In the House of the Interpreter by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o Page A
Authors: Ngugi wa'Thiong'o
Ads: Link
School grounds
Even amid the horrors of war, concentration camps, and villages, the few African teachers at Alliance had remained positive models of what we could become, but they oftendid not last long enough for us to know them well. Joseph Kariuki was the most constant black presence. He was an old boy, who had entered Alliance in 1945, becoming school captain in 1949 before going to Makerere, which had just become a degree-awarding Overseas College of the University of London. He was among the first, the lucky thirteen, to earn a degree at Makerere in 1954. His personality endeared him to everyone, and even Carey Francis seemed a little more tolerant in his case. Kariuki made a spectacle when he played lawn tennis with white ladies on Saturday afternoons, teachers from the girls’ school. He and the ladies were dressed in white, he in his shorts and tennis shoes, and they in similar shoes but with skirts whose hemlines were far above their knees. After a game, Kariuki could be seen trekking back to his house with his white female tennis partner. It may have been because Carey Francis himself was an avid tennis and croquet player, but I noted no outburst from him. Charming and debonair, Kariuki used to push the envelope in other ways, and when left in charge of the school as the master on duty on the weekend, he would show us films with exciting secular themes that other teachers would not show.
Though he taught lawn tennis and literature, his real passion was music. It was not a subject in itself, but arguing that music was the gateway to literature, particularly poetry, he would play European classics, Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, at every opportunity, provoking skeptical laughter when he said that Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony, with the “Ode to Joy” movement, while completely deafand in poor health. If he was really deaf, how could he hear the music he wrote? Feeling, Kariuki would say. He felt it in his heart and mind. Music vibrates in the mind before it is captured in sound. Shut your eyes and think of a familiar melody: can’t you hear soundless motion?
Kariuki was also in charge of the school choir, and it was in the spiritual that he most excelled in bringing together music and poetry. Because of the school’s roots in the American South model, the spiritual had always been popular at Alliance, but Kariuki took it to another level. Though he did not dwell too much on the politics of the spiritual, he talked about its background as a survival mechanism on the slave plantation, letting the music speak to us directly through its own language. The sheer force of his energy and enthusiasm turned even the most skeptical into musical believers and unbridled enthusiasts for the spiritual. Whether Kariuki intended the effect or not, the spiritual’s poetry of resistance and music of liberation eloquently echoed in a Kenya then governed under the state of emergency. How could one hear the school choir, which he led, sing,
Oh freedom, over me, and before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free
, and not feel the yearning for freedom around us?
Perhaps I could unburden myself to Kariuki. He would understand. But neither in the classroom nor outside did he openly discuss the parallels between the music and the terror in the country. Neither did we. We kept our thoughts to ourselves, confining our musings to matters of meter and melody.
* A year or so after leaving Alliance High School, Githegi succumbed to diabetes.
† In 1902, Sir Charles Eliot, governor of colonial Kenya, had set aside the prime estate of Limuru as part of the White Highlands, for Europeans only. Black Africans were relegated to the less desirable land, labeled African Reserves.
19
In general, the Alliance classroom of our times abstracted knowledge from local reality. It had not been always so. The early years had seen bold attempts to relate the vocational side of the school to local
Even amid the horrors of war, concentration camps, and villages, the few African teachers at Alliance had remained positive models of what we could become, but they oftendid not last long enough for us to know them well. Joseph Kariuki was the most constant black presence. He was an old boy, who had entered Alliance in 1945, becoming school captain in 1949 before going to Makerere, which had just become a degree-awarding Overseas College of the University of London. He was among the first, the lucky thirteen, to earn a degree at Makerere in 1954. His personality endeared him to everyone, and even Carey Francis seemed a little more tolerant in his case. Kariuki made a spectacle when he played lawn tennis with white ladies on Saturday afternoons, teachers from the girls’ school. He and the ladies were dressed in white, he in his shorts and tennis shoes, and they in similar shoes but with skirts whose hemlines were far above their knees. After a game, Kariuki could be seen trekking back to his house with his white female tennis partner. It may have been because Carey Francis himself was an avid tennis and croquet player, but I noted no outburst from him. Charming and debonair, Kariuki used to push the envelope in other ways, and when left in charge of the school as the master on duty on the weekend, he would show us films with exciting secular themes that other teachers would not show.
Though he taught lawn tennis and literature, his real passion was music. It was not a subject in itself, but arguing that music was the gateway to literature, particularly poetry, he would play European classics, Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, at every opportunity, provoking skeptical laughter when he said that Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony, with the “Ode to Joy” movement, while completely deafand in poor health. If he was really deaf, how could he hear the music he wrote? Feeling, Kariuki would say. He felt it in his heart and mind. Music vibrates in the mind before it is captured in sound. Shut your eyes and think of a familiar melody: can’t you hear soundless motion?
Kariuki was also in charge of the school choir, and it was in the spiritual that he most excelled in bringing together music and poetry. Because of the school’s roots in the American South model, the spiritual had always been popular at Alliance, but Kariuki took it to another level. Though he did not dwell too much on the politics of the spiritual, he talked about its background as a survival mechanism on the slave plantation, letting the music speak to us directly through its own language. The sheer force of his energy and enthusiasm turned even the most skeptical into musical believers and unbridled enthusiasts for the spiritual. Whether Kariuki intended the effect or not, the spiritual’s poetry of resistance and music of liberation eloquently echoed in a Kenya then governed under the state of emergency. How could one hear the school choir, which he led, sing,
Oh freedom, over me, and before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free
, and not feel the yearning for freedom around us?
Perhaps I could unburden myself to Kariuki. He would understand. But neither in the classroom nor outside did he openly discuss the parallels between the music and the terror in the country. Neither did we. We kept our thoughts to ourselves, confining our musings to matters of meter and melody.
* A year or so after leaving Alliance High School, Githegi succumbed to diabetes.
† In 1902, Sir Charles Eliot, governor of colonial Kenya, had set aside the prime estate of Limuru as part of the White Highlands, for Europeans only. Black Africans were relegated to the less desirable land, labeled African Reserves.
19
In general, the Alliance classroom of our times abstracted knowledge from local reality. It had not been always so. The early years had seen bold attempts to relate the vocational side of the school to local
Similar Books
