Wild life
Heat and dust
Aidan Hartley
ILaikipia
got a sense of what General Custer felt like at Little Bighorn when the Samburu invaded the farm where I live this month. Even today they determine wealth in terms of cattle, suffering from an obsession anthropologists call 'udder madness'. Meanwhile, the human population is also increasing. Each dry season. the Samburu graze their pastures down to the roots and the sun-blasted land swirls with dust devils. Inevitably, our neighbours turn their ochreadorned faces to the big ranches of Laikipia where the grass is plentiful and the elephants are nearly as numerous as the cattle. If rain comes in time, the Samburu will leave us alone. If not, they haven't any choice but to poach our grass.
For weeks we've smelt the rain, but it was as if a glass dome had been placed over the farm. Rain poured down from black clouds all around us, while we got nothing. The Samburu finally crossed the fenceless boundary of the farm last week. I am only a guest here, but when I can I try to help our friends who own the place. The workforce went up to meet them and we stood-to in a line, looking up at the impressive sight of herds, sprinkled brown and white across the horizon, advancing in columns of dust to the sound of cow bells and whooping shouts. Figures in red togas peered down from the cliffs above. Bare-chested warriors decked out in red paint and beads raised their spears and knobkerries as our ranks closed. .F"k off!' I shouted. The warriors responded with the equivalent in vernacular. The situation looked hopeless. They outnumbered us ten to one. We stood like this for some minutes and, suddenly, somebody started giggling. Then all of us on both sides were in stitches, the tension eva
porated and everybody finally went home.
The reason for the laughter is partly because everybody knew that, while it's fun to play Cowboys and Injuns, Kenya is never going to be another Zimbabwe. Kenyans aspire to be capitalists, not socialists like Mugabe. Corruption may be rife and some dreadful events have occurred such as tribal clashes over land in the Rift Valley, but enshrined in Kenya's law since Britain handed over power four decades ago is a respect for private ownership, title deeds and investment by Europeans, Asians and Africans alike. Whatever happens in our elections this December, when Moi retires and a new man wins power by the ballot, I sense the future leader's agenda will be to make our capitalist dreams come true — which means reviving investor confidence hammered by years of crime and high-level corruption.
Our local district officer and police chief raced to the farm as soon as we radioed them about the invasion and were incredibly efficient. The ringleaders, who were drunk at the time on a local brew concocted from aloe juice, were given a few goodnatured cuffs about the head and shoulders and told to behave themselves. The police came in to guard our line for some days, ate us out of house and home, then left.
Still, the rain didn't come, the dust devils swirled by the house and the Samburu switched to grazing their cattle on the ranch by moonlight. Yesterday Margaret, who works on the farm, gave birth to a baby girl. The placenta would not detach and Margaret was in pain. I raced her to the clinic at Suguta, a village that looks like a spaghetti-western set, accompanied by her husband Koyot, his mate Ekwom and a Turkana midwife with a Mohawk hairstyle. Margaret clutched her infant, and she never cried out as we bumped down the track. The Samburu lookouts on the cliffs saw us go. At Suguta Margaret got treatment at the clinic, and later walked out perfectly happy, while the boys hit Mwangi's bar for beer and goat kebabs. Koyot and Ekwom regaled me with tales of their cattle-rustling days as youths. On the way home we were in high spirits, cooing over Margaret's baby, taking snuff, chewing the amphetamine vegetable miraa and nibbling peppermints which an old Somali sells at the Bismillah kiosk.
Dust. Heat. No rain. As we crested the hill above home, we saw the Samburu stock fanning out across the farm again. More shaking of spears, more wielding of knobkerries. more arrests and radio calls. 'What is the solution to this?' I asked, exasperated. 'Rain,' said the DO. 'Nothing but rain.' I went to bed, feeling thwarted, as one does in Africa. But in the night, I heard the rain coming. It was like distant applause. It hit our papyrus roof with a crash. At dawn, the elephants were back in the vegetable patch, scoffing the courgettes as they do each rainy season. On the horizon, I see no red togas. Just mud,
Previous page
