The White Masai (17 page)

E
ven totally exhausted, I’m overwhelmed by the site of the encampment. The women have built an entire village out of nothing: more than fifty
manyattas
. There’s life everywhere, smoke spiralling up from every hut. Lketinga goes to find Mama’s
manyatta
while I wait by the Land Rover. My legs are trembling, and my skinny arms ache. Before long a crowd of women, children and old people have gathered around me staring. I wish Lketinga would come back soon, and then here he comes with Mama. She frowns when he points to me and says, ‘Corinne,
jambo…wewe
malaria?’ I nod and suppress my welling tears.

We unload everything and leave the vehicle locked outside the encampment. We have to go past about fifteen
manyattas
before we reach Mama’s. The whole path is covered in cowpats. Everyone of course has brought all their animals with them, although at the moment they’re all out grazing and will only come home in the evening. We drink
chai
, and Mama has an animated conversation with Lketinga. I find out later that we’ve already missed two of the three days of the festival. My darling is disappointed and upset. I feel sorry. There will have to be a council of the elders in which the most important will decide if he is allowed to take part and what will happen next. Mama, who also belongs to this council, scuttles around trying to find the most important men.

The festivities only begin when it gets dark and the animals are back. Sitting in front of the
manyatta
, I watch all the comings and goings. Lketinga gets filled in by two other warriors who give him jewellery and decorate him artistically. There’s a huge feeling of anticipation in the encampment. I feel left out and forgotten. Nobody has spoken a word to me in hours. Soon
the goats and cows will be home, and then it will be night. Mama comes back and talks over the situation with Lketinga. She seems a bit drunk. All the elders are drinking vast quantities of home-brewed beer.

Eventually I want to find out what’s going to happen. Lketinga tells me that he has to slaughter a big ox or five goats for the elders, and then they’ll allow him to take part in the ceremony. They will give their blessing in front of Mama’s
manyatta
this evening, and then he’ll be allowed to join the warriors’ dance. In that way everyone will know officially that this gross lateness, which would normally mean exclusion, has been forgiven. I’m relieved. But the problem is that right now he doesn’t have five goats. He has two at most, and one of them is pregnant and can’t be killed. I suggest he buys some from his relatives and bring out a big bundle of notes. He’s not sure because today every goat will cost double, but Mama has a serious talk with him and when the first bell rings to say the animals are coming back he takes the money and goes out.

Bit by bit our
manyatta
fills up with other women. Mama is cooking
ugali
, a sort of maize porridge, and everybody’s talking. The hut is barely illuminated by the fire. Every now and then one of the women tries to talk to me. A younger woman with a little child sits down next to me and first admires my arms, which are covered with Masai jewellery, and then plucks up the courage to run her fingers through my straight hair. Then there’s laughter again, and she points at her bald head, decorated only with a band of pearls. I shake my head; I can’t imagine myself bald.

Outside it’s already pitch black when I become aware of a grunting sound, the typical sound of the men when they are excited, either by danger or sex. Immediately it falls quiet in the hut. My warrior sticks his head in the hut but at the sight of so many women disappears again. I hear voices rising steadily, and then suddenly there’s a shout, then a group of people start up a sort of humming or cooing. I creep out curiously and am amazed to see how many warriors and young girls have assembled in front of our hut for the dance. The warriors are exquisitely painted and wear red loincloths. Their chests are bare and crisscrossed with pearl chains. The red war paint stretches from their throat to a point in the middle of their chest. There are at least three dozen warriors moving to the same rhythm. The girls, some of them very young, from nine up to about fifteen years old, are dancing in a row, facing the men, moving their heads in time to the same rhythm. The tempo increases but only very
slowly, and it’s an hour before the first warriors start to jump into the air in the typical Masai leap.

My warrior looks wonderful. He leaps high, floating ever higher like a feather, his long hair flowing behind with every leap. The naked bodies glisten with sweat. It’s hard to see everything clearly in the starry night, but it’s all too easy to feel the eroticism built up in these hours of dancing. The faces are serious, the eyes staring straight ahead. From time to time a wild scream erupts, or some leader starts to sing and everyone joins in. It is magnificent, and for hours on end I forget my sickness and exhaustion.

