We’re the only guests again for dinner and I wonder once again how this place survives. The décor and furniture are still the same as they were eighteen years ago, simple but comfortable. Tonight, however, we all retire early. I sit by the flickering fire and wonder where Lketinga is. I really hope that he can cope with his relative wealth and that he too doesn’t fall victim to drink.
Before going to sleep I’m overcome by the need to offer up a prayer for my family: ‘Dear God, give Mama a long life still, care for Lketinga and his family and let him become a father again. Give James the strength to keep on being the link between our two worlds. Care too for my daughter Napirai and help her to become proud of her roots.’
The Hospital in Wamba
We set off early next morning, taking a new route so as not to have to cross the wide river outside Wamba, which by now is once again flowing with water. I do my best to absorb every fleeting image, to burn every scene indelibly into my memory. Survival here is so difficult yet the landscape and its people are almost indescribably beautiful. Just to be here is to have the magic cast its spell on you.
Our cars grind along the rutted roads towards Wamba. It takes some three hours to reach the village and we head straight for the hospital. I don’t expect anybody here to remember me, especially since Father Giuliani told me the last Italian nuns left three months ago and an Indian sisterhood has taken over. It’s a pity, though.
However, we do what we can to find someone who can spark a few memories for me. We explain the reason for our visit at the reception, and the Indian women are pleased to help but seem to think we’re from the film crew, who apparently they’re expecting tomorrow. When I tell them instead that I’m actually the one who was here fifteen years ago and it’s ‘only’ my life story that’s being filmed, they immediately offer to show us around.
The deputy head of the hospital takes time to personally show us around. Everything is much as it used to be, although in a better state of repair. I’m amazed that there are so few patients. In the old days there were queues of them waiting to be seen and all the wards were full. Sometimes I had to wait up to four or five hours with my baby before we reached the front of the queue for inoculations.
We walk down the corridors until we reach the ward I shared with Sofia, my friend at the time who was also heavily pregnant. The ward is empty, so there’s no objection to me going in to look around.
It’s incredible! Everything’s just the way it was fifteen years ago. Even the thin white sheet on the mattress on top of the iron bed frame looks identical. There’s still plaster peeling from the walls in places, and there are still the same little metal cupboards next to each bed. Just looking at them brings back the sound of cockroaches scrabbling around inside. Once when I put something edible in one of them it attracted the insects during the night. All I heard at first was the noise of something rattling on the metal. I had no idea what it was until I turned on my torch and saw to my horror the mass of black insects crawling around in the circle of light, some of them even working their way into the tiniest of cracks.
I sit myself down on ‘my’ bed, and a deep feeling of contentment washes over me. I used to sit here for hours on end knitting. Knitting! Me, who refused absolutely to learn knitting in school! I sat here and patiently knitted the first clothes for my unborn child. For two weeks I sat here waiting impatiently for the birth. I had had no preparation, there were no antenatal classes or exercise lessons or anything like that. I didn’t even know the faintest thing about going into labour, as my mother-in-law – who amongst the Samburu would normally have explained all this – and I couldn’t communicate with one another. I just told myself that young girls had babies all the time and at twenty-nine therefore I could manage it too.
My memories of this room, however, are not all happy ones. I was also in here when I had a serious attack of malaria and was connected up to drips on either side, one of them infusing blood and the other a saline solution. I went through so much in this hospital, from giving birth to narrowly escaping death, that it seems miraculous that I can be sitting here on the same bed today, so well nourished and in perfect health.
Our tour of the facilities takes us next to the isolation ward, which is a part of the hospital I also know intimately. At the moment there are building works going on so we can’t go inside. Apparently they’re intending to move the whole facility to another part of the hospital. However, I point out to Albert and Klaus where I spent five weeks in isolation, and watched through the window at visiting time every day by a whole passing parade of people I didn’t know. I remember that terrible experience only too well. My little cell was cut off from the outside world so that I couldn’t even hear a human voice or the birdsong outside, not one single noise. Nonetheless, I came out of it in the end with my health restored.
We walk slowly back and I ask our guide which diseases are most prevalent nowadays. The nun tells us: ‘Burns and pregnancy complications caused by the ‘female circumcision’. I see the dreadful problems caused by this tradition almost every day. Even if there aren’t immediate risks, such as infection, problems arise at the very latest when they come to give birth. Some girls are married as young as ten years old and end up giving birth for the first time at twelve or thirteen. Giving birth at that age is dangerous enough, but here you have the added complication that the vagina is often scarred and has lost its elasticity. Some young women die or suffer lifelong injuries as a result. Some of them end up unable to control their bladders and as a result are thrown out of their husband’s families. We come across tragic cases like that on a daily basis. Despite the fact that this ‘female circumcision’ is against the law in Kenya, I can see this mutilation going on for a long time, especially out in the bush where nobody pays any attention to these things and the girls have virtually no rights. As long as the custom of marrying girls off young and only after they’ve been ‘circumcised’ then it will take years for education to get through to them. It’s better in the towns. But the worst thing is when an ‘uncircumcised’, that is unmarried, girl gets pregnant; then they try everything to abort the baby. They use the most awful methods, including pouring a brew made from chewing tobacco down the girl’s throat.’
