Softly Calls the Serengeti (38 page)

Nairobi: UNICEF Judge Calls Local Politician to Account
By Robert Wintergreen (AP)

Thursday, 3 January 2008

In what has become a very embarrassing string of allegations, Judge Hoffman, the UN-appointed investigator into Kenya's compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has pointed the finger at one of the country's prominent businessmen and politicians.

Judge Hoffman repeatedly asked Mr Gideon Koske to answer questions regarding the mysterious disappearance of children from his orphanage in Kibera, the continent's largest slum.

Mr Koske continually replied that he could not remember any details, but that the children had been sent to good homes.

Judge Hoffman, recently retired from the Austrian Constitutional Court, has made it clear that he regards Mr Koske as a hostile witness, but, without any substantive witnesses to any wrongdoings or a plaintiff, his hands are tied.

Under the intense scrutiny of the world's press, there is no doubt that the Kenyan government would be forced to respond appropriately should such a witness or plaintiff appear.

However, it seems that Judge Hoffman will have no alternative but to dismiss the allegations against Mr Koske unless there is a dramatic turn of events very soon.

 

Hamood sat resolutely still in the front passenger seat as the
mzungu
, who said his name was Riley, drove the Land Rover through the outer suburbs of Nairobi. The city had changed since he'd left it as a boy of around nine years old. He had no evidence of his true age, as the orphanage had no records other than an estimate of his birth date when he entered their care.
Circa 1996
was all the papers said regarding his birthday.

When Hamood left Nairobi two years ago, he was travelling north on an unknown, but exciting, adventure. He had not enjoyed life in the orphanage, where he was given food but very little freedom. He soon found it was not exciting to be a boy soldier in the al-Awaab army, where the discipline was severe and life was hard. But it was only after the latest, most vile incident that he had finally decided he must leave the al-Awaab camp. He was confused and sick at heart.

He believed the
mzungu
about the money. He'd heard tell of it from others over the time he had been at the orphanage. There was nothing of that sort in the camp, of course. Only hunger and the terrifying possibility of a violent, painful death.

Hamood could never admit, even to his fellow child-soldiers, that he was scared of pain and death. He'd seen many die on the Ethiopian border while fighting for the land that Faraj Khalid Abukar said was theirs. Hamood couldn't understand how he could have any claim over such a place. He was born to an unknown father from a forgotten mother. How could he lay claim to land so far from his home? Nobody seemed to have the answer; and they had stopped discussing it after one of their number was savagely beaten for daring to question the theory.

At first, Hamood was only frightened in the camp. Then he saw the way his friend Jafari had died. Jafari's screams still haunted his nights. He couldn't say if his friend was the Jafari Su'ud the
mzungu
searched for. If they had ever exchanged family names, Hamood had forgotten it, but it was possible his friend Jafari and Riley's boy were one and the same. Jafari had
been about Hamood's own age, just as the
mzungu
said his boy was as he talked and talked on the road to Nairobi.

The mines were the worst, and it was the younger boys, like Hamood and Jafari, who were sent across the mine fields first, leaving a trail of frightened piss in their steps. Once Hamood had felt the hard edge of the mine canister with his bare feet. The soldiers celebrated, saying Hamood enjoyed the Prophet's good luck as he'd not set off the trigger mechanism. It won him the prize of an extra piece of goat's meat, but he was regularly chosen for the mine searching after that, and life became even more terrifying.

Jafari stepped on a mine, but didn't die. Instead, he lay where the explosion threw him and screamed for a long time, so long that Hamood wanted to run from it. All day Jafari cried for help but no one would go to him. The soldiers would never think of such a thing. It was far too dangerous. Hamood did, but he was too afraid. Later in the night, when Jafari's voice had been silent for an hour, Hamood shed tears of shame for himself and tears of sadness for Jafari.

The
mzungu
thought that it was he who had convinced Hamood to leave the camp, but he couldn't know that the decision had been made by Hamood days before Riley saw him on the road. Hamood had sworn an oath to seek revenge against the men who, six days ago, had stood over him and argued who would be first to use him. It had taken that long to find the opportunity to escape, particularly since the men had kept a close eye on him, knowing he might take flight at the first opportunity.

Riley was also wrong in his belief that it was he who had convinced Hamood that he should go to the authorities in Nairobi. Hamood wanted those men dead, and he wanted the man who had sent him and all the other boys to their fate to be dead too. All Riley had contributed to that plan was to offer transport and the best means to make the man in Nairobi pay for sending him to such a place.

