The White Masai

Touchdown

Wonderful warm tropical air embraces us the minute we land at Mombasa Airport, and already I feel in my bones that this is my

Hoping for the best, we go into the office on the third day only to find the official says there’s just one little problem: we have to get a certificate from the veterinary surgeon in Barsaloi that the shop is clean, and also before he can give us a licence we have to have a portrait of the president which has to hang in every shop. Lketinga wants to curse the man, but I restrain him

Everyone is happy. Lketinga plays the cassette, and that sets everyone off talking. But when I give Saguna the brown doll that my mother bought for me everyone’s jaw drops, and Saguna runs screaming out of the hut. I have no idea what’s happened, but even Mama has recoiled from the doll. Lketinga asks me in all earnestness if it really is a dead baby

Everyone is happy. Lketinga plays the cassette, and that sets everyone off talking. But when I give Saguna the brown doll that my mother bought for me everyone’s jaw drops, and Saguna runs screaming out of the hut. I have no idea what’s happened, but even Mama has recoiled from the doll. Lketinga asks me in all earnestness if it really is a dead baby.

I’m running out of paper handkerchiefs too. With the best will in the world, there’s no way I can clean myself with a stone the way the Samburu do, even if it is more environmentally friendly than my bits of white paper left behind the bush.

We go straight to the village, where Priscilla is astounded to see the two of us. She greets us warmly and makes chai

When the train starts moving I could jump for joy. I lean back glowing like a lantern and laugh to myself. I’m overcome with a wonderful feeling of freedom. I could shout aloud and share my happiness and plans with everybody on the train. I’m free, free, free

After customs control a safari bus takes us to our hotel. Mombasa is on a peninsula, and we have to take a ferry across