Mama Veronica, a Kenyan business woman whose ex-husband is a member of Parliament, lives in the deluxe version of a crumbling stone house at the end of the circular drive. Just beyond the compound s entrance sits my temporary abode, the non-deluxe version that she rents to the Peace Corps. Smack in the center of one of the hills overlooking the lake, Mama Veronica s property abuts the Peace Corp training facility, a vast, austere track of land populated with one story maze like buildings. Much like a rabbit s warren, a string of offices burrow into a kitchen and dining hall that can feed 60 and serves as a athering place between classes.
Covered walkways connect the ramshackle buildings to a residential facility with six small bedrooms and two shared bathrooms. Guest suites, a sign on the door proclaims, but guests never stay overnight since new Peace Corps recruits live with local families in the town, and the trainers and administrative staff live nearby at home. Dogs sleep in a windowless storage shed. On guard duty at night, the dogs need a quiet place to sleep during the day. Actually their colleagues, the night watchmen, sleep in this shed most nights and leave the dogs to carry out guard duties on their own.
This happens at Mama Veronica compound, where the night guard snores on the couch on the veranda behind my bedroom. More conscientious, or perhaps better rested, the dogs keep us safe. When I mention this to Mama V. , she notes that the night watchmen also have day jobs. Not to worry, she says in her booming voice, those dogs will wake them up with their barking if there s a problem. This is a very Kenyan response, practical with a hint that life is not fair so we must understand. A woman with connections, Mama V. has perfected an approach that works well for her: half down on my luck, half do you know who I am erves as the recreation area.
Training takes place in a motley assortment of one-room shells with concrete floors and, if you re lucky, a window. No two shells are the same. Walking the dirt pathway that connects the itty bitty classrooms buildings, smatterings of Swahili language drills exit a window to co-mingle with tips on how to teach without textbooks or even a classroom. With the exception of Mama V. , most of the neighbors are expatriate members of the floriculture industry. Dorthea, a white South African stops by a few days after the arrival of 56 new recruits demanding to meet the directress.
With finger pointed in my direction she says: Your people are stealing our water. Her position is that the well water that serves this side of town is under siege. She speaks for the community of neighbors, she says, who demand that the U. S. government, known locally as the Piece Corpse, drill another well and provide free water to all the homes on the hillside. With no luck in pinpointing the fallacies in her argument on her first visit, my new tactic, on her second visit, is to show her the water bill then repeat the facts although she calls the facts, drummed-up. Fact Number 1: We don t use well water.
The contract for the training center requires us to truck in water. Based on the number of occupants at the facility, a formula is used. Two deliveries each day of 500 gallons for up to 80 At the training site, a grass lawn, growing sporadically, occupants are stored in a water tank that services the bathrooms and kitchen. For this service, Piece Corpse pays a hefty sum. Furthermore, it s apparent from the paper work that we pay for one additional delivery daily that never arrives. Someone, perhaps the administrative officer, struck a deal with the water company to bill for a phantom delivery.
Most likely hey split the bounty. And, for mowing services on the grass that seldom grows, there is bill that arrives twice monthly; but, by far, the colossal expense is water. Fact Number 2: Our neighbors know we don t use the well water, so her request for a new well doesn t make sense. Fact or no fact, Dorothea, who has the allure of a woman who was, in her prime, a looker, is now in her early 50s. An oversized tortoise-shell barrette barely contains her thick chestnut brown wavy hair which is still her paramount feature.
When I see her in town in her flowered print shirtwaist dress and lace-up boots, she greets me warmly: t Dorothea, remember me 1 m your neighbor. Naivasha abounds with expats like Dorothea, most are South Africans or Dutch attached to flower farms or the tourist industry. Because it was one of the earliest British colonial settlements, and much of the land along the lake remains in the hands of their descendants, Naivasha town, also, hosts a notable population of white Kenyans, most of whom sport both Kenyan and British citizenship although it is illegal under Kenyan law to hold two passports.
