Red Dust

I know what you’re thinking! How come I, A 23-year-old from Essex, England, have ended up here, one of the remotest parts of Africa, to live with this tribe. This tribe who are known for covering themselves in red ochre and otherwise mostly just wear beads. Considered one of the most ‘primitive’ tribes of the world’s remaining indigenous populations (although I’d call them the most wise and sophisticated beings who have ever graced this planet). Well, it started with a documentary. Put an ordinary English family down into the middle of Africa and see how they cope with a radically different way of life. Great telly! The family was my mum, my dad, two brothers and me. To be honest we had a huge winnebago and plenty of supplies. We could almost have avoided any interaction at all with the tribespeople, if we’d wanted to. And that, indeed, was what the family did! Except, that is, for me. So now, having finished school, I’m back. And this time, I’m intending to stay. No mod-cons. My small suitcase of Western clothes will be stashed away in case I ever go home. The only other things I have with me from ‘civilisation’ are paper, envelopes and pens, all carefully wrapped up to protect them from insects and damp weather. My only contact with home will be letters, which are passed on via the health workers that visit the tribe every few months. The tribe remember me and the women take me away at once to get kitted out in the red ochre that covers their whole bodies and is even woven into their hair – our hair. Some have gifted necklaces and strings of beads to go around my waist and hang down as a beaded skirt. Nevertheless, I’m rather ‘bead-poor’ for a woman of my age. Children start off naked for a few years – apart from the red dust – but then start to accumulate belly bands and necklaces that may stay with them their whole lives. Or they may be given away, or laid into the grave of a departed loved one. It is not easy to figure out why something is kept and why something is given away. But the tribe seems to know instinctively what is the appropriate behaviour. Anyway, I’m to spend the first few days of my new life working with the older women, getting ‘beaded up’! These women are mostly too old to work in the fields, although they may do a bit of cooking. Apart from that, they sit in little groups, chattering and stringing beads. Even now, one is collapsed in laughter at some joke shared amongst them. This is a happy pastime. What a way to spend your old age! But after that, it’s the fields for me, like everyone else – even the youngest of children. My tribe only does crops and some foraging – no hunting, no trade, no money, no shops. It’s a precarious existence, for sure, and a year of drought could wipe out almost everyone – only a little food can be stored into another year. Thankfully, in recent times, the government is able to step in and provide food aid in times of crisis. There are some plastic containers and old tin cans here and there from previous such interventions. This is a lush place normally though, and crops grow in abundance. It takes a few weeks for me to get through a whole working day in such heat though. I am forced by the friendly tribespeople to sit in the shade. Children bring me water. There are no fences or boundaries. The tribe has no real concept of owning land or being part of a nation. Wild animals wander nearby and sometimes make their way through the fields and orchards. Depending on the animal, the tribe either tolerates this or makes some efforts to drive the animals out. But it’s all done with the feeling that the animals have as much right to the land as we have. Lions are (thankfully) mostly frightened of humans, so they take a wide berth. The most problematic are elephants. Elsewhere in Africa there are signs that humans tried to erect earth mounds as a protection against such beasts – and it may have been so long ago that some even more impressive creatures were still around, like the giant rhino and the larger species of big cat. But well, you can imagine the labour involved in such fortification. Today, it’s more a case of distraction! Somehow the tribe knows when elephants are approaching days in advance and will make preparations to go out and re-direct them away from the village and the fields. (Elephants themselves will cross dozens and even hundreds of miles for water, somehow knowing where they will find it.) Likewise, working in the fields, there will be a ripple of excitement when other creatures are spotted and everyone will know within a few minutes. It might be a female cheetah with her cubs, or a herd of antelope – somehow the word is out, and I only catch up with the news hours later! I’ve been essentially adopted by a couple who have two teenage sons and their own hut. Huts are mud reinforced with timber posts and covered in grass roofs. The living arrangements shift depending on family groupings. A family will likely have its own hut for a while, but may also take in an elderly parent, aunt or uncle. All this seems to happen very easily and with little discussion. Meanwhile, teenagers naturally make eyes at each other, disappear into the fields or forests from time to time and before you know it (or at least, before I know it) kerpow! They’re a couple! Once babies arrive a new hut may go up, or an existing hut vacated by some older folk and the young couple have a place to rear their kids. And that’s it! No fuss. No mortgage. No bills. All this is done with so much friendliness and cheerfulness that it makes me weep sometimes when I see it. That’s why I say my tribe is the most wise and gracious that has ever walked the Earth. The only real intrusion of the 21st century (apart from the food aid I mentioned earlier) is the visits from the health workers. After a few months in the tribe the sight of their landrover, medical equipment and uniforms feels like an alien invasion to me. These folk are still Africans, but very much Africans of the Westernised variety. It’s difficult to know what they think about the tribe – whether they think we’d all be better off in a city, or whether they respect the choice of living as part of the land. But anyway, babies are weighed, medicines distributed, a few minor ailments are sorted on the spot and from time to time someone is carted off to the hospital, over a hundred miles distant. There are herbs and remedies amongst the tribe of course, but generally Western medicine is accepted. Before all this, someone in chronic pain or close to death – well, it was just a case of easing the pain and giving them the most comfortable journey into the hereafter. The tribe calls the land ‘home’ and the next life as well. Death is ‘going home’. I wonder if I will ever ‘go home’, in the sense of go back to England. I hope to make it through most of my life here, if not all of it, but who knows. But whether I go back or not, I hope I will always call this tribe and this land my home.