When I went to school I was exposed to books, all of which told different stories from the ones I had heard around the fire. I read “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty”—stories that Westerners told their children for their moral development but which did not mean as much to me as the stories I was told around the fire. The Kikuyu stories reflected my environment and the values of my people; they were preparing me for a life in my community. The stories I read in the books had a completely different dimension. Half the time I did not understand what I was reading and merely memorized the words on the page for examinations.
We found it impossible to doze when a story was on: Sometimes we were scared and sometimes we laughed, but we were always entertained. We would ask to hear stories again and again because we loved them so much. When the story was over, we were encouraged to tell our own, but we preferred it when the adults told them. I loved the calm, warm atmosphere as we sat and listened to the women—mothers, aunts, grandmothers. (Men did not tell stories.) My aunt Nyakweya, who is now in her late eighties, was a great storyteller. She would sing and imitate the movements of the characters. One of my favorite stories was Konyeki na ithe, or “Konyeki and His Father.” I asked my aunt to tell this story over and over again, which, being the jolly person she is, she did—with a loud laugh—while we were all ears. (You can read the story of Konyeki and his father in the appendix.)
I like this story because my aunt told it very entertainingly and because it reflects character traits that I easily identify with and encounter in other people. There is the women's naïveté—or is it deliberate refusal to face the obvious? Instead, they choose to close their eyes and ears to the truth, seeing and hearing nothing. This is indeed a case of “love is blind.” I also have had moments when I've been blinded and could identify with the women, who pursued the iiimü, no matter what they had come to know about him.
Nevertheless, the women were shrewd. Those who decided to leave were wise enough not to confront the dragon's power directly, because they would have been eliminated. Another lesson from the story is that sometimes you need to be careful what you say in certain places, and make decisions based on your situation. So the women were wise when they did not respond accurately to the dragon's question about his dinner. But once you make a decision, you must be prepared to live with the consequences. The woman who stayed behind married the dragon and gave birth to a son, who was a dragon as well. She had to live the life of a dragon's wife.
These stories often had evil competing with good, and good often triumphing, while the evil character eventually perished. Stories could always be extended if the food was still not ready, and so some stories were very short while others were long. It was also possible to cut a story short, but it had to end appropriately: A story was never left unfinished. It was important to have different people tell stories. If you hear a story, you are indebted to others and should tell your own story.
These experiences of childhood are what mold us and make us who we are. How you translate the life you see, feel, smell, and touch as you grow up—the water you drink, the air you breathe, and the food you eat—are what you become. When what you remember disappears, you miss it and search for it, and so it was with me. When I was a child, my surroundings were alive, dynamic, and inspiring. Even though I was entering a world where there were books to read and facts to learn—the cultivation of the mind—I was still able to enjoy a world where there were no books to read, where children were told living stories about the world around them, and where you cultivated the soil and the imagination in equal measure.
3
Education and the State of Emergency
Have you ever woken up and the day looks ordinary and then J. J.the most extraordinary thing happens that changes your life forever? Such was the day when I discovered that my mother, my brother Nderitu, and one of my distant cousins, named Wangari Wanguku, were meeting and deeply engrossed in a conversation about me. My mother noticed me eavesdropping and, to my disappointment, quickly sent me to fetch water. I really wanted to hear what they were saying, but I knew I had to do as I was told. So I practically flew down the hill with the cooking pot high in the air, and raced back as fast as I could, trying not to spill too much water on the way back.
Breathing hard from a mixture of exertion and excitement, I reentered the house and learned that, despite my speed, the conversation was over and they had already made their decision: I would join my cousin Wangari at St. Cecilia's Intermediate Primary School, a boarding school at the Mathari Catholic Mission on the slopes of Nyeri hill. The school was run by the Consolata Missionary Sisters from Italy.
“Wow!” I thought. “They've already decided? It did not take me that long to fetch the water!” It is impossible to describe the emotions I felt at that moment: happy because I would be joining St. Cecilia's, secure because I would be with Wangari, sad as an eleven-year-old that I would be separated from my mother for the very first time. I would also be leaving behind the landscapes that I woke up to, our animals, our gardens and food crops, friends and relatives, and the small stream I visited each day.
Despite all those emotions, I knew my family had made the right decision for me. St. Cecilia's had a reputation for good teaching and discipline. As a boarding school, it was thought to offer no distractions or disruptions to studies. I later learned that my family had one concern about St. Cecilia's: that I might convert to Catholicism and that the Catholic sisters would woo me to become one of them. A nun's way of life was completely unknown to the Kikuyu community, which expected girls to marry and have children. Becoming a nun was considered a major loss to the community.
