Lake Turkana Finale – Ritual Hecatomb and a Boatful of Fish

The monotony of my forced sojourn in Soricho, which I have described previously, was broken by two noteworthy events.

First was the arrival of two British travellers in a land-rover. It was just after midday and I was snoozing happily in the shade on the said mattress, when a group of children darted into my haven yapping excitedly, and politely - yet insistently - dragged me out. I was only half-awake, slightly confused and blinded by the blazing white sun so I proceeded cautiously towards a blue jeep parked in the middle of the village. The men saw me approach. If the look of utter disbelief in their eyes is anything to go by, I must have been a rare sight. Shaggy hair, half-closed eyes, black skirt hastily tied around my hips, and a throng of children who formed a moving cloud around me as I walked lazily towards them, must have made me seem more like a tribal witch than a fellow-traveller. They looked like tough guys, and they were doing a slightly more original than most “Clapham Common to Cape” route in their land-rover, but they freely admitted, after hearing of what I was doing in this middle of nowhere and how I got there, that I was, to use their vernacular expression, “the one with balls of steel”.

While I was flattered, I have to say, for the record, that at no point was the whole Northern Adventure particularity harrowing or dangerous – of course it’s easy to say so in hindsight when everything turned out well, but in truth a single mother with a toddler in tow could easily have done it. In any case, we talked about a camping site in Clapham Common I stayed at a few years back, the unbearable heat of the desert (i.e. the weather), and directions (follow the dirt truck, between the two big acacias turn left and then slightly uphill) to Illoret where they were headed. The whole experience was surreal and I could have just as well dreamt it. But I politely waved my apparition goodbye as it vanished slowly in the white cloud of dust.

The second event was much more exciting but more perplexing. On the second day I was woken up with the sunrise by the sound of hooting and shouting. It did not sound particularly threatening but I decided to get dressed quickly and see what’s going on. As the clamour came closer, I saw a group of men, half naked but with interesting head-dress, jog in line, spears, sticks and hooting devices (trumpets? vuvuzelas?) in hand. It looked like a cross between a military morning drill and a rain dance. They jogged briskly around our kraal, made a lot of noise, disappeared behind other huts, still making a lot of noise, only to return a few minutes later and jog in the opposite direction, still noisily.

I was very baffled indeed. The hooting was slowly dying down in the distance. My companions were still asleep, the village seemed to be only just stirring, and I was barely half-awake. I considered crawling back to my tent and pretending it was just a dream but my curiosity got the best of me. I closed my tent hurriedly and rushed out of the kraal in pursuit of the jogging warriors. At first, I was trying to look casual and vaguely dignified so I walked, albeit swiftly, through the village. Soon however, I realised that will never get me in line with the running men; moreover, the children, who, as usual, took no time to crowd around me, obviously realized what I was after and were nudging and prodding me to go faster. In face of such peer pressure I broke into a run.

Now, it is worth mentioning that I strongly dislike the idea of jogging; non-competitive ‘as fast as your legs will take you’ running is slightly more fun but a rather pointless endeavour, hardly worth the name of a sport. I am by no means very fit or used to any kind of prolonged physical exertion. But this run felt divine.

The air was still delightfully cool and clear of dust, the sun was low on the horizon and all the short shrubs, little rocks and animal bones over which I daintily hopped were basked in a soft orange glow. Soft wind whistled in my ears, competing with the joyful squeals of the children accompanying me and the staccato of their little feet. I was surprised to find that after a few minutes of medium paced running I did not feel tired or out of breath. I sped up, leaving the children behind me, save for three older boys who were obviously challenging me to keep up with them. We raced towards the warriors, jumping over the bushes, bones and morning shadows. I felt alive, refreshed and very, very happy.

Only for a moment did my step falter as I remember Abrdizzak’s warnings about snakes and scorpions, apparently abundant in the area. The realization of the hazards made me very conscious of the absurdity of my chase – after all I did not know for how long, where to and to what end the phantom joggers were running. For all I knew they could be the official Kenyan marathon team or a cattle-raid party – and then what? But as I was still enjoying the run I dismissed my fears. Besides, no scorpion or snake would have been silly enough to remain on the path of so much stomping, or so I reckoned.

After over 15 minutes of running, which is more than I had done in years, we caught up with the warriors. They were surprised to see me but did not pause; I was very uncertain of what I should do. I did not want to just join their procession in case I was violating any taboos – there were no women among their number – and I did not want to give the impression I am mocking them by doing what they were doing. But if I wanted to keep up I had to jog with them. I decided to keep smiling, keep a little distance and keep running. The little boys cheered me on.

