by Don Anderson
“This is the easy part, at least with tembo.” Dr. Mkapa aimed the rifle at the rear flank of the elephant, a female in her seventh year. She was slowly rocking back and forth at the edge of a waterhole. A large wound on her side oozed blood and lymph. Sneaking up behind a large baobab tree, the two men and the boy managed to get within range of the elephant without disturbing her.
“If it’s so easy, may I dart her, daktari?” Jomo, the boy, asked knowing the answer already.
“No, Jomo.”
“But when? You said you would let me one day.” The dart gun made a loud popping sound that scared the egrets from the baobab tree. The dart striking the elephant made her jerk forward slightly, but that was all.
“You go to the university, come back a veterinarian, then you can shoot all the elephants in the chuno that you want.” The doctor laughed and Kumasa his assistant swatted Jomo on the butt.
“You come back a doctor, and jumbe and I will give you a good initiation,” Kumasa said. Dr. Mkapa, a tall man from the Sukuma tribe had penchant for pranks. Already he had put a gopher snake in Jomo’s sleeping bag. Jomo did not look forward to this initiation, but at only seventeen, he had some time.
The three waited for about fifteen minutes until the elephant become groggy and slowly lay down by the side of the water hole. Walking briskly up to the elephant, Dr. Mkapa looked into the wound.
“We’re lucky she went over leaving the wound side up,” he remarked.
“Is it a gunshot wound, Doctor?” Kumasa’s burly neck and head peered down at the gaping wound in the side of the elephant.
“No, it’s not so deep. It’s just a shallow gash that has become infected. She’ll be alright.” Dr. Mkapa put a cartridge of antibiotic into a syringe. The six centimeter needle made Jomo’s eyes open wide, but he was too excited to say anything. The elephant, lying in the gray volcanic mud next to the water hole was breathing easily, its eyes glassy from the effects of the tranquilizer. Injecting the long syringe into the thigh of the elephant, about two feet above the knee, the doctor gave the empty syringe to Kumasa, who gave it to the boy. Jomo carefully put it back in the medical bag.
“Why do you inject her in the leg, doctor?” the boy asked.
“Because that is where the skin is a little thinner. Come on, Kumasa. Let’s get
this wound treated. The huge Masai gave the doctor a towel and a small bucket filled with what looked like soapy water. On Kumasa’s back was slung a large caliber rifle, not for killing elephants, but for scaring off a would be intruder, should one arise while the doctor was treating the female A half hour later, from behind the tree the two men and the boy watched the elephant slowly come out of its drug induced sleep. At first she rocked her head slowly from side to side, making deep rumbling noises. Then she rose to her front feet, and lastly got on all fours, looking like an unsteady building in an earthquake.
“She will fall over, doctor.” Kumasa looked worried.
“No, wait,” was all the doctor said. The young cow elephant, after stumbling around for a few minutes, gathered strength and now eyed her three intruders. Giving a short trumpet, she turned and ran into the water, turned again looking at the humans, trumpeted, then drank from the muddy water. In the distance four other elephants approached. The leader, an old cow, gave a short trumpet that was answered by the female in the water hole. Soon five elephants were in the water hole, rumbling and splashing and the three humans were completely ignored. The doctor motioned for Kumasa and Jomo to back away from the tree.
“Our morning’s work is done, Jomo.” he said when they got back to the old pickup. “She should do fine, but we’ll have to check on her again in a few days.” Kumasa put the medical gear into the back of the pickup while the doctor turned over the motor. Jomo sat between the two men as the pickup edged over the scrub and onto the red earthed park road. The road, or njia, as it they called in Swahili, was little more than a rutted track that led from waterhole to waterhole in the western Serengeti. Rarely could a traveler risk going over thirty miles an hour on it without jarring his Rover or pickup to pieces.
June inSerengetiNational Parkmeant a time of great migrations. As the waterholes in the south began to dry up, vast herds of wildebeests, zebra, gazelle and other antelope made their way north to the rich grasslands of the northwestern Serengeti, near the Tanzania-Kenya border. The migration on this vast African plain, the last great land migration on earth, took place over a period of a month or so when the dry season began in earnest. As the land became drier, more and more animals gathered at the waterholes and competition was great. Dr. Mkapa thought that the young elephant probably was gored by a bull elephant at the waterhole and the wound became infected.