The girls choose one warrior after another bobbing up and down in front of them with their rows of necklaces and naked breasts. Looking at them depresses me as I realize that, at twenty-seven, I’m relatively old here and maybe later on Lketinga will take one of these young girls as his second wife. Plagued by jealousy, I feel out of place and excluded.

The whole group merges into a sort of conga with Lketinga at the head of the column. He looks wild, unapproachable. Gradually the dance comes to an end. The girls, giggling slightly, draw aside. The elders sit on the ground in a circle wrapped in their woollen blankets. The
morans
form themselves into a circle too. Now it is time for the elders to give their blessing. One of them utters a sentence, and all the others repeat ‘
Enkai
’: the Masai word for God. This goes on for half an hour, and then the whole festival is over for today. Lketinga comes over to me and says I ought to go and sleep now, with Mama. He and the other warriors are going out into the bush to slaughter a goat. None of them will sleep, they will talk about old times and things to come. I understand perfectly and wish him a wonderful night.

In the
manyatta
I make myself as comfortable as I can amongst the others. I lie awake for ages, there are voices to be heard coming from all over, and in the distance an occasional goat bleats or a lion roars. I pray that I will be fully well again soon.

The next morning, at six o’clock, the day begins in earnest. So many animals in one place create a tremendous noise. Mama goes out to milk our goats and cows. We make
chai
. I sit wrapped in my blanket because it’s cool, waiting impatiently for Lketinga. I’ve needed to go to the toilet for ages, but with so many people around I don’t dare leave the encampment. They’d all be watching me, especially the children who follow me everywhere when I go out without Lketinga.

At last he arrives and sticks his head into the hut beaming from ear to ear: ‘Hello Corinne, how are you?’ Then he unfolds his kanga and reaches out to give me a roasted leg of lamb wrapped in leaves. ‘Corinne, now you eat slowly. After malaria this is very good.’ It is nice that he thought of me, because it’s not normal here for a warrior to bring his wife already cooked meat. When he sees me holding the leg weakly he sits beside me and cuts bite-sized pieces off with his big bush knife. I have absolutely no desire for meat, but there isn’t anything else and I have to eat if I’m to regain my strength. I force myself to eat a couple of pieces, and Lketinga is happy. I ask him where we can wash, and he laughs and says it’s a long way to the river and you can’t get there by car. The women fetch just enough water to make
chai
, nothing else; we’ll have to wait a couple of days before we can wash. I find the thought unappealing. At least there are no mosquitoes but more than enough flies. When I clean my teeth outside the
manyatta
people gather to watch in curiosity, and when I spit out the froth they all get very excited. It’s my turn to laugh.

Today an ox is to be slaughtered in the middle of the square. It’s quite a spectacle. Six men try to wrestle the ox onto the ground from the side. It’s not easy as the terrified animal thrusts around with its horns. Only after several attempts do two warriors manage to grab the horns and turn its head to one side, and the beast slowly sinks to the ground. Immediately its legs are tied, and three people set about slaughtering it while the others hold its legs. It’s appalling but for the Masai it’s the only way they know to kill an animal. When the animal stops moving its artery is cut, and all the men standing around try to drink the blood. It must be a great delicacy because there’s a lot of pushing and jostling. Then the butchery begins. Old men, women and children are already queuing up for their share. The best bits go to the old men and only then do the women and children get theirs. Four hours later there’s nothing left but a pool of blood and the splayed out hide. The women have withdrawn into their huts and are cooking. The old men are sitting in the shade under the trees, drinking beer and waiting for their cooked meat to arrive.

Late in the afternoon I hear the sound of an engine, and shortly afterwards Father Giuliani turns up on his motorbike. I greet him warmly. He’s heard that I’m here and have malaria and wanted to see if I was okay. He has brought home-baked bread and bananas. I’m overjoyed and feel as if it’s Christmas. I tell him the whole story from our wedding plans to the
malaria. He advises me strongly to go to Wamba or back to Switzerland until I’ve fully recovered. He gives me such a penetrating look that I realize I’m not over the hill yet, not by a long way. Then he gets back on his motorbike and roars off.

