Let me tell you about Robert. I met him on my very first day in Nanyuki when he tried to sell me a Swedish-English dictionary, but it was only in the pub in Dol Dol, when he proclaimed his love of reggae and its stars “Bob Marley, Chuck Norris, etc.” that I really warmed to him. In a village with more than its share of eccentrics, Robert, with qat on his lips, beer on his breath, and Winnie the Pooh on his sweatshirt, stands out. It is something of a Dol Dol tradition for him to be locked up for causing a disturbance at community events, and I find his ability to disrupt every event, year after year, a sign of admirable endurance. He has much more energy than you’d expect of a man of his 40 or so years. While most of his contemporaries lounge in the shade, he ambles down the street, hugging his friends and greeting them in Maa, English and five words of what may possibly be Italian. When the Ph.D student here launched an anti-littering program, Robert was the first to join, picking up trash from the ground and sticking it in bushes, berating schoolchildren who made the mistake of dropping garbage within his field of vision, and yelling the program’s name at passers-by. When I got back from Nanyuki last Monday, however, I was worried about him.
It’s just that he was so excited for the president’s visit: “Everyone here is scared of the Big Men, but not me! I’m going to talk to them! The Ministry of Humanity and Justice gives me that right.” For three days, he spoke of nothing but the evils of littering and the rights granted to him by the Ministry of Humanity and Justice. The problem for Robert is that Kenya doesn’t have a Ministry of Humanity and Justice, it has a Ministry of Justice, and that Ministry of Justice takes an interest in people like Robert, especially when it concerns the president. I was really relieved, then, to see Robert alive, though being dragged into a police Land Cruiser, after he tried to deliver a pamphlet on the evils of littering to President Kibaki’s podium.
Robert’s ability to avoid being shot was a lone bright moment in an otherwise dark day for Dol Dol. To start with, Kibaki was late. He was supposed to arrive in March; this was rescheduled to Tuesday, then 11:30 on Wednesday, then 1:30. He didn’t actually arrive until 5, and by then many people who had arrived early in the morning had to leave to bring the herds in before dark. They didn’t miss much. Oh, the local dance groups were good and the song lyrics inspired (“President, please give us a district/ And we will support you”), but the groups had been practicing all over town for two weeks and I now hum that song in my sleep. The real disappointment, however, was Kibaki himself. The local MP introduced him by reminding the Maasai that, as good children, they should be obedient and grateful. Kibaki took to the podium, and finding his prepared remarks rather than Robert’s anti-littering literature, proceeded to instruct the audience to stop selling their young daughters off as brides and to start paying taxes. That’s fine advice, but if you’re going to play the fatherly role in Kenya, you’re expected to bring gifts. This was Kibaki’s failing: no district, no land rights, no electricity. All he brought was $40,000 for the girls’ high school and $10,000 for the boys’. Insult was added to injury as the rumor that Kibaki’s people had slaughtered 30 cows and 75 goats proved to be false, and the crowd went home disappointed, tired and hungry. The feelings soon coalesced into anger, even rage, but in the days that followed this too passed and people began to speculate about what Raila Odinga, the opposition frontrunner, will offer when he visits later this year.
For me, it was also a day of dashed hopes, especially my desire for Kenyan celebrity. An hour before Kibaki arrived, as I was winding my way through the crowd, I was pulled away by one of the boy scouts who doubled as crowd control at the event. Apparently I was being taken to the V.I.P. seating tent, which faces the crowd. That I got this special treatment only because I was one of five white people in a crowd of a thousand bothered me little and I tucked my shirt in as I approached the tent, preparing for my star turn. However, the V.I.P. section was already filled with various dignitaries, ranchers and women in large hats, so the boy scout went to consult with his boss. A moment later, to my dismay, I was being led to a seat 6 feet away from the podium behind which Kibaki would be standing (and which Robert had been trying to use as a library of anti-littering tips). This was too close. In the regular, old VIP section, I reasoned, I could pass for a rancher’s son or maybe one of the more obscure Leakeys, but in my new seat I would probably have to pretend to be Kibaki’s wife. The long arm of the law saved me from that, as a policewoman quickly came to me to say that the entire section was reserved for members of the cabinet, and that I’d have to move. As it turned out, I was forced back into an even worse position in the crowd than I’d had before the scout’s intervention, and the ability to untuck my shirt on such a hot day was little consolation. (By the way, I hope I’m not endangering Kibaki’s life by saying that at no point in this process was I asked for identification or to empty my pockets of their visibly bulky contents-my camera and phone. I feel like things may have played out differently if this were America or Canada).
At least I can raise my spirits with the gift of music, having acquired a battery-powered radio while in Nanyuki last weekend. We get good reception on two Nairobi stations in Dol Dol. One usually plays Christian reggae (Chuck Norris’ favorite kind, I’m told) and the other plays the top 10 songs from last December. It’s pretty sweet living there, especially since the toilet was also fixed this week. It was, as expected, an ordeal. The plumber/locksmith/mechanic showed up drunk, having consumed his advance in the form of bathtub booze, and without any of his tools. He gamely tried for an hour to perform the repairs with a branch he pulled off of our front yard, but gave up and went back to town to get his tools. On the way, he got into a yelling match with one of our neighbors. Three hours later, after a liquid lunch, he came back with his tools and a small posse, and they staggered their way through the repairs. Fantastic. I don’t get to enjoy the fruits of his labor, however, because I’m back in muddy old Nanyuki for the week. Oh, and Robert! I don’t want to leave you thinking he’s sleeping on the floor of the Mukogodo jail. He was released the next day because, he says, the president called the jail on his behalf, telling the warden that he supported Robert’s important work on the environment. The president even sent him a letter, and Robert says he’s going to show it to me when I get back to Dol Dol. I can’t wait.
