Saying goodbye when you never really left

Weird is a place inhabited by dreams in which the past, the present and the future intermarry to create rainbows in the night. It is a place you can explain only to yourself and God; a place known to refuse to go away no matter how hard you ignore it. Sometimes, it seems to me, the harder you ignore it the bolder it becomes.

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I grew up in a small rural village in Nyeri, a place as beautiful as dreams. I have pictures to prove it.

 

The mountain air is thin and the sunshine like skimmed milk. During the cold season your shins feel like steel rods. I was young and trousers for girls were considered a decadent city thing. People have moved on, I am happy to note. The cold season lasts three months, but it comes right after the rainy season, so often there are four to five months of drizzle per year. The hills wear a cloak of fog, and wood fires never die out. The rest of the year is pure heaven. The peaks of the Nyandarua Range (some Bristish person stole the name and replaced it with Aberdare after a place in distant Scotland) seem to be at hand’s reach. On the other side Kirinyaga shines like the mountain of God, standing guard over the Naromoru plains.

Overlooking the plains

 When my parents uprooted us from Nyeri and planted us in Laikipia district, I was too young and naïve to understand the impact of my departure. Soon thereafter I left my parents new home for university and the rest of my life. But my heart never really left the little village. Every year I’d promise myself to return and reconnect with friends and relatives. My body had been translocated, but my roots clung to the fertile red soil, straining my sense of place in indelible ways, ways I began to identify when I went to university. At first when I was asked where I came from, I hesitated. I’d give a two-pronged answer: my parents live in Laikipia but I grew up in Nyeri. After living in Nairobi for about seven years the answer became: Nairobi is my home, I grew up in Nyeri, but my parents live in Laikipia.

A mouthful, I know.

My old primary school

 

In Kenya it seems everyone must have an ‘upcountry’ origin. It is a part of your identity. So, are people whose parents were born in urban areas devoid of roots? What will my daughter identify as her real home, with all these locales striving for a piece of my heart? Urban dwellings are largely considered transient and lacking in the essence that turns a house into a home.

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About ten years after my parents moved, I started having dreams in which I’d be walking on the vistaed hills and enjoying the views. Fourteen years after the move, I went back for a cousin’s wedding. I remember the cold. It whistled through my skirt and tights and became a palpable presence in my fingers and toes. Not the nicest of days to try and reconnect with a place you never really lost. The resolve to return became stronger; the dreams more persistent. They’d sneak up on me every few months; so vivid that I could feel the chilly air searing my lungs.

One night in 2012 I had an elaborate dream featuring a massive construction project at an elevation we used to call ‘Kwa Mhindi’. I decided I’d had enough.  

One of the peaks of Nyandarua

Over Easter I was visiting family at the outskirts of Nyeri town. I requested my sister babysit my daughter. When I got into the matatu, there was a sense of being planted back into the dreams that had plagued me. I walked up the elevation that stands halfway between the shopping centre and the Gakanga Forest. It was punishing, healing, cleansing trudge. People looked at me funny as I took pictures, which made feel conscious of being an intrusion into a languid Sunday afternoon.

The hike knocked the wind out of me. I’d forgotten how steep the hills are. It is not possible to experience level ground for more than 100 metres at a time. I lost the agility with which I navigated the slippery valley paths more than twenty years ago.

I didn’t tell any of the family where or why I was going. Weird is when you go to reconcile with a place rather than a person.

I haven’t had another dream.