Interlude: Timu Forest

We set out from the mission with some notebooks and a recorder.

“Where are we going?” Stephen asked.

“Eh… just through the center, i figure. And then maybe swing back to Mening Quarter and try to find Augustine, if nothing else presents itself.”

“What do you need to do in the center?”

“Not a thing in the world. But i imagine that if we walk to the center and back, we’ll run into somebody offering more promising prospects.”

And yet I wasn’t too surprised to find that nothing awaited me in the center except for beggin and passionate (almost angry-sounding) cries of ‘uru aja!’, a greeting in the Mening language.

We turned around and started back toward Mening Quarter. Maybe we would find Augustine. Maybe not.

But suddenly i was greeted more graciously by a few ladies on the left side of the road—a sister from the convent (Stephen’s second-favorite person in Karenga) and Pasca, who had told us that her aunt speaks Katibong and would work with us!

“Very sorry,” she said, “my aunt is only remembering just some few words of the Katibong language. She says that you should go talk to that musé in Nakitoit who you talked to last week, Akika. He is remembering. We will go right now, and I will translate for you.”

After a 45 minute hike, we had crossed the two or so miles to Nakitoit. Akika sat under a tree, looking various shades of amused, annoyed, uninterested, and eager to begin. A number of men of the town loitered about.

We started negotiating a price. And then things got weird.

“The musé says,” began the LC1 (a locally elected government office), “that he will not begin until you have paid him 50,000 shillings up front.”

“50,000 shillings!?”

“Ée… this man, he is the only one remembering this language. And so when the time comes for him to bring the rains, he will have to go to the cave just here. If he helps you and is crossing in the cave, then the spirits will bring bad things to him. Unless he has sacrificed a goat to them for giving away the language. So you will give him 50,000 shillings, and then he will buy a goat and sacrifice it in the cave. This is the message of God for him, that he is the one to smear the what? the cud of the goat in the cave, and to bring the rain. So he will not help until you have given him 50,000 shillings.”

i’m not particularly interested in violating the consciences of my consultants. i’m not particularly interested in being ripped off by my consultants. It seems like one of the above was going to be a factor in such an arrangement. i’d rather not help the last speaker (or one of the last speakers) of a language sell his birthright for a bowl a stew—or a $25 goat. Similarly, i’d rather not give a cash advance to somebody i’m only going to have a very limited amount of time to work with in the remaining two weeks that i will be in Karenga.

We walked back to the mission in beautiful evening light.



We have retreated from Karenga now. We are currently relaxing in Terrill and Amber Schrock’s Icien Paradise, a fine lodge (they call it home) on top of a mountain in Timu Forest, where the Ik live. Two Ik accompanied us on the drive up from Kaabong. As i heard them speaking to each other in the backseat of Terrill’s Land Cruiser, i realized that i have been studying Kuliak languages (So, Ik, and Nyang’i make up the Kuliak family) for three years, but this was the first time that i had ever heard a Kuliak language used conversationally.

We go for walks, we relax on comfortable beds, we chat with Terrill, and we eat delicious, delicious, delicious food prepared by Amber.



We will be here a week. This week will give us the opportunity to relax, to enjoy the company of people who are easy to relate to, to collaborate with Terrill, who has done extensive research in the Ik language, and to get ready for a productive last two weeks in Karenga.

This is our palace:



We’re halfway through our time here. Things don’t seem as distinct to me as they did at first. i am not as quick to notice flashes of recognition across the eyes of a child or uniqueness in a street-corner exchange. Hopefully having some time to relax in Timu will make me more attentive and sensitive to everyday moments again.