Hamood knew that neither the police nor the government would help. No, Riley had explained it clearly enough and Hamood had instinctively understood. It could only be someone from outside Kenya who could fix the problem. The
wazungu
from the UN could do this, and Hamood needed no convincing that he should try to stop the flow of more children into the border war.

Riley had spent considerable time assuring Hamood that he would support him in the investigation; that he would be at his side when he stood to tell his story. But Hamood needed no one to stand with him. He'd stood in the long Ogaden grass and turned his Kalashnikov on the swarming enemy. He would need no one with him when he did what he had to do next.

He did not know the name of the man who had sent him into the desert; the man who had received him in Nairobi from the orphanage in Mombasa. But he would recognise him whenever he saw him again.

 

Judge Bernhard Hoffman rapped his gavel on the table. ‘I must insist upon order from the press gallery,' he said. ‘I remind you again, ladies and gentlemen, that I can dismiss you from this hearing if you cannot exercise decorum.'

He looked over the half-lenses of his reading glasses as he ran his eyes around the ground-floor meeting room of the Kenyatta International Conference Centre. He seemed satisfied with what he saw in the packed gallery.

‘Very well. Now then, I will repeat the question, Mr Koske. Do you have the destination addresses of these children who have departed your care at the Circularian orphanage in Kibera Gardens Road?'

‘I do not, Mr Chairman,' Koske said. ‘As I said earlier, I have the address of my partner organisation in Mogadishu. They
place the children in loving homes throughout the Middle East. I have no information on the destination addresses. You would have to ask them.'

The chairman frowned. ‘As I am sure you know, Mr Koske, that is quite impossible. Somalia is a failed state. The legal government of Somalia resides here in Kenya and has no recourse to business records or, indeed, any of the instruments of the law in its own country.'

Koske let his smile spread. ‘I am sure that if it did, it would find that my children have been well-treated and placed with suitable families.'

The chairman sighed and glanced at his fellow panellists. A couple raised their eyebrows. One shook her head in annoyance.

‘That, I am afraid, Mr Koske, we may never know.' Hoffman closed the folder before him. ‘I rule that claim number 4a, which is that the orphanage formerly run by the Circularian organisation and now owned by Mr Gideon Koske is alleged to have colluded to illegally move children across the Somali border, be suspended pending further evidence.'

Koske stood, smiled at the panel and turned his back on them to face the milling crowd of newspaper reporters and well-wishers in the gallery.

A lone figure stepped into his path. A dirty boy with tangled, matted hair and bedraggled clothing of mottled earth colours that looked like a camouflage uniform. It was clear from his bearing that he had no intention of moving to allow Koske to pass. His feet were planted firmly in the aisle and his intense, coal-brown eyes did not flinch as they took in the imposing figure of Koske in his immaculate beige suit and striped tie.

The judge, who had stood to vacate the bench, noticed the silence that had fallen over the conference room and turned to find the cause. When he saw the boy at the centre of the crowd, he indicated the situation to the other panellists.

Koske made a comment about how ridiculous the boy appeared among such a well-dressed crowd. A number of his supporters sniggered.

The boy ignored the taunts. He raised his arm towards Koske and pointed a finger.

‘
You
,' he said. ‘You are the one.'

‘Otieng…' Joshua heard his name whispered by those he passed as he made his way towards the most prominent house in the village. ‘Otieng…'

Many of these observers were too young to have been alive when his father had fled to the anonymous vastness of Nairobi. Others, with flecks of grey in their crinkled hair, studied him with interest. He felt uncomfortable with all this attention. These people gawking at him were his people, but no one had come forward to greet him. No one had said they knew his family; knew his father. But they knew his name: ‘Otieng…' And they watched with the detached disinterest of a group of witnesses at a hanging.

He had not brought Mayasa or Charlotte with him for this formal meeting with the chief. It was impossible to know how he would be received, and for a Sukuma woman to be present when important matters of tribe were to be discussed would have been unforgivable. To have a white woman present would have turned the event into a circus.

The house at the end of the path was a modest affair by Nairobi standards, but compared to the surrounding dwellings, constructed from mixtures of traditional and contemporary materials, it was substantial.

The large man standing at the front of the house was also imposing. His arms were folded, resting on his belly, and he watched Joshua approach with unfathomable eyes.

Joshua's knees grew weak. Depending upon the chief's reception, Joshua and his father would be condemned forever or welcomed back into the bosom of the tribe.

The chief wore a crumpled pair of black pants and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Joshua wished he owned a shirt with a collar to wear for the occasion.

