“What do you say, Francis?” Mauro asked.
For some time Francis had been reading a small, red-bound Bible. He looked up now and smiled. “These Masai are
brave men,” he said.
“Were you raised a Christian?” Auma asked Francis.
Francis nodded. “My parents converted before I was born.”
Mauro spoke, staring into the fire. “Me, I leave the Church. Too many rules. Don’t you think, Francis, that sometimes
Christianity not so good? For Africa, the missionary changes everything, yes? He brings...how do you say?”
“Colonialism,” I offered.
“Yes-colonialism. White religion, no?”
Francis placed the Bible in his lap. “Such things troubled me when I was young. The missionaries were men, and they
erred as men. Now that I am older, I understand that I also can fail. That is not God’s failure. I also remember that some
missionaries fed people during drought. Some taught children to read. In this, I believe they were doing God’s work.
All we can do is aspire to live like God, though we will always fall short.”
Mauro went to his tent and Francis returned to his Bible. Beside him, Auma began to read a story with Elizabeth. Dr.
Wilkerson sat with his knees together, mending his pants while his wife stared at the fire beside him. I looked at the
Masai, their faces silent and watchful, and wondered what they made of the rest of us. They might be amused, I
decided. I knew that their courage, their hardness, made me question my own noisy spirit. And yet, as I looked around
the fire, I thought I saw a courage no less admirable in Francis, and in Auma, and in the Wilkersons as well. Maybe it
was that courage, I thought, that Africa most desperately needed. Honest, decent men and women with attainable
ambitions, and the determination to see those ambitions through.
The fire began to die, and one by one the others made their way to bed, until only Francis and I and the Masai
remained. As I stood up, Francis began to sing a deep-voiced hymn in Kikuyu, with a melody that I vaguely
recognized. I listened a while, lost in my own thoughts. Walking back to my tent, I felt I understood Francis’s plaintive
song, imagining it transmitting upward, through the clear black night, directly to God.
The day we got back from Mara, Auma and I received word that Roy had arrived, a week earlier than expected. He
had suddenly appeared in Kariakor with a suitcase in hand, saying that he’d felt restless waiting around in D.C. and had
managed to talk his way onto an earlier flight. The family was thrilled by his arrival and had held off on a big feast only
until Auma and I returned. Bernard, who brought us the news, said that we were expected soon; he fidgeted as he
spoke, as if every minute away from our eldest brother were a dereliction of duty. But Auma, still stiff from sleeping in
tents for the past two days, insisted on taking the time for a bath.
“Don’t worry,” she said to Bernard. “Roy just likes to make everything seem so dramatic.”
Jane’s apartment was in a hubbub when we arrived. In the kitchen, the women were cleaning collards and yams,
chopping chicken and stirring ugali. In the living room, younger children set the table or served sodas to the adults.
And at the center of this rush sat Roy, his legs spread out in front of him, his arms flung along the back of the sofa,
nodding with approval. He waved us over and offered us each a hug. Auma, who hadn’t seen Roy since he’d moved to
the States, stepped back to get a better look.