Reunion in Barsaloi Read Online Free PDF Page B

now and then we drive across the dried-up beds of little streams; water is still scarce here.
    To my astonishment we come across a herd of camels, frightened by the noise of our engines, charging off as if in slow motion into the bush. It would appear the Samburu have taken to keeping more of these animals.
    At last we reach a high pass between two rocky hills and know that from here on the cloud of dust we kick up will be visible in Barsaloi, even though the village is still half an hour’s drive away. No doubt today the whole village is out waiting for us.
    When we pause briefly Klaus suggests he goes ahead with one of the drivers in order to get good footage of my arrival and reunion. James agrees and says he’ll try to explain this to Lketinga. In the meantime Albert and I can take a look at the school down by the Barsaloi River. It was just being built when I left the village and there was nothing more than a few walls to see. Even today, we are soon to discover, there’s an awful lot lacking, but at least the local children have their own school.
    Just as Klaus is leaving, however, my old uneasy feeling comes creeping back. What will Lketinga say when the first person he sees is someone he doesn’t know carrying a video camera? And what about the other people in the village? What will they make of it? Most of them have never even seen a film and don’t understand the concept. And Klaus wants to erect a tripod!
    Despite my dreadful unease about the whole business, the thought of Napirai calms me down. After all, I want to capture as much as I can of the trip for her sake. This is the first time her parents have met in years. She has no memory of her time in Kenya and it all seems a bit strange to her. She’s caught between two cultures but actually only lives in one. My heart hankers more after Africa than hers does. She thinks like a white European but isn’t seen as one. It’s not easy for her and that’s why I want to bring back as much as possible in pictures and video so she can get an idea of her African family.
    Even so, the nervous tension and feeling of uneasy anticipation has built up to almost unbearable levels by the time I make out in the distancethe first houses of Barsaloi. It looks as if the village has grown a bit, but the sight is still so familiar that I feel I could have been here the day before yesterday.
    The long low building of the school peeks out behind the shrubs and thorn trees. We drive slowly up to a gate where the head teacher is waiting to welcome us. The wall behind him is decorated with various murals, one showing a judge in his robes, another two children playing football while a third depicts a well-dressed man working at a computer on a desk. Above them is the inscription: ‘Walk out productive’. Out here so far from anywhere the image of the computer still comes across as comic, especially when we know from James that there’s often a shortage of paper and pens. Even he has no idea about computers.
    The headmaster takes us around the school and I’m quite amazed how much they’ve achieved with the few means at their disposal. The classrooms are simple but well fitted out. The windows have wire grilles rather than glass. The headmaster’s pride and joy is the library with a few books. The children can come and fetch a book, which they can read in the rather spartan reading room. They aren’t allowed to take them home, however, because the smoke in the manyattas would damage them.
    A few children are looking curiously through the grilles at their white visitors. In one corner of the playground others are lined up to have ugali , a sort of maize porridge, served on aluminium trays. I’m sure they’re all proud that their parents even send them to school, and I can’t help wondering what my daughter would think if she had to go to school here.
    At last we drive gently down the steep bank of the Barsaloi River and cross the five hundred feet of dried-up river bed. A few