Seeing Norway- Besseggen Final part

Hike route -Maria

In my wanderlust experience, I have never had to go to any extreme places, and near death experiences do not naturally lure me. I always calculate what I can handle as I like my feet firmly on the ground. But as I found out from climbing Bessegen, my attitude shaken, I was to stand on a sandy ground – except that the ground was a piece of solid rock, and occasionally the protruding glaciers would remind me the deathly stare that hangs around the mountains—and the icy cold lakes beneath would stare at me – with but a calm dare. I perfected the habit of looking ahead – to the next step, and only looking around, when I had my feet solid and my attitude unshaken. This would be a first.

While starting out, I was upbeat and fresh –I wore my braids held loosely at the back, and started to wear my gear. I tried a couple of hiking boots to find a perfect fit – a good decision because the day hike that takes about six hours was to turn into a nine and half hour trekk! The layering of clothes, a good idea, and I had borrowed an entire hiking gear from senior colleagues in Oslo – and the plan was to have more than little. I could always peel off the layers I didn’t need – as I was soon to learn during the early phases of the climb.

We set out after a sumptuous (God, I hate to use this word) breakfast, and knowing my limitations, I stashed my 4 slice bread sandwich in a colleagues backpack, and a bottle of water with another. I am not only an inexperienced climber, but in any previous attempt to hike or walk inclined distances, it seems I only have just enough strength to carry myself at some point. So I seek additional strength for what I need from anyone who has more inbuilt endurance! Nice trick, works for me, but woefully a burden to anyone who hikes with me. Maria, my hikeangel would later discover this.

The morning is fresh – and radiant faces as we put the bags in the car. I remind myself to recite the magic line that “it is all in the mind” – and other miracle statements like “it defeats you in the mind and soul before it crashes your body”…self-assured quotes. I stretch and sit in the car and focus. At this point I feel no apprehension, no ambition, and no control. Nothing. Then when we hit the road to Beito, on a speedy narrow highway, and seeing them in the distance – the rocky mountains—sitting still as from days in the yore – unmoved, it occurs to me that all I need it to push my limits—that’s what I came for. I may not like the shape or form it will turn me into, but – let me get to the finish line.

See those random quotes that sound powerful, like never give up…blah blah…usually an abhorrer of self-help books, it is ironic that I found myself thinking about these deterministic statements, and if the words in them had power, it would work on me. So am here to test my limits, to crawl if I must—but I must climb and come out alive. Otherwise I would have chosen an easy stroll, like walking around a deserted village path, lined by random species of trees and the beautiful plant called ‘yesterday today and tomorrow’ that would be ordinary to an onlooker, until I learn that it changes its form every day. Yesterday it was purple and white flowered and tomorrow it might dazzle in orange and turquoise. This wonder of nature with its calming effect rejuvenates the weary spirit—and my village walk gets a spring in the step. So am here to explore the wonder of the outdoors discovery and exploration, except that my adventure is to explore the quietly sitting beauty of the mountainous nature, and savour the wonder within this natural ecosystem that sits almost undisturbed. There is huge rocks cracked by the rivers that have passed through them, a testament to the power and persistent of the currents over time, but that has not robbed this beautiful ecosystem the ability to heal itself over again. And to a non-curious onlooker it sits as though in an undisturbed state, it has always been the same.

We arrive, and by then I have taken a multitude of pictures – and then I see the most beautiful river. And it occurs to me that it is not the first beautiful river I have seen in Norway, but I focus on this one – mostly because it is at Gjendersheim –the thrust of its clean waters not meaning much to me at the time, due to my focus on the surrounding mountains. I look around, and except for me and a few colleagues – everyone else maybe on a return hike. Today we might be 1000 to 1500 persons on the mountain trail, and by God I would not be the one person to faint and be evacuated – that person – is not me.

We had had good planning and our tour guide and colleague Åsne (the star below to the right) – that shout out from the boat captain was on point Åsne – had a prior booking, which saved us more than an hour’s wait!

Our starting point for the hike is at Gjendesheim, which is at the east end of Gjende lake. It is popular for hikers to take a ferry boat to Memurubu and hike back to Gjendesheim over Besseggen. This is our chosen path, although you can start the hike at Gjendesheim, terminating at Memurubu and take the ferry boat back.

The weather for the day is almost perfect – sunny and bright, but windy and cold. Numbing cold. I am tempted to dip my finger in the waters of the lake but I can’t get myself to pull off the hand gloves. You know the way you may look at the sea and determine it as warm, a quick glance at Gjende lake and my mind is convinced that a dip in its waters would turn me into a piece of ice.

Photo credit-Maria

We check into a ferry boat. Åsne spent part of her childhood here, and is such known even to the boat captain since she was a toddler. She not only got a shout out from the captain but he also informed the passengers that should anyone get lost or need assistance in the mountains—then she is the go to person. Turns out that one child took that very seriously (as should), and on spotting Åsne in the mountains, suggested to the mother that they could consult Åsne!

Then it is warm again in the boat and am I shed off the neck warmer – and all the time my neck is tilted—watching this solid mountain, carving its form along Lake Gjendersen – its silhouette a bold intimidating figure. My eyes squint in a form to size it, and I cannot tell whether this would conquer me or not. I am sure though, that this is not Mt. Longonot. I resign myself to the day and the mysteries this mountain would unravel.

Our destination is to Memurubu. I don’t know what degrees it is weatherwise, but seeing as my best weather reflections are not in degrees but–how cold or how hot – I know it is cold, very cold. It doesn’t matter whether it is 6 or 7 degrees, what I know is that my palms are a pale shade and there is no way am sticking them out of the gloves. It is colder than a witch’s tits!

30 minutes we arrive in Memurubu, an old tourist hut in Norway, at the end or start of Besseggen hiking trail. According to Wikipedia, Memurubu is an old mountain dating back 1872 but has had tourists just as long. It is worth noting that most tourists approach the hike from Memurubu and walk down to Gjendesheim. As I mentioned in part one, Besseggen ridge is Norway’s most popular mountain walk – and as a colleague would later point out – this should perhaps be referred to as a “Climb” and not a “Walk”. A walk evokes an attitude of ease, or something that is done leisurely not requiring much effort—akin to a walk in the park. Hiking Bessegen is not a walk in the park. The fact that it is situated at the entrance of a park – Jutunheimen National Park –notwithstanding.

We set off a steep climb. The first hour or more was an incline that would level off at the top. Although the weather was perfect by normal standards—not foggy or misty or even raining for that would make it slippery and a mess to walk about—it was windy and cold. Then it was blowing hot and cold. So I would have the need to shed off all the layering of clothing I had done for a reprieve, except that minutes later I would want it all back on.

Photo credit-Fred Pelser

And the wind was to give me this permanent grin as I bared my teeth to resist it. It is not the blowing windy, that goes up in a swirl. It is the kind that kisses your cheek, and gives you a gentle but painful slap on your temples before it penetrates deep into your soul through the eyes. And then they are watery. A salty watery. And this mystery was to continue with the agony it brought me, step by step slowing me down. This is nothing like I had experienced before. As I started to struggle uphill – I shifted the blame to my being non sporty to atttitude and windy conditions that my body was struggling to acclamatize to. The moment I lifted my gaze to look at my colleagues—was mostly to search their eyes to see any record of despair on my behalf. I would stop to take a rest after every 30metres.

With full knowledge of what was ahead, someone suggested that it was best that I be walked back to the ferry boat and back to Gjendesheim or the cabin. I was dizzy, light headed dizzy. And although I understood their perfect concerns, I could hear my spirit laugh out loud. I am an amateur into this, and I also know when to give up. However, this was when to continue. I could almost hear my father’s voice miles away, for he taught me to swear by non-defeat! This was it—I will get to the top of the first steep trail and then determine what to do next. If I die in this mountain—my father would be unimpressed, but then have you heard of Junko Tabei—the Japanese mountain climber who in May 1975 became the first woman to climb Mt. Everest? Tabei had a goal to climb the highest mountain in every country and although pretty useless to compare my struggle to her prowess – she did this when it was not very common for women in Japan to indulge outdoor wonders. I love this famous quote of her “There was never a question in my mind that I wanted to climb that mountain, no matter what other people said.”

Her determination and the staying attitude is what I had. Perhaps armed with this, I would be ok. Allowing the group to continue, Maria and I walked at my pace. And I think this was what made it possible. Some sugar water, and walking under no pressure. Before we knew it, we were at the flatted top of the ridge. Voila!

We continued to walk on the easy trail, with numerous stops to enjoy the incredible views of wild mountains and protruding glaciers. I didn’t intend to do a classic walk, and I did not have the mind for it—that would be something — a reserve for Norwegians, or that guy who ran across the ridge in an hour! Hats off Mahn! It took me a crawl of almost 10 hours, but with numerous stops—I could only beat a tortoise with a limp or the fastest snail—what this accorded me was enough meditation, soul search (now I sound very spiritual), and enough time to look around, literary a whole day to gaze at the beauty of the mountains, marvel at the calm of the waters in the lakes below — let my face feel the kiss of the windy air, and sink my feet on the solid rock of the ridge beneath my feet – a step at a time.

Look around and there is this gorgeous small lake below. Except for the wind, I would have loved to sit here for hours and read a book. Perhaps Harper Lee’s, Go set a watchman that I bought recently. Or sit here and write and then fall asleep on these rocks by the lake and then repeat. And watch the sun set and then listen to the sound that the mountains make when they sleep. Do you know the voices of the mountains? Perhaps they echo the agonies that the hikers have borne during the day or the frail steps on the stone plates on the trail accentuated with the triumphant attitude of the hiker who reaches the summit of the ridge and then releases them out at night. Whatever that is, I would like to hear it.

Maria would give me a target climb or stroll after which we would have an energy bar or two sips of water – and that reward was something to look forward to. It seemed that the toughest climb was the first part but then we got to Besseggen Ridge. A narrow strip about wide, with a blue lake Bessvatnet and the green lake Gjende sitting on its sides. Meticulously walking, as it would be a disaster to risk an injury here. There was human traffic – both ways—as different hikers chose either route – so there would be someone descending and another ascending. There would also be hikers with their pets – poor little pets, some rather too bulky to be carried when their tired steps could not carry their weight anymore. We saw one tiny shivering dog and for the love of me—I would not understand why I would carry my dog up to the mountains and have the tiny thing shivering helplessly. I may not know for how long the faster team had waited for us—didn’t have the strength to ask, but it was great to be reunited in the mountains albeit for a short time.

Reaching the end of self

When we got to the ‘last difficult part’, it was nothing close to what I had anticipated. They had said that if I managed the first steep trail, this climb would be manageable. Mountains have an extraordinary ability to make you small. Very small. You arrive at this part, just after tackling a challenging descent on a narrow ridge- and before you can savour the mastery of your steps—you meet the biggest mountain –bigger than anything you have ever seen at a close range. Then you stop feeling small and became small. Insignificant. Inconsequential. I now know that if the gods wanted to kill humanity, they just need to take them to the mountains and for others to places of many waters.

This was both, a huge piece of rocky mountain, and waters of the lake on both sides to swallow your poor body if your feet stumble and fall.

I wanted to cry so bad. Warm torrent of tears. I knew I could not go back, and that was the problem. But I also knew the rocky monster erected in front of me was insurmountable. I wanted to die, rather than climb. I cried, with my head bowed when I took that first step on the rocky mountain—inward tears to my soul, and each drop from my eye to my soul was warm and comforting to my crushed soul—And latching onto the body of this rock like a lizard, I tried to gather some little strength to lift my foot to the next step—and the next—and the next. This is whereupon I became a mountain goat.

Photo credit-Gordon Thaysen

 

 I shall not for the longest time forget the sense of accomplishment when I scaled that rocky monster. And reaching the summit, added at tiny stone to the rocky pile on my left, and then sat down to have a chocolate. It is funny that whilst I would feel accomplished, there was also despair, and a sense of helplessness. I felt terrible and was afraid it showed all over me. A hiker sitted a few metres away, on hearing my small lament about my misery suggested that she has a wonder remedy for misery. Why not! I got another energy bar—from a stranger and I will swear by heaven it worked. Maybe because she said she made it herself—although didn’t look homemade, I believed her and I believeed it worked magic. See, after a few bites into this bar…I was unstoppable. I walked on and on. And the rocky surface, ridden with some rusty yellow little plant almost the level of earth—a reindeer’s delicacy—felt like the surface of the moon, or Mars. From descriptions of what I follow on space exploration, this is the closest I convinced myself would be the surface of the moon. And my accomplished attitude, and the the weight of my body supported against my walking stick, as I lifted my boots and crashed my feet on those mountain rocks, it felt like I was walking on the moon—on top of the world!

And soon it was time to descend—and was getting tired, with a cloud behind us suggesting that it might rain but I knew it would not, although I did not say as much. Group one was already at Gjendesheim, and best resolve was they were to head out to the cabin and make dinner! So we trudged on—occasionally shoving myself aside to make way for a faster person. It must have been around 7pm, when we met a lone hiker, with his gear latched on, hiking as we neared our descent at Gjendesheim. This is one of the strange ones. He must have had a camping equipment for he had quite a load on his back. But why! I would not for the life of me attempt a hike at this hour, but again I will never know the thrill of trying out of ordinary extremes. He could also have been a loner or a lover of solitude, whatever his reason was doesn’t matter—and may not look strange to another person.

At the finishing line -Photo by Maria

Reindeers

 

 mountain goat

Bonus pictures: Reindeers spotted on our ride back from Gjendesheim to the cabin!

Seeing Norway – Part One

For the fun? For the sport? — because whilst I had been training for this trip, including a hike at Mt. Longonot, which was quite a disaster – seeing besides trailing the group, the sun shone rather too radiantly.

Mt. Longonot, a stratovolcano located South East of Lake Naivasha in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya. It is thought to have erupted in the 1860s

If you have attempted hiking Longonot, you will know that whistling thorntree filled interior, even in its abudance does not really help shelter the frailing hiker from the sweltering sun. I was panting like a horse, while sliding through the loose black volcanic soil, occasionally picking my strength to marvel at the depth of the crater, that formed as a result of this volcanic activity. It is thought to have erupted in the 1860s. Having hiked this stratovolcano, to its peak of 2780m, I was convinced that a Norwegian mountain rising to a peak of 1780m would be a walk in the park. Wrong! But it was wonderful to experience the freedom and to behold the scenic valleys across the floor of the Rift Valley from such a vantage point is a truly awesome reward.

I have been to Norway a couple of times now, first time had a chance to go to Bergen and take a boat trip to Flåm and back to Oslo. The breathtaking scapes, the large fjords, the calm and clean waters (I won’t mention the cold- for the weather was gracious for what is the norm in that part of the country). This convinced me, that despite my non-sporty nature, for the love of fun –may be I should sign up for Bessegen hike when the chance arose! I somewhat feel that the Longonot training, and the occasional Karura run was insufficient preparation for this demanding hike. So, Twende!!! I am here for the experience.

Bessegen is one of the most popular hikes in Norway, and is approximately 7 hours across! It is also categorized as a demanding hike, but seeing as I was in pristine health–and my ankles had recovered from Longonot disaster, I was upbeat.

We left Oslo on 2nd September for a 4 hour trip to Bessegen, and if you haven’t been to Norway, this is worth considering.Whilst I dozed off while on trip, most of my awake time was spent gawking and loudly marvelling at the beauty of the Nordic Country. Norway has lots of trees, more trees, lakes, more lakes and mountains, and then–more trees and lakes, and when you get to the mountains, rocks, and more rocks. It’s really amazing! At some point it feels like you are looking at a repetitive piece of nature, until it strikes you that there is nothing else in the world you would rather be looking at. So I marvelled at the woods, and the long lakes, and the woods and the lakes — before the mountains appeared.