The party of joggers was some fifteen-twenty men strong; they were all fairly young, apart from a middle aged man who was leading the procession. His cloak was red, his head-dress most elaborate and he held a white stick with which he would rhythmically hit the ground as he intoned the lead of the chant. They would jog for a minute and then walk for thirty seconds. Every now and again a part of the group would break away from the main body and run slightly faster in a roundabout way and then rejoin the procession. Slowly, I began to grasp the point of the exercise, or at least I thought so. They seemed to be an invitation party, or heralds if you will, running through different mini-villages to let everyone know that an event is about to take place. More and more people were joining our procession – some joined the runners, other slowly gathered on the fringes. Women also appeared, but they did not run, only formed little circular groups in which they chanted and rhythmically rattled little plastic medicine bottles with coins or stones inside.

The second task of the runners was to provide the animals for the forthcoming event. We would run straight into a herd of goats or sheep, the frenzied animals bleating and blenching in fear all around us as the men chased the biggest and fattest ones. They would catch them by a leg, tie a string to around their neck and then shepherd them along with us back to the main procession. After about forty minutes of such routine we were already a very formidable crowd of warriors in line, children in tow, women on the fringes, goats in between and one fat white bull in front led by the mzee in the red cloak. We marched for a while back towards my village and then stopped in a circle of huts where another crowd of men, bulls and goats, was assembled.

Still uncertain of what’s going on, I watched the spectacle unfold. The men were gathered in semi-circle around the animals, the women were standing in a tight group a little way off, performing the characteristic neck-jerking dance, in which you hop from one leg onto the other, back straight and let your jaw jolt forward making your necklaces dance and rattle (video demonstrates the type but was taken elsewhere, among the Somburu tribe). Most of the women were bare-breasted, their necks and faces painted with ochre; they held the little plastic bottles filed with stones in their hands as rattles. One of them, obviously concerned at my lack of sense of rhythm, pressed one of those bottles in my hand and demonstrated when to rattle and when to jump. My sense of rhythm is almost as bad as my running stamina, but if I closed my eyes and tried to let the chanting guide me I could just about keep up with the dance to the utter delight and amusement of the other women.

In the meantime the men were killing the goats and cows. It was a bloody spectacle, and I will spare the reader the gory details. Enough to mention that they would first try to knock the beast unconscious by a stick hit on the forehead and then bleed it by a small neck incision. Soon, over fourteen carcasses would be lying in concentric semi-circles on green branches. The goats were being killed without much ado; the bulls on the other hand were first forced on their knees and then, when they were down and held fast, one of the dancing women would come over and dance faster and faster around the bull. Her head would jerk uncontrollably, her arms would fly about wildely and her body would tremble in trance as she approached the bull to place an item of her clothing or jewellery on its horns or neck. Usually by that point her frenzy would be so great, shouts so vociferous and movements so chaotic that she would have to be caught and held fast by her companions. Two of the women collapsed entirely, white foam dripping from their mouths, their eyeballs rolled up and their bodies twitching convulsedly in the dirt. I admit freely I was a little scared.

This went on for over an hour, with over twelve bulls being sacrificed, and I still did not understand the reasons behind it. I tried to enquire but in vain. All I could say in Dassanech language was ‘a cow’ – a word highly relevant to the occasion but unfortunately not bringing in any additional information. All they could do was nod as I pointed, grinned and enunciated. Yes, these indeed are cows. I felt like an idiot.

I decided to go back to the village and ask if Abdrizzak knows anything about the reasons behind this hecatomb. He did indeed, or so he claimed. Apparently, this was an offering in hope of a successful raid; or rather a joint celebration cleansing the family from committed past crimes and ensuring its raiding fortune. I do wonder. If there is an anthropologist reading I would very much appreciate your thoughts on what was that that I have seen. Unfortunately, I cannot provide any pictures for I have rushed out of my tent entirely unprepared leaving my camera behind in a rare act of utter idiocy.

Despite such attractions at the end of third day I was desperate to leave Soricho and cross the Lake. Abdoud and Abdrizzak left on their truck but before they did they had ensured me that there would be a boat going the next day at dawn and all I need to do is to talk to the owner in the morning to discuss the price of passage. I had bad feelings about it, but to my surprise the boat was there and ready to leave at daybreak the next day. The haggling I have described here (47.); for now it suffices to say that finally, after two and a half days of forced sojourn in the middle of nowhere, I was led to the shores of the lake to embark on the boat that, against all odds and warnings of the naysayers, would take me across the treacherous waters of Lake Turkana.

