Cam gone walkabout

I watched the sun set from the matatu van as it raced along on the road to Kendu Bay. It was the season of the long rains, and the exhausted storm lingered behind us on the shores of Lake Victoria. The clouds had reached their pinnacle in the late afternoon before finally collapsing under their own weight, driving up the dust as the rain rushed towards the earth.
The sun quivered on the edge of the horizon and I willed it to remain in the sky. I anxiously wondered whether I would reach the crossroads at Adiedo in time to catch a motorbike to the village where I was staying. If I arrived too late, I would have no choice but to strike out on a long night’s walk down the meandering dirt roads of the countryside.
Hours later, we reached the crossroads and I leapt from the van and ran across the sodden earth to the last man left standing next to his motorbike.
“Do you know Wikondiek?” I asked and he nodded. I said the price and he said one higher. It was late and the steady drizzle was growing heavier. I had no choice – I agreed.
I clung to the man’s back as the bike lurched forward through the thick mud and the impossibly dark night. The back wheel slid, losing traction and we both leapt off as the motorbike veered into the waterlogged ditch. Covered in mud, I helped him pull it back onto the road.
“It is not safe for a mzungu to be out at night,” the man said. I nodded, well aware.
Progress was slow. A flash of lightning tore a seam across the sky and the man pointed at the river that had overflown the bridge ahead.
“My friend was swept away here,” he said, stopping. “I cannot cross it.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said, “but please – I do not know the way in the dark. I will get lost.”
He stared a moment at the churning waters. “Okay,” he said at last.
Together we pushed the bike through the swollen river, feeling for the rocks that had been piled along the center of the bridge so that people could cross when it overflowed.
“There has been far too much rain this year,” I said.
He glanced over his shoulder – “Yes but what can man do to change this?” he asked.
“Pray?” I suggested and he laughed. “Yes, that is all we can do.”
“Erokamano,” I thanked him in his native Luo when we finally arrived in the small village where I was living. Dismounting, I turned to pay and was surprised to see in the gas powered light of the house that the man had the diminutive face of a boy.
“Don’t ever forget me,” he implored quietly. I promised that I wouldn’t.