Traveling down the dusty red dirt road....

Traveling down the dusty red dirt road…by Cindy

The two of us …so different. Except of course, the wrinkles that had found a place to mark our years and the touch of gray looking somewhat out of place in our tangled dark hair. We embraced and hugged each other. This was our farewell that ended with a smile and a knowing look in each other's eyes. A look that said, this might be the last time we see each other. We did not say goodbye, but rather chose to believe perhaps foolishly, that our paths were meant to cross again, somewhere in the future. As I disappeared from sight down the dusty red dirt road leading away from Julianna, I sadly realized that this may be how the story will in fact end. But this is not how it began several years ago on a rainy afternoon in beautiful Tanzania.

Our broken-down overland truck had just pulled up to our camp and after hours of inching down the road in pouring rain, I was relieved to just get off the truck to stop the aching in my back. My head hurt from hours and hours of driving and the smell of sweat and rain that covered my body. All I could think about is a cool shower and dry tent to wash away the memory of this awful day. For what seemed like forever, our rusty old overland truck had sputtered and spat and continued to breakdown. As the door opened, I jumped out and a women dressed in a faded but once brightly colored cloth that was carefully wrapped around her body, greeted me. Her thick necklace made of rows and rows of carefully strung bright beads and her dangling white and silver earrings, told me that she was a woman from the Masai tribe.

I must have been a sight because instantly she looked at me as if she understood the drama of my day. As she opened up her mouth to smile, I could see her teeth were yellow and stained. Still, I would have to say, that hers was one of the most beautiful smiles I had ever seen. She reached for my hand as I emerged from the truck, and I noted that the touch of her skin felt rough and soft all at the same time. She said enthusiastically “jumbo” which means hello in Swahili. She then embraced me and when she held me tight, she smelled of clothes worn far too long without washing and smoke most likely from the fire she made to cook her food earlier that day. As tired as I was in that moment, this Masai woman intrigued me, and I couldn't take my eyes off of her. The local natives then grabbed my gear and lead me to our campsite and away from the truck. I retired that evening still thinking about her and hoping that tomorrow perhaps if I was lucky, I would see her again.

I awoke the next day rested and optimistic that overnight our driver had managed to fix our beaten and battered truck. Unfortunately, I was informed even before I tasted my first cup of watered-down instant coffee, that the truck needed parts and it would take a couple days before we would be heading down the road. This was not how I had hoped my day would begin, which left me instantly irritated.

As I surveyed the small area around our campsite, I spotted an old wicker chair with an overstuffed and faded green pillow on the seat. The chair looked very inviting since it was placed in the shade under a beautiful Acacia tree. I decided it was the perfect place to relax and mentally regroup.

Several minutes later, I saw the same women that greeted me the evening before coming my way, with our driver following just footsteps behind her. As they approached me, our driver Eloise who was a giant of a man and in his own right a Masai warrior said, “this lady here is my friend Julianna, and she would like to know you”. She then took the faded and frayed yellow blanket that was thrown over her shoulders and like it was made of fine silk, placed it on the ground next to me. For a short time, our driver Eloise and Julianna spoke together in their native tongue’, occasionally looking back at me perhaps to make sure that I was a still sitting in the shade of the Acacia tree. Then, as the Tanzania sun heated up the afternoon air, with the help of Eloise, Julianna enthusiastically asked me questions about every aspect of my life. With each answer, she smiled and clapped as if she had discovered a prize hidden somewhere inside me that had laid dormant, waiting for her to claim it.

When our time together ended… reluctantly on her part, I was exhausted. When she left, I couldn't help but watch her head down the dusty red dirt road towards what must be her home. I wondered what she thought of my life and how different were our two lives. I hoped that I would have an opportunity to answer that question and so many more if I ever see Julianna again.

There's a saying in Africa that is used to explain or justify any and all mishaps…TIA or This is Africa! So, when I awoke the following morning only to learn the parts for our truck had not arrived all I could say was TIA! With nowhere to go and nothing to do, I once again, retreated to the shade of the beautiful Acacia tree.

