We quickly became aware that election fever was sweeping the country and the campus and that the Nixon-Kennedy election was less than two months away. The students knew that we were part of the Kennedy Airlift and, even though I had no idea what Republicans or Democrats represented, they assumed we were for Senator Kennedy. The fact that he was a Catholic also added to the excitement. Visiting local Democrats urged us to join the campaign and asked us to speak at campus rallies supporting Kennedy. It was a great introduction to campus culture—even before we unpacked, we were plunged into the presidential campaign. We Kenyans on the two campuses celebrated with everyone else when Kennedy won.
Just like the nuns at school in Kenya, I found the sisters at Mount St. Scholastica very kind, and several became academic and personal mentors and friends. Among them Sister Imogene, the college dean, and Sister John Marie, my academic adviser and mentor in biological sciences, were wonderful people to be with. They gave me a sense of belonging to the community and the feeling of being at home, even though I was thousands of miles from Kenya. Each Christmas, Sister Marcella, who taught me home economics, would make Agatha and me the most beautiful new dresses, taking great care with the design and the sewing. I have never forgotten that gesture or the times she and I would talk about my life in the United States and Kenya and what I hoped and dreamed of for my future.
My academic experience at Mount St. Scholastica was quite different from what I had known in Kenya. The workload was demanding, although I made it to the dean's list several times. I enjoyed biology more than the chemistry I had focused on in high school, so biology became my major, and I minored in chemistry and German. The classroom presented challenges. Although the nuns were surprised that Agatha and I could understand so much English, we noticed the difference between speaking English as a foreign language and being surrounded by native English speakers. Critical analysis was not easy. We had little idea of English literature. The American students knew more about it than we did and could relate culturally to Shakespeare in a way we never could.
I worked hard at my studies and was pleased with the results. The sisters wrote each semester to my parents to update them on my progress. Since they couldn't read English, my brother Nderitu translated the letters for them. He saved some letters from that period, and I was amused to read so many years later what Sister Imogene had written at the end of one semester: “I am pleased to inform you that your daughter is doing highly satisfactory work. She seems well and happy and has made a most successful adjustment to life in the U.S. We are proud and happy to have students from Africa in our college and we want you to know that they are very fine representatives of their people.”
In one of my own letters to Nderitu, dated February 28, 1961, I recounted my experiences of college life and my studies, as well as my responsibilities to him as my oldest brother and to the family. It is interesting to read this earnest, pious young woman's words: “Your description of the adventure to the Aberdares almost made me homesick,” I told Nderitu. “This semester I am taking zoology, psychology, scripture, English composition, modern European history, and sports. It's quite a bit of work, enough to keep my little brain busy.”
I assured Nderitu that the college was treating me well. “The nuns with whom I live are as nice as the ones I had at home. They have a big heart for Africans.” The dean of the college was going to send Nderitu a report and I was clearly concerned. “She will tell you my behavior and such things as I should not do. Should you feel that there is some weakness I … ask you kindly to let me know and I will do my best to put it right.” Finally, I sought to allay any concerns he and my family might have. “Don't worry about me, my dear. God is taking care of me. Give my best love to my mother and all the neighbors…. I am as sound as a bell.”
I quickly realized that Mount St. Scholastica and St. Benedict's, although both Catholic schools, were very different from St. Cecilia's and Loreto-Limuru. The education was broad-based and, on reflection, quite liberal. I marveled at the freedom that the students had— young men and women kissing in public and watching films with romantic scenes. In high school, we had seen Westerns and other American and British films, but the romance had been blotted out or edited. It astonished me to see young men and women walking past the nuns holding hands and the nuns not making any comment. On the weekends, students held parties where men and women danced—with each other.
In this and other ways, America was incredibly liberating. It was also troubling. It made me think about what the nuns in Kenya had told us. I began to ask myself, “Why was dancing so wrong? Why was holding a boy's hand so atrocious?” I came to understand that my previous education had been very Victorian. I had been practically living the life of a nun, even though I hadn't taken holy orders.
When I arrived in Atchison I was a very strict and dogmatic Catholic. This was the time leading up to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and support for reforms in the Catholic Church was growing. At the Mount, I began to look at religion differently and to examine the issues confronting people of faith. During Vatican II I began to question my faith: not to the extent of losing it entirely, as happened to some, but wondering why behavior we had been told was wrong was now deemed acceptable by church authorities.
In my schools in Kenya, for instance, we never ate meat on Fridays, and suddenly there were no food restrictions. It used not to be possible to take Holy Communion if you had eaten anything after six o'clock the previous evening and now that limit was three hours. Mass every Sunday had been compulsory, but now Catholics could attend services on Saturday evening instead. The Mass had always been said in Latin, but now services in vernacular languages were allowed. Even though Mass wasn't compulsory at the Mount, I found myself attending it quite often, partly out of habit and also because it was easy for me to get to the chapel. The Mass itself was much more personal, with fewer directed prayers. We could follow it in English in the prayer book rather than reciting the rosary ad infinitum. Though some of these changes were relatively minor, they made me think. Had God changed his mind? Was that possible? All this was strange and discomforting, and forced me to reflect on my faith.
