Descendants
Part 1: Africa
Chapter 1
Mwakima searched the crowd of disembarking passengers who had just arrived from Nairobi via Kenya Airways flight 756. He wished he had carried a placard bearing the name of his ward, but then again, his father had expressly told him not to.
He wondered if he would be able to recognize her, after all, he was just a child when he last saw her. She had been his first crush. He cringed inwardly at the memory.
"Mwakima! Ni kazi umekosa? Nenda nyumbani ukasaidia mamako. Wacha kusumbua mgeni!" his father had bellowed to him before apologetically facing the mistress of the house.
"I hope my son wasn't bothering you Madame," he said, as he replaced her chilled glass of 'dawa' a cocktail of vodka, lemon and honey. "He seems to have left his good manners at school," he added, glaring at the boy who had still not obeyed his command.
"No, he's adorable," she replied, winking at the boy."Maybe in a few years," she whispered to him.
Well, a few years had passed, and they had been kind to him. She, on the other hand, was probably heavier and a bit wrinkly by now, he thought.
His stance was stoic as he watched the rainbow mixture of passengers. There were Kenyan's from other regions of the country coming into Mombasa for a business meeting or to see their families or even to take advantage of the off-peak rates at the hotels and cottages that drizzled the sleepy coastal town. There were the Kenyan Arabs and Indians and Swahilis, coming back to the island their ancestors had long ago decided to call home. And of course, there were the white tourists, mostly from Europe but a few from America. No doubt they had spent some time 'roughing' it in the game reserves of Samburu or the Maasai Mara, watching lions and cheetahs in the habitat God had intended for them. Now, they were probably on the last leg of their well-deserved holidays and the contrast of the white sandy beaches of Mombasa against the rustic savannah grasslands would be welcome.
Watching the latter group, lugging their big suitcases filled with curios and expensive camera equipment, he couldn't help but feel a bit jealous. They had seen and been to places that he had only read about, and it was his country. He tried to imagine what it would be like to witness the Great Wildebeest Migration from Tanzania's Serengeti National Park into the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya. Did the tour guides allow guests to be close enough to the Mara River to watch as the crocodiles snapped at the heels of the crossing wildebeest? Were their any lodges close enough to the migration site that you would constantly feel the vibration of their pounding hooves?
Maybe after he finished college and got a good job. Perhaps then he would see the wildlife that shared his country with him.
"Mwah-kee-mah, is it?" a very bored, very American accent asked. Mwakima turned around sharply, shaken out of his reverie. He looked down at the woman who had called his name. The confusion on his face was quickly replaced with shock. Her hair was shorter and darker than he remembered, and she was dressed up in the latest fashion, but that was the only change in her. The only change after more than a decade had passed.
"Miss Katherine is not like other white people you've met, Mwakima," his father had cryptically warned.
She most definitely wasn't.
