Dreams in a Time of War

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  Some acts and scenes are simply magic within magic: Jonah swallowed by a whale and then vomited out unhurt on another shore; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, an angel among them, walking about unscathed in a fiery furnace; Daniel interpreting correctly the writing on the wall—MENE, TEKEL, and PERES—which made me look for writings on walls so I could interpret them; and Daniel in a lion’s den, emerging unhurt; or Joshua blowing a horn that brings down the walls of Jericho. Some of these images are powerful and remain imprinted in my mind. I now understand why Christians at Kamandũra would always start prayers by invoking the God of Abraham and Isaac.

  Nighttime frustrates me because I read by the light of an unreliable and coverless kerosene lantern. Paraffin means money and there are days when the lamp has no oil. Most times I rely on the firelight of an unreliable duration. Daylight is always welcome. It allows the book of magic to tell me stories without interruptions except when I have to do this or that chore. This ability to escape into a world of magic is worth my having gone to school. Thank you, Mother, thank you. The school has opened my eyes. When later in church I hear the words I was blind and now I see, from the hymn “Amazing Grace,” I remember Kamandũra School, and the day I learned to read.

  But why does one recall some events and characters vividly and others not at all? How is the mind able to select what it buries deep in the memory and what it allows to float on the surface? Some students at Kamandũra still stand out in my mind. There was Lizzie Nyambura, Kĩhĩka’s daughter, in grade five, reputed to be brighter than even the teachers themselves, and who years later would be the first woman or man in the region to be admitted to Makerere University College to major in mathematics. Her brother Burton Kĩhĩka was reputed to be the fastest runner in the school and years later continued to indulge his love of speed by racing down the highways on a motorcycle with several falls and narrow escapes. There was Njambi Kahahu, my early guide, who later went to Alliance Girls and then on to the USA, married, and then died tragically while giving birth. There was one Ndũng’ũ wa Livingstone with suspenders, one of which always fell off his shoulder to hang loosely on the side, and who had the only slate with lines indented, and whose handwriting was held up as exemplary. There was Mũmbi wa Mbero, who years later would be the first woman or man to ride a scooter in our town. And there was Mary, later married to Kĩbũthũ, Mũmbi’s brother, who used to wrestle big boys to the ground. Throughout my stay in Kamandũra, I was terrified of her, I would avoid her, and I don’t think I ever spoke to her, even once. There were Wamithi wa Umarĩ (Hamisi Omari, who years later would marry Wanja, one of my half sisters) and Juma, who came from Muslim families, and though they attended a Christian school, the fact never seemed to bother them or anybody else.

  But children could also be very cruel, pitiless bullies, as in the case of Igogo. He was very tall, taller and older than the other kids. His name meant “Crow” or “Blackbird.” Some children would gang together and when near him would crow like a bird. This used to annoy him, but when he ran toward them in anger they would simply scatter in different directions. Some days he would become very exhausted from having to chase his tormentors before deciding to run home, a lone figure with children in bushes and others following him at a distance singing his name in different pitches of mockery. He could not get help from the teachers: How could they forbid children to imitate a crow? In the end he stopped going to school, and, whatever his other reasons, this collective cruelty was a contributing factor.

  Many of the teachers at Kamandũra are silhouettes in my memory, though I recall large-eyed Isaac Kuria, who registered me as the son of my father rather than my mother. There was also Paul Kahahu, who would later figure in the fortunes of my extended family; his sister, Joana, whom I credit with helping me to learn to read; and Rahabu Nyokabi Kĩambati, whom later offspring of families would also claim as their teacher. There is one teacher, Benson Kamau, nicknamed Gĩthuri, “Old Man,” who used to sing out his lessons but with nonsensical lyrics like Cows are property; money is property; goats are property that became more and more absurdly monotonous by their repetition—but they stayed in the mind.

