Masai Mara Adventures With Olê Ntutu

Masai Mara Adventures With Olê Ntutu

Copyright 2014 Gerald Kithinji

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Chapter I- Dashed Hopes

For a moment he thought he had ruined his entire life. At Narok town he changed from his school uniform and put on the Masai Moran traditional outfit, which he always left there on the way to school and into which he changed on the way home for the holidays. It comprised two sheets red and striped shukka material, Masai sandals, spear, shield, club, a Masai sword and a pouch for snuff tobacco; not that he took snuff, but he carried it all the same. Similarly, he left the school uniform there, on the way home, and changed into it on the way to school to begin a new term. It comprised a pair of Bata shoes and stockings, green jersey, khaki shorts, white shirt and, of course, the books and stuff. All newcomers had been advised to bring an extra blanket because it was ‘sometimes cold at Kikuyu’ –six thousand feet above sea level, right on the eastern shoulder of the Great Rift Valley. Those, whose parents could afford, brought one. He had no extra blanket to worry about. The Masai Mara was, after all, a much warmer place than Kikuyu. What he carried in his heart was the school motto- Strong To Serve.

Olê Ntutu- a Masai boy- lived in a manyatta (homestead) on the fringes of Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. The Trans Mara county council, which ran the affairs of the Reserve, had given him a rare bursary to study at the famous Alliance High School (AHS), two hundred fifty kilometers away to the east, a mere twenty kilometres west of Nairobi, the Capital City. He was the best student in his class in the ‘bush school’ (as they called rural schools at AHS) and second in the District. He was on fire with happiness. The whole school had gone wild with excitement upon hearing about the selection of Olê Ntutu to study at AHS. He walked about with an excited glow on his face. What shook him out of this blissful stupor were the principal’s first few statements, when he addressed the newcomers. ‘I know where you come from you were number one or number two. We have three streams here. At the end of the term there will be a number one and a number ninety six.’

To give him credit, he survived there two whole terms. By September he thought he had gone through the worst of it. He returned from the August holidays a week late but a proud young man bent on showing the books dust. But this bliss was short-lived. He could not take it from a boy who, in jest, had dared call him a cattle rustler. A sudden silent anger swept him off his feet and before he knew it he had thrashed the boy and knocked out a tooth. After a quick ‘trial’ the same day, he was suspended and sent home for two weeks. His plea of extreme provocation was brushed aside.

But I only slapped him!

Bring a parent with you or don’t even bother to come back, the deputy school head had told him. He was the acting principal, the substantive one having gone on an early overseas summer vacation, ostensibly to raise funds for an extension block and other developments. He was expected back later that month.

I came here alone and will leave alone, he had replied.

Not this time, boy! Bring a parent or forfeit the chance.

Those who witnessed had something different to say.

One does not squeeze a dog’s tail to see if it is still sleeping, said one student.

The truculent one always sports a scar, said another; or a broken tooth.

The slap, even if little, will educate that bully, observed a third one.

A big insult invites a big knock, said a lightweight boxer.

Savages! said a friend of the bully.

Violence begets no good offspring, said a budding philosopher.

Olê Ntutu left with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner on the way to the scaffold, seething with anger. He even forgot to take his fare home, which students handed over to the bursar for safe keeping until it was needed, at the end of the term. He remembered when he had reached the main gate. Should he turn back and go to the bursar to demand it? Should he walk home, all those hundreds of kilometres? He hated doing about-turns. Maybe if he closed his eyes he might just get some inspiration. He did, for an instance. But instead of an inspiration, he heard the soft neighing of a horse right next to him. He opened his eyes and there it was, a beautiful stallion, complete with a saddle, stirrups and reins, raising and lowering its head as an invitation for him to take the reins and ride. Instinctively, he knew this was his transport home. No need to go searching for the school bursar and having to answer his unsavory questions. He took the reins and mounted the stallion. He did not have to tell it where to go, just mentioned Narok Town. It stood before Olê Kissoso’s hovel in Narok just before dusk and disappeared just as it had appeared.

Thank you, he muttered, as he stared blankly into the distance.

As was now usual, he spent the night with his relative, Olê Kissoso, in his shanty hut at Narok town and left his school stuff there. He donned the Masai cowherd attire and headed for his jungle home.

He got there to find an empty boma. The family had moved on in search of pasture for the family’s countless head of cattle. The Masai did not count the cattle- they identified them by their names! So, maybe countless was not the right word, try numberless. Huge herds of Boran cattle.

He, too, moved on, in search of his family. No map. No information, except a perception that greener pastures lay several kilometers away, any which way, from here. His sixth sense would not let him get lost. His feet would know if the sixth sense got it wrong. And the God of the Masai would protect him, for he was going into the Masai Mara- one of only a few places on earth where wild game roamed as nature intended, predators, grazers and herbivores alike.

Deep into the wild jungle hosting millions of wild animals Olê Ntutu went, his courage fortified by the weapons he bore and the full gourd of milk he slung over his shoulder. He had endured humiliating nightmares at school. Here he cheerfully endured the trek in the full knowledge that in a few days time he would be with his people- those who respected him and his moderate achievements as a cowherd. For this young Masai moran, home was never permanent, had never been expected to be permanent, but a mobile transitional dwelling for a pastoral community. If the rains were good, they stayed put in one general area. If not, they moved on. The cattle had to have their full day’s share of grass and foliage. The people had the milk, meat and blood. The only friendly cow was one that gave milk, they said. And the Masai had the friendliest cows! It was heavenly. But he still wondered about the horse. Who had sent it? Whose horse was it? He had never seen it before. And how did it know where to go? Was it really a horse? He stopped. Do not think about these things. But he still ventured there, subconsciously.