The countryside in Kansas was also different from my home region, which is full of hills and mountains. By contrast, Atchison is as flat as a pancake. There were no hills for me to look up at in Kansas, but I did enjoy taking long walks along the Missouri River, known to me from maps but now very real. Unlike in Kenya, near the Equator, the seasons in Kansas are also very distinct. When we arrived in late September, we found leaves of green, yellow, gold, radiant red, and brown. Shortly after they dropped from the branches until each tree looked naked and dead. Although leaves fell from wild fig and acacia trees in Kenya, it was nothing to compare with the colorful leaves gathered in heaps, flying in every direction at the slightest breath of wind in Atchison. Never before had I seen so many leaves on the ground at the same time. No wonder the season is known as the fall.
And then there was the snow! I had seen the white ice on top of Mount Kenya and had not quite understood how it was frozen water, but I had never seen snow fall. And nothing could have prepared me for the cold weather when it finally arrived in earnest in January. I had never been as cold as I was during those winter months. Fortunately, the sisters made sure I was warmly dressed and, despite the cold, I do not remember being sick while I was in Atchison.
Another unforgettable experience of Atchison was the murmur of the winds, blowing through the branches of the leafless trees. I had seen trees sway and dance to the wind, but only in Kansas did the wind whisper in the dead of winter. At first it seemed eerie, but I soon learned to love that sound, which reminded me of violins. I had never heard anything like that whisper, and still haven't anywhere in the world.
Spring was also very new to my senses. It reminded me of the excitement of seeing seeds germinating after the rains fell at home. I would watch as plants emerged from the ground once the snow had receded. Buds appeared on twigs and bra
nches and before you knew it trees would be clad again with beautiful green leaves, all at once. Back home leaves would grow and fall throughout the year, so there were never trees uniformly green or bare. What a miracle!
Summer in Kansas was hot and humid. That first summer, Agatha and I worked on campus. These must have been the days before air conditioners, because I remember Agatha and I trying to work with one hand while we were fanning ourselves with the other— waving hot air onto our faces and wishing for the cold highland air of home.
The Americans were baffled. “Why are you fanning yourself?” they asked me. “We thought that you'd enjoy this weather.”
I looked at them askance as sweat streamed down my face and my back. “Let me tell you,” I said. “I've never experienced such miserable weather anywhere in the world.”
“Well, where else have you been?” They laughed.
“Well, you have a point,” I replied, appreciating that this was only the second place outside the Kenyan highlands I had ever lived. Ever since then I have appreciated even more the near perfect weather in the Kenyan highlands. These seasonal changes also helped me understand why people outside the tropics like to bask in the sun even when their skin is peeling off!
In those days, it was not possible for us Kenyans to go home and visit: The journey took too long and it was very expensive. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would go home only when we completed our studies and, in the meantime, we consoled ourselves with letters, although they could take as long as three to six months to reach Kenya or the United States. Since then, the revolution in communication has been extraordinary: telephones, including cell phones, computers, faxes, and color television have taken information technology to levels unthinkable forty years ago during my days in Atchison.
Luckily, I made some good friends at the Mount. On off-hours during the school year my friends and I would go window-shopping in Atchison. I couldn't afford to buy anything, but we enjoyed looking at the latest styles of clothes. One friend with whom I have stayed in touch is Florence (Conrad) Salisbury. She became a real sister. During most Christmases, Thanksgivings, and Easter holidays, Florence would take me to her family's house near Wichita.
I felt completely at home with Florence's many siblings and loving parents. I would spend evenings chatting with her father at the kitchen table as we sipped coffee and nibbled on biscuits that we all had participated in baking. The Conrads’ house became like my second home in Kansas. If I was not there making Christmas cookies with Florence and her sisters, I was back on campus doing the same with the nuns in the kitchen. Or I would be packing books with my great friend Sister Gonzaga, the registrar, to send to her favorite schools in the Philippines.
Another friend was Margaret Malone from Texas. She was so fond of her state that she kept giving me presents decorated with the Yellow Rose of Texas, which was also the nickname I gave her, since she was a beautiful blonde. During my third year at the Mount another student from Kenya arrived to join us, Mary Paul Gakunga. Together, Agatha, Mary Paul, and I formed a great team and had a very happy life both on campus and off. We have remained friends and when we get together in Kenya we often reminisce about our experiences at the Mount.
Among my other friends at the Mount were fellow international students from China, India, and Japan. There was a certain bond among the foreign students and sometimes we would be interviewed by the local press and asked to speak about our countries at local schools and functions. We also put on an international night at the college so we could share our national heritage. I remember dressing up with a sheet over my shoulder to look like a typical Kikuyu girl and teaching some of my friends dances from back home as a way of sharing my culture with other Mounties.
