“This is your sister,” she said to the boy, “who used to play with you on her knee. This is your brother, who has come
all the way from America to see you.”
The boy shook our hands bravely but kept glancing back at games he’d just left. I realized then that we’d made a
mistake. Soon the principal of the school emerged from her office to say that unless we had the mother’s permission,
we would have to leave. Zeituni began to argue with the woman, but Auma said, “No, Auntie, she’s right. We should
go.” From the car, we watched George return to his friends, quickly indistinguishable from the others with round heads
and knobby knees who were chasing a scuffed football through the grass. I found myself suddenly remembering then
my first meeting with the Old Man, the fear and discomfort that his presence had caused me, forcing me for the first
time to consider the mystery of my own life. And I took comfort in the fact that perhaps one day, when he was older,
George, too, might want to know who his father had been, and who his brothers and sisters were, and that if he ever
came to me I would be there for him, to tell him the story I knew.
That evening, I asked Auma if she knew of any good books on the Luo, and she suggested we go visit a former history
teacher of hers, a tall, willowy woman named Dr. Rukia Odero, who had been a friend of the Old Man’s. When we
arrived at her house, Dr. Odero was about to sit down for dinner, and she insisted that we join her. Over a meal of
tilapia and ugali, the professor insisted I call her Rukia, then asked me about my impressions of the country. Had I been
disappointed? she wondered. I told her that I hadn’t, although I was leaving with as many questions as answers.
“That’s good,” Rukia said, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “That’s how we historians make a living,
you know. All day long we sit, trying to find new questions. It can be very tiresome, actually. It requires a temperament
for mischief. You know, young black Americans tend to romanticize Africa so. When your father and I were young, it
was just the opposite-we expected to find all the answers in America. Harlem. Chicago. Langston Hughes and James
Baldwin. That’s where we drew our inspiration. And the Kennedys-they were very popular. The chance to study in
America was very important. A hopeful time. Of course, when we returned we realized that our education did not
always serve us so well. Or the people who had sent us. There was all this messy history to deal with.”
I asked her why she thought black Americans were prone to disappointment when they visited Africa. She shook her
head and smiled. “Because they come here looking for the authentic,” she said. “That is bound to disappoint a person.
Look at this meal we are eating. Many people will tell you that the Luo are a fish-eating people. But that was not true
for all Luo. Only those who lived by the lake. And even for those Luo, it was not always true. Before they settled
around the lake, they were pastoralists, like the Masai. Now, if you and your sister behave yourself and eat a proper
share of this food, I will offer you tea. Kenyans are very boastful about the quality of their tea, you notice. But of
course we got this habit from the English. Our ancestors did not drink such a thing. Then there’s the spices we used to
cook this fish. They originally came from India, or Indonesia. So even in this simple meal, you will find it very difficult
to be authentic-although the meal is certainly African.”
Rukia rolled a ball of ugali in her hand and dipped it into her stew. “You can hardly blame black Americans, of
course, for wanting an unblemished past. After the cruelties they’ve suffered-still suffer, from what I read in the
newspapers. They’re not unique in this desire. The European wants the same thing. The Germans, the English...they all
claim Athens and Rome as their own, when, in fact, their ancestors helped destroy classical culture. But that happened
so long ago, so their task is easier. In their schools, you rarely hear about the misery of European peasants throughout
barré
(Barré)
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