When Joshua stood before the big man, heart thumping and ears ringing in the silence that now surrounded them, he suddenly realised he had no idea what he was supposed to do or say.

The chief raised an arm, gesturing Joshua towards him, his face solemn.

Joshua moved forward until he was within reach of the man, who raised both arms above his head.

He closed his eyes, expecting the worst, then felt the chief's large fleshy arms embrace him.

 

Joshua was surrounded by people—members of his extended family. They gathered on a small patch of bare earth, which in better days might have been called a garden, to celebrate the reunification of the Otieng family in Kisumu with the Nairobi branch as represented by Joshua.

He had sent for Mayasa and Charlotte to share his joy, and they joined him among the cluster of people in the shade of three enormous mango trees.

The older folk wore the bright cotton prints typical of the Luo. The younger men, true to their generation, wore tee-shirts bearing names known only among their peers; while jeans and long rat-tail braids were the popular fashion with the girls.

Running around and under the feet of the adults were the children, with smiles to challenge the Nyanza sunshine. As Joshua had suspected, Charlotte's fair skin and hair were of instant fascination. The little ones stared round-eyed at her, some bursting into tears at her approach. Once or twice, tiny hands probed her white skin to find any differences.

There weren't quite enough people to warrant the slaughter of a bull, but there were several
kukus
—chickens—and two goats barbecued for the popular
nyama chosa
. The family members
piled Luo favourites onto the tables under the trees:
ugali
, sweet potato, chapattis, cassava, samousas and yams. There was Nile perch—or
mbuta
in Luo—from Lake Victoria. Tilapia and herring bubbled with aromatic curries in huge
sufuria
cooking pots.

And there were drinks. The elders drank
buzaa
—a traditional fermentation of finger millet, barley and sorghum. One of Joshua's uncles insisted he try some. Joshua took a tentative sip. It was sour, but he drank it all and his uncle laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. For the stronger constitutions, there was
chang'aa
—the fierce, illegal distilled spirit. Children and most of the women drank tea and
ujii
-porridge.

Joshua was the guest of honour and, being at the centre of a crowd of family and friends, he somehow became separated from Mayasa. When he saw her standing alone, he caught her hand and, against her protests that she was too shy, drew her close to him.

All he needed now was to have his father accepted back into the community and his happiness would be complete.

 

Before the cleansing ceremony could begin, all the cattle belonging to the village had to be driven from their grazing grounds past the hut where Simon was waiting and into a holding pen on the outskirts of the village.

Joshua joined the men and boys in the task. They wore only leaves and vines to cover their nakedness, while running behind the herd, shouting and whistling. He could see no other reason for it than an excuse to make a lot of noise, which they did enthusiastically. They also carried clubs and spears to be used in the
tero buro
, which his father told him was the part of the cleansing ceremony called the ‘battle with death', during which death was driven from the village.

As the herd neared the village, others helped by blowing horns and whistles. A cloud of dust hung in the air, along with
the smell of cattle—a new scent for Joshua, who had never even seen a herd before.

The men returned from the holding pen and a chorus of voices greeted them with sonorous dirges. When the medicine man entered Simon's hut the singers began to dance and the songs changed to those of praise for past heroes. The women ululated and the men whooped in celebration.

The medicine man led Simon from the hut. Joshua hardly recognised his father who was wearing a long cloak over his shoulders and white ash on his face. Joshua thought he looked like a ghost.

The medicine man held up his hands for silence, then began to chant a story about two high-spirited boys, friends, who played spear-throwing games in the dust. The boys had travelled a great distance to prepare for their
muko lak
and they stole black feathers from the male ostrich's nest to beautify their ceremonial headdresses. But in their games to improve their spear-throwing, one boy cast his spear through the other's eye, causing his friend's death.

‘He is a brother Luo,' the medicine man said, raising his voice to be heard by all, ‘so he cannot leave this hut until he is cleansed. If he does, he will cause a terrible curse to descend upon this whole village. The women will fall barren and the crops will fail. There will be no milk from the cows and they will throw their calves before term. This man says he is sorry. He says he begs forgiveness of his friend's family, and of all of you. He says he has never committed another such violent act, and he promises never to do so.'

Joshua caught his father's eye. He could see the anxiety in Simon's wavering smile.

The wizened medicine man looked out over the assembled village. ‘I have cleansed this man for the death of his friend, Nicholas Odhiambo,' he said. ‘How say you? Do you accept Simon Otieng back into our community?'

The roar sent a rush of relief through Joshua.