Last Monday, while I was supposed to be posting a post something on this blog, I was on a small chartered aircraft headed Northern Kenya with a bunch of a dozen or so writers and photographers. Kenya Tourism Board was picking the tab. KTB is a hoot. They don’t whine. They don’t pinch pennies. You want a good tot of expensive whisky? No problem. What is that that item, number 6 on the A la carte menu? It doesn’t matter, would you like to wash it down with some Pinotage? They will put you up in a 50k a night lodge, a lodge so close to sunset you can hear God fry bacon in his kitchen when the sun crawls up. They will drive you over valleys and mountains in search of the lion and when you finally see the king of the jungle in darkness, headed out to hunt you will feel your manhood diminish. You will feel helpless in its proximity, because the Lion is the shit. In exchange of this generosity KTB will need copy. Good copy. That understanding is clear.
So for a six days we transversed Laikipia, Tsavo and Shompole hobnobbing with the Maasai – who undoubtedly were silently miffed by our weakness, we stayed up late at night getting smashed and in the process missing the “magic of the African night” as some enthralled odiero once described it. The following day when it was so hot outside we could smell our livers get flame grilled in the insane heat, we would huddle by the swimming pool in our dreadful looking swimming shorts and try and bang copy with the only noise in the still African outdoors consisting of the incessant pecking of our laptop keypads. It’s good fun when someone calls you over to show off the intro to a story they are writing and for you to be secretly envious of the their creative word play. It’s good fun watching someone sit there blankly staring into the horizon, seeking for words, paddling through the uncooperative sea of the English language in search of the right word that will make a sentence sing. It’s good fun to watch the unwavering passion of the very fastidious photographers who disregard their hangovers to wake up at the crack of dawn to wait for that shot of sunrise or a yawning hippo. It’s good fun when someone reads aloud a paragraph of the book they are reading. It’s good fun to be away from traffic jams and the unceasing rat race that defines the city you have left many hundred kilometers away. It’s hysterical.
And from these trips I meet and learn a lot about people. Below are some people I met, people who stirred something in me enough to take a picture of them.
The little Flower of Il Ngwesi.
We visited this Maasai Village to rid ourselves of ignorance and learn something about the Maasai. The area is called Il Ngwesi which means, the people of wildlife. Corny, I know. The sun was about to set and so the cows were coming home to roost, driven home by the young morans with tight chins and white knees. I saw this little girl put these little goats in a round enclosure. What do you call a baby goat anyway? Someone?
There was something about her that I loved, something which said, “I might be small but please don’t take my picture before you ask me nicely.” Something which reminded you of your manners because we go down to these places and take pictures of these people like they are animals. She might have been in tattered clothes but she seemed to posses more dignity than all of us put together. So I sauntered over, no strike that, I swaged over, hoping she would be impressed or something, hoping to get a smile. She didn’t care. I asked her for a photo. She seemed to nod unsurely, so I took her a quick one before she could change her mind. Then I fished inside my pockets and handed her two shiny twenty shillings coins. She was pleased and she rewarded me with a quick smile. A most gorgeous smile. I turned around to see if anyone was looking and indeed one of the KTB girls, Lilian, was staring at her. “That smile, you saw it right? Amazing isn’t it?” I said to her to which, after a brief significant pause, she sort of sighed resignedly and said, “Like a fist around your heart.” And I loved that; a fist around your heart. I really did love that sound bite. A fist around your heart. Totally cultivated!
Sunrise
I’m not one of those people who go gaga over sunrise or sunset. I find some indulgences worthless. But at Shompole lodge – one of the best lodges I’ve visited – a playing ground for the rich and famous, I watched this sunrise. Here is how. The units at Shompole have no doors or walls, that means you can see the wilderness from anywhere in your room. You basically sleep in the open. Yesterday this sunrise threw an orange glow in my room waking me up. I stirred and sat up in my bed and I reached over for my camera and snapped it. And I’m proud of this shot. Proud because I was hangied.
Ps. The water you see in the foreground is a swimming pool. Every room has its own private swimming pool, which is perfect for people with horrid swimming costumes.
What’s your drink?
I walked up to this guy at Shompole and asked him if he could hook me up Guloriti. This is a traditional concoction made from tree backs boiled and then sieved. It’s good for cleansing the system. It’s good for fatigue. It’s good when you feel your body isn’t on point. I hear it’s also good for male virility. Look, my virility is fine, I’m totally okay, I swear, so please don’t
go saying Biko is taking Maasai Viagra. But if it helps my virility I shall let you guys know, because you know you want to know! Thing is this guy brought me a liter of this and when I asked him how much it was he said, “An old man sold me that medicine, in my culture if you sell medicine it won’t work. So consider it a gift.” I thought, “What nonsense” and squeezed some bills in his palm. He grinned. Great chap, this.
