Mists of the Serengeti(18)

Losing someone you love tunes you in to the fragility of life-of moments and memories and music. It makes you want to embrace all the foolish, inarticulate longings that pull at your heart. It makes you want to grasp un-played notes of un-played symphonies. Perhaps that was why Jack and I clung to that moment, eyes locked, breaths stilled, listening to something that only we could hear, something that lived in the fleeting space between hello and goodbye. It made me want to freeze-frame the rippling grasslands below us, and the play of light across Jack's face.





AS WE DROVE away from the crater, the towering trees gave way to a high, windswept plateau.

"One more stop before we head back," said Jack, turning into the entrance of a Maasai village.

It was a collection of thatched-roof huts surrounded by a circle of thorn bushes to keep out wild animals and predators. Jack retrieved a duffel bag from the trunk and swung it over his shoulder.

"You don't travel light, do you?" I said, when I saw all the stuff stashed in his car.

Spare wheels, coils of thick rope, a washbasin, pots, pans, utensils, a portable stove, spare gallons of petrol, water, electrical tape, mosquito netting, camping gear, flares, a first aid kit, a paraffin lamp, matches, tins of food, pliers, tools, gadgets. And a rifle, with what looked like a long-range viewer.

"I come prepared when I'm out in the reserves."

"So, what's in the bag?" I asked, following him down the path to the village.

"Coffee, from the farm," he said. "For Bahati's father. He's also the village elder. Interesting guy. Wise, stubborn, insightful. He's set in some ways, but incredibly progressive in others. Eight wives, twenty-nine children, and counting." 

"Seriously? So, the Maasai are polygamous?"

"Yes. They determine a man's standing first by his bravery, and then by the number of wives, children, and cows he has. Each wife usually has a home within the same boma or village. Bahati's village is not as traditional as some of the other Maasai bomas. It's a designated cultural boma, which means a lot of tours stop here so people can visit the homes, take pictures, buy souvenirs. That kind of stuff."

A group of Maasai men emerged to greet us. They were draped in brilliant reds and blues, their skin the shade of acacia bark. They were as tall as Jack, at least six feet, but with slim, wiry bodies, and eyes that looked permanently yellow-probably from wood smoke. They wore long braids, dyed with red clay, and had distended earlobes adorned with beads and ornaments. Upon seeing Jack, their stiff gaits loosened and their smiles widened.

"Jack Warden, no entrance fee," one of them said. "Your girlfriend? Also no fee."

"Asante. Thank you," Jack replied. "Come along, girlfriend. Let's follow the moran."

"The moran?" I ignored the 'girlfriend' part.

"It's what they call their warriors."

We maneuvered around piles of cow manure, stirring up the flies, and stopped outside a loaf-shaped hut. The morans presented us to a dignified looking man with a checkered red and black sheet draped over his shoulders. Loops of silver and turquoise earrings hung from his earlobes. He sat on a low, three-legged stool and flicked a fly whisk back and forth across his face. Men and women squatted around him. The morans stood to the side, leaning on their spear shafts, some of them balancing like storks, on one leg.

"Jack Warden," said the man, spitting into his palm and holding it out for Jack.

"Olonana." Jack shook hands.

I tried not to think about the gob of spit sealing their greeting.

"This is my friend, Rodel." Jack steered me forward until I was standing before the chief. "Rodel, this is Bahati's father."

Oh God. Please let this be a spit-less hello.

I smiled and gave the man a curt bow, keeping both hands plastered to my sides. He nodded, and I let out my breath. Apparently, his spit wasn't just for anyone, only those he held in great affection. And he was obviously fond of Jack because he summoned another stool for him, while I was waved away.

"She sits with me," said Jack, grabbing my hand and pulling me back.

No other stool made an appearance and after a few beats, I realized that Jack really did mean for me to sit with him. Or rather, on him. And so I perched awkwardly on Jack's lap, while the women and children laughed at me.

"Kasserian ingera." Olonana didn't use the familiar Swahili words for hello that I had grown accustomed to-habari or jambo.

