Back from Africa

The Bureaucratic Hurdles

At the beginning of September my summer euphoria evaporates in a flash. I had completely forgotten my application for family social security registration. Reading the relevant regulations now is like having the rug pulled from beneath my feet. According to German law I'm still married which means Napirai has to take her father's surname unless we've decided otherwise together. But the name will not be legally recognized unless we can present a valid identity card or social security documents. Apart from anything else they require my husband's birth certificate. And how, in the name of God, am I supposed to conjure up a birth certificate when he's never even had one. I'm given a form on which I'm supposed to answer a thousand and one questions about Lketinga's parents. How on earth am I supposed to gather all this information about a husband whose whereabouts I don't even know?

My head's spinning so much with all this I start to feel unwell. There is not the slightest possibility that Lketinga would ever consent to Napirai changing her surname to mine. And I've only got my residence permit for Switzerland on the basis of us both having the same nationality and surname. I start to panic that somebody might try to take Napirai away from me. Is our whole wonderful new world about to fall apart just because of a couple of stupid paragraphs in some bureaucratic paperwork? Or is Lketinga, of no fixed abode and at least ten thousand kilometers away, to become Napirai's legal guardian?

I keep going through all the questions over and over again but I've still got no idea how I'm ever going to answer them. What I'd like to do is throw them all in the bin. But sooner or later Napirai is going to need an identity card and for that she's going to need a legally recognized birth certificate.

That means getting written confirmation from Kenya, and how on earth am I going to do that? Gradually I start despairing over it all and without the slightest clue what I'm supposed to do I call my mother. She does her best to reassure me but actually hasn't any more of a clue than I have.

None of my new friends and acquaintances can help either so I call the German consulate in Zurich to make an appointment to go and talk it over. The gentleman there is very courteous and helpful but doesn't know what he can do for me. Laws are laws. I should try to find out more about Lketinga's family from his brother and then he'll see what he can do with the information I've provided and what else I might need.

I leave the consulate exhausted and dripping sweat, aware only that it's all going to be very difficult. I think of my much-loved Kenyan relatives and their simple primitive lifestyle. How can I possibly explain to people like them that in our ‘civilized’ world we need all this? These are people who have no idea of their own birthdays, much less of why anyone would celebrate such a thing, and I'm supposed to find out details of the dead. It all strikes me as absurd.

But I can't see any other solution so I write James a long letter, asking him to answer as many of the questions as he can and if possible to reply using a typewriter and get the mission to authenticate his letter. I tell him how sorry I am to cause so much fuss but that it's very important for Napirai and me. I send off the letter with not much hope, knowing that it's bound to be at least two or three months before I even get an answer because James is off at school now and won't be back home until Christmas. The consulate here is going to send Napirai's birth certificate and our wedding certificate back to Kenya to have them authenticated, and that's going to take forever too.

Despite all this chaos, we gradually get back to our daily routine and I try not to think about what could happen. I have to believe this problem too will somehow get resolved.

In the weeks before Christmas my sales to big company staff members really take off as the products make such good presents. My boss is very happy with me and leases me a nice new car, as my old Ford keeps breaking down in town and I've been late for meetings as a result. Every time I have a breakdown, however, I'm amazed how quick and easy it is to get going again. Either another motorist stops to help or you call a rescue service which is there within minutes. It was rather different in Kenya! We used to stand out there in the bush for hours, if not days, waiting in vain for someone who could help to come along. Eventually I had to learn how to do a few basic repairs myself and change the tyres which were forever getting punctures. The only time the natives were able to help was when the Land Rover got stuck in mud or sand and they could fetch wood to place underneath it to give the tyres something to grip on to.

I'm feeling very proud of myself now driving to work in my new car. It's snowed overnight and the streets are full of slush, but I'm not worried about driving because my boss reassured me that the car's all-weather tyres are more than adequate. Even so I'm driving slowly and cautiously. Then all of a sudden on a right-hand bend I lose control of the vehicle and it slithers straight ahead on the slushy snow only coming to a halt when it thuds into a parked car. I'm in shock. I've never had an accident in my life until now. And that's with driving over some of the most insane roads in Kenya that almost nobody else dared drive on. I can't understand what happened. I thought I was steering properly into the bend. My beautiful brand-new car is badly damaged on the right-hand wing and the parked car I've crashed into is no better. Doors and windows up and down the street are opening now and within seconds there's a distraught woman staring at her new, now near demolished, car.

