Reunion in Barsaloi (13 page)

T
he first thing that strikes me is that it’s a genuine tent city, with proper tent houses laid out in neat rows on either side of a long central avenue, each one the exact same distance from the next. It’s not hard to tell these are Germans. Every tent looks like a little house with a porch. Behind them some distance away is a row of installations covered in plastic sheeting that obviously serve as showers and toilets. My first impression is one of absolutely dumbstruck amazement at the vast amount of resources deployed to depict my life back in the days when all I had to my name was a hut made of cow dung.

The tent village is beautifully situated in the shelter of two hills with the mountains shimmering in the distance. We’re taken to an information tent equipped with all the latest technology: everywhere there are people at desks working on computers and laptops, with mobile phones plugged into chargers. I’m glad that at least now I’ll have the opportunity to talk to my daughter, who must be waiting with rather mixed feelings for some sign of life from her mother.

We introduce ourselves to the few people present. As it’s lunchtime, most people are either eating or back on the set. Everything here is done with military precision, and we are each allocated one of the magnificent tents while they send off a messenger to inform the person in charge of looking after us that we have arrived. In the meantime we head off to the showers to wash away the dust of the road. I find my own tent and am stunned to see a proper bed with fresh bed linen and white towels: incredibly luxurious after what we’ve been used to the past few days. There is even a little table and chair and a wardrobe to complete the effect.

An African appears outside the tent to ask if I want hot water for my shower. Given that the outside temperature is hovering around forty degrees, I tell him I can do without. I have him explain the shower to me, however. It’s rather ingenious. You slip inside the plastic sheeting cubicle behind the tent and stand under a showerhead with a string attached which works like a toilet flush when you pull it. The water, either hot or cold depending on what you asked for, comes from a tank above, which is filled on demand. The other part of the cubicle contains a toilet, which works on the earth-closet system rather than being attached to a water flushing mechanism, but it all seems very hygienic, practical and simple.

After freshening up under the shower I’m pleased to be able to put on a pair of trousers again. I’ve barely got dressed, however, before someone outside the tent says, ‘Madame, your lunch please.’ I unzip the door and think this has to be a dream: there’s a boy standing there, smiling with a tray and a silver cover over it. I sit down at my little table and can hardly believe what he uncovers: a starter, main course, dessert and various pieces of fruit, all arranged beautifully. I devour the lot with gusto. It’s incredible how your attitude to eating can change when you’ve had to make do and give up a lot of things for a while. I remember the phenomenon all too well from the days back in Barsaloi when we were nearly starving. In those days I had money enough but no way of buying even the simplest foodstuffs because for weeks on end the rivers were impassable, and there was simply nothing available. Right now, on the other hand, I feel like I’m on a luxury safari.

After this magnificent meal I go to find Albert who’s already sitting talking to the producer Günter Rohrbach. We greet one another with hearty hellos and he asks me for my first impressions. For now all I can comment on, I tell him with a laugh, is the
mzungu
bit as I haven’t been on the actual set yet. He offers to show us the corral straight away and says tomorrow he’ll take us to where they’ve built a replica of Barsaloi. It takes just a few minutes’ drive for us to get to the corral they’ve built for filming. I’m enormously impressed. Everything is absolutely perfect; the
manyattas
look just like Mama’s back in Barsaloi.

Given that the Samburu extras actually live here, obviously the way of life is absolutely authentic too. Mothers with their little babies are sitting around outside their huts, some cleaning the children, others washing kangas. There are various items of clothing laid out on the thorn stockade
to dry. That is the only different I notice initially: everybody – adults and children – has clean clothes, almost certainly because they have access to the water that’s brought in daily in tankers for the film crew.

Apart from that, the
manyatta
village looks as if the people have been living here for years. Everything is perfect down to the last detail. I’m really pleased to see that nothing’s been bodged. Girls in pretty traditional costume pass by, but I notice that instead of bird feathers they’ve got plastic flowers in their hair. This looks ridiculous to me but I realize that for them plastic is something new and different and both the girls and their warriors see it has something special and luxurious.

We wander around the corral, attracting minor interest and some slight amusement from the inhabitants. None of them know that I’m the one who used to live like this among their tribe or that it’s my story that’s being acted out here. Before long we come to a
manyatta
that’s not lived in and is slightly bigger than the others. It’s explained to me that this is the one they use for internal shots and is supposed to represent the one I used to live in. Obviously I simply have to crawl inside and am delighted once again to see that everything has been recreated as accurately as possible. These first impressions reassure me that at least the film will show, and in some little way preserve, the unique culture of the Samburu, which I fear may not last much longer in its present form.

