I Dreamed of Africa Read online

  Then the moon rose, the wind stopped, and we heard the buffalo. A few snorts and the characteristic noise of rolling stones of the heavy, if agile, trot of these huge creatures; and there they were, three black adult males knee-deep in the water, grunting and drinking. Paolo took his binoculars, focused, precise and quiet as hunters must be. One of the buffaloes had wide-spaced horns, and looked really old, the perfect target. The gun was ready. In the night which magnifies all noises, out in the open, the shadows black in the moonlight, I felt small and inadequate.

  The air was still with suspense. The frogs fell silent. Paolo lifted his gun; aimed. I saw the finger curl on the trigger … and Mirimuk’s hand, as fast and as silent as a striking snake, darted out and landed on his shoulder in warning. I saw the tension melting away in Paolo’s neck. Mirimuk moved his head just slightly to the right, and on his lips we read ‘Simba.’ We froze. Only our eyes swivelled, and even this felt noisy: a few metres to our right, on a large old termite hill slightly up-wind, sat two mature lions, a male with an enormous mane and his mate. Nose to the wind, yellow eyes still, they looked totally in control, powerful and uncaringly dangerous, owners of the night. If they had seen us they could not smell us, and they gave no sign: it was clear they were stalking the same prey as we.

  After drinking, the buffalo were moving along the shore towards us; in a few seconds they would have passed between us and the lions. Paolo and Mirimuk had their guns ready, although I knew they could not afford to fire. At the same time, the male lion turned. For a moment his yellow eyes looked straight at me, the tail flickered, and he jumped. My heart stopped, but it was the last buffalo which collapsed under the weight with furious, agonized snorts, and then took off towards the thick bush, the lion hanging from its back. The other buffaloes fled with wild bellows through the night, leaving their companion to die alone in a small thicket. For a while we listened to the lions feeding, before the whining jackals and the hyena came.

  There were the nights when I joined Paolo in the hide made of branches, waiting for the marauding lions to return to the steer they had killed the previous night. Silence, the cry of the hyena, the rhythmic call of the eagle owl … nightjars and crickets, tree frogs and bull toads. Then, that moment of stillness when the lion approaches: our silence joined the silence of the night and all its creatures. Sometimes a far-away aeroplane – two small red lights above – crossed the sky, full of strangers, bound for Europe, unaware of us. Since those times, when I fly I always think about the unknown dramas developing below, unseen.

  The crunch of a bone, a deep breathing, and Paolo was on his feet, gun pointed towards the bait. The wind brought us a feral whiff, the rotten meat and blood stench of carnivores. A second passed. The white torchlight outlined the massive shape, eyes like reflecting red coals lifted from the carcass, staring straight at the glowing darkness. A single shot. The lion jumped up high in the air, forepaws extended, as a rampant lion in a gilded crest … a roar split the silence.

  The frogs resumed their singing.

  It was not just the beauty and wildness of the landscape. It was not just the smells, intense of dust and elephant, of jasmine and moonflower, nor the incredible concert of birds singing with liquid voices in the golden afternoons. It was not just the profile of the hills and the short purple sunsets, nor the vivid colours of the hibiscus and of the sky and of the yellow grass, nor the emotions of a sudden rustle of leaves or a scared francolin while I was walking alone in the bush, nor the surprise of the leopard, still as a statue in the full moon.

  It was also the extraordinary difference in the daily routine and the daily chores. In 1975, it was – and still is now, at the time of writing – much the same, with a few improvements, as it must have been in the early settlers’ days.