In 1963, when Kenya gained independence, there were about 60,000 white settlers who chose to remain in the country. Today, that number has dwindled to close to 30,000. While most white Kenyans live on farms near Karen, the town named after Karen Blixen of Out of Africa fame, Naivasha is home to many of the more privileged children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original colonialists. Then, there are the tourists who arrive in tour buses, private cars and caravans.
The exclusive Lake Naivsha Country Club hotel, a 55- acre resort that opened in the 1930s to host passengers landing on the lake with the Imperial Airways flying boat service, now competes with posh newcomers that vie for the moneyed clients. While some camp along the lake, most of the less less affluent visitors find refuge in town. not welcome at the Naivasha Country Club, but a friend, Blessing, who works as a gatekeeper at the hotel and hosts one of the new recruits in his home, lets me sneak in and introduces Non-paying guests are me to a few of his friends.
Primarily waiters, his chums like to talk about Kenyan politics as well as the paying guests. their favorites, the Americans and Australians primarily because, the chums report, they re so friendly. At the bottom of the class, are the Italians and the Japanese but it s hard to understand hy. Somewhere in between are the French, the Germans, the Dutch and the newest travelers, the Chinese, whom, according to the waiters, are bad tippers.
In addition to spirited conversations with Blessing and his comrades, it is the toweringly elegant sacred ibis, a white bird with a black face and black wing tips that nosily forages for food among the tables in the sprawling outdoor restaurant that keeps me coming back. Coo, coo, coo, it calls out to its brethren, come and get this leftover crumpet, here s a biscuit hamburger bun over here. Besides the expats, the white Kenyans, the tourists, Naivasha is ome to a thriving group of Asian entrepreneurs, many of them refugees from the former dictator Idi Amin s Uganda, where they were forced out of in the mid-1970s.
Descendants of the labor force imported from India in the late 1800s to construct the railway that runs from Uganda through Kenya to the coast, the Asian community owns most of the businesses in town and tends not to assimilate. So you have three insular atypical population groups living in Naivasha: the expats, the white Kenyans and the Asians. Traditionally Maasai land, the lake and surrounding area remain a home base and watering hole or Maasai herds and there is a Maasai settlement in the midst of Hell s Gate National Park, near the lake.
Yet the majority of the indigenous population are small scale farmers, commercial fisherman and low paid workers in the tourist industry, like Blessing. When the flower farms first arrived in the 1970s, Naivasha s population was close to 40,000. Today, with the lure of jobs in floriculture, the population has increased to close to 300,000 with the majority of the new inhabitants young migrant workers who live in dire conditions and make their living off the sambaza economy, a survival of the fittest. Unemployment is high and crime is on the increase.
A few months before I arrived, masked men with weapons entered the Peace Corps training compound to rob the coffers. Having just returned from the bank with enough cash to pay the monthly staff salaries, the water bill plus the host family expenses, the cashier was the target and, while no one was hurt, the incident set off numerous inquiries. How did the robbers get into the compound Where were the security guards Still more questions: Was someone on the inside involved Were we safe Even though the police investigated, no one was charged.
So when I arrive and discover some improprieties in the billing, it is impossible not to ask questions of the administrative staff. All this reminds me of Tanzania, where, in my last position with Peace Corps, the accountant was let go for missing funds. Quickly, I learn that Tanzania is a lot tamer than Kenya, where you may not want to ask questions because the answers, if there are answers, are like the toxins that fill the lake, rather hazardous. With guidance from the home office in Nairobi, the admin officer receives one month s leave without pay.
An investigation into the allegations of orruption begins when an official arrives from Nairobi asking questions. Rumors, sleeping guards and the question of how to avoid a revenge attack do color my thoughts. This is especially the case after a staff member warns me to be careful, whatever that means. Security at the compound is enhanced with an additional day guard, and a second night watchman is sent to Mama V. s and asked to stay awake. The front and kitchen door locks are changed but not my bedroom door, which leads out to the veranda.
The day after the locks are changed, Simon arrives from Uganda where he has spent the ast few years managing the Peace Corps training center near Uganda s capital city, Kampala. He will take over my job when I leave, or that is the plan. For Simon, returning to Naivasha means coming home to his family. Mariam, his wife, owns a profitable cosmetic business in town, and their two children attend a local school near the lake. Simon is inherently likeable; short, portly, with a round face, he exudes warmth and seems to know everyone at the training center.
