My mother was among those who had joined the Mau Mau group of fighters fighting for the freedom of Kenya. She was placed in detention together with her baby girl, Joyce, during that period of time. When she was released, Joyce was already walking and had lost one temporary tooth and a lower permanent tooth […]
When the state of emergency was declared in 1954, native Kenyans were ordered by the colonial government to leave their farms. Many went to live in the Village (Gīchagi) for security purposes. As the Mau Mau war of independence raged on, fear spread everywhere in the country. My father, who was a freedom fighter, was
Flashback: The Mau Mau War of Independence in Kenya. Read More »
My Childhood in the Shamba (Farm). We lived in a shamba (a white settler’s farm) in Rift Valley, Kenya, during the colonial era. My father worked as a cook for the white settlers, and my mother as a gardener in the white mistress’ flower garden. On the days my father was home or off duty, he
Life in the Shamba Read More »
My mother’s visit to the US. I had realised that mothers in the US showed their children their fathers. I opened up to my mother and inquired more information about my biological father. At the time my father who I knew all my life had died at age at eighty years. I started explaining to
Challenges in the Diaspora – PART VI Read More »
The biological father. Later on I learned in the US that the children of unmarried mothers knew their biological fathers and the fathers attended to their activities wherever the child lived. In our time, it wasn’t so in the Gīkūyū community. Once a mother wasn’t married to the father of her baby, the guy paid
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The snow sleet. I had not seen snow before, neither knew of the sleet. I was dressed in summer clothes on a very cold winter morning and wearing sandals. And I was walking to school and stepped on the slit and I fell backward and I was hit hard on my end of the bottom
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School begins. In the spring semester 1984, we all began school. The late Jotham Wandu joined the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), and the children went to Oglethorpe Elementary school which was located next to ITC. I attended Morris Brown College, which was close to both ITC and Oglethorpe Elementary. Thus, our life’s journey in the
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The weather. We dressed in summer clothes. Inside airports at Amsterdam and Atlanta were heating, we were warm. The Ben family, our close friends, received us upon our arrival at Hartsfield Airport, and they came along with a few other Kenyans. Our first stop after landing would be the Ben family house. Soon after we
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Naomi in the Moab Diaspora – Book of Ruth My spouse. About eight years ago, I lost my spouse. The story of Naomi in the Bible bridges some connections to my own life. Naomi’s husband and two sons died in the diaspora. I would like to share those relations today. Naomi lived in Moab, diaspora
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