Stories About Kenya

One of the ways that a book comes alive for me is by reading it in the country where it is set.  Equally, one of the ways that a country comes alive for me is by reading books about it.

Inevitably, I have been gobbling up books about Kenya since we arrived almost two months ago.  And I do mean gobbling – 6 books! – as I do my best reading by swimming pools and oceans.

For those of you who read my recent blog on Nairobi, you already know that I purposefully read Out of Africawhile I was there.  It is one of the quintessential pieces of literature on Kenya, and a supposed must-read for anyone interested in colonial life here.  Maybe because of the Hollywood movie, and the romance.  People love romance.

But I actually preferred a different colonial-era Kenya tome – The Flame Trees of Thika, by Elspeth Huxley.  Set in the same period as Out of Africa only 100km to the north of Karen’s farm, and describing the life of an English family trying to make it on a farm in Kenya, it’s only natural to compare the two books.

The Flame Trees of Thika comes out on top for a few simple reasons.  Firstly, Huxley spent her childhood in Kenya, and she writes from her child self, so the book is filled with the curious and quirky perspectives and ideas of a child; Blixen writes from the perspective of a well-kept, snooty colonial woman.  Secondly, Huxley’s family settles in untouched territory, and they have to start the farm from the ground up, negotiating workers, building a home, and razing the land.  The first half of the book is thus filled with hilarious misunderstandings and assumptions between the colonials and the locals as well as the family’s challenges to adapt and create “civilization” out of the bush; in Blixen’s narrative, by the time she arrives to the Ngong Hills, the farm has been set up and is running like relative clock-work.  Both authors write with beautiful descriptions, and their love of African and the local people comes out – perhaps Blixen’s even more strongly, for Huxley’s love of the natives is the unbiased love of a child – but overall, The Flame Trees of Thika is more readable, charming, and interesting, and so comes out on top.

Another book set in Kenya is Corinne Hoffman’s The White Maasai.  It is the true story of a Swiss

Because it’s true, the White Maasai‘s plot is interesting enough to hold your attention, and you learn a lot about the Samburu people through Hoffman’s descriptions of their daily lives, their environment, their beliefs, and their ceremonies.  But don’t expect a well-written book – Hoffman is no writer.  She opts for telling us – in chronological order – every event from a to z, uninteresting and repetitive though many of them are.  If you’re not up for reading the book, but still want to learn about Samburu culture or the details of her story, try watching the movie instead.

Another book that takes place in modern-day Kenya is The Constant Gardener, by John le Carre.  A political thriller novel that is also a movie (what is it with turning books into movies?), this book speaks to the political corruption that occurs in the country between the government, foreign services, and multi-national companies.  You see Kenya through the eyes of so-called “humanitarians” and service officers, and the resulting perpetuation of “African problems” that this mentality creates.  Not as Kenyan as the other Kenyan books, but a page-turning poolside read.

After reading a bunch of books by foreign authors writing about Kenya, it was time to read something bya Kenyan.  I chose to read Ngugi wa Thiong’o, one of Kenya’s most formidable homegrown authors.  He has written a plethora of books about his own tribe, the Kikuyu people, and I chose to read A Grain of Wheat and The River Between.  Though the stories are very different, they share a few key features – they both take place near the end of the colonial period, when dissent is beginning to stir among the black population.  Both Huxley and Blixen depict a native population that is happy to be under the civilizing care of the English, so it is interesting to hear a different perspective, albeit some 40 years later.

Thiong’o’s books teach us many things about the Kikuyu people, one of Kenya’s main tribes (many of Kenya’s leaders since independence have been Kikuyu, and they are severely over-represented in government), and the one that lives around the central plains of Nairobi.

Actually, between his books and the white colonial books, I feel that I’ve learned many interesting facts about the Kikuyu.  They wear lots of beads, and sometimes smear white paint all over their face and body.  They love having an nighttime celebration, where they dance and sacrifice a goat or a ram.  The men can marry as many women as they can afford – they must both pay a bride-price, usually of goats and cows, and also build a hut for each wife.  They hate the Maasai, who always try to steal their cows, and yet many of their women get married off to Maasai men.They believe in Ngai, the creator, and that spirits – good and evil – are everywhere, and can reside in just about anything.  As such, they believe in the protection of traditional medicine-men as well as terrible witchcraft spells that can be placed on enemies, sometimes even resulting in slow, painful deaths.  When they build huts, the roof must be completely sealed in one day, lest the evil night spirits get inside their homes.

There are definitely loads of other things I learned about the Kikuyu people, but I am cursed with a terrible memory, and many of those facts are already fading.  So I’m going to do the easy thing, and tell you that, if you want to learn more about the Kikuyu people – or Kenya, in general – you choose one of the books I’ve mentioned in this entry, sit by a pool or at a beach, and get started!  Happy reading!