It is about 6pm, and we are ordering Pizza at Peppes Pizza. The sun doesn’t set until way past 8pm, so there is enough natural light to look around. I am sighting the mountains from a far distance, my eyes narrowly closing, as I size them up, a ploy to beat the building apprehension within me–will I manage to hike and come back alive? My memory drifts to Three Cups of Tea, as Greg Mortenson narrates his failed attempt to summit K2, instead getting separated from his porter and getting lost after taking a wrong turn on the trail, eventually wandering to some village whereforth he became a humanitarian. It is common to die in the mountains, a colleague reminds me as much, adding that I may not be the first casualty, and I quickly debunk the building fear that while we don’t determine how to die, at least for most people, I didn’t plan to travel all the way from Africa to die in Norwegian mountains. I am here for the experience. I am here to push my limits. I am here to possibly be awestruck, then live to tell. And should I wander into some Norwegian village and get lost, perhaps I will start herding reindeer, and if the biting icy cold spares me, then I will write, and write–and be a kick ass author. See, it might end well.

We take an offroad from Beitostølen and the road snakes down to a cabin. I swear at this point I can’t even tell whether am more afraid than apprehensive. I know cabins can range from a century old log cabin to something modern and I had quietly asked what to expect because I don’t do well at camping. The last time I camped at Naivasha, half night I was half awake wondering how long until the hippo from Crayfish camp overturns our tent! Some of my colleagues set up for the night, and whilst the next morning I sighted some snails–even I could have camped out!

Tent 1

 And so imagine my thrill and wonder when we arrive, and I swear this cabin(bottom below) exceeded my expectations.

Cabin

Cabins

‘Home’ for the night

Besides being modern, the warm feel and smell of Norwegian wood is the most comforting thing after sheepskin( I bought one at IKEA, so that’t why:-). Now I know why they grow all those trees! Bring it on Besseggen, I won’t even read more about you in the night as I had intended–but will have an early night and face your mountains tomorrow!

If you would like to know more about the hike, keep it here for the next post.

 

Of little frustrations in Nairoberry, where just playing my part is not enough

Me, I don’t know.

I’m yet to find a day that I wake up to a world bila news that make me angry. Spent last Saturday morning reading worrying news of what’s been happening down in SA lately, xenophobia and all. But then a quick check back home and UNCHR has around 3 months to close Daadab. So bad is everywhere you look. I know, many issues. Our security a concern so much so that we are building a 700km wall. Oh, well. Hail the tenderpreneurs. Insecurity has big money. But then we are sending those refugees back to Somalia probably because we thrive on knee jerk reactions to our problems all the time. Jana I read that Yemen refugees have fikad the horn of Africa. Boats are docking at Djibouti, and probably they will come down to Somaliland soon. Look at Kidero now. I’m no expert in queue theory but you can’t have 4lane traffic feeding into 2 lanes and not expect awkwardness. That’s the only nice term I can afford for the chaos that I experience everyday. But what do I know; the mtungi and mchanga people wouldn’t have won tenders to supply the drums. I know I shouldn’t envy Rwanda much but last I visted, they didn’t have traffic mess, insecurity and their streets are lit and clean, man. Maybe I should write a personal letter to Kidero.  Why aren’t street lights never working or harvested all the time they are put up. Now Nairobi is like a little dark hole. Ok, a big dark one. Oh, I know some parts are. And then the little mounds of earth that we have along the Yaya-Kileleshwa-Riverside bypass.

Having been accustomed to walking home under the cover of darkness, and saw some vans a couple of weeks ago, seemingly digging out earth in a manner of laying down or repairing some electric fault, I was excited that perhaps things will work again. I could not tell whether the vans belonged to Kenya Power but my skepticism was starting to wear off, and a far off was a little excitement that lights would work. And I would even walk home a little later in the evening without mistaking every pole or little bush for a terrorist or moving object with an ability to harm me. Actually a few more lights worked and it looked beautiful. But suddenly most of them are off. I have been keenly checking whether night runners may have run down the street light pole or a bulbpreneur may have lifted it off to sell it again, but nay, things are as they were before. Where a light never worked, it still never works. Where we had pole standing erect with no bulb, we still have no bulb. And where a light pole was flattened off by a swinging night runner, a strayed motorist or similar, the pole is still knocked off.

And now this is what annoys me most. I had started to toy with the idea of investing in a bike, as while my route to work is traffic ridden, it’s probably the only route I have seen with a nice pedestrian and cycle track. But they have messed it up. Never fixed lights hence making me more upset than I was before they attempted to fix it. Why, you tell me, would they excite me that the street would be lit and then squash my hope? Anyhow, I have moved on quickly. My current annoyance is the little mounds of earth along the hitherto pleasant to walk on, walkways along the bypass. Why would they leave that mess there?

And then all the uchafu in the drain along the road. I remember breathing fire under my nose another day because a mama in some little car had her kids throw this huge pizza box through the window. Luck was on their side because they sped off just as I was about to reach them and inform that they had dropped one of their goodies, and should make a turn to go and pick it up. I know there are people who will litter the streets whether or not bins are installed at their feet. And then if only Kanju people arrested these  people with the diligence as they collect levies. I remember a buddy who was carried up in the air by Kanju people for talking on phone while crossing the road. Before we could turn in his direction, they has scooped him off, and already bargaining for their cut.

Just outside Yaya, there are all these Vibandas. And hail the entrepreneurial spirit of these mamas who wake up to make all kinds of goodies for passersby. But this is right next to a bus stage. Where because of aforementioned traffic chaos on the bypass, you factor an hour of queuing before catching your bus to work. Matatu, I mean. And while at it, inhaling all kinds of stench, the urea from the street rascal that used the drain in the manner of a urinal, right next to where the vibandas are, and the filthy water and residue from these food vibandas. Very unsightly. Only that the men who squat there every morning, gulping in the milky tea and sweet potato with relish, don’t seem concerned about what bothers my mind.

I got no idea how the permits for these food kiosks work, but if someone is checking, shouldn’t there be a regulation against having food prepared in open jikos right next to a bus stop? Probably make better food stalls, ventilated, proper drainage and lease out to these mamas at a small cost, if we must do it this way. But chaos is everywhere, so moving to a different place is not a solution, because I dream of a better Nairobi. And in my dreaminess, I hope they will fix security, traffic and the city would be clean. Maybe we need someone to adopt our security. Someone to adopt our traffic management. Someone to adopt our waste management. I just don’t know.  I can afford patience when we are making even the faintest steps in the right direction. But when we are cruising at high speed towards the wrong direction, I get very worried. Didn’t someone wise already tell us that if you find yourself in a pit, the first step is to stop digging. Jesus take the Wheel. Me, I can’t.

Debtors of Love

Thousands of girls, years spanning over three decades tell nostalgic stories, of a love too strong to explain, and too intense it forms a mystery curve. Whilst some are old enough to be mothers or grandmothers to the current girls in school, they hum a song all too familiar to them, ‘they were all in love’. In love with a man, who loved so much and in such great depth, that it made sense for all the girls to want to live their dream. I would never have known this love mystery if I never got the chance to be admitted to a school that he founded in the 70s, and never would many other hundreds of girls.

A group of alumni girls meet, and after the all too familiar giggles, the innuendo of their conversation takes the form of ‘Bro’. A man we loved and still do, even in his death. To the girl whose performance was rewarded with a full scholarship, and credits a part of her life to that love…..To the girl who performed so well in school but her single mom would not manage to pay for her high school education, but she went through school. To the girl sat by the school gate headed home to fetch a balance of her school fees, and as her eyes dart sideways with that tell-tale uncertainty that she will come back to class, and the mighty bro, drives into the school compound JUST IN TIME to tell her “pack your bags and go back to class”. And as she walks, she feels like the redeemer said ‘your burden is no more’.

The JUST IN TIME love, that John Koczka of the sacred heart brothers had redeemed many. Not because of the unfortunate cases of girls from less income households, but because he had this great ability to love all, to love all of us in equal measure…something apart from God, maybe parents can claim to. And whilst there are some parents who love differently, this man loved the same. His way of love set him apart.

Materi Girls Centre…His wife and life as he loved to say…who can forget the many times he would refer to us as his GIRLFRIENDs….who can forget his dedication, love personified. To the envious schools around us, we could be called a holiday camp. Why, there were no rules, except the golden and cardinal one to use ‘common sense’. And it didn’t make sense to no one at the time, why girls at the peak of their teenage trouble and drama would not have had to sign a booklet with elaborate rules. It made sense to bro…because Love trusts…and grows. And when we all his girls look back, we acquire a lovely virtue of using common sense at all times.

Even as we lost him to a battle of long illness last week, and still in denial, we look back and are glad Brother John chose the greatest thing of all…To Love….A choice, a decision, an investment of his entire life, a commitment that he wasn’t sure how the returns would fold out to be like….Remember whilst it’s ok to chase greater gifts…and yet I show you a more excellent way…that of love. And it paid back, a top performing girl school in a most semi-arid region opened,…infrastructure and opportunities,…wings to fly to thousands of girls at that little nursery school, at the Materi Boarding primary school, at the High school and the institute. It’s a sad day, when we heard you are gone….A while back you said your heart condition was as a result of Love…Love for these girls. The love for Materi made you stay even when common sense would have said you fly back home for Medicare…you kept coming back to the school, which was your home. Your love for us made you sick but it has not killed you….you will never be gone forever for you are with us. You gave each of us a piece of your heart, and we remain debtors of your love.

Of all my school experiences, high school was the best. Not just because it was a discovery phase but because you, Bro, made it the best. You were the conduit of love…from God, from yourself and even my own father who would regularly drop a little brown envelope to your office with some pocket money. You were a great daddy to all of us…a VERY BIG DAD, with a VERY BIG HEART and we so love you like to the moon and back.

See Bro, we loved to shout out your name….Friday around lunch hour, when even teachers in the classes would excuse our excitement at the sight of your car cruising the main highway. We loved your gifts, the ball gums for each class, the ‘sweat shirts’ we could get from you at 50bob, the nail polish, polish removed, face powder, the jewellery and how you could put a note on your notice board reminding us to look good when boys were visiting the school. The convenient letter pads and stamps from your office and being our mail man…including delivering hand written love notes from Nkubu boys where you resided (I didn’t get any though). We loved all this but beyond this we loved your heart that had endless depth of love…we loved you because we wanted to, just like you.

And I loved your notice board. It riddled me how you would go to the depths of reading newspapers with your lover in mind…and carefully cut out any interesting pieces thereafter pinning them on your board and all we, your lover needed to do, is rove our eyes on your notice board and consume the beautiful pieces. I would have wanted to get into your mind at those times when we would troop after you waiting to see what’s in store that day, but that is beside the point of love.

And you know how I loved the movie nights…the world didn’t know how consistent a lover you were, to sit through the evening after dinner, watch us dance as you play the music(you really rocked Mr. DJ) and also listen to the ahhhs, omg, and even tears that would follow your careful selection of movies. I remember opting out of the Friday movie dates because my grades were beginning to play me games. Looking back, I wish I stayed through each of them. I believe I still would have turned out as fine as I have in life.

When I think of Mundi’s drama, actually the only other person who made the Materi heat and dust bearable, I sort of think he was trying to distract the attention we had on you. Well, we all turned our eyes to him for a different reason, to be spared the wrath and not to be denied our meals. I do remember a drama Friday evening that he had shut the dining hall and ordered the cooks not to serve us dinner and you soothed him. Whatever you said to him rescued us. I sort of have this feeling that you told him…”Mr. Mundi, the more you cause this dinner stalemate with my girls, the more our usual movie date will delay.  Now sir, won’t you let this matter out of the way?” Whatever you said was brief but didn’t look threatening. We had our meals but common sense told us we could not afford to taunt Mundi.

Oh, the patience of driving on that dusty road every day! Not patience, but love. Man, there are those who loved school closing days. For they would have almost free transport to their parent’s doorstep. The Nyahururu girls whom you would drive all the way….and there are particular ones you would also drop at Kutus and others at Eden’s corner (see I remember the names or at least mix them up). It’s because I envied them. So I loved the school opening days instead…(Memeu and Alice K….I remember we used to get free ride to school…we would either wait at the gate). And then we would be so many, this was before Michuki rules probably. You would ask us ‘big’ girls to get into the car first, and then hold the little ’primary school girls on our laps…and then bang…the bags would come in flying—one by one. I think you relished our screams when the bags would land on us…good thing is no girl would be left…And for the four years, this is how I managed to be among the first girls to report to school.

You always said you wanted to raise successful girls and mothers…a strong pillar of society. It was such joy when you addressed us at tin tin restaurant….and the last thing I thought is you would leave us barely 3 years later. You always looked strong,..invincible..almost could defy eternity..You taught us love and we will always hope to love,….selflessly as you did. We can write millions of words to thank you and tell endless stories of your impact in our lives….we will let the seed of love grow,….to a big round tree where the hands of many other people can be spread around it. Rest in peace Papa, we will meet yonder,…at the appointed time.

Thank you for choosing the most excellent way….I cor 12:31

 

Brenda

You saw her and your heart was moved
By love, by compassion, by the great need that lay ahead, and by the challenge in store
She was poor, dirty, unfed, uncared for
She was uneducated with no none to take care of her children when they were ill.

The task was insurmountable
Others looked and quickly walked away like the Pharisee who saw the wounded samaritan man
But you, you said Father I will do it
I will lover her, wash her wounds, pay her bills
I will care for her children and here they will find a place they can call home

And so you built Materi
Brick by brick, tile after tile, tree after tree
In scorching sun in dreaded dust and annoying mosquitoes
You traversed boundaries to make sure Materi was fed and fees paid
You sat with the girls through late nights just to entertain them
Making the treacherous journey to and from Nkubu come rain come high winds
Children found a home in Materi, poor children found a savior in you
Mothers knew you were the miracle they had prayed for
And the community knew that a light had shone in their midst

You let your light shine, you let people see your good works, and they glorified the father in heaven
For sending you, but mostly for your heart of gold, heart of obedience
You would have laid down your life for Materi
And what greater love is there than this.

Your bride is today all grown up
Her children sit in high places business and government
They carry virtue, godliness and hearts of service
They are spirited, free thinkers and inspiring
Many have become leaders and outliers, because they were moulded by Materi in all its uniqueness

Go home free daddy. Your bride will live and love another day
May be she will one day find another suitor
But you will always be her first love.
Go home free daddy, the Father eagerly awaits you
To say well done son. You have been my hands touching the wounded
You have been my feet going places no one was willing to go
You have been my mouth, teaching, discipling
Come home son, for great Is your reward.

Carol Wambui

I had not seen bro shed a tear till the day the alumni came to visit in 2009 and then they sang to him “you raise me up”..

Eunice W

When you chose her,
When you made her your queen..
You did not take her to the city
Right there in the sun scorching land
You built her a paradise….
You gave her your heart
And gave her your life…
You taught her what being loved is
You taught her to be a queen.
You encouraged her to be unique.
To put on her jewellery for example.
She, your wife Materi Girls
Misses you.

Alice K

I remember those moments bro used to give speeches after church service n he would call us MY GIRL FRIENDS. Bro, we will miss u, u r one in a million.

Jane M

RIP brother John. You will be missed by the Materi girls who you loved passionately and did everything to make them who they are today. I promise you that even as you go on with your next life, I will pay it forward by ensuring that at least one girl child goes through high school education. We loved you but God loved you more.

