Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

Dreams From My Father is Barack Obama’s early autobiography, written before he went to law school. It details his early years and basically presents his pre-lawyer years in three phases, each of which he clearly considered formative, in its own different way.

The book is arranged chronologically, so we start with a birth and infancy. We learn something about his parents, his mother from up close but always from afar in relation to his father. ‘Old Man’ Obama, as we soon learned to call him, was clearly something of a character. We know details of President Obama’s life, so this review will not list unnecessary detail. From Hawaii to Indonesia and eventually to the United States we follow this young life, qt every page turn more mystified at how such a disparate set of experiences could have eventually formed such a rounded individual.

One thing the book does not stress which this review cannot overlook, is the use of the term ‘Old Man’ to label his father. Obama the elder was originally from Kenya and had studied for a doctorate in US colleges. He hailed from western Kenya, a Luo from the Lake Victoria region, where he had received an education that would still have been sympathetic to British traditions and cultures. He was still an African, however, and though not his own language, he would have learned Swahili and would have been fluent in the language. Mzee in Swahili means old man, but it signifies much more than age. It’s a label that would attach to anyone of status or deemed worthy of respect. It was the nickname, for instance, of President Jomo Kenyatta. Indeed, it was his title to such an extent that the use of Mzee with a capital letter would signify the president, himself, to anyone in the country. It is a title that in Kenya would carry no negative connotations whatsoever.

Reading Dreams From My Father I found myself regularly confronted with the title Old Man Obama without being reminded of how positive and respectful the label might be. Perhaps this was an oversight, an assumption that the young Barack Obama did not think necessary to restate. On the other hand, it might indicate an ambivalence towards the father who was not only a great man and a higher achiever, but also something of a chancer who could not be described as reliable. Other readers must make their own minds up, but for me personally the continued use of ‘Old

Man’ rather than ‘mzee’ provided an added layer of complication in this parentage that was already somewhat special. Perhaps the capital letters convey an ultimate respect.

 

Barack Obama Junior, often called Barry, describes much of his early life, especially his years in Indonesia, with affection. The absent father is, however, always absent. What was rather strange was the fact that Barry’s mother is always there, but we hardly get to know her via these pages. If anything, the grandparents figure more in the story, certainly, it seems, in the boy’s personal formation.

 

In the United States, we follow Barry into maturity and, by the time we reach Chicago, he is determined to play an active role in the society where he lives, choosing the route of community organizing to make his mark. It proves to be a hit and miss activity, as it always must be. We who are not generally involved in politics need reminding that it’s an activity where minuscule gains have to be savoured through a general mist of frustration. It’s a quality that clearly makes presidents.

 

Dreams From My Father really comes alive in the third section, when Barry visit Kenya for the first time. Potentially, this is a Roots-like odyssey, but for this particular young man it soon becomes impossible to romanticize about a past that has so many complicated loose ends. Though the family is clearly not poor, the country is, and the young visitor is confronted with many images that confuse or shock. I used to live in Kenya, so it may have been a personal