Unknown to him and, as if to help Olê Ntutu wipe out any trace of his status, a mysterious fire gutted Olê Kissoso’s hovel that very night. Everything was reduced to ashes. Nothing of Olê Ntutu’s uniform, or books or stuff was saved. Even the letter from school to his parents was consumed by the infernal. His relative spent the night at a friend’s similar dwelling some distance away and began a new search for a home.

Olê Ntutu was now on familiar ground, birds singing in the scrub, a howl of a distant hyena, the wind whispering across the bush, crickets. The bleating of wildebeest and various other bush noises completed his escort as he made long strides into the heart of the wild. Three hours of trekking, urged on by an irresistible desire to unburden his heart, tell his story and rejoin tradition. He had almost escaped- for secular education meant a parting of ways, the sacrifice of tradition and the embracing of a sedentary lifestyle, scratching a piece of earth with a hoe for sustenance. Or working in a council or government office- wearing a tie, for a whole month: only to receive a pittance that could not buy a cow, however lean.

Unless, for some reason, you were in the senior league! That is what had led him to books and athletics. And that was now history… unless!

He emptied the gourd of its milk. It was better in the stomach. Why should he burden himself with auxiliaries in the jungle, encumbrances that he, a moran in the thick end of the jungle, could ill afford? The lighter he travelled the better. As for the hunger that was sure to bite at some point, the jungle would, as always, provide. He knew that. It was part of jungle law- an integral part, like the garden was to a farmer. The jungle always provided- from an ostrich egg to an edible snake, which a Masai would frown upon. Only, the Masai knew better. That’s why they had lots of cows. Wherever the Masai were, there the cows were! And the Masai were everywhere!

Then he saw the first wave of wildebeest in their hundreds of thousands marching, as though summoned by the Pied Piper. He knew he had to give them a wide berth. He climbed up an acacia tree. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of the ungainly beasts passed; and still they came. He thought they numbered a million! A whole million! Phenomenal, he mused. How many manyattas would they fill, if ever anybody managed to get them to cooperate? Did I see any young ones? So many! Strange! A grey, wavy sea of strong, determined beasts- irresistibly, irreversibly moving forward to a destination only they knew!

What he did not know was that the gnus or wildebeest numbered over two million beasts including half a million calves. These were preceded by the pioneers of the migration- over one hundred fifty thousand zebras, their majestic herds devouring the long stems of coarse grass. These zebras had already made it to the Mara Triangle, those that had survived the predators’ claws and the giant Nile Crocodiles’ snapping jaws. Flotillas of the deceptively lazy crocodiles had lain in wait, patiently floating near the edge for those that needed to cross the Sand River or the Mara or those seeking to quench their thirst. By the time the wildebeest (and the Thomson’s Gazelle- numbering half a million) came, a few days later, the crocodiles were strong, ready and greedy. They stuffed themselves with the first victims and then watched painfully as beast after beast swam across the river, the crocs unable or unwilling to even open their heavy jaws. But come next morning and they would teach the migrants the truth- that a crocodile’s child does not die by drowning. A beast, any migrant beast, was vulnerable in these muddy waters. How did the crocodiles anchor themselves to avoid being pulled out of the water by stronger animals? The tail, they said, the tail around a rock.

Chapter II- The Mara

Jake and Nancy Lee together with Lee Junior were touring Masai Mara for the first time. They hailed from Los Angeles, California, USA and had flown into Jomo Kenyatta International Airport- JKIA, Nairobi aboard a British Airways jet liner for a two-week’s holiday. They touched down at 9.30am and were driven to the posh Nairobi Hilton Hotel. It had been a pleasant but very long journey and they needed to rest and reorient themselves to the time zone. Nonetheless, they still managed dinner at the world famous Carnivore Restaurant, where Jake and Lee Junior indulged themselves. Nancy tried, but then she was not a true descendant of the boar-loving Kings of England!

Next morning, a Cessna 12 light aircraft from Air Kenya Aviation lifted them from the busy commercial Wilson Airport in Nairobi and flew west feeding them a superb view of the Great Rift Valley with Mt Longonot guarding its secrets and the Loita Hills further ahead, guarding those of the Masai Mara. Two hours later, they landed at the Masai Mara airstrip twelve kilometers outside the perimeter of the Wildlife Reserve. Then a new Range Rover, specially hired for them, delivered them in front of the Governor’s Camp, the luxury lodge that they were booked in.

They were to spend four nights in the Mara- a conservancy measuring over five hundred square kilometers, before hopping down to the coast to explore the beach resorts of Mombasa, Malindi and Diani. Already, they had welcoming gifts including T-shirts emblazoned with the Kenyan coastline showing all the major resorts with the caption- ‘Life’s A Beach.’

On the second day they were booked to go for a game drive in a special sun-roofed Range Rover in the morning, and to have a leisurely aerial view of game, in particular the wildebeest migration, aloft a hot air balloon after an equally leisurely lunch. Although booked at The Governor’s Camp, with its highly prized personalized service, the hot-air balloon safaris were arranged through The Keekorok Lodge and The Mara Intrepids Club, just to make sure they spent the time they wished in the air. The price tag was high, almost four hundred dollars a flight but, for a superb experience, that was the way to go. They even had dawn walks and night-time spotlight game