The road back to Robanda village, where the three were spending the night, was long and bumpy, but the doctor and Kumasa made sure Jomo wasn’t bored. They asked him to identify every animal, bird, and plant they saw, poking him in the ribs when the boy made a mistake. For five weeks Jomo had been going out with the doctor on his trips working for the National Park. As Head Zoologist for the Northwest Sector and the founder of theArushaAnimalHospital, he had made Jomo his informal apprentice, giving him lessons in the natural history ofTanzania. A graduate of the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Dr. Mkapa had traveled to theUnited Statesfor his graduate work in zoology and veterinary medicine atTuftsUniversity.
Last rainy season, when the doctor had come by the mission school in Arusha to speak to the students about the wildlife on the Serengeti, Jomo had stuck to him like a dung beetle on choo, pestering him so much that he finally agreed to take Jomo out with him once a month on his trips looking for wounded elephants and other endangered animals. Poachers, always a problem on the Serengeti, only increased as the herds moved north. A lot of times the poachers did not kill their prey, and when the doctor came across a wounded animal he would do whatever he could to save its life. Elephants and cats had a priority with the doctor, however, and Jomo had seen him leave a zebra wounded by a gunshot, when he heard of a lioness that needed his attention.
The once a month trips with Dr. Mkapa quickly became once a week when school was out and as Dr. Mkapa got to know Jomo and found out he could be of some service to in the field. Although Kumasa was his official assistant, oftentimes three persons were needed, as when they were in lion territory and Kumasa had to keep watch the whole time. Then the doctor appreciated having Jomo along to help him lift the cats, and hand him equipment when he was doing surgery. Jomo felt proud of being his helper, and the doctor often talked of how well Jomo would do at the university and sometimes he would call him the “dogo daktari” or “little doctor.”
Jomo’s Grandmother didn’t mind his trips with the doctor, but they disturbed his mother who thought Jomo should be helping his father harvest the sorghum and potatoes. She didn’t nag him, but gave him a scowl every time Dr. Mkapa’s dirty old pickup zoomed up in front of their house. Jomo’s parents lived west of the city ofArusha, on the road toOlduvai Gorgeand the Serengeti.
“Kiti hiki kizuri kimevunjika,” Jomo’s mother would say every time Jomo left, “The good chair is broken.” If this statement was designed to make him feel guilty, it didn’t, and Jomo would look back at her as he left and say, “I will fix it later, Mama.” Jomo waved to his father out in the fields as they drove off in the pickup. His father waved back, but never said anything one way or the other about Jomo’s adventures with the daktari.
Driving with the two men back to Arusha today, however, an incident came up that made Jomo never want to see the doctor again. They were just cresting a small kopje when Kumasa spotted what he thought was a new bird. Dr. Mkapa brought the pickup to a dusty halt and fished the binoculars from beneath the seat.
“Red-whiskered Bulbul, I believe,” the doctor said, handing the glasses to Kumasa who grunted in affirmation. “But let’s check, Jomo.”
“What?” Jomo asked.
“Pull the bird book out and tell me the range of the Red-whiskered Bulbul.” Now Dr. Mkapa had an ancient copy of Jeffrey’s Birds of Eastern Africa that was like the Holy Bible to him. It was written on every page and always seemed about to fall apart. For him to ask the boy to read out of it was special indeed. In fact, Jomo should have been flattered. Jomo looked over at Kumasa who smiled at the favored one. There was only one problem. Jomo couldn’t read.
Not being able to read English was a secret that Jomo had easily kept from his parents and his grandmother, all of whom were illiterate. On rare occasions his father would buy a newspaper from the local market and have Jomo read it to him, but Jomo would always fake it, and his father didn’t know any better. When Jomo thought of some of the misinformation he must have given his father over the years, it made Jomo laugh. But the fact was that Jomo could not read English and hated being taught how to read. By age seven, all of the other boys in his class at the mission school had learned to read, but at seventeen Jomo hadn’t. Oh, Jomo could read a few basic words like “man” and “hut” but he just figured reading had passed him by. Some people never learned how to play an instrument or how to cook, Jomo thought, so I’ve never learned how to read, so what? His teacher at the mission school, a Scots woman named Louise Burns, had given up on him two years earlier, when Jomo was fifteen.
“You are smart,” she often used to say to him, “Why won’t you apply yourself to reading?” For hours on end she would make him read and say English sounds like “OW” and “OU” and “EE.” Then she would have him write words on the black board and say them out loud three times. The other students in the classroom thought this was great fun and they nicknamed him Tatu, which is Swahili for “three.” Some words Jomo learned in this way, but when it came to reading a book, everything seemed to leave his mind and Mrs. Burns would look up at the ceiling in frustration.
