That was the lanky English volunteer introducing himself to
me. He wore Maasai bracelets made in Kikuyuland, Brazilian beads, the
ubiquitous Bob Marley T-shirt and what I call Volunteer Denim (jeans perfectly
worn out and dyed an even shade of dirty).
His hair, as is common with that of wazungu who try to
appropriate the dreadlocked look on a backpacker's budget, was caught somewhere
between dishevelled Merino and the Dagoretti Market's official madman.
The way his eyes squinted and lingered on and caressed every
swinging backside (said backside being clearly swung for his exotic attention)
on the dance floor told a tale of the taste for black p**** that he had
recently acquired. After eight months of drinking warm beer in the intrusive
heat at Kakuma Refugee Camp, where in his sober moments he was expected to
palpitate the distended bellies of refugee girls, he had acquired a taste for
the distended backsides of local women.
"I love the way people, wherever you go, give you a new
name." I responded.
We swigged our Tusker Malts then looked into each others'
eyes, smiled and nodded in unison. At that moment I knew that if these had been
our great-grandparents, his ancestor would have asked mine that they be blood
brothers and soon after asked him (asked my great grandfather who couldn't read
and write that is) to put his thumbprint on the deed of blood brotherhood -- a
deed that the quick passage of time would hold as evidence of his signing away
all our ancestral land from here to EnoKumamayo.
"So, yourself, have you been places?" he asked. "Been given
a new name?"
"Yaa, mmmhh...of course," I muttered a wee bit distracted by
the red haired Canadian who had moved to the seat next to mine and was trying
to tell me something. "When I went to America, Kamau..." I began, "When I
went to America
they called me Crow. Jimmy Crow."
That wiped the grin off his face and while he fumbled in
search of a vacant spot on the bar's walls to stare away his embarrassment, my
ears staggered closer to the cutely perky mouth of the Canadian. But if those
home made gaffs she is smoking taste as awful as they smell, I
thought to myself, then there is no way I am kissing this chick.
"I hear you write," stated the Canadian. "So what do you
write?"
"Words, mainly," I answered. "Sometimes I get lucky and
manage to write sentences and even paragraphs."
"That's so cute." She laughed pursing her lips and clogging
my nostrils with acrid smoke."
"Not as cute as you are..." I choked and managed a wink. Of
course I was winking at myself for having managed to have a corny moment. (I,
the Wordsmith, need those to avoid taking my trade seriously and begin to refer
to myself as a writer id est.: a boring fellow with an ego inversely
proportional to his ability to use words.)
"Thanks," she responded. I marvelled at her ability to
swallow my non-garnished lumps of corniness. Though it was rather early in our
conversation, I could not help approaching the conclusion that she was one of
those girls who are so stupid it is cute... you know, the kind you want to shag
as a service to mankind because you once read in a respectable journal of
Sexology that: ceteris Paribus, intelligence can be sexually transmitted.
"Potash writes a blog." That was the German guy
interrupting. He was still nursing his first beer. Maybe he couldn't afford
another -- the poor guy is a UN Volunteer. What can one do with that measly 100
USD a day stipend they give volunteers? This business of saving the millions of
Africans is such a thankless pursuit. Only heroes like our German friend,
individuals blessed with a great spirit of volunteerism, can wade through the
vagaries of the Heart of Darkness: marauding lions, third world diseases (and
vectors still living sans encounters with civilised medicine), cannibals,
heathen gods with an insatiable hunger for human sacrifice (there is no food in
Africa so what do you think their gods eat?) for a pittance.
"Hey, you are Potash...Like, the Potash... Potashius Nairobus?"
A Belgian girl buggered into the conversation. All of an inebriate sudden I
realised that I was the only local on the table. The strange feeling that
realisation gave me can only be shared by that Hottentot Woman with her
engorged bottom swinging wide for the scrutiny of the civilised world.
Behold, the Noble (savage) Potashius put upon a pedestal- warts, the fabled
elongated African phallus and all- representing, at that moment, the entire
continent from Cape Town to Cairo and especially those of its people that
he has never met.
"I cannot believe I am meeting you... you know, like this.
Like when you said your name was Potash, I thought it was a common Kenyan
name...," the Belgian rambled, "...but, really, I love your blog... and when I was
planning my trip to Africa..."
