The Alabaster Stones (449 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 3 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Soley (View user info) at 2005-07-17 11:35:09 EDT
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Sandra arrived in, Sukuta Marmar, a little over two years ago. Her only possessions contained in her backpack, a camera, a few clothes, and a small drawstring pouch filled with a variety of stones. I was wary but intrigued by this fair skinned, fair-haired woman at first, as many of my fellow tribesmen were. Many days turned to nights, hands blistered from chores, and salty tears dried on her face before she gained the trust of our community.
I, Makoonwa, was the first friend she made. I would sit with the children outside her cow-dung hut, listening to her stories from another world, another life. Fascinating. I remember every word, every sound. She taught me her language, and most of our young much about herself and of her culture. In turn she embraced ours.
Almost a year had passed when I asked her why she came here.
"I had felt lost, like I didn't belong for such a long time before I journeyed here. I wanted... needed to make a change but couldn't because of my father's ill health. On the evening the hospice called to say he was gone, I felt relief rather than sadness. I didn't cry at all. I was happy that my father was no longer suffering, and that I was now free to do as I pleased. After collecting my thoughts while I sat quietly in his armchair, I took the two coins he had left in his bureau for me to place over his eyes. Don't look so confused, Makoonwa. It's tradition where I come from to place a coin over each of the deceased's eyes as payment for the ferryman in the afterlife. The ferryman will then take them across the river, so they're not left in limbo. Father made me promise to do this..Ha. I always said that he feared me forgetting to do so more than he feared death.
I didn't stay for his funeral; I'd already said my 'Goodbyes'. I booked a Kenyan safari trip and left 3 days later... and well, here I am...still"
She reached out for my hand as if to say thank you. I'm not sure why... and I never dared to asked. The silence of that moment makes the memory sacred.
I spent hours of my time each day with Sandra. We would herd cattle together, we fed and watered together, and did most other things together. She became my light-skinned sister. She wanted to be a part of, and also help the people that she came into contact with. When my fellow tribesmen were sick she would take her stones from her pouch and place them on their forehead's. That along with herbal medicine made from the growth of our land, and the urine from our herds would help the sick recover. She told us that these Alabaster stones would draw the badness, the sickness out of the ill. Sandra made it clear that nobody else was allowed to handle these stones. We Maasai, respected her wishes.
I admired Sandra and had great respect for her. Some suspected that I loved her...and I did, but not in the way that they thought. I loved her for being the foundation of my new desire, to want to go and experience the green land from which she came. To venture pastures new, as she would say. I asked her more than once what it was she loved the most about my land, my home. She told me that some day we would look at the pictures on the film in her camera, and the last picture would answer my question.
A month ago or there about, I went to her hut early in the morning. The sun was still sleeping and so was Sandra. Whilst stooping over her, and trying so hard to focus on her form I knew my love for her was in fact the kind my people suspected it to be. I wanted to tell her but instead I let her sleep.
That was the night she was taken from me.
At dawn I took her backpack and wore it as she would do when she first arrived here. I carried her for eight miles in my arms before reaching the river. There, I laid her down to rest before her final journey. I smeared some of her coagulating blood across my face as a sign of respect. Afterwards I searched through her backpack for the pouch containing her precious stones. Finally I found it and took two alabasters, placing them over her eyes... for the ferryman.
I left her shell there in the barren land that was once our home.
I know she's no longer here because of the relationship she formed with me. This cut's me deeper than the knife that sliced through her chest and ripped open her heart. The only thing that makes the shattering pain of my loss easier is that I'm here looking at the last picture that she captured with her camera, on her rich green land, her first home.
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