Blood & Milk (2 page)

The people in the kraal buzzed in conversations and excitement. Someone at the back started to sing, and I wondered briefly if I was being welcomed or if I was about to be speared.

The tall, angry warrior eyed me, not even trying to hide his disdain. He was only a few feet from me, thumping his spear into the dirt as he spoke to other men. Some women stood back, further into the darkness, and some smiled and giggled behind their hands. Some sneered.

While my fate was being decided, I took a moment to look around. The night was dark, given the moon was no more than a sliver of light in the sky, but my eyes had adjusted somewhat. I could see the people surrounding me were all wearing
shukas
, the traditional red shawl the Maasai were famous for. Some of the shukas were blue, some a mix of both, but there was mostly red. They wore beaded earrings, beaded necklaces, and most of them were barefoot. Some wore the same tyre sandals the other men had worn.

I noticed the smells then. The fire, of course, but the unmistakable odour of cattle and cow shit was the most prominent, plus the faint smell of food cooked hours before.

“Damu!” the angry warrior yelled, short and clipped.

The crowd of gatherers whispered in surprise and amusement as a man weaved his way through from the very back. He was tall, had a shaved head, and stared at the ground. The warrior spoke down to him, angry words that, once again, I could not understand. It was very clear, even to me, this man was not held in any regard by his peers. I briefly wondered what he’d done so wrong, what terrible crime he had committed, to be spoken to in such a manner.

Then Damu, still with his head down, turned to me. He glanced up for just a second. He beckoned me with his hand, and the angry warrior pointed in the direction Damu wished for me to go. “You go. Go with him.”

I bowed my head, in what I’d hoped was a sign of respect, and quickly followed the man named Damu. Only once we’d got through the gateway and were away from the fire, I couldn’t see a damn thing. I was following him blindly, in every sense of the word.

I stopped walking. “Uh,” I said, loud enough for Damu to hear me and hopefully quiet enough that the others didn’t. “I can’t see.”

Then, silently, a hand touched my arm. “This way.”

He kept his hand on my arm and led me a short distance, where he stopped. My eyes had adjusted a little, and I could see we were in front of a small hut. Damu bent low to get through the doorway, and putting my complete faith in a man I’d not even been introduced to, I followed.

If I thought the African night sky was dark, then inside the hut was a blackness I’d never imagined before. I literally couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. It was warm inside the hut, and it stank. I couldn’t stand up; the ceiling was far too low. I crouched down and slung my backpack off to the floor, which I now realised was dirt. I had the sense of being enclosed in a room far too small to contain me, let alone two men.

“Sleep here,” Damu said. His voice was soft and kind. There was an edge to his tone, like he was uncertain but didn’t want to offend me.

“It’s very dark.”

“Yes. It is night.”

I smiled, grateful he couldn’t see me…
hoping
he couldn’t see me. I didn’t want to offend him either. “You speak English.” Very broken, very literal English. It was a shame my profound use of sarcasm would never be used here.

“Some.”

“I am grateful. Thank you for allowing me to stay.”

“It not my decision.”

Oh.
“I am grateful nonetheless.” I had so many questions. Like what were the names the elder man had called me, who was Kafir, and why was I his ghost?

“Lay. Sleep.”

Okay then.
My questions could obviously wait. Figuring if there was a bed for me, I’d have been shown to it, so I assumed I was to sleep on the floor. I sat down, edging my back to the wall. I pulled my backpack under my head and curled into a ball. I closed my eyes, not aware of how tired I was, though my mind was still pedaling a thousand miles an hour.

What the hell was I doing? Did I really just fly to East Africa, and walk for the better part of a day across the Serengeti? Did I ask the Maasai warrior wielding a spear if I could stay? Was I really lying in the dirt, on the cold hard ground, in a hut with a man I didn’t know?

I resisted the urge to laugh out loud, then I blinked back tears.

Sleep crawled over me, like a slow mist with spindly fingers, wrapping around me and taking me under.

* * * *

I woke to a large hand on my shoulder, shaking me, and a whispered, urgent voice saying words I couldn’t understand.

I sat up, my mind in a fog, my heart hammering. The vivid dream of Jarrod’s smiling face swirled through my conscience, evaporating like smoke until it was gone. I tried to keep it close, I tried to tell him to stay, but it was too late. Damu was in my face, his hands on my shoulders, and from the concern on his face, I realised I must have been having a nightmare. It was still dark in the hut, though early morning light shone through the door opening. If African summer mornings were anything like Australian summer mornings, I’d guess it was about five a.m.

“You dream,” Damu said.

“Sorry,” I said, my voice croaking. “Did I wake you?”

He shook his head and moved back away from me as far as the space in the hut allowed. I could see inside the hut now, though only barely. There were no windows and certainly no electrical lighting, so it was still dark. The hut was no more than six feet by four―I’m sure I could touch the walls with my arms outstretched. The ceiling was about five feet off the ground, made from what looked like sticks with mud. The walls were the same, though from my very brief online research I knew the Maasai made their huts from sticks and cow shit. Which would probably explain the smell.

Inside, the hut was divided into two areas: a bedroom and a kitchen, if they could be called that. There was a bed of sorts, which looked like an old inch-thin mattress on the dirt floor along one wall. On the opposite wall there was what I assumed was a kitchen. Well, there was a bowl on the floor and an old dirty bucket, and there appeared to be a mudbrick fire pit in the corner, where I imagined some food was cooked.

If there was an image used to describe basic, almost ancient living, this could be it.

Yet, I was here to learn, to observe with an open mind, not to judge.

I scrubbed my hand through my hair, suddenly feeling the ache in my back and neck from sleeping on the ground. “Thank you for waking me,” I said to Damu. He looked at me warily, and I could only assume my dreaming―or nightmares, as they tended to be―had scared him.