I think of home, my mother, a warm bath. Yes, right now that would be wonderful, even though it’s not all that long since I was back in Switzerland. Even so it seems like forever. But one look at my darling and I forget even the thought of Switzerland. He asks how I am, and I tell him about the priest’s visit. I learned from him that today the schoolchildren come home from Maralal. Father Roberto is bringing some of them in his car. When Mama hears she immediately hopes that James is among them. I’m pleased too at the thought of being able to speak English for a couple of weeks.

Slowly I manage to eat a few pieces of meat after brushing off a swarm of flies. The drinking water looks more like cocoa, but unless I want to go thirsty I’ve no choice but to drink it. I’m not given any milk because Mama reckons that with malaria it could be dangerous and cause a relapse.

The first schoolboys arrive, including James and two friends. They’re all dressed the same in short grey trousers, a light blue shirt and dark blue pullover. He greets me cheerfully and his mother respectfully. As we sit drinking
chai
together I notice how much his generation is different from that of Lketinga and his age group. They don’t look right in these
manyattas
. James looks at me and says he heard in Maralal that I had malaria. He says he’s amazed that a white person can live in Mama’s
manyatta
. Even as a Samburu he finds it difficult when he comes home for the holidays: everything is so cramped and dirty.

The children’s arrival makes a change, and the day flies by. Soon the goats and cows are back home. In the evening there’s a big dance in which even the old women will take part, dancing just with themselves. Even the schoolboys dance, outside the encampment, some of them still in uniform. It looks funny. Late in the evening the kings of the festival, the warriors, assemble again. James stands next to them and records their song with our radio-cassette player. I wouldn’t have thought of it. After two hours the cassette is full.

The warriors’ dance gets wilder and wilder. One of the
morans
suddenly gets a sort of fit. He shakes as if in ecstasy until he falls to ground thrashing around noisily. Two of the warriors break loose from the dance
and forcibly hold him to the ground. I ask James worriedly what’s going on. He says this warrior has probably drunk too much blood and gone into a sort of trance and imagines he’s fighting a lion. It’s not too drastic and eventually he’ll snap out of it and become normal again. The man is squirming and screaming on the ground, his eyes staring at the heavens and foam coming from his mouth. It looks awful, and I just hope nothing like that happens to Lketinga. Apart from the two holding him down, nobody else pays any heed. The festival goes on as before, and I watch Lketinga and notice again how elegantly he leaps into the air. I soak in the spectacle because today is the official end of the festival.

Mama sits in the
manyatta
, half-drunk. The boys play back the cassette, and everybody gets very excited. The warriors gather around the machine, which James has placed on the ground. Lketinga is the first to understand, and his whole face lights up when he recognizes one or other of the
morans
singing or shouting. Some of the others stare at the machine with wide eyes, and a few dare to touch it. Lketinga lifts it proudly onto his shoulders, and some of the
morans
start to dance again.

It’s slowly getting cold, and I go back into the
manyatta
. James will sleep with a friend, and my darling will go off with the others into the bush. Once again I hear noises everywhere. The entrance to the hut isn’t closed, and from time to time I see feet passing by. I’ll be glad to be back in Barsaloi. My clothes are dirty and smoky, and my body could do with feeling water, not to mention my hair.

The boys are in the hut next morning before Lketinga. Mama’s making
chai
when Lketinga sticks his head in. At the sight of the boys he says something crossly. Mama repeats it, and the boys disappear without their
chai
. In their place Lketinga and another
moran
come in and sit down. ‘What’s the problem, darling?’ I ask, somewhat shocked. After a lengthy pause he tells me that this is a warrior’s hut and uncircumcised boys shouldn’t be in it. James has to eat and drink in another hut where the Mama has a son his own age and not a warrior. Mama keeps an embarrassed silence. I’m disappointed to lose the English conversation and sympathize with the banished boys. But I have to accept these rules.