Kenya, Will You Marry Me?

16. The waters are bitter

151 16 The waters are bitter Y ou know I love you all. I love you Pamoja, I love you Umoja. De Gado, Eboni, Ang’ and Hariri, you know it. You know my love Nyaga and Gige, you saw it. If I have to ask you, Pamoja, you who reminds me of Umoja, Unity, in the oneness and the healing of Afrika, where can it be found? Pamoja, will you answer me? How many years must we bear pain till we know that marriage to Change is worth our hearts and minds? There were hardly any girls from a family that struggled with needs like mine in my class in the wonderful school I went to. They were rich. And yet, their fathers had not fought for freedom and got betrayed with independence. But they had more than us in every way. The doors of the great schools which we only went to by chance opened up widely for them. Years after attending this school, I found myself in a school for villagers like me. That is where a classmate threatened me. The change was big but I was now more at home. My friends and I worked hard. We were secondary top performers in the country. Even after the hard work, still our rich friends found their way more easily. They left our country and went to study in private universities abroad. Now, some of them have things our eyes cannot look at without burning. Things we have not seen and may never use all our lives. They have sports cars and motorbikes that look like metal horses. They say these are made for the rough terrain that is found in Africa. They speak with tongues that make many say these are not Africans. But they speak about things to be bought. They do not speak about freedom. They do not speak about land. They are not Europeans or Afrikans of the village type. I do not mind how 152 Kenya, will you marry me? they speak. No. I care about what they see and think about change. But their minds are caught up in the snare of rolling tongues that speak about high spending. Uro my best friend at Upper Primary School was a Minister’s daughter. One day, when we are still in primary school but on holidays, I call her from a phone booth. It is the only one for miles around. I have had to walk far. The phone rings in their house. Uro says that she wants to come home to our crooked house. She wants to come from the Nairobi suburbs of Muthaiga where they play tennis and eat liquorices to my village house. I shout joyfully. A boy in the village is stalking me. He is hiding behind the phone booth. He spreads word that I was pretending there was someone on the phone since there was no one to be seen on the other side, behind the booth. He says that I should be feared since he hears me, he says, pretend to talk in English in the phone booth like an English woman. He says am changed and strange. I go home taking care that I do not fall into his hands. He is a hard home-made bully who is angry with any difference he sees. How could he tolerate Change? I walk confidently. I have no idea that my happiness that Uro wants to come to the muddy side of life, is a great sign of my power. Mami smiles and trembles to hear I want to bring the minister’s daughter to our bamboo and mud home. I was so happy to do so, but Mami, she is afraid. She tells me we cannot afford high class visitors and that I should concentrate on making dolls and trying to feed them. Uro had to tell her parents where we live. Uro is not coming. Her parents refuse to bring her home. She says she wants to take a public vehicle, and they say an even firmer no. She was reminded that they did not even go to visit parents’ village in another part of the country. There, her parents fear she would be bewitched. At home we have no witchcraft as far as I can see. Her parents do not want their tall daughter who speaks a different tongue to visit us. Uro and I both cry. She had not seen grandmothers like Shosho Gige and her...