Damu nodded toward the door. “No be late.”

“Okay,” I said, kind of crawling to the door. I had no idea what I wasn’t to be late for or where I was to go, but I had no option but to put my trust in Damu. Only when I was outside could I stand up to my full height. Every vertebra in my back cracked with satisfaction when I stretched, but then I took notice of where I was.

Morning was breaking over the manyatta. The sky was light blues and pinks, the air was cool and fresh, and I still could hardly believe I was in Tanzania with the Maasai. There must have been twelve or fifteen other huts all close together up on end of the enclosed village, yet the hut I’d slept in, Damu’s hut, was removed from the other huts. I wondered what that meant but dared not ask. There were animal pens within the walls of the manyatta, filled with cows and goats, and some Maasai, wearing their traditional red shukas, were tending to them.

I couldn’t help but smile. I was smiling, truly happy for the first time in so long. It felt strange on my face.

“We go,” Damu said. I turned to find him pointing in the opposite direction, toward the huts. “Come.”

It was then I noticed Damu. I’d only seen him in the darkness. He’d guided me in the darkness by kindly taking my arm, and I’d slept in his hut, but I hadn’t yet really seen his face. Until now.

Damu was, at a guess, six foot three inches. His skin was a deep, dark brown and perfectly smooth, his head shaved to the scalp. He had eyes the colour of onyx, and when he caught me staring, he smiled. He wore the traditional red shuka, though it was open through the chest, and I could see he was thin and muscular, without one ounce of fat on his body. His earlobes bore white and red beads. He wore a string of necklaces made from wooden and black beads, and bracelets which, unlike his necklaces, were of bright colours, and he had a wooden club holstered in his belt. He really was a very striking man.

I felt a strange calmness around him. Which was absurd, because I’d never noticed any such thing before. Some people always gave off angry vibes or nervousness, but I’d always assumed that was from how they were behaving.

But Damu was different. 

I felt calm beside him, a gentleness, which surprised me.

As we went around the back of the first hut, we came across a small child. I had no clue whether it was a boy or a girl―it truly didn’t matter―who wore westernised clothes. Well, a long shirt, five sizes too big, that had holes and stains, and little sneakers. As soon as the child saw us, they stopped, looked at me with something akin to horror, then let out a scream.

Damu put his hand out, speaking rapid fire words I couldn’t begin to understand, but the child’s mother quickly appeared, along with several other women, and snatched up the child.

There was now a line of six women staring at me, all wary but curious. They wore dresses of red and blue with dozens of brightly coloured necklaces. They had shaved heads and long drooping earlobes filled with beads like Damu’s. Other children hid behind their mothers, peeking at me, then quickly hiding again. I had no clue what they were saying, but I knew a scared kid when I saw one.

I wasn’t sure what the cultural etiquette was in this scenario, but I wanted to reassure them. So I bowed my head and smiled, aiming for friendly. “Hello.”

The women turned and scurried away, ushering their children before them.
Jesus
. I looked up at Damu. “Did I do something wrong?”

Damu stood at my side like a poor kid designated to show the new kid around at school. “No white man.”

I blanched. “They’ve never seen a white man before?”

Damu shook his head and he smiled. “Women, yes. Children, no.”

Oh dear God. No wonder they were scared. I must have looked like an alien or something.

Damu took my arm and pulled me along. “Come. We not be late.”

There was a meeting, of sorts, around the fire that had burned last night. The entire Maasai tribe was there. They were split in two groups: the men, and the women and children. Some of the men had shaved heads, some with long hair in tight braids that were held in ponytails by metal clasps. They sat on the ground with their spears and long sticks, with military discipline. They all wore the traditional red shukas and were―there were no other words for it―a formidable sight. The women sat on the ground too, the babies strapped to their backs and the small children jumping and clapping happily around them.

It was like I’d woken up on a movie set.

A group of men, who I could only assume were the tribal elders, sat at the front, and the angry warrior from last night was the first to see me. He stood and thumped his spear into the dirt, yelling fierce words in my direction.

Now the entire tribe stared at me. The children cried out and ran to their mothers.

But it was the small elder, the oldest of all the tribal leaders, who stood up and called for calm. He was the same man who called me the
ghost of Kafir
, the same man who said I could stay. He motioned for me to come forward, which I did obediently. He wore a headdress of beads and feathers and held what I first thought was a stick with a tuft of hair sticking out the end, but I realised, a little belatedly, it was an animal’s tail wrapped with twine of some sort. I couldn’t tell if it was a zebra tail or a warthog’s or a lion’s. God, I had no idea. What I did know was that from the headdress and utmost respect from his tribe, this little old man must be what the Maasai called their ‘diviner.’ Before I knew differently, I probably would have called him a witchdoctor.

It was then I noticed Damu had come forward with me. He stood by my side, facing the elders with his head bowed. I took his cue and did the same.

The diviner pointed his tail-stick thing to the tribesmen who sat to my left, and gave them what appeared to be an order. Without a murmur, they stood and filed out. Then he did the same to the women, and they left, taking the children with them.

“Damu,” the elder said. He spoke to him in Maa, then he shooed him away with his hand. Damu hesitated in leaving me, but the diviner repeated his order, and Damu backed away. I didn’t see where he went. I didn’t dare look.

The diviner smiled, revealing a few missing teeth, and he seemed friendly. He had a kind face, and I liked him. “Sit. Sit,” he said.

I sat right where I had been standing, and the diviner sat with his back to the wall of a hut with the other elders. The angry warrior stood for a moment longer, no doubt to remind me of his status, and subsequently, reminding me of mine.