Where on earth is Kajulu, Kenya?

I googled Kajulu a few minutes ago, and it isn’t on the map. The village where I plan to spend the next 30 days living in poverty in a hut, without water or electricity apparently doesn’t exist.

There’s the C27 running southwest from Kisumu to Bondo, hugging the shore of Lake Victoria at a chaste distance. North of the C27, Google tells me, is a borehole. There are several capillary turnoffs to the south, marked by grey, hookworm-ish lines. In the vast emptiness between turnoffs I see a bright green Google marker. Not the words Kajulu. Not a small dot to show that this is a living settlement bustling with Luo homesteads and cattle and lives and memories as old as the lake.

Just a Google marker, calling for an leap of implicit faith. Kajulu is not on the map, but it must exist, because I have unearthed its latitude (0° -8′ 60 S) and longitude (34° 32′ 60 E). I will, it seems, be spending November at the equator.

I believe there is really a Kajulu because I know for a fact that Mama Salome Rading lives there. Oby told me this, and Oby never lies.

On June 14 this year, Mama Salome turned 75. The entire Obyerodhyambo clan, numbering over 40 strong Luos, converged upon Oby’s ‘shags’ — Kenyan sheng slang for “back at the ranch” — in Nkoroi to celebrate. I don’t know much more than this about Mama Salome. I seemed to remember Oby mentioning that incipient arthritis makes her joints ache these days, so I’m carrying a micro-wavable herbal pillow for her from Bangkok. I know she is used to fielding odd bods from all over the world that her son foists on her from time to time. The last time it was three itinerant American backpackers who, in return for a few days of Mama Salome’s hospitality, taught classes at the local school. The local school is looking forward to exploiting me as well, I am warned. They recently acquired computers but the absence of electricity proved a minor setback.

This, I understand, is close to being solved, and I just might reach the village to celebrate the arrival of modern fire and energy-saving light bulbs. Mama Salome has alerted the school that a fellow from the east is on his way, and that he’s passably good at Microsoft Word, so that is what they will wring from me. But Oby’s mama is also active in the church, so I may expect to be assigned some duties there as well. Christmas is here — maybe we could mount a musical if we can get a bunch of singing voices together. Mama Salome’s humble home in Kajulu will be where I will sleep most of November’s days.

I feel a sense of anticipation familiar from wilder days of college, when you could jump off an edge and wait for the universe to catch you. I have always believed that when you go barefoot and open-eyed into a place, it will come up more than halfway to meet you. I have been fascinated by the Luo way of life for many years, and now am working on a novel based among Luos. Three weeks is all I have to get a feel of what it feels like to live among one of the poorest communities in Nyanza.

I will be writing dispatches into this blog as often as technology — or its absence — permits, including photos, videos, interviews and stories. Ride on my back, and I’ll take you with me where you’ve not been.