I'm absolutely mortified and can't help thinking my boss is going to chew my head off. When the husband of the woman whose car it is appears, he turns out — irony of ironies — to be a car bodywork repairer, and he immediately notices that I haven't got winter tyres. I can't believe what he's telling me and end up nearly hysterical. He then starts trying to calm both of us down and says, ‘It's not all as bad as it looks.’ Even my boss doesn't seem too worked up when I ring to tell him the news and says he'll send for a tow-truck. And that's the end of my first week with a brand-new car. But I get a replacement vehicle until mine can be repaired and my boss tells me the insurance will pick up the tab for the rest. That's how easy things are here.

Organizing my sales meetings and going along to show off my goods gets me into contact with more and more people, and ever more frequently some man or other asks me out for dinner or a drink. Up until now I've always made my excuses, but for the first time I've met someone I like and I accept. We make a dinner date and so I find myself going out with a man for the first time since my return from Kenya. Napirai is spending the night with my mother.

Already over dinner, when we're getting to know one another, I realise my previous life has its drawbacks. ‘Oh, you already have a child?’ is his first comment, and his tone of voice says it all, and before long the evening's already over.

Another time I went out with someone, my story was greeted with, ‘I see, you prefer black men?’ Even when I tell him that I've only gone out with one black man, my ex-husband, the comment still leaves a funny taste in the air. One man even asked me: ‘Have you had an Aids test yet?’ Each time something like that happens I'm brought straight down to earth with a bump with the result that all these ‘affairs’ end before they've even begun.

Before long I can't be bothered to send my daughter off to spend the night elsewhere just to go out for a meal and some disagreeable conversation. It's more fun cooking for some of my girlfriends and having a bit of a party at home. Or every now and then I meet up with some of my old colleagues from Rapperswil if there's live music in a restaurant there. Then I can take Napirai along too and she really enjoys that. She loves being in a big group of people and when there's a band playing she goes and stands at the front right next to them and dances along, which amuses everybody. Sometimes she just goes around from table to table looking at people. When she gets back to our table, she's usually got some sort of little present. I have to laugh although sometimes I wonder if it's her natural curiosity and good mood that wins over people or the color of her skin.

One night when we're sitting peacefully in a local spot at around eleven o'clock in the evening, I hear someone say, ‘A child ought to be in bed at this time.’ Oh yes, I think to myself, and you mean her mother ought to be back home along with her. The fact is that my daughter enjoys being out with me, listening to the music and enjoying each other's company, and in any case it's a weekend and we can sleep in. In warm climates people are used to taking their children out with them and it's a well-known fact that everyone's jollier. I pay no attention to them and the two of us stay on until I notice that she really is tired. Then we drive back home happily.

I mention this experience at one of our next group meetings and immediately everyone starts talking about their experiences. A lot of single mothers lack self-confidence and don't go out to public places; they stay indoors until they go mad. Well I'm not going to be one of them; I'm going to bring my daughter up my own way.

Once again Christmas is on its way and there's deep snow everywhere. Some of the others in our little housing estate ask me if I want to bring Napirai out to one of the forest huts for a St Nicholas's day party. They're going to have someone dressed as St Nicholas there with his donkey and all that goes with it. Everyone's contributing something. I say yes please, and can't wait to see how Napirai will react to it all.