Once she brought an eye specialist in to check his eyesight, and another time she brought in a visiting college professor whose specialty was literature. When the professor and Mrs. Burns left the room, Jomo sneaked over to the door to hear what they had to say, but all he could make out was, “The poor boy can’t read, so let him apply himself to mathematics.”
“But if he can’t read, he won’t have much opportunity in Arusha,” Mrs. Burns insisted.
“Quite right, but then not everyone can go to university,” the professor said.
After that visit his reading lessons became fewer and fewer and Jomo found himself liking school more and more. When it came to reading instructions for science or mathematics, his classmates were willing to help him, so Jomo got along quite well. Quite well that is, until Dr. Mkapa asked Jomo to read to him from the bird book.
o on, grab the book from the case, Jomo,” the doctor repeated, “and read to me the range of the red-whiskered bulbul.”
Jomo stuttered and stammered and in the mean-time the bird flew out of the acacia tree, across the road and out of sight.
“I…I..uh, I’m sorry Dr. Mkapa.” Jomo thumbed through the book quickly, trying to find the bird in question.
“No, Jomo, look it up in the index. Much faster.” The doctor’s patience with him was running thin.
“I, I don’t think it’s in here. No, no I can’t find it.”
The doctor grabbed the book from his hands. “What’s got into you, man? It’s right here.” Within seconds the doctor had the page open to the right bird and confirmed it with Kumasa.
“Yes, I think they’ve got a match, my friend,” he said to Kumasa, “Range matches and so does the habitat.” With that he eyed Jomo curiously and shook his head. Giving the book to Kumasa, he shoved the pickup in gear and took off down the bumpy road. Clouds of dust billowed from behind in angry profusion. In a few seconds he slid to a stop again, staring at Jomo straight in the face.
“You can’t read, can you boy?”
Jomo was so ashamed that he was not at his parent’s house when the doctor came to pick him up the next week, nor the week after that, nor the week after that. What does a young boy do when his dreams have been shattered? At first, after school let out each day, Jomo took to helping his father in the fields, loading bushels of sorghum onto a wagon. But that soon became wearisome. So then, without saying anything to Mrs. Burns, Jomo stopped going to school and started wandering around downtown Arusha, hanging around with other kids his age who had dropped out of school. He played football (soccer) in the dusty alleyways, got into fights and stole petty items from the street vendors. In Arusha, a city of about one hundred thousand people, a boy can get into a lot of trouble if he wants to. For about two months Jomo wandered with his new companions like an African dog, part of a pack seeking adventure and violence.
One day he and two companions determined it would be very good to have some chicken for dinner, as they had been eating mostly vegetables of late. It was decided that one of Jomo’s companions would be the lookout for any police, the other would distract the woman who was selling the chickens, and it would be Jomo’s job to snatch a chicken away while she wasn’t looking. The grand plan was put into action, but things didn’t go quite as well as the three companions had hoped. Jomo found himself in the city jail with plenty of time to contemplate his existence.
“So, you finally found your rightful place in life.” His mother’s sarcasm was thick, but Jomo deserved it. The concrete walls echoed the nervous tapping of her foot on the floor.
“Hujambo,” Jomo said, “What are you doing here, mother?” In her hands she had brought a change of clothes for him, and some goat cheese. The look on her face was not so much of anger, but of weariness.
“Sijambo,” she said, handing him the clothes. “Here, they said you stink. And I thought you might be hungry.” She eyed his cell then looked at him in the face.
“I’ve come to bail you out, Jomo.”
“Mother, you shouldn’t. I only have to be in here a month, and it will take a lot of money to get me out of here.”
“Not so much, and no son of mine should be in jail. It is not right.”
“What I did was not right mother.”
“You have shamed your father, Jomo.” She looked at the cracks in the concrete floor.
“I have shamed myself.”
“Your father came down to see you.”
“When, mother?”
“Jana, but you were asleep on your bunk.”
“Why didn’t he wake me?”
“Because he thought you were drunk.”
Now his shame was complete. His father had come to see him at the city jail, and Jomo was not even awake to greet him. Then his mother came and brought him clothes and food! The judge had given him thirty days for disorderly conduct and stealing a chicken, even though the chicken had gotten away from him and returned to its owner. The judge said that the chicken had more sense than Jomo did. His companions had run away down the street when Jomo had been caught. They were still loose in the city, while Jomo was crated in a small cell. In a way he was glad to be rid of his street companions, though. Life hadn’t improved for him while he had fallen in with them.
“Your father says that you are not welcome to back to the house until you get a job and support yourself. You must also stop this carousing.”