  One event I always recall with heartache. I was in grade one when Teacher Joana selected me to join a performance group that would recite from memory the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew and another passage from Mark at the end-of-year assembly for students and parents. I committed the whole passages to memory. They were poetic. They were music. I looked forward to it. I dreamed about it. But on the day of performance I left home a little late and arrived just as the group was saying: And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw them he was much displeased, and said unto them, suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God.

  The failure to perform left a hole in me, the need for a second chance to redeem myself to myself. For the duration of my stay in the school I always hoped that such a chance would present itself.

  It never did. One day my elder brother Wallace Mwangi, with my mother apparently in agreement, told me that I had to leave Kamandũra for Manguo. It was very sudden, unexpected. It was the end of 1948, and I had been in Kamandũra for only two years, or, more precisely, one and a half, because I started there in the last quarter of 1947. I had many questions but I knew this would end an important phase of my life. The alternation between dream and reality that was my Kamandũra period was over, but I would forever carry in me the magic of learning to read and also the memory of loss. Perhaps the unknown Manguo would add to the magic of reading, and even soothe the ache of loss, but I doubted it could ever fill the hole.

  Manguo was a short distance away: It stood on the ridge opposite our home, father’s homestead; one went down the slope of our ridge, a narrow valley near the Manguo marshes, then up the next, Kĩeya’s ridge, to the compound. The shorter distance and the news that my younger brother would be starting school at Manguo were enough to cheer me, and I started feeling good about the change.

  Njinjũ was special to me and remained so even after I realized that my tears had had nothing to do with his coming into the world. But sibling rivalry for our mother’s affection always produced tension between us. Sharing the same bed with my mother, we had often fought to be the one next to Mother’s breasts. But moments of tension would alternate with those of extreme affection when we would share everything, a banana, a sweet potato, biting into them by turns, happily. But a few days later there would be accusations and counteraccusations about who had taken the bigger bites or who had taken an unfair turn; Mother would settle this by admonishing us to love each other as brothers, and then would follow a little talk on the importance of family. She did not have to convince us: We were at once brothers and best friends.

  Once, soon after transferring to Manguo, I jumped over a low barbed wire fence around the school. One of the barbs caught the top of my left foot and tore deep into the flesh. Later it swelled and hurt so much that I could not walk. There were no medical clinics around and no doctor we could pay. My mother simply kept on washing the wound with salt water. My brother would literally cart me from place to place on the wheelbarrow. Somehow after weeks of my mother nursing my foot, I managed to begin walking again. An inch-long scar remains to this day. And a well of gratitude, for years later I learned of a child who had died of a similar wound, through tetanus poisoning.

  But this memory and my love for Njinjũ became tinged with guilt brought about by my new clothes. I had grown used to khaki shorts in school, even as at home I continued to wear my traditional free-flowing garment knotted at the right shoulder, as did my brother, who only occasionally wore shorts underneath. By now my brother and I were inseparable. I often tried to teach him what I had learned in school, but he would resist, especially as he himself was going to start school and learn directly from proper teachers as I had done. He wanted respect as an equal; I wanted a younger brother
to look up to me.

  One weekend when there were sports on the grounds of the Limuru Bata Shoe Company, I was allowed to put on my school uniform. My brother, who had not yet started school and therefore had no uniform, simply put on shorts and knotted his garment. Sports festivals were always much fun. I loved races best of all, especially the long distances, a mile or more, fascinated as I was by the pacing and changing of tactics. Many contestants would start together. Then a few would pull ahead, and toward the end two or three would finally separate themselves from all the others and struggle to beat each other to the tape. In the long distances, leaders would keep on changing, some literally coming from way behind, even overtaking others and passing them by a lap. My brother and I found fun walking around the sports field mingling with the crowds. And that was how, ahead of me, I saw some students I did not even know well, coming toward me. Suddenly I was aware, as if for the first time, that my brother was in his traditional garb.

