No Hurry in Africa Read Online Free PDF

more than a few seconds. Suddenly each of them jumped down from the tree. My heart pounded audibly. Luckily, they turned and ran away in the other direction, and I rushed straight back home. Still breathless, I asked Nancy what they could have been.
    ‘Most likely caracal cats, Bradan, there haven’t been lions seen around Nyumbani in two years.’
    There is something special about catching sight of all these truly wild animals in their natural environment, not protected by any national park, and living so close to humans. I used to hide under cover for a long time, motionless, seeing nothing, but when I began to leave, I startled everything again. It took me weeks to realise that David Attenborough might have got it wrong—the trick is to keep walking around making as much noise as you can to frighten everything into moving and betraying its presence. On occasions, baboons growled and barked at me like dogs. I recalled Nancy’s warnings. They were probably stronger than I was, but they would run away regardless after a few seconds.
    The people of the Akamba tribe take an easy-going, rather Jamaican approach to work and timekeeping. This would have suited me grand! It was people of the Kikuyu and Luo tribes I was working with in management, though. There is a phrase still heard in Northern Ireland—to be ‘grabbed by the Kikuyus’— which means to be grabbed by the testicles. It originated from the time of the Kikuyus’ ill-fated Mau Mau rebellion against the British during the late 1950s. Kikuyus, who are the biggest tribe in Kenya, making up a fifth of the population, are remarkably like the stereotype of the Scottish Presbyterians in their instincts—hardworking and honest, but rather serious and tight with money. The Akambas on the other hand—dare I say it?— can be a bit Irish, with all that that entails.
    One day Kimanze, walking beside me with the new boneshaker bicycle he had just bought, put it to me as follows:
    ‘The difference between the two tribes is this. A Kikuyu man will see my new bicycle and work even harder to save the money to buy one for himself. Whereas an Akamba man will see my new bicycle and perform a witchcraft spell so that I lose the bicycle.’ At that point, I decided the ‘Irish’ analogy went too far! I remembered hearing Sr. MM explain that the Akamba tribe were, until the late nineteenth century, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers. I saw traces of this earlier way of life still persisting everywhere. The night watchmen at Nyumbani walked around with bow and arrows. I once saw a watch-man shoot an arrow between the eyes of a snake camouflaged in the ground, just as I was about to step on it. Akambas are all the time knocking birds off a branch with a catapult. One time, I followed Nzoki’s husband when he was out poaching wild dik-dik (miniature deer) for food, expertly shooting the elusive animal dead with an arrow. The sad thing is, a dik-dik mates for life with one partner, so its demise leaves a permanent widow—but the hunters usually catch that one too.
    After a few weeks in Kenya, I was getting to know some of the differences between the tribes. If the Kikuyu tended to look down on the Akamba, the Akamba liked to feel superior to the Maasai. As he was clearing up after breakfast one morning, Sr. MM’s Akamba cook told me a story about how his own tribe triumphed over the Maasai in their long territorial disputes, before the arrival of the British.
    ‘The elders one day sat down for a peace conference. After some time, arrows rained down from the sky and landed at the feet of the Maasai elders. The Maasai complained that they were being attacked. One Akamba elder stood up and gestured. “Look around, can you see anybody?” The Akamba elder proceeded to explain: “These arrows have been fired by our ancestors.” The Maasai were so afraid of the Akambas’ deserved reputation for witchcraft that they withdrew straight away.’
    He went on to explain, proudly,
    ‘We