As the warm Tanzanian sun peaked through the branches and lightly touched my body, I drifted off into a blissful sleep. In what seemed like only minutes, I was awakened by someone's hand gently stroking my face. When I opened my eyes, standing in front of me was my new friend Julianna and of course her interpreter, Eloise. Once again, Julianna took her faded and frayed yellow blanket and gently placed it on the ground next to me and then waved her wrinkled and chaliced hand summoning Eloise to speak. She smiled and nodded her head as if she understood every word as he explained in english, that today it was my turn to ask the questions and she would answer all of them.

All at once my head was spinning. I had so many things I wanted to know, but this would take time …time to get to the heart of things…time to know Julianna. I started slowly by shyly asking Julianna how old she was. I was surprised to learn that she was much younger than I had thought and much younger than myself. Life had taken a toll on her, and the struggles showed with each line on her face.

I asked about her childhood growing up in the Masai village and a sadness crossed her face. She explained, that at the age of eight she had been chosen by an elder Masai warrior from another village to be his third wife. Her family had been paid handsomely with two of the man’s finest milk cows and a brown and white baby goat? Once her family received her dowry, she was taken from her village to live in her future husband’s village. There, she was put in the care of his other two wives to be groomed to be a Masai wife and mother.
She remembered that her small thin body trembled and that she cried for many nights scared and alone. She thought about her family huddled around the fire inside their mud hut the hut she once called home. She wondered what they were doing and who if anyone had taken her spot on the worn mat where until now, she had sat. She missed her brothers, sisters and her friends in the village. Surprisingly, she even missed that old dirty white cat she named Muzuzu or white person. Her face grew dark as she recalled the evenings, when she was forced to sleep with the milk cow on the dirt floor in a room adjacent to the hut of one of the wives.

She looked like a frightened child when she said that as the days passed, the wives grew very impatient with her often mocking her and calling her stupid. Especially, when she had forgotten to collect firewood in the forest near their village. Or when she had let the water jug become empty because she was deathly afraid of the hippos and crocs waiting for unsuspecting villagers down by the Zambezi River. She stated that often they would whip her and pull her hair and even when she cried, they did not care. She said, that in the early days she thought that this must be a terrible mistake. She had hoped that soon her family would come through the broken wood gate, held together by string made of cow hide, to rescue her and take her back to the warmth and security of her families’ mud hut. But as the days turned into weeks and then into months, she had lost all hope and before she knew it years had passed, and she was no longer a little girl.

As I watch Julianna speak, her facial expressions told the story more than her carefully chosen words. From time to time, she seemed to be back in the mud hut of the wives and as she spoke tears would slowly run from her eyes and cleanse the dust off her face before they fell into her lap and on to the dirty faded cloth she wore. My heart broke for her but all I could do is sit silently listening and wipe my own tears as they too ran down my face.
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The time passed quickly and before I knew it the sun was setting in the distance leaving a glow of orange and yellow shimmering off the hills of Tanzania. As I helped Julianna once again pick up her faded and frayed yellow blanket, she looked into my eyes and said thank you in Swahili. At first, I thought she was thanking me for helping her with her blanket, but I sensed it was for a whole lot more than that. I wondered, is this the first time Julianna had talk to another person about her life?

That evening, I closed my eyes, but I did not drift off to sleep. On many nights the roar of the prowling lions or the shrill cry of the hyenas in the darkness of the Tanzania bush would keep me awake, but not tonight. Tonight, my thoughts would be of Julianna, the lonely eight-year-old Masai girl sleeping on the dirt floor of the wives’ hut with only a cow to comfort her, see her small body tremble and to hear the soft cries of a very scared little girl.

The next morning, I dressed quickly and hurried to the campsite to see the status of our broken-down truck. I was overjoyed to hear that although the part had arrived, the repair would take one more day. The mechanic waiting for me to be angry seemed surprised and a little relieved when I smiled and said, “no problem, TIA”.

Once again, I took my place in the shade of the acacia tree and just like the days before, soon Julianna with Eloise in toll, came walking down the dusty red dirt road. She seemed anxious to continue and immediately took up where she had left off prior to the sun setting the day before. She explained that the next five years that passed with the first and second wife was just more of the same. The only thing that changed was her realization that this was her lot in life and that the family she once knew and loved was lost to her forever.

Shortly after Julianna's thirteen birthday she shyly said through the embarrassed Eloise, that she had become a woman. She further explained that she had been prepared for this day as a very small girl when the elder women cut her down there so that she would not feel pleasure or become what they called in the village...a bad girl.

