Just before we're due to leave I get another letter from Barsaloi. James apologies for not having written for a long time but they've had a lot of problems. First of all they were involved in terrible fighting with rebels who stole nearly all of their animals and a lot of people were killed. Now the rains have finally come again but Barsaloi is infested with mosquitos and it's only a matter of time before malaria is rampant.
He's pleased however because he's got a job in the new school in Barsaloi, but for now there aren't many pupils, not least because some of the local children have already died of malaria. There have also been fatalities in Barsaloi's little makeshift hospital. But he's glad that at least the fighting is over and he's got a job of any sort. In the meantime prices have risen for almost everything: rice, clothing, sugar and even maize flour which now costs ten times what it did when I lived there. It's unbelievable! He's planning to go down to Mombasa in December to see if he can locate Lketinga, and will write again if he has any news.
On the one hand I'm really pleased to get his letter as it's been ages since I've heard from him. On the other, he's got me really worried about my former family whose lives seem to have become really difficult. I recall my own terrible attacks of malaria. The alternating bouts of fever and shivering turn you into a complete wreck in next to no time. At the same time you get diarrhea and despite having an empty stomach feel an almost continuous need to vomit, until eventually you're left lying there in bed exhausted and lifeless. It's an illness I wouldn't wish on anyone but all I can do is hope it doesn't plague Barsaloi for long. Apart from anything else, though, I'm fascinated to know whether James will find Lketinga in Mombasa and what he'll tell me in his next letter. It has, after all, been three years now since I heard from him.
At last it's time and Napirai and I get back on an airplane for the first time since we fled from Kenya. This time our destination is Porto Plata. It's a long flight but they give Napirai some coloring books and pencils and she plays with those until she eventually falls asleep. Walking through the airport after landing reminds me immediately of the first time I landed in Mombasa all those years ago and was overwhelmed by the tropical atmosphere. Suddenly it all comes flooding back to me and I don't know whether I'm really in Porto Plata or back in Mombasa.
Outside there are little buses waiting to take us to the hotel. Looking out of the windows I gaze at the palm-lined, rough and ready roads, the black people and their brightly-brightly-colored clothes. Already this early in the morning the air is warm. I'd forgotten how much I love it like that. I can see my life in Kenya again unfolding before my eyes. Every pothole reminds me of the appalling road conditions in northern Kenya. My head's swimming and there are tears rolling down my cheeks but at the same time I feel happy and almost reborn. My emotions and all the memories of the past that I've been suppressing completely overwhelm me in minutes and I'm glad there aren't too many tourists on the bus to see my embarrassing tears. By contrast, when Napirai looks out of the window the thing that impresses her most is how many palm trees there are.
By the time we reach the hotel I've managed to get my emotions under control. The hotel is nicely situated, right next to the sea and our room is big, bright and comfortable. When we turn up for the new arrivals’ meeting in the lobby I notice that there aren't many families with children; most of the other tourists are romantically involved couples. But there's a children's club which will keep Napirai happy and I've got lots to read and lots of letters to write. The buffet is magnificent and we try as many exotic dishes as we can. The hotel employees are all enchanted by Napirai and say she must be Dominican. Immediately someone asks me if I've come back to visit her father, and I have to laugh at the disappointment on their faces when I tell them she comes from Kenya. Within a couple of days she's completely at home, running around the hotel with a couple of other children, and I hardly even see her.
One evening after dinner she tells me that she got to know a woman with very long blond hair at lunch. She wants to show her to me straight away and runs off. Five minutes later she's back bringing a tall blond woman over to my table. She tells me her name is Andrea and she's here with a boyfriend. They're both from southern Germany and she invites me over to join their table as they're a group of very different couples and I'm bound to find it entertaining, she says. Napirai is transfixed by this Andrea, primarily because of her long blond hair which she keeps running her little brown fingers through. Over the course of our holiday my little daughter keeps repeating one deeply-felt but completely impossible wish: ‘Mama, I want to have hair like hers!’
From now on Andrea and I spend a lot of time together as her boyfriend seems to prefer lying by the pool reading endless magazines to spending time talking to his nice girlfriend.
I can't understand him but I understand one thing: that it's a lot better going on holiday on your own than going with someone else and still being on your own.
The first week I simply enjoy lounging around and being lazy, but during the second week I start to get restless and want to do something more. Although it all reminded me so much of Kenya initially, this is a quite different country. Kenya is much more wild, more multi-faceted and above all has a lot more animals. Somehow or other I still miss Kenya and keep comparing the two, with the result that I'm not all that sad when the holiday comes to an end.
Back home I devote all my energy to my new job. The printed and embroidered T-shirts go down well with lots of companies, either as a promotional gift or as a staff uniform. And in the meantime the economy is on such a boom that lots of pubs and restaurants can even sell T-shirts with their logo on or baseball caps with motifs that advertise them. My business therefore is on a roll too and that means a lot more spare cash too. So much that I can afford to hand a hundred-franc note to one of the women from our group who can't even afford her bus fares, and at the same time I've been able to find jobs for one or two of the others.
Increasingly I'm getting to know other interesting women through work and get friendly with them. One of them, called Hanni, is always on at me to tell her more of my stories from Africa whenever I go in to show her my samples. She's so taken with my stories that she keeps telling me I should turn them into a book. I just laugh and say, ‘Hanni, first of all I wouldn't know how and secondly, I've already got a full-time job as well as a flat to run and a daughter to look after.’ As far as I'm concerned that's the end of it, but over the next few months Hanni keeps on at me with the same idea.
In mid-February 1994 I get another letter from Kenya. I'm consumed by curiosity as I open it and read through the usual good wishes from the family. Then James says he's been down to Mombasa and found Lketinga, who was in a bad state, nothing more than skin and bones and had more than a few problems. Not only does he no longer have the car, he scarcely has any proper clothes. James had to go and buy him some and has now brought him back home. He's living with Mama now and wants to get married again but James doesn't think he'll be able to because he has hardly anything he can call his own.