I know it’s been a minute. It’s allowed to forget the plot, I did too. Let me fill us in, previously on ‘Liana Malaika’ I was in Maasai mara for a weekend not that I visit there frequently, I wish I did though but at times Java and Mojos hacks it. This was a special weekend the great wildebeest migration was impending, trust me even Oprah Winfrey wouldn’t miss such. While there I met Mr. Sankole who doubled as my wingman and my tour guide. Unprecedentedly enough, I met the woman of my dreams, the one Tarrus Riley has not been able to find in reality (apparently, he is still searching, hoping and praying).  News flash, I have found her.

 Liana Malaika. The fire of my loins, the light of my life. My soul, my sin. My Lolita. 

At forty km/hr we traversed the grassy plains and rolling hills of Maasai Mara. The conversation in the safari wagon couldn’t get better. Liana was more relaxed, her shyness and hesitation was only an adaptation for the moment and now was not that moment. Her beautiful black hair was now unwound from her neon hairband it seemed seamless like a fountain of black diamond. Her radiant dark skin was glowing; she was adorned with melanin. I think Sauti sol and Patoranking should do a remix of their hit tune Melanin just to have Liana as the only video vixen. Her big brown eyes showed the depth of her soul. She was a beautiful soul with good intentions. Her lips had no lipstick; they were not dry and cracked either they were inviting! They must have tasted like wet sand, I caught myself thinking. Her intoxicating perfume was now becoming irresistible. Liana was irresistible.

Irresistible like the thousands of wildebeests I could see from a distance using her binoculars. We took to the roof of the Safari wagon to have a clear sight of the seventh wonder of the world. The scenery was priceless. The grassy plains were covered with not only thousands of wildebeests but also zebras in the hundreds and if you watched closely you could see cheetahs camouflage trying to get closer to the prey. Mr. sankole had to reduce the Wagon’s speed to about twenty km/hr to ensure we took the fullness of nature.  

I was having the time of my life. Scratch that! I was having a life in my time. I wanted this to last longer, probably even never come to completion. My Lolita, my wingman and I watching this beautiful part of nature taking its course. “We should do this more often,” Liana whispered as she placed her delicate head on top of my right shoulder. This incomplete touch made my young inexperienced body go to a state of exasperation that not even the grassy plains could bring. She was beautifully intelligent you could tell she wasn’t your average typical millennial… No she wasn’t trying to be indie; she wasn’t trying to be cool either.

The aura around her was pleasant. 

Liana was a thermodynamics student at Pretoria University who had a passion for entrepreneurship, wildlife; Africa integration and space no wonder her role model was Elon Musk (a woke African). She thought of making a difference in the world and she had started with Africa.  She was on a journey across Africa; Kenya was at the top of her bucket list. Having been brought up in Kenya with her Rwandese mother and Benicia father she was already cut for the journey.  They had stayed in Rwanda for a while but they had to flee because of the genocide. They have never gone back to Rwanda; memories of the genocide still linger in their minds. She is cognizant of the fact that Africa needs to fully integrate to realize its full potential.

Mr sankole stops the safari wagon a stone throw away from the Mara river and quickly joins us at the roof. He then takes out his Nikon camera. Thousands of wildebeests from Serengeti start streaming down the river bank most of them quenching their obvious thirst others armed with a journalist’s curiosity trying to cross the murky waters (literally). I am poised to remember this pioneer wildebeest at its prime we called him ‘Jakababa’. He was strong, with long horns his black skin had silver like flair to it, which is probably the silver lining the rest of the wildebeests were looking for.

 Jakababa jumps into the unchartered waters and starts swimming, the entire wildebeest generation stops to watch Jakababa’s escapade. He swims even faster, the water seems to get deeper as he approaches the other side of the river I could hear vociferous cheers and ululations from other wildebeest or so I thought. But just as he is about to get to the other side of the river a huge ravenous crocodile snaps and tumbles jakababa off his feet, he fights back but the determined crocodile is not letting go of a meal, at least not today. With every iota of might left in him, Jakababa fights the crocodile but the crocodile grabs him by the neck and starts drowning him, the cheers and ululations come to a startling halt; I see jakababa taking his final kicks before he is fully submerged. ‘If he would have made it alive to the other side of the river he would have been a polygamous young beest ,’ Mr sankole jokes. This however, does not stop the wildebeest from now crossing the chartered waters. This spears on the fire and thousands of wildebeest jump into the water and swim across the river very many make it to the other side, very many don’t make it there as well indeed Lamarck theory of survival for the fittest comes to life.