The Lion whisperer
We don’t know what manhood is all about. Why are we called men, because we pay rent and send our children to school? Are we men because we drink whisky neat? Are we men because our women look up to us? Are we men because we satisfy our women sexually? Are we men because we use Gillette aftershave? Are we men because we refuse to wear skinny jeans? We aren’t men, at least not half the men we think we are. We are crybabies.
Take a look at this hand. It’s not the prettiest hand you have ever seen and I’m sorry if you are having your brunch now, but this hand has to be looked at. This hand has never heard of manicure because it’s a man’s hand. This is a hand that some woman respects not only because it feeds her but it protects her. This is how a man’s hand looks like.
Do you see the middle finger? It’s an ugly finger, gnarled at the tip. The kind of a middle finger I would kill to show some rubbish driver in traffic. And that’s a finger you don’t forget in a hurry. But thankfully this finger is bigger than Nairobi traffic. This hand belongs to Kokike Parsaloi.
Kokike Parsaloi. Hell, not Jimmy, Ngash, Jackson, Freddie or Pato. None of that embarrassingly weak city name. Just Kokike. Even the name says “man!” Kokike Parsaloi. Repeat the name; turn it over in your mind. Make it simmer. It’s a name of a warrior. Kokike works as a tour guide at Shampolle lodge. Kokike has killed seven lions. Yes, one, two, three, four…seven lions! That gnarled finger was as a result of a lion twisting it with its tail. Long story. Have you seen a lion? Forget a lion; have you seen an agitated lioness? Have you seen a pissed off lioness? It curdles your blood.
Together with Kokike, we went for a game drive at night and after hours of driving around in darkness; we stumbled upon a pride of nine lions. Spectacular sight. Terrifying sight. Humbling even. The pride was going hunting; they were walking stealthily in darkness led by this huge strong lioness. And they walked with arrogance. With conceit. They walked like pimps. Swag originated in the jungle fellas, all these guys who walk with swag aren’t walking with swag, they are walking like Kanye West, which doesn’t count. Lions walk with swag because they know they are the shit.
And Kokike killed seven of ‘em. Seven. Jesus! The first when he was only 18 years old! Kokike is a man. We are nothing but male mannequins.
Lake Natron…or whatever is left of it
This is Lake Natron. Or rather, this is what’s left of it. Heartbreaking, isn’t it?
Lady in red
We have to stop and wait. We have to stop because the goats have taken over the bridge. We have to stop because this is not our hood. The goats have to pass first. Protocol. So we wait as these little boys herd the goats quickly out of the way. They take their time, but what’s the big hurry, we are only going back to Nairobi, the city of anxiety. We can wait. We got whole day…OK, we don’t.
Then I see her. Actually I see her umbrella first’ it’s red, it’s orient and against the terrain it sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s bobbing behind the goats and the two boys whistling and shooing the animals out of the bridge. This is yesterday 11.34am, a few kilometers from Shompole lodge.
When she finally walks past the bridge last because she is tailing the herd, we all become silent in the van. Even the ladies. We all stare at her; she is elegant. She is exquisite. She is rare sight, a gust of fresh air. She strolls over the bridge last in her white shoes and white socks. She isn’t in no particular hurry, she isn’t used to being rushed and you can tell why. You don’t rush a good woman. She comes closer and I see the baby strapped to her back.
I
jump out of the van and walk up to her and I tell her she is exquisite. She giggles hopelessly. I ask her where she got the lovely umbrella and she tells me from a friend. I tell her it’s a lovely umbrella, just like her. She is blushing furiously now. She has sparkling white teeth and I love her haircut at least it’s better than a Mohawk. I tell her I want to take her back to Nairobi with me. More frantic giggles. I watch for the boys with her lest they stick a sword in my rib for making their mom/sister/cousin/auntie laugh like that. She asks me if I’m Maasai, and I say “Mimi ntakuwa kitu yeyote utataka nikuwe.” My Swahili is horrid but she gets the joke and she cackles with mirth.
She says she has a husband, and I want to ask her – tongue-in-cheek- how long she has had that problem, but I don’t. She will miss
that one. So I ask if I can take her picture to which she obliges. She giggles as I take her picture. A young bride; innocent and pure. I give her some money; tell her to buy the baby something nice. I tell her to send people to look for me when she leaves her husband. I can still hear her giggles as she walked away.
