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Akambas had hidden our men behind trees half a mile away. They had been able to aim their bows and arrows with such accuracy that they landed at the feet of the Maasai elders.’
    The Akamba people are unused to contact with white people nowadays. When I arrived, there were about a dozen Irish in Akambaland, an area greater than the size of Ulster, and there were no other resident white people at all. Wherever I ventured, the children would silently stare at me, mesmerised, until I spoke. Then the cheering would erupt and I would have throngs of barefoot children swarming around me, screaming and following me for several kilometres. Being the first white person they had ever seen, I was just like a celebrity, a pop star that they wanted to touch and shake by the hand. They would pinch my skin to see if it were real; they would stare, cheer, scream and beg me to take a photograph of them as they mobbed me. When I obliged, even the Akamba adults would run into the frame, and then thank me for taking the photo.
    The principal way to get around in Kitui District was by walking, as the vast majority of people regularly did over huge distances. About the only real alternative was a 1950s-style bicycle. These were first imported from China decades ago and, as far as I know, are still being imported from that source. Think of a five-barred gate on wheels, with several middle bars missing! Before I acquired my own bicycle, random people used to offer me theirs to take whenever they saw me walking somewhere in the desert; they were confident that one of their neighbours would bring it back to them that evening. The only other form of transport around Nyumbani was the ox and cart. The second time I was on an ox-cart, I managed to fall off the side. Only my pride was bruised. From one weekend until the next, I might not see a single car. At weekends, I would often go to Sr. MM’s. Sr. MM eventually presented me with an old ramshackle boneshaker that had been lying around her girls’ secondary school. It needed fixing up. It was actually supposed to be for her caretaker but he was too lazy to cycle and would always send someone else for provisions. After doing my own temporary repair job on it, I had half a dozen parts replaced by one of the many bicycle-repair men plying their trade underneath a tree, and then added a silver bell for good measure.
    It is a four hour cycle from Nyumbani into Kitui, the nearest decent village with electricity and foodstuffs. The smaller villages, like nearby Kwa Vonza, have shops—mere shacks—where all the stock is on or behind the counter, often though amounting to no more than a loaf of bread and a hanging goat carcass. Often too, there would be a cat patrolling the counter; whatever about the hygiene, it would keep the rodents and reptiles at bay. There was always an ancient weighing scales sitting on the clay floor. The bigger villages, like Kitui, have colourful noisy outdoor markets, with stalls made from branches lashed together, or wares simply laid out along the ground. Some of the stallholders physically drag you over to their merchandise; some hawkers walk around carrying their bric-a-brac and push it in your face. In the midday heat, many lie asleep on top of their stalls, unconcerned about whether they sell anything or not.
    An odd time, I managed to get a lift on the back of one of the very rare motorbikes, usually travelling at white-knuckle speeds over the undulating dirt tracks, weaving in and out among the wandering donkeys and goats along the way. Other vehicles encountered on the road to Nairobi might be buses filled with hens, buses brightly painted with graffiti and emblazoned with names like ‘Camilla Parker-Bowles,’ ‘Princess Di,’ or, curiously, ‘Fast and Furious—Devil Must Bow.’ Passengers rarely wait for the vehicle to stop before dismounting. Visitors to Kenya are always struck by the anarchy that prevails on the roads.
    Until people became acquainted with me