Ten of us adults turn up with our children at the hut which is all done up with Christmas decorations. There are nuts, mandarin oranges, candles and wine. We've been there about an hour when there's the tinkle of bells outside and a hammering on the door. All the children jump excitedly and run to their parents. Napirai just stands there staring at me in surprise and then back at the door, which opens to reveal two little children dressed as St Nicholas, all in red, along with their traditional helpers, Farmhand Ruprecht all in black, and old brown Schmutzli with his stick. For a second or two it all goes silent and then we grown-ups ask the pair of St Nicholases in and the children start laughing, although a few still hide behind their parents. Napirai is still puzzled and asks me: ‘Mama, who is it?’ I explain all the legend and tradition to her in a jokey way and then we listen as the St Nicholases make their little speeches for each child before they go over to collect their little sacks of goodies. But Napirai only wants to go over to the man in black. She's not remotely interested in the children dressed in the red costumes. Instead she goes up to Farmhand Ruprecht and starts pulling at his black beard. It looks so funny that everybody breaks out in laughter. Most of the children avoid this sinister figure but Napirai is fascinated by him. We're in tears of laughter. I realise it must have something to do with Africa, a memory of her African origins and an instinctive trust in dark people.

It reminds me of a funny thing that happened about six months earlier when we were out shopping. We were going up an escalator when we came across a black man going down the one opposite. Napirai, who was sitting in the shopping trolley, pointed a finger at him and called out ‘Papa!’ He smiled over at us but my face was bright red. And now here she is hanging on to Farmhand Ruprecht. I'm certain she'll want to visit her father when she grows up.

Eventually our little Christmas party comes to an end and we clear everything up. On the way home Napirai is very proud to be carrying her little sack filled with nuts, chocolate and gingerbread.

A few days later I get a letter from James telling me things are more or less OK, except that they haven't had any rain for nearly a year and both people and animals are going hungry. In fact the drought is so bad some have already died. The cows are dying because the grass isn't growing any more which means there's no more milk and that's one of the main subsistence foods for the people. Thanks to the financial help my brother Marc and I are providing, his family are doing better than most. He thanks us effusively once again and sends the very best wishes from the whole family. But he doesn't refer to the questions I asked for my social security application and so I have no idea whether our letters crossed or mine has even got lost altogether. He still hasn't heard from Lketinga but doesn't want to go back down to Mombasa. He'll let me know if he hears anything. He's going to be home for two months over Christmas and there's going to be another big ceremony for which he has to buy a cow, but he has no money and asks me to help him out.

We're spending Christmas with my mother and Hanspeter, and once again there's a huge pile of presents for my daughter which gives me a bad conscience in the light of the hunger and drought on the other side of the world.

The chair of our single mothers’ group has invited us all round to her place for New Year's Eve. Once again we all contribute something: salads, pizza, cakes, meat, wine or champagne. In the end there are thirteen of us mothers and twice as many children of all ages. We stuff ourselves at our magnificent buffet and end up dancing around her beautifully-decorated flat. By ten p.m. we've got so much food left over we wonder what to do with it all. Then someone has the bright idea of ringing up a radio station and getting them to tell people. After several fruitless attempts we finally get through and a message goes out on the airwaves saying there are thirteen women sitting there with a pile of food and inviting anyone to turn up as long as they bring a bit of festive spirit to the occasion. We don't mention the children. After that the phone doesn't stop ringing with either calls from single men or even whole groups of men. We give our address to the ones who sound nicest but after ten minutes we stop even taking calls or the flat will be heaving all night long. Before long the first visitors are at the door ringing the bell. The older children go and open it and the visitors apologies, saying they must be at the wrong place. But the children have been well trained and say, ‘No, no, come in, our mothers are all dancing or sitting in the living room.’

That's how we greet all of them. Some of them turn round on the spot and leave but a few are simply amazed and stay despite the children. By midnight there are eight men sitting around patiently allowing the children to put paper hats and false noses on them, things that have come out of crackers we had earlier. By two a.m. however, even the liveliest children are dead beat and so we bring our fun but crazy New Year's party to a close.

Back home I put Napirai, who's already asleep, to bed and sit there thinking back over my past year. So many things have changed but I'm feeling happy. I have a nice two-bedroom flat which even a year on I still consider enormous compared to the places I used to live in. Even today I still stare into the fridge for ages before I take out something to eat, just out of appreciation and awe. We've done it, and I give thanks to God for everything I've overcome in the past year, and wonder what awaits me in the year to come: 1992.