  Electricity was provided by a Lister generator, which pumped away at night like an old heart. Candles and hurricane lamps supplemented the electric light. There was no telephone. Communication with the outside world came through radio-call, and a characteristic and useful radio link known as ‘the Laikipia Security network’. All farms and ranches in Laikipia subscribed to this, a police frequency established for mutual support in isolated areas at the time of the Emergency in Kenya before Independence. There were several calls a day at fixed times and Rocky regularly performed as control. We all had code call numbers. Ours was Delta 28, and eventually I acquired a radio for Kuti, with the number Delta 16. Voices of strangers or friends came punctually to life through the crackling of static, messages were exchanged, and I often thought how difficult our life would have been without this essential service. It was a relief to know that one could communicate in case of emergency and receive news and messages. Many times over the years we relied on the Laikipia Security network to call doctors or aeroplanes, to announce incidents, and receive urgent information which would have otherwise taken days to reach us. It was faintly unreal to talk regularly to people one had never met, to know what went on in their lives, be familiar with the sound of their voices, without knowing what they looked like.

  There was no refrigerator at Kuti, and no gas stove, no electric iron and none of the appliances that we take for granted in Europe, no. washing-machine, no vacuum cleaner. Everything was done by hand. Bread was baked daily, butter was made from cream, firewood had to be gathered in the bush and chopped with an axe. To press a shirt, a fire had to be lit in advance so that the red coal could be put in the old black iron. To have a hot bath, a fire had to be built below the rudimentary drums from which the boiling water was piped to the tub. To cook, the chopped wood had to be put in the stove. Brooms and mops were used to clean the floors, and vegetables were chopped with knives.

  As everywhere in Africa there were people in abundance to help us, but they had to be trained, and my Swahili was still fairly basic. From the outset I was in the right mood for this sort of life, and enjoyed the challenge of reverting to the pace and the chores which possibly were no longer familiar in Italy, even to my great-grandmother. It was fun and it was rewarding, and although in time we made many improvements, the old-fashioned flavour of life remained unchanged. Many times I was to bless my mother, who always felt that, irrespective of the privilege of having domestic help, a girl should learn how to cook and look after a house. Instinctively I knew how to teach the staff, and people willing to help were easy to find, but what was needed to reach the standards I had set was eagerness, intelligence and a capacity to learn a totally foreign approach to cooking and housekeeping, and to remember. Nairobi offered a wide choice of trained people. It was not so easy in the depths of Laikipia. I went through a number of not particularly satisfying experiences, until a lucky day brought Simon.

  He had heard of the new Wasungu (Europeans) at Ol Ari Nyiro and came to ask for work. A long-limbed Turkana man of perhaps eighteen, handsome and lean, with Nilotic features and a natural grace and elegance of movement, and attentive and serious black eyes, he was recommended by Paolo.

  ‘Try him,’ he said, ‘I know you will get on. He is keen and has good manners. His father was a chief.’

  As usual, Paolo was right. I liked him at first sight.

  ‘I hear you want to be my cook. Can you cook?’

  ‘I can bake bread. If you teach me, I will learn your sort of food.’

  ‘I can teach you. If you want to learn, you can learn anything.’ Simon was eager to learn.

  The Turkana are a wild tribe of herders who keep their cattle and goats up round the lake which bears their name. It is an immense lake of purples and golds, with mysterious slate-grey depths where huge fish live, relics of prehistoric times. Sudden storms disturb its mirror-like surface, brought by the fiercest winds. Turkana are handsome and tall, built to move long distances; Simon always walked with unhurried long strides, as if barefooted on sandy tracks up north. They love milk and meat, and one of their greatest delicacies is a goat buried, unskinned, in hot coals until the fur burns off and the meat is roasted. To spend so much time cooking different and ext
ravagant food, like our complicated, fussy cuisine, was totally alien to Simon. Yet he brought all his energy and a polite curiosity to his new task. It was a pleasure for me to see how eager he was and how soon he learnt to cook and present the plates gracefully, lending to his new task the African gift for decoration and colour. ‘You Wasungu,’ he told me once, ‘are never hungry. You would not touch a half-cooked, half-burnt and not gutted goat. Your food must look beautiful. You must eat with your eyes first.’

  I had taught him to garnish plates with leaves, lemon wedges, flowers. Soon he was excellent at this, and my table, thanks to him, became quite renowned for its delicacies and its flair in presentation.