After she became a woman, she was told it was time to build a hut for her, her soon to be husband and the children that will come. For weeks Julianna collected the cow dung to mix with water from the river and straw and placed it on the walls of the hut to bake in the warm Tanzanian sun. When the walls were thick, she gathered sticks for the roof and covered them with straw.

Her husband to be who ignored her for the most part for the five years she had lived in the village, now watched her expressionless as she worked painstakingly on the hut. In years past, the only time he had spoken to her was to yell at her to get out of the other wives’ hut and to sleep with the cows. On those nights she could hear the clanging of dishes as he ate his dinner prepared by one of his wives and soft moans before they fell off to sleep.

Julianna explained that the day she finished the hut was a day she was very happy. Finally, she could rest. At that moment, I asked her to tell me about her Masai husband. She paused and lowered her head as if ashamed and then she began to explain. She said that she was thirteen and her husband was very old maybe even fifty when they married. And although she was supposed to be his third wife, she was actually his fourth since he had married again when she was still a child. She said, it was that night as she rested in the hut that she had built, that he came to her. He told her that she was his property just like the milk cows and the brown and white baby goat that he had given to her family. He also told her sternly that she will always obey him, cook for him, wash his clothes and give him many children. His eyes were cold as he told her that always there must be water in the jug from the river and wood near the fire from the forest. That night he made her his wife and when he finished with her, she was all alone, not even that old milk cow was there to hear her whimper and cry alone in the dark.

Over the years she said her husband had visited her often and that she painfully had boar him three sons. She appeared sad when she mentioned that she did not have any daughters but also remarked that she was also thankful. She explained, the life of a Masai women is not a life you want to be born in to. She said that her husband visits her far less frequently now, especially since he has taken on several new young girls as wives. She smiled the smile only a woman could understand and then she looked up to the sky as in thanks. We both simultaneously chuckled which brought a very disconcerting look from our male Masai warrior and interpreter Eloise.

Once again, the sun was setting in the distance painting the Tanzania hill tops with hues of bright oranges and yellows. Once again, it was the time that Julianna would lift her blanket from the ground and head down the dusty red dirt road to her village. As we parted this time… Julianna looked deep into my eyes, smiled and lightly kissed my cheek. I stood there for the longest time watching her until she disappeared where the road turned, leading her I imagined, to the hut she made from straw and cow dung many years ago for her Masai husband and children.

The next morning, when I awoke and finally emerged from my tent, I saw out of the corner of my eye Julianna talking to Eloise. As they walked towards me, I could see Julianna was very excited and smiling my way. She then handed me a beautiful pair of beaded earrings, necklace and ankle bracelet that she had made especially for me. Eloise explained that this is the jewelry that is made for one’s sister and that Julianna hopes that I will accept it as her sister. I cried as I took the jewelry in my trembling hands and then ever so gently, she took each piece and put it on me. When she had finished, she stepped back and nodded with a look of pride and approval.

In the background I could hear the engine of our old diesel truck start and I as well as Julianna knew the time for me to leave had come. We looked at each other not quite knowing what to say, laughed an uncomfortable laugh and then hugged for the longest time. I then got into the rusty old overland truck, and it started to move away. This time, it was Julianna's watching me travel down the dusty red dirt road. This time perhaps like me, she too wondered will we ever met again under the shade of the beautiful Acacia tree.

Although I had thought of Julianna many many times over the years it wasn't until sometime had past that I visited Tanzania once again. When I stopped at the campsite where we had met, I asked several Masai people about her. Since I did not speak their language, they soon went about their business leaving me alone and discouraged. You can imagine my excitement when within minutes I saw one of the Masai bringing Julianna down the dusty red dirt road.

When she finally reached me, she was crying, and she grabbed my face in her two hands. These were the same hands that greeted me the first day we met and the same hands that I had remembered as feeling so rough and yet so soft. Julianna led me to my chair under the shade of the beautiful acacia tree and then once again took her faded and frayed yellow blanket and laid it like a piece of fine silk on the ground next to me. This time we did not need Eloise to be our translator. We were just two sisters, happy to be reunited again, after we had both traveled down a dusty red dirt road in beautiful Tanzania.

Eloise Julianna Roy and Cindy re-united in Tanzania 2016