In the morning, Sayid and Yusuf suggested that Auma and I take a tour of the lands. As we followed them across the
backyard and down a dirt path, through fields of corn and millet, Yusuf turned to me and said, “It must seem very
primitive to you, compared to farms in America.”
I told him that I didn’t know much about farming but that, as far as I could tell, the land seemed quite fertile.
“Yes, yes,” Yusuf said, nodding. “The land is good. The problem is that people here are uneducated. They don’t
understand much about development. Proper agricultural techniques and so forth. I try to explain to them about capital
improvements and irrigation, but they refuse to listen. The Luo are very stubborn in this way.”
I noticed Sayid frowning at his brother, but he said nothing. After a few minutes we came to a small, brown stream.
Sayid shouted out a warning, and two young women emerged on the opposite bank, wrapped in their kangas, their hair
still gleaming from their morning baths. They smiled shyly and stepped behind an island of rushes, and Sayid pointed
to the hedges running alongside the water.
“This is where the land ends,” he said. “Before, when my father lived, the fields were much bigger. But as my mother
said, much of the land has now been given away.”
Yusuf decided to go back at this point, but Sayid led Auma and me along the stream for a while, then across more
fields, past the occasional compound. In front of some huts, we saw women sorting through millet spread across square
strips of cloth, and we stopped to talk to one of them, a middle-aged woman in a faded red dress and red, laceless
sneakers. She set aside her work to shake our hands and told us that she remembered our father-they had herded goats
together as children, she said. When Auma asked how life had been treating her, she shook her head slowly.
“Things have changed,” she said in a flat voice. “The young men leave for the city. Only the old men, women, and
children remain. All the wealth has left us.” As she spoke, an old man with a rickety bicycle came up beside us, then a
spindly man whose breath smelled of liquor. They immediately picked up the woman’s refrain about the hardness of
life in Alego, and the children who had left them behind. They asked if we might give them something to tide them
over, and Auma dropped a few shillings into each of their hands before we excused ourselves and started back toward
the house.
“What’s happened here, Sayid?” Auma said after we were out of earshot. “There never used to be such begging.”
Sayid leaned down and cleared away a few fallen branches from between the rows of corn. “You are right,” he said. “I
believe they have learned this thing from those in the city. People come back from Nairobi or Kisumu and tell them,
‘You are poor.’ So now we have this idea of poverty. We didn’t have this idea before. You look at my mother. She will
never ask for anything. She has always something that she is doing. None of it brings her much money, but it is
something, you see. It gives her pride. Anyone could do the same, but many people here, they prefer to give up.”
“What about Yusuf?” Auma asked. “Couldn’t he do more?”
Sayid shook his head. “My brother, he talks like a book, but I’m afraid he does not like to lead by example.”
Auma turned to me. “You know, Yusuf was doing really well for a time. He did well in school, didn’t he, Sayid? He
received several good job offers. Then, I don’t know what happened. He just dropped out. Now he just stays here with
Granny, doing small chores for her. It’s as if he’s afraid to try to succeed.”
Sayid nodded. “I think perhaps education doesn’t do us much good unless it is mixed with sweat.”
barré
(Barré)
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