Reunion in Barsaloi Read Online Free PDF Page A

and anyway has to get back to Maralal on the motorbike. Gazing into a flickering fire I listen attentively to James telling Albert and Klaus about the first time he met me. It was outside the school in Maralal just after I had finally found Lketinga. He took me down to the school to meet his little brother and to tell him that we were off to Mombasa together. James, who was about fourteen at the time, had to be fetched out of class and was very shy, coming over with his head down, scarcely daring to look up at us.
    And now here he is trying to describe what he felt back then: ‘I was very unsure of myself because I thought this white lady was my sponsor. I knew that an American lady financed our school and couldn’t understand what she was doing standing there in front of me. What did it all mean? I was very nervous. It was only when my brother told me Corinne belonged to him and had come here to find him that I realized what was what.
    ‘But even that seemed crazy to me. My brother with a white woman who wanted to come and live with our Mama? I could see problems ahead: my big brother had never been to school and knew nothing at all about the white people’s world. Everybody else back home too knew only the traditional Samburu way of life. It was different for me because I’d been to school and I could see only problems ahead.
    ‘Lketinga is older than I am. He was a warrior while I was just an uncircumcised schoolboy. I could hardly tell a warrior what I thought. The problems began back in Mombasa already and just a few weeks later there was Corinne standing outside the school again, alone this time, once again looking for my brother, who was by this stage not well in the head. She asked me to take her back to my family in Barsaloi.
    ‘I said I’d help even though it was going to cause a lot of problems just to get out of school for a couple of days. We’re normally only allowed out of school during the holidays or when someone back home has died. It really wasn’t easy. Thank God she eventually found another alternative and got there on her own.’
    And he looks across at me and laughs. Much of what he’s just told us has given me a whole new perspective on the turn of events back then, while at the same time bringing it all sharply back into focus.
    Tomorrow morning it will be time to take the biggest step of all, the last leg of the journey, from Maralal to Barsaloi and my first meeting withLketinga since I fled from him fourteen years ago. I can’t help feeling uneasy. The fire in the lodge hearth has burned low now, and we’re all feeling tired and drained from the long journey and the initial excitement of meeting up. We agree to meet James early in morning outside the post office to go shopping together for essentials.
    We retire to our rooms and I’m pleased to find a small fire burning in the hearth here too. Before long I’m in bed under the mosquito net waiting for sleep to take me. But as everything goes quiet I’m only too aware how wound up I am inside. Instead of sleep all that comes to me is a deep feeling of sadness. The more I think about it the more certain I am that when I see Mama and Lketinga tomorrow I’ll burst into tears, and that would be a terrible faux pas in Samburu eyes. Tears are reserved for bereavement.
    I get up again and sit outside on the doorstep soaking in the nighttime tranquillity. It’s almost a full moon. Strange noises emanate from the bush but I can see nothing. Then comes the nearby growl of a great ape and suddenly in the distance I can hear the singing of Samburu warriors. Somewhere out there dozens of warriors and girls have gathered to dance in the moonlight. In the wind the sound of their singing dips and rises, and in between I can clearly hear the stamping of feet, now and again interrupted by a short sharp cry. I sit there remembering how these beautifully decorated young men would leap into the air while the young girls would bob their heads and their