  The embarrassment that had been seeping into my consciousness of the world around me since I first wore new clothes to school came back intensely. Panic seized me. I did the only thing that I thought would save the situation. I asked my brother whether we could take two different paths around the field and see who would get to the other side first. My brother and I were used to such friendly rivalries and he readily took up the challenge. Well, I passed the other uniformed kids. They did not once look at me, one way or another. After all, I was new to the school. By the time my brother and I met, I was already remorseful, while he was bubbling with joy at having beaten me to the spot. My behavior ruined the rest of the day for me. I might have found my predicament easier to bear if I had voiced it to my brother. But I didn’t and it remained and it would not go away. The problem, I came to realize, was not in my brother or the other boys but in me. It was inside me. I had lost touch with who I was and where I came from. Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you. Value yourself and others will value you. Validation is best that comes from within. In later tribulations, this thought always helped me to endure and overcome challenges by relying on my own will and resolve even when others were skeptical of me. More important, it made me realize that education and lifestyle could influence judgment in a negative way and separate people.

  In compensation, I felt and became even more protective of and closer to my younger brother. I looked forward more intensely to his joining me at Manguo. I would make sure that nothing came between us.

  We were hardly two terms in the new school when temptation, in the form of a train, challenged my commitment to school.

  One evening my mother told my younger brother and me that she would be leaving for a few days. She was going to Elburgon, Warubaga as we called it, in the Rift Valley, to visit with my grandmother Gathoni; her uncle, Daudi Gatune; and her sister, Auntie Wanjirũ. The other women would look after us and she wanted assurance of good behavior while she was away. The decision was sudden, and my mother seemed more anxious than happy about the prospective journey.

  I had heard of my maternal grandmother living far away with Auntie Wanjirũ. But they were just names to me because I had never met them in the flesh or if I had I could not recall. But the moment my mother added that she was going to go there by train, the scene changed dramatically. We both wanted to accompany her. You cannot leave us behind, we cried. But we were in the middle of a school year and my younger brother had just started school. Yes, but Mother, you cannot leave us behind. I don’t need your tears, she finally said. It is your choice, whether or not you want to leave school and come with me. You have three days to think about it!

  The railway line, which was started in 1896 in Kilindini, Mombasa, and reached Kisumu in December 1901 through the Kenyan heartland, had brought in its wake not only European settlers but also Indian workers, some of whom opened shops at the major construction camps that later bloomed into railroad towns. It also created the native African worker out of the peasant who, having lost his land, had only the power of his limbs that he hired out to the white settler, when his labor was not taken by force, and to the Indian dukawallah, or shopkeeper, for a pittance. The land over which he had been the sovereign became divided into White Highlands for Europeans only, the Crown lands owned by the colonial state on behalf of the British king, and the African Reservations for the natives. The Indians, not allowed to own land, became merchant dwellers in the big and smaller railroad towns between Mombasa and Kisumu. The railway line was the link between these towns long before the road built by the Bonos provided competition. This was the same railway line that had once terrified my father and his older brother but was now so normal a part of the landscape that my mother was talking about taking the train, with us clamoring to join her.

  I cannot overstate the lure of the Sunday passenger train from Mombasa to Kisumu or Kampala. It always made a stop at Limuru, where the railway station was opened on November 10, 1899. The train usually arrived at midday. Europeans and Indians came there to meet relatives and say good-bye to others. Some Africans also came to do the same. But most Africans wandered there to see the train come and go, the young left to loiter and mingle on the platform. The train whistle could be heard from our homestead, and even the smoke could be seen snaking its way in the sky when one stood on top of the dump site. Every Sunday my older sisters and brothers would wake up and get ready, not for church or native festivities, but for the train. Some sat in little groups in the huge compound, fussing over each other’s hair while others washed their feet in basins and smoothed their nails and heels with a scrubbing stone. The compound was a flurry of noisy activities, as friends from neighboring villages sometimes came to see if everyone was ready to go to the platform together.

