Kilimanjaro: A Fable of Utopia Read online

  I think that, by and large, our first eight months have gone smoothly. There have been a few disputes over territory, but since we momentarily have an abundance of territory they were quickly settled. There were, as I foresaw, endless complaints about the exchange rate that was finally set for cattle, but eventually both sides accepted the Council’s ruling.

  One of the unforeseen problems was the value of the shilling itself. It was decided that since shillings were the currency in Kenya and Tanzania, they would also be the currency here on Kilimanjaro, and this is where we ran into difficulties. The Kenya shilling is worth more than the Tanzania shilling, so when the price of a cow was set at seven hundred shillings, the pastoralists refused to accept Tanzania shillings and insisted they be paid only in Kenya shillings.

  It was then decided that a new world required a new currency, and so we created the Kilimanjaro shilling. This presented another problem, for we were inexperienced in such matters. You cannot simply print shillings, or they are worth no more than the paper they are printed on. They must be pegged to something: gold, silver, or some other currency.

  We decided to peg ours to the Kenya shilling, since it was the currency with which we were most familiar. Any immigrant could change his Kenya shillings for Kilimanjaro shillings at the posted rate. It seemed simple enough.

  But then Kenya went into a recession, and suddenly the Kenya shilling, which was pegged to the British pound, was worth about half what it had been when we had pegged our shilling to it. It was only after some of our city dwellers paid visits to their families back in Kenya, and returned with huge amounts of devalued Kenya shillings, that we had to devalue our currency, and suddenly our own economy was in a deeper recession than Kenya’s.

  We then announced that the rate of exchange between cattle and shillings would change daily. The pastoralists were certain that this was a way of defrauding them, and the city dwellers objected to the value of our currency depending on the financial actions of the country we had left behind.

  Eventually this was solved for the simple reason that we could not survive with only a barter economy when the city dwellers had nothing to offer the pastoralists, and the pastoralists had only cattle to offer the city dwellers.

  It was painful, and there were some awkward dislocations, but we were fast learners, and even as I write these words the economy is slowly recovering.

  Which is just as well, because other minor problems continue to surface. Some were predictable, and we had prepared for them. Some were completely unforeseen, and required innovative solutions.

  Like “ole”.

  As I mentioned in a previous entry, “ole” means “son of”. Some typical Maasai names are my own David ole Saitoti (David, son of Saitoti), our leading lawyer Joshua ole Saibull (Joshua, son of Saibull), and so on.

  Now let me give you the names of my sister, Joshua’s wife, and my neighbor’s wife: Esiankiki, Malaika, and Ledama.

  Do you see the difference?

  Ledama did, and so she took her complaint to the Council of Elders.

  “Women were treated as second-class citizens for centuries when we still lived in Africa,” she began. “We did almost all the physical labor, while our men protected the herds from the lions and leopards, even long after there were no longer any lions and leopards to protect them from. It wasn’t until we moved to Nairobi and Mombasa and the other cities that we began asserting ourselves and were finally treated as equals.”

  “You are still treated as equals,” said Robert ole Meeli, who spoke for the Council. “What is your complaint?”

  “We are not treated as equals,” insisted Ledama.

  “In what way?” asked Robert. “No job is closed to you, every job pays the same amount no matter who is working at it, no establishment refuses you entry. So I repeat: what is your complaint?”

  “There is an inequity in names,” said Ledama.

  Robert looked confused. “An inequity in names?”

  “You are Robert son of Meeli,” she said. “I am merely Ledama.”

  “Would you rather be known as Ledama ole Koyati?” he asked, and the other Elders chuckled.

  “I am not the son of anyone,” said Ledama. “But why can’t I be Ledama daughter of Koyati?”

  “It would be a break with a thousand-year tradition,” explained Robert.

  “Then you admit that even after a thousand years you do not think of us as equals,” said Ledama. “Is Kilimanjaro to be a Utopia only for men?”

  The Council conferred for less than half an hour, one of its briefer meetings, and declared that from that day forward she could be Ledama daughter of Koyati. And that solved the problem.

  For twenty-four hours.

  Because the next day Ashina, the daughter of Lemasolai, brought her complaint to the Elders.

  “Why must I be known as the daughter of Lemasolai?” she demanded.

  “Isn’t he your father?” asked Robert ole Meeli.

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s settled,” he said.

  “It is not settled,” she insisted. “Didn’t you just reaffirm yesterday that the sexes are equal on Kilimanjaro?”

  “Yes,” said Robert, frowning and trying to figure out where this was leading.

  “My mother was Kibibi,” continued Ashina. “What makes my father more important than my mother?”

  “We have never said that he was,” answered Robert.

  “Then my name should Ashina daughter of Kibibi.”

  This time it took the Council only ten minutes to agree.

  “This subject is now closed,” pronounced Robert ole Meeli. “If someone shows up tomorrow demanding to be known as the son or daughter of both parents, I will personally take him to the game park and throw him—”

  “Or her,” interjected Ashina.

