Chapter Three.
Nairobi, Kenya, 1986.
My political amnesia, if I may call it that, finally ended four or five years later in Nairobi, which even back then, some blaguers [“wags”] had begun to call “Nairobbery.” In 1986, I had no idea that my post-secondary studies would also be the initial phase of my political education. In fact, even my choice, the newly formed School of Agriculture and Enterprise Department of Kenyatta College, a branch of the University of Nairobi, may have been prompted by a subliminal attraction to the eponymous “founding father,” with whom Festus Nkwema was known to compare himself. (Remember: Ngongo’s dictator claimed to be a modernizer.)
Of course, Jomo Kenyatta (c.1897-1978) had died some eight years before my arrival in his country. By now, forty-four years have passed since his death, and the verdict of history has been decidedly mixed. For it turns out that, while in office, this iconic African socialist greatly enriched himself and his family, cutting deals with the most ruthless capitalists, many of them the countrymen of Kenya’s erstwhile colonial masters. This great champion of uhuru [“freedom”] and of pan-Africanism also imprisoned and executed numerous rivals. In 1969, he instigated a campaign of vicious ethnic cleansing against the Luo (the ranks of which include myself and Major Odhon’g). Also, among Kenyatta’s Luo victims was one of my leading modeles [“role models”], Tom Mboya (1930-1969).
My sea change from academic striver to committed insurrectionist was facilitated by my instructors and course books, as well as by events that I personally witnessed. Since this account of my life already seems in danger of being submerged in an ocean of historical and political facts, I will begin with the personal.
The hour of my arrival, I set out on foot from the city’s northern motor park in the direction of the University, which was to the northeast. I quickly found a room in the basement of a stone house owned by a respectable family in Chiromo, a neighborhood that I knew was an easy walk (3 km) from the University. I had been told this would be a good neighborhood in which to look for student accommodation, as opposed to those which, like Kibera, might have offered lower rentals, but were already crime-ridden.
I was drawn to a modest three-story brick building by a handwritten notice on its front gate. My landlord turned out to be (what else?) a government clerk, and his wife, a petty trader.
“How has this flat come to be available?” I asked, once the man had led me down to the clean, dark one-room basement of their home.
“We have been renting out the flat to students like you for several years now,” he explained, peering at me over half-spectacles. “Your predecessor was forced to suspend his studies and remove to his home village. No money,” was the frank, somewhat alarming explanation.
A quick calculation told me that the roll of bills in my suitcase would cover six months’ rent. This was assuming either that I did not eat, or that I could find a lucrative part-time job. Trying to keep my hand steady, I signed the one-year lease, and, from the small store in my wallet, counted out the sum for the first two months. A handshake sealed the deal.
As soon as he left me to go upstairs to his dinner, I unpacked my meager belongings. These included three extra pairs of socks, a modest quantity of underclothing, and a set of toiletries that my mother had helped pay for just before I left Mindouli. (I have always been a germaphobe.) I arranged these items on the shelf attached to the wall behind the small sink. From the suitcase, I also extracted a threadbare dress shirt and my one-and-only suit, a navy blue one too warm for most seasons, shiny with wear, and short in the sleeves and trouser legs. The shirt and suit I hung on one of three wire hangers the landlord had provided, which I hung, in turn, on the hook beside the small mirror. I told myself that I was keeping the other two hangers in reserve. The suitcase, I slid beneath the bed. Next, I tried the bed, which was too soft, especially after my eight-hour ride from Mindouli to Nairobi, in a matatu [“passenger van”] with shot springs, over highways that had become horribly potholed by now, a scant two decades after their construction. I lay there for a few minutes, willing myself not to fall asleep (since it was still early evening). As I rested, with my arms beneath my head on the thin, hard pillow, I determined to present myself at the University first thing in the morning, in order to sign up for courses. Then, I would proceed to the Office of Student Services to begin my search for a job.
After resting uneasily for a few minutes, thinking about this and that, I sprang back to my feet. For an obvious reason, I decided against hiding my money beneath the mattress. Instead, I left it where it was, in an old snuff tin inside the mesh pocket of the lid of the suitcase. This tin I had kept as a memento of my dad. Unlike him, however, I have never used snuff or cigarettes.
Then, I heated up the remaining half of the food my mother had packed (two boiled plantains and a hard-boiled egg) in a small pot, on a hotplate, both provided by the landlord. As I ate, I thought I had been very lucky in this, my first, task, finding a lodging. To keep myself awake until bedtime, I determined to take a long walk. With that decision, my political education began.
Since I would be going over to the University the next day, perhaps I should not have walked that way, but knowing human nature, you will understand why I did. This, despite the fact that The Nairobi Arboretum was also a short walk from Chiromo. But what did a city boy like me want with plants and trees? So I set out toward the northwest, estimating the distance to be only one-and-a-half kilometres. Since the ring road would not be constructed for several more decades, I was able to walk pretty much a vol d’oiseau [“as the bird flies”].
You should understand that, in the 1980’s, parts of “Nairobbery” like Chiromo were still relatively crime-free, even in the evening. Or, at least, there were other, respectable-looking citizens out strolling the streets, which was reassuring to an innocent, newly-arrived Ngongien boy not yet seventeen years of age. In other words, four years after the shocking revelations of my schoolfellow, Andre Ennyange, I was still very much a naif. But not for long!
