The Boat Comes In

The morning boat came in past a low headland and tied up at Stromness, where the houses stand with their backs to the water and their gable ends turned into the wind. Polly stepped onto wet flagstones and understood the wind at once. It was not a gust. It was a condition. A collie sat at the end of the pier watching the ropes. Polly went over to him. "Can you show me the way?"

Meli ya asubuhi ilipita rasi fupi na kufunga kamba zake bandarini Stromness, ambako nyumba zimesimama zikiyapa maji migongo yao na ncha za paa zikiukabili upepo. Polly alikanyaga mawe mabapa yenye majimaji, na papo hapo akaufahamu upepo. Haukuwa mvumo wa muda. Ulikuwa hali ya kudumu. Mbwa wa aina ya collie alikuwa amekaa mwisho wa gati akiziangalia kamba. Polly akamwendea. "Waweza kunionyesha njia?"

He asked where she wanted to go, and she admitted she did not know yet. That is a reasonable answer here. The islands number close to seventy, about twenty of them lived on, and none sits far from the shore. There is no forest, no shelter belt, nothing taller than a farmhouse chimney. "Could you tell me where I can catch a bus?" she asked, and he tipped his head toward a shelter at the top of the slope.

Akamuuliza anataka kwenda wapi, naye akakiri kwamba bado hajui. Hilo ni jibu la busara hapa. Visiwa hivi ni karibu sabini, takribani ishirini kati yake vina watu, wala hakuna hata kimoja kilicho mbali na ufuo. Hakuna msitu, hakuna safu ya miti ya kuzuia upepo, hakuna kitu kirefu kuliko dohani la nyumba ya shamba. "Je, waweza kuniambia mahali ninapoweza kupanda basi?" akauliza, naye akainamisha kichwa kuelekea kibanda kilicho juu ya mteremko.

Then she made the mistake of a bird who has spent a summer in cities. "How long does it take to walk to the city center?" The collie looked along the single flagstone street that runs the length of the town, narrow enough in places for a car to fold in its mirrors. Eleven minutes, he said, if you stop to look in the windows.

Kisha akakosea kama ndege aliyekaa mijini kiangazi kizima. "Inachukua muda gani kutembea hadi katikati ya jiji?" Collie akaitazama ile barabara moja ya mawe mabapa inayopita urefu wote wa mji, nyembamba kiasi kwamba sehemu nyingine gari lazima likunje vioo vyake. Dakika kumi na moja, akasema, ikiwa utasimama kutazama madirisha ya maduka.

"Can you tell me if there are any interesting events today?" He took the question seriously. The ferry timetable is the local news, he said, and everything else arrives with it. There was a boat to the seal skerries later in the week. There was a chapel built by prisoners. There was a village that lay under a sand dune for four thousand years until a storm took the dune away.

"Waweza kuniambia kama kuna matukio yoyote ya kuvutia leo?" Akalichukulia swali hilo kwa uzito. Ratiba ya kivuko ndiyo habari za hapa, akasema, na kila kitu kingine huwasili nayo. Kulikuwa na mashua ya kwenda kwenye miamba ya sili baadaye wiki hiyo. Kulikuwa na kanisa dogo lililojengwa na wafungwa. Kulikuwa na kijiji kilicholala chini ya mchanga kwa miaka elfu nne hadi dhoruba ilipouondoa mchanga.