Writing for Kenya
Page 18
My parents later moved to one room on the ground fl oor. It was still
very diffi
cult for my mother as she had to keep going up and down the
stairs to cook, bath and collect water. By now she had three children in
one room. Th
e rent was three pounds fi ft y a week—half of my father’s
weekly wages. Aft er three and a half years there and expecting a fourth
child, my mother had had enough. She sent my father out to look for
a bigger place. He found a house, and by selling his shares, and adding
this amount to his savings from his newspaper enterprise in Kenya, he
was in a position to purchase a fi ve-bedroom terraced house. Th
e house
cost three thousand pounds, and it took my father eleven years to pay
off the mortgage by renting out some rooms and also from his wages
as a guard with the London Underground.
In January 1959 we moved to our new home, a terraced house in
Islington, North London. When my mother fi rst saw the house she
cried—she could not believe that the family fi nally had their own home.
Th
is is where we were all raised and my mother still resides there fi ft y
years on. At the time we moved, I was three years old (having been
born in 1955), my sister Juliet was eleven months younger than me and
Peter was ten months younger than Juliet. I remember arriving in a
big maroon moving van. My mother was expecting another baby, my
brother Joe, who was the fi rst to be born in our new house later that
year. By this time my mother’s health had started to deteriorate due to
bronchitis, and doctors had advised her not to have any more children.
However, she refused to use birth control and went on to have three
more children: Margaret in 1960, David in 1962 and Simon in 1964.
By the time I was nine all seven children had been born. Every time
a child was born in London, my parents would send a letter home, a
goat would be slaughtered and a celebration took place at the house of
my grandmother and sisters in Nairobi, the house where my mother
had grown up.
We fi rst lived on the ground fl oor of our new house. We had a front
and back garden. Th
ere were tenants who lived on the fi rst and top
the muoria family in london—a memory
109
fl oor. As we got older my parents stopped renting rooms out because
of our increasing need for more space. Aft er the long struggle my par-
ents had had initially, trying to settle in a foreign country, they were
overjoyed when their prayers were answered, fi nally fi nding a place of
their own.
School and everyday life
My parents were very keen that we all do well at school. My father
bought the Children’s Encyclopedia Britannica for us in 1965. Our
family was bi-lingual. Gikuyu was the language spoken at home. It
wasn’t until I went to school that I was properly exposed to English. I
recall that during the fi rst week at school we were being taught a song.
I was so proud of learning my fi rst English song that when I returned
home I sang it to my parents. All they did was laugh at me and correct
me, as it was obvious that I had mixed Gikuyu and English, inventing
a unique new language. Apparently I was very angry with my parents
when they tried to correct me, especially as I felt I knew the song and
they did not. Further embarrassment occurred when I was about seven
years old. At school we were told to write down our full names, mine
being Jean Wangari Mwaniki. I had never written down ‘Wangari’,
the name used at home. I asked the teacher how to spell it, and to my
surprise she replied rather rudely, ‘If you don’t know how to spell your
name, how on earth am I going to know?’ At this age, I don’t think I
had realised that my background was from another country. My parents
may have mentioned it to me but for a child it was diffi
cult to grasp. I
did notice, however, that I was the only black girl in my class although
there were one or two others in the school.
Th
e following year my sister Juliet started at the same school. I
thought she would be together with me and I remember I was so disap-
pointed that she was in another class. She also wanted to stay with me.
I went to her classroom and told the teacher that she was my sister and
that I would like to take her to my class. Somehow I was allowed to do
this and she never returned to that other class. We spent the fi rst year
in the same class. Peter joined the following year with no problems.
However, when Joe started, his fi rst day was a disaster, he cried and
cried all day. Eventually, the Headmistress called me and asked me what
strategy my parents used to stop us from crying? I remember telling
the Headmistress, whose name was Miss Cross, that our Dad would
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chapter three
take his belt off and pretend to be about to smack us. Miss Cross did
this and Joe immediately stopped crying and put his arms around her
waist. My younger sister Margaret had no problems—she was a bright
girl. However, David the second youngest had a bad experience on his
fi rst day. As we were not well-to-do, the other children mocked him
for the clothes he was wearing. David, who was quite shy, felt very bad
and decided never to say a word throughout his six years in primary
school. Th
e school thought that he could not speak, but we would tell
them that at home he did speak. As he got older he came out of his
shell and in secondary school he surprised the whole family and people
who knew him by excelling in gymnastics and art and acting on stage.