“You can tell father that I won’t be coming back to the house for a very long time mother.”
“Why not? Don’t you want to improve your life son?”
“There is nothing left to improve. I am the person God made me.”
“But God did not intend you to become a thief.”
“Yes, well he should have made me smart, then.”
“You are smart, Jomo. Dr. Mkapa thinks you are smart.”
“Daktari doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
“The doctor has come by the house to see you several times, Jomo.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“He has tried to see me here too, but I told the jail keeper that I didn’t want to see him.”
“He is your only true friend, Jomo.”
“I thought you hated him, mother.”
“No, I only hated to see you go with him, especially when your father needed you. The doctor wants to change you, Jomo, to make you something other than what your father wants you to be—what I want you to be.”
“What is that?”
“A farmer, a herdsman, like your father and grandfather.”
“But that is not what I want to be mother. Dr. Mkapa has shown me what I want to be, even though it is impossible for me.”
“Because you can’t read English writing?”
“Yes. How did you know?” But Jomo knew the answer to this question already. The doctor had talked to his parents, and speculated that his shame at not being able to read was the reason Jomo had not shown up for their weekly outings. Dr. Mkapa told them about how ashamed Jomo had been at not being able to read the bird book. What Jomo didn’t know at the time was the effort the doctor had put in to try to find him. After visiting his parents, he had gone to the school and had asked about him. Then he had traveled the streets of Arusha looking for him. But by that time Jomo was mostly a night creature and the doctor would not have found him easily.
His mother bailed him out of jail that day, and Jomo promised her he would behave himself. The truth was that Jomo was bored with his “life of crime” such as it was. He felt caught between two worlds: the life he wanted but was denied and the life that seemed inevitable. Jomo was not meant to be a farmer, this he believed in his bones. He wanted to be out with the animals, to become a veterinarian like Dr. Mkapa. But his curse would not let him have that wish, now matter how much he wanted it.
After getting out of jail Jomo was too humiliated to go home, but too poor not to. That night, when he came to his parent’s gate, his mother came out to greet him, but his father stayed inside the house.
“Shikamoo!”
“Marahaba,” she said quietly. “He is cooking for me, and he doesn’t want to see you.”
His mother gave him ten shillings for few nights at the motel and some food. She also gave him an old suitcase with clothes and toiletries. Jomo turned his back on his home and walked down the red earth road into Arusha. He turned to wave at his mother, who silently waved back to him. “Goodbye mother,” Jomo said to himself, thinking he might never see her again.
It was nearly twenty kilometers from Jomo’s parents to Arusha. By the time he arrived in front of the hotel, Jomo was ready to drop from exhaustion. At the front desk, he was greeted by a manager who was as round as a mango but not nearly so sweet.
“What you want with a room, boi?”
“Just a place to spend a couple nights.”
“You’re not bringing up any mwanamke are you?”
“No, sir, just myself.”
“Alright. I want you to pay for two nights now. Your room is upstairs.”
After getting his room key, and walking up the narrow stairway to his room, Jomo lay awake for most of the night thinking about his dreams that were never to be. He had quit school, without even saying goodbye to his classmates. He hadn’t even responded to Dr. Mkapa’s inquiries to his whereabouts. He had alienated his father and hurt his mother deeply. “All because of my curse,” he thought, “All because I can’t read.”
In the morning, the surly manager warmed up to Jomo, deciding that he was not such a bad kid after all. He provided Jomo with a breakfast of oatmeal and fresh papaya, which satisfied Jomo’s hunger. After breakfast, Jomo went outside and sat at a table. Mr. Zuri, the manager, brought out two steaming cups of kahawa, sweetened with honey and sat down next to Jomo, where both the he and the boy could observe the raucous market of downtown Arusha. The streets of the city were busy with shopkeepers putting out their wares, and tourists from American andEurope, casually peripatetic, cameras dangling, wallets out, buying true Africana to decorate their suburban living rooms. Mr. Zuri was soon interrupted by some of these tourists wanting to secure a room, and he left Jomo to his own thoughts. As he was drinking his coffee, a shadow fell across his table. A uniformed man, armed with a pistol and a wide smile stood over him.
“Good morning, rafiki. Are you Jomo Kibaki?”
“How do you know my name?”
“From the hotel manager. My name is Captain Peter Mlima. I saw you from across the street. That is my office on the second floor. The Army is engaging young men such as you to help keep the peace on the border withRwanda. The pay is pretty good. Are you currently in school?”
“No, jumbe.”
“How old are you, boi?”
“Nineteen.”
