Read Online Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o - Free Book Online
Authors: Ngugi wa'Thiong'o
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conflicted by the two ways of identifying myself.
Later, I learn that sub B and A are a kind of preprimarystage, slightly lower than grade one, or standard one, as it was called. I have entered sub B in the last third, so the others have been at it for the first two quarters. Njambi is already in grade one, two classes ahead, so she cannot help me navigate my way in this class. We sit on benches without desks or tables. The three classes are held at the same time in a church of corrugated iron walls and roof but in different spaces without any partitions. I can hear and see everything that is going on in the other spaces, but, as I soon learn, woe to anyone caught paying attention to what is going on outside one’s space. But it is hard not to look since most of the teaching takes the form of call-and-response, the teacher writing and reading aloud some numbers or an alphabet on the blackboard, the kids repeating after him or her, in a singsong. Everyone, the teachers, the students, looks splendid in their strangeness.
I returned home in the evening, still in the dream, only to wake up to reality. I had to take off the school uniform and change into my usual garb. This became routine. Initially this was okay, but I soon found embarrassment increasingly creeping into my awareness of the world, especially when I encountered the other kids who had simply changed into regular shorts and shirts. But taking care of my school clothes was one of the promises I had made to my mother. She washed the one set of shirt and shorts every weekend so I could don them on Mondays. When I dirtied the clothes on weekdays, she would wash and dry them by the fire at night.
School remains an environment totally different fromthe one of my ordinary living. I feel an outsider in our world, to which everyone else seems to belong. There are many things I don’t understand. But one custom among the kids and teachers puzzles me. Before splitting into the different spaces, all the children assemble in the same place, bend their heads down, close their eyes, and the teacher says something like, Our Father who art in Heaven, and the entire assembly takes up the rest. I don’t close my eyes. I want to see everything. But even after the Amen, some kids continue murmuring something to themselves, eyes still closed. For a long time this habit continues to puzzle me, and at one time I elbow one of the kids next to me to see if he would open his eyes, but he keeps them shut. Soon I figure out that the children are muttering a silent prayer. In my home we never prayed silently and individually. When my father used to live in the compound, he would wake up in the morning, stand in the yard facing Mount Kenya, pour a little libation, and say some words that ended with a loud call for peace and blessings for the entire household. Later I learn to shut my eyes but I don’t have anything to mutter about. It was more fun with my eyes open, for there is a lot more to hold my attention.
I have bought a black slate and a white chalk for my writing material. We copy on our slates what the teacher has written on the blackboard. Later she comes around to grade on the slate, putting an X or a check against each word or number, totals them up, and then circles the cumulative number. At first I do not realize that after she has graded I still have to wait for her to enter the number in a register forthe record. I rub off my work as soon as the teacher has graded it, but when I go home and my mother asks me what and how I had done and I say I rubbed off everything she says: Then don’t, wait for the teacher to tell you what to do. The teacher also corrects me, otherwise I would continue getting zero, and when later she starts writing on my slate 10/10, and my mother asks me what I had done and I say, ten out of ten, she would ask probing questions ending with: Is that the best you could have done? This is a question she will keep on asking in response to my schoolwork,
Later, I learn that sub B and A are a kind of preprimarystage, slightly lower than grade one, or standard one, as it was called. I have entered sub B in the last third, so the others have been at it for the first two quarters. Njambi is already in grade one, two classes ahead, so she cannot help me navigate my way in this class. We sit on benches without desks or tables. The three classes are held at the same time in a church of corrugated iron walls and roof but in different spaces without any partitions. I can hear and see everything that is going on in the other spaces, but, as I soon learn, woe to anyone caught paying attention to what is going on outside one’s space. But it is hard not to look since most of the teaching takes the form of call-and-response, the teacher writing and reading aloud some numbers or an alphabet on the blackboard, the kids repeating after him or her, in a singsong. Everyone, the teachers, the students, looks splendid in their strangeness.
I returned home in the evening, still in the dream, only to wake up to reality. I had to take off the school uniform and change into my usual garb. This became routine. Initially this was okay, but I soon found embarrassment increasingly creeping into my awareness of the world, especially when I encountered the other kids who had simply changed into regular shorts and shirts. But taking care of my school clothes was one of the promises I had made to my mother. She washed the one set of shirt and shorts every weekend so I could don them on Mondays. When I dirtied the clothes on weekdays, she would wash and dry them by the fire at night.
School remains an environment totally different fromthe one of my ordinary living. I feel an outsider in our world, to which everyone else seems to belong. There are many things I don’t understand. But one custom among the kids and teachers puzzles me. Before splitting into the different spaces, all the children assemble in the same place, bend their heads down, close their eyes, and the teacher says something like, Our Father who art in Heaven, and the entire assembly takes up the rest. I don’t close my eyes. I want to see everything. But even after the Amen, some kids continue murmuring something to themselves, eyes still closed. For a long time this habit continues to puzzle me, and at one time I elbow one of the kids next to me to see if he would open his eyes, but he keeps them shut. Soon I figure out that the children are muttering a silent prayer. In my home we never prayed silently and individually. When my father used to live in the compound, he would wake up in the morning, stand in the yard facing Mount Kenya, pour a little libation, and say some words that ended with a loud call for peace and blessings for the entire household. Later I learn to shut my eyes but I don’t have anything to mutter about. It was more fun with my eyes open, for there is a lot more to hold my attention.
I have bought a black slate and a white chalk for my writing material. We copy on our slates what the teacher has written on the blackboard. Later she comes around to grade on the slate, putting an X or a check against each word or number, totals them up, and then circles the cumulative number. At first I do not realize that after she has graded I still have to wait for her to enter the number in a register forthe record. I rub off my work as soon as the teacher has graded it, but when I go home and my mother asks me what and how I had done and I say I rubbed off everything she says: Then don’t, wait for the teacher to tell you what to do. The teacher also corrects me, otherwise I would continue getting zero, and when later she starts writing on my slate 10/10, and my mother asks me what I had done and I say, ten out of ten, she would ask probing questions ending with: Is that the best you could have done? This is a question she will keep on asking in response to my schoolwork,
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