The Pale Child
The year was somewhere in the early days of colonial Kenya, when the land around Nairobi was still wild with untamed life. Thick savannah grasslands stretched beyond sight, dotted with acacia trees and the faint smoke of distant villages.
In a small homestead at the edge of the wilderness lived my grandma’s family, her parents and her three young stepsisters (children from her father’s first wife). My grandma’s mother was raising the stepchildren as her own.
The youngest stepsister was a delicate, pale girl. No matter how much the mother tried, this child’s vitality kept fading with her tiny frame growing weaker by the day.
The family had employed a few house-helps, local women from nearby tribes, who cared for the children and helped with the housework. One of them, a quiet woman from the Masai tribe, would look after the children, especially the youngest one.
Weeks passed, yet the child did not improve. Her mother’s heart grew heavy with worry. Something, she felt, was not right.
One bright morning, driven by instinct, the mother followed from a distance as the maid took her daughter outside. From behind the tall bushes, she watched. The maid set the fragile child gently on the grass and then, glancing around to ensure no one was watching, plucked a stem from a flowering bush.
The maid then pricked the child’s tiny arm and, to the mother’s horror, bent forward and began to suck the child’s blood! The mother’s cry of disbelief tore through the stillness of the morning. She rushed forward, scooping her trembling child into her arms.
The maid fell to her knees, eyes wide, babbling about “custom.” In her village, the Masai woman explained, they drank the blood of cows as a source of vitality. To her, the act was not one of malice. The mother, shaken to her core, dismissed the maid at once.
In the days that followed, the child slowly began to recover—her cheeks pinkened, her laughter returned, and her fragile frame filled out once more!
The Lion Cub
My grandma’s youngest uncle (Chotton) went to Kenya to look for work opportunity. He was living in the railway quarters quite close to the Nairobi railway station, with his sister and brother-in-law, and their children. The railway quarter was a wooden cottage built on stilts, leaving an open space beneath the house.
One day, as he was returning home, he found a pair of lion cubs nestled under the house. He gently scooped them up and brought them home in his arms. The children were overjoyed with their new “pets.” They played with the cubs all evening—cuddling, laughing, and delighting in their soft, playful antics. The cubs seemed just as content, basking in the children’s affection.
That night, however, the family was jolted awake by a deep, blood-curdling growl. The growls grew louder, followed by heavy thuds echoing against the walls of the house. Chotton instantly realised the truth; the cubs’ mother, a lioness, must have been out hunting during the day and had now returned to find her babies missing.
The lioness circled the house, roaring and pounding at the walls, even climbing onto the roof, desperate to reach her cubs. The family huddled together in terror, too afraid to open the door. All through the night, the air vibrated with her angry growls and the sound of her powerful body striking the wooden planks.
By dawn, the noises ceased. After waiting for hours and checking through every window to make sure the lioness was gone, Chotton carefully opened the front door. Quietly, he placed the cubs back under the house where he had found them.
The cubs soon began to whimper. Moments later, the lioness appeared, rushing to their side. She gently picked them up in her strong jaws and carried them away to ‘safety’; this time to a place far from human reach.
What an unforgettable night that was for the family!
