My Life in
Kenya
Part – 3
“Life does not
get better by chance, it gets better by change.” John Rohn
The winds of change continued
to blow in Kenya during the Mau Mau era. (1952/1960) It was a time of nervousness and trepidation
for everybody, especially those living in the up-country farms.
Freedom is not free.
The Kikuyu tribe were dominant
in the uprising, but sadly, their tribesmen suffered the most. Oath taking,
fear and witch-craft was their prime mode for recruiting supporters. Other
tribes, like the Luo, Wakamba, Kalenjin, and the proud Maasai took a back seat.
It is unbelievable, that the seeds for
freedom in Kenya was actually planted in
the 1930’s by Harry Thuku. We had no inkling, as to what was going on. We
were kept in the dark, safely, under a warm blanket, while the struggle for
equality and Uhuru went on. Many of the immigrants and our parents worried how Uhuru,
would affect us all. The attitude of, most Goans in Kenya, was the mantra,
“Ignorance is bliss and it is folly to be wise” especially in politics.
“When the
missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we
opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land." - Desmond Tutu
To be fair, the Missionaries
did a lot to educate the Africans, in the west, Maseno High School and closer to Nairobi Alliance High
School. Many, future, prominent politicians studied herein.
Now, proud to say that, there
were some Asians Nationalists who supported this cause and were incarcerated, because
of their affiliation with the Mau Mau. Indian Nationalism, started with India
trying to kick off the yoke of imperialism in India. There was also small
faction of Goans, in Kenya and abroad, who put their “susegaad” (easy going)
attitude on the back burner and who also fostered an, Anti-Portuguese, propaganda.
They were agitating to get the Portuguese out of Goa, for better or for the worse!
Man’s inhumanity to man. - Robert Burns
The British were not as gentlemanly
as we were taught to believe. Sadly, they tortured a lot of their prisoners and
massacred quite a few. They also did this in India. They looted these countries
of valuables and natural resources and manpower. They gave in one hand and took
with the other. Much to their credit, the British, have recently agreed to pay
compensation for their atrocities in Kenya.
Nineteen Fifty
Three….. Was a busy Year. A new queen, Queen Elizabet II was on the throne,
aaaaand,
it was the birth of
the “East African Rallye” safari. It was then called the “Coronation Safari”
and only the Mzungu, white settlers took part. Few years later, a lot of Asians
took part, mainly in little VW’s. Volvos
Datsuns and DKW’s,
as these were cars that could be modified and strengthened at a lower cost. It
was not an occasion for speed, it was more of endurance and skill. A well know Rallye
driver is known to have said, “If I used my head more, instead of my foot, I
would win more rallies.” It was not an
event for speed or “Put the pedal to the metal”. Eventually the East African
Rally, gained prominence among a lot of overseas, professional Rallye drivers, but
they did not win for many years, the local drivers dominated.
They
knew the terrain and when to go off road and take calculated risks. Finally,
the overseas drivers
got
the upper hand as they had professional support teams, following them with air
support and spare
parts,
and factory trained service crew. Smarter ones, partnered with local,
navigator/driver.
Later
on, Tanzania and Uganda were included in the route and so the starting point
was also shared.
It
was about a 3000 miles event and went on from Holy Thursday to Easter Monday.
Yes, a four-day,
holiday,
weekend, when I landed in the USA/Virginia, I was shocked that, Easter was just
like a regular
weekend,
I had to take vacation, to get time off.
O’
my gosh! It is Holy week! The very prestigious “Gold Cup” hockey tournament is
on, got my transistor Radio, try listening to the Padre, in church, and or rush
off to the City Park Stadium, walking via the City Park woods, which bordered
Pangani. Eyes on the hockey game, but ears listening to the progress of the Safari
Rallye on the radio. Teams from all East Africa, came to partake in this very popular
Hockey tourney. It was played on Murram (earth packed field), very fast and
furious. Never a dull moment. Next, go downtown Nairobi, to the City Hall the
check the 24hr. scoreboard for the latest Rallye results. If you were lucky,
may be a buddy with a car would take you to some strategic point on the rally
route.
Nineteen
Fifty-Three. Was also the year the sleek BOAC Comet, my all-time favorite aircraft, was first
seen
in Nairobi. Sooo, sleek…. And what, no propellers. I think it was first Jet
engine passenger aircraft.
