Corinne Hofmann: Back from Africa

When my book The White Masai first appeared in 1998 I was optimistic that the story of my African love affair would find a wide readership. But I would never in my wildest dreams have dared hope that before long it would be on the international bestseller lists, translated into eighteen languages and made into a film. The book's success and everything that went with it became a huge adventure in its own right.

At that time I had not the slightest intention of writing another book. But over the years I have had so many letters, faxes and emails from readers telling me how touched they have been by my story in different ways. Almost every one of them has finished by asking me how my daughter and I, and my African family are doing today.

In the early days I tried to answer each of them individually, but eventually there were so many I had to give up. Each new expression of interest in our fate however, has made me feel almost obliged to do something in response.

It is therefore to all those whose interest in my life story has moved me so much that I would like to dedicate this book.

Lugano, April 2003

I hear the voice faintly, like someone calling from far, far away: ‘Hello… hello… time to wake up!’ All of a sudden I feel a hand on my shoulder. I open my eyes and for a moment I haven't the faintest idea where I am. It's only when I catch sight of the travel cot next to my feet and my daughter Napirai lying in it that it all comes rushing back. I'm in an aeroplane. The woman takes her hand from my shoulder and says with a smile: ‘Your baby and you have been sound asleep. We'll be landing in Zurich shortly and you've missed all the in-flight meals.’

I can hardly believe it. We've done it. We've got out of Kenya. My daughter and I are free.

Immediately my mind darts back to the tension of our last moments in Nairobi at passport control: the official looking at us and asking, ‘Is this your child?’ Napirai is asleep, wrapped up in a kanga cloth on my back. ‘Yes,’ I say. He leafs through her child's identity card and my passport. ‘Why are you leaving the country with your daughter?’ he asks next. ‘I want to show my mother her grand-daughter.’ ‘Why isn't your husband with you?’ He has to work to earn money, I tell him trying to act as nonchalant as possible.

The man gives me a stern look and says he wants a better look at the baby's face. He wants me to wake her up and call her by her name. I'm getting more nervous now. Napirai, just over fifteen months old now, wakes up and looks around sleepily. The man keeps asking her her name. Napirai doesn't answer him; instead the corners of her mouth start drooping and all of a sudden she starts crying. I try to calm her down as best I can, worried that everything's going to go wrong at the last moment and we're not going to be able to leave the country. The man turns Napirai's German child's ID card in his hand and asks in a stern voice: ‘Why does a child with a Kenyan father have a German passport? Is this really your daughter?’ The questions keep coming until I'm dripping with sweat. I try to tell him as calmly as possible that my husband is a traditional Masai who doesn't have a passport and this was the only one we could get for my daughter at short notice. I tell him we'll be back in three weeks and will try to get a Kenyan passport then.

At the same time I push the letter signed by my husband at him and pray silently to myself: ‘Dear Lord God please don't desert us now, let us just manage these few meters out on to the plane!’ Behind us crowds of tourists are jostling in annoyance, wanting to know what's going on. The man gives me another penetrating stare and then his white teeth flash into a big broad grin: ‘OK, have a nice journey and see you in three weeks time. Bring back something nice for your husband.’

All this is still running through my mind as I pick up my little daughter and, still exhausted, put her to my breast to feed. Now, just before landing, my emotions are mixed. What is my mother going to say? Will she and her husband bother to turn up at the airport to meet us? And if they do, then what? How do I tell her that this isn't a holiday but that I've run away from the former love of my life and have neither the courage nor the strength to go back? I don't know where to start.

Shaking my head, trying to shut out these thoughts, I start getting our stuff together. But as the aircraft lands once again I'm overcome by a wave of relief: I've got my daughter out of Kenya. We've done it!

I stroll through the airport terminal with Napirai on my back, feeling a bit out of place in my simple patched skirt, short-sleeved T-shirt and sandals on a cool 6 October 1990. I get the impression people are giving me funny looks.

Finally I catch sight of my mother and her husband. I run up to her happily but notice straight away that she's taken aback to see how skinny I am. I'm little more than skin and bones and weigh barely fifty kilos for my one-meter-eighty height. I have to struggle to keep back the tears and suddenly feel unbearably tired and exhausted. My mother is clearly moved and takes me in her arms, her own eyes damp with tears. Hanspeter, her husband, greets us warmly but with a hint of reserve; we don't really know each other very well.

We set off for home. They have moved from the Bernese Oberland down to Wetzikon near Zurich. We're no sooner in the car than my mother's asking after Lketinga and wanting to know how long we're staying here on holiday. I feel a lump in my throat and can't bring myself to tell her the truth. Instead I say simply, ‘Three to four weeks maybe.’

I make up my mind to tell her the whole tragic tale later. My mother hasn't the faintest idea how bad a time I've had because I wasn't able to write to tell her what had been going on over the last few months. My husband watched my every move and insisted on me translating each and every sentence I wrote. When we moved down to the coast he would take my letters to other people who could read some German and ask them to translate them. Unless he agreed with the letter's contents, he forced me to burn it. Even when I thought a little about things back home he would look at me suspiciously as if he could read my mind: ‘ Why you thinking at Switzerland, you stay here in Kenya and you are my wife .’ Then again, I hadn't wanted to worry my mother unnecessarily, given that at the time I was still planning on us staying together in Kenya.

When we get home we're greeted by the loud barking of a dog which scares Napirai. In Kenya people and dogs keep their distance. This animal is barking like a lunatic and baring its teeth.

‘He's not used to strangers and not to children at all, but it'll be OK for a few days anyway,’ my mother explains. Once again I feel embarrassed and awkward knowing that we'll have to live here until everything gets sorted out. And that could take some time as I no longer have a residence permit for Switzerland and have only entered the country as a tourist. I may have been born and brought up in Switzerland but like my father, I have a German passport. After living abroad for more than six months I've lost my right to residency in Switzerland. I don't even want to think about all the stuff we're going to have to deal with.

God help me, I really have to tell my mother! But right now I simply haven't the strength to shatter her happiness and tell her the real reason we're here. She's just so happy to see her daughter and grand-daughter again. Apart from anything else they simply aren't prepared for her grown-up daughter and a child moving in. I haven't lived at home with my mother since I was eighteen.