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him slightly embarrassedly but with a laugh: ‘You said yourself I’d got fatter. I had to have our bracelet cut off because it had got too tight for my arm.’ But he doesn’t understand and stands there shaking his head.
    It’s been an emotional few minutes and I realize tears are welling up in my eyes. Oh God, not now! I turn my face away from Lketinga to hide my emotion, but he grabs my arm again: ‘Don’t cry! Why are you crying? That’s no good!’ I take a deep breath, bite my lips and try to get a grip on myself. I can’t collapse in floods of tears in front of all these people. Grown women don’t cry here. To change the subject I ask after Mama. Lketinga nods and says: ‘Okay, okay, I’ll take you to Mama later. Pole, pole – slowly, slowly.’
    It’s only now that I notice Klaus, who’s been filming everything all along. Albert comes across slowly and Lketinga greets him with a handshake and friendly smile. You can see how proud he is to have all these visitors. As ever he carries himself graciously, calmly and without rush. The only one who’s in a dither is me. Even so, I’m amazed how simply and naturally I’m getting on with Lketinga, even playfully. It’s as if all those years have rolled away. We’ve straight away gone back to using ‘our’ special language, a blend of simplistic English mixed with Masai words. Right from the start we’ve been teasing one another: ‘Why have you dyed your hair red like a warrior?’ he says. ‘You really are an old Mama.’ And he laughs and shakes his head.
    Then all of a sudden his eyes go dark and I notice that threatening furrow between his eyebrows that always presaged something unpleasant. In a serious voice he asks: ‘Where is my child? Why has my child not come with you?’ My heart skips a beat and then starts pounding. I look him straight in the eyes and tell him Napirai has a lot of schoolwork to do at the moment. Later, when she’s got all of that behind her, she’ll almost certainly come to Barsaloi. He’s watching me closely but then his face relaxes and he says: ‘Okay, it’s okay. I wait for my child. I really hope that she will come.’
    Looking over towards a long building on one side, I notice Lketinga’s older brother Papa Saguna sitting in the shade with the other men watching us. Glad to see him, I wave him over and he gets up and comes across. He is effectively head of the family as their father is dead, and as the eldest his word is usually taken as law. He speaks only Maa, which makes it difficult for me to communicate with him. But I’m relieved to see him smiling. In the old days I was never sure whether or not he liked me. In some ways he always seemed the wildest of the family to me. Whenever he spoke in his rough, coarse voice it always sounded as if he was looking for an argument. He came with us on our wedding trip to Mombasa to act as a witness and I will never forget his childlike amazement at life in the city. Here in the bush he’s the toughest member of the family, but he was terrified by the sight of the ocean and the half-naked tourists in Mombasa. I’m really pleased he’s here. Later on James tells me that despite having had a fever he walked for four hours from his village to be here when I arrived.
    Lketinga leads us off to a well-kept corral, and once again I can’t help being fascinated at the way this man moves. We walk towards a long, thin wooden house with a tin roof, which I discover to be the home of James and his family. From all around I hear people call: ‘ Supa, Mama Napirai. Serian a ge? – Hello, Mama Napirai, how are you?’
    We pass through the six-foot high thorn thicket that starts just outside the house and surrounds the whole family area like a fence, protecting them from wild animals. During the day they leave a narrow opening in it, which is closed up at night when they’ve brought the animals in.
    Every few feet I have to shake hands and smile into different faces. Most of