  “Or her,” he continued, “to the lions.”

  It was an embarrassing two days, even humiliating if you were Robert ole Meeli, but at the end of it women knew beyond any doubt that they were equal citizens of Kilimanjaro.

  Until the following week, when Ledama stood before the Council of Elders again, demanding to know why no women were on the Council.

  This was a greater break with tradition than anything that had gone before, but there was always that telling argument: is Kilimanjaro a Utopia for all its citizens, or only half of them?

  Finally the Council agreed to increase its number from seven to thirteen, and the six new members would be women, one from each of the five cities and one from the manyattas.

  This was almost equal, Ledama pointed out, but it still left one more man than woman on the ruling body.

  There must be an odd number on the Council so that there will be no deadlocks, answered Robert.

  Then make the extra member a woman, said Ledama.

  This would not be fair to the men, came the answer.

  The men have been unfair to us for centuries, argued Ledama. View this as reparation.

  I am not responsible for what my great-great-great-grandfathers may have done, said Robert, and I will not make reparation for their sins.

  Ledama argued, but the Council remained adamant. The next week there were thirteen members of the Council of Elders, seven men and six women.

  And the day after that, Robert ole Meeli’s wife left him and went to live among the pastoralists.

  3

  MID-MORNING ON

  KILIMANJARO (2236 A.D.)

  I was sitting in my office, going over some notes I had entered in my computer, when there was a knock at the door. I have no secretary or receptionist, so I just called out “Come in!”

  The door remained closed, so I got up, walked across the office, opened it, and found myself facing a tall thin boy of twelve or thirteen. He was clearly from a pastoralist family, for he wore the traditional red blanket and carried a spear. He was barefoot, his hair was carefully braided, and he looked like he needed another twenty pounds on his body.

  “Hello,” I said in Engli
sh. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “You are David ole Saitoti?” he responded in Maa, ignoring my question.

  “I am,” I said, switching to Maa. “Won’t you come in?”

  He looked carefully around my office as if expecting to find demons awaiting him, which was obviously why he hadn’t entered when I first called out. When he found no hidden monsters he finally nodded his head and entered, taking up the traditional herders’ position, with one leg on the floor, the other bent with the foot pressed against his shin, leaning on his spear.

  “Please sit down,” I said, walking behind my desk and sitting in my own chair, which hovered a few inches above the ground and changed its shape to firmly encircle me.

  “I do not trust chairs that float in the air,” he said. “I will sit only on a three-legged stool, such as we have in my parents’ manyata.”

  “Then you shall have to remain standing,” I said. “What is your name?”

  “Mawenzi ole Porola,” he replied.

  It was very rare to find a Maasai who did not have a Western name, and I must have looked my surprise.

  “My father, who named me, did not forget our traditions,” said Mawenzi with a note of pride. “I hope you have not forgotten them either, or my journey here was wasted.” He paused. “It was very hard to find my way among the streets and buildings of the city.”

  “Why have you come all this way to see me?” I asked.

  “You are the historian, are you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you are the man I must see.”

  “If you’re having problems in one of your classes…” I began.

  “I do not take classes,” he said haughtily. “I am a true Maasai.”

  “Almost everyone on Kilimanjaro is a true Maasai,” I replied. “That doesn’t mean they have to remain ignorant.”

  “I do not seek lectures from you, only answers.”

  “I can’t promise to give you the one without the other,” I said, turning back to my computer. “Perhaps you can find what you need elsewhere.”

  “No!” he all-but-shouted.

  I stared at him but said nothing.

  “I need you!” he insisted.

  “You cannot always have what you want, let alone what you need,” I replied. “I will not be spoken to in such a manner.”

  He was silent for a moment, obviously battling within himself. Finally his whole body seemed to relax.

  “I apologize for my arrogance,” he said.

  “You see?” I said with a smile. “Even a Maasai can apologize, and the world doesn’t come to an end.”

  “You are a very strange Maasai,” said Mawenzi.

  “And you are a very troubled one,” I said. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

  He nodded. “My father—my true father—is dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said distractedly. “And my mother has wed again.”

  “That is good,” I said.

  “That is the problem,” replied Mawenzi.

  “You don’t like your new father?”

  “He is a good man. He provides for us, he is never too stern, he cares for my two sisters and myself as if we were his own children.”

  “Now that he has married your mother, you are his children,” I pointed out.

  “He has never beat us,” continued Mawenzi. “We have never gone hungry, our cattle are healthy and fertile, and he is a respected elder.” He paused. “There can be no doubt of it: he is a good man.”

  “I take it that he is also somehow connected with your problem?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes. Even though he is a good man, I must pit you against him, and you must triumph.”

  I did a double-take at that. “You’re not seriously suggesting that I fight your new father?”

  “No. He would kill you very easily.”

  “Then perhaps you’d better tell me exactly what your problem is, and what you expect me to do about it.”