Asunta

I loved closing days coz Bro used to drive us mpaka Nyahururu for only 200 shillings only from school mpaka nyahururu town with his vehicle I can’t recall the number plates whereas guys from Nairobi were taken by the ‘BULL’

Lyniet

Just yesterday I talked to mom and told her that am going to see bro today. And she said that bro loved cards and I should write her name on my card as well. My mom is an alumni and up to his old age, bro always called mom by her name. I was surprised when I went to pick my cert n he was like ”Muthoni’s daughter, give me a hug” that hug n the kiss he planted on me will forever be memorable! oh and when I logged in here, only the R.I.P messages. I called mom and she broke down. Bro was a hero to all of us girls. My heart is pained. But I know that he is together with the saints in a very beautiful place. May your soul rest in peace Brother John

Doreen

It’s still a dark day. Still looks like the sun will never rise again…but the courage U gave us gives us the strength to carry on, accepting things we cannot change. My heart is troubled, but coz U are resting in a peaceful place with our daddy in heaven gives me the reason to celebrate U my hero. RIP bro.John. The entire Materi Community celebrates you

Mukiri

The most caring dad who played mom’s role perfectly.

Junior-Nkubz Alumni

Bro John, what can I say.. the man was God sent and I believe that the world is certainly loosing with the demise of this great man. Obviously those at Materi spent more time with him than the Nkubu High School Old Boys Association (NKOBA) fraternity and we all feel your pain for we too loved him. I have known many of you, the classes of 97- 2002 and I know what great ladies y’all turned out to be and I believe that I am among many when I say he had a great role to play in who we all are today.

It’s a sad day indeed and allow the rest of us to share in your pain. RIP

Lorac

The best memories of bro are
See bro that time you knew ‘kumetumanwa kakitu’
How we would go with my mum to bros him just to ride with him back to school
When he went to US he would come with some sweets for us which were given to every girl
Movies on Friday…
And above all he gave us pen pals and some of us even got sponsors.
RIP dear Bro. we’ll surely miss you

Hilda

Bro John taught me that it is ok to let go and play once in a while…back in high school, we would cap off a week of tireless book crunching by having Friday movies all the way till midnight…and boy we loved it…we looked forward to it. We would save our snacks for Fridays…its the only one day we were allowed to wear home clothes…its the only night where rigid bed time rules weren’t enforced…we would even catch up with our mates over bon fires we light…mark you that wood was sourced from the kitchen pile…its the only time we would gossip about all the teachers and school staff did…all this in high school…he made high school one lovely holiday…I am blessed to have experienced your kindness and immense love in Materi…RIP Brother John Koczka

Kendi

I have seen and experienced Christ in the lives of amazing people like Bro.John Koczka.
I am broken at your departure to be with the Lord and grateful for blessing and touching the lives of so many kenyan girls.
You came to Africa as a teen and in the remotest of Kenya you chose to build an oasis for the girls.
I am not sure that I would have gone through school had it not been for your love. I hated to be thrown out of school for lack of fees. You excempted me(primary) and many other girls. In high school, I dint pay a single coin courtesy of the free scholarship.
This love overwhelmed me and I made a pledge to love as much as I could.
RiP Brother Koczka

 

 

 

 

Book Review-Umwem Akpan’s ‘Say you are one of them’

LUXURIOUS HEARSES

This post is a month late, seeing it is part two review of Umwem Akpan’s book. See part one here

Jubril had been born in the South just like his mother Aisha, a Muslim girl who fell in love with a Christian man. The relationship between Barthromew, a Christian and Aisha had quickly become a community concern and besides the gossip that went by, pressure came from all sides. They proceeded to marry and Jubril was the second child of their marriage.

They were a model family, a point of reference for intertribal and mixed marriage. In fact, in his homily at the wedding, Father McBride had reminded the congregation that the couple was a symbol of unity in a country where ethnic and religious hate had simmered beneath every national issue…………..perhaps the myriad tribes and religions in the country would be welded together by the love within such marriages………., and the respect accorded in-laws would at least instill tolerance.pg. 174

And one day Aisha, without warning escaped with the children to Khamfi, her father’s original home. The boys grew up in a Muslim-only neighborhood and while Yusuf was interested in knowing his roots, indulging in the snippets of his family history, Jubril became distant. Yusuf became a victim of apostasy, mobbed by the neighbors and stoned to death. Whilst Jubril did not participate in his brother’s death, he had been close enough to hear him pray in tounges as the stones rained on him.

His former friends had held Jubril as a true Muslim for not allowing his family loyalties to come between him and his religion when Yusuf was given his just deserts, and Meta Nadum had rallied around him when he had readily submitted his hand to be chopped off as a punishment for stealing someone’s goat.

It was his friends Luka and Musa, among a chanting mob who stopped him dead in his tracks by declaring him no good Muslim because he could not join the street protest until he took the cows home first.

His defenses by producing the picture of his hero-governor never could hold, they accused him of being an enemy within. If he produced the chopped wrist, they would accuse him of stealing another man’s goat, even if he spoke Hausa with the proper accent, it still didn’t defend him. They insisted he was a southerner, they knew his baptism story as a small baby and before he began explaining the money his friends owed him, they wrestled him to the ground.

Jubril remembered running very fast and being surprised that he could move at all, given his wounds. When he looked back, the ranks of his pursuers had swelled; even those who had left the task of burning him to Lukman and Musa had joined in. They pelted him with rocks, but he did not stop or fall. He heard some gunshots, but he kept going. He went past the pools and up the hill into the savannah. The mob spread out and thrashed the cabbage farms. Jubril ran like a dog; he ran until his vision darkened. He remembered failing; he remembered dizziness beclouding him……..pg. 183

“It was late afternoon. It was before the new democratic government placed a ban on mass transportation of corpses from one end of the country to the other. Jubril had worked so hard to forget the previous two days that his mind was in turmoil as he waited to travel south with the crowd at the motor park on the outskirts of Lupa. He knew that even if people were stacked up like yam or cassava tubers in a basket, most would still be left behind. Fortunately, he had paid for a seat on the only bus left.”

Jubril a fair skinned teenager finds himself caught up in a religious conflict. A Muslim, he had done a good job disguising himself as a Christian fleeing south. Besides, in that time of religious conflict in the country no one would expect a Muslim or northerner to risk travelling with Christians to the south or in the delta.

With Nigeria on a war path, he abandons all the myths he had heard regarding the luxurious buses and all that had mattered is for him to escape to safety. He was from a village that practiced a conservative brand of Islam that made it impossible for him to watch TV or read newspapers.

As they wait at the motor park for the driver who has disappeared to scout for black market fuel, which had become scarce since the war, the languages spoken only emphasized his estrangement from the group. Ibo was mainly spoken and those that spoke English did so with accent peculiar to their tribes – all of them unlike Jubril’s accent. He resolved to speak little as the best way to disguise himself.

A good Samaritan, who had helped him to escape, had written the village in the delta where his father was born. He wished he had made this trip before, during the peaceful times. The mother, years before had insisted against Jubril’s protestations that his father came from an oil producing village in the delta region and that his father’s relatives would always protect him.

The story exposes the folly of what separates, only to be bearable in times of need. Jubril finds himself, for the first time in his life, not infuriated that there were so many women all over the place. And he did not react to them in any particular way, something that would have been impossible only three days before. He would have preferred to trek a thousand miles on foot rather than sit in the same vehicle as a woman.

The angst that had hitherto fretted his soul seems to lift and was replaced by some lightheartedness caused by secretly poking fun at some of his inconveniences. For example some of the women looked funny in their makeup and tight-fitting trousers. He constrained his urge to laugh out loud at these hell destined women, something that would do him in after successfully disguising himself thus far. He would see the lifestyles that challenged him as laughable rather than as sources of irritation and temptation.

His right hand had been amputated at his wrist for stealing. Nobody on the bus knew this, and it was important that Jubril kept this fact hidden. If they found out, they would know he was Muslim, for they had seen people like him before. His plan to run south would unravel. So now, though his elbow kept bumping into other refugees boarding the bus, making him whine with pain, he did not change his posture. He held a black plastic bag containing his few belongings in his left hand.

His seat in the bus had been taken up by Chief Ukongo, who would not badger off after Jubril’s polite request. The young man was to hitherto brace the long journey sitting on the aisle, something that would not long for the position that he stood at belonged to another pregnant woman with a child. In times of crises like this, even the aisle had been portioned and paid for.

Great perseverance, when such a sacrilegious word like Muslim or Islam in mentioned in the bus, and people would begin to search their neighbor’s faces, and Jubril feared that from their dangerous stares they could tell he was a fraud. He kept waiting for someone to pull his arm out of his pockets and the blows to start raining on him.

Unfortunately his mind revolted at his attempts to suppress his thoughts, and when not dwelling on his present circumstances, his mind travelled back to a past event that was tangled up in his flight from Khamfi.

Like his multi-religious, multi-ethnic country, Jubril’s life story was more complicated than what one tribe or religion could claim. He had lived all his life in Khamfi and was at home with his mother’s people, the Hausa-Fulani’s. He had always seen himself as a Muslim and a northerner. Looking at his skin color, he had no problem believing he would fit in where he was going. There were many on the bus, who were fairer than he was. He could have been from any ethnic group in the country. What worried him was that he did not know enough about Christianity to survive in this crowd. It seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. So many times, he cleared his throat and grabbed his Marian medal with his fingers and stroked it, his whole attention focused on it, as if the Muslim in him now shared the same catholic adoration he had considered idolatrous in Khamfi. Though Mary was accorded a lot of respect in his religion, he had always thought the Catholics went too far by making thousands of sacramental about her and setting up shrines. The advice of Mallam Abdullahi, the man who gave Jubril the medal, flashed across his mind: don’t feel too bad wearing the medal, as Maryam in the Koran was the mother of prophet Isa, Jesus. Though Jubril would rather not have been wearing the medal, this theology was good enough for him—and, besides, his rescuer had assured him that all Christians who saw him wearing it would think he was a catholic and let him be. Page 172

You will also find the pidgin spoken evoking some laughter, for example, the following lines:

When Emeka is smarting from the eviction of the sick man, and coaxes Jubril to tell the old man off for occupying his seat, Ijeoma, she of fighting with Tega over the luggage space earlier in the story says,

Abeg, no halass de boy,” “cally your anger go meet de porice. No be dis boy lemove de sick man from dis bus”

The tension in the bus was evoking sporadic arguments within the bus.

So the Chief who stole Jubril’s seat, wants to guard his honour even in crisis, so when he invites Jubril to sit on the floor near him, someone challenges the old man for asking the boy to sit at his buttocks. He revolts and refuses to be addressed improperly.

“I sure you want all of us to call you shief,” Tega said. “shief dis, shief dat…Too many shiefs for dis country. I go buy my Resource Control hat too!”

The humour and bile seems served in same portions:

“Look am not even supposed to be in this bus with you,” the chief said

Look, l’m not one of you!”

“Den leave de Luxurious Bus,” Tega said from her seat, “who you be? Abasha man? Babangida boy?”

“As our people say, before the discovery of peanuts, people were not eating pebbles….keep your Christianity to yourself!”

“No confuse us wid proverb,” Tega continued. “Maybe you be pagan…..wizard!” a few people laughed at her comments.

“Pagan, eh?” the chief said. ”how dare you call my traditional religion paganism!”

“But Chief, you dey play poritics wid dis ting.” Ijeoma said. “Just reave de seat.”

“if you be no Christian, wetin else remain?”Tega said.

“He is suffering from political correctness,”Emeka said, speaking for the first time since the police changed the TV channel.

“Let me tell you, “the chief said, “before the harvest of alligator pepper, the medicine man was already carrying his bag, not the other way round…..The religion of my ancestors is far older than yours in this country. This land belongs to us.”

….This was not the time to think about lslam and Christianity or God too much, he thought. It was a time just to be a human being and to celebrate that. What mattered now was how to get people to lay down their weapons and biases, how to live together.

…”As our people say,”he continued, “the world is full of gods, but the most important ones are called by their names. And also, do not forget: no matter how small an idol is, it is good to carry it with two hands” I chuckled at this, because it felt that he was mocking Jubril’s juju which he had accused him of hiding in the pocket.

And this Chief Ukongo, not wasted any moment to parade his royaleship, by hailing the people to unite around royal chiefs like the northerners are united around their emirs, goes on to narrate his boast of the military government under general babangida, only to be interjected by Monica.

“Na lie o…l understand dis one, “she insisted.”Dat general like power too much o. if no change handover date many times, if he no cancel our 1993 elections, Abacha no for become our leader…Na de same people. Locust years. De man dey use you. He no share power wid you, abeg.”

“OK, woman, it is not exactly like l was saying. All l was trying to say was that the military respected us. May l talk now, Madame Lawyer?”

“Just make you no lie for dis young man, Chief.”

“Gabriel, the point is, we taught those Sierra Leonean and Liberian rebels a lesson. We lost a lot of soldiers…for a good cause!’

“Chief, how many die for combat?”

“That’s codified information, not for everybody, you know. A lizard may listen to a conversation, but he may not say something.. I mean who are you to want to know how many soldiers died in combat?…”

This chief gives the impression of a typical royalty who can do anything to intimidate his subjects into submission. He is also a good liar…reminds an earlier statement that a chief who can laugh with the others in the bus that hard, could lie too.

“You and l”, he said as he hugged Jubril, ”must show this to the world. Remember, nobody has a monopoly on violence. So don’t go around trying to terrorize the Christians.”

“As our elders say, the ant’s hope of reaching the sacrificial food lies in the folds of the wrapping leaf”…chief’s response to Jubril when he asked him whether he would help him after they reached home.

The ECOMOG soldier, whom the refugees referred to as a madman, refusing to recognize his efforts in fighting in Liberia and Sierra Leone, they also referred to as Chief Ukongo’s fellow idol worshipper, for he has a bigger and more intimidating assorted wreath of talismans than Chief had. When Jubril is at some point lost in flashbacks of when his hand was amputated, they attribute his strange behavior to being hyponotized by the soldier’s charms.

It’s interesting to a reader to see the various shifting of opinions of people when acting in different situations. For example, Jubril is in awe of the soldier remembering what Chief had told him about the sacrifices of ECOMOG soldiers who served the country gallantly, but when one of the soldiers is actually standing in front of them, the Chief takes to indifference feigning insult to his chieftancy. Even the refugees laugh that to his claims of retiring to a good conscience and dignigty. This is laughable, reasoned against a belief that all soliders are thieves. In fact one of the refugeesguffaws and wonders why all soldiers from her place are stupid—not using their chance well.

“Soldierman, you go eat conscience and drink dignity, abi? Your wife and children go dey happy well well to receive you from Sierra Leone empty-handed.”

“No problem,” the soldier said.

“No wahala, huh?” she taunted him. “ We no tell you before? You be madman…Na only crazeman who go reach colonel for army and no steal money for dis country.”

The soldier on the other hand finds the refugees to be the mad people. Other than obsess with oil, he is going home to farm as his ancestors did before oil was discovered in his village. Except that Monica one of the refugees reminds him that the oil companies have polluted every grain of sand, to which he says he will do fishing. This too is vain, as as the rivers have been destroyed.

The dialogue evokes a conversation amongst refugees who start talking about the pollution of the delta, and about how they must make sure all the oil companies moved away from the area.

The earlier bitterness of the refugees seem to stop as some laugh their way into sleep. They find it ridiculous that even if the soliderman would not have stolen the oil money, he could have at least bid for an explotation licesnse, after all, expertise is not as much needed as money. He reminds them that coming from a minority tribe stacked his odds of becoming a general despite serving his country for 32 years. The refugees wonder whether his not being a general meant that he had not received the billons of dollars pumped into ECOMOG to which chief barks that the generals should be left out that matter, and instead, a probe should be done on madmen like the soldierman.

In an interesting way, Chief escapes flogging by the soldierman who resorts to an erratic behavior of shoving the refugees on the isle, and jumped over the heads.

“Dis no be de savannah of Sierra Leonne o!” a refugee said.

