I sat there with my pen tapping against my notebook, nodding in dismay, staring at his creased face. I anchored my body forward, my ears zooming into his tunnel of words, listening intently…
"Listen my child, they call me Pehepo", he mumbled. "I have a fighting spirit, i have seen rage and war tormenting our peaceful spirits. Tell your generation, in your own way, not to be led in this doubtful path, to keep their spirits at peace all the time"
His words were uttered with precision, a unique literature, so sophisticated and spirited. He coughed slightly, perhaps an indication of the passing years. With every brooding word he uttered, he carefully scratched his salty textured hair, urging me to gain insight.
He talked about the long fight and sang about the sharp dancing arrows. His eyes always gazing upon the dark marks dented in his right foot. A foot that raced upon the tainted earth, the toes that continue to linger the smell of blood quenched with dust. It was a horrific past, full of haunting chapters, thick verses that sounded like miracles. He saw the baptism of fire, long guns heaving beneath innocent arms, shredding metal pebbles.
This was a treacherous battle of hide and seek, a different kind of ironic game. A game of not wanting to be found but to be lost…lost in fear of being discovered. His inner soul was bruised, his outer body scarred by his fighting spirit.
The old man had suddenly stopped speaking…he took a deep sigh and looked at the ground with a distant gaze. His eyes were parading the ground, his hands waving his wooden rod on the flaking soil.
The ground took note of his admission; he drew something beneath his feet, it looked like a doodle map, vertical lines spread across on spiral walls. He made an attempt to speak, his voice accompanied by a chilling cough, a cold tale that only his body knew so well. This was his survival mystery, a hidden thought fastened by his will to live.
Pehepo quickly raised his face, and his shrewd eyes made an attempt to capture my attention. I was ready to bite the pen on my paper.
He continued…..he had thought this through, it was all calculated, the desire to flee, to cross past the Serengeti and sink past the hungry pride. He melted his pot to stew new machine, metals of ancient bullets and knives. He had mastered his father’s art of masonry: sharpening and melting. This was his tool of survival. He was going to protect, shield his young litters, his bone and flesh.
His mind wandered off again, a flash back of his youthful year. He saw his little playful self, chase after the gazelles, poke at the thorny berry tree and together with his friends suck all the juice away.
Pehepo wished for a time where he would gaze upon the vast field of nature. Birds chatting in musical voices and green grasses swaying over the stretch of infinite brown soil. He memorized the clear blue horizon, the expansive blue skies that the sun was attached to.
This was the home he knew, and he would defend it at all costs.
A price that he keeps buried in his ageing spirit……
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