Turkana again

I'd only been to Turkana once before and then it was by road - which is what I recommend - because it eases you into the idea that you are going to desert land - even if it does take you two days to drive :)



Flying over Lodwar


So this time, I get off the plane and I am surprised to find sand at my feet. They say this is is the worst drought ever to hit the Horn of Africa.... they say that the cycles are getting shorter and shorter... so that one day, perhaps there will be a continuous state of drought.

It's maddening to think that it could be prevented or at least mitigated... and I'm wondering what it would take to actually see some real results... because it's not that there isn't rain. It's that no sooner does it rain then we are flooded and then we are at a loss again. It's like oases - appearing and disappearing - only over here, it's tragic.


seasonal rivers or lagas (I have no idea how that's spelt)

I'm actually sad to learn that the droughts are causing more and more pastoralists to abandon their lifestyles. Interventions range from destocking to finding alternative livelihoods for them. I'd prefer that we found some way to keep that way of life alive... or is that quixotic?

And so we traced the migration corridors of these Turkana - the children especially who filter into towns, travelling under the belly of buses. They find themselves most commonly in the Rift Valley, in green towns like Eldoret and Kitale... the boys become farm hands if trusted enough to toil, but are most commonly stereotyped into roles most akin to what their pastoralist lifestyle would've entailed such as caring for cattle or becoming guards. And the girls become prostitutes, selling themselves for 20 shillings or one ndazi at a time. How old are they, I ask a resident of Kitale, twelve, thirteen...

They tell me that early marriages coincide with the drought. A girl is given away for dowry just before the drought hits so that the family is better cushioned to undergo it. In the green towns, they say that incidences of rape and defilement are rampant just before harvest. That's when the maize is high - that's when you can cover all manner of sins...

maize fields in Kitale

saturdays

I used to dance at the Vera Zerkovitz School of Ballet - on Saturday mornings, from 10am - 12pm in a studio just above the conservatoire. It's the only time I ever saw dancers dress fully like ballerinas. Not in any of the modern dance wear but simple, classical, tights, leotards, hair in buns and blocks even at the bar.

Vera rarely spoke beyond reiterating instructions - instructions that weren't really necessary because for two hours, she had a programme for us: from the bar to the floor and from the floor to the corners. She commanded a quiet respect from all of us... Neither of us spoke to each other either. We just diligently followed the programme - to the tap of her heels and to the notes of her partner on the piano.

That was what I loved about it. It was so disciplined. It made me wonder whether this was what ballet was like in Russia. No recorded music, no choreography. Just every move in ballet in sequence and to the simple honesty of the piano.

I returned to the school recently. It's a studio now. For aerobics or something. The sign reads something else. They have put glass around what once was an open verandah. Where we used to bask in the sun.

India

I fell in love with India. Because before I met Rohan, she didn't have a face. She lived in the stereotypes of the diaspora, who try to be more Indian than the Indians themselves. She lived in the prejudices of a former colony that has never really known how to feel about the wahindi who stayed after the railway, speak kiswahili and invest in the country without marrying their daughters off or assuming seats of public office.

Enter Rohan. The first Indian from India I've ever really known. A proud Brahmin who lived on the thrill of what he liked to call 'calculated risk'. I met him at a time I wanted someone to accept me, fight for me, love life with me - and he did all three.

And it's because he was so proud and comfortable with his country and history that I learned to love her too. And all the prejudices slipped away as I reacquainted myself with India's social fabric, religion, history. And it is her age and her civilisation and her vastness that impress me. But it's also her hurts and dreams that now assume a human face instead of what had been a reason to continue to be prejudiced. 

He has since taken motorbike trips from Rajasthan to Madhay Pradesh (a-la-Che Guevara style in 'Motorcycle Diaries') and though I am no longer with him, I feel myself riding there too.

It's funny how you can live vicariously through looking at photographs. But when I see those temples and them looking out from those cliffs. I am there too. I have driven for 10 hours and I am perched on a rock, wind-whipped and satisfied. And I am happy that he gave her to me. That he allowed me to accept a place and a people and a culture without ever even going there.

And maybe one day I won't equate India with him. But for the moment, everything that I am open to knowing about her, is because of him.

it's that uncertainty that makes you feel alive - afraid - hopeful - dreamy. negotiating who you become when you make that decision, agreement, committment, losing a little bit of yourself in that process and decision. worrying about which way you'll go and how it'll change your life.