“You think we dey urban warfare for Liberia?”

It’s ridiculous that the Chief seems silent until the chieftancy or the national governemt is mentioned adversely.

For example, when the soldier compains of his arrears not paid by the government, after 6 years fighting for his fatherland…the fury of chief only seems to be provoked by the fact that the solider says no stupid chief fights for people in a true democracy.

He of the earlier talismans and claims that he ascribes to the ATR, also announces to the refugees that the solider’s worship is not the true religion of their ancestors—whatever the juju he had brought back from his travels.

It’s unbelievable to the soldier, and even to the reader, that after suffering too much for the freedom of his country, that the refugees would want to eject him from the bus on the account of religion.

“Let me tell all of jou in this bus, none of these white countries, which brought us christinaity and democracy, came to die for the Liberians. Did any of these Arab countries peddling militant Islam in Africa send troops to Sierra Leone? I say jou all are mad, to kill each other for two foreign reliyions. We wretched ECOMOG soldiers went out there to die for democracy while the lttle democracy in this country is being scuttled by yenerals and politicians and chiefs…rogues.

Whilst the soldierman’s address brings up important things to reflect, the chief’s thinking seems way set. Perhaps because there is a challenge to his way of thinking. He tells the soldier that making sense doesn’t depend on how many places he has visited. “ As our people say, if winning a race depended on one’s number of legs, the millipede would beat the dog hands down…” Whilst the refugees see this as wisdom, and in deed proverbial or idiomatic wisdom, the chief seems to use this to feign some mystique around him, perhaps to win the loyalty of his unwilling subjects-the refugees. Is it not what African leaders are wont to do. Chuckling away and fanning imaginary sweat in gatherings when they perceive to have said something important to the adoration of their people. A people tied to misfortunes that the only way to feel secure is to rally around these feel important people, who in turn skirt their eyes around their kingdom like some sort of parlour?

This same chief who ascribes to the traditional religion later is awed when the madness of the solider is calmed by the sprinkling of holy water by Madam Aniema. I guess it’s this quick shifting of attitudes that made Africans so gullible.

“Your holy water is as powerful as what those bearded Irishmen sprinkled on our ancestors to make them instant catholics. Then the church didn’t waste time dipping you inti a river before you got the Sprit…

“Just three drops of water and you knew Latin like the Pope,” the chief said

Even the chief offers to speak to Rome to make the madam a priest, to which he is reminded the catholic church doesn’t ordain women. When the outsiders interject with an opinion that there should be an execption to Aniema, they are quickly reminded to mind their own business.

Well, the madness returned quickly after,and more strongly at that despite the attempts to tame it earlier. Ridiculous that the chief insitist in voting to eject soldierman out, as opposed to showing tickets since he had Jubril’s ticket. The refugees, just like Chief were switching sides and it was proving difficult for Jubril to be comfortable.

Jubril is converted to Christianity, after Emeka possessed by some inhausted powers, descend on him claiming that he was an enemy. His marian medal is thrown away to the detriment of the catholics. Emeka takes off into the savannah, haunted by the inexhaustible spirit powers. When he sobers later to the realization that he has to board the second bus with the other refugees, he is shocked that the bus is full of dead bodies. Women, children and men, with blood everywhere as if someone had gassed the bus. Even the refugees after what they had seen seem to forsake the aura and mystery of the world of the spirit, and are not in the mood to listen to his spirit story to be allowed to board the first bus again.

The gullibility of people when faced with misfortune is evident. Chief opines that his country needs the hottest kind of the spirit to be cleansed, for when a ghost cat is stealing from your house you also buy a ghost cat not an ordinary cat..

The sad situation is that Jubril is not spared by the refugees. When the news stream on the TV, the madness of retaliatory attacks in the South, the mass number of corpses from the south etc, the refugees lose their mind. For people like him who could not belong in Khamfi and was haunted by how quickly Luka and the mob had flushed him, his future was still uncertain as the same madness had spread to the south. He had never thought that people in the south were capable of such violence and no one had told him that there were northerners in the south whose lives could be in danger.When he saw images of a mosque razed down he wept, in convulsions even though he himself had set churches on fire before. He took out his right hand to wipe a tear, and it was too late trying to put it back in the pocket. All Christianity, all form of reason desert the refugees as they impound on the boy, his pleas that “I come prom soud, but I be prom nord,” not saving him. He attempts to convey the mangled story of his religious identity, which is useless in the ovious murderous looks of the refugees.

“These were not the stares of catholics, or born-agains or ancestral worshippers. His conversion meant nothing to them. Their stares reminded them of his fundamentalist muslim friends, Musa and Lukman.

It’s breaking that Jubril dies being jeered at his Christo-muslim identity, which could not be embraced by either the northerners or southerners. He dies embracing his god of Islam who had at least been with him until that point of his flight.whilst chief washes his hands off the boy, he doesn’t use his supposed royal authority to save a citizen. Expected, since as an ancestral worshipper, he is an outside to the two foreign religions. It is the soldierman who tears at the kangaroo court, to no avail, attempting to save a citizen, before the refugees dragged him and Jubril and slit their throats.

Bookreview; Umwem Akpan “Say you are one of them”

Stories are meant to break hearts. The collection of stories in Umwem Akpan’s ‘Say you are one of them’ validates this opinion. Besides the pain and horror witnessed by the African Children, it is harrowing that these stories are narrated through the voices of children. As a reader, the book evokes empathy, and you might find yourself stopping so many times to ponder, sob or in frustration. The important thing about the narrations is that they come so close to the truth as the reality of everyday occurrences in different parts of the continent.

From the family living in a makeshift shanty in urban Kenya, whose 12 year old daughter, Zawadi is pushed to childhood prostitution, to the siblings in Benin trying to cope with the Uncle’s attempt to sell them into slavery in Gabon; the book is full of riveting stories that exposes the survival struggles amongst African children, and the creative ways to get out of their predicament.

For the purposes of this review, as the stories are deep rich for a single review, I have singled out two short stories, and here’s to hoping that you will get a copy of the book and enjoy the read, as much as I did.

P.s. the review is quite long (with a couple of excerpts that I found captivating in every way). I have broken it down into two parts (or rather reviewed the selected short stories separately). The next review will be up in a week’s time.

Fattening for Gabon

‘I mean, look at my face.”

He touched at his scar and pulled at his lip and people began to laugh.

“Scarecrow!” One woman shouted, her mouth full of rice.

“No worry, when l get money well well, l go do surgery…my face no go smile like dis all de time again. N’do na dio face se, military face. Den una no go know again wheder l dey vex o, wheder l dey sad o, wheder l dey lie o…l mean , even now, who tell una say l dey happy wid una?” pg. 52

“kai, you better start looking for anoder monkey man o harvest your coconuts…”

Kotchikpa is a 10 year old boy, who has moved alongside his younger sister Yewa, 5 to live with their Fofo, an agbero. It had been agreed, in a meeting of relatives that the two, the youngest in a family of 3 others, needed to live with their uncle at the border town, who from then would take care of them. Although no one has volunteered information about the parents’ sickness and relatives talk about it in hushed voices, Kotchikpa later eavesdrops that they have AIDS though he doesn’t know what it means then.

The children’s uncle, Fofo Kpee(also Smiley Kpee :), is described as a smallish, hardworking man. He also has an incredulous sense of humour. And perhaps, as Kotchipika thinks, it is this sense of humour and smuggler’s instinct that he had developed as an agbero, that the secret to sell them off was kept from the world for three months.

Before the Gabon deal which as you will learn later, went awry, as a simple agbero, he made a living getting people across the border without papers or just roughing them up for money. He also hired himself out in the harmattan season to harvest coconuts in the many plantations along the coast. He had his fair share of misfortune over the years, falling from trees and getting into scuffles at the border. Yet the man was upbeat about life. He seemed to smile at everything :), partly because of a facial wound sustained in a fight when he was learning to be an agbero. Ridged and glossy, the scar ran down his left cheek and stopped at his upper lip, which was constricted; his mouth never fully closed. Though he tried to cover the scar with a big moustache, it shone like a bulb on a Christmas tree. His left eye looked bigger than the right because the lower eyelid came up short, pinched by the scar. Because of all this, sometimes people called him Smiley Kpee. Pg. 33

The book exposes different levels of comprehension and innocence of children at different stages of life. Whilst the children seem trusting, Kotchikpa is inquisitive, while the younger Yewa does not seem to be bothered by the family’s unexplained fortunes. Partly why, they may have been chosen for this illegal business of children slavery. Having been used to poverty lifestyle, they behold the machine as if it were some sort of magic that had descended upon them, something too much for them—with Yewa circling around it like a Voodoo priest, her legs stepping lightly, and her feet in socks of dust. The brother, whose palms had been dirtied from stocking the cooking fire with wood, even begins to sweat. Both are in disbelief, and Smiley Kpee seems to relish their innocent bewilderment of this fortune before he produced an invoice and proclaimed,..”God done reward our faitfulness………….Nous irons to be rich,-ha-ha!” This opens the reader to the ignorance and attribution of all mysteries to religion and its influence. And perhaps also why Fofo Kpee does not seem to see it wrong in going to offer a thanksgiving ceremony for the Nanfang, presided over by an non-suspecting and non-discerning pastor, the object of the thanksgiving being the price to sell of innocent blood to the unknown future of a distant land.

An element to Akpan’s writing is that it is so rich of humour that you will gawk and find yourself with an imprinted smiley on your face, or a silly grin as you devour the pages. Maybe close to that of Smiley Kpee. For example, on the night that the Nanfang arrives, the voice of the story tells that Fofo didn’t tell them stories about which he laughed more than they did. Also, after one sip, he decides it is better to save his fruit juice for until dinner, and owing to the excitement of the night, when they finally descend on the Abakaliki rice and stew of onions, Kpomo, and palm oil, they don’t mind to find the little pebbles in the rice. Even Fofo doesn’t scold Kotchikpa for not picking the rice well.

“When l got down to the last gulp, l stopped and saved it. l had water instead and ate and drank until my stomach filled up, the palm oil in the stew yellowing my lips. Then l drowned the rest of the juice so the taste would remain in my moth until l went to bed.” Pg. 39

After the thanksgiving, Kpee throws a party to celebrate the Nanfang. The explanation of the mysterious change of fortunes is that his brother and wife who live abroad had sent him the zokeke does not register any special meaning to the children, neither when he said that they would come with the older children to visit and they would get even better things. The plot thickenes on the day Fofo Kpee comes home in a Nanfang (a motor-bike) that he planned to use to ferry people between Benin and Nigeria to boost the family’s income.   Even the exclamation of disappointment by a man, Big Guy, whose words “Smiley Kpee, Only two?” “No way, iro o! Where oders?” don’t seem to bother the already excited children. After all, having an agbero for an uncle, they had been used to people coming to harass him for different things.

And on one evening Fofo Kpee comes home nervous and informs the children of the adoption plan by some NGO people whom he describes as a a group of caring, smiling people who go around the world helping children.

“It was the first time I saw him show frustration or doubt about our new life. Seeing how tense he was and hearing his continual sighs, l kept quiet. He was so distraught by whatever was worrying him that we abandoned the outside walls. After a while he got so angry that in one final rush of work, he closed up everything. And darkness descended on the room. Pg. 82

The guiless nature of the children, would not give any specific reason to doubt their uncle and his humour carried them through the difficult situations, like sleeping in a sealed room with no ventilation, in the guise to keep off the thieves. But it is when he unclad before them, exposing his nakedness before the children that it became unbearable. Fofo Kpee has a dream in which he talks in his brief nap, and while the kids watched him, he was twisted as though fighting a lion, and in a fiery voice saying that his children would not go to Gabon. The nightmare of that night would have served as a warning to Kotchikpa that the dream would unravel, but he had instead chosen to remain strong so as not to frighten his sister. Probably wrestling the strangling demns of child trafficking, or the nasty thought of selling off his brother’s children for a morsel.

The surreal and solemn silence around them is broken when the uncle suddenly takes off his loin cloth leaving the children confused and concerned. You almost turn morbid in fear when the writer introduces the issue of child sexual slavery.

“The dread that had hung around him since he awoke from his nightmare went away now. Apart from his nakedness, he looked very normal. His whole body glowed with the sweat except his bushy pubic hair, out of which hung a limp penis, its head smooth like mango skin, its body wearing a tube of tiny rings of flesh, like the neck of an oba in an odigba.”

“you want to touch my ting?Come on, do it, allez, touchez moi.”

He was now coming towards us.

“No,no I said, and we backed away.

My sister was silent. She never spoke again that night but shielded her privates with her hands and moved behind me.

“Oh, you want touch your ting, mes enfants?”

“No, l said.”

I felt numbness around my groin, and my heart began to pound. l didn’t feel the heat anymore, though l noticed more sweat was pouring from my body. My penis seemed to have shrunk completely, and my balls became one hard nut. l knew immediately this was different from my fofo’s ordinary clowning. l was afraid.”

Fofo Kpee teases Yewa (a 5 year old!) on whether she probably would like to touch a white man, and to this Kotchikpa counteres the wisdom of whether they need to actually go to Gabon. That night he sleeps dressed up with his back towards fofo, and his hands shielding his privates, while trying hard to convince himself that the performance of that night did not actually happen. He detests the shorts he is wearing but can not bring himself to sleep naked that night. He hates Gabon. He hates the Nanfang and vowed never to ride in it again.He sympathizes with Paul-the boy who was so withdrawn on the night that the godparents visited. Although Fofo Kpee apologizes to them that he overdid things in case things became difficult abroad, Kotchikpa starts thinking of how to escape and run back to Braffe with the sister.

Things took an ugly turn when Fofo Kpee detested Big Guy’s Gabon deal causing hatred to ensue between them but also moves quickly, from the decision that the children could not go to school again to the suspension of their collective dream of going to Gabon, such that no one mentioned it again to an extent that it filled their silence. Dissipation of pride in the nanfang etc.The pieces of the puzzle come together slowly, and Fofo intimates to Kotchikpa that they need to escape. Unfortunately the night of the planned escape bring with itself miserly and disappointing darkness. As the cartel of children slavery seemed to be watching over them, they are impounded as they tried to escape that night, one week to the impeding Gabon trip. Their games teacher Monsieur Abraham is part of the cartel, explaining the kindness he  accorded them in school including giving them glucose on the first days of their lessons when they couldn’t sleep. Kotchikpa feels so disappointed for having been duped into such a well-orchestrated plot but nothing had prepared them for worst days ahead.

Though their situation had gone from bad to worse in a single night, Kotchikpa had behaved to make the guard believe that he liked him, in the hope that they may be allowed into the parlor to see their fofo. Yewa shaken to the core, had been hiding in the water vat, which she had covered…she turned her anger towards the brother whose kindly gestures to fool the guard, the sister mistook as his collaboration with fofo and the guard to sell her off.

The horrors of child trafficking. Sea orientation incase the water in the vessel finished out, or were tossed overboard during the search by government people of which they would be required to hold to a huge prank of wood attached to the ship or given life jackets.

……The plan had been to build a bigger depot for the children awaiting dispatch. What an evil plot. Sadder because immigration officials, people in police uniform and teachers like the games master were part of this unnerving syndicate.The children from northern Nigeria had been brought in a huge fish truck, to disguise the cargo.

The horror before the other children are brought in to share the room with the two ison the night that Big Guy come in with other guys and under the cover of darkness dig the grave to bury Fofo Kpee. Kotchikpa is not asleep at the time, and has eavesdropped by the window until he hears that the pit being dug is to be deep enough to bury Smiley Kpee completely. The gravediggers get the Nanfang as their payment. With Fofo Kpee dead, Kotchikpa feels emboldened to be an even worse human being than Big Guy and he starts plotting their escape.