"Sapati ingera," replied Jack.

I wondered if anyone else greeted the chief this way-solemn and sincere, while balancing a squirming woman on his thigh.

They exchanged a few words. Then Olonana raised his whisk to a man whose bent, wizened form was barely discernible against the dark entrance of the hut. He was dressed in a long green cloth, but what stood out was the leather pouch hanging around his neck. It was adorned with white beads and cowrie shells, different from the ornaments that everyone else was wearing. He also had a necklace of crocodile teeth that rattled when he moved.

"That's Lonyoki. The oloiboni," Jack explained in a hushed voice. "I guess you could call him their spiritual leader. A vision seeker and medicine man. The oloiboni is charged with divining the future. He oversees their rituals and ceremonies."



       
         
       
        

"So he's like Rafiki." I stopped shifting and decided to suck up my ridiculous lap-sitting stint as gracefully as possible.

Jack blinked before catching on. "You're talking about the shaman in that movie, The Lion King. What's with you and all The Lion King references?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were babbling about Mufasa last night."

"What?" Oh God. "What did I say?"

"Something about him being the king of the jungle."

I was glad that Rafiki, a.k.a Lonyoki, a.k.a. the medicine man, chose that moment to pound his club into the ground. It had a polished wooden shaft with a heavy knob at the top, carved in the shape of a serpent's head. Puffs of red dirt stirred at his feet. Everyone turned their attention to the woman who rose from the crowd and disappeared into the hut.

"What's going on?" I asked Jack, realizing that we had interrupted some kind of a village gathering.

"A coming of age ceremony," he replied. "No matter what happens next, I want you to remain expressionless. Do not show any emotion. Do not look away. Do not flinch. You hear me?"

"Why? Wha-" I broke off as the shrill screams of a girl filled the air. It was coming from inside the hut. Whatever was happening to her was excruciating-painful and agonizing. And yet no one made a move to help her. They all waited, huddled outside, blank faces turned to the dark, open doorway. A chorus of women started humming, as if to drown out the sounds, or maybe to offer her comfort.

"Jack, what is going on?" I whispered.

"The transition from girlhood to womanhood. Female circumcision." He clamped his arm around me as he said it, containing my burst of outrage. "Listen to me." He leaned close and spoke slow and steady in my ear. "It happens, even though the government has banned it. It is a deeply rooted tradition, but Olonana and his people are moving away from it. What's happening in there is symbolic. The girl is receiving a ritual nick on her thigh. It's nothing compared to cutting out part of her genitalia. The screaming is important. She must scream loud enough for everyone outside to hear, or they won't feel like she has earned the status being conferred on her. They circumcise the boys too, in their teens, except they are not allowed to make a single sound. Doing so would bring shame to them and their family."

The whole thing was tough and harsh to take. When the girl's cries stopped, I realized my fingers were squeezing tightly around Jack's.

"Do you know them through Bahati?" I asked, letting go of him like I'd touched a hot stove. "Olonana and his people?"

"Olonana's family saved my grandfather during the war when he was injured in hostile territory. They sheltered him until he recovered from his wounds. Goma and I always stop by and pay our respects whenever we're in the area." 

"That's why you took Bahati under your wing and taught him how to drive?"

"I didn't know he was Olonana's son at first. Most of his kids live out here, in the bomas."

Everyone stood as the girl emerged from the hut, flanked by two women. One was the lady who had entered the hut earlier, probably to deliver the ritual cut, and the other, I assumed to be the girl's mother. The girl was given traditional beads and a ring made from animal skin as a sign of her passage into womanhood. The oloiboni presented her to the village, ready for marriage, and all the responsibilities that went with it.

"She is so young," I remarked.

"She is one of the lucky ones," replied Jack. "A few years ago, she would not have been able to walk out of there for days."

"So, what convinced them to do away with it? With female circumcision?"

"It's not something that happened overnight. Eventually, it came down to persuading the men that sex with an uncircumcised woman is more pleasurable-that far from promoting promiscuity, having an intact clitoris makes a woman more receptive to their advances."