So that’s why they all got so worked up at our leaving party in Barsaloi when I put some of the chewing tobacco in my mouth.
‘If none of that works,’ the nun says, ‘then they ‘circumcise’ the girl, even though she’s pregnant. The huge loss of blood and the gaping wound, which usually gets infected, result in the abortion of the foetus and sometimes in the death of the mother. I myself,’ she adds, ‘am half-Samburu, half-Kikuyu, and thank God they didn’t do it to me.’
Albert asks why they carry out such a ritual which to us seems so barbaric. The nun replies that it’s very difficult to give a precise answer. On the one hand, there’s the sheer weight of tradition, but she thinks that the men also believe that this ‘circumcision’ will make their wives lose any interest in other men and become more obedient and easier to keep under their control. A lot of education is needed and she can only hope that things will improve one day. The fact that the Samburu don’t carry out the most extreme form of ‘circumcision’ practised by certain other tribes is cold comfort under the circumstances.
I think back to the conversation we had on our own with James about this just a few days ago. It was Albert who brought it up. He told us that, despite all the changes that had taken place over recent years, not much had been done about female ‘circumcision’. When we asked him what he though of it himself, he said only: ‘It’s such a deep-rooted tradition that it’s hard to get it out of your head. Amongst us, a girl only becomes a fully-fledged woman after this operation. It’s always been like that and that’s the way things are likely to remain.’
We ask him if the subject isn’t dealt with in school. He says, ‘Yes, but it doesn’t do any good. Even if a man wanted to marry an ‘uncircumcised’ girl, her father probably wouldn’t let him
. In any case it rarely happens.’ When I ask him to his face what he’ll do about his own girls, I can see he’s not happy answering the question. Even Stefania, his own wife, was ‘circumcised’, despite the fact she’d had the benefit of an education. ‘If my daughters find a man who doesn’t insist on the ‘circumcision’,’ he says, ‘then that’s all right with me. But it isn’t easy to find a man like that.’
I think back to Lketinga’s reaction when I told him the harm this so-called ‘operation’ can do to girls. He got really annoyed and could hardly believe what I was telling him. But afterwards even he began to ask himself why it continued to be done. Unfortunately, however, individuals can’t do a great deal to change an ancient tradition. I feel certain his new wife has probably been ‘circumcised’.
We head back towards the exit, somewhat depressed by what we’ve been hearing. We say thank you for the tour of the hospital and take our leave. Before I climb back into the car I take one last look around me, hardly able to believe that fifteen years ago my own ‘Swiss Miss’ first saw the light of day here. It seems almost unbelievable.
Tomorrow the film crew arrive here and Nina will ‘give birth’ to her ‘baby’. But will they also put their hands over her mouth so no one can hear her scream?
Return to Nairobi
We leave Wamba and head towards Isiolo. A few miles along the way we have to make a hair-raising crossing over a raging river on a bridge with no barriers on either side. It’s easy to see here the effect the rain has had up in the mountains. There’s nothing but a torrent of red-brown water as far as the eye can see with just a few ‘thumb palms’ sticking out of it here and there. The crocodiles that normally live here are nowhere to be seen. The sky is leaden grey. It looks as if it will rain again soon.
Eventually, however, the road improves as we approach civilization. After two hours on the road we find ourselves coming into a hamlet made up of just a few wooden shacks, shops and a bar or two. At least it’s a chance to stop for a tea break. As white people we’re immediately taken into an area of our own, a back room where we sit ourselves down on threadbare sofas with white lacy throws on them. The bare walls are painted with animal motifs. These are all little touches designed to make the place appear more ‘classy’. We order up some tea, which tastes good, although not as good as in Mama’s manyatta. We drink it with a few biscuits and then it’s time to get back on the road.
We meet safari buses coming in the opposite direction all the time now, bumping along the roads under the rain clouds. Every now and then I make out wooden signposts bearing exotic-looking names of tourist lodges. Since we left Samburu country both the people and the vegetation have changed. There’s much more agriculture here. The women carry baskets filled with fruit and vegetables on their heads. There are no more of the brightly coloured Samburu kangas to be seen; most people wear European-style clothing.
We arrive in Isiolo in late afternoon and decide to spend the night there. It would be far too strenuous and probably quite dangerous to drive on over these bad roads in the dark. Isiolo is a horrid, dirty little town. I notice that there are a lot more Muslims living here now than there used to be. Our driver tells us the town is effectively divided in two, with Christians in one half and Muslims in the other, most of them of Somali origin.
We book ourselves in to one of the ‘better’ lodging houses and agree to meet up shortly for something to eat. After dinner we don’t feel like wandering around the dark and dirty streets and instead sit and enjoy the evening air on a sort of roof terrace in the hotel. It seems as if our hotel is the place to meet for all of the well-to-do and ‘powerful people’ in town. The men are mostly overweight and dressed in modern suits while their plump wives wear African fashions or outsize European dresses. Life here seems a lot more bustling and modern than in Maralal or Barsaloi. I don’t like it and am pleased when we leave for Nairobi the next morning.