I did not expect the boat to be QEII or the passage to be smooth as punting on the Cam but I was quite unprepared for what followed. As we got to the boat it turned out that this decrepit nutshell with a tiny engine is already packed to the rim (literally) with what – I was informed reliably – was 6,600 dried and salted fish, stacked beautifully in two piles. I was urged to clamber onto the fish and make myself comfortable. Three other men and the driver were seated on the other pile, I had to share mine with no one but one little, wet and indignant goat. I made myself as comfortable as it was humanly possible while lying on dried fish and tried not to think about it.

It is now clear why some people had warned me about the Lake. When we set off its face was smooth and pristine. But as the morning wind picked up and we ventured onto the open waters the waves grew to seriously threatening heights. I am not feint hearted, and I do love water, but – as the waves rolled over our little boat, their splashes drenching absolutely everything onboard – I must admit I felt rather uncomfortable, haphazardly sliding to and fro on the now remoistened, slippery and very stinky fish. I was not scared of drowning but the thought of the many crocs inhabiting the Lake made me hold on to the fish rather tightly. It was a very long four hours.

It was a very long four hours but we made it to the other shore safely. I was there greeted by the chief of Loralang, treated royally, and put on a transport to Lodwar, from where I could, inshallah, get a transport to Sudan. It took me a week, but I have managed to traverse the deserts from Marsabit, cross the famed Lake Turkana and make it to the Sudanese boarder safe and sound, even if a little smelly.

Northern Exposure II: I am waiting

(Continued the next morning, after a few hours sleep on the planks stored on top of the lorry – bloody uncomfortable)

It seems that our driver’s mission was successful and he had found help in the next village called Karacha. It was only 8kms away and he came back on another lorry which they are now loading with our cargo in hope of making our lorry light enough to be pulled out of the hole it’s stuck in. With survival chances thus improved I can peacefully proceed to recount the rest of the story.

Where were we? Ah, yes. I left the company of Asaaska and our friends early on Monday to make my way to the local metropolis of Marsabit. I arrived there just after midday and was hopeful I will be able to catch a lorry to Loyangalani , on the lake shore, the very same day. I inquired at the petrol station and after some going to and fro I was led to a ‘stage’ where they usually leave from. I was informed that there should be one going from the Caltex garage that day at 4pm. I was very happy. Left my luggage at the hotel, went to do some shopping and internet browsing (yes there is an internet café there) and had a lovely lunch, courtesy Joseph, a fellow passenger on one of the ‘means’ (of transport) that brought me to Marsabit and decided to be my cicerone for the day.

When I went back to the garage at 4pm it turned out that the lorry that is supposed to go to Loyangalani belongs to Hakim (and so does the garage). Now Hakim is quite a someone in the area. He is a businessman and contractor, the richest man in town and an influential personality. He owns many trucks and tankers and has an impressive network of men all over the county. I had met him at Asaaska’s place – he is a friend of the family – and we chatted a little about the chances of meeting an aardvark. It was obvious that if Hakim could not help me get to the Lake, no one could. I was invited to wait for the lorry with Hakim and his men.

We sat outside, the men chewed khat and we chatted for a while. Most importantly, it turns out it is possible, although very hard, to see aardvarks in the area. In Rendille they are called Awahtoto - gravediggers. It is a rare thing to see one and the Rendille believe meeting one means that you are going to become a very rich man. The Somburu, on the other hand, believe meeting one is a very bad omen and will turn around and go back from whence they came if they encounter on their path. In any case, it does not happen very often and an old man, Godana, who seemed to be most knowledgeable on the subject had only seen twice in his life. But he promised that when I come back for Asaaska’s wedding we will go and try to track them in the bush. Got it scheduled for August.

Other than that they all thought me insane to try to proceed to Sudan through Lake Turkana but were divided in their opinion on the feasibility of the plan. None of them had heard of the boats in Loyangalani. We waited till six when Hakim came back with the news that unfortunately the truck that was supposed to go wouldn’t after all. Maybe the next day. We talked more about the plan. Hakim was sceptical and they kept repeating it would save me time and money to go back to Nairobi. But I think my enthusiasm for adventure and seeing new places was contagious for after a while they started devising alternatives to my plan. They reckoned it might be better to head even further North, right up to the Ethiopian boarder, to a very remote town of XX. This town is dependent on supplies from the other side of the Lake, which is also much closer at that point. It is harder to get to than Loyangalani but easier to leave by boat. We decided to try that route.