Exploiting the guard’s friendliness the morning after their fofo was buried in the night, he manages to convince him to let them into the parlor, hoping that he can get access to the green corduroy jacket that had spare keys.You almost coil with fright when Kotchikpa tries to pretend that he knew nothing about Fofo Kpee’s death and burial in the night, and his ruse to fake sighting a rat to distract the guard while he tries reaching for the spare keys, makes the heart of the reader skip a beat.

“Now my insides were rising and falling with joy. I began to fantasize about our escape. Our best bet was to run in the middle of the night, while he was asleep. I hadn’t thought about where we would run, but it didn’t bother me. My joy now was that freedom was within our reach. I just needed to manage my excitement until then. Again, like on the day Fofo tried to run away with us, l thought it was important for me not to tell Yewa anything until we were ready to leave. I didn’t want to risk it. Pg. 137

Desperately the boy manages to escape, but the sister is left behind as she was slow to jump through the window when they were caught up by the guard. His desperate pleas to have the sister jump through the window didn’t yield in time, and he only saved himself.

“I ran into the bush, blades of elephant grass slashing my body, thorns and rough earth piercing my feet. I took the key and padlock from my pocket and flung them into the bush. I ran ad l ran, though l knew l would never outrun my sister’s wailing. Pg. 139

I bought this book at Nakumatt Nyali sometime back while scavenging for African literature but it could be on the shelves of several other book stores.

 

 

From the fly on the Wall

Of China opinions, Land conversations, & others

“Many people may think that, now there is Uhuru, now I can see the sun of Freedom shinning, richness will pour down like manna from Heaven. I tell you there will be nothing from Heaven. We must all work hard, with our hands, to save ourselves from poverty, ignorance, and disease.” Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya, from an Independence Day message to the people, as quoted in Sanford Ungar’s Africa, the People and Politics of an Emerging Continent, New York, 1985.

Kayla relocated from Kigali to Nairobi nearly 2 years ago. Her talk is awash with fond memories of Kigali though a much smaller city, where she cycled to work. It’s nothing like Nairobi, she tells Lillian. When Kay went to the Junction the first week after she moved, she felt like she was in London. Well, coming from a smaller city, there was evidence of someone who had missed a bigger city lifestyle, albeit not as much, because she identifies with a country girl.

She is a fond person, mostly because she also reads widely, a habit Lily is yet to adopt. Kay and Lily often pick kitchen discussions busting myths, poking conventional wisdom, and sometimes forming their own “intelligent opinions” on matters around the world. Opinions, just like this piece. At times brilliance can be so annoyingly deceiving. Sometimes, you are just no too sure, and you end up abashed.

Kenya has celebrated Jubilee recently, and Lily feels some impatient thunder emboldening her from within. “You know, the most important gain was independence, there is nothing like freedom. Whilst I agree that being colonized is an unfathomable ill, I also believe that the capability to rule self as a nation is boldly expressed when you give citizenry a reason to be proud of,” she confidently asserts.

We have made considerable gains. Some locust years. Some years of plenty. The economy boom evident, but so has been corruption, multi-million dollar scams. Like in a competition, seeking to outdo the other. To the mwananchi, who works hard to pay the taxes, to feed the kingpins of this country, there is impatience. But for a people who are determined to make each day, the tipping point does not seem so close. In fact there might not get be a point where the taxpayer will demand accountability. The strength we trust is systems, except that their structures are not respected by the ruling class. The rant goes on.

Lily of course doesn’t mean to just whine about all that is not working in the country but feels that we can’t turn a blind eye to all the mess now, can we? Kay thinks the country is right on course, 50 years on and so on. Well, bigger economies took longer to build, and Lily agrees. But 50 years is enough to ensure that the citizenry have access to education (good scores to the free primary education), except that in poverty ridden areas, a child will need a full stomach too, poverty indexes are not too good, and this would fair better if the corruption monster was slayed. And ignorance tops them all, for there is an educated but ignorant mind. This is basing on the indexes that the first president famously mentioned.

 Lily’s brother, Mwek has just returned from China on business the previous evening. He also has been scouting for business in Rwanda. And spurred by the previous intelligent conversation with Kay, goes to catch up with Mwek.

“So how did it go in Rwanda? My bud tells me that that Kigali is amazing! The country is documented as one that has ease in terms of doing business. Additionally, the economy is booming.” Lily asserts without referencing the source of her data.

Mwek agrees and disagrees. There is a misconception you can only discount through experience. He had perched on such thoughts too, but now that he has had experience getting around the bureaucracy of registering a business and it’s not all rosy. It is true you get to register a business within a day, but to operate you need a resident permit to do business, which is a nightmare to obtain. You can give up between the shuttling across different offices, which keep sending you back to where you just came from. “The short of it is that I haven’t commenced,” says Mwek.

Lily is sorry, and quickly adds that there is nothing easier anywhere else anyway. Her biggest challenge is always to bear on the confident gait the brother carries, and the fact that he, being a sociologist turned businessman, advances arguments that make hers look guiless.

And the China trip? Lily asks, hoping Mwek will confirm her opinion that the East is out to ruin Africa. She wears an astonishing look when Mwek says, “No, amazing. Again, l had a chance to bust myths and misconceptions. China is an amazing country. We could learn from them.”

Lily is wary of the look East policy and is for a more cautious approach. Incidentally she doesn’t laud the West either particularly for ills of colonizing the continent and so on. She, in an uncanny way feels the East is on a marauding mission on the continent. She keeps thumping to anyone who cares to give her audience that she doubts the ethos of the Chinese. That one day future generations will curse us, the dead by then, for mortgaging their inheritance. Being market place discussions, there is no empirical evidence to support such aspersions. What she mostly advances as opinions, are carved out of Kay’s opinions.

Mwek does not feel strongly for the West, whom he thinks are causing trouble and funding wars everywhere. “You don’t hear China funding warfare anywhere for economic gain?” he says.

Hold on there, does that make them the angels? All I am saying is we should be careful by getting into agreements and deals that will work for the continent. Not everything on their terms. I hate that we have a bulging unemployed youth but when the East wins these contracts, they ship in their labour. It would make sense if they ship in the experts but the skills we have locally should be utilized. Why is the government not seeing this?

We need funds and investors all right but the fact that we have opportunities for the investors to lunge into, makes Africa an equal party into the discussion and not a desperate case.

But we are own enemies. I have seen it as folly that the governments of Africa despite having an umbrella body AU, don’t seem to do business well together. I am not an economist, but lay knowledge tells me that we could do well if we made and consumed our own products. Develop capacity for our nations to trade with each other. Pray tell, what ails our manufacturing industries? Remembering a term she heard Kay use, “South to South” markets, she tells Mwek that this is Africa’s future!

“The manufacturing industries are so capital intensive, and unless the government buttresses the economy with subsidies, not many can break even.  Also when you say that we should make and consume our own products with equal relish that we consume foreign brands, the quality of our products is wanting. This again ties to capital. It may make economic sense for example, for a fashion enthusiast, to import clothes from China, sell and make profit than to invest in their own fashion label. Quality fabric is expensive so is the cost of doing business. Someone said that after realizing that it would take them 1 hour to fix 3 buttons, they began hunting a button attachment machine, which to their shock cost 150,000. “Patronizing won’t pay bills, you know,” Says Mwek

Lily agrees but she strongly feels that Africa can make and consume own products. See, most African nations have incredible amounts of natural resources, and we keep reading newer discoveries every day. But other than leverage on this, we are busy fighting each other. Then with all these resources, many countries have complementing resources, for example a country that has coal, doesn’t have iron ore, but another has copper etc. but we would rather export all these and import a finished product from other countries;. Can’t we harness our strength, or what is this that keeps us from trading with each other? If gemstones can be mined in Africa, why can’t they also be cut here? I hear in some cases we even sell dirty coffee to processors out there. I guess on of the problems of the African continent is that it never colonized any other continent. No one has seen our might.

But that is why we now have African imperialism. Or is what Uganda is doing in Rwanda or even South Sudan not imperialism?

“I didn’t think it that way,” Lily makes a mental note to read more about imperialism and perhaps cross check with Kay whose opinions she reveres.

Mwek goes on to tell Lily that one thing he liked about China is that no one seems to have a problem with food, or housing or transportation?

Lily is in utter disbelief, as she recalls her entrepreneurship lecturer one day stating that the Chinese live 40 storey skyscrapers, where, even if you were to own a car, there would be no space to park it. It only makes sense to just own a bicycle if you must. “Besides, there are no rich people there. Just a small of the billion population. Do you find that admirable?” she prods.

Lily thinks that either the brother is either out to frustrate her ‘well-formed opinions’ or he does have a better mind. “At least their population lives in dignity. The follies of capitalism have landed us where we are. Murky ditch”, says Mwek.

She hates the mass concentration of wealth to an individual but wonders whether Mwek has not lost it to suggest the socialism way. Why, Tanzania with its socialism seems to fare a little worse than us.

And that’s where socialism provides the answer. In 1930s, in China, the government made a ruling that all land reverted back to the state. And even with a huge population, no one starves.people may not be as wealthy, but they live in dignity. Their transport system is superb. If you own a car, the permit is so damn expensive and so is the license, an approximate Kshs. 200,000. Not many can afford that.

Amazing. On that note, we can borrow that piece. Whilst l will not go for the government taxing such immoral sums to have a license, as it has not provided alternative & comfortable means to mobility, we can glean the lessons to apply to the land sector. I mean who knows how else to kills that mammoth of a monster that sleeps at Ardhi house?

For example, those who own huge tracts of land, which are idle, should pay taxes, not the measly rates, but a huge fine to discourage speculators and have capital channeled in other viable economy growing sectors. Though l think the ridiculous attachment to land is an African thing. It may not just go away overnight. But you should not own all the earth while the rest of the population is homeless. There would be resistance but see where our greed has edged us into? Ridiculous subdivisions that is threatening food security. Like the Chinese we should in every community have people settlement schemes, and the rest of the land is owned by the community, each having relevant shares. In that case, they will take advantage of economies of scale and higher returns will mean everyone is happy. Is that not the essence of life?

They both agree that the extremes of both set ups have their cons, but a better balance can be created where necessary to have a “capital-communism” economy if need be. When she later mentions this to Kayla, she is amazed at her opinion. That even in Britain they have inheritance tax, due to a person’s estate beyond a certain worth when they die. Of course Lily wonders whether the ruling class who own all the earth in this country would welcome even the imagination of such an idea.

She is reaching out for a book she has seen on Kay’s desk. She has noticed besides work files, Kay has also lined up a collection of fat spine books of all fields, and wonders whether this is the reason why she always sounds so intelligent.

Her reverie is interrupted when Kay starts to explain to Mure the genesis of the beef between Ukraine and Russia. She had hitherto convinced herself that Europe is out to have Ukraine join the EU for its own interest, because they would rather have the Caucasians that the Africans. She fears this is naïve but proceeds anyway, stating that perhaps Europe needs cheap labour but Africans carry a more huge burden and would strain their resources. The look on Kay’s face seeks to discount this. Kay counters this argument by stating that Europe would rather Africa to Eastern Europe, as they have the kind of skills that Britain, for example, requires e.g. nursing. The migrants from Eastern Europe on the other hand mostly migrate to Europe to offer labour e.g. picking vegetables. She strongly asserts that Ukraine definitely needs EU more than EU would need them. The US and EU are more avert to a situation of cold war and that’s why they there is an interest.

Lily wonders whether it was a good idea to offer her unsolicited opinion. Her eyes hover over the cover of the book that had caught her eye, “Deterring Democracy” by Noam Chomsky. “My goodness,” she thinks to herself “I need to love to read,” as she wonders whether her mind can crack up such a title.

 

 

Book review – Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks

Part of a trilogy of Novels set in France, Sebastian Faulks proves himself as a master of imagination, or something beyond it. This is a Novel that shreds your heart, tears your human sense, and in an intricate way, reveals the complexities of human reason, and so many conflicting things that are capable of existing or co-existing in a single human being and also the complexities of societies, at a particular time of history.

The voice of the story is a Scottish girl who leaves her job as a receptionist and general helper at a doctor’s practice to do something that would contribute to the war. A fluent French speaker who would pass for closely a native, her father who fought in France in the last war, used to take them, where he had been, to visit the war graves. She also went on exchanges to a French family during the summer holidays, and read French and Italian at the university.

Through a contact that she got on the train on her way from Edinburgh to London, Dick Cannerly, she was able to secure something to do in G section.

’and you presumably know what our aim is in France?

‘Well, you’ve told me, haven’t you?

‘Yes. But in practical terms what this means is that we are encouraging the French to disobey their government-though l use the word’ government’ reluctantly, since one must doubt its real legitimacy. The means at our disposal are what you might call ‘anti-democratic”. We aren’t going round organizing meetings at which we air the anti-Vichy point of view; we’re using guns and explosives. Even the organizational side of our work is only a prelude to violence. The trouble is, Ms. Gray, that this message is still falling on a fairly stony ground. A large number of people welcome the Vichy government and deeply respect the Marshal, but an even greater number are motivated by a fear of something worse-of civil disorder. They fear that the resistance, such as it is, would be the prelude to a full-scale Communist revolution. So they cling to the idea of stability, of law and order and turn their face away from the actual shape it takes.”

The task was very simple: first to accompany Yves-some calm taciturn little man, acting as his chaperone, until they are safely arrived at the house near Uzerche, where he would join forces with a very busy little network and she would then wish him bon voyage. But aside to this she had her own personal ambitions.

While in France, she was to be called Dominique Guilbert, born in 1917 and was married to a clerk in Angouleme who was now a prisoner of war in Germany, and was traveling to visit her sick father who lived in Limoges. In addition to her cover name Dominique; her field name was to be Daniele. Additionally her hair was cropped and colored although G-section had not anticipated the possibility for a public bath house due to fuel shortage that she was to encounter later in Lauverate exposing a certain inconsistency in coloring.

During a train journey, she kept herself distracted with newspapers, to conceal what she thought was her obvious identity as English.

 The news in the paper was gloomy. The Russians were in retreat, as the Germans drove them back from town to town, the Japanese were threatening Singapore; the Americans had in theory joined the war, but for all popular belief that this meant the allies must win, it seemed to Charlotte they had as yet made little difference.

She resented the anguish that reading the newspaper brought and felt he news of the deaths keenly; the war had aroused in her a feeling that surprised her. When she was a girl her father had taken the family to France and pointed at the million acre graveyards of the British dead; Charlotte did not take in all he said about the war, but even at the age of seven understood that such a thing could never be endured again. An unthinking allegiance to a national cause seemed to have been the motive that led million men to die, and the danger of such thinking had been alive in the calculations of all the people she had known.

Yet something had changed. She had come to see the enemy as not one competing cause whose selfish aims were defensible as any other’s, but as a plain manifestation of evil. When she told Cannerly on the train that she was patriotic, she was not saying quite what his easy smile suggested he thought; she was saying that, despite the implicit danger, and against her former judgment, she had come to feel this way. What she meant was that she had unwittingly developed an almost motherly identification with the men being killed. She despised their killers. There was no doubt in her mind; and although she was not particularly pleased to have been driven up to this conviction, she saw no possibility of its changing.pg. 37

After Dominique had delivered Yves to his final destination, where he was in deep cover, and according to Mr. Jackson no longer needed her guiding hand, any further communication between them would be through wireless and would come through Octave. She however could not take her plane back. She would stay in France until she felt she had done something worthwhile. More urgent even than this was her need to find Gregory. To fly home now would be to admit that he was dead, and this was something that she could to do. She had no idea how she would set about finding him, but merely by being in France she had a better chance. If she gave up on Gregory then she was giving up faith in her own life.