  Simon Itot was proud but willing, polite but never servile. He was soft-spoken, and commanded respect from the other staff. Although he was the youngest, the position of cook gave him senior status. After only a day it was clear that he was in charge.

  15

  Kuti

  Über den Himmel Wolken ziehen,

  Über die Felder geht der Wind,

  … Irgendwo über den Bergen

  Muss meine ferne Heimat sein.*

  Hermann Hesse, Poems (1902)

  Few things give me such a sense of fulfilment as building from nothing, with whatever natural materials are available, a space to live in, in harmony with the untouched landscape of Africa. It must be a work of love and understanding, and of humbleness for intruding with our presence in the silence and dignity of nature. That unquantifiable and elusive factor which is the beauty of the land, and our duty to respect it, is the aesthetic and spiritual principle foremost in my mind whenever I create anything.

  When we moved to Laikipia, Paolo and I originally decided to take our time and to look around the ranch for some extraordinary spot on which to build our permanent home. The views from above the Mukutan Gorge to every hill on the ranch, from Mlima ya Kissu to Kurmakini, from Nagirir to Kutua, across valleys and towards the sheer cliffs of the Great Rift Valley, were so pure and majestic that it was hard to choose. The hill of Mugongo ya Ngurue, with my favourite old tree dominating the gorge, was especially tempting, as the feeling of freedom, space and height always took my breath away. I am glad I resisted that temptation, and decided eventually to add to the original dwellings at Kuti which had already been altered by the people who had preceded us. There was a generator and a system of pumping the water from Ol Ari Nyiro Springs; otherwise the house and facilities were no more than basic, and an enormous amount of work needed to be done.

  The house had been built on a rise with far views of rolling hills and I liked this feeling of space. We fenced off about ten acres out of the bush for a garden, and I kept all the acacias and the other indigenous trees.

  Much thought, discussion and care went into every single step of the building, mainly over the proportions, which are the essential part of any construction. Decoration can come after, but one must start with the right, balanced, shell. We utilized what we found on the land: murram blocks and stones, wood from our forest and grass for the roof. It was a simple house, but it had harmony and a special positive atmosphere, and it conveyed to all who visited that it had been built with love. It was a place where people felt at ease. At the same time I learnt to make a garden. Gardening in Africa is most rewarding; given water and a minimum amount of care, everything grows so fast that one can sit under the shade of the trees one has planted in a matter of only a few years.

  For all the new plants, more water was needed than the trickle pumped up all the way from the springs, over ten kilometres away, and Paolo decided to dam part of a valley above Kuti. It was an area elephants loved, as in it they found shade, food and moisture. Olea africana, Acacia gerardia and Euclea divinorum were the prominent trees. These provided the ideal habitat for olive pigeons, owls and genet cats, and, of course, leopard. The dam was within walking distance from the house, through an enchanted shaded track where I used to go with Gordon.

  Once the dam was finished it attracted even more animals, and the valley and its surroundings remained one of the favourite places for elephants. Eventually I built a look-out on one of the tallest acacias overlooking the water tank which supplied the house. This allowed us to watch the animals without being discovered, a wonderful feeling of being part of the landscape. I felt rather less happy when the elephants came into the garden which I had begun to carve out of the bush.

  I learnt about the most attractive indigenous trees, and enthusiastically set out to plant masses of flowers and shrubs: I soon discovered, however, that elephants loved to eat a wide variety of plants. Many mornings I woke up to find entire trees had been uprooted, and spiky cactus plucked as if they had been tender artichoke sprouts. What the elephants did not like, dik-dik and hares or impala did. Gradually I learnt what species were unpalatable to these visitors, and concentrated on planting them. I did not want, however, to eliminate certain trees, like acacias, which were elephant favourites, and after we put in a swimming-pool it became practically impossible to keep the elephants out of the garden. A herd of fifty of them elected to raid the garden and the newly-planted orchard every night. After one of them trod on and fell into the septic tank, we decided to electrify the fence around the compound. That worked well with the elephant, but not with many other strangers.