To be continued…

Liana Malaika

The yellow ball of fire changed to hues of orange, and then almost tangerine. It merged with the sky, like juice-mix dissolving in a glass of water. The clouds were cotton-candy, as though they blushed at the warm touch of the sun. Silhouettes’ of birds flew home across a sky that was now magenta; the landscape had grassy plains and rolling hills, and was crossed by the Mara and Talek rivers. The area nearby was dotted with villages (enkangs) of Maasai people.

The maa community, the most cultured people in the world; the kind of people you hang around with and start hunting down lions and cheetahs as a rite of passage. This was obviously my stereophonic thought before I met Mr. Ole Sankole a well-spoken man; fluent in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese just to mention a few. He doubles as my tour guide and my friend, after our two minute ate a tet my guts trusted him and nature had it that he had to be initiated into my small circle of friends (who doesn’t need a linguist as a friend?).

Mr. Ole Sankole stood about six feet three tall, dark in complexion, bald head made red from applied ochre, wrapped in a red and black Maasai shuka. He stood on one foot and held a spear on his left hand. As I walked towards him he kept smiling I guess that was how I easily noticed his lower jaw which resembled a cow’s diastema. He still had a bright smile though, not the Colgate kind of smile; the kind you would give to a stranger and the stranger would feel comfortable. I was comfortable. I was ready for the safari, so was he, or so he seemed.

Being early October, the great wildebeest migration from Serengeti in Tanzania to Maasai Mara and back to Serengeti was on top of my list having read and watched so much about it; it was only fair for me to confirm this. After a little chit-chat we dashed into this Maasai Mara branded Toyota safari wagon and began traversing the grassy plains and rolling hills.

We had barely covered five minutes’ in the plains before Mr. Sankole’s walkie-talkie beeped instructing him to go back and pick another tourist. On our way back to the resort I thought of the fateful friendship I had struck with him, I guess it was only fair if we had a ‘ride along’ moment together; he being Ice Cube and me being Kevin Hart. I would run across the plains chasing after a limping gazelle but just before I got hold of it a three hundred kilograms lion would run after the same gazelle. Then out of the blues Mr. Sankole would race down the lion and throw his five inch spear at the lion, the coltan and brass sharp edge of the spear would pierce through the lion’s thick skin and burst open the it's coronary artery rendering the lion lifeless. Mr. Sankole would then give me his coveted Maasai sword which I would use to cut off the slain lion’s head as a sign of bravery. All this was now impossible, not with a third party in our midst.

The lady that walked in our safari wagon could have graced any billboard or magazine cover, but she was better than those two dimensional photoshopped models. Somehow her imperfections made her perfect. There was shyness to her, hesitation in her body movements and softness in her voice. Liana Malaika was her noun; her cream suit had a tailored look that was bold against her dark skin, but I could already see her in jeans and a t-shirt, feet up on the couch and painting her nails. She was right there, only a foot away, but in her understated glamour she might as well be on television or a girl in a pop video. Being a male millennial, my predatory instincts wouldn’t let such an unprecedented event simply pass by (ufisi) I gathered my charm and charisma and struck a conversation. The Samuel L. Jackson kind of conversion, hoping she had watched Pulp Fiction thereby falling madly in love with me.

Your perfume is intoxicating; I must be drunk in love right now. I whispered in her left ear seductively, she chuckles, ‘thank you’, she said while unwinding her long dark kinky hair from this strangely conspicuous luminous green hair band. She had beautiful hair. Beautiful is an understatement in this case, she had breath taking hair. I was literally out of breath for about a minute or so. Tell me you dropped down from space with other terrestrial beings I have always known aliens are finer than humans; she smiles helplessly, and sarcastically says she was from Jupiter and must have met me before. But just before I could respond Mr. Sankole who was now my wing-man says we should both go back to Jupiter and raise beautiful kids there. She smiles even more; a bright smile unlike my wing-man, she had the Colgate kind of bright smile.

To be continued…