fruit bushes and trees. I was gratified to learn later that the orchard is still flourishing.

It takes a team of four people to whip, shout, whistle and swear in order to plough with oxen and prepare for planting. One of the ‘planter’team was known to one and all as ‘Mama Mbolea,’ meaning ‘Mammy Manure.’ This was not meant to be an insult, merely a factual description of her main function in the operation. A fine sturdy woman, she was the most important community worker in Nyumbani.

Whenever the oxen went out of control, another one of the four, a tall slender fellow named Kaveti, came to the rescue. He always took the opportunity to ask me questions.

‘Mzee
Brendan, do you keep camels on your farm in your country?’ he wondered.

I had to explain that camels would find the Donegal climate very unpleasant. The day Kaveti was being married in church, his fiancée began her contractions in the middle of the ceremony, and she had to be rushed away to give birth. Kaveti and those like him are often intelligent, but many are sent out to herd goats by their parents instead of being sent to primary school. In fact, herding is the most common male occupation in Akambaland.

Perhaps because of the impression given by these herdsmen, Africans have an undeserved reputation for laziness among some Europeans in Kenya. Rather, it is usually idleness—having nothing to do—rather than laziness, in my view. It was my experience that many, if not most, Africans are excellent workers. For instance, one time I hired two men to dig a hole. I came back some hours later with food for them. I could not see them anywhere and presumed they had absconded—only to find them below ground level at the bottom of a seven-foot hole. The Africans on the other hand, used to hand me a broken spade and then say,

‘Oh, that
mzungu
cannot do hard work.’

That was their expectation. When I took to the ploughing, they were as surprised as they were impressed.

While many white people have a distorted impression of Africans, the Africans also have a particularly distorted view of white people from what they have seen of us. Many Kenyans, for example, believe everyone in Europe has a hired cook in their home. The settlers all have at least one. The Irish missionaries have cooks as well; this is often not just to save time and effort, but also to provide much needed employment.