During the next several weeks, not a day passed without my thinking of the major journey I would soon be making. My mother bought me a small wooden box in which to pack my few belongings. Once my parents had paid the school fees, I would get practically everything I needed at school—bedding, a uniform, books, utensils, soap, and food. In preparation for my journey, my mother cut my hair very short to make it easy for me to manage. She also bought me a new dress. My brother got me another. He had purchased green-gray material to have a pair of trousers made for himself, and had deliberately bought extra so a dress could be made for me from the same material. I liked the material and style of the dress, since it did not wrinkle and was easy to wear. Such a thoughtful gesture from my brother endeared him to me. It is nice for me to think that my brother and I were cut from the same cloth in more ways than one. He was always there for me and all other members of the family.
There is one thing I did not have to pack—a pair of shoes, since I had none, until a local shoemaker made my first pair four years later when I went to high school. On the day of my departure, I carried my belongings on my back, much the same way I learned to carry firewood. The load was suspended from a string around my head. My family accompanied me up the hill to where I met my cousin. There I bid them farewell and set off to a new life. The journey would take the whole day.
We walked past the Tetu Mission, crossed the Chania River, walking on a footbridge for the first time. The river roared and frothed as it tumbled headlong downstream. Dense vegetation overhung the river and the air was thick and damp. Beneath me, the river was black but foaming, and I was worried I would fall in if I looked down and saw the mesmerizing currents below me. So, as I'd been told to do, I focused my eyes on the other side and walked across. After climbing the steep slope to the Mathari Mission, we reached the top of the valley, and I could see the expanse of the school and hospital, built in an Italian style: beige stone buildings, red-tile roofs, and a clock tower, all set in a valley. As far as the eye could see, through the valley and into the hills, the Catholic Church owned the land.
Once we arrived, Wangari and I were separated. While Wangari joined the girls in her class, I was directed to a dormitory where first-year students slept. It was quite an experience to be in a dormitory with about thirty other girls I had never met before. The b
ed was comfortable—it had one set of sheets and a pillow and mattress stuffed with grass, which I could smell. Every time I turned over, that grass made a crunching noise. Nevertheless, by my standards, it was a bed fit for a queen. At bedtime, a nun came into the dormitory, her habit as white as snow and a long black rosary around her waist. It was my first encounter with a Catholic nun. She led us in an English prayer, turned off the lights, and wished us good night. We were all tired and went straight to sleep.
The following morning I woke up to what would become a routine for the rest of my time at St. Cecilia's. At dawn each morning, one of the sisters would ring a bell to wake us up. We would spring out of bed, get down on our knees, and say our morning prayers. Then we would all rush out to wash our faces and rush back to tidy our beds, and then get dressed. By the time we left for church everything in the dormitories would be very neat and orderly. We had an hour-long Mass every day, after which there was a breakfast of maize flour porridge. After breakfast we had what was called a cleaning session. Everybody had something to do to keep the school compound spotless: cutting the grass, keeping the path clear, scrubbing the bathrooms, or tidying the dormitories. Finally, we would go to the classrooms to study. At mid-morning we broke for play and relaxation.
We had lunch at midday and then continued studies during the afternoon, until five o'clock, when we ate the evening meal. The food never changed: corn and beans at lunch, at dinner ugali and vegetables, such as cabbages, spinach, pumpkins, and onions. Meat was rarely served. This was fine for us, since our traditional diet contained very little meat anyway. We had no snacks, so when we got to the dining room we were hungry and ate whatever was placed before us, even though weevils regularly attacked the maize and beans. Despite the fact that we could see the weevils, we learned to navigate around them as we ate. After dinner, we went back to the classrooms and often did our homework under the supervision of one of the nuns. At ten o'clock it was time to go to bed.
Sports were an important part of our routine. During recess and breaks we would play a variety of games, all foreign sports. I enjoyed playing netball and tenniquoits, in which two players toss a ring across a net, and at which I became a champion. During those days, even for those of us who had them, we did not wear shoes except on special occasions, so at night it was very important to wash our feet. To keep them clean once we had washed, my friends and I would take turns carrying each other to bed, chatting and laughing as we did. The last to carry would always have shoes to wear to keep her feet clean. Once we were all in bed, the last thing we did was pray.
I really enjoyed learning and had a knack for being an attentive listener and very focused in the classroom, while being extremely playful outside of it. When you focus and do well, school becomes a pleasant experience. You do not hate it and long to drop out. At St. Cecilia's I was never bored since I was kept very busy. Never was there a time when I had nothing to do but just lie in the sun and enjoy its warmth. I should have found some time because it is good, particularly for a young person, to enjoy the sun and gaze at the clouds as they move and change shape.
Although the school had electricity and running water, conditions were still spartan. Unlike the mud house where my family lived, which trapped heat, the stone walls at St. Cecilia's let in the cold and the dormitories had no heat or hot water. During the cool seasons this was not very pleasant, but it did mean that if you were not awake when you got up you certainly were after you washed your face in the ice-cold water!
Paying for St. Cecilia's was a burden for my family, and my brother Nderitu, then at Kagumo High School, would do odd jobs to earn some cash to contribute to my school fees and pocket money. He had a small stove in his room on which he would boil water for other students who would pay him a few coins. There was not much to buy in Mathari so I often saved the pocket money to do some shopping for my family on the way home during school holidays.