  “I am fourteen years old,” said Mawenzi. “Next month I was to be circumcised in the ceremony that will turn me from a boy into a man. My father chooses to live in the old way, herding his cattle, but he has been to school in Kenya, and he reads books.”

  “And he doesn’t want you circumcised?” I said.

  “He calls it barbaric, and refuses to allow it.” Suddenly the arrogance was gone, and it was all Mawenzi could do to hold back his tears. “If I am not circumcised with the rest of my age group, I can never take a wife or have my own manyatta. All I ask is not to be different from my peers. I do not wish to move to the city, or learn the secrets of your computers. I do not wish to fly high above the ground in the airplanes that pass overhead. I want only to be a man, and be accorded a man’s rights. Is that so much to ask?”

  “No, it isn’t,” I answered.

  “You are an historian,” he continued. “You can speak to my new father, can tell him that this is our tradition, that it has always been done this way. He himself was circumcised as a boy, or he could never have married my mother, or cut off his braids and painted his head with red ocher. Why should he deny me what he himself possesses?”

  I couldn’t help but admire young Mawenzi’s intelligence. He knew he needed help to convince his father to let him undergo the ritual, but he also knew that none of the neighboring elders who had to work with his father would be likely to argue with him over this, so he used his brain and came up with the one person who could best explain the sanctity of Maasai traditions—an historian.

  But while I admired Mawenzi’s intellect I also resented it, because up to this moment I had been a student and a chronicler of life on Kilimanjaro, and now he wanted me to become an active participant.

  My first thought was that his stepfather would run me through with his spear for having the temerity to interfere in his family’s problems. But then I thought of Mawenzi, who would of course grow up to be a man, but would never be convinced that he had reached manhood until he had been circumcised.

  I was still considering my reaction when Mawenzi spoke up.

  “You have been silent for a long time,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m thinking.”

  “Will explain to my father why I must be circumcised?”

  “You came all this way and sought me out in a city that is very strange and frightening to you,” I began.

  “It is strange,” he agreed. “But I am a Maasai. Nothing frightens me.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You have found me and asked for my help. You will find it hard to believe, but no one has ever asked for my help before, and I was very content with that. But if you’re not afraid to come here, what kind of Maasai would I be if I were afraid to help you?”

  He tried to hide his relief, but didn’t quite manage.

  “Tonight you’ll sleep in my apartment,” I said, “and tomorrow we’ll go to your manyatta and see your father.”

  He looked underfed—all the pastoralists looked underfed—and I decided he needed a meal. I knew better than to take him to a restaurant, so I took him to my apartment and fixed him a beef sandwich. He stared at it suspiciously—he had never seen sliced bread before—but finally he took a bite, and then another, and he wolfed it down so fast that I made him another, which he ate almost as quickly. I offered him a glass of milk, which he refused because it had no blood in it. Then I made him a dish of ice cream. I had some strawberry syrup, and I poured some of it onto the ice cream. It looked just enough like blood that he was willing to try it, and I could tell by his face that he might never miss the city but he would miss ice cream every day for the rest of his life.

  I brought him to my guest room and showed him the bed, then went to my own room. When I woke up the next morning, I saw that he had pulled the mattress onto the floor and had slept on it that way.

  Mawenzi had ice cream for breakfast, and then I got my car out of the garage. He had seen cars almost every
day, but he had never ridden in one. Before long he was hanging so far out of the window, looking at every passing sight, that I was afraid he might fall out if I hit a bump.

  Finally we arrived at his manyatta, a series of mud-and-dung huts clustered together, surrounded by a fence made from the branches of thorn trees. The fence served no purpose—historically all the family’s cattle would be enclosed at night to protect them from predators, but there were no predators any longer—but Mawenzi’s family, like most of the pastoralists, still honored the tradition. All of Mawenzi’s siblings—there were five of them, two by his blood father, three by his adopted father—came up, wide-eyed and curious, to see the car. A minute later a grown man wearing a t-shirt and shorts walked up, and I knew this must be Mawenzi’s stepfather.

  “Has Mawenzi gotten in trouble?” he asked in English.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Good. I was worried when I saw your car. Clearly you’re from the city. What was he doing there?”

  “He sought me out to ask my advice,” I said carefully. Since we were speaking English, I extended my hand. “I’m David ole Saitoti.”

  “I am Samuel,” he replied.

  “Just Samuel?”

  “Samuel is enough. What particular advice has Mawenzi sought?”

  “He needed my expertise as an historian,” I said.

  He nodded his head. “I thought as much. Let’s walk and talk. There’s no need to discuss this in front of my children.”

  He began walking off toward his cattle, and I joined him.

  “It’s about the circumcision ceremony, isn’t it?” said Samuel.

  “Yes, it is,” I answered.

  “And he has told you that I’m a cruel, unfeeling man and a false Maasai?”

  “No, Samuel,” I said. “He has the utmost respect for you.”

  “Really?” he said. “That’s surprising. I know how much this means to him.”

  “Then why not let him be circumcised?” I asked.

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Perhaps you’d care to share them with me,” I suggested.