“No, I know your are not so old. But you look old enough.”
“Old enough for what?”
“Old enough to train to fight the adui, young friend.”
“But I am not a fighter, jumbe. I want to become a veterinarian.” The officer smiled and nodded his head.
“You think about it, Jomo.” Then he laughed. “Army life is good, and we give you hot meals and a place to sleep. Tomorrow the Army doctor is in from Tanga to give physicals. You come to my office in the morning and we’ll check you over and sign you up! Kwa heri! See you in the morning.” With that the officer offered his hand to Jomo, who took it and shook it firmly. Veterinarian! He may have well said, astronaut. Yes, I Jomo will travel over toAmerica and become an astronaut! No, the captain had made the Army sound good, compared to what he had been doing. Maybe this is what God was calling him to all along, he thought.
That day Jomo spent wandering the streets of Arusha, thinking about what life in the army would be like. Deep down he did not want to become a soldier, but he knew that his choices were few. At least the army would provide for him and get him off the streets. In the afternoon heat, Arusha lay like a lioness on her back after a meal full of zebra. Everything slowed down. Even the children, who normally thronged about the streets after school, were subdued. Jomo found himself on the front porch of the hotel, sitting on an overturned fruit basket, staring at Captain Mlima’s office.
That night about supper time, there was a rap on Jomo’s door. Thinking it was the hotel manager with some iced chai that he had ordered, Jomo opened the door without asking who it was. Standing in the doorway with a smirk on his face was Dr. Mkapa. He walked right into Jomo’s room without asking or saying anything. Jomo made way, embarrassed at seeing the doctor.
“You’re a hard one to find, boy.”
“Dr. Mkapa, what are you doing here?”
“Looking for a lost sheep, it seems. Where have you been these last few months, Jomo?”
“Nowhere that I am proud to speak of.” Jomo felt a rising urge to flee. The doctor stood between him and the door though, and was determined to speak and just as determined for Jomo to listen.
“Mtumishi, you’ve got your entire life ahead of you. I know that you are embarrassed because you cannot read. I don’t want you to throw your life away, because of this.”
Jomo stared at the floor of the small room. The heat of the afternoon had dissipated and a breeze was wafting the curtains of the open window. “I am not throwing my life away, doctor. In fact, tomorrow I am going to sign up for the army. I want to be a soldier. I want to learn to shoot and march. At least in the army they will let me fire a gun!”
“So tomorrow morning you are going to sign up for the army. Alright my young askari, you may do what you please. But you can learn to read, Jomo. You can learn to read and still go to the university.”
“No, from the time I was five, until I turned seventeen, Mrs. Burns tried to teach me to read, doctor. I think that if it were possible for me to read, I would have done so by now. I’m sorry I tried to hide it from you. It was stupid of me.”
“Do you like working with tembo, twiga, simba and kiboko, my friend? Did you like going out with me to the grand Serengeti?”
“Of course I did, doctor. But I wanted to become an animal doctor like you, not a gun bearer or assistant. But I know that is not possible, so now I am going to be a soldier. That is a good job.”
“Yes, being a soldier is a very noble profession.” As the doctor said this, he looked up at the ceiling. Dozens of flies were clinging to the painted plaster. “Well, may God bless you as a soldier, Jomo. If you can, come and see me at the hospital sometimes.” Without any ceremony other than holding up his hand as a gesture of goodbye, the doctor turned around and left the room. Jomo was stunned. He had not expected to see the doctor, but then, when he came in Jomo had expected Dr. Mkapa to put up more of a fight.
At ten the next morning, Jomo crossed the dusty street and climbed a narrow stairway into the army offices. Coming out of one office and partway down the stairs was a line of young men, most with their shirts off. They were a pretty scraggly bunch, Jomo thought, probably not much more than common thieves. “But I guess that is what I am also.” He attached himself to the end of the line of men that were waiting to get their physical examination. While not exactly quick, the line moved rapidly enough that Jomo imagined the examinations were merely cursory and that it didn’t take a very great physical specimen to become a soldier in the Tanzanian Army. The man in front of Jomo was only about 160 centimeters tall and couldn’t have weighed over fifty kilos. “What a runt,” thought Jomo. Yet this man had passed the physical, put back on his clothes and had gotten into the line to sign the documents that made him a soldier.
