Walking Home (32 page)

We raced forward, the ground at the side of the road a reddish blur. If we could find a way to stay aboard for the entire trip, I knew we would be there within an hour. One hour and we would be in Kikima. And then what? We would try to find our grandparents. I would ask questions of people until they were able to direct us to them … if they were still alive. Many years had passed since my mother had had contact with them and they had to be very old.

“Do you still see the string?” Jata asked over the rush of the wind.

“Not now, but the driver can see it. Have no worries.”

“I am not worried. Our mother is taking us home.”

For an instant, I forgot that she was referring to the name of the
matatu.

“It is like you said—our father and mother will guide us,” she said.

It did feel like they had been watching from overhead. There was no other explanation. We had got here through more than my efforts.

“I cannot wait to be welcomed by our family,” Jata said.

“Yes, that will be most special. But first we must find them.”

Finding them was a task I could control. Being welcomed was still in question. Would we be accepted and embraced, the children of the daughter who had defied her parents, the children of a Kikuyu father they did not approve of, the grandchildren they did not even know existed?

Walking had moved my legs and left my mind quiet. Whenever those questions had arisen, I had pushed them aside. Now my legs were still and my mind was active, and there was no escaping them. I opened my bundle, pulled out two oranges—leaving one remaining—and handed them to Jata. “You peel them for our remaining breakfast.”

She started to peel, tossing the pieces over the side. No worries about a lion following our path now. Perhaps those little orange peels would help us find our way back to Machakos if there was no place for us in Kikima.

I sat there and for the first time allowed that thought to sink in—what if we were not wanted in Kikima? What would we do and where would we go? There was no place for us at the camp anymore. I would not travel across the country twice just to end up back where we’d started. We hadn’t gone through all this to go back to the beginning. If we stayed in Kikima, at least there was peace. We would be free of the violence. And we would be in the home village of our mother, so at least a small
piece of her would still be with us. We had followed the string.

Wherever we were, Jata would remain at my side.

The
matatu
slowed and I had a rush of fear that it was to let us off. But I looked down the road and saw three people waving it down. When we came to a stop, the trail of dust we had been leaving behind caught up and surrounded the vehicle. Up top we were clear of the hovering red cloud.

After a minute, we started moving again and the conductor appeared, clambering up the side and tossing a bag onto the roof.

“Enjoying the ride?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. This is a good place to ride.”

“It is my favorite,” he said as he tucked the bundle under a rope and made sure it was secure. “This is where I always ride when I am not the conductor. It is mostly above the dust, and you have air in your face and lots of space. I think we should charge a higher fare up here than we do down there.”

“Can we still ride farther?” I asked.

“Still farther. But why did your parents not give you more money for this ride?” he asked.

“We have no parents,” I said.

“Orphans—there are many. You have never been on my vehicle before.”

“Never.”

“Why are you going to Kikima?”

“Our grandparents live there.”

“And you live with them?”

“Yes.” I hoped so badly that I wasn’t lying.

“Tell them to give you more money next time. Now I’d better be a conductor.”

More people on the road ahead were waving for us to stop. The conductor climbed down the ladder and was gone.

Repeatedly the
matatu
stopped to let passengers and parcels on or off. The conductor appeared and disappeared, putting things on or taking them off from the roof. Most stops were quick, but others—such as when he had to untie and lower the chesterfield—were longer. Each time we stopped, I wondered if this was where he would tell us that our fare would take us no farther. But each time, we traveled on.

Despite the bumps and the stops, Jata had fallen asleep, held safely in place by the rubber of the tire. I wished I could fall asleep too and wake up in Kikima.

The road had gradually become rougher. We passed over dried riverbeds, between huge boulders, down rutted roads and through mountains. Along the way, the homesteads grew smaller and were set farther back from the road. Crops, where they grew, seemed to be suffering. There was as much brown as there was
green. Had the rains failed, or did they simply not come here very often?

Once again the
matatu
slowed. There were no people waiting by the roadside, so I had to hope that passengers inside were wanting to get off. The conductor appeared at the side—perhaps to get a parcel for that passenger?

“We are stopping for you,” he said. “Your fare has passed.”

I roused Jata and gathered my bundle. “Are we far from Kikima?” I asked him.

“Closer than your shillings should have allowed.”

When the
matatu
came to a full stop, the conductor offered Jata a hand to get her started down. Then he took the water container from me, handing it down to Jata on the ground. No sooner had I landed beside her than the
matatu
started moving again. The conductor ran alongside and then jumped into the open door, hanging out and looking back at us.

“Follow us!” he yelled. “It is just up the hill. Not far. Follow the dust!”

The
matatu
raced away, disappearing into the dust cloud it created.

I picked up the water container one more time. How many times had I set it down and picked it up? More important, would this be the last time in this journey?

“Muchoki, are we going?”

“Of course. I was just waiting for the dust to settle.” And waiting to settle my fears as well.

We started walking.

“Do you think it will be big or little?” Jata asked.

“What will be big or little?”

“Our grandparents’ home.”

“Does it matter?” I asked.

“Not really.”

I was more interested in the door of the house—would it be open or closed?

We were not alone on the road. Women with heavy loads on their backs were slowly walking up the hill, and they were joined by pushcarts filled with produce and bicycles piled high with merchandise. We were not the only people heading in this direction.

“Look!” Jata exclaimed, pointing at a store. The window said, in big letters,
KIKIMA WEST SHOPPING CENTER
. “We are here!”

“I think this is just the outskirts, but we are close. There is more ahead.”

Jata’s steps became lighter. She was almost skipping she seemed so happy. My feet, on the other hand, felt heavy, burdened with worries she knew nothing about.

We moved to the side of the road as another
matatu
came up from behind. I turned and shaded my eyes from the dust. Many people were going to Kikima, it seemed.
Up ahead were more stores, more vehicles and many, many more people. We had come upon the center of the town, and we were here on a market day. The square was filled with stalls, the ground covered with burlap and plastic to display merchandise. There were tomatoes and potatoes, onions and oranges, mangos and passion fruit piled high.

The square was crowded with people, young and old alike. Were any of these my grandfather and grandmother? Were my uncles and aunts and cousins standing around me? How would I know other than to ask? I looked around for the right person—somebody who was older, who would know the people of the community. At one stall I saw a woman old enough to be a grandparent, carefully stacking potatoes into little piles.

“Good morning,” I greeted her. “I am asking of you, do you know the Kyatha family?”

She shook her head. “I only know potatoes.”

We started walking again. The market space was crowded with only small aisles of dirt left open between the blankets and stalls. People bumped through and loud voices—those of the vendors and those of the customers—seemed to make it seem even more chaotic and crowded. I was reassured that every voice seemed to be speaking in Kikamba but that made it even more difficult as it was harder for me to understand and it strained my mind even further.