The White Masai Read Online Free PDF Page B

my purchases – apart from the batteries for the torch – cost next to nothing.
    A bit further along there’s another shack with the word ‘Meat’ painted in red. I follow Lketinga inside. A hunk of goat carcass is hanging from a big hook fixed to the ceiling. Lketinga looks at me questioningly and says: ‘Very fresh! You take two pounds for you and Priscilla!’ I shiver at the very thought of having to eat this meat, but even so I do as he says. The butcher takes an axe and chops off a rear leg, then with another two or three blows he measures out our piece and hangs the rest back up on the hook. He wraps it all up in newspaper, and we head back to the village.
    Priscilla is really pleased to get the meat. She puts tea on and goes to get another little cooker from a neighbour. She cuts the meat up, washes it and boils it for two hours in salted water. In the meantime we drink our tea, which I’ve come to like. Priscilla and Lketinga talk non-stop. After a while Lketinga gets up and says he has to go but will be back soon. I try to find out where he’s going, but he says only: ‘No problem, Corinne. I come back,’ smiles at me and disappears. I ask Priscilla where he’s gone but she says she doesn’t really know, it’s not something you can ask a Masai, it’s his business, but probably he’s gone to Ukunda.
    ‘For God’s sake,’ I protest. ‘What does he want in Ukunda? We’ve just come from there.’
    ‘Maybe he wants something more to eat,’ replies Priscilla.
    I stare at the simmering meat in the big iron pot: ‘Who’s this for, then?’
    ‘That’s for us women,’ she tells me. ‘Lketinga can’t eat this meat. No Masai warrior ever eats anything that a women has touched or evenlooked at. They are not allowed to eat in the presence of women, they can only drink tea.’
    The curious business in Ukunda comes back to me, and suddenly my question for Priscilla about why all the men disappeared behind the wall is superfluous. So Lketinga can’t even eat with me and I can never cook anything for him. Funnily, this is something that shakes me even more than the idea of never having good sex. When I have collected myself I try to find out more. What is married life like? Once again her answer is a disappointment. Basically the wife stays with the children while her husband associates with other men of the same status, warriors, at least one of whom must accompany him at mealtimes. Eating alone was not done either.
    I’m speechless. All my romantic fantasies of cooking and eating together out in the bush or in a simple hut collapse. I can hardly hold back my tears, and Priscilla is looking at me in astonishment. Then she breaks out laughing, which makes me furious. All of a sudden I feel quite alone and realize that Priscilla too is alien to me, someone who inhabits a completely different world.
    But what has happened to Lketinga? It’s night and Priscilla has served up the meat on two battered aluminium plates. I’ve got hungry by now so I try the meat and am astonished at how tender it is. The taste is quite unique, salty like slow-braised pork. We eat with our hands, in silence.
    When it gets late I say goodnight and retreat into what was Priscilla’s hut. I’m tired. I light the paraffin lamp and lie down on the cot. The sound of cicadas outside fills the air. My thoughts drift back to Switzerland, my mother, my little shop and my everyday life in Biel. How totally different the world is here! Despite all the primitiveness of their lives, the people seem happier, maybe because they can get by with less expense, and that thought lingers and makes me feel better.
    All of a sudden the wooden door squeaks open, and Lketinga is standing smiling in the doorway. He has to lower his head just to get in. He takes a look around and then sits down beside me on the bed. ‘Hello, how are you? You have eat meat?’ he asks, and the way he asks about me and listens attentively makes me feel good, and I feel