When it became Jomo’s turn to enter the examination room, he was confronted with a skinny British doctor named Alexander and a chatty Chinese nurse named Chang whose job it was to pronounce him physically fit. While not huge, Jomo was tall and surprisingly strong. He had surprised Dr. Mkapa several times with his ability to turn over large animals that were lying on their darts or were in danger of suffocation. Once in fact, he had to flip a kudu that had fallen with its head in the water after the tranquilizer had taken effect. The Dr. Alexander told him to take off his clothes and Jomo obeyed, stacking them on a chair. While the doctor checked his heart and lungs, the nurse injected him with several inoculations against the likes of tetanus, malaria, measles and influenza. The doctor then checked Jomo’s spine, while the nurse looked at his feet and wrote everything down on a preprinted card. Lastly she checked Jomo’s hair for lice, while the doctor checked him for a hernia. Throughout the ordeal, the nurse would say things like, “Yes, that’s good, now bend down, yes. Too many flies in here, huh? Oh, well. This will hurt a little. No you didn’t even feel it did you? No? Good. Face me. How old are you? Nineteen. Ever had any of the following diseases: AIDS? Asthma? beri beri? bubonic plague…” And so forth.
At the end of the exam, which only took about ten minutes, the doctor told Jomo to put his clothes back on. After Jomo did this, he started to walk out of the examination room, to the office where the men were signing their three year contracts with the army.
“Hold it,” the doctor said.
“Yes, daktari. What is it?”
“I’m afraid you can’t go in there, young man.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you see, it is your spine. It is a bit crooked. It’s called scoliosis.” The doctor pointed to a chart on exam room wall. The nurse looked at the doctor, her mouth slightly open. “You see, a normal spine is straight up and down when viewed from the back, but yours is curved to the right.” Jomo glared at the chart in disbelief. God seemed to thwart him at every instance.
“This means I cannot enter the army?”
“I’m afraid not chap.”
“What can I do now? I could fight as well as anybody!” Jomo looked at the doctor and nurse imploringly, but they did not say anything, except that when Jomo left the room, the doctor said, “Good luck” in a surprisingly cheerful manner. Jomo took this as an insult and ran out of the office, down the stairs and into the street. As the next would-be soldier stepped into the room, Dr. Alexander tore up Jomo’s card.
“His spine looked fine to me, doctor,” the Chinese nurse said.
“It was. My diagnosis was compliments of Dr. Mkapa.”
omo ran out of the building and aimlessly into the middle of the street. An open sided truck taking tourists to see the Olduvai Gorgealmost hit him. The driver, a transplanted South African skidded to a stop in front of him. Losing his cool, the driver yelled out, “Watch it Kaffir!” But realizing he had committed a faux pas in front of his paying guests, in a more friendly tone he added, “I don’t want to hit you rafiki.” Jomo was oblivious to it all, however, and proceeded down the street as if nothing had occurred. His mind was in a wasteland where hope and expectation were as foreign as the moon; where his only refuge was to not think at all—to become insensible to everything and everyone around him.
Eventually Jomo wandered into a park at the west end of the city. The sun was high and hot in the sky. The park looked cool and refreshing to Jomo. It was populated with paperbark thorn trees that provided shade and a roosting place for weaverbirds. Not a soul was in the park save Jomo, who walked over to a water pump, drank and pumped water over his head. Then he sat under one of the thorn trees to watch the weaverbirds construct their intricate nests. All afternoon, alternately dozing and waking, he watched the birds performing their magical construction until darkness covered Arusha. Then, when the weaverbirds settled in for the night, hunger woke Jomo and he walked back into town.
From the money that his mother had given him, Jomo had scarcely a shilling left, which was just enough to pay for this night’s lodging, if he didn’t eat. However, hunger overcame his need for a room and Jomo went to a market and bought enough food to satisfy his appetite. Then he made his way back up the dusty street to the hotel where he told the manager that he was leaving. He would collect his things and go back to the park to sleep.
In the morning I’ll…well, the morning will just have to take care of itself, he thought. He walked up the squeaky stairs to his room and opened the door into darkness. Flicking on the light, Jomo retrieved the beaten suitcase from under the bed and put his few clothes and belongings into it. He sat on the bed and put his head in his hands.
“God,” he said, “There is no place to go. I need a nyumba, to stay in and a way to make a living. Where do I go from here? I can’t stay in the park forever. How can I eat? How can I face my mazizi, my parents again?” Jomo picked up his suitcase and left his room for the last time. He shuffled down the narrow hallway and stairs. On his way out the door, he said “Kwa heri!” to the manager of the small hotel. “You have been kind to me sir. I wish I had a tip for you, but I have no more money.”
