In the distance the hills rose in ripples across the landscape. Their carts groaned and the donkeys seemed to wobble as they made their way slowly up what was to them, the ten thousandth hill.
Amin Buju brought out a fading yellow slip and opened it against the angry afternoon sun. Moriah mopped her face with a brown handkerchief and Tobias leaned forward to see what Amin was holding up.
"So?" He asked after a futile attempt at comprehending.
"We should be close according to the map but all I see a head of us are just more hills, forests and mountains."
The rode in silence after that and the drive down the slope was relatively easily. They clattered forward noisily as their trinkets and baggage lolled side to side in the free fall.
"I see huts!" Mary squealed in her tiny voice.
Tobias wanted to almost run up to heaven to kiss God but a heartfelt thank you would suffice. They had travelled for months bearing scars and joy alike and finally they reached Mamre- the famous Mamre. For the past ten years in the mission field, his father, Lawrence had hung a lintel above their room shelves in every place they moved to and on the lintel were the letters that spelt out Mamre.
Lawrence would be so proud today that they had finally reached Mamre. The farthest they had been had been to Jungun which was only a few miles back but Mamre was the destination. The place that was unreached and untampered. The place where the light needed to reach the lost souls.
The thought of his Father made Tobias uneasy and nostalgic. He wondered how the man would have reacted had he heard the delightful news of having reached Mamre? The place the Lord had told him that a mighty harvest of souls would be won.
Tobias had grown up in a small town very far way but he was soon carried along on what would later be an endless missions journey of twenty-five years with his mother, Moriah, his father and his baby sister. They had know suffering and persecution like a dear friend and they had also know the Joy of the Spirit- the kind that left them with the feeling and knowing of fullness, the kind that they felt when people would surrender to their Master.it filled them every time and pushed them further and further into places that only seemed to exist on handmade maps. Places like Mamre.
"I heard this place knows no civilisation?" Mary was saying to another one of the missionaries on their team- Hannah Bakage. He knew too, but they had been sufficiently prepared- learning the general language spoken among the people of these paths.
He looked at the cluster of huts and fields, farms and livestocks and he saw that there was no life- it seemed that there was no being living there but then his ears peeked at the sound of what he would call a horn. A rumbling sound that tumbled towards them from the distant east. Then he heard a great echo of voices.
Tobias turned to his team- thirty men, women and children along with all their lives were worth in possession. He had seen his father do this many times over. He never knew it would be his cross to bear so soon but he would have to bear it. He would have to wear the heavy crown his father had worn.
"Before we go in Brethren. Amin and I would go in towards the sound of the crowd and meet with the authority" he said.
He saw Moriah's eyes pale in fright. She had no need to be worried- God was on his side and if God wasn't, he would not have led them so far.
They hopped off their carts and they started towards the crowd. They hoped this time Mamre would not have to make them shake the dust off their feet.
The sun suddenly felt like a crazy old man with sharp teeth with which he gnashed upon their skin. 30 days was a lot more than than it sounded. It was slow torture, darkness and dankness.
The Kayote had blown the horn and the cove priests led them from the sacred cove of lights to the Mamuruthi- a large expanse of land that laid few feet away from the sacred cove which sat at the heart of the three clans on Mamre. The people had converged there and they stood in their numbers- men and children, women and babies.
Django felt her stomach lurch and it was not just because she lived on sweetened water these past thirty days, it was because of the heavy foreboding that had been hanging over her head in the last week. As she heard what sounded like a swarm of mortals, it felt more like a heavy cloud of darkness. She was wary in her soul. She could not say what it was or express it.
She did not have who to express it to- like her the two other children of the chiefs were kept in isolation at the cove. They had been in the same cove but they were not close to each other- they could not communicate with anyone except the spirits and so far the spirits had not communicated to her. It was just this foreboding and heaviness that hung with her.
The priests led them with the clanking of their anklets and every once in a while, she would stub her toe on some rock or her leg beads would catch in the thickness of the shrubs.
They seemed to have reached the Mamuruthi and the priests led them up the crude ascent up the hill where the three chiefs stood in regal attires. The priests told them to kneel and then took the blindfold off their eyes.