Right at the beginning of the new year I have an appointment with my family doctor to get my blood and liver functions tested. The doctor who knows my story from my first visit to him is surprised how well I've recovered. I may be still very thin but I no longer look malnourished. The blood tests show up very few malaria antibodies which is unusual given how often I've suffered from the serious tropical disease. Even my liver function tests amaze the doctor who says he can more or less classify me as healthy. I tell him I haven't done anything in particular to deal with my illness since I've been back in Switzerland but began to feel well again really quite quickly. ‘Well it would seem your attitude has served you well because I've never seen anyone recover so quickly,’ he says, and happily gives me a clean bill of health.

January is cold and wet. Business isn't as good as it was before Christmas. People are dismissive and bad-tempered. Even my boss grumbles that turnover could be better. I'm of the opinion, however, that January is a bleak period and expectations are simply too high. I know that from my earlier experience running a shop, and he ought to know it too if he's been in the business for more than forty years as he made a proud point of telling me. At the moment, however, I just have to be thankful for every order. Things will get better in February.

Our only big excitement is the village carnival. It's the first time Napirai has been old enough to join in and she's going dressed as a witch. She heads off with one of her little girlfriends delighted by all the crazy goings-on. In the meantime she's been getting on really well with the childminder's family, so well in fact that sometimes she doesn't want to come home when I turn up, she's so engrossed in playing with the other children. Obviously I found that a bit hurtful the first time it happened but on the other hand I'm more than delighted she's fitting in so well.

Finally I get the typewritten letter from Barsaloi and am amazed to see that James has managed it. He says the whole family is delighted and his mother was even moved to tears when she learned that their family history was going to be recorded in the Swiss archives. I'd been prepared for anything but that, and end up in tears myself at the thought of my poor mother-in-law whom I really miss. They've answered nearly all the questions and got an official stamp from the mission. They're sorry only that they haven't got a birth certificate for Lketinga and nobody can say for sure what his date of birth was. But they have even provided details of his late father. I'm so grateful to my mother-in-law for understanding and taking all this trouble.

But I'm still not over-optimistic as I go to the German consulate and hand over the letter to the man there. Once again we have to fill out endless forms. Anything that isn't sufficiently clarified in the letter I have to swear to on oath. Once again we send it all off to Berlin and go back to waiting. The one thing they make clear to me is that this is definitely not the last time I'll have to visit the consulate.

As far as work goes there isn't a bank or insurance company in Zurich I haven't visited. In Basel I even managed to organise an appointment with the chemical company Sandoz in the morning and Hoffmann La Roche in the afternoon. I'd like to see someone else manage that, I tell myself rather proudly. In mid-March I go back to a bank where I've arranged to call regularly every three months. Their buyer who deals with such things has bought a stack of expensive designer silk squares. But when I go into the building and ask for her, she comes out and looks at me in surprise: Didn't you know I went into your shop three weeks ago to place my order? I suddenly needed a few things urgently and couldn't get through to you on the phone. They said I might as well place my order there and then in the shop so I did and won't need anything else for several months now.’

I'm astonished because I knew nothing about this. But I say nothing, take my leave of her with good grace and walk out of the bank. Back home I check my books and find no record of any commission for the order, so the next day I call my boss and ask what's going on. At first he tries to avoid the question but then he tells me the order simply had nothing to do with me because the lady in question came into the shop to place it and didn't do it through me. I don't agree: I tell him she's my customer. I won her trade in the first place and therefore I should be entitled to commission on all her follow-up orders. That commission after all is part of my wages. He refuses to agree and I quickly come to realise that the same thing has almost certainly happened before.

We end up in a proper slanging match. I can't believe he doesn't see my point of view and on the contrary is trying to take my customers away from me. I've sometimes worked until late at night building up a customer base selling to company staff and now he stabs me in the back. I'm horribly disappointed and feel as if I'm being used. I can't take being treated like this and react accordingly: I resign on the spot. ‘You just go ahead and do that then,’ he replies with an ironic laugh and hangs up on me.