"Africa... Oh my country Africa!"
She laughed. "Kenya, I mean. I was planning my
trip to Kenya
and I was thinking: I want to meet this guy. I want to be a character in his
blog..."
"But it takes a lot more personality than you have to be a
character in my blog!"
"Oh, that's great! Now you have gone and blown away all the
chance you had of getting laid by me."
"Oh, and you just took away- from a world already devastated
by the effects of Britney Spear's haircut on Global Warming- a most anticipated
moment of succour: The sequel to the White maasai!"
The Belgian girl went quiet. I am sure that she had really
been counting on coming here and finding a Tribesman to add colour and local
flavour to her Big Africa Adventure. The Big Africa Adventure of moonlit,
bestial ("...the intellect of the native barely surpasses that of the lesser
trained of our circus Monkeys...") intercourse under an earth-toned full moon
with the feral grunts of her lover drowning the chorus of the predators lurking
in the shadows, his pungent body odour blunting her olfactory nerves against
the stench of carrion and his sweat mingling with the tears wrenched out of her
blue eyes by the smoke from the bush fire raging through the savannah. Maybe,
between orgasms, she would get some Saving Africa business done: tour the world
famous Kibera slums and take photos of herself feeding cute starving babies at
a rescue centre run by catholic missionaries (Great shots those would be
sitting on her mantel back home especially when interposed with those of her
feeding Toka Africa the orphaned rhino at the animal sanctuary and the others
of two gazelles mating in the Maasai Mara), buy a few bracelets at the nearest
Maasai market franchise and pay about a hundred dollars in visa fees and
airport tax.
After the Big Africa Adventure she would be looking forward
to returning home to have her Big Africa Romance Novel ghost-written; a novel
that would invariably head to the top of the World Bestseller list and the
eventual box office success of its film adaptation. Saving Africa
is a labour of love, the book is the pension plan.
"Hmmm... the White Maasai... liked it that book." It was the
Canadian fishing for a conversation starter.
"An excellent book indeed," said the German. "But wasn't the
lady expecting too much thinking she could change an African goat herder into
an urban cowboy?"
"He wasn't a goat herder..." I began to explain.
"Does it really matter what he was," the Belgian
interrupted. "It is all about the romance."
"So it doesn't matter that the guy wasn't even Maasai?" I
asked.
"He wasn't a Maasai?" The Englishman had finally found a
decent point to return to the conversation. Maybe it was the beer egging him
on. So much for the fellows who gave us the phrase Dutch courage, I mused.
"So, if he wasn't Maasai, what was he?" The Canadian
wondered.
"He was a Samburu." I responded.
"Samburu... Maasai... it is all the same thing, no?" It was the
Belgian girl again and it sounded like a statement rather than a question.
And what did it matter, really, whether the character was
Maasai or not? I debated. The book, after all wasn't about him. It was the
woman's story; a story about one woman's brave quest to single-handedly tame
the beast. What mattered to her readers was the moral of the story: that more
than a century since Europe's Scramble for Africa,
driven solely by its noble and Christian duty to take on the White Man's
Burden, the savage is yet to be tamed. The romance after all wasn't in her
relationship with a tribesman, a doomed relationship no doubt, but in her
daring to romance beasts still incapable of conceptualising rhyme or reason.
"It is not the same thing," I explained. "The Samburu is the
cousin of the Maasai, but it is a Maasai you have to f*** to get a movie deal."
"It is her point of view, you know," the Belgian soldiered
on. "Maybe, you that is a local; an African writer, a writer who feels offended
by the white woman's point of view should retell the story from the Maasai's...
er... Samburu's point of view."
"Exactly," agreed the Canadian. "There is always two sides
to a tale. Maybe you can give us your African take on things..."
"Come on Potash do it." The Belgian offered. "What about I
suggest a title: The White Girl and the Savage? That is something the west will
buy merely on the strength of its title."
"Maybe" said I.
Maybe
_____________
A very rough version of this essay appeared
in the blog A Kenyan Urban Narrative authored by Potashius Nairobus. The
version reproduced here is a revision by Charles A. Matathia, edited by Petina
Gappah for the Journeys Edition of the Nigerian print magazine Farafina (Number
11/ Nov. 2007).
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