We valued such events because they gave a sense of belonging to our adopted community even though we were many miles from our own. Although the alumnae office tried to keep us informed about one another, years of separation and the responsibilities of family made it difficult to keep in touch. In 2005, I traveled to Japan as a guest of Mainichi Newspapers. When I informed them that some of my college friends were Japanese and that the only name I could remember was Shoko, my contacts at Mainichi told me that Shoko was one of the most common first names in Japan. So I could hardly believe my eyes when at a special luncheon the newspaper organized in Tokyo I saw my fellow Mounties Shoko Komaya, Grace Mahr, Suzanne Tamura, Sonoko Takada, and Tuneko Shibuya, after a gap of more than forty years! We hugged, laughed, cried tears of joy, sang our favorite Mountie songs, and enjoyed a most memorable meeting.
During my time at the Mount, and especially during the national holidays, families would open up their homes to foreign students. I was impressed by their generosity to us Africans at a time when there was so much conflict between the races in the United States. On television we saw protests and black people being cruelly treated by policemen. Even then I did not quite absorb what was happening and the long-term impact of what I was watching. The Mau Mau struggle for justice in Kenya had led me to believe that education was part of the solution to many of the problems black people were facing everywhere. But I was not adequately conversant with the history, politics, and mind-set of American society.
I tended to bury myself in my books, but nonetheless I took an interest in the civil rights movement and learned a lot. I wanted to understand it, and America in all its intricacy, and to see where I as a Kenyan and a black woman fit in. I often wondered why I should come to America to see black people being treated as harshly as I had witnessed in Kenya as the British attempted to crush the Mau Mau movement. While Britain was a colonial power, America was “the land of the free and the home of the brave”! So how was I to explain such happenings?
Apart from the incident at the café in Indiana, I was saved from discrimination during the rest of my stay in America, partly because I did not move about much, preferring to stay on campus. Even when I visited my white friends and stayed with their families, I never experienced any form of racism. Nevertheless, during my time in the United States, when the civil rights movement was violently confronted, I became more aware of how institutionalized discrimination based on skin color existed in America. That I never encountered another direct experience of discrimination was an exception. Many of my fellow Kenyan students elsewhere experienced racism in finding jobs, places to stay, and friends.
Perhaps because the Mount was an almost all-white school and there were only two African American students I did not interact much with African Americans in Atchison. I never hit it off as friends with the African Americans in college, even though they were cordial. Much more friendly and approachable were two women support staff at the Mount. They took Agatha and me under their wings and were quite maternal. One of them, Mrs. Collins, was a short, hardworking woman who could have been my elder sister or young aunt. She always had a smile on her face and we exchanged niceties as we passed each other in the halls. Occasionally, we would meet off campus for friendly chats. Sometimes, Mrs. Collins and her coworker would take us to their neighborhood, where most of the black people in Atchison lived, not far from the campus.
At that time, Atchison was segregated. As the women took us around their neighborhood and the more affluent part of town, they pointed out to us the inequities in American society. The economic differences between the neighborhoods were stark but not surprising to us, because the same divide was evident in Kenya. We blamed our inequities on colonialism, while Americans blamed theirs on the legacy of slavery. However, whenever we visited the two women's two-story houses, I thought they looked positively luxurious compared to my mother's house.
On some occasions, with the handful of Kenyan boys studying at St. Benedict's, we'd go dancing at what I recall were cold, large halls mostly frequented by local black patrons. I was still learning to appreciate American music. I was also learning to dance, because we weren't allowed to dance at school in Kenya. As it turned out, we didn't dance much, and spent most of our time drinking sodas an
d chatting with the boys. Some of those young men had been in America for several years and thought we were inexperienced and conservative. They openly criticized us and encouraged us to change and become more like American girls. They were particularly critical of our kinky hair, which they said would be much better if treated with a hot comb.
Although none of us then was in a hurry to become a Kenyan American, the boys didn't have to wait long, since by the time we were in our third year, we could hold our place on the dance floor with twists, rock 'n’ roll, and whatever else was in vogue. Even the hair got a touch of the hot comb. By the time we graduated, we were fully Americanized. That is the lure of America. What it did to me in Kansas, it continues to do to every generation around the world.
During summer vacations, the nuns would find us jobs in Kansas City, Missouri, so we could acquire experience and skills to complement our studies. One such summer, Sister John Marie got me a job in a tissue-processing laboratory at St. Joseph's Hospital. We moved to the big city and stayed in a house owned by the Benedictines that also hosted students from many other countries—Mexico, the Philippines, and India—as well as Puerto Rico. Like Agatha, Mary Paul, and I, these students worked in different places during the day but in the evening we all came together to form a pleasant international community.
At the hospital my task was to assist the laboratory technician responsible for processing body tissue so it could be observed under a microscope. This helped the doctors and other experts determine the ailments of their patients. The skills I learned in this laboratory later proved immensely valuable in my academic career in Kenya.
Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage) Page 10