Simon, the youngest, was like Margaret and had no problems in start-
ing school life. Fortunately our school was just round the corner, so
mum would look out of her kitchen window, waving to us. Because we
were diff erent, we were teased at school. Th
e other children followed
us home singing the theme tune from the American comedy sitcom
‘Th
e Adams Family’ substituting ‘Adams’ with ‘Th
e Mwaniki Family’.
We were also teased because of our relative poverty.
In the early sixties, black people were referred to as coloured people,
and the term black was, at that time, derogatory. At the age of ten I
remember my fi rst racial encounter with a (white) boy in my class. We
were calling each other names. I called him freckle face and he called
me fl at nose. I was off ended by this and retaliated that I did not have
a fl at nose. When I got home that evening, I told my parents what the
boy had called me, and to my surprise my father confi rmed that the
boy was right. He said that it was a characteristic of all Negro people.
First of all I had never heard of the word Negro, and as there were
not many black people around I had not realised that many of us had
fl at noses. I began to look closely at all the black people I came across
from then on.
My father was the only wage earner. He worked for the London
Underground as a guar
d. He found the work dull, but luckily his
outlook meant that he would turn a negative situation into something
positive. As his job was not very challenging, he was able to engage in
creative thinking and daydreaming. Th
is is how he himself describes
the condition in one of his manuscripts:
Being forced by circumstances beyond one’s control to earn one’s living
in a monotonous type of job, and while one happens to be of a philo-
sophic inclination like me could prove to be very frustrating indeed. In
order to avoid the grinding sense of monotony, I felt impelled to form
the muoria family in london—a memory
111
a habit whose purpose served as well as an outlet of my day dreaming,
which was to develop the habit of noting down some of the interesting
ideas which might come to my mind now and then while still engaged
in carrying on my job.4
He always felt that his real work was in writing and being creative.
Although rooms were rented out while we were small, my parents
struggled to raise seven children. My mother stayed at home looking
aft er us. She was in chronic poor health and suff ered from bronchitis,
which was triggered by the cold winters. It made it very diffi
cult for her
to climb the stairs. On account of our mother’s poor health, our father
had to clean, feed us and take us to school. My mother recalls,
Your father was very helpful, even while he was still at work. When he
came home he would come and help me wash the nappies, he went shop-
ping, he would cook because I was very ill from asthma. When Simon was
four I was sick and had to go to the hospital. Muoria had to stop work
to look aft er the children. We had to phone my mother to help us with
some money. He had to take special leave. Th
is was around 1968.5
By this time, when I was around fourteen years old, my father had
stopped working in order to look aft er my mother and their seven
children. In order to help the family with fi nances the eldest children
started to work for some hours on Saturdays. My father also took a
break from writing as this was a stressful time for him. Later, aft er some
years, he resumed his writing activities. Th
e family economy was stretched
and my parents could not aff ord to buy us new clothes. My father had
bought a Singer sewing machine and taught himself to sew. I remember
being very proud one year when he made my sisters and me a wonderful
light blue anorak each, and zip-up strapless bags for our books. All our
friends at school admired us. Being the eldest in London I was lucky
to sometimes have new clothes, which would then be handed down.
We had the same shoes, socks, and uniform all year round.
My mother recalls,
He used to sew clothes for the children because he knew that clothes are
very expensive, and he learned himself. He said, “I can buy material.” He
used to make my dresses too. . . . Th
ings were not expensive, but wages
4 ‘Th
e dilemma which faced me as an African parent whose children were born in
London and wanted to know more about Africa’, in Let the Truth Cast the Mau Mau Curse, unpublished manuscript, 1968, n.p.
5 Interview with Ruth Muoria, London, July 2000.
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chapter three
were low—seven pounds a week. Where we rented it was three and a
half a week.6
Seeing the struggle my parents were having the doctors at one point
recommended that they put their seven children in care. However, our
parents felt bad enough that their children were being brought up so
far away from their true home, and could not imagine their children
being separated and taken even further away from our small African
family unit into strange English homes. Regardless of my mother’s
poor health our parents insisted on raising and keeping us together.