After a few minutes thinking about what I've just done I realise that he obviously wanted to get rid of me. Now that I've built up a customer base for him he'd rather save my salary. I feel so angry and let down that I feel tears welling up inside me. I can forgive anything but not being treated unfairly. But there I am, just eight months after making a success of my first job again, writing a letter of resignation. But I'm convinced I'll find something else. He'll have to write me a reference and he'll regret it if it's not a good one. A whole series of companies whose staff I've sold to wrote in to thank me for my personal efforts and to say how well-organized everything was.

A week later I turn in my car and my sample stock but only after making sure that I'm paid whatever salary is outstanding. I also want to see the reference he's written first. All of that, however, goes without a hitch and we part with the minimal amount of words. Even though I've enjoyed this first job up until now I'm still glad to have made the right decision. It's fairly obvious that if things had gone on longer it could all have got worse.

Now, however, I no longer have a car or a job, just a flat for which I need money to pay the rent. That evening I drive over to Rapperswil. I need to think things over, but also a bit of distraction. Napirai is sleeping over at the girl-next-door's for the first time and is really excited about that.

In the course of the evening I bump into a few old friends and tell them I've quit my job. One of them says he knows another firm that trades in promotional gifts and he'll ask them if there's anything going. A few days later I'm invited in to meet the relevant people. Their offer is hardly overwhelming but it's better than nothing and maybe I can build it up into something. They deal in all sorts of promotional goods: printed cigarette lighters, ballpoint pens, wallets, etc. They see any firm as a potential customer. But here again it would mean starting from scratch as they don't have any customer base in my area.

A week later I start my new job, but it's almost impossible to fix up any meetings. As a result I end up trawling around restaurants, offices, small businesses with a car laden down with stuff. Our prices however are cheap and people end up giving me loads of orders there and then on the spot. After two to three months the word has got around that the stuff I'm selling is decent quality and good value. As a result people recommend me to others and before long I'm getting potential customers calling me.

It's much easier to get to know the staff in this sort of work and when I turn up at one small firm during their morning break they invite me in for coffee while they take a look at my samples. It's a very different selling technique to my last job but I enjoy it, particularly getting to know lots of people.

By now my circle of friends and acquaintances has got much wider. In particular I've become friendly with a large group of women so it's not hard to find a few people to go out with of an evening. What I like most of all is going dancing.

I notice people sitting or standing close together in bars scarcely able to hear one another speak over the loud music and I can't help thinking they're all waiting for something. It's as if there's an invisible wall between them and me. I get the impression I'm there but not part of it. I can't explain it even to myself as I meet lots of people and even end up flirting mildly with one or two of them. But it all somehow seems unreal, superficial to me. On the other hand I can't get over how much the music and the fashion have changed.

When I think back to the Bush-disco I put on a couple of times in Barsaloi, I have to almost laugh at the comparison. There we made do with the rear room of our shop, after we'd cleared the floor of maize sacks. The only music came from a transistor radio wired up to the battery of an old Land Rover. We had beer, coke and grilled goat meat. Everybody, young and old, piled in to this improvised disco, most of them attending something of the sort for the very first time. They stood there, staring like big children, even the tribal elders wrapped in their woolen blankets, squatting on the floor and laughing. Only the women stayed outside, which didn't stop the men getting on with some wild dancing. They were all happy and gave off this great feeling of ‘togetherness’. Back there I didn't feel any invisible wall between me and everybody else. It was a moving experience, while here it seems more like an extension of consumerism. Even still, I go out on to the floor, let the new music take me and sometimes dance for hours.

All this time Napirai is growing up into a bright happy little girl. We have a strong relationship between us even though I've long since given up breastfeeding her. We still share the same bedroom, and indeed the same big bed.

One weekend I take her over to Biel where I used to have my wedding dress shop which I sold to a friend before moving to Africa. On the way I wonder to myself whether or not I ought to call Marco, whom I used to live with and only dumped because of Lketinga. But as I haven't quite made my mind up by the time we get there, I park the car in the ‘old town’ where my shop used to be. I've long since lost touch with Mimi who took over the shop from me and she doesn't even know I've come back. I walk down the steps to the shop and notice that a few things have changed. Mimi is in the shop talking to two customers. When she looks up and sees us she bursts out in astonishment: ‘Non, c'est pas vrai, Corinne, is it really you? I don't believe it. What are you doing here?’ She's still staring at me in disbelief when I rush up to her and kiss her on both cheeks.