Hakim started making phone calls. It took a long time but I guess by now I am used to sitting and waiting. I did not want to push Hakim but I was desperate at that point to have some kind of plan or idea what I should do next. Maybe I should go back to Nairobi after all. Hakim just kept repeating: “just wait”. So I did and after a few hours, I don’t really know how, I found myself with the entire route to Kolakol arranged by Hakim. I would join one of his friends lorries to North Horr the next day, arrive there at 3am, will be put in a hotel and wait for Hakim’s lorry which leaves the next day at noon, in Illaret I am to call Hakim and he will put me in touch with a boat person. I will not pay for the lorries but I will have to pay a little something for the boat. On the other side there should also be a transport to Lodwar. And now I should go and sleep.

I found myself in a car with Shalom, Asaaska’s sister, who unexpectedly appeared there too. She said she will put me in her friend’s hotel where she will also be staying. We will share a bed. We will eat together in the morning and I will not go to buy a soda – a hotel guard can do it. Thus dis-empowered by the overbearing, limitless and touching Kenyan hospitality and generosity I laid myself to sleep trusting that with a little help of my new friends I can make the crazy Sudan plan work after all.

The next day, I spent going between town and Hakim’s garage and waiting, waiting, waiting. Nothing is certain when it comes to transport in Africa. Truck may come, may not, might leave, might not, it could be at this hour or another, it might take me or not… I am told that the inoffensive term mzungu, now meaning ‘white person’ comes from a verb ‘to wander, to move about’ and captures the impressions the Africans had of the restless first explorers. I cannot speak for all Europeans but I for one certainly do not have the African capacity for patient waiting and I was at my wits end that day, pacing to and fro, picking up a book, chatting, climbing on Hakim’s bulldozers, eating without appetite and trying desperately not to ask after lorries all the time. If it wasn’t for Hakim’s reassuring grumbles I would have fled to Nairobi on the first southbound truck in shame. But if I had I would have never found myself on this broken down truck, in the middle of the desert and that certainly would have been a crying shame no matter what happens next.

Northern Exposure I - Stranded

And I was worried that nothing exciting or adventurous will ever happen again now that I am back in civilised Kenya. Fine, dancing at night with tribeswomen and being named again, attending a Rendille wedding, seeing bush animals and listening to hyenas at night were all interesting but not anything you could call properly exciting.

Now this, i.e. sitting (we think) exactly in the middle of the biggest desert in East Africa at 3.30am with the truck broken down, and no hope of assistance for the next two days (that’s when we know another truck is due) and typing on my laptop certainly exciting (of course if you manage to read these words, this means I made it to safety which takes the excitement away for you somewhat; but there is always a chance that my laptop had been found on my dead body, which adds to the excitement again). Not scary yet, as the night air is nice and cool and I know that I’ve got enough water to last me and my 8 companions for the next 24hours. If we are frugal, that is.

The driver and another man went forward in hope they can reach the next village before daybreak. Chances are, it is no further than some 4 hours walk. But as no one has any idea where exactly in the Chalabi desert we are, this can prove to be a futile exercise.

I recall Kapuscinski had exactly that kind of experience in Mali. His truck had also broken down and he and the driver were stranded in the middle of Sahara, with little chance of assistance and even less water. Their circumstances were even direr – this is the middle of the civilised world by comparison. If we are desperate we can just walk back along our own track and reach Marsabit (let me see, 4 hours drive times average speed of 25, makes 100km) in three days, andthink) but still I believe I can classify that as exciting.

To fill the waiting hours I can either lay back and admire the starry sky and the fairly frequent meteors or I can keep on typing the backlog from the previous couple of weeks. I guess I will do the latter for sitting on the scorched desert earth (yes, exactly like on the cover of Meredith’s Africa book) and illuminating the darkness with my Windows 7 is delightfully surreal.

