Chapter 1
He had no idea who Adolf was and had never heard of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nor did he have any need to know. He was a medicine man in a remote village on the Kenyan savanna. He left so few impressions in the iron-rich red soil that his name is no longer remembered.
He was skilled in the art of healing, but his good reputation reached beyond his valley just as little as the events of the world outside reached in. He lived an unassuming life. Died too soon. Despite his great skill, he was unable to cure himself when he needed it the most. He was grieved and missed by a small but faithful assortment of patients.
His oldest son was rather too young to take over, but that was how it worked, that was how it had been throughout the ages, and so it would remain.
At just twenty years old, the successor had an even more negligible reputation. He inherited his fatherâs relative competence but none of his good-naturedness. Being satisfied with small mercies for the rest of his life was not for him.
His transformation into something else began when the young man built a new hut in which to receive patients, one that had a separate waiting room. It progressed with his exchanging his shĂșkĂ for a white coat and was fully realized when he changed both his name and his title. The son of the medicine man whose name no one remembers any longer began to call himself Dr. Ole Mbatian after that fabled man of the same name, the greatest Maasai of them all, the leader and visionary. The original was long dead and offered no protest from the other side.
Tossed out along with all the old ways was his fatherâs price list for treatments. The son drafted his own, one that did the great warrior justice. It would no longer do to drop by with a bag of tea leaves or a piece of dried meat as payment, not if you expected the doctor to have time for you. These days a simple matter cost one hen to treat; the more complicated ones required a goat. For truly serious cases, the doctor demanded a cow. If it wasnât too serious, that is; a patient who died got to do so for free.
Time passed. The medicine men of the nearby villages closed down their clinics, driven out by the competition on account of the fact that they still went by the same old names they always had and insisted that a true Maasai did not dress himself in white. As Dr. Ole Mbatianâs list of patients grew, so did his reputation. His paddock of cows and goats needed constant expanding. The clientele on whom he could test his decoctions was so large that Ole became as skilled as people were starting to say he was.
The medicine man with the stolen name was already wealthy by the time he celebrated the arrival of his first son. The baby survived those critical first years and was, in accordance with tradition, trained in his fatherâs work. Ole the Second spent many years alongside his father before the latter passed away. When the day arrived, he kept his fatherâs stolen name but did away with the title of âDoctorâ and burned the white coat, since patients who had come from far away had testified that doctors, in contrast to medicine men, might be associated with witchcraft. A medicine man who developed the reputation of being a witch would not enjoy many more days in his career, or even his life.
Thus, after Dr. Ole Mbatian came Ole Mbatian the Elder. His firstborn son, who grew up and took over from his father and grandfather, was, in turn, Ole Mbatian the Younger.
And it is with him that this tale begins.
Chapter 2
Ole Mbatian the Younger, then, had inherited his name, wealth, reputation and talents from his father and grandfather. In another part of the world, this would have been called being born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
His educational journey was overseen with care and, along with friends in his age set, he also got to take a detour through warrior training. He was thus not only a medicine man but also a highly esteemed Maasai warrior. No one knew more about the healing powers of roots and herbs, and only a very few could measure up to Ole when it came to spears, throwing clubs, and knives.
His medical specialty was the prevention of more children than a family wished to have. Unhappy women flocked his way from Migori in the west to Maji Moto in the east, several daysâ travel away. To have time to see them all he had an admission policy of at least five previously delivered children per applying woman, of which at least two must be boys. The medicine man never revealed his formulas, but it was easy to tell that bitter melon was an active ingredient in the cloudy liquid the woman must drink each time she ovulated. Those with extra-sensitive taste buds could also detect a hint of the root of Indian cotton.
Ole Mbatian the Younger was richer than everyone else, including Chief Olemeeli the Well-Traveled. Besides all his cows he had three huts and two wives. It was the other way around for the chief: two huts and three wives. Ole never understood how he made that work.
Incidentally, the medicine man had never liked his chief. They were the same age and even as children they knew which roles they would one day shoulder.
âMy dad rules over your dad,â Olemeeli might say to tease him.
He wasnât wrong, even as Ole Jr. preferred not to lose in an argument against him. Instead he solved the issue by whacking the future chief in the face with his throwing club, leaving Ole Mbatian the Elder no choice but to vociferously give his son a licking even as he whispered words of praise in the boyâs ear.
Back then, it was Kakenya the Handsome who ruled the valley. He was secretly plagued by the realization that his epithet was not only accurate but in every meaningful way the sole admirable trait he possessed. He was no less concerned that the son who would one day take over appeared to have inherited his fatherâs shortcomings, but not exactly his physical beauty. And it didnât help young Olemeeliâs appearance that the medicine manâs boy had knocked out two of his front teeth.