‘Oh, it's a long long story, but let's leave it for another time. First of all, you must tell me how you're doing with the shop,’ I say to snap her out of it. By now of course she's also staring at Napirai. When the two customers leave the shop, we get down to telling each other our life stories of the past few years. Since taking over the shop she's met a new partner, I'm glad to hear, as before she had been on her own for ages after a divorce. Then I fill her in on my story, which even cut short takes a little longer. By the end she sympathies with me on the fact that my great love affair ended so tragically. Out of the blue she asks me if I wouldn't like to bring my daughter down to visit her and her partner in St Raphael in the south of France: they've rented a nice villa for a couple of weeks because her partner has taken on a job working on ship engines for the summer season. She's going down there in two weeks time and we'd be welcome whenever we want. ‘The villa is in a wonderful location, has a big pool and lots of room for all of us. Then you could tell me all the rest of the story of your life in Kenya.’

I take up the offer immediately, as we haven't had a holiday in years, even though whenever I mention having spent four years in Kenya most people here think that must have been a holiday.

After she writes down the address for me, I ask her about Marco. Unfortunately she doesn't see the same old crowd any more but she does know that Marco's moved. I decide therefore just to give him a ring. He sounds neither surprised nor angry to hear from me so we have a longish chat on the phone, before arranging to meet in a restaurant. He's hardly changed at all. We make short work of filling in the bare bones of our lives over recent years and he tells me he's just put a broken relationship behind him too, and has finally had enough of being in a couple, he adds with a beaming smile and no trace of bitterness. After a while, however, we run out of conversation and say goodbye to one another, which is a relief to Napirai who's been getting bored.

On the way home I try to imagine going on holiday to the south of France and suddenly recall with pleasure that a great aunt of mine on my mother's side lives in St Raphael. She comes originally from Indochina, modern Vietnam, and this will give me an opportunity finally to get to meet her.

Three weeks later we set off on the long car journey. En route we sing songs or I tell Napirai stories or play fairy tales on cassette. For the first few hundred kilometers everything goes fine but then Napirai starts to get grumpy because she doesn't want to sit in the car any more. Nothing I can do will calm her down and eventually there's nothing for it but to turn off the motorway and find a hotel somewhere. However, it's the middle of July in Italy, near the coast, and that turns out to be a virtually hopeless task. Everything's full and apart from anything else people give us funny looks. I've virtually given up and resigned myself to the pair of us spending the night in the car when we have a spot of luck at the last place we try. It's an old pensiorte in a side street and the room is basic and noisy.

Before Napirai and I settle down for the night I decide we might as well stretch our legs. We wander through the streets of the picturesque little town where all the old folk sit out on the streets by their front doors. Again and again I hear people saying, ‘Che bella bambina! Che bella!’ Some of them are so taken with my pretty little girl that they want to touch her or stroke her hair but Napirai's having none of it and gives them all dirty looks. We go back to the pensione and eat our last sandwiches before falling asleep exhausted.

The next day we put the last few hundred kilometers behind us and thanks to my navigational skills, honed by my experience as a traveling saleswoman, find the villa straight away. Mimi is glad to see us. The house is enormous with a huge pool. That evening she introduces me to her partner. I'm surprised by him and pleased for her: he turns out to be a relaxed, good-natured young man who seems to anticipate Mimi's every wish. We all spend a pleasant evening together.

On our very next day however a tragedy almost occurs.

While I'm out fetching bread, something terrible happens back at the house. Without making a sound Napirai sneaks downstairs to the pool and it's only when Mimi wanders out on to the terrace and accidentally glances over that she sees the mop of her hair floating in the water. She dashes over to the pool and only just manages to pull the child out in the nick of time. When I get back some twenty minutes later, Napirai is still screaming her head off. I charge up the steps in a panic and see her bright-red face.

When Mimi, all in a fluster, starts telling me what happened my legs all but give way beneath me and tears start rolling down my face as I realise my child very nearly died. I sit there and hold her for hours and for the next few days I refuse to let her out of my sight for even a second.