Nderitu's role in my education didn't stop there. He was always very interested in how well I was doing in my studies and would regularly visit St. Cecilia's, even in addition to the one day a month when visitors were allowed. “Your brother was here,” the sisters would inform me. I accepted the rules for visitors, so did not make a big fuss about the fact that he had not asked to see me. On one occasion, I heard him and his friend speaking to the headmistress and laughing, and I knew he must have come to check up on me. I did not have the courage to ask to see him, but I always wished the sisters had allowed us a short visit and regretted that the nuns deprived us of contact with our family members, except for the occasional auhorized visit.
Initially when I arrived at St. Cecilia's I was homesick. However, there were many opportunities to nurture friendships, some of which have lasted a lifetime. One day, during a Kiswahili class, the teacher was explaining and translating English words into Kiswahili for us. He came across the word somo, which means “namesake.” I immediately turned to my friend Miriam Wanjiru, who was sitting behind me, and said to her fondly “my somo.” This is because my baptismal name is also Miriam. She replied somo, as well, and with that we formed a lifelong bond: Two somos together. Even today, this is the nickname we often use for each other.
One of the other reasons I was not homesick is that the nuns, bless them, quickly became our surrogate mothers. I found them nurturing, encouraging, and compassionate. One nun, Sister Germana, came from Milan in northern Italy. She was tall, elegant, and very loving, and her motivation and dedication intrigued me. “Why would she come all the way to this place?” I would ask myself. It fascinated me that despite their youth and beauty these women had sacrificed having families and living in comfortable surroundings and instead had committed themselves to God and had come to serve strangers in a remote part of the world.
I spent four years at St. Cecilia's and grew very fond of many of the sisters who helped shape my life there. One of the nuns, however, was quite different. Most of the sisters were relatively slim and tall, at least to me as a young girl, but this one was an exception—a strongly built nun who had come to Kenya from South Africa called Sister Christiana. She was a disciplinarian but as she went around to “put us straight,” as she would say, she made us laugh and, though she thought she had us under her thumb, for the most part we still did what we wanted. The sisters were suspicious that girls were writing to boys, something the nuns considered distracting and completely unacceptable. The school did not have the services of a post office, so if you wrote or received a letter it had to go through a nun—and that sister more often than not was Sister Christiana.
On one occasion, a girl wrote a letter to a friend in which she included this piece of news: “Here in St. Cecilia's we are fine, still eating fire.” Sister Christiana read the letter and was appalled and angry. The girl had lied and scandalized the school. “Now look at this girl!” she said. “No shame whatsoever: Telling lies that we are feeding them with fire!” That evening in the dining hall, all of the girls had food on their plates, except the girl who had written the letter. On her plate, she found pieces of charcoal. After we had said grace and sat down to eat, Sister Christiana explained that the girl had told a lie that the nuns were feeding us fire. “So that is fire,” she thundered at the girl. “Eat!”
Well, we could barely stifle our laughs—even the girl herself found it funny. Quite obviously, Sister Christiana had missed a very important point: The girl in her letter had taken a Kikuyu saying (no tũrarĩa mwaki) and given a literal translation into English. “We continue to eat fire” is a Kikuyu colloquialism meaning “we're having a great time.” But given that our English skills were still rudimentary, the girl had rendered this expression in English, where it had no obvious meaning. Sister Christiana had taken it literally. The letter-writer got no food that evening and the rest of us could not wait to get outside where we burst into gales of laughter. I am quite sure that eating fire was a main topic of conversation at the nuns’ dinner table that night, too.
Although this incident was funny
at the time, you had to be careful what you laughed about because you could be punished, and nowhere was this more prevalent than with the matter of speaking or not speaking English. By this time, English had become the official language of communication and instruction in Kenyan schools. Those of us who aspired to progress in our studies knew that learning English well was essential. Many schools emphasized that students must speak English at all times, even during the holidays.
A common practice to ensure that students kept pressure on one another was to require those students who were found using a language other than English to wear a button known as a “monitor.” It was sometimes inscribed with phrases in English such as “I am stupid, I was caught speaking my mother tongue.” At the end of the day, whoever ended up with the button received a punishment, such as cutting grass, sweeping, or doing work in the garden. But the greater punishment was the embarrassment you felt because you had talked in your mother tongue. In retrospect, I can see that this introduced us to the world of undermining our self-confidence.
Not surprisingly, none of us wanted to be caught with the monitor and as a result we spoke English from the time we left church in the morning until we said our final prayers at night. This was remarkable given that everyone in St. Cecilia's had spoken only Kikuyu until then. But the system worked in promoting English: Even when we went home or met children from school in the village, we tended to speak English. The use of the monitor continues even today in Kenyan schools to ensure that students use only English. Now, as then, this contributes to the trivialization of anything African and lays the foundation for a deeper sense of self-doubt and an inferiority complex.
Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage) Page 7