She needed to get herself as soon as possible to Clermont-Ferrand; to track down Monsieur Chollet in his garage and see if Gregory had called; and, if not, to use whatever method her cunning and determination could devise to go out in the dark and find him.

He had told her that he would be flying a Halifax, but it’s when she received a message of his disappearance from Borowski, that she discovered he had been on a mission using a Lysander, a tiny monoplane.

When she moved to London, she shared a tiny icy flat with Daisy and Sally, whose ghastly boyfriend Terence had got them all invited to a literary party on the same evening she arrived. While she felt she did earn her right to the party, and in fact did not want to go to this party or any party at all, she would do it for Daisy. If she seemed aloof, Daisy might complain to her mother in Gloucestershire, who in turn might tell her mother in Edinburgh. It was through this ancient friendship of the two women, though they never saw each other anymore, that her place in the flat had been arranged; and even if it was not much of a flat, she owed daisy something. Pg. 23.

It was at this party that she met Peter Gregory and their affair developed quickly but never seems to have the affinity or commitment to last. He is a pilot in a field of war, and while he has survived when his friends perished, this luck to cheat death is not all promissory, for the war could last forever. He is later to regret leaving for that fateful mission without letting Charlotte know.

He had contemplated a switch to night flying, something that required a different kind of skill from the day time flying he had been taught. It required trust, and he believed he was good at trust, at least where his own safety was concerned. He had come to think he was inviolable though his friends were all dead.

“Flying by night was a violation of instinct; there were no steeples or bridges from which to take a bearing, no flash of wingtip or underbelly to show the vital presence of other aircraft……….Even when you swore you could feel the brush of rooftops on the undercarriage, you must believe the altimeter’s finger pointing at 10,000 feet.”

While he was lucky to survive a crash with the Lysander, he had a fractured tibia, suspected but undiagnosed by the vet who had been contacted by a stallholder who knew that his sympathies were reliable. Unfortunately, as an Englishman he could not be taken in for a surgery. Gregory the unsinkable, the unkillable: lucky to have survived the crash, lucky it was so near the landing zone, lucky that he was picked by sympathetic people.

He had told Charlotte that he seemed completely incapable of crashing, having been straight through a squadron of messerschmitts after his ammunition had run out and wasn’t even scratched. He had flown upside down a hundred feet from the ground to give the impression of being out of control and somehow managed not to touch a tree. Even when his plane’s been damaged, it’s seemed to fly normally. He would come back. He was indestructible. But what are war-time promises?

And for the belief in this particular man, a remarkable man and the purity of the feelings she felt for him and believed he had for her, a force superior than any other guiding force; Charlotte believed that she could not organize her life until she knew if he was alive or dead. Unfortunately, the garage man at Clermont-ford did not seem to have an idea about the disappearance of Gregory, much as he had indicated that she could contact him if anything went wrong.

Octave found her a job as a servant girl at his father Levade’s domaine. A weird man who was a painter, a Jew, thought by some of his village mates to be a Satanist as well. This is despite his conversion to Christianity 10 years before.

Peter had not understood her romantic feeling for France such that had got it into her head that she ought to be dropped into France. She felt that being in France gave increased the chances of finding him. It was during this prolonged stay that she got to learn of the Duguay boys and later form such an attachment to them, so that she often visited them while not working at the Domaine:

Andre was almost seven, Jacob only four. Perhaps the complexities of the politics being discussed in Madame Galliot’s ironmongery would not have made sense to him given his tender age. The anti-Semitic remarks at the shop closely touched his family.

‘For years they’ve been undermining us, keeping all the best jobs to themselves, swindling proper French people. The day they say no Jew should be a school teacher anymore, that was the best day we’ve seen round here for a long, long time.

‘I didn’t know Duguay was one of them,’……’he seemed like nice enough type. He was no trouble to anyone and I don’t think his business was dishonest’

‘Oh, but the mother, though. A typical Israelite,’ said Madame Galliot. ‘They changed their name to Duguay to take us all in.’

Hearing his family name, Andre found the courage to speak and asked for candles. While this seemed to give him a surge of courage, and nothing more to the effect of those hate spinning words of five adults, it’s clear that when his voice brought him into view, it disparaged and scattered their thinking, splitting their guilty at the sight of the toddler.

Unfortunately those words would soon after his sprint uphill, make out a new meaning that would halt the family’s existence forever. It was not clear why their house was locked, something unusual. Neither was the Star of David planted on the door of the house. The mother had tried to explain the shortage of food, that they lived in difficult times, something Andre found difficult to understand.

Benard, a gendarme had put their parents on the train, a special train, upon visit from the Vichy police. He would pass as a sadistic who had seen an opportunity to have his sadistic impulses made legal, the same as locals such as Benech whose guiless beliefs regarding the occupation are amusing. Benech feared a communist revolution more than the German occupation for he felt that the occupation provided the communists a chance for a revolution against traditional France.

When Andre’s mother became hysterical, weeping the father had started weeping too. And if they could not save themselves they could perhaps save their little one, Jacob. She took him to the door of the cellar, and despite his spirited screams, they locked him there. Interesting that the change of names, and even religion to devout Catholics to have a sense of belonging could not change their identity as foreigners and prevent them from being rounded off to the refugee camps. While wicked Benard, in his sense of being a law abiding citizen, becomes part of this plot, he at least allows for the ‘missing statuses of the boys. This would not be sustained forever, because the Duguay boys are used as collateral when he came with the Nazis alongside Benech to take Levade.

It’s an apparent difficulty to implore a 7 and 4 year old to be brave and try not to worry over the absence of their parents, even when there had been such an intimate physical closeness with the mother, that instantly turns their world in hopelessness and despair.

The boys had been hidden at Sylvie Carriteu’s, in the rafters and could not be allowed downstairs. Her mother who kept watch over them enjoyed looking after the children and saw it as a natural act of female kindness. Although she accepted that Jewish people were dishonest and anti-French, and that the Vichy legislation to restrain their activities and confiscate their businesses was overdue, she didn’t see how the little ones were to blame: after all, it was not Andre or Jacob’s fault that they were born Jewish. Her daughters view was more developed, which was shy it was she who had been approached by Julien to look after the children in the first place.

Andre—because he had no power to change his circumstances, his will to survive and his legacy of natural content deceived him into experiencing them as bearable. To this, Sylvie told her mother that she thought him adaptable.

Yet something was checked in him. Without his mother’s constant touch, he shrank a little; his movements became less fluid ; he walked more often than he skipped; he remembered himself more, never any longer forgetting to say please or thank you. Slowly too, he began to register his father’s absence; he missed his physical bulk and the stability it represented; he missed the feeling of bodily release that followed their wrestling matches. And for all the way the observable changes were so small, he still had fits of misery.p.169-70.

And while his mind was preoccupied with what to do with André and Jacob, in the face of imminent prosecution of Jews, although from the newspapers it was not so difficult to make out what was happening, from what he had seen or heard, there would be no let-up in the persecution of Jews. He did not pause to consider his own position. His father Levade was three-quarter Jewish, and Julien three-eighths Jewish but since this ridiculous fraction had never mattered to him before, he thought it would not matter to anyone else in France.

Then as the war escalated the free zone became occupied, things were getting dangerous. Levade was taken by the Nazis who had been brought by Benech, and try as they may, no papers could be located to prove his identity as French and to save the Duguay boys, Julien confessed that his father was a Jew. They took him on that fateful cold night, and left a Nazi in charge of the domaine.

Sheer ingenuity or probably luck had them convince the German soldier that they needed to sleep together as a couple for the last time. To arouse his anger giving charlotte a chance to escape and ensure that the boys were moved to safety and for Julien to move somewhere safe, they resorted to making love noisily to agitate the German. The trick worked and when he came over to push Charlotte away, this gave Julien a chance to wrestle him and take possession of his gun. The plan was to kill Benech, to which he succeeds. The kids were not to survive later after being moved to Anne-Marie’s and something tells me that Pauline Benoit, a Gaullist told on them.

Partly the redemptive bit is having Benech exterminated, and the determination of Julien in doing this would provide safety to the boys and possibly give him a chance to escape, or so he thought. Later before Charlotte left for London, she made a trip to Paris to see Levade for she had heard the trains were destined there. Of course nothing had prepared her for the shock of the concentration camps, and much as she managed to get a message to him, explaining that Julien was trying to save the boys, Monsieur Levade died that evening. And as she waited some more, when children were dropped, she thought she has seen the Duruguay boys:

In the camps they had to wear a yellow cloth with a star, and anyone seen without it in the camp would automatically be included in the next transport and so was any internee seen on the women’s staircases.

It’s painful to see Sylvie and Anne-Marie lose the boys to the German soldiers even when Sylive was willing to compromise herself to the soldiers to save the boys; an act Anne-Marie’s mother could not fathom and told on the boys. The horrible sound of childish screams upstairs as they were roughed away is extremely devastating.

The rumours was that there was no work at the other end of the trains and that the Jews were being exterminated by the thousand. People would throw themselves from storied floors once they learnt that their names were on the list and in the camps there seemed to be no sympathy for the dead for someone else would go in the trains on their behalf.

“Outside again, he went over to where the bus was now leaving the compound. There  mire buses had been and gone in the meantime, and Andre found a number of children of his age wandering among the hundreds of forgotten bundles and bags, looking for some identifying mark. One boy sat cross-legged on the cinders, his head between his knees. Andre noticed the scabs and sores on the back of his hands, which were clamped round his neck. The boy appeared to be immobilized; it was as though he had found the point beyond which he could not go. Andre saw the fair hairs on his neck, matted together with filth…pg. 442

Back inside:

“there was a solid wailing in the room as though the children’s nerve had given way in a collective wave of despair. The older ones could no longer comfort the younger, and even the women who tried to help them were in tears”

The gossip of gas and crematoria would seem far-fetched but the reality of the destination was sealed when they got to the bus. There was no sense of time passing in the train and the stretched hours would not amount to days, though they were in the second night. A man had died in their wagon and everyone was edging away from the body. And finally the train came to a halt. It was deep night.]

There was elation: at last they had arrived. Then some smoke came through the slit, a pungent smoke.

..”Now they were in a line of children and old people. They were climbing into Lorries.

Andre was at the back. They went past a long ditch in which ragged flames were rising. From a tipped lorry, what looked to André like giant dolls with broken limbs were being poured into the trench.

They stopped at tow whitewashed farmhouses with thatched roofs. The lorry’s headlights showed up pretty fruit trees.

Now they were naked. It was very cold in this room. Jacob took André’s hand and found that there was already something in it-a tin soldier.

Andre kissed Jacob’s shorn head, the stubble tender on his lips.

There was another room, another door, with bolts and rubber seals, over whose threshold the two boys, among many others, went through icy air, and disappeared. Pg 460.

Gregory found his way back to London through Italy, and into North Africa. Sounds major luck for someone with a fractured leg and terrible French in an occupied country. Charlotte went back to London, helpless that there’s nothing more she could have done to save the boys. Through her reconciliation with the father, we are let to know more horrors of the previous war, that left him, and many others devastated. Octave wrote to Daniele to let her know that the boys were taken, he had not heard from the father though he hoped the worst rumours about the camps and so on were not true (poor soul) and that he had hid in some hills for safety. Despite the squalor and the shame and bloodshed that would come, he still felt great hope about freedom to come.

The winner is the resolution of redemptive love that withstands the war-time promises….

..as Charlotte reunites with her lover Gregory…..As they came near to it, Charlotte slipped her hand into Gregory’s and found that it had already contained something – the handle of his stick.

She held on tight to his arm, nevertheless, as they walked through the porch, stepped over the stone threshold, worn smooth and low by many centuries of people passing through. They crossed into the cold interior of the church, heavy with the scent of cut flowers and the murmuring of the organ, into the soft air, and disappeared.pg. 496

Whilst it’s a fictional book, the Author indicates that it heavily relies on actual or tries to represent the historical background as it actually was. If you are a lover of history, you will like the powerful representation of the harrowing incidents surrounding WW2, and if you are not into history, you can never escape the reality that our present lives have been shaped by past events, and how we respond to it, may determine how we handle or prevent future recurrences. There is a stark contrast, for example, with the dissemination of information today for it can be argued that the social media, and even traditional media, would not allow the world to be dark to events such as the horrible holocaust of the Jews. There is consolation in the fact that the world has a medium to know, and possibly nudge an action. This is in contrast to times discussed in the novel (clearly not an information age, like today) when all they relied on was the wireless to send coded messages. I got thinking, ‘but how miserable!’, and perhaps this explains why by the time the world realized, the lives of 6 Million Jews & other minorities were no more. Gassed poisonously and cremated.

British people laughed at Hitler and his preposterous acolytes, but, as German philosopher long before the Nazis might have argued, abstract evil did not choose the form in which it emerged in the particular. Pg. 122

Whilst the statement is debatable in many ways, I find many of the atrocities that were done in history utterly disgusting. Despairing. Squalid. Mean. Horrid. Undignified deaths. The disturbing bit is while many know of the holocaust of the Jews, and there was the international backing, there is little known of our own histories. For example the Namibian Holocaust, or the holocaust in Congo, or the slave trade in East Africa to Persia or did the world just choose to forget that the trail of blood existed or treated them as fables? Or are terrible times best forgotten?

Despite being awful base creatures, man still has ability to be good. Sometimes evil and good would exist together, or sometimes next to each other. You will find this in beautiful souls like Julien (Octave). His words to Charlotte:

If you don’t base your actions on what is right then you have nothing left to fall back on incase the practicalities fail. I would rather die myself. I am not going to be responsible for the death of the children.

 

Njoro~A short story

It’s an evening, on a stroll home, a usual routine on such days that permit a long walk from the office. I pass by the shoemaker, in a market someone called ‘Marigiti’. Why, at dusk, there are series of bulbs hanging underneath the sacks-made roof of the shacks that is their stalls. Typically, a normal market place would not afford the luxury of such lighting, reasons the Matatu tout. I make a mental note, particularly after sneaking a peak at his awe when he points out this wonder to the bus driver. My eyes wander, and I check up this shoe maker, with his display of Akala shoes. I strike a lame conversation, mostly bidding to find out a little about their trade. He tries to persuade me to buy a pair but I respond I would buy a pair another day.

Alas, and there is some chicken business underneath the display of his merchandise. I don’t seem to see any symbiotic nature to this shoe and chicken arrangement, but being amidst grocery stalls, the connection instantly becomes evident. I role-play in my mind, taking the place of the shoe maker but it’s not clear how I would thrive in this informal sector. Supposing I didn’t have the advantage of a good education, and the luck of a formal job?, wouldn’t necessity then force me to invent a way to thrive, even in this sector? Education is not the only variable to this argument, but it occurs to me that it has greatly increased my chances in a different sector.

The shoe-guy says he lives in Kibish city, a fond way in reference to Kibra, and I momentarily forget all the anecdotes to the informal settlement. I walk on, and venture into Toi Market. I am not looking for anything in particular so I detour to “Mathy’s Place”. She used to own a salon, before it was flattened under the cover of darkness by some hired goons. And unable to count her losses, changed trade to a “clothing line”, dealing in secondhand children wear. Her business has thrived, and she replenishes her stock from Gikomba Market regularly. I don’t know her name, but I call her Mathy, always beaming a smile when I approach her ‘boutique’ made of rusted corrugated iron sheets. Her neighbor, Moraa, once didn’t open her store for a week, because she was praying over her business. She had invited some prayer partners to help her pray for posterity, and they spent a week humming prayers behind closed doors. I sigh at this revelation.

Moraa, Mathy says buys her Mtumba from a supplier in Karen who imports from Sweden. She refused to make the business introduction, so Mathy settled to get supplies from Gikosh. Secondhand children wear from Sweden is of good quality, Mathy laments, as if to regret that she cannot access them.

