Beaten up in Samburu village

A northward trip to Maralal and a visit to Samburu village pushed my limit. It was an ordeal ! My destination was meant to be Lake Turkana, the northern most border to Sudan and Ethiopia. I obviously underestimated the distance, the roughness of the road and frequency of transportation. The official Matatus only goes to Maralal, a city between Nairobi and Lake Turkana. It takes two Matatu rides from Nairobi to Maralal, changing Matatu at Nynahurm. The road turned to bumpy dirt road from Nynahurm to Maralal and the scenery turned to barren desert.
Maralal is as rough as the dirt road getting there. It's a dusty trade center with a couple of roundabouts. The tribe people (mainly Samburu ) come to sell their cattle to butchers and shop for daily necessities. I was obviously the only " stranger" in the town and soon followed by locals who tried to sell me something or beg for money or simply just wanted to annoy me. The moment I got off the Matatu, the whole town noticed me and the attentions cast on me.
To get to Lake Turkana, one needs to hitch a truck ride to Loyangalani first and then another truck ride to Lake Turkana. I was awaiting trucks going to Loyangalani for a couple of days and had no luck. I had some time to kill in Maralal and thought about a visit to a Samburu village. Samburu, similar to Massi are wrapped up with a piece colorful blanket and like to hold a stick.
I met Katherine at the local Samburu market and bought a couple of beads jewelry from her. She seems trustworthy and speaks decent English. I invited myself to her village- Kulapesa village and she happily agreed. The scenery is beautiful and peaceful pasture walking toward Kulapesa village. The green hills are dotted with lush tropical vegetation and Manyatas (Samburu's hut home made of mud and grass). Some young Samburu girls were fetching water and others, dressed in normal clothes walking back from schools. Katherine stopped and greeted to everyone. Samburu is a tight knit community and everyone in Katherine's village is related. Samburu people are huts man and their tradition is to herd cattle. They were nomads before. Now some men stay in huts in forest to herd cattle and leave their wives and kids in the village. They are proud warriors carrying knife, spear or stick. Others are working in city and send money home. Polygamy is common. A large family and relatives live together in their Manyatas. Some better off families send their kids to school till secondary school. Katherine and her sisters stopped going to school after the secondary school and they are making beads for some money.
Katherine's Manyatas is sitting on the top of a hill with a view over the pasture and the neighboring villages. Katherine's father has two wives and fourteen children. Katherine live with her siblings and her aunts. Men were not around. They were still in huts somewhere in the forest or working in the city. The consecutive years of drought have taken toll on fresh pasture. Katherine's father was looking for a job in Nairobi.
Following meeting Katherine's few female family members, we took a walk round the village and checked out an open spear workshop and visited a few her young male relatives who were attending the cattle. Samburu's boys have the initiation tradition of moving to remote huts and live there separate from women when they reach 15. The tradition is to teach boys to be as tough as warriors. The boys have little to eat during the initiation period  and they are usually rewarded with a big feast in the end.
 Family members started to come home after dusk, so did cows, goats and dogs. Katherine's two cousins Sammy and Jelemiah liked to talk about the pizza they ate in big cities and show me their cell phones. There was no electricity or running water in the Manyatas. Under a dim oil lamp, Katherine set up fire and cooked Ugali and Skumba for dinner. The cooking area is also part of the bedroom. There are no windows on the mud wall except a mall hole which is not big enough to let the smoke out. There was no furniture in the Manyatas. The bed is grass mattress on the top of a mud frame. I slept on the "bed" that night and felt things were moving beneath the mattress. Katherine told me that's rats and she rolled over back to sleep. With fears to be bitten by rats and the smothering smoke, I couldn't sleep. Animals were very loud at night. The night seemed so long and dark and I was counting down the dawn.
I left Katherine's Manyatas in the morning. I discovered that my back pocket was cut and a 1000 Shilling bill was gone. Then I discovered I was bitten by bed bugs. I felt itchy as hell. I was totally distressed.