“Kwa heri,” said the manager. “May Mungu protect you. And even though you don’t have a tip for me, I have something for you that I almost forgot.” The hotel manager produced a small package wrapped in newspaper with a string tied around it. Jomo untied the string and took off the paper, carefully laying it aside. Inside the paper was a book, a thick book with a picture of a boy and a panther on it.
“What is it?” The manager peered over the counter, but could not see the book.
“A joke. Only a bad joke for a mjinga like myself.”
“Let me look at it.” Jomo held it up. “Oh, it is a book!” the manager seemed delighted. “The man who brought it by said there is a note inside. He also said that I should read it to you.”
“You can have the book and the note for all I care.” Jomo handed the man the book and headed out the door.
“No, wait!” Mr. Zuri yelled. “Look, inside, a twenty shilling note!”
Jomo stopped. “Dr. Mkapa is trying to buy off my pain,” he thought. But even so, Jomo turned around and walked back to the front desk.
“Look boy, the volume is titled The Jungle Book.”
“A lot of good that book will do me, if I can’t even read it.” Jomo said under his breath, but the manager wasn’t paying attention to him. Mr. Zuri held up the twenty shilling bill.
“See here, boy. The message the man sent you is written on the money.”
“Where?”
“Here, across the top. It reads, Meet me at the clinic tomorrow morning on Punda
Milia Street. Buy a goat with the money and give some money to the good man who is reading this to you. Oh, that means me!” Mr. Zuri chuckled, then continued, “You may keep the rest, but be sure to bring the book with you when you come.”
“Mr. Zuri, how much does a goat cost?”
“Oh, I don’t know exactly, boy. About three shillings. Maybe a shilling more for a good milk producer.”
“Well, then I want to give you five shillings for your kindness to me, and I will have plenty left over for the goat.”
“Mungu bless you, boy.”
“And is it alright if I stay another night?”
“You shall have my best room, if I have to kick out the Prime Minister himself!”
The following morning Jomo didn’t know what to think. He was grateful to the doctor for giving him money, but he was also suspicious of the doctor’s motives. He guessed that the doctor had something to do with him being turned down by the army, and this made Jomo angry, but he was also thankful that there was at least one person, besides his mother that cared whether he lived or died. He had half a mind to take the rest of the money Dr. Mkapa had given him and take a bus to the other side of the country, where he might get a job working for a safari company. But the doctor had asked him to buy a goat, and it didn’t seem right to go off and leave him without at least doing him this favor. Jomo threw the book into his suitcase and wandered about the streets of Arusha, looking for a good buy on a goat.
Eventually he settled with an ancient Masai woman on a nanny goat that was reputedly a very good milker. She wanted four shillings for the goat, but Jomo talked her down to three plus a bit of rope to lead her with. The woman put Jomo’s coin into her belt and cackled, “Be good to her boy.” Then she wandered off, giggling to herself.
“Her milk better taste as sweet as asali,” Jomo thought, as he dragged the nanny goat through the streets of Arusha, looking for the animal hospital. People along the streets chuckled to see a boy leading a goat with one hand and carrying a suitcase in the other. Jomo just ignored them resolutely pulling the goat until he finally stopped in front of the hospital. The clinic, officially titled the Arusha Animal Hospital was actually a compound of about five acres that housed a hospital, outdoor cages for recovering animals, and a sort of informal zoo that helped raise money for the clinic.
“I’ll just tie the goat up here,” Jomo said to himself, as he began winding the rope around the trunk of a bushwillow that grew in front of the main entrance.
“No, around back would be better,” a voice from inside the compound said. “Thank you for bringing him, Jomo.” Dr. Mkapa strolled out of the clinic door with his characteristic baggy tan trousers, a white tee-shirt and a photographer’s vest.
“Why did you want a goat, Dr. Mkapa?”
“Well, for my weeds. You see, I’ve got all kinds of weeds growing in the back, and I don’t want to use weed killer, what with all the animals and all. So a goat is the perfect solution.” He walked over to Jomo and patted him on the head. “Rafiki,” he said. I’m glad you came.” Untying the goat from the bushwillow he added, “You’re just in time; I’m getting ready for a safari tomorrow. Apparently several eland have come down with a mysterious illness over towards Banagi. The Wildlife Department wants us to investigate. We will be gone for a month, possibly two.”
“Doctor, I know it was you that rigged my army physical so I would fail. But it won’t work. I came by to give you the goat, and to thank you for the money, but I can go to another city and join the army.”
“Well, if that’s what you really want to do, Jomo, but I could really use you on this trip. Eland are big bruisers, and I don’t think Kumasa and I can handle them by ourselves. Come, at least help me get this goat through the gate. You sure bought a stubborn one.” The goat started dragging Dr. Mkapa across the street, much to Jomo’s delight.