Her generosity keeps me from stopping by many times when “sunshine shopping” at Toi. A good thing, generosity but it doesn’t go well with her when I turn down her invitations to a soft drink, more so with no liberties to pay for that drink if I was to oblige. So today, I am invited to coffee. Black coffee. Coffee is my poison, but I politely turn the offer down. She thinks am watching my weight. Well, I always do but I chose to ignore the remark. I hold her disposable cup, against Njoro’s big coffee urn. Damn! I could drop it. It’s burning hot, my fingers I mean. For a reason I could not conjure, they fill it to the brim, cares to how hot the black liquid is, clearly not a consideration. The clients like it that way. And scones, or a big toast, smeared with lumps of Margarine. I pass the cup to Mathy, who copiously drinks, and before paying, engages the young man in a conversation.

He is Njoro. Njoro wears an oversize apron, which sags at the sides with monies. The coins he gets paid for watering the stall owners’ throats. He is taken aback by Mathy’s question.

Njoro, hebu nikuulize, how much do you make in a day?

Njoro seems uncomfortable, as Mathy prods.

Hiyo kibuyu inabeba vikombe ngapi? Na useme ukweli. Usinidanganye.

Njoro probably feeling safer with the conversation now says sixty. It’s some huge urn. It’s a wonder he is not walking with a side stoop yet, probably it’s balanced by the coins in his huge pockets.

I feign disinterest in the conversation, to encourage them to speak on, while doing the calculations in my head.

Njoro supplies 4 urns of black coffee to the stall vendors every day. And he has a polythene bag with smeared slices of bread in it. He sells a cup of coffee for 10bob, and my simple book keeping in the head, I declare, “Well done Njoro.” You have a good business, keep it up. Encouraged, he confides that much as he doesn’t like to discuss finances, he makes enough money to live comfortably. All factors constant, Njoro he makes KES 60, 000/per month.

Niambie, nitahitaji kuajiriwa na nani?

I affirmatively respond that self-employment is a tick. He plans to hire two people to help him in the business, which typically involves moving around the clothes stalls vending black coffee. I wish him luck but not without pondering the harsh and non-encouraging climate for Entrepreneurship that thrives in this country.

Unbeknownst to the demolisher of the stalls a year earlier, the entrepreneurial spirit seems to override any kind of impediments. They build their lives back again, and move on. And it is this kind of resilience that even the government seems to misinterpret, and imagine that the SME owners will somehow go around their problems. So we all soak in the response that the government can only do so much, and people need to see what to do for their country ‘read government’. I am of the opinion that if the climate for entrepreneurship is to get better, there is still a lot the government should do. Like ensure security, affordable housing, better roads etc. But no, they will concentrate on taxes, if they invent or innovate; it must be a new way to tax the already burdened tax payer. And that extends to your death, in some counties. And if they get better at it, it’s outshining each other at winning tenders. The small man, struggling to make it each day, is too small to be fitted to their matrix.

What poverty does or necessity, more aptly put, is push people up the invention ladder. They have to invent ways to survive, even if it means rearing chick beneath a market stall ridden with toxic waste, or building a shack above a raw sewer drain, and without a care to E-Coli and other sickly bacterium, proceed to fry chips therein, and I forgot how tamuu those dirty fries usually are, for some reason—and we don’t get sick, do we? Not yet so. Maybe because no bacteria can withstand such high temperatures from the furious heat. What I don’t understand is mostly the beaming smile from most of these street vendors; they always seem to keep moving.

I am off my reverie, when Kajuju walks in. She is wearing a white turban, bandana style, which circles the middle circumference of her head, and whether on purpose, leaves the side hairs protruding above her ears. She vibes Mathy, and she may have noted my disagreement with their views, upon which out of the blues am declared not worthy to give an opinion. I am happy so.

The chastening is of the girl across the street. She always seems to laugh and smile, alone, they chide. She has Facebook on her phone, and its evil, they opine. It’s a useless recourse to try and inform a willingly ignorant person, and that’s how I earn a rebuke. I chide, but raise my voice again, to explain to Mathy that Facebook is a social media platform, but thanks to her ignorance, fueled by imagined demons as explained by Kajuju, she just doesn’t get the how to virtually connect with many people, and as you lay your bum on the heap of mtumba clothes awaiting your customers, you are seen to be laughing alone. It must be the witches who are doing their thing to make your clothes stall full of people. Kajuju is in a trade, revealed as she explains to Mathy how so-and-so, got blessed by her visit. She gets some coins from Mathy too, hums a blessing and leaves the stall. City Council people come in, to receive their collection. Mathy makes a bargain blaming low sales, but they are immune to her pleading. As the city council person leaves the stall, I don’t ask what services she thinks that the government owes her business for such levies.

Book Review: Shreds of Tenderness by John Ruganda

DISCOVERING THE MIND

A riveting drama, you will find the themes in this book interweaving your thoughts on the realities of present day African countries. You will also cackle at the humour of the daily lives of the characters, despite their otherwise difficult situations. Grab your copy, and enjoy the intricacies therein but until then, see my review:

Oh, no Wak. I know you probably mean well. In fact, I know you mean well. But, no. Let me do my penance, if need be. If the forces that be are rounding up all SRB spies, so be it. Let them. I’m not scared of the law. I’ll serve my term and keep my dignity. Pg. 134

The first book that I read written by J. Ruganda was “The Burdens”, and whether from the dramatic presentation of this work by my high school teacher or the sheer love of words, I simply loved this drama. Published in 2001 by Oxford University Press, Shreds of Tenderness is set in a greedy society, which is characteristic of political dictatorship, greed for power, betrayal that is edged in family and political relations, individualism and use of excessive power to harness into submission the disloyal errants. It is also about survival in times of political tyranny. It also sheds light to the survival and plight of refugees, the lack of belonging “while on the run” and the lack of acceptance, “when they come back home”

Set in the present and in home of a fallen affluent minister (Odie and Wak’s late father), the flash backs and “play-within-a play” helps the reader see through the atrocities committed by the fallen tyrannical regime. Odie plays the “King of Termites” who lives in a glass jar, excerpt:

Your Highness…

Your Highness. Having a royal nap, your Highness, are you? A royal nap inspite of the shooting and the shelling and the killing outside? (A bit impatient). YOUR HIGHNESS. Are you deaf, Your Mighty Highness? Or is it that you have no ear for the onslaughts of man by man? No ear for human cries of woe? I’m amazed! No Shred of tenderness left in you? The liberation war is upon our backs and you take time off to have a royal nap. Cosy, very cosy indeed. Cosy and careless, I might add. Pg. 2

Notes: This depicts the obliviousness of those in power, and their indifference to people’s suffering caused by the war of liberation.

Since Wak returned from exile, Odie is never the same. His abnormial behavior is edged in a deep hatred for Wak, whom he views as a bloody deserter. A bloody unforgivable traitor, to be exact. Pg. 8 & 9. But Odie’s hatred is also laced with fear. Possibly fear that Wak’s presence will unearth sudden truths regarding his exile and his supposed death. It could also stretch to the motives behind Odie’s informing on his brother Wak, the issue of inheritance. Even Stella seems to notice the strange behavior:

You have been behaving strangely since he returned three weeks ago. Haven’t you? (pg.11).

To his defense against sister’s accusation, Odie points out that Stella must be a crack pot to think that Wak should scare him. Why, he has survived 10 years of dire violence, where every second was a nightmare and life unpredictable hence got not time for a sausage-and-bacon returnee who did not have as much guts as a cowardly chimpanzee when the bullets started ricocheting. (pg.12)

Odie would like the reader to believe that his hatred for Wak is justified, that he shouldn’t have cowed and ran away at the height of political unrest. The sister, Stella feels something more sinister is at play. Something unsettling. Some kind of guilt that Odie seems to harbour within. She doesn’t seem to see the how to the realization of the horrors of genocide 10 years on (pg. 9). Odie must be hiding something from her. Some projected inner guilt, calling for a purging.

While the people who stayed on suffered unmentionable atrocities, even the people who fled as refugees suffered a great deal.

“..You stayed and lived through the quagmire, as best as you could. I can imagine that and I appreciate it intensely. But fleeing from your own country…that’s another matter, man. A different kettle of fish, as they say. There is nothing as abominable as being a refugee, let me tell you. Shouted at. Your dignity is lowered. Hell, man. It is a blight….self-exile is another matter of course………….From the sweeper to the highest official they subtly remind you that you don’t belong. You are an alien. Pg. 80

At first you live under false illusions……But then, all of a sudden, you get the first rude shock from both local and foreign press. Headlines alone are enough to tell you their thinking processes: ‘MARXIST TYRANT BOOTED OUT BY A POPULAR ILLITERATE SERGEANT MAJOR’…’COUP IS A VICTORY FOR DEMOCRACY…’WE RECOGNIZE STATES NOT INDIVIDUALS’ ……I had believed the regime would be in a shambles in a matter of months. I was wrong and naïve, to be frank. The regime had minerals that the West and the East wanted and were willing to cast a blind eye on one buffoon of a nigger trashing other niggers…………..We never realized that our endowments would be our undoing! Pg. 82 & 83

Whilst the country of setting would pass for Kenya (mention of Odeon Cinema-pg. 76), it could also pass for any other East African country but more particularly so, a country anywhere in Africa. The leaders using their political powers to influence extra-judicial killings, sharing of power etc…Rings a bell? I laughed out loud when there is a tug between Wak and his brother Odie (step-brothers) about sharing of power after they could not agree to the Primer rules, and this made me flash back to 2008 Kenya “power sharing” deal. It’s interesting this book was written in 2001, almost fore-shadowing the events of 2008, and any other political duels where power sharing ratios have become part of the solution to political stalemates.

Odie: I didn’t realize that our self-appointed Returning Officer was going to be biased and bribable. Besides my call for an independent observer team to monitor the elections was deliberately ignored.

Wak: And yet you objected because you were sure of winning, right? But now you have lost, it’s another matter. Is defeat such an unacceptable burden? Christ! We can’t all be winners, you know. Pg. 60 & 61

As the primer game goes on, and with Wak’s 2/3^rd majority win, giving him the clear mandate to change laws, rules and regulations as fit, the disagreements dwell on matters principle and the mundane too. Wak is considered common place thinker, as Odie thinks something more authentic to fit in what the publishers want is more appropriate. You would think authentic would also do with telling a truth. But not so, in the hard times, pleasing the judges would mean the prize of $5000 is such a welcome token, in the tough times they live in. Whilst one accuses the other of a country betrayal, there is also a sense of conformity, even if it means re-writing their story to fit the judge’s profile, for survival sake. “Competition for the New Alphabet Book for the Revolutionary Third World” Not Africa, Third World. So A-as a primer would not work for Africa but for Autocracy—argues Odie. “ A may be for your mother Africa, but remember in ten or twenty years’ time there will be children who will learn with bitterness that your Africa, and Brazil and Cuba, ‘Mr. Chair’, are not their motherlands but graveyards for their parents and relatives. We are busy rewriting our histories with the blood of millions of political martyrs, and our children will have the misfortune of learning that with spouts of tears and self-hatred. (pg. 62)

….And the drama ensues, with Stella suggesting B–for the Bible,earlier on she had suggested A-for Amen to which Odie refutes, and implores her to be imaginative for a change. Well, B-Bible doesn’t work either, not at least as far as Odie’s maxims theorizes.

Look at it this way, Stella. I’m not saying that BIBLE is a wrong entry. No. (Patronisingly) In fact, it’s very good; it would win the soft sentiments of our Christian mothers and fathers and all that. But who knows? One of these fine mornings, when cocks are crowing and the likes of Wak are snoring off their whisky fumes, some influential maniac might decide to proclaim this our ‘Pearl of Africa” and Islāmic state. What then?….What will happen then? We do not want to endanger our Christian brothers and sisters, do we? That aside, the Bible has bullied us into subjugation for over a century. ….. No, Stella, we need a new primer altogether, with entries from the Koran or some other holy books-if you are religiously inclined that is. pg.67-8

The drama also focuses on a domestic setting; shedding light to acts of three siblings, Wak, Odie and Stella. In Part one, the reader is led to believe that Odie is a patriot, who stayed behind amidst political turmoil, while Wak his brother is depicted as a betrayer of his country and family. The reader is set to believe that Wak, who ran away to political exile after emptying the family’s coffers and leaving behind an ailing mother in hospital deserves no place in the reconstruction of the country. Stella feels strongly for Wak, something Odie detests and is quick to warn her “And you little sister, be careful; this kith-and-kin-nonsense doesn’t wash with me”

Odie’s hypocrisy is deep hidden in the resentment for his brother and the unraveling of his return. He seems too preoccupied by his guilt. He had plotted his brother’s downfall–and after 10 years in exile, ran an advert to the belief that his brother was dead. This was to make him an accepted heir of his father’s property, to which Wak was the rightful heir.

Conversely Wak passes as a callous fellow, who would rather Wak be punished for “abdicating his patriotic duties”, it turns out that Wak is willing to extend a reconciliatory gesture to his brother Odie. Stella is really afraid of Wak’s supposed callousness, but he corrects her that Odie is brother…no tears need be shed. There is a re-conciliatory embrace…perhaps depicting a healing to/reconciliation of the nation too. Turns out the cold-hearted, bitter Odie is the callous one. He didn’t mind their grandma’s death, terming it Good Riddance,..”she always ate her biscuits alone.” “Never shed a tear nor even apologized when their father died”. Pg.76

To Odie’s utter incredulousness, he is forgiven, even after he insists that he wants to do his penance…, something that takes Wak and Stella in shock. Are you out of your mind? Pg. 134

On the contrary, I have discovered my mind.

Makomboki Trip; A case of development through empowerment

Today I want to ask like my comrade Bob M. We always hear of English coffee and English tea. Where in Britain do they have a single tree of coffee or tea bush? Just asking?

I came across these questions asked by some random stranger and it got me thinking of how we perceive our production process and gains that come with it.You can also wish it away as some ignorant question depending on your view point. African countries largely depend on Agriculture and mostly so, EAC countries. And looking at the figures that largely influence our GDP for example, you get to understand why Agriculture is literally, the backbone of the economy. I mostly think we are in it so much as economic activity than for the love of it. It’s the bread that feeds our hunger. It pays our bills. And no wonder our frustrations when our efforts are exploited by a middle hand or do not pay off handsomely.

I recently did a field visit accompanied by colleagues to some of our producers and we set out with a mind to visit a tea SPO and some small flower farm in Thika. I was in the company of a bunch of colleagues with varied nationalities among them a Brit and a German.

We left early, having agreed to pick the German  from his hotel at 7.30am. We had issued a prior warning that we are on EAT lest he wakes up 2 hours earlier. Well, a week-long visit hasn’t been LONG enough to adjust to our time anyway. He has daily been thrilled by Elephant beer parties that my colleague has been treating him to. We apologize for showing up at the hotel late, hey, got nothing to do with the African and ‘their’ never keeping time tendencies as we are always thought of. Why, even the Brit was a few minutes late this morning. In Okot P’ Bitek’s Songs of Lawino….do you remember Lawino lamenting about the western culture that has raided a destructive effect on our African culture? The simplicity of our African culture prior to the Mzungu ways was heavenly or so I want to imagine. You know, working in a multicultural diverse environment has brought this book to life in more ways than one. Speaking of our lack to respect time tendencies, as Lawino says, the Africans had their way of describing time in terms of seasons, nature, cockcrow etc. This was later used to validate the notion that the African has no futuristic tense, or if you may like, doesn’t think about tomorrow. So, next time a Mzungu yaps about your inability to keep time, tell them I said we should never be imprisoned by time. We were designed to watch out for the cock crow at dawn to tell us it’s morning, check the position of the sun to tell us the different times of the day et al. I am honestly amazed at how the African copes with the new concept of civilization. If you ask me, we are more tenacious.