Unfortunately,
there were a few serious crashes and it was grounded, with fuselage breaking-up
problems.
By now our lease on the house
in Parkland ended, and a house hunting we had to go. We moved to a place in the
newer section of Eastleigh, on the road to the R.A.F. Aerodrome. The houses
were all one level building, usually with a rectangular courtyard and rooms on
three side, shared toilet and kitchen were at one end. But you know, sports,
music, and parties are in our blood and as you cannot keep good Goan guys down,
a lot of these courtyards were utilized to play badminton or volleyball,
keeping us out of mischief. They were also used to hold parties, and dutifully
decorated. These houses in Kenya were built of solid stone upon stone and
mortar, no frail wood framework, drywall or sheetrock. No special
sitting room, or bedroom or
bathroom or laundry room, hence no my room, your room, arguments.
My commute to the Dr. Riberio
Goan school was now a little difficult, had to take the local bus,
to Ngara, and then had a twenty
minute, walk. The school had one school bus, it only covered a certain area and,
eventually it was only used, taking us for Soccer and Hockey engagements.
On our way to school, were
vendors, with handcarts selling peanuts, sugarcoated or plain and other
sweets. Some vendors sold the
strangest fruits, Victorias, (with salt and chili powder.) Papettas, etc.
The local Africans cooked Mogo
(Cassava) strips served with chili powder salt and lemon, and fresh mahindi
(Corn-on-the-cob) cooked on top of the open fire of the jicho.
We must have been a hardy breed, they would dish-out these
goodies. Like semi ripe mangos cut them with a rusty old knife and again served with salt and chili powder, Finger
licking good, yummy, hygiene was left in
the classroom. At home, no confusions with forks and knives spoons.
Ngara was a central spot for shops like Mithai
(Indian Sweets), Saris and other commodities. For a lot of the public buses
(Kenya Bus Svc) this was where they dispersed to different destinations. We would buy our comic and
magazines and candy here. The strange thing was that, some comics we bought had
the front cover ripped off.? Many years later I became aware for the reason of this
shady practice. I gathered they would send the covers back to the source that supplied
them the comic/magazines and claim they were unsold, and hence get some refund.
The houses in this part of
Eastleigh, were not as crowded as section I & II. There was fair amount of
space between houses, and at the back large tracts of grassland bordering to
the R.A.F. perimeter. One would often see partridges running through the grass.
They were reluctant to fly. After the rains, one would find strings of frog eggs
and later on tadpoles and some strange creatures swimming together with some mosquito larvae. (In
the USA, when I collected a few tadpoles in a jar and took them home to show my
kids, I was dismayed, as when I added some tap water, they bellied up and died.
I guess I should have let the tap water standing
for some time to get rid of additive like fluorine and chlorine.)
In Kenya we were taught that we
could “clean our water” by dissolving alum, which when dissolved would float at the top, left
standing for a time it would sink, taking down particulate matter. (flocculation)
Our drinking water was usually
boiled. As we had no refrigerator’s, it was poured in a gourd shaped semiporous, large, clay,
earthen vessel, it got wet on the outside and evaporation did the cooling.
Water was scooped up with a large ladle, later models had a little tap. In Goa,
they used clay pots for all their cooking, and the food was very much more,
flavorful. Spoons were made of polished coconut shell.
On special festival days, food
was served on a banana leaf. Fish was also baked wrapped in these leaves.
My favorite was a kind of
sweetened rice floor dough wrapped in Turmeric leave and steamed. (Turmeric
leaves are large and aromatic and have the taste and flavor of arrow mint and
spearmint.)
We survived aluminum cookware.
Most of our pots and pans were made of this material, and I vividly recall how
spotted and pitted the appearance of these pots were, as much or our cooking
was spicy and acidic and cooked with vinegar. How much of aluminum leached in
our food is a question that now bothers me. As, now, when I hide Easter eggs I
have trouble finding them….yippee, I do not need anyone to hide them for me !
Necessity
is the mother of invention, our semi perishable food was stored in a free-standing
cabinet with fine wire netting, we termed “meat safe”, to keep flies away etc.
