The Baboon story

This story is dedicated to Saybel Nunez, my Venezuelan friend who while we both lived in Maine would put me on the spot every time we met new people. She would always say: “Negrita—which simply means a beautiful dark-skinned woman in Venezuelan Spanish—tell them the baboon story!” And Americans, always fascinated by African wildlife would surround me, begging me to color the evening with an African sunset, white zebra stripes and other colors of an African jungle.

So, I would close my eyes and remember the beautiful caramel days and ebony black nights of my childhood. And the memories would flood me like dew flowing down the slopes of Mt. Kenya. Memories of finding some leopard’s cubs and taking them home as pets (a stupid thing to do); of monkeys stealing our clothes as we swam in the stream, of my cousins and I baptizing a baby gazelle we had captured; baboon drinking my dad’s beer….

We live close to the Aberdares National Park in Central. Though there is an electric fence that separates us from the forest, animals sometimes find their way into our community. Whatever animal it is, people always try to go on with life as usual. Well, not always—if it is an elephant, a buffalo, a gazelle—any edible animal, people try to capture it for meat. The good news is, an elephant or a buffalo can feed lots of families and if there is shortage of meat at Kaberere’s (the local butcher) people ask one another: “have you seen a poor elephant that looks stranded?” The bad news is that sometimes during drought, many animals die and the government tries to save the few that survive by asking people to simply redirect a strayed animal back to the park. Don’t ask me how.

If it is a lion that has lost its way, then people also get lost until the wildlife police capture the animal. The most annoying animals are the baboons. They will harvest your food faster than a combined harvester does the wheat. They will steal your baby if you don’t have a watchful nanny, they will drink your dad’s beer….

One day, I was playing hide and seek with my cousins. I hid behind up a mango tree that was close to the house. Now, down the farm near the stream was huge mugumo (fig) tree that was so thick that you could not see the branches. A baboon family nicknamed by my brother as ‘the mafia’ lived on that tree. We could hear them calling each other, “Gop! Gop!” This afternoon, everything was quiet except for a light wind blowing over the hot December sun.

I was going about my business hiding when I heard some laughter up the tree. Thinking it was one of cousins hiding there, I whispered, “shut up! Or they will find us!” My cousin who usually would have responded with a “you shut up!” did not say anything so I looked up. Resting on the branches were about fifteen baboons. They looked back at me, and then started climbing down.

How I managed to run as fast as Mike Bolt, I don’t know. But I ran very fast towards the house at the same time screaming on top of my lungs: “the mafia! The mafia!” Hide in Pirate’s house (my brother nicknamed our grandma ‘pirate’ but that’s a story for another day) Anyway we all ended up in her house which was just next to ours. From the window, we watched as fifteen baboons got into our living room—I had forgotten to close the door. They ransacked the house—threw sofa cushions all over the place, ate fruit that was on the table, broke the baby’s (my sister) thermos that had porridge in it…but most distressingly, my dad had some left some beer on the shelf—and we watched in amazement as they pried the bottles open with their teeth. They drank all the beer, toasting as they had probably seen my dad do as he drank with friends.

We have no idea how much they drank for they took the bottles with them. My dad later claimed that it was over twenty beers but knowing my dad, that number was a little too high. Anyway, the mafia left as quietly as they had come but left behind a mess that took three days to fix.

When my parents came home that evening, they could not be convinced that my cousins and I had not been mischievous. However, knowing the baboons were capable of anything, he believed us but decided to test them.

The following day a quiet afternoon, my dad put five beers on the shelf, left the door open and we all hid in grandma’s house. Half an hour later, the mafia quietly walked into the living room, opened the beers and began the party.

Introduction

When I was little, my dad, who sometimes drove the coastal train, would take me, and sometimes my brothers and sister with him on his journeys along the Kenyan coast. I would sleep on his lap at night but during the day, he would tell stories of the towns we passed. Along the Tsavo, he would tell me about the man eating lions that devoured the Indian railway construction workers in 1898 and who were ready to pounce on me if I didn’t finish my veggies. In Malindi, he told me that this was where Vasco da Gama picked up his pilot to navigate with the monsoon winds to India. In Lamu he introduced me to 'his' marine national reserve. According to dad, his great-great-grandfather discovered an unspoilt village on the mainland about 150 km east of Lamu which he named Kiunga—our family name. A few days later, he also discovered the enchanted waters close to that remote village. Those waters became the Kiunga Marine National Reserve, which is a major tourist attraction. Dad’s stories were sometimes true and sometimes not. He usually embellished them, and if anyone raised any questions, he would say that it is only boring story tellers who do not spice their tales.

My favourite city was Mombasa because I enjoyed looking at the blue sea.  I would always wish I was a bird that could fly beyond the horizon to unknown lands.

Well, I did get into one of those birds and flew beyond the horizon—to a land an ocean away where I have to take the train every day to grad school. Sometimes I read for my Economics class, sometimes I fill my crossword or Sudoku, sometimes I write a poem, but most of the times I love to close my eyes and remember dad—I remember his dark skin glowing, I remember him carrying me on his shoulders as I we walked to buy candy, I remember him holding my sister when she was born.

I remember his dancing eyes as he told me stories.

He told me once, “Soon you will be telling me your stories. And you will be retelling mine.” Time has come to fulfill this.

I write this blog on the train on the way from school. Sometime it is memories from my childhood, sometimes it is my stories that I would have told dad if he were alive. Enjoy.