The closer we get to the capital the more traffic there is on the roads. Everywhere you look there are people and cars. After the calm of the bush Nairobi seems horribly hectic and noisy. It seems a lot worse now than it did when we first arrived from Europe. I can hardly believe that it was only fourteen days ago. We’ve seen and done so much in the past two weeks that it seems a lot longer to me.
We take the rented Land Cruisers back to the safari company and thank our drivers John and Francis for their faultless services. The main and most important part of the journey is over now, but for me it’s time to go back to Mombasa to draw a full circle and go back to the spot where it all began eighteen years ago.
Klaus offers us the use of the apartment here in Nairobi where he and his fiancée Irene have been living for the past two years. As Albert’s flight for Munich leaves tonight we decide to make an effort to get in touch with Father Giuliani again and are delighted to find out that indeed he’s staying not far from here. We agree to meet him in an Italian restaurant. Somehow I find it hard to imagine him here in Nairobi, in ‘civilization’. To me, he’s a pioneer, a lone wolf, anything but a city person.
Klaus lives in a quieter, more expensive part of town, where the apartment blocks are surrounded with walls and barbed wire. Only people known to the security guards are allowed in. Within the compound there’s a restaurant, a gymnasium and a beauty parlour. The idea of having to go through security checks just to get to the gym seems really bizarre. Only later do I discover that even perfectly normal restaurants are fenced off and have guards on the door. In the old days only the smartest villas had this sort of security. It seems Nairobi has become a lot more dangerous. After dark nobody will even walk five minutes to a restaurant. Anyone who can afford it uses a locked vehicle to cover every yard.
It’s not the sort of life I’d like to lead. People here are slaves to their property. I’d rather live in Barsaloi more or less in the open air, with next to nothing to my name and nothing that needs guarding. We didn’t have to worry about thieves, just lions and hyenas.
When we get to the restaurant at the time we arranged to meet we find Giuliani roaring up the road towards us on his motorbike. He’s wearing a helmet that looks pre-Second World War. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in ‘normal’ clothes: long trousers, a pullover and proper shoes.
We’ve been joined by an elderly English couple who’re involved in a big way in the Kenyan film industry so it’s not long before we’re talking about the White Masai movie project. Father Giuliani wants to know who’s playing him in the film. Wagging his finger with a laugh he says, ‘I’m warning you: if he’s not right as me or if you’ve tinkered with the facts, then I’ll be after your blood, wherever you’re hiding.’ We all laugh out loud. The name of the actor means nothing to him. But how on earth could it? He hasn’t had a television for years and even if he had, there’s no reception out where he lives. But maybe there’ll be a movie premiere in Nairobi for the first showing in Kenya. That’s always possible. He and James would almost certainly love to attend, although I’m not so sure about Lketinga.
Sadly the couple of hours we have fly by and we have to break up the party to head for the airport to see Albert off. When we get there I suddenly feel homesick for my daughter. I miss her such a lot. But there are still a few places and people that I have to see again on my ‘journey into the past.’
Flying Doctors
The first thing I want to do is go and visit AMREF, the African Medical and Research Foundation. Untold people throughout Africa – besides me – owe their lives to their Flying Doctors. Apart from their emergency work, however, the organization has been working over the last fifty years on all sorts of programmes and concrete projects with the aim of setting up a basic health service over as wide an area as possible. I want to go and see them not just to thank them in person for saving my life fifteen years ago but to try and help make their work known to as many people as possible.
When Klaus and I arrive the next morning we find they’re all ready and waiting for us. We’re taken to see the woman in ch
arge of the emergency air ambulance service and I’m astounded to hear from her just how much this organization has got up and running throughout Africa.
Originally they got their reputation for the ‘Flying Doctors’, pilots that everyone knew could land and take off even in the remotest parts of the bush. That was what was needed to rescue me in the nick of time from Barsaloi and fly me to Wamba.
But here in Nairobi they’ve also opened up a hospital in the biggest slum district and installed toilets and clean water facilities. I’m delighted to take up their offer to see their work on the ground. We arrange it for the following day: going into Nairobi’s slums where the poorest of the poor live needs some preparation. It’s not a good idea for white people to just wander around; there’s every chance of being robbed, mugged or even murdered. Before we can go into the area we need a specially marked car and a driver who knows his way around. They also need to tell the hospital in advance.
Nobody objects when we ask to see the aircraft hangars so Klaus can take a picture of me next to the plane that I was rescued in. On the way there we’re joined by the woman who’ll take us around the Kibera slum tomorrow. Unfortunately when we get to the hangar there’s only one large aircraft to be seen as all the little ones are in use. But then out on the tarmac we notice one smaller aircraft that resembles the one in which I was flown out the bush when I was so ill my life was in danger. Klaus’s professional eye immediately sees that the light for taking photographs is much better out there. The plane is only about sixty feet away from us but we’re not allowed onto the tarmac, as the little Wilson airfield is used not only by AMREF but also by light aircraft belonging to safari companies as well as private individuals.