But ants would try to invade, so we tried putting the four legs of the meat-safe
in cans with water, a mini moat. Worked for a time, until some dust floated on
the water, and the ants would make an ant bridge. We also used a curly sticky
strip, hanging from the ceiling, that was supposed to trap flying pests. If all that failed, we had the Flit Pump,
which sprayed a thine mist of insecticide. Meats and fish were cooked on the
day of purchase. Milk was always
boiled, it was usually full
cream milk, and after boiling, as it cooled a firm layer of cream would float
on the top, I would often skim
it off add some sugar beat it and then enjoy it. I would use a couple of days
of this collection to make my toffee fudge. We also collect this solidified
cream for a couple of weeks, then beat it up cook it lightly to produce ghee.
(clarified butter). We used ghee to pop our popcorn.
Years later milk was sold in a
three-sided pyramid shaped container, called Tetra Pak, and was less creamy, and
was….. Pasteurised…. (Past ur eyes)….Heee heeee! We did not have refrigerators.
My recipe for Sweet Toast….I took
a slice of bread. Buttered it. Sprinkled it with sugar. Slide it under the
Jicho, until the sugars begin to melt and got brown, and crunchy. (When cooled).
Now you can use a toaster oven, on the grill setting. Yummy. (Do not touch the
brown sticky melted sugar, let it cool first)
I digressed. (Eastleigh/RAF
House). Frequently there would be grassfires in these areas. After a fire, I
would go looking for spent tracer bullet shells, always an exciting find for a
kid. These must have been from the R.A.F. shooting range. In this neighborhood
there were mostly Somali’s and Seychellois family’s. We eventually moved to a flat.
(a self-contained apartment). Now we had a fulltime African servant to do the
house work and he lived in what was termed “the boys quarters” their employment
was termed “house boy”. This is where I would “sneak a snack” when Mia was not
looking, and enjoy my Ugali (corn flour dough made by boiling it.) posho, (beans)
Sukuma weekie (Kale/collard greens) and my favorite, Irio, a mashed mish-mash
of legumes, mahindi (corn), and nyama-choma…. barbecued meat was sometime on
the menu.
The parish church St. Thresa’s,
then, was a small chapel. Always crowded. Eventually a larger,
more modern church was built. The
unique thing was they did away with church bells, what they had
instead was amplifiers and
speakers with the sound of bells. However, this did not last long as there
were a lot of complaints about
them being too loud and harsh? The old
chapel was now used for meetings and during Christmas, full sized crèches were
housed. The best cribs were made by the Italian church
in Westland, Consolata Mission Church.
It is strange now, looking back to realise
that the Catholic churches, Holy Family down town,
St. Francis Xavier, in
Parkland, St. Theresa’s in Eastleigh was dominated by Goans parishioners.
Most of the clergy were Irish.
The church in the river road area St. Peter Clavier was predominantly African.
(This was the church we went to after a late-night dance or party as it had the
earliest Mass Svc.
Yes, it was ingrained in us
never to miss Sunday Mass) Later on the Italian, Consolata Mission, and Church
in Westland’s was also attended by many Goan parishioners. My first son was
baptized there.
We were more Catholic than the
Pope, Sunday morning Mass, evening Benediction service, Monday evening,
Miraculous Medal Novena and Wednesday Our Lady of Perpetual Succor Novena, and
every Friday was a day of abstinence…Strictly no meat.
He who builds a fence, fences out more than he fences in…….
In writing this soliloquy,
has opened my mind, as to what it was like it was like to have been a Goan,
from the inside-out. We did not integrate with other Indian communities or
treat the African as equals. Maybe it was an inbreed cultural, human trait, of fear
and survival. Sadly, we looked up and salaamed the Europeans, (the only people
I called Sir, was our teachers), we looked down on other Indians and especially
Africans. Our schools were, kind of segregated, and it was only the lucky few
and very intelligent Goan students and those who could afford it went to High
School, where there was some diversity of Indians, but still, a very few Africans.
It was only at the Collage, University level (Royal Collage, Makerere Collage)
that one saw an International and African mix.
Beauty is (not) only
skin deep. Our evaluation of “good lookin” was to be light skinned…. We did not
seem to appreciate the finer points of a darker hued Goan. What can I say, from
the side lines we admired and ogled the Ismaili girls? Boys will be boys, we
grew up with a lot of these biases and misconceptions.
