Email: Henry Coates

Dear Friends,

We’d been on the road for about six hours. Actually, I wouldn't call it a road. The last time our wheels hit tarmac was about four hours prior. We’d gone from dusty dirt road to rocky, bumpy, hilly road in the last two hours. The last time a soul had been seen was five hours ago.

We were driving out to the furthest reaches of Pokot territory, near the Ugandan border. My co-workers were laughing. We were stuck on a crater-pocked hill, not being able to move quickly.  Five young men in brown and an old man in 1980s era American camouflage stepped out of the bush. Bows were drawn with arrows pointing at us, and we soon were surrounded. I didn't know it at the time, but we were being robbed.

Thinking on it now, a few weeks after the fact, it was obvious that these boys could have killed us and robbed us for everything we had. My co-workers didn't seem perturbed. Neither did I, actually. I was in a bit of a daze. Getting shaken by bumps and holes in the road for several hours had left me in a  numb, giddy, delusional state. Imagine being on a low impact roller coaster for about six hours, and you'll have an idea of how I felt.

The old man approached my driver Andrew, and they spoke in low tones. The boys peered through the windows and glanced around, looking for something. My co-workers continued their conversations, though one, who spoke Pokot , engaged the boys. Laughter, and more words. Andrew shook the old man's hand, looked back at me, and told me I could take some photos if I wanted. And then the boys began to sing.

These were two of the boys who drew their bows and arrows on is. This photo is going to be used for a poster campaign around Nairobi advertising a Leadership Campaign. Photo by Henry Coates.

They began to sing, and swing. Their heads were covered by masks with long brown strands of knotted rope reaching to the chest. It was an eleven note melody repeated until the song becoming a single jolting yet smooth sound. Imagine, boys swinging their heads, with the long rope strands from their masks swishing side to side with hypnotic force. In their hands were  bells, which the boys slammed into their legs to keep a jingling beat. Singing a song that to my ears didn't sound African. It sounded like something else entirely, something Other, something I had never heard before nor could call “normal.” An ancient song, a song that started long before those boys began singing and would continue long after they, and I, were gone.

When I stepped out of the car, our Pokot speaker told us who these boys were. Recently circumcised Pokot, banished from their villages for two months as they healed, and the old man was their handler. They were all different ages, and the voices stretched from a beautiful alto to a deep bass. They hadn't eaten anything except scavenged bits of dead animal, for nearly three weeks, drinking from a cattle watering hole only at night when no one else would be able to see them.

The singing stopped. Andrew handed the old man a loaf of bread, a large bottle of water, and fifty shillings. I climbed back in the car, and we took off. Looking back, I saw the boys tear off into the bush, each with a piece of bread in his hand.

Henry