It’s teatime, and once again we’re presented with a luxurious assortment of juices, tea, coffee and various titbits. We’ve got out of the habit of having such a spread laid out in front of us but enjoy it all the more. Word has gradually got around the camp that the ‘real white Masai’ has turned up. Someone says to me: ‘It’s really nice to meet you in person. You’ve had an extraordinary life. I’m in awe of you. If it hadn’t been for your courage back then, none of us would be here now to see this magnificent landscape and get to know the wonderful Samburu people. Thank you so much.’ I’m very moved by all this but haven’t a clue what I’m supposed to say in response.

I wish now that Lketinga could see this side of things for once, to understand how many people all over the world have shared our story and wish the best to him and his family. I experience all this daily back home reading all my post and emails, or in person when I do readings, or people stop me in the street. But back in Barsaloi it seems all he gets is bad news.
I feel a bit sorry that he’s not here to see and hear all this. I console myself with the thought that I can tell him all about it at the party and send him pictures later.

I get the chance to chat to a few of the film crew: the costume mistress, who’s from South Africa originally – the whole adventure out here in the bush has made her feel homesick – and the make-up artist, who’s from Germany. Someone points out the mobile phone mast that’s been erected just for the duration of the film shoot. They have huge generators to provide power for everything. It’s quite incredible how much stuff they’ve had to ship out here into the bush! I can only hope that the rains don’t come early and catch them by surprise!

During the afternoon, life in the camp all but comes to a stop in the intensity of the shimmering heat but with evening it all comes to life again and people pour back from work into the tents. Paraffin lamps are set out to mark the paths and water for the showers is heated up over open fires while people busy themselves in their tents. Most of them were away all day shooting at the recreated Barsaloi. I can hardly wait to see that set tomorrow.

Albert, Klaus and I are already sitting in the dinner tent with the producer, watching them prepare food for well in excess of a hundred people. There are several Kenyan cooks working under the direction of Rolf Schmid, a German who has been living in Kenya, working in the restaurant trade for years. He is an experienced professional when it comes to providing a catering service for film crews in Kenya. Film crews who have benefited from his gastronomic expertise include those who worked on
Out of Africa
with Robert Redford and Merlyn Streep, as well as the German actress Caroline Links’ film
Nowhere in Africa
. Most people in the business rate him the best caterer in the whole of Kenya. I’m hugely impressed and amazed by the sheer logistics of what he’s undertaking here, especially taking into account that everything has to be brought in huge trucks all the way from Nairobi.

Little by little the tent fills up. I’m pleased to see the director Hermine Huntgeburth again. I really liked her at our first meeting and got the impression my story was in good hands with her. I’m also pleased that it is a woman directing. At last Nina arrives. Immediately it’s clear to me that at least superficially she fits the bill: tall, thin and blond, just the way I looked eighteen years ago. I can even relate to the aura she gives off,
which is a good sign. We say hello, full of curiosity about one another, and sit down to eat together. The situation is a little odd, however, and I feel slightly inhibited and get the impression she does too. Diagonally opposite is an Italian actor who’s playing Father Giuliani. I like him even if he doesn’t look much like the ‘original’. At any rate I can imagine him gesticulating as energetically as Giuliani did.

Then at last I meet Jacky Ido, who is playing Lemalian, the name they have substituted in the script for Lketinga. He’s dressed normally for dinner and seems to me nothing like a Samburu. I try to conceal my initial annoyance and when I say hello to him notice that at least around the eyes there is a certain resemblance to my ex-husband. When he starts talking too I find he gives off a warm, pleasant aura. He’s about the right size too. I’ll be interested to see what he looks like tomorrow after
make-up
. He tells me that it takes two hours every day to turn him into a traditional Samburu. As he has no objections, I decide to go along and watch this transformation take place.

Listening to people talk, I realize they’re all really exhausted. It’s a long day shooting out there in the heat. The meal makes up for a lot though, with a dessert buffet to rival any four-star hotel even though it’s laid out under the stars in the bush.

Much as I enjoy luxury like this today, back then when I lived out here it would have meant nothing to me. It was my love for Lketinga that gave me such strength and will to survive. I felt it like a living thing within me that gave me the power to move mountains. Here, on the other hand, are people simply struggling to work for three months under difficult conditions. The beauty and romance of this landscape must pale for them when they’re far from home and their loved ones. I can imagine what it’s like and wouldn’t mind asking a few questions, but I get the impression that now is not the time.

The producer makes a little speech, introducing me so everyone knows who I am. Almost immediately after dinner, however, the leading actors turn in for the night. Nina wants to go over her lines for tomorrow, and Jacky has to get up really early for his two hours in the make-up chair. So we have a last glass of wine together and head out of the dinner tent.