Later that evening when he brings Mariam and the children over to my house for dinner, I tell him about the allegations against the administrative officer. I not surprised, he says then adds that this has been going on for years. But this man, he is dangerous, he whispers when Mariam leaves the room . We must be careful. I am relieved to hear him use the pronoun we. During the next few days, Simon shares a bit more information about the administrative officer and the management of the training center. It was because of this man that I left Naivasha to take the job in Uganda, Simon explains.
We couldn t work together. Over the weekend, I stop by Mariam s shop to say hello. As light-footed as a gazelle, she is tall, lean, almost gaunt, physically the opposite of her husband. Did you know that Simon is a diabetic, she asks. | worry that he won t pass the Peace Corps medical exam. Little do we know that it will not be the medical clearance that causes him trouble. Instead, the misinformation that the administrative officer spreads around town will put Simon s security clearance as well as his life at risk.
For 10 years a private contractor managed the training center; recently, to save money, Peace Corps chose to take the job back so I ve been hired to introduce more stringent ways of doing business, ways that comply with U. S. Government regulations. That a problem because all 26 of the current employees, to include not only the trainers and admin staff but also the cooks, cleaners and security guards aybe even the dogs, must be re-vetted; and, if they pass the enhanced medical and security scrutiny, rehired.
Most of the employees have worked at the training site for years, some even decades, now, suddenly they feel like the migratory birds, under siege and no longer welcome. Furthermore, all this is happening as we welcome a new group of recruits that need trainers, admin staff, cooks, cleaners, guards even dogs. Peggy, my housemate for almost a month, knows little about he training center so I try to keep it that way.
Since Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony, is ever present on her mind, it s convenient to spend the evenings in conversation about Tanglewood, the estate in the Berkshires that is the focus of the book she hopes to finish in the 6 weeks she plans to stay. One evening as I arrive home, she meets me at door. Come, she says, I want to show you something. In the bathroom, Peggy pulls out a plastic tab of medication with nine pills enclosed in foil. It s my antidepressants she says. Someone has been eating them out of the packet. Look at this. She s right.
Several of the foil linings have been torn open and a lions-share of the pills gnawed away. A mouse is selfmedicating, we discover. Perhaps because of its lack of anxiety, this little mouse, whom we name Felix after Peggy s psychiatrist, appears frequently in the evenings although he is more inclined to stay for long intervals when we watch a film. In fact, one Sunday afternoon, Felix joins us to watch Notting Hill, with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. The only video store in town is owned by an Asian who is partial to Kung Fu movies, although occasionally we find a pirated video more to our taste.
It turns out that Felix won t be with us for long. Hoping to wean him off antidepressants, we put cheese out in the mornings. This doesn t work and after sharing life with Felix for more than a week, he overdoses and Peggy finds his carcass on the floor near the kitchen sink. That night I go to bed thinking about the power of antidepressants and wake up just before dawn to noises on the veranda. Someone is banging against my bedroom door, not knocking but pushing violently against the door as if trying to gain entry. We have no phone.
There is little to do except ring the alarm that alerts the security guards at the gate. But first I peek out a side window, expecting to see Roland, the banished admin officer with a weapon in his hand, a panga or maybe an AK 47, seeking revenge. In his place, I see a marabou stork kicking at the couch with its tall skinny legs. Remembering that the marabou is a scavenger and eats carrion, I realize that it s Felix he s after. Before going to bed, Peggy and I wrapped his little carcass in a napkin and left it under the couch on the veranda. What we planned to do with it, I m not sure.
Later that day, after leaving work early on an errand, there is a traffic jam on the road to town as five marabous walking in formation towards the city dump try to cross the street. Close to five feet tall, the marabou has a wing span of up to nine feet. With a small bald head, oversized beak, hunched blackish-gray body and what looks like tighty white underpants, this bird eats baby crocs and flamingos and helps keep the ecosystem healthy by devouring dead animals. Driving by slowly and eyeballing each candidate, I wonder if one of these loathsome creatures ate the remains of my friend, Felix last night.