  There is one Sunday forever imprinted in my mind. As usual my brothers and sisters had performed their ablutions and preparations early. But they had not timed themselves properly. Suddenly they heard the train hooting as it approached the station. We will be late for the train! came the cacophonous cry. Within seconds they had all taken to their heels, running down the slope as if in an athletic competition. Sisters Gathoni, Kageci, Nyagaki, and their friends Wamaitha and Nyagiko; half brothers Kangi, Mbici, and Mwangi wa Gacoki, the tallest of all my siblings, and others were running as if for their lives. My younger brother and the siblings about our age—Wanja, Wanjirũ wa Njeri, Gakuha, Gacungwa—stood on top of the dump site and enjoyed this race to the platform of the Limuru railway station.

  When minutes later we heard the train leave the station, we started singing what we thought the train was saying: TO U-GA-NDA, TO U-GA-NDA, with the train seeming to acknowledge our song and dance with a prolonged hooting and smoke in the sky.

  I had never been to the platform to witness the romance of the train, but of course we had heard many alluring stories about it. The passenger train was divided into sections: first class for Europeans only, second class for Indians only, and third class for Africans. I longed to be there, to see it all for myself. And here, at long last, was a chance not simply to stand on a platform and stare at a passing train, but to become a passenger myself. Why should I let school and my pact with Mother stand in the way?

  True to her word, on the third day she posed the question and waited for our decision. My younger brother was prompt in his response. He would take the train; he would resume schooling afterward. It was now my turn. Would I let my younger brother be first to experience the magic of the train? But how could I leave school and live with the fact? I wished my mother would decide for me. There was no pressure from her either way. The choice was mine. Tears flowed down my cheeks. I could not bring myself to break the pact regarding school that I had made with Mother. I could not abandon my dreams. The train would have to pass me by!

  In this phase of my life I inhabited a social space defined by Kahahu’s house, Baba Muũkũrũ’s house, and my father’s house. The three homesteads neighbored each other, though Baba Mũkũrũ’s was just a few yards ou
tside the boundary of Kahahu’s land. Though they could never erect insurmountable walls between them, the three centers represented three different models of modernity and tradition.

  Lord Reverend Kahahu’s modernity was visible in everything. He had had an elementary education, had trained as a reverend, and all his children attended school, two of them, Joana and Paul, becoming teachers. He always wore the white collar of his profession as a reverend; the entire family was always dressed in suits and dresses. He was the first to grow pyrethrum and an orchard of plums, the first to own oxen-pulled carriages and donkey-pulled carts, the first to introduce mule-pulled plows with the plowman at the handles, and the first to have a car and later a truck. His younger brother, Edward Matumbĩ, established the first wholly African-owned sawmill in the region. Lord Reverend Stanley Kahahu exuded modernity in his person and family.

  Their homestead, however, remained a mystery to me. I had never been beyond the outer gates. A thicket of pine trees surrounded the homestead, and I could only get glimpses of the house through gaps in the trees. But this changed when one day his wife, Lillian, invited the children of the families that worked on their land to a Christmas party.

  Christians or not, we all celebrated Christmas. On Christmas Eve, children and young men and women moved from house to house, in the dark, with handheld glass-covered paraffin lanterns, singing carols. On the actual day, one did not wait for a special invitation to a neighbor’s house for tea and homemade parathas. All homes, except those, like the Kahahus’, that saw themselves as modern, were open to passing guests. Most of the homes made similar dishes: a vegetarian affair of curry broth with potatoes and beans or peas. It was not a matter of choice. Whenever families could afford to, they would add chicken, beef, or lamb into the curry. Most homes could not afford baked bread from the Indian shops. But all families were experts at making parathas. A few pounds of wheat flour could produce many of these flat breads. We stuffed ourselves with them, and I have always associated Christmas with parathas and curry. It was a festive season for all equally; there were no special parties for children. So to be invited to a children’s Christmas party, moreover in the mysterious landlord’s house, was something new in our lives. We tried to look our best. This was years before I had even dreamt of attending school and wearing shorts and shirts. My younger brother and I were still in our cloth apparel but Mother made sure we were clean.