Th
e crisis was overcome and the family stayed together.
In diffi
cult periods we relied on God. We were brought up as Chris-
tians and were taught how to pray. We prayed that God would heal
our mother. On one occasion she heard about a healing service and
decided to attend. To the doctors’ astonishment the bronchitis was
healed. Later the other health problems also went.
Unlike in Kenya, my parents had no extended family like aunts and
uncles, or even neighbours to ease the burden of raising a large family.
It must have been very lonely for my parents. Had we lived in Kenya,
we would have regularly visited aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Besides
his family in London, my dad was a very lonely man. He did not have
many friends. Th
e job he was doing was not satisfying. However, my
parents were able to keep up with what happened in Kenya through
contact with through the transient Kenyan community in London—men
and women who came and went. Some pursued education and training,
others were involved in politics.
My mother tells,
It was a hard life here. We had no family here. However, there were other
Kenyans, some were studying here but they lived in diff erent places. . . . We used to meet at East African House in Hyde Park.7 Th
ey used to visit, we
would cook food. Th
ey’d say, ‘Oh. when you come to Nuna you have to
eat a lot.’ Some people came, and when they went home they would tell
my mother how I welcome them and cook for them. My mother said, ‘I
was happy to hear how you welcome people.’ When we came to Kenya
they would invite us, remembering the day we invited them here. People
were travelling, they came to see us and we came to know about home.
We also used to send photographs.8
6 Interview with Ruth Muoria, London, July 2000.
7 Prominent Kenyans in London included Charles Njonjo, Mbiyu Koinange and
Munyna Waiyaki.
8 Interview Ruth Muoria, London, July 2000.
the muoria family in london—a memory
113
Families in England and Kenya were united through the ties of hos-
pitality. Th
ese connections were very important for my parents who
otherwise sometimes felt a little lost in Britain.
Leisure
In the evening and on days off my father would usually work at his
manual typewriter, which was propped up on a chair, tapping away at
the keys. He was working on his manuscripts and keeping in contact
with family and friends in Kenya. He also read many books and news-
papers, wanting to be informed of developments and news in Kenya and
around the world. We went to church regularly. When my father took
us to church on Sundays, he would sometimes race us home. Church
in those days was poorly attended, but we had to go. Th
e church choir
consisted mainly of the seven Mwaniki children. We faced racism in
church and our parents would discuss the issues that came up with us,
but they did not stop us from going. One Easter when my brother Peter
acted as Jesus he was told by the Sunday school teacher to turn around
and not face the con
gregation, as Jesus was not black. My father told
us that these people were ignorant and that we were all equal in God’s
eyes. Th
ere were times when the vicar would refer to us as the black
kids‚ a derogative term at the time, which hurt our feelings. I suppose
this made us stronger people, more resilient.
We spent much of our time playing in the garden. My father bought
us a swing, which made us very popular in the neighbourhood—our
small garden became like a local park. It was a very lively and fun
time. When the swing broke the children slowly stopped coming, but
as soon as it had been repaired, they all came back, knocking at the
door. Sometimes my brothers and sisters would stage a concert in our
garden for our parents and neighbours who watched from the window,
and we would sing songs that we had learnt at school and on the radio.
From time to time our parents would take us to the local park. Sensibly,
we were not allowed to play on the streets. My mother was fearful of
strangers, cars and unruly behavior from other children whose parents
did not seem to worry how long their children played outside.
Holidays were but a dream. My parents could not aff ord to take a
large family out of London. However, they did their best in taking us
to funfairs and parks. Going out always proved to be very embarrass-
ing. My mother would panic and take a roll call of all the children’s
names to make sure we had all got on the bus. Th
is would make us an
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chapter three
attraction for the other passengers—a large African family excursion.
One day, when I was twelve, my father took us all to the park and
left me in charge. He told us to stay and play where he had left us.
However, I decided to cross over to the other side where there were
swings. Unbeknown to me, my father had returned and searched for us
all over the entire park. While swinging at a great height I noticed him
walking angrily towards the exit of the park. I shouted to my brothers
and sisters and together we ran out screaming. I had never seen him so
angry—he thought he had lost his entire family. What would he have
told my mother? We walked home in disgraced silence.
For recreational purposes my father would go to the local betting
offi
ce where people nicknamed him Jim. Th