In the House of the Interpreter by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o

1956, to return to the sanctuary. In my first year, the outside had not intruded except that every member of the Gĩkũyũ, Embu, and Meru communities had to have a written permit to travel by train or any public transport from one region to another, the lack of which had almost derailed my first entry into the school. Otherwise, the permit played no role in life inside the sanctuary. But in my second year, the outside began to make itself felt within the walls.
    We had hardly settled down when some government officials came to the school to take fingerprints. We were required to have identity cards. Every time I saw the officials, I felt my stomach tighten. The whole process went smoothly, but the colonial policies were changing so fast that the ID card was soon out of date, to be replaced by a passbook, an internal passport like those in apartheid South Africa. Every movement across regions by a member of the affected communities was to be stamped on its pages. The bar for getting the document was raised: a recipient had to be thoroughly screened and certified that he had not taken an oath of allegiance to the Mau Mau. In March 1956 an official screening team visited the school and for two weeksinterviewed teachers, students, and staff of Gĩkũyũ, Embu, and Meru origins. When my turn came, it was determined that I should be screened in Limuru and would have to bring back a stamped letter from the district office, certifying my innocence. To get the stamp, I would have to get a letter of clearance from the chief of my location. This would have to be done during the term break.

    Members of Livingstone House, 1956: House Master David Martin (second row center), Assistant House Master Ben Ogutu (next to Martin in the middle), Ngũgĩ (first row standing, second from right)
    So instead of enjoying my new life as a second-year student, I felt my sanctuary haunted by fear of failing the clearance. The chief that I had left behind was reputed to be cruel. He would know about my brother being in themountains and his wife being in prison. I did not see how he would give me a clean bill of political health, and the fear nagged me, dogged me. I did not have anybody in whom I could confide. Though Wanjai and I both came from Limuru, our families were on opposite sides in the anticolonial struggle.
    I once came very close to sharing my burden with Samuel Githegi. Githegi and I were classmates, and we often exchanged pleasantries. He had a warm personality and was friends with many people. But there was something about him, a kind of sadness or loneliness, that I could not then understand. Once, after lunch, we walked out together and wandered about in the yard. I was about to tell him of my fears when, out of the blue, he started talking about sugar. Apparently he had what he called a sugar illness. It was serious, he said, but even then I could not understand: diabetes was not in our vocabulary, and he looked the very picture of good health. The sad strain behind his friendly face prevented me from talking about myself. *
    I thought of my teachers. How would they receive the information about my family? They might turn me in as the brother of a Mau Mau guerrilla. My coming of age had been shaped by the notion of a white monolith,
Mbarĩ ya Nyakerũ
, pitted against a black monolith,
Mbarĩ ya Nyakairũ
. Every popular song had talked about it. The very identity of the land was contested: White Highlands versusBlack People’s Land. † Jomo Kenyatta, who would become the first Kenyan president, had once written of Kenya as a
Bũrũri wa Ngũĩ
, Land of Conflict. Black and white conflict, of course. Who, really, were these whites who held the chalk and seemed completely dedicated to our mental welfare? And who were these blacks teaching alongside the whites and equally dedicated to our mental welfare? Where did they fit in the schema of white versus black?

    Ngũgĩ (on right) and Samuel Githegi (on left), outside on Alliance High