I take her down to the beach and let her play about in the sand. Walking around the village streets we come across a merry-go-round which is the first Napirai has ever seen and really delights her. But apart from that the rest of our holiday drifts past quietly, perhaps too quietly for me. I'm not used to doing nothing and having so much free time.

I keep thinking back to Kenya and my family over there and wish I knew what had become of Lketinga and what he thinks of us now, nearly two years after I left him. I know he's still alive but I don't know where he's living or what he's doing. In his last letter, James said another Samburu warrior had come back from the coast and said Lketinga was living here and there, still had his car but had had a bad accident. Luckily he escaped with no more than a few flesh wounds to his face. The letter worried me but there was nothing I could do. But there you have it, and here I am sitting in St Raphael on holiday and bored.

The only interesting event turns out to be my meeting with my great aunt. We look up her house and without announcing ourselves in advance simply turn up on the doorstep. She's both astonished and delighted to see us. She's a small, dainty, elderly lady with very obvious Asian origins. She tells us stories about the exciting life she led before the war. Her family was very wealthy and employed more than eighty servants, which is something I can hardly imagine. As a child she had her feet bound to keep them small which would make her more eligible for marriage. Later, when she got to know my grandfather's brother and ended up fleeing to France with him, she needed a whole string of operations before she could even walk properly without pain. I've never heard of such a thing and I'm horrified by it, although up to a point it reminds me of the horrible genital mutilation still practiced by the Samburu and other African tribes. Why is it that all over the world girls are mistreated in some way or other, I ask myself sadly.

Then she tells us more fascinating stories from her full life and we sit there listening, absorbed in her tales. As we leave I think how glad I am to have met this interesting old lady. Who knows if I'll ever see her again.

Back home I tell my mother about the near-fatal accident at the pool, to make sure she never lets Napirai out of her sight if she takes her to the swimming pool. But that year in fact my mother teaches her to swim properly without using any inflatable aids, and that's definitely the best way to stop any accident of that sort.

We settle back into our daily routine. I go to work during the day leaving Napirai with my mother or the childminder's family. After our holiday together I find it hard being apart from my child again. But sales are going well and that keeps me busy and happy in my work. My pay is enough to see me by and some months I even have a few hundred Swiss francs over to save towards my tax bill and maybe even another holiday.

On one occasion I drop in unannounced on a potential customer who laughs the minute I enter his shop. ‘What, not another rep! What are you going to try to flog me? This character's already working on me,’ he says, indicating a pleasant-looking man next to him. I keep relaxed and say hello to both of them, noting that at least we're not trying to sell the same sort of goods. He specializes in T-shirts with company adverts printed on them. We chat to one another and end up laying out our wares together.

As I'm leaving my ‘colleague’ invites me for a coffee, saying he'd like a quick chat. We go to a cafe round the corner and before long he's offering me a job, saying that if I want I could come and work for him. It's a company that makes good-quality printed and embroidered T-shirts, sweaters and shirts. There's good money to be made and a great team of people. I'm fascinated by the offer and readily accept his business card which identifies him as head of the traveling sales force. But I have to tell him I'm quite happy with my job as it is, though if anything were to change I'd get in touch.

Back home there's a letter from the German consulate waiting for me. I open it nervously, all too well aware that my social security status has still to be resolved. But when I read the two-page letter inside I'm over the moon again. It appears the details from Kenya were sufficient and what I'm holding is a copy of my new social security registration documents with Napirai included under my surname. That means first and foremost that she has definitely been accorded German nationality and therefore we'll no longer face any problems living in Switzerland. At last I feel sure I've cleared the last hurdle and all I have to do is get on sooner or later with the divorce. However, as I'm not in any new relationship at present that is hardly the most pressing matter and can wait. I celebrate my good news by organizing a barbecue with a couple of my girlfriends and their children.

The goods news, however, is almost immediately followed by bad: Napirai's childminder tells me she is pregnant again and when she has a new baby she simply won't have the time to look after Napirai during the day, or have anywhere for her to sleep over at nights. I'm initially very sad to hear this as Napirai gets on so well with her but I calm myself down and realise that I've still got a few months and something else is bound to turn up.