“In prayer, it is better to have a heart
without words, than words without a heart.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Religions also
contributed to segregation and cultural isolation, among us Indians. Passing a Hindu
temple, I was intrigued by the color and various images of their Gods. Deities, with several pair of hands, and
another with an Elephants head, riding a mouse. It would have been very
interesting for some enlightenment. After all is said and done it was part of
our heritage. We enjoyed Diwali from the sidelines. Religious, imaginary always
has a meaning and would have been enriching and broadminded, to be aware of their
religions significant, and representation. If a Hindu boy visited a Catholic
church, saw images of Jesus Christ on the cross and Dove above His head, Angels
with wings, stained glass windows of St. George and the dragon and images St.
Matthew, Mark, Luke & John emblems of winged lion, winged bull, etc. and asked me to explain, The Holy Trinity, One
God, I would not know where or how to start. You know, the Muslims firmly
believe that God should not be portrayed in graphic form. Sadly, the religious
education I got was, “Who made you? Why did God make you? Which we had to learn by rote.
It was bitter pill for me to swallow when I
learned of the Portuguese atrocities committed in proselytizing and bringing
Christianity to Goa, where there was also a period of a painful Inquisition. It
is men’s holier than thou, attituded, that causes so much strife and misery,
often in the name of religion.
It was amazing to
know that the Apostle, St. Thomas was in neighboring, Kerala so much earlier than
St. Francis Xavier in Goa.
Sorry to go off on a
tangent……..
Here is an extract
from William Dalrymple’s article in
the “The Guardian” on Kerala.
Quote…..
(Converts by St Thomas the
Apostle of Jesus in Kerala)
Thomas Christians was reduced
to ashes in the 16th century - not by Muslims or Hindus, but by a newly arrived
European Christian power: the Portuguese. As far as the Portuguese colonial
authorities were concerned, the St Thomas Christians were heretics, an idea
confirmed by their belief in astrology and reincarnation, and the Hindu-style
sculptures of elephants and dancing girls found carved on their crosses
The Inquisition was brought in, and the
historical records of the St Thomas Christians put to the flame. Yet the old
stories did survive, locked in the minds and memories of Christians in
inaccessible Keralan backwaters.
In
songs and dances passed on from father to son and teacher to pupil, they
preserved intact many of their most ancient traditions. Scholars now believe that
if the answer to the riddle of the legends of St Thomas lies anywhere, it is in
this rich and largely unstudied Keralan oral tradition.
If
St Thomas had carried Christianity to India, it is likely that he would have
taken a distinctly more Jewish form than the Gentile-friendly version developed
for the Greeks of Antioch by St Paul and later exported to Europe. Hence the
importance of the fact that some of the St Thomas Christian churches to this
day retain Judeo-Christian practices long dropped in the west - such as the
celebration of the solemn Passover feast.
Hence
also the significance of the St Thomas Christians still using the two earliest
Christian liturgies in existence: The Mass of Addai and Mari, and the Liturgy
of St James, once used by the early Church of Jerusalem. More remarkable still,
these ancient services are still partly sung in Aramaic, the language spoken by
Jesus and St Thomas.
200
Roman trading vessels a year were making the annual journey to the bazaars of
Malabar and back. More intriguing still, analysis of Roman coin hoards in India
has shown that the Roman spice trade peaked exactly in the middle of the first
century AD. All this showed that if St Thomas had wanted to come to India, the
passage from Palestine, far from being near-impossible, would in fact have been
easier, more frequent and probably cheaper than at any time in the next 1,500
years - until Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to the Indies in 1498.
Unquote.
I started this opus with
tongue-in-cheek, que sera, sera, attitude. It seems that the newer generation
found it hard to swallow. I realise it was, probably overwhelming, tedious, long
winded, and beyond their ken.
Thankfully, it is the
complements that I received from friend and others who read it, was very
heart-warming and up lifting, I feel very fulfilled and gratified. There is nothing more precious, like a pat on
the back, from old friends, good friends and others.
Somebody once said, “You can
take us out of Kenya, but cannot take Kenya out of us.”
Thank You One & All…Very
much Appreciate the encouragement I received to write these essays/.
Sincerely, Thank You So Very
Much.
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