Reunion in Barsaloi Read Free

else, once my initial curiosity has worn off, it’s all a bit too sophisticated and makes me want to get on with the trip. I have no regrets therefore when we press a tip into the white-gloved hand of the doorman in his bottle-green uniform and take our leave with a smile.

The Road to Samburu Country
    W e pick up two rented Land Cruisers with drivers and finally head off to my ‘old home’. First we have to fight our way through the traffic chaos of Nairobi: a heaving throng of cars, lorries, the people-carrier taxis called matatus and the brightly coloured stinking long distance buses. Black clouds of exhaust smoke almost suffocate us. At the same time I’m fascinated once again by the way everybody is out to earn a couple of shillings. The newspaper sellers stand by the side of the road ready to weave amongst the lines of cars as soon as they come to a standstill. Somebody else is squeezing his way between the traffic trying to sell watches, torches and caps. I fancy one of his red head coverings and roll down the window to bargain with him. The salespeople rarely have enough time. We quickly agree on a price but he has no change and the traffic behind is pushing forward so we drive off. But our hawker isn’t about to let a sale go that easily. In the rear-view mirror I can see the young lad running after us with giant strides. We’ve probably gone some 1,300 feet before a roundabout gives us another chance to stop. We’ve scarcely come to a stop when the hawker is by our window beaming in at us. In astonishment I buy my hat and our driver takes another one. That makes the smile grow even wider. I wish some of the salespeople back home in Switzerland could see someone as happy as this. We don’t have people running after customers amidst the stench of exhaust fumes, but sometimes even so it takes little short of a miracle to get a friendly smile from some of our salespeople.
    Fruit sellers with small piles of tomatoes, carrots, onions or bananas sit behind little wooden counters or by the side of the road, trying to selltheir wares. Life in Nairobi is bright and colourful and despite the vast numbers of people it doesn’t seem so hectic to me as a European city.
    Eventually we get outside the city centre and now the effects of so-called progress are much more in evidence. Everywhere there are new supermarkets and businesses. Advertising hoardings for televisions, mobile phones and the latest films dominate the highway. Right by the side of the road there are beds and wardrobes for sale on display, with the occasional goat wandering amongst them grazing on bin rubbish or banana skins instead of grass. Laughing children in blue school uniforms troop along the roadside. But on the outskirts of the city a sea of corrugated iron roofs is still evidence of a huge and sprawling shantytown where the poorest of the poor live.
    Our drivers have to be careful because the state of the roads, even here in Nairobi the capital, is catastrophic. We jolt through one pothole after another and in parts the road is completely unsurfaced. Every time we pick up speed we find traffic coming towards us on our side of the road. As a result the 105-mile journey to Nyahururu takes nearly five hours, although we have also taken a winding detour via Naivasha in order to get a view of the magnificent Rift Valley.
    The Great Rift Valley – nicknamed the ‘great ditch’– stretches several thousand miles through Africa: a great tear in the earth created millions of years ago when unimaginable subterranean forces pulled the plates of the earth’s crust apart and the land between them sank. As a result, the land frequently drops away in breathtaking cliffs and vast gorges.
    Standing on a not altogether reliable-looking extending wooden platform built for the large numbers of tourists I have a spectacular view of the vast plain and the mountain range in the distance. Directly beneath my feet is the thick deciduous forest that gradually thins