“The woman I bought her from was almost as stubborn. I learned how to handle both.” With that the doctor handed Jomo the rope and all three made their way through the compound gate. Once set free, the goat seemed quite happy in its new confines, but the doctor was a little concerned. “Now I guess I’ll have to get someone to milk her,” he said. “Maybe Kumasa. I would pay an ounce of gold to see him milk a goat!” The two of them laughed. The doctor led Jomo into his office and handed him a bottle Pepsi from a dispenser that looked like it had been made in the forties.
“Nothing like a cold Pepsi on a hot day, eh Jomo?” Jomo nodded. “Except maybe a cold pombe, but you wouldn’t know about that, my friend.” Dr. Mkapa smiled at him, but suddenly his face got serious.
“Jomo, now is the time to make up your mind. You are right. I did ask Dr. Alexander down at the army office to turn you down. He owed me a favor for curing one of his cats of calcivirus. Funny man, he has no wife or family, but lives with twenty-two cats! But if you want to, Jomo, you can become a soldier. You would probably be a very good soldier, that is, if you like shooting people and taking orders.”
“I think God wanted me to become a soldier, Dr. Mkapa. I am not fit for anything else.”
“Listen, Jomo. You are one of the most gifted young men I know. You have a good memory for animals and plants, you have a sense of working with creatures that is unique, and you are strong and healthy. If God had wanted you to be a soldier, would he have given you such a love for animals? I can use a man like you, and so can the wild creatures out there, the tembo, the kiboko, the paa. Think of them. You should work with me until you finish school. Then you should go to the university and become a veterinarian.”
“But my reading, Dr. Mkapa. I can’t even read. How can I become a veterinarian if I couldn’t even read the note that you wrote to me.”
“You’re right, you can’t, mtoto. But I want you to give me six weeks. If you will go on this safari with me, I will have you reading in six weeks. Mind, you will still be a beginning reader, but I will have you reading enough so that you will change your mind about the army.”
“But doctor, the mission school couldn’t teach me to read in over ten years. How do you expect me to read in six weeks?”
“You just watch and see.”
Every night for six weeks the doctor read to Jomo, something no one had done with him before. During the day the two men and the boy darted eland and discovered what was ailing the great antelope of the Serengeti. During the nights the three read, or rather the doctor read, with Jomo and Kumasa listening. Sometimes Kumasa would fall asleep in the pickup and Dr. Mkapa would read on into the night, occasionally letting Jomo sound out passages. Then, after a month out on the plain, a miracle happened. The mysterious, lovely gift of reading was bestowed on Jomo, and for the first time in his life, he took the halting and timid steps of becoming a reader. Jomo’s curse was over.
ut on the vastness of theSerengeti Plain, about thirty kilometers south of thevillageofRobanda, the sun, an infinite globule of fiery red in was the last stages of its travel across the vault of African sky. At a small tent camp, set amongst a grove of acacia trees, far away from civilized man, a campfire was burning brightly. Night came quickly out on the Serengeti, and once the sun set. darkness soon followed. The three men in the camp had the Coleman lanterns lit already and were sitting at the opened tailgate of a pickup truck, with a blanket spread across it as a sort of makeshift table.
Spread across the table and into the bed of the pickup were various water bottles, tools, a medical kit, a camera, boxes of vials for gathering specimens, a field microscope, binoculars, and books. Among the books were a field guide to animal tracks in Africa, Dr. Mkapa’s ancient bird book, an English dictionary and Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Also among the books were The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Out of Africa, and A Room with a View. But opened in front of the boy was a well worn, illustrated copy of The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling. Next to the boy sat the doctor, reading out loud, with very great expression in his deep voice, a voice that passed out beyond the circle of the fire:
What of the hunting, hunter bold?
Brother, the watch was long and cold.
What of the quarry ye went to kill?
Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
Where is the power that made your pride?
Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.
Where is the haste that ye hurry by?
Brother, I go to my lair–to die.
The boy, sat wrapped in the tale of the book, following the doctor down the page and from page to page into the dark Serengeti night.
According to all the usual Internet gossip from the likes of Engaget MacRumors, and CNET, the new MacBook Pro coming out this fall will do away with the optical or DVD drive completely, will sport large flash drives in lieu of hard drives, and will feature Apple’s new Retina display that will have twice the resolution of any other screen on the market today. The already slim MacBook Pros will also become much thinner, looking more like the MacBook Air.
Imagi
Falstaff's Pen 