The sun was blinding and it hurt as she tried to look through. At first she could only see the colours and then she saw silhouettes- the three great chiefs standing with their backs towards them and what seemed like an endless sea of people waiting with great anticipation.
She closed her eyes and opened them again and then she looked around her- the two priests of the cove stood behind them and her counterparts were trying to grasp reality like she was.
Saedi was kneeling the farthest from her and the thirty days of Yukun seemed to have stripped all the flesh from his bones. He looked like he did when he was just a boy, yet to reach manhood. Bibiri on the other hand looked annoyed and all the glow of her skin had vanished.
She wanted to talk to them and she tried to catch their attention with her eyes but the glare of one of the priests bore down on her.
"Let us begin!" The head chief's voice came suddenly.
A melody of rumble ukayele drums rose into the air and another set of birds fluttered from the trees around them like the horn had not done its worse. The drums steeped in their rhythm and the priests began to chant the Makenda. Some women came up to the hill with incense in terracotta gourds an handed them to the priests- they looked harried and left quickly. Django's fears deepened as the festival swung into fast motion.
She heard the squeals and shouts from the people as the spirit dancers came in to offer their summoning worship along with the drummers and chanters. She knew that if this was another day, another time- last season most preferably, she would be with the dancers.
"It would not be the same without you, Ama." Furendi had told her before she went in to the cove. She knew. She knew that her life was going to ripple and morph into what she was not accustomed to after her Yukun.
The people clapped along and the rhythm crescendoed.
Django began to feel something strange from the depth of her belly- a hotness that shook her being from the inside and seeped into her bones.
She tried to reach for help, looking at the chiefs who still had their backs to them. They had joined in the chant and they were more concerned for their ritual than either of the children on their knees behind them. She could make out the outline of her father from the three men- he was a tall man but he seemed to have stooped a little since she last saw him- or was it what she was feeling?
She knew that for generations long past, the chosen one would always have the prophesy but she never knew it would come with fire and pain such as was wriggling around her very being.
The hotness climbed up her throat and her mouth trembled violently.
She tired to call out for her Baaba but what came out was a vicious scream and a seizure that gripped her whole body, threw her up and then smashed her on the ground. Again, relentless it twisted her insides and she began to writhe and jerk- the words that came out after were no longer hers. Her consciousness slipped into a quiet dark corner inside her and buried itself in the sea of embarrassment that washed over her. This was not happening.
No.
In the short distance, a ritual of some sort seemed to be happening and Tobias felt a strong wind of gloom suddenly. It dampened his joy on discovering Mamre a tad and he stopped Amin in his tracks.
"What?" Amin asked dropping the basket he was carrying.
"Look, something is going on there."
"Of course I know that, Minister. If we stop now when are we going to see the head and then go back to get the rest?" an impatient Amin.
"Just observe Amin. Can't you feel the atmosphere- like there is heavy doom or sorrow?" Tobias pushed.
"Minister, all I feel is hunger and the pain in my legs. It's almost sun down."
Tobias urged him still. He knew deep down in his spirit that something was wrong. He could not call it an explicit wrong but he felt a pause inside of him.
Then it happened- a deep rumble of drums rose from the belly of the crowd in the distance, chants and dancing and clapping. He squinted and saw some persons standing on a hill in front of the mass- a podium of sorts. Three were regally dressed in heavily tasselled clothes and the others in long drab robes.
"Are some of them kneeling?" Amin asked finishing Tobias's thoughts.
"It seems- oh, is that one jerking?"
One of them had fallen and let out a shrill piercing sound which was followed by some mumbo-jumbo and Tobias was perplexed.
"Is this some kind of worship service?" Amin asked.
Tobias watched closely and his eye seemed to zoom into the jerking person.
She is the one.
The voice washed calm over him.
The one who Lord? He asked back.
She is the one I have been telling you about. The bone of your bone.
He chuckled in incredulous disbelief. He knew then that he had gone mad. Mamre air was getting to him. He laughed to himself and looked again. She had stopped jerking now and a stillness was in their midst.
Silence.
"Let us go, Amin."