Paris Lekuuk is 15 years old. But he's standing in the third grade of a primary school in Northern Kenya – squeezed between 8-year-olds who barely reach his elbows."Heads, shoulders, knees and toes!" she calls out.Paris gives a shy smile and pretends to mouth the words. He doesn't speak English – or even Kenya's other, more commonly used official language of Swahili. Until a few weeks ago he had never set foot inside a school.
We're sitting in the courtyard of the school, called Lkisin Primary, set in the vast expanse of the plain. There are a few one-story classrooms and dorms. Beyond that just parched red earth stretching for miles until, looming in the distance, the peak that Paris is pointing to."My father kept telling me, 'Wait,'"recalls Paris."'You're too young. You can't face the knife.
But Paris says he told his father,"Look at all these other boys even younger than me who are stepping forward." But all the requirements essentially boil down to this: For the coming roughly 15 years – until the next crop of boys is old enough to take over responsibility for the community's herds, and the morans in Paris's generation can retire to start families back down in the plains – they are supposed to live only with each other. And they must always have each other's back.
On the hike back down, his expression turns serious as he beckons toward a tree. There's an object he wants to show me in its branches that hints at the harder side of this life – the reason his half-brother Paris has left the group. It's the skull of a cow.Back down from the mountain, in the school courtyard, Paris explains that this cow's name was Sorai.He loved how powerful she was — how she'd shove the other cows out of her way to get a drink.
He grabs a twig to sketch his favorite. It's an elephant, with some shading on the legs to make it look more three-dimensional.Paris says the older moran had also told him about the elementary school in the lowland settlement of Lkisin – how it had a dormitory for kids who live too far to walk each day. So, after Sorai's death, Paris trekked down the mountain to his father's house and asked for permission to see if the school would accept him.
He ticks off their Samburu names."Marna" – the bracelets stacked along his forearms."Nkeriin" – the strands of beads criss-crossing his bare chest."Nkaiweli" — a chain looped over each ear so that it hangs just above his chin. And on.
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Herkunft: NPR - 🏆 96. / 63 Weiterlesen »