It might be helpful to enlighten the reader as to the circumstances that brought about my current plight. After all, why am I in the North and going even Northier? After all, on Thursday, that is five days ago, I was still in Uganda. Yet, I decided to take a night bus back to Nairobi to join Asaaska (who is a friend of Kate and Jedrek’s I met a month ago) on her trip to the North where she was to attend her friend’s wedding. Asaaska is a Rendille, a small Northern tribe, and hails from a remote settlement of Kor, some 400km north of Nairobi. The wedding, held in the nearby village of Merille, promised to be very traditional and colourful so when Asaaska kindly invited me, I did not hesitate.

After 15 hour bus ride I reached Nairobi; only two hours later than I had promised Asaaska to join them but as we were scheduled to leave at 8am “Kenya time”, I did not worry when I arrived there at 10am. We left theirs at 11.30. I had enough time to refresh myself and prepare for another, what turned out to be, 13 hour journey. I don’t quite know what took so long, but I guess that’s always the case when you travel in groups, stopping, changing vehicles, waiting for others. That’s why I avoid it as the plague. But sometimes it cannot be helped and, in any case, my company was very pleasant. We stopped for late lunch in Nanyuki, which according to my hosts sports the best nyama choma in the whole of Kenya. Indeed, it was rather palatable. Especially the small pieces of juicy fat, fried in such a way to give them very crispy outside and melting soft inside. I’m serious, couldn’t stop stuffing myself with them to the delight of the locals.

Other than driving past Mt. Kenya, which brought back a flood of memories from the time (yes, now over 12 years ago!) when I climbed it with my mum (unassisted by either guides or porters, on Chogoria-Naro Moru route, with no preparation, in just 4 days – yes, my mum is crazy), the drive was uneventful. We arrived in Merille at midnight. The wedding, which took place the next day and the lovely stay at Asaaska’s village of Kor on Sunday I will describe in a separate post as it certainly merits one of them or two (for now you can read my article on the subject in Standpoint magazine). But now it’s time to press further north.

A map of Kenya would be helpful at that point, so please help yourselves or use this one. The village I was in is off the main Nairobi-Ethiopia road, also known as Transcontinental East African Highway. Sounds awfully proud but the tarmac ends in Merille and, if anything, it’s Transcontinental Dirt Path after that all the way to Ethiopian boarder. In Marsabit, some 60kms north of Merille, two other roads branch out going west towards Lake Turkana. I am on one of them right now, the one going to North Horr.

(Slight digression: it all got a level spookier now with all my companions snoring in deep slumber around the truck and weird insects flying by my head with deafening beat of wings every now and again; luckily, it’s very dark so I cannot see just how weird they are. I guess they are attracted to the light of the screen – I prefer not to think what other things might be too. I resolved to think of cute desert Fennec Foxes if I start to panic.)

Now, to go back to our story, the plan was to go to South Sudan. The most sensible option, in fact one that most of my local interlocutors thought the only possible, was to backtrack to Nairobi and take a bus or plane from there. But if you look at your map you will see how much of the gained latitude you lose by doing so. Moreover, avoiding Nairobi should be travelers’ first priority. It would have been ideal to just cut across from Merille towards the west and then head further north but as it turns out there are simply no east-west roads in that part of Kenya – probably because there is a mountain range in between. My only other option was to go further north towards Ethiopia, reach Lake Turkana and find a way to cross to its western shore. Once there it should be fairly easy to reach the main Sudan road again.

Now judging from the map it looked like a jolly good plan indeed. The devil, as usual, is in the details. The map does not tell you just how wild and sparsely populated the North is. After Logologo, the next village north of Merille, there is no more public transport. All traveling is done in private 4x4 or trucks delivering goods. These are not frequent and one can find oneself waiting for a few days for a chance to hitch (a paid) ride. The roads are dismal and covering 200 kms can take anything from 6 to 12 hours. To be on the safe side I was advised to reckon with 3 days to travel the 300 kms (in 2-3 stages) to Loyangalani on the Lake Turkana shore.

And once there, I was told, my chances of getting across are slim. Lake Turkana is no Bodensee – people do not cruise it for pleasure and have no need to do it for business. Tourists are practically unheard of and they certainly never cross. There is just a handful of motorboats belonging to Kenya Wildlife Services and other than that there are the dugout canoes of the fishermen. Crossing the lake in the former will cost me a fortune if can be arranged at all, and in the latter is not only a two day paddle but also a certain death by the waves and crocs. I have to say this is not how I imagined it. But I was desperate to avoid the stinking mess that is Nairobi and give it a try.

(It’s getting quite cold so I think I will pause and make my way back to the truck in search of warm clothes and a sheltered spot. TBC)