About three minutes after I set out, still in quiet, residential Chiromo, I heard footsteps padding along the tarmac close behind me. When the person neither passed me nor turned off, I realized I was being followed. Trying to look as formidable as a youth of 190 centimetres and fifty-eight kilogrammes can possibly look, I wheeled around and held my hands flat and open, at hip level (which was incorrect, I would learn during the late 1990’s, when the first Jackie Chan movies swept across Africa).
With his features set in a grimace, my stalker was still there, about fifteen feet behind me. An older couple on the other side of the road, presumably out for their post-prandial stroll, stopped to gape at the imminent altercation. Facing the stalker, and glancing at the couple out of the corner of my eye, I had several of the silly, irrelevant thoughts to which I have since discovered I am prone, in dangerous situations. I quickly read the husband’s facial expression as apprehension at the prospect of being expected to intervene. I also understood that his motive for intervening would have been fear of looking like a coward in front of his wife. Ah, the contortions we manly men must endure! And do you, too, my male reader, fear being confronted from behind?
Thus prepared, or not, I was disappointed that the stalker did not seem more formidable. In fact, perhaps seven or eight years my senior, the fellow was as thin as myself, and only about 160 centimeters in height. He wore a blue suit not unlike the one in my room, except that it looked even more threadbare. He also wore a thin, tightly knotted red tie, a dirty white shirt, and dusty black chaussures attachees [“tie-up shoes”]. He was hatless.
“Do you mind, Sir, if I walk along with you,” he began, in high-pitched English with a rather unfamiliar accent. “I can see that you are heading in the direction of the University, which happens to be my own destination.”
Having studied English during my four years at the Institute, and since many visitors and refugees to Ngongo originated from anglophone countries, I found that I could readily understand him. If anything surprised me, it was how similar his English (though accented) was to that of my teachers.
Although still on guard, I shrugged, as if to say, “Why not?”
“Thank you, Sir, you are very kind,” he said, which raised my antennae even higher. “Perhaps, as we go along, I may tell you just a bit about myself?”
Another shrug. I was already anticipating a sob story that would lead to the “bite” -- a request for money. Could this man not see that I was probably as poor as he was?
He pressed on.“Without going into detail, let me say that I am on my way to the University to inquire as to whether they might permit me to enroll in their School of Medicine.”
Did the fool not realize that business hours had ended two hours before? Should I have told him this? Instead, I said, “Well, thank you for your company, but I would prefer to proceed alone, if you don’t mind. You see, I have some important business at the University first thing tomorrow morning, and I would like to think about it now.” Although they say the best lies contain elements of truth, my ploy did not succeed.
“No, again, Sir, I apologize, but I must beg your indulgence for a very few more minutes. In fact, I know a café very near here, where I would like to buy you a coffee.”
With this importunate invitation, the fellow, who was by now walking alongside me, had the temerity to seize my left hand in his right one. As he nattered on, he did not release my hand, although I tugged gently, in order to free it without provoking his anger. Was the man mad? You will understand that, even in the era before “gay rights” became an issue, same-sex couples in Africa would often hold hands. But not with strangers!
As I tugged, he kept talking. “Please, my friend.” I noted that I was no longer “Sir.” “Allow me to begin to tell you my story, and then you will decide whether I may continue.”
This tactic, or whatever it was, reminded me of a famous poem we had read at L’institut, in which an old seafarer detains a person on his way to a wedding party so that he can relate a lengthy narrative, from a motive I have forgotten. Although we read this poem in English class, I could recall only the French title, La Complainte du vieux marin.
While I was thinking about the poem, the stranger hurried into his story. “You see, two friends and I were medical students in Zimbabwe, and we became involved in the protests against corruption and lack of land reform, under the Mugabe regime.” As he spoke, the stranger still held my hand, but more loosely, as if he were trying to determine whether the story would keep me captive.
“When several members of our group were arrested, we knew that, under torture, they would likely reveal the names of the rest of us. So my two closest comrades and I, deciding to pool resources, fled the country.” A sidewise glance must have told him he needed to help things along. “Are you interested in that cup of coffee, friend?”
“Not really,” I replied. As I said before, I…”
He interrupted, now sounding flustered and resentful. “Well, then, I won’t detain you much longer. To finish the story, we managed to flee the country, first hitching a ride, then catching a ferry across the Zambezi into Zambia. With that, we were on…”
“Please stop!” I interrupted. “I must ask you to…”
But he rolled on. “Jumping to the present, we are now spending our nights in the central train station. Between bribing a guard to allow us to sleep there, and the small amount of food we must buy and eat—uncooked—just to stay alive, as well as the medicine for one of my friends, who has fever, we are down to our last few shillings.” The “bite” was imminent. “Could you possibly spare a 100-shilling note?” He could read refusal in my face. “A fifty, then? Twenty? Ten? Five?”
Each lowered request was met with a gesture of “no.” After the “five,” he turned on his heel and, as he strode away, he cursed me thrice. “You cheap fucking bastard! May your business of tomorrow, whatever the hell it is, end in disaster! I spit on your mother’s grave!”
Well! “What did I take,” you ask, “from this unpleasant encounter?” Thoughts that had been floating beneath my consciousness surfaced. There were so many desperate people in Africa; yesterday’s “freedom fighter” and “national hero” (Robert Mugabe) could become today’s oppressor; and an open city like Nairobi offered both great opportunity and great danger.
I have since learned a final, bitter truth: gifted Africans of promise can easily sink to the depths of degradation, through circumstances over which they have no control. That angry Zimbabwean beggar could have been me!
Image credit: National Museum of World Cultures via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
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