For as long as Julius Alexander—known in his home village as Ochieng Gamu—could remember, his life had been stitched together by the rhythms of rural Busia. He was born in Lwanya, where land met the Sio River, and where he spent his early life where he would hear sounds of pounding pestles, smell of fresh ugali on wood fires, and see cattle grazing under acacia trees. Gamu was his childhood name, and was so because of his boyish playfulness: he never heard a beat of the drum without dancing to it, at funerals, weddings, harvest-fests, and so forth. He was not Julius Alexander, but Ochieng Gamu, a boy who had laughter in his feet, and an obstinate allegiance to his origins, to his people.
but fate had drawn him out of the known. Through persistence alone, and sacrifice of his family, he had managed to reach the University of Nairobi where he was studying anthropology. He heard professors talk of history, language and collision of cultures in lecture rooms. Occasionally he even found himself an alien in the midst of sophisticated Nairobi students with branded shoes and who talked of summer holidays abroad, yet he bore in himself a silent pride. He was a son of Lwanya and his narrative was not disregarded.
One of the breezy Saturdays he found himself in the National Museum of Kenya. Anthropology department had hosted a cultural exhibition, in which students, researchers and international visitors were gathered. Languages, English, Swahili, French, Portuguese, were swirling like paint in a canvas. Maasai beadwork, Luo lyres, Luhya gourds and photos of African rituals were put on stalls.
Julius pushed his way through the crowd and his diminutive figure, clad in a plain checked shirt, looked about her with a curiosity that showed in his eyes. He stopped at an exhibition of the primitive fishing implements of Lake Victoria, woven traps, spears, and old photos of men with tilapia. It brought him back to his grandfather who still went fishing at dawn bare-handed and proud of it.
That was when he noticed her.
She was several strides distant, holding a sketch book, and drawing the fishing exhibition with the swift, accurate strokes. Her hair was auburn-blonde, and straggled, and her skin was fair, and caught the watered-down sunlight that came through the glass roof of the museum. She was dressed in a light linen dress, the one Julius had never seen except in magazines, and moved about with a lightness that had the effect of rendering her everywhere and nowhere.
Curiosity made him linger.
She looked up as though she felt his eyes. Her eyes were green and cold but kind. You stare, she said, with a soft accent, lilting, with an European flavor.
Julius scratched his neck in a flustered way. "Sorry. I was only… surprised. You draw?"
She leaned the drawing book in his direction. The pencil lines had recorded the lines of the fishing trap, but she had put something in it, a boy with a goat in the riverbank, standing quietly. It startled him.
That resembles me, that looks like me, he said in his mind.
She smiled. "Perhaps it is. My name is Maria Fernandes. I'm from Portugal. I have come in a cultural exchange program, to study how cultures are preserved in the contemporary societies. She extended her hand.
He hesitated, then took it. Her hold was strong yet soft and her nails were clipped off as by a practical person. "I'm Julius Alexander. But when they are at home they address me as Ochieng Gamu.
Her forehead scowled in curiosity. "What does it mean?"
He chuckled, embarrassed. It is the boy who dances too much. I was… restless as a child."
Maria laughed, and the laugh was transparent and open. "That is a good name. A name with a story."
The two started walking and passing in between stalls. She inquired of him about the instruments, the gourds, the fishing spears. He was expounding with strange fire--how his grandmother had taught him what every beat of the drum meant, how his people in Busia made millet beer to celebrate ceremonies, how even goats had their part in ceremonies of passage. Surprisingly Maria listened, taking notes, her eyes brightening as though these facts were jewels.
As they turned one of the corners where colonial photographs were on display, Maria stopped. There were black-and-white pictures of chained men, women with loads under the eyes of European supervisors, children with blank eyes, looking at the cameras.
Her voice dropped. "Sometimes, I feel… ashamed. Patriarchal Portugal--it belonged to this history. Colonies, slavery. It is hard to stand here."
Julius looked at her, and understood her earnestness. He said, it is a heavy thing, history. "But we are not prisoners of it. Here you are, listening, learning. That matters."
She looked to him, and was blatantly impressed. Like a philosopher, Julius Alexander, you talk.
He grinned shyly. No, a mere villager who has read and seen the earth.
Later in the afternoon as the day became late, the audience thinned. Jacaranda trees outside have their purple flowerfall, which covers the walks. They were sitting on a bench close to the museum gardens and were observing children running after each other. Julius was embarrassed and excited. He had never before talked so much to a stranger, particularly one who appeared to treat him as an equal.
Well, what do you dream of, Julius, tell me, Maria said at last.
His gaze was out on the garden and his thoughts ran to red soil of Lwanya and the high-rise Nairobi on the horizon. Bringing worlds together, I dream of that, he said. Of taking the wisdom of my village to the contemporary world, without losing anything. I also wonder whether it is possible sometimes.
Maria rub-a-dub touched her sketchbook. "Maybe that is why we met. To find out whether such bridges are possible.
Their eyes were staring at each other, and there was a moment, when the sound of the city seemed to be heard.
The university bus honked, and Maria stood up unwillingly when called back by the students. I wish that we saw each other again, Ochieng Gamu.
He smiled, and his heart was beating quicker than he had desired to tell. "We will. Nairobi is not that big, big, but big.
Her linen dress swinging as she walked away, Julius sat motionless on the bench and repeated everything. There was something that had changed in his world, not abruptly, but as a seed that was slowly growing under the ground.
And he could not yet call it, but he sensed it: a tale had started.