The  German , as we were later to learn woke up at dawn thanks to some Mullah who kept saying his prayers at, he can almost swear, an interval of five minutes. Do you have Muslims in Germany? Yes, except that you don’t notice them. Ahem! We get into the Thika Super-Highway and the shock on the Elephant beer guy at the sight of people running outwit the motorists to cross double lanes was ridiculous. One of my former colleagues, still a German, talked about it this way..”My God, I almost got a heart attack”…People crossing the superhighway!!! In Germany, the police would be called to the scene because people would think you are suicidal. Well, I sigh. In Kenya, no-one really cares about that anyway. I am so intent to have a field day—and learn about Producer empowerment, sustainable livelihoods and the positive impact our work is creating.

We actually get lost twice in Thika as we try to trace Blue Post Hotel where we are to re-organize ourselves and plan our day. We ended our trip at a small flower farm that is off Thika away towards Gatanga. It’s got about 24 greenhouses and it’s fun seeing what work goes on in a typical flower farm. I am excited at the prospect of receiving flowers…., I hope so. Roses never have been my favorite but I fell in love with the “high and peace rose” the instant we met. As we stroll through the field, only one question lingers in my mind—“do the women who work in a flower farm actually enjoy receiving flowers?” I ask the guide and he quite can’t answer it. Everyone in the group gets curious and it prompts our guide to call a lady worker to answer us. Yes, they actually enjoy receiving flowers. For your information, the flowers that we get in shops locally or at a local florist are normally the “reject”. The best is packed for export. Most of it to France(from that particular farm). Did I say I left the flower farm with a cold bug? Why, I entered the receiving area which is at 7°C and later the packing area which is at 3°C. A freezer kind of and well, joked with my colleagues that we instantly moved from tropical Africa to Europe. By the way, thumbs up to those men who work in those “Freezers”. I doubt the eskimo jackets they wear can bust that cold. Lo!

We  spent most of our day at the tea SPO, called Makomboki Tea Factory, where our trip started. Now you know why “Makomboki” post. It’s located across the Ndakaini dam in Kangari. We get lost lost again and this gives us a chance to see the dam that supplies Nairobi with water. The terrain is sloppy because the area is on the slopes of the Aberdares. Well, I only knew the Aberdares from the Nyandarua/Ol kalou  side, which you can also access through Makomboki. We are received by enthusiastic staff, and much as this was intended to be an informal visit, it takes some formal twist as we learn about the history and what the factory has been up to. It’s one of the many Fairtrade Certified factories and has been since 2006. Looking back, they have a strong story to tell and the benefits to the farmers have been manifold. It’s thrilling to hear stories of farmers being in charge of their own destinies. As I listen to the impact and empowerment theme, from governance to development, I can only think about the developmental possibilities and positive change the country would experience if farmers or the local Mwananchi was empowered.

The Manager shared their experience of empowerment of area residents through benefits from premium funds generated from tea sales made mainly in Europe. Well, from their stats, as at June 30,  2011, they had received premiums of about USD 1M. which has been invested in myriad community development projects including schools, maternity wings, water projects, play grounds, footpaths, bursaries, water dams, dispensary, youth training et al.

They have accomplished so much within a short period of time and of the projects they point out, two capture my mind. One, a classroom floor(s) they carpeted (cemented), when the jigger menace had threatened the feet of school children. Well, Murang’a has its story with jiggers but I always thought jiggers are never a problem in high altitude areas. Tongue in cheek, I remember in a matatu towards Meru someday and when we reached around Kutus, my drunk seatmate began thrilling us with a story about jigger menace in some parts of Murang’a. He said that even one of the local area chief was leading by example. Why, he had purportedly been on news for jigger infestation. True or not, I can never tell.

Another case that I found quite interesting was a school that they started from scratch. Bought a 3-acre piece of land, built classrooms and the students that they started with are now in standard 6. Wow! Students no longer walk for 5 kilometers to school. They have also bought some 300 acres of land and planted trees and am amazed not just at the much Fairtrade is doing to uplift the standards of living of producers in developing countries but actually the change that empowerment brings. We are later to visit one of their dispensaries that has since been handed over to the government and a maternity wing that they are putting up behind the facility. Well, even a little tot was born there the previous week. What comes to mind as we look at these positive impact projects is the role of public-private partnerships, empowerment of farmers/producers etc. Comes to mind is what the CDF funds have done over the years…Definitely; the allocation of these funds is even more than these premiums in some cases. If transparency and accountability was enforced, there is no limit to what can be achieved. Also a case of alternative administration of  aid. Probably what works is not handouts but re-organizing the economic aid matrix in a way that the recipients are in charge of their own needs. Maybe, the CDF governance has got to learn a lot on the administration of the premiums from the cooperatives model.

My colleague tells me of a constituency at the Coast province that used the same model. It carried out a participatory rural needs assessment and developed a 5 year plan with allocated funding etc. Unfortunately when a new MP came in, he brought with him his own model and that was a dead end.

Well, you take tea from the local store shelves and as you enjoy the rich sip, maybe you have never had a chance to see the production process. I have posted it below.

It was fun seeing how the raw product from the field goes through the production process…stage by stage to the packaging for auction!!! Looking at the stages reminded my of my bro’s mishap when we were little children. As  typical boys, my brothers were adventurous and to wade them off risky adventures which included hiking the stationary tea lorry as raw leaf was loaded, we had always told them the carrier would take off with them for grinding in a tea factory. Well, none of us knew where these warnings would take us for the 8 year old, and his 10 year old brother, not long afterwards became casualties. I am partly posting this to mock off his little ignorance at the time that would have saved him the near fatal accident that left him a convalescent kid with a broken skull for months. True to our threats to keep him in safety, the carrier took off with both of them, amongst other village boys. Well, the furthest they knew was uncle’s home 200 meters away and once the carrier passed by his gate, they knew their goose,gander and goose-lings were cooked. The little boys figured out that jumping off a speeding carrier, which was midway cruising  hilly section of the road would save them the grinding experience at the factory. How wrong!!! How sad!!! The youngest jumped off first and tragically had a huge rock for his landing ground. The left skull was damaged so bad that the dude got unconscious. The elder one started counting his jump but was luckily intercepted by the other boys. Well, both survived but took months in and out of hospital. Well, Koome this is for you dude, even if they took you to the factory, they for sure would have intercepted a whole living you at one of the many production stages! From what I saw, the pain would only have started at the maceration stage and there are awful many stages before that, that would have discovered you among the leaf:-)

 It’s one of those reflective experiences that also made me commit to making a conscious decision to aid the rural farmers in community development by not only supporting our work but also buying ethically labelled products. Buy Fair!

 

Memory into childhood, and how a caterpillar has jostled me into a creative streak

A fine morning. Fine Sunday morning. I am minding my business, reflectively as I am wont to do on Sundays. I save Sunday mornings for organizing, and structure — and prayer. Then there is the watering of my plants — a hobby I recently rediscovered. While increasing my list of pleasant activities, my confession is that I have gone all into it — and on Sunday morning; I check on which plant is blossoming, and which flower is blooming or which one needs a little help.

A couple of Sundays back, I discovered black droppings on the potting bench. They looked like crisp dried black wax. It later registered when I saw a tiny caterpillar on my plant. I looked right, left and right again while wishing it away. The stubborn thing was coiling its agile body which made me quickly retreat. Is it one of those that coil back before it thunders onto you and clings there? I should have figured that when you see a tiny one, the parent must be lurking by. I reached out into my toolbox for a pair of scissors and pruned the leaf that the offender had clung onto. I then threw the baby away — almost together with my hand. After the incident, I thought it was maybe a bad idea to introduce this plant into the succulent collection — but then isn’t dudu spray supposed to fix this. I had not thought about this beforehand; that when you green, you might need to invest in care for the green space. Well, then you might doubt my farm girl claim. As well as you might doubt my morbid fear of caterpillars, hairy or otherwise. And snakes — the reason I don’t watch Nat geo anymore because my nightmares reached unsustainable levels. And snails –my God! Any lovers of this sticky amphibian might start an appeal to have me fined for the torture I have caused them because the sight of them has had me use my salt shaker in an aggressive manner. Then moments after, I close my eyes as they melt away. And slugs — the black version of snails, making visits to marshy grounds horrendous for me. And chameleons –ha!

This morning. I am about to water the plants when I see a stretched-out caterpillar! This time I take a second but brief look because, Lord above no! My options are limited because my offending way of cutting the leaf won’t work. I swear that as I type on my computer, the thought of tossing the baby with the bath water is alive and well. Except that the bath water is a huge planter that besides the mess of a flying pot with soil crashing on the ground beneath, it might also cause irreparable damage. I cannot afford a suit — and I care deeply about the environment. You might debate my inability to co-exist with creepy crawlies as intolerance to the natural ecosystem as we know it. Not at all.

So, I sit. I ponder. I think of transferring my nightmare to someone else who does not share this inability to process the sight of creepy crawlies. I share this piece of daunting information while pacing up in the house expressing the shock. I even call a family member — who is asleep and is well not amused, because — ah, an adult female who in her many years of existence has not been able to process her fear of creepy crawlies. What a burden to bear!

I remember reading an article sometimes back about a woman who could not leave her house because of caterpillars and how after seeing one at dinner she could not eat lettuce for a whole year. I could relate to that phobia. And I remember reading the article squinting my eyes at the pictured caterpillars — and really sympathizing with her. I thought once I process my own phobia — I would write about this. This is that day, except that I have not processed the phobia. Instead, the phobia has jostled me into creative action — the written experience.

How did we get here? You might ask. I have heard that question numerous times. The contradiction is that I love nature and I will often be found in a farm, or a forest, or a park. Minding my own business until I see the creepy crawlies, or a reptile and my expedition is over. I recently watched a documentary on artisanal mining — and saw this guy casually remark, “shoot, there is a huge snake — a cobra ready to strike”. And they looked at each other, before the reptile quickly slithered away into nearby thicket, perhaps after sensing no threat. I remember thinking, how can you do that. Indeed, on behalf of that guy, I had already mentally jumped into the mine for his safety. Could never be me! I think a snake biologist or similar could never be a career option for me. Imagine I, as a plant pathologist, say specializing in sweet potato vine, and digging my fingers into an innocent furrow with succulent sweet potato vines only to unearth fat healthy worms! I would collapse into the raw open ground.

Back to the origin. I was about 7 years of age. Or younger. I had spent my day collecting coffee beans with my sister — that is what memory says. Or I was doing it alone. I could never tell why we had to collect coffee beans or why filthy looking black beans would make coffee. Neither would the brain of a child process who the end consumer was. But I did it. Then coffee was a cash crop– and the family farm had a decent crop. So, I spent time there, picking red berries only — and eating some; never mind the worms therein. My competition was bats and birds. Strange habits. So, I had occasional run-ins with the caterpillar, and chameleons. My bane was mostly chameleons — because of their famed ability to stick their stubborn self onto your kinky hair, and then methodically work their horn into your scalp exposing your brain to death. See!

This is until an evening, when I followed my mother around. Stubbornly holding her cloak because of a rash that me release a torrent of tears, and mucus and saliva. I could not be comforted because although I had stripped naked, my neck hurt like hell. And despite assurance from my mother that nothing was on my skin, I kept seeing the caterpillar from the corner of my eyes. It was a collar bone that I had confused for a caterpillar that had left become a permanent fixture on me. So, I kept scrubbing it off hysterically until my collar bone became sore. Chomba had passed by to collect a bottle of milk for his grandmother Joyce. Chomba was both my classmate and we also went to Sunday school together. This mortifying show of not only my intense cry, which reached peak level every time I imagined what had caused the rash but also of my little naked self meant one thing. I knew this story would be shared at school and overshared until the next story’s worth.

This experience never left me. And subsequent torments because when you grow up in a farm, the rodents, the reptiles, and the amphibians claim their part in your life. I cannot remember the year, because I relegated these experiences into distant memory, but here they were. A group of white people arrived in our bustling village market. They might have been from ICIPE or a similar dudu institute. And they had an offer. The going price for spiders et al might have been 5 dollars. Chomba was a little grown by now. A young man who had dropped out of school and initiated into young adulthood. An idler, as thought by long suffering school abiding children like me who thought of education as the ticket to better freedom. So Chomba and his friends were enticed to this expedition of catching spiders and other crazy life-threatening species from nearby places. So, our farm was descended upon given its proximity to the market. While I reveled at how quickly they made the dollar, how did they know which banana tree to strip or which natural fence the spiders inhabited. They had a collection to deliver. Of all shapes, sizes and variety. The white people picked what they wanted, paid and left as quickly as they had come. The fear now intensified to how dangerous the farms were.

My siblings knew of this fear — and made misery out of my life. I would be minding my business the next minute I would be on a sprint into safety only to come back because they had either apprehended me to submission or stashed a live caterpillar in my clothes. The conflict within me would get worse because my name as a child was spelt adventure. I swung on trees like a bat in fig season and switched to hopping like a monkey during loquat season. My brothers helped me perfect this skill. I brought a stash of fresh fruit to school each season. A child of many talents. I could do both well in school and on trees so why not! This talent showcase went on for years. I remember my little brother, then a toddler of one year crying in shock when I feel off a branch of tree when reaching out for yellow passion. I did it for him, but he was too little to understand this venture.

Back to the chameleon story. It was a loquat season. So yellow. So big. So round. So succulent. In plenty. My father had planted them all over. And avocados. So, we had plenty. A Friday evening, and my sister was always begging for her share at the trunk. We heard her prayers sometimes. Other times her pleas reached God’s ears and nightmares came twinkling down. One days these nightmares came during the day in form of chameleons. They had lurched onto my arms. In plenty. Picture this. I am sat on a firm branch, reaching out for a heavy twig then swinging it close and eating the juicy fruit one by one. The crazy swinging of the branches must have sent the chameleons into panic. And they fought back. The grip was tight, hence the futility in rubbing them off my arm. I let go and came tumbling off the branches. Into a final fall. Still like rock with chameleons splashed around me. Although nothing was broken, things changed. The swooshing occasioned by my fall invited my father to our forbidden activities. He showed up lighting up like a storm, and with a machete. I thought the machete was aimed at my sister. My father is not a violent man. But I also knew we had long tested his patience. So, I swung into action — crying for my sister. A misplaced cry because, child! You should have wept for the tree. In minutes, the tree, its fruit and chameleons were felled. And in its place, he planted some more. The punishment for us to learn our lesson by waiting for another tree to grow into fruitiness. Sigh!

And today we are here. I was at Mzima springs last year, and my gaze into the beautiful source of the waters was interrupted by caterpillars and I have vowed not to be back. But how far can you run, people around me always ask. Good question because while increasing my plant collection, I brought the enemy right at my door step. And now my phobia is alive and well. And I handle it by writing – the best way I know how. Until it is handled by dudu spray. This is the reason I am a bird watcher. I love birds. They have never harmed me! Oh, and my sister’s day came. She got bitten by a black mamba!

Seeing Norway- Besseggen Final part

WRITEthinking

Hike route -Maria

In my wanderlust experience, I have never had to go to any extreme places, and near death experiences do not naturally lure me. I always calculate what I can handle as I like my feet firmly on the ground. But as I found out from climbing Bessegen, my attitude shaken, I was to stand on a sandy ground – except that the ground was a piece of solid rock, and occasionally the protruding glaciers would remind me the deathly stare that hangs around the mountains—and the icy cold lakes beneath would stare at me – with but a calm dare. I perfected the habit of looking ahead – to the next step, and only looking around, when I had my feet solid and my attitude unshaken. This would be a first.

While starting out, I was upbeat and fresh –I wore my braids held loosely at the…

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