It's autumn now and easier to sell promotional material as people are stocking up on gifts to give their own customers at Christmas. For the moment at least I'm earning more money than I did in my first job and so in January 1993 I can even afford to go on a skiing holiday to France with my mother and Hanspeter. They both go every year and this year we decide to join them, so one of the presents under the Christmas tree is a first set of skis for Napirai.

We have a magnificent holiday. The sky is bright blue every day and it's so cold the snow crunches underfoot. After ten years it's a delight to be back on skis. Napirai spends the mornings at a ski school and after two days she's already using a button lift on her own even if it almost pulls her off her feet. On the fifth day we bump into the whole ski school out on the slope and I watch Napirai skiing slowly downhill, snowploughing in a line. I'm speechless with amazement at what my three-and-a-half-year-old Masai child has managed to learn, and inestimably proud of her.

As at the beginning of every new year, work slows right down. There's simply no money to be made in January or February. And the weather's miserable too. It's at this gloomy time of the year that I get an invitation from one of my girlfriends to join her and some others for dinner. She says I absolutely have to come because it's a lively group of people from all over and lots of them are absolutely bursting to hear my story. I'm curious so I agree to go along and end up having a great evening.

Everybody's talking to one another and telling interesting tales and before long I find one man paying particular attention to my story, while I find myself also paying particular attention to him. As we're leaving we swap addresses and telephone numbers and just two days later he rings me up and we arrange to go out together on a date. It's the beginning of the first relationship I've had since coming back. He's lively, works abroad a lot and doesn't seem to have any prejudices about my own previous life. We don't see each other often, but I don't have a problem with that because I don't like leaving my daughter with anyone else too often.

Sometimes I think I can sense in him a feeling of almost regret that my relationship with my daughter is so close that there's scarcely room for anyone else. At the same time Napirai doesn't seem able to get close to him. She likes him but he's just not very good with children, probably because he's never had any of his own. He's a few years older than I am, and I gradually realise, rather set in his bachelor ways. His frequent long trips abroad gradually lead to us growing apart each time and eventually after two years the relationship simply breaks down. It wasn't exactly a great love for either of us, but then again maybe it's just that I'm simply not quite ready yet for a new partnership.

Meanwhile I've found another family to look after Napirai during the day: a couple with a little girl the same age as her. At first their little one isn't exactly pleased to have to share her mother's attention with someone else but eventually the two of them become the best of friends. I'm amazed by her mother, by her patience sitting there for hours on end painting with the children, making models and telling stories, or taking them down to the garden to plant flowers. Once again it's not long before my daughter doesn't want to leave to come home when I call to pick her up.

But I want to have my child to myself for an hour or two at least each day. Often the children next door are waiting for us anyhow. Sometimes they all stay at our place and I end up sleeping on the sofa. When they're all in the bath together, it's pure chaos. Napirai's birthday parties are popular events too: we put on a big children's party each time with some dozen parents and children out on our patio. Obviously we put up lots of decorations and I organise all sorts of games. We barbecue and I get a lot of appreciative comments about my pasta salad. Whatever's going on at work, I always make sure to book Napirai's birthday off.

It's always an occasion for me to remember the fraught circumstances of her birth in the missionary hospital in Wamba. My friend Sophia, also expecting her first baby, and I caused something of a sensation for the natives because no white woman had ever given birth in the hospital before and so obviously everybody watched us with the greatest of curiosity. When my first pangs of labor started and I was taken into the birthing room, there was almost a scrum amongst the black women to watch through the open window. As it happened I was in so much pain that I was hardly in a position to notice. It was only when my little girl was finally born that I noticed Sophia charging in to congratulate me with a lit cigarette in her mouth while I was still in the obstetric chair being sewn up without anesthetic. Not exactly something women in Switzerland can imagine, and every time I repeat the story their mouths hang open in astonishment.

Indeed I've started noticing, that almost every time I tell my story about my great love and the life that went with it, women seem to sit there entranced by every word. Sometimes when I'm in company we end up canceling a planned trip because people would rather just listen to me telling my tales about life among the Samburu.