The Gathering on the Skerries

The boat out to the skerries takes less time than deciding to go. The rocks barely clear the water, dark and slick and streaming, and on them the grey seals lay in the shapes heavy animals make when they are done swimming. They were not doing anything. That is what a haul-out is. In another week or two the first pups of the season would arrive, and the rocks would sound completely different.

Safari ya mashua kwenda kwenye miamba huchukua muda mfupi kuliko kuamua kwenda. Miamba hiyo hutoka majini kwa shida, myeusi na yenye utelezi na maji yakiitiririka, na juu yake sili wa kijivu walikuwa wamelala katika maumbo ambayo wanyama wazito huchukua wanapomaliza kuogelea. Hawakuwa wakifanya lolote. Ndivyo yalivyo mapumziko ya sili ufuoni. Wiki moja au mbili baadaye, watoto wa kwanza wa msimu wangewasili, na miamba ingesikika tofauti kabisa.

Polly picked a bull near the edge who seemed willing. "How many are there in your family?" she asked, which is a question that means something in a guesthouse and nothing at all out here. He thought about it in the way of an animal doing arithmetic he has never needed. Everyone on this rock, he offered eventually, and everyone on the next one.

Polly akamchagua dume mmoja aliye pembezoni aliyeonekana tayari kuongea. "Mko wangapi katika familia yenu?" akauliza, swali lenye maana katika nyumba ya wageni na lisilo na maana yoyote hapa. Alilifikiria kwa namna ya mnyama anayefanya hesabu ambayo hajawahi kuihitaji. Kila mmoja aliye juu ya mwamba huu, hatimaye akajibu, na kila mmoja aliye juu ya mwamba unaofuata.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Almost certainly, he said. He had no way of knowing which ones. Orkney produces something like twenty-two thousand grey seal pups a year, more than one in ten of every grey seal alive. A seal born on these rocks may spend the year anywhere from Shetland to the Irish coast and turn up again, without ceremony, on the stone it was born on.

"Je, una kaka au dada?" Bila shaka, akasema. Hakuwa na njia ya kujua ni wapi hasa. Orkney huzalisha karibu watoto elfu ishirini na mbili wa sili wa kijivu kila mwaka, zaidi ya mmoja kati ya kumi wa sili wote wa kijivu walio hai. Sili aliyezaliwa juu ya miamba hii aweza kutumia mwaka mzima popote kuanzia Shetland hadi pwani ya Ayalandi, kisha ajitokeze tena, bila sherehe yoyote, juu ya jiwe lilelile alilozaliwa.

Polly tested a phrase out loud. "I want to spend time with my family today." It sounded strange on a rock where nobody leaves and nobody arrives on purpose. So she tried another. "Even though we live far apart, we always keep in touch with each other." The bull considered that one longer. That is nearer, he said, if you allow that keeping in touch can mean coming back to the same rock in the same month and saying nothing at all.

Polly akajaribu sentensi kwa sauti. "Nataka kutumia muda na familia yangu leo." Ilisikika ya ajabu juu ya mwamba ambapo hakuna anayeondoka wala anayefika kwa makusudi. Kwa hiyo akajaribu nyingine. "Ingawa tunaishi mbali kwa mbali, sisi huwasiliana daima." Yule dume akaifikiria hiyo kwa muda mrefu zaidi. Hiyo iko karibu zaidi, akasema, ukikubali kwamba kuwasiliana kwaweza kumaanisha kurudi juu ya jiwe lilelile mwezi uleule bila kusema neno lolote.