August, 2011
When I first arrived in the Cherangani Hills of northwestern Kenya as a young woman, the mountains had been green and tawny, cloaked in lush bush, dotted with the cultivated plots of the Pokot tribe that I had come to study. Now I could hardly recognize the place where I had lived my life between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-eight. The drought had turned the Great Rift Valley into blistered, lunarlike terrain; the hills reminded me of Ethiopia back in the eighties--steep mounds unintended for human habitation, withered, eroded, and above all, dry. Greg stopped the Land Rover and let me examine the scenery more carefully. But it was no use.
"I'm lost," I said.
He brushed a cloud of flies away from his face, callused fingers rasping against a four-day growth of tough, white beard. "I believe it's around the next promontory," he said, his clipped British inflections making the statement unequivocal, though in truth he knew the region far less than I.
His confidence made me try one more time. "Yes. Yes, I think you're right," I said.
When we rounded the flank of the hills, we saw the remnants of a village. All that remained of the huts were the firepits, the packed-earth floors, and ruptured holes where the branches that formed the walls had been anchored. And, of course, the sitting stones--it was improper for a man of the Pokot to sit on naked ground. In their stead were three hovels constructed of piled dung and animal hides, not true dwellings at all, merely places to get out of the sun. I saw a dozen or more people, all lying or sitting listlessly in the shade.
We felt the impact of their eyes, but aside from the stares, most of them did not react to our arrival. A single boy stood and began to approach the Land Rover. He was suffering from the early stages of marasmus, his limbs painfully thin, stomach bloated, skin hanging slack from his bones so that his face resembled that of an old man and not, so I estimated, a boy well short of puberty. His only garment was a pair of threadbare, stained khaki shorts.
Greg pulled out the .45 as we stopped rolling, keeping it in obvious view. But the boy emitted not even a flicker of belligerence; he was past those emotions. He gazed at us blankly, like a retardate. Only the fact that he had risen of his own accord gave me hope of obtaining a response from him.
"Do you know KoCherop?" I asked. I used the Pokot dialect, though the words came haltingly, with a bittersweet tang. The boy, if he had been schooled, could speak English or Swahili, but use of his home tongue might ingratiate me. "Do you know where she is?"
He turned his prematurely old eyes toward me, and I saw, to my surprise, a mind still capable of activity and calculation. "You are Chemachugwo," he said, using my Pokot name, his voice raspy but energetic.
"Yes." I did not know him, but I was not surprised that he had guessed my identity. There were no other middle-aged white women alive who could speak his language.
"I will tell you where to find KoCherop if you give me a piece of paper," he stated.
I hesitated a moment, then reached into a compartment under the seat and withdrew the bribe. I gave him a whole sheet. The boy ran his hands over it, apparently pleased with the rough, pulpy texture and sawdust-yellow color. He rolled it into a funnel, and with his empty hand pointed to a terrace plot far up the nearest mountain. "She is there."
I could make out a tendril of smoke. I signalled Greg to drive on.
I could see the boy and his piece of paper in the side mirror for a full thirty seconds. Just before the dust and the turns in the track obscured him I saw him bite off the end of the funnel and begin to chew it. I wanted to weep, but the past few days had left me incapable of tears. It was the village, I told myself. It had been so much like the one in which I had built my hut, almost forty years back.
The road narrowed and grew more steep, until the Land Rover would go no further. We faced a dilemma, for we couldn't leave the vehicle unattended.
"I'll stay," Greg said, handing me the .45. He pulled out one of the rifles for himself.
I hadn't reckoned on this development. I needed his plucky humor and stiff upper lip. But I had gone alone into the wilderness of East Africa before. I buckled on my holster and started up the path.
Climbing these hills had been easier in younger days. I stopped often, until I could no longer bear to gaze out over the valley, where I had once watched the herdsmen and their cattle. The air became cooler, though not enough to compensate for my exertion. I estimated it would take me two hours to reach the terrace. I thought of KoCherop.
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