What a day! LeKuyieya and I escape camp and clinic to go to Maralal, the big(ish) town of the area, to see the Camel Derby. This is a gathering of 3 days to participate in a camel race, there is a carnival atmosphere with tents set up outside the Yare hotel serving goat and chai (sweet, milky tea), and tents with blaring music promoting anything from mobile phones to banking services. There is an arena set up with temporary manyattas (local houses) where folk gather to sing and dance and perform marriage ceremonies. There are people from both Samburu and Turkana tribes here.
It is a huge day, so many people. To get there we take a matatu from LeKuru to Kisima, just like the scene in ‘White Maasai’ movie: I’m in the front with LeKuyieya and the back is filled with Samburu ladies and ornate Morans. What an experience. Then it is a slow, slow drive from Kisima to Maralal with perhaps 20 or more in the back, ooof, glad to be in the front! ‘Muzungu (white person) prestige’, mostly I hate it, but sometimes…
The Camel Derby is jumping, crazy stuff: lot of kids with face paint “fun” on their forehead holding sausage balloons; Morans, Samburu, Tukana, and totally urban folk all mixed up. Lots of poor poor kids roaming around like dogs. ‘Bicycle man’ has just finished the mountain bike race, indignant as usual (we met him previously at Kirimon, one of his wives was first to get an implant), I stupidly give him 1000 ksh to piss up the wall. We get lots of help from Richard, a pastor from Baraloli. So encouraging, so informative and a bit pushy, still, I appreciated his company. LeKuyieya & I have a soda at an eatery and later return for a hunk of goat. We checked out the hotel – not much going on there, preparation for a Samburu cultural night 500 ksh. We decided not to stay as things never seem to go quite to plan and rain is threatening. There are ‘pretend’ marriage ceremonies and manyattas to visit. The whole Moran and traditional stuff is thrilling. There is only one other mzungu (white person) here: a whinging Austrian lady and her toy-boy Moran from Mombasa. I feel very conspicuous all the time; LeKuyieya is nice and helpful. All the boys in the team are, love their manners.
We take a matatu (public transport) back to Kisima, it is very wet and muddy. The back tray of the ute is covered up with a plastic sheet and we have 20 or more jammed in: kids, kids, kids. They sit on my lap and play with my hands, it is cosy and there is so much body contact. I miss that in Aussie culture. We get stuck in Kisima and I have to fork out for a taxi to take us very slowly in the mud and rain to LeKuru again.
I bought 2 chooks this morning so it is tough bird for dinner tonight.