  I began to keep a diary again in Italian, and its pages remind me of many details of our new life I might otherwise have forgotten.

  30 July 1976

  Ngobithu comes to announce that seven lions have killed a kongoni, and four more have killed an eland and a cow. Carletto flew in and with Paolo and Emanuele they went to wait for the lions. Heavy rain.

  24 August 1976

  New lawn planted and kitchen block completed. An elephant came into the garden last night and I tracked him with the gardener Seronera. He crossed the fence on the side of the horses’ boma. He uprooted and ate three young pepper trees, made havoc in the new rock garden, eating all the blue yuccas, destroyed an acacia by the side of the swimming-pool hole, and went out from the south end of the garden.

  28 August 1976

  A hippo has killed a child at Antonietta’s dam at Colobus. Game scouts have come to shoot it. That would be Rastus, Antonietta’s old lone hippo. What a shame this had to happen. Elephant trumpeting in the garden at Kuti all night and no one sleeps.

  31 August

  Elephants in the garden again. Gordon chased them, before two palms were eaten. Dik-dik love the new buds of the coral bougainvillea.

  2 September

  Dozens of dik-dik eyes in the light of my torch last night, and this morning the new hibiscus are eaten. We have planted today an avenue of euphorbia along the main drive: one day they should be imposing, but all the staff warn me that elephant love them.

  4 September

  Our lorry returns from Colcheccio with sand for the swimming-pool, and the news that at Carletto’s lightning has killed two bulls and four cows!! Paolo goes to wait for the lions which have been killing calves. A large male lion has killed a bull close to Kuti boma. Cold and humid.

  5 September

  In the pouring rain Paolo came back, having killed three of the marauding lions. Yellow and muscular in the back of his pick-up, they look like large cats, sleeping.

  6 September

  Full moon. Exciting night for Paolo and Emanuele at the Big Dam last night. On the lion kill they first see two jackals, a rhino and a herd of buffalo. Then come a honey-badger and a leopard. Paolo shoots two male lions. At sunrise, he spares the third one. In the meantime at Kuti I cannot sleep, as Gordon never stops barking. Elephant all round.

  16 September

  Last night a pride of six lions round the garden all night. Paolo out for a wounded buffalo.

  3 October

  With Mirimuk and Luka to find two large rocks for the new bird-bath.

  7 October

  Three giraffe in my garden at dawn gazing curiously into the swimming-pool hole. Waiting for leopard on my own this evening at the bait
above the house. Hundreds of birds are coming to the bird-bath, and I marvel at their beauty and strangeness. Mirimuk brings me an ostrich egg.

  15 November

  Elephant came again last night and destroyed eight acacia, drank at the pool and uprooted two pepper trees. Dung everywhere. Tubby and Aino flew in from Nairobi.

  9 January 1977

  The elephant came quietly in the night as close as the passage to the bedrooms. They ate all the hibiscus, and all the succulents. They finished the traveller’s palms and demolished the acacia with the base of sanseveria. I think they want to let us know that we are intruding in their territory. If during the day they are invisible, the night belongs to them.

  When the house was finally completed, the makuti roof thatched, the beams of red cedar from the forest polished to a shine, and the carpets and furniture we had brought from Europe arranged as if they always belonged there, we decided, as a housewarming party, to call an ngoma.

  Teams representing all the tribes we employed on the ranch, dressed in their traditional costumes, came to dance in our garden and to wish us luck. There were the Meru with Garisha, in coloured shukas and headdresses, the Tharaka with Luka, in skirts of dried bog-grass, ankle-rattles and painted shields. Luka showed another unexpected skill as head dancer and mime. Covered in monkey skins, he danced for us – and mostly for Paolo – an acrobatic pantomine of the lion hunt. The Turkana came with Mirimuk. The women, wearing bright blue and red bead necklaces, wore long, richly gathered skin skirts, shorter in front and with trains which undulated gracefully, almost like tails, in the ostrich-like beat of the dance, and their men, heads covered in oblong blue decorations of feathers, sang raucous songs and jumped high.