Teeth: Six Missing.
Scars, Tribal Marks, or Other Peculiarities: None.
Toward the back of the book, we found the particulars of employment, signed and testified to by various employers.
Capt. C. Harford of Nairobi’s Government House said that Onyango performed his duties as personal boy with
admirable diligence. Mr. A. G. Dickson found his cooking excellent-he can read and write English and follows any
recipes...apart from other things his pastries are excellent. He no longer needed Onyango’s services since I am no
longer on Safari. Dr. H. H. Sherry suggested that Onyango is a capable cook but the job is not big enough for him. On
the other hand, Mr. Arthur W. H. Cole of the East Africa Survey Group says that after a week on the job, Onyango was
found to be unsuitable and certainly not worth 60 shillings per month.
We moved to the stack of letters. They were from our father, addressed to various universities in the States. There
were more than thirty of them, to the presidents of Morgan State, Santa Barbara Junior College, San Francisco State.
Dear President Calhoun, one letter began. I have heard of your college from Mrs. Helen Roberts of Palo Alto,
California, who is now in Nairobi here. Mrs. Roberts, knowing how much desirous I am to further my studies in the
United States of America, has asked me to apply to your esteemed college for admission. I shall therefore be very much
pleased if you will kindly forward me your application form and information regarding the possibility of such
scholarships as you may be aware of. Attached to several letters were recommendations from Miss Elizabeth Mooney,
a literacy specialist from Maryland. It is not possible to obtain Mr. O’Bama’s school transcripts, she wrote, since he has
been out of school for some years. However, she expressed confidence in our father’s talents, noting that she had
observed him making use of algebra and geometry. She added that there was a great need in Kenya for capable and
dedicated teachers and that, given Mr. O’Bama’s desire to be of service to his country, he should be given a chance,
perhaps on a one-year basis.
This was it, I thought to myself. My inheritance. I rearranged the letters in a neat stack and set them under the registry
book. Then I went out into the backyard. Standing before the two graves, I felt everything around me-the cornfields, the
mango tree, the sky-closing in, until I was left with only a series of mental images, Granny’s stories come to life.
I see my grandfather, standing before his father’s hut, a wiry, grim-faced boy, almost ridiculous in his oversized
trousers and his buttonless shirt. I watch his father turn away from him and hear his brothers laugh. I feel the heat pour
down his brow, the knots forming in his limbs, the sudden jump in his heart. And as his figure turns and starts back
down the road of red earth, I know that for him the path of his life is now altered irreversibly, completely.
He will have to reinvent himself in this arid, solitary place. Through force of will, he will create a life out of the scraps
of an unknown world, and the memories of a world rendered obsolete. And yet, as he sits alone in a freshly scrubbed
hut, an old man now with milky eyes, I know that he still hears his father and brothers laughing behind him. He still
hears the clipped voice of a British captain, explaining for the third and last time the correct proportion of tonic to gin.
The nerves in the old man’s neck tighten, the rage builds-he grabs his stick to hit at something, anything. Until finally
his grip weakens with the realization that for all the power in his hands and the force of his will, the laughter, the
rebukes, will outlast him. His body goes slack in the chair. He knows that he will not outlive a mocking fate. He waits
to die, alone.