Dogs in the Sun

Chapter Four

39 Dogs in the Sun Chapter Four W injala the Crude returned to Nwemba and found his house on the ground with ants living in the bamboos. The day he arrived he sat in the ruins and looked at the other houses as they stood proudly in the sun. Anger and sadness filled him, and he bowed his head and mumbled: “I am back in my village, but I am homeless.” He bit his lips, then added: “My house fell because I left it and went to work for the white man. I made a mistake.” My uncle Abua saw what had happened and offered him a house in his compound where he could live until his fallen house was up again. The day he came to Winjala with the offer the newcomer sat him under a plum tree not far from the ruins and said to him: “You are giving me a house today because you built it and stayed here to look after it.” “You built too. Only that yours has fallen.” “Where was I when it was falling?” “Why? You were working for the white man.” “And what have I brought back?” “That work fed your family.” “Who is happier today, I who went to work for the white man or you who stayed here in your village and took care of your house?” “Winjala, those two things each have their own place. You who went to work for the white man achieved something. Those of us who stayed behind in our village achieved our own thing.” 40 G. D. Nyamndi “What have I brought back from serving the white man? What? Even the house I left behind is no longer standing?” “You cannot think of what you gained only in terms of this house that has fallen. Think also of the many other things which you learnt from the white man and which those of us who stayed here do not know. Remember my own days there.” Winjala let go a tiny smile, then said reminiscing: “When you traded in dry fish.” “Yes, you remember those days, so when I talk about the white man it is the talk of someone talking about pear with the thing in his mouth.” Winjala never wanted to hear that. His whole body seemed impervious to anything that put the white man in a positive light. “Abua, what has the white man put in your heads?” “Nothing that he has not put in your own head.” “The white man cannot put anything in my head.” “At least you worked for him and received his orders.” “I cut grass. That grass is not different from the grass in my farm. It is not his grass. He did not bring any grass here.” “He brought other things which you use.” “That is what you will always say. He also met things here which he uses.” “His medicine house.” “Did we not have medicine places? Do we not still? And our birds. What does he want behind them?” “He is learning things about them that you and I will never know.” “Thieves. Those people are all thieves. Each time he touches any of our birds he turns them into nothing birds.” “Your birds run away from you.” “Ha! ha! That’s how they can remain real birds, not the woman birds we have now because a white medicine man has spoiled their heads.” 41 Dogs in the Sun “Show out your hand too let me see whether any bird will stand on it.” “Why do you want me to change our birds into woman birds, nothing birds? That is what the white man does to anything he touches. He changes it into a woman thing. Look at all the people in Meamba. They are like women now. Since the other one in a long white kaba came and started talking to them in the ngomba house he built, they have all become women. Is that what you want the people of Nwemba to be?” This last way of talking won many people to Winjala’s side. The men shook with fear when they thought of what would happen to them if the white man came into the village; how he would come from nowhere and transform all of them into women; and before doing that he would first gather their animals into one corner of the village and stop the villagers...