Kakenya the Handsome had an endlessly difficult time making decisions. He even let his wives decide for him now and then, but unfortunately he had an even number of them. Each time they were unable to agree on an issue (which was almost every time) he stood there with his tie-breaking vote and no idea what to do with it.
Yet in the autumn of his old age, and with the support of his whole family, Kakenya managed to accomplish something he could be proud of. He would send his oldest son on journeys; he would go much further than anyone had done before. He would, as a result, become well-traveled and return home full of impressions from the outside world. The wisdom he gathered on his journey would be a help to him when it became time for him to take over. Olemeeli would never be as handsome as his father, but he could become a resolute and forward-looking chief.
That was the plan.
Now, things donât always turn out the way one intends. Olemeeliâs first and last long journey was to Loiyangalani, on his fatherâs orders. The destination was chosen not only because it was almost further away than what was reasonably possible, but also because there were rumors that people had discovered, way up there in the north, a new way to filter lake water. Heated sand and herbs rich in vitamin C mixed with root of water lily had long been the known methods. But apparently, in Loiyangalani, they had come up with some new way that was both simpler and more effective.
âGo there, my son,â said Kakenya the Handsome. âGain knowledge from all the new things you encounter along the way. Then come home and prepare yourself. I feel that I donât have much time left.â
âBut Dad,â said Olemeeli.
He couldnât think of anything else to say. He seldom found the right words. Or the right thought.
His journey took half an eternity. Or a whole week. Once he arrived at his destination, Olemeeli discovered that the people in Loiyangalani were advanced in many ways. Water purification was one of them. But theyâd also installed something called electricity, and the mayor used a machine, rather than a pen or piece of chalk, to write letters.
Olemeeli really just wanted to go back home, but his fatherâs words echoed in his mind. So he made a careful study of one thing and the next; he owed his father at least that much. Unfortunately, he tried out the electricity to such an extent that he got a shock and passed out.
When he regained consciousness, he took a few minutes to recover before tackling the typewriter. But there Olemeeli fared so poorly as to get his left index finger stuck between the d and r keys, frightening him so badly that he yanked his hand away with such force that his finger broke in two places.
Enough was enough. Olemeeli ordered his assistants to pack their bags for the arduous journey home. He already knew what he would say in his report to his father Kakenya: it was bad enough that electricity could bite you just because you stuck a nail into a hole in the wall. But the writing machine was downright lethal.
Kakenya the Handsome had seldom been accurate in his prophecies. But the suspicion that he didnât have much time left turned out to be correct. His terrified and partially toothless son took over.
Newly minted Chief Olemeeli passed down three decrees on the very first day after his fatherâs burial.
One: the thing called electricity must never, ever be installed in the valley over which Olemeeli ruled.
Two: machines for writing were not to be transported over the border, and
Three: the village would be investing in a brand-new water purification system.
So it came to be that for almost four decades, Olemeeli had been ruling over the only valley in Maasai Mara where electricity, typewriters, and by extension, computers, did not exist. It became the valley where not a single one of the six billion cell phone owners on earth happened to live.
He called himself Olemeeli the Well-Traveled. He was as unpopular as his father had once been. Behind his back he had a number of less flattering names. Ole Mbatian the Youngerâs favorite was âChief Toothless.â
The not-at-all-well-liked chief and the admittedly skillful medicine man may have been the same age, but that didnât mean they were of the same mind. It wouldnât do for them to quarrel as they had when they were younger. Ole Mbatian had to come to terms with the fact that the greatest Luddite of them all was also the one in charge. In return, Olemeeli pretended not to hear when the medicine man pointed out which of them had the most teeth left in his mouth.
The chief was a constant but tolerable concern for Ole Mbatian. His only true sorrow in life lay elsewhere: namely in the fact that he had had four children with his first wife and four with his secondâeight daughters and no sons. After the fourth girl he began to experiment with his herbs and roots to make sure the next baby was a boy. But this was one medical challenge that proved beyond his capabilities. The daughters kept coming until they didnât come at all. His wives stopped delivering, even without any bitter melon or Indian cotton figured into the mixtures Ole Mbatian had tried.
After five generations of medicine men, the next man in line would be someone other than a Mbatian, or whatever they had been called before. Female medicine men didnât exist in the Maasai world. Itâs all in the name.
For a long time, Ole was able to find solace in the fact that Chief Toothless fared no better in the production of children. Olemeeli had six daughters right alongside Oleâs eight.
But then there was this part where the chief had an extra wife to turn to. Before the youngest wife got too old, she produced a son and the heir to her husband and chief. Great celebration in the village! The proud father announced that the festivities would last all night. And so they did. Everyone partied until da...