Off to one side there’s a campfire burning with a row of chairs in a semicircle around it. I sit down and gaze into the flickering flames. After a little while a Samburu mother and a lively eight-year-old girl come to join
me. The woman says hello and starts talking to me in Maa. I do my best to guess what she’s saying from the few phrases I understand. Then all of a sudden it dawns on me that she’s trying to explain that she knows me from way back when. She was in the hospital in Wamba at the same time as I was giving birth to my daughter. She was having her last, that is her fourteenth, child! I can hardly believe the bits of information I’m stringing together out of the avalanche of unfamiliar words pouring over me. When she goes on to tell me that she’s the film-Mama, I can’t cope anymore: I absolutely need an interpreter. I need to know what she’s saying.

Quickly they find someone who knows both Maa and English. It seems I’ve got the right end of the stick. It’s incredible. After auditioning dozens of Samburu women, the one who ends up playing the role of my mother-in-law is someone who knew me back then and even gave birth to a child in Wamba at the same time as me! I’m enchanted by the discovery and convinced it’s fate rather than chance.

The lively little girl is playing the part of Saguna, although in the film she’s called Christine. She’s as bouncy as a rubber ball and in search of security, that’s as plain as pie. I’m told later that she’s being brought up by an aunt, either because her parents are dead, or because they’ve given her away. It’s hard to find out anything else because the Samburu don’t like to talk about the dead.

Watching this ‘film-Mama’ for a while, I decide I really like her. However, in comparison with my mother-in-law, she strikes me as somewhat too young and lacking the older woman’s mystic aura. But sitting here around the campfire and having just heard her story I find myself bonding with her. She tells me she knows some of the members of my family from Barsaloi. I’m delighted to hear it and interested to see how she plays her role. Mama obviously was an important figure for me. She kept me from a lot of distress and gave me a lot of inner strength. If they manage to get any of that across in the film, I’ll be more than pleased.

By now all the chairs around the fire have been taken and, as usual amongst Africans, everybody’s nattering away. They always have some story or other to tell and most of the time the atmosphere’s always jovial. The film-Mama, however, gets up to go to bed as tomorrow will be another long day on the set. I take my leave of the campfire too and after saying a few goodnights make my way to my tent.

E
arly next morning a loud dawn chorus of birdsong wakes me. I clamber out of the tent just in time to catch the sunrise. A few yards away there’s a thorn tree with bird’s nests, little round balls stuck to the branches with a little narrow round entrance from beneath. It’s funny to watch the birds popping up into their nests from below. There must be at least three dozen of the things on this tree with their inhabitants flitting to and fro.

After making myself ready for the day I stroll over to the caravan where the make-up artist has set up shop to watch Jacky undergo his transformation into Lketinga, otherwise known as Lemalian. There’s no way I want to miss this. He’s already in the chair and greets me with a beaming smile.

The make-up man tells me Jacky is always good-humoured, even though he’s the first into the chair in the morning and the last to leave each evening. On the wall hangs a long red wig plaited Masai-style. It looks remarkably like the real thing. I settle down to observe the transformation.

First comes the laborious task of fitting Jacky’s ears with larger artificial pierced lobes to hold the ivory earrings. To my unaccustomed eyes, this soft brown thing looks absolutely macabre, like a real piece of human ear. I’m so fascinated by it that the make-up man gives me the piece they used yesterday. The first thing that comes into my head is: I must show this to Lketinga. But I soon drop that idea, realizing the sort of difficult conversation it could lead to. If I find it disturbingly realistic, how can I explain to him that there are materials that can be made to look like anything and that there are even people who do that for a living?

With extreme precision the false ear extension is fixed to the real thing and glued on behind. Imagine having to go through this same process every day. Then the heavy wig is fixed on his head. The more Jacky comes to look like a Samburu, the more I like the look of him. But as the whole process has already taken over an hour, I dash off to the breakfast table to make sure I don’t miss out. When I get back half an hour later Jacky is almost finished. A traditional Samburu helps him with the body paint and makes sure that everything looks right.

Yes, I think, now this Lemalian looks a lot more like Lketinga than Jacky did last night. With his shining naked torso decorated
Samburu-style
, he looks magnificent and fascinating. His soft eyes and enticing smile only add to the positive aura he projects and I’m convinced now that the public will take to him. My cynicism has finally been overcome. Perhaps it’s also better for me if he doesn’t look exactly like Lketinga. It will make it easier for me to keep some distance between the film and the reality of my own past.

Time’s getting on, however, so we have a few photos taken together before Jacky has to be driven off to shoot today’s scenes, which are set in our shop. They’re doing a scene in which Carola – the name given to my screen persona – is six months’ pregnant. I’m interested to see how Nina will look with a ‘baby bump’, but also how they’ve reconstructed our old shop, the village of Barsaloi and the Mission building. They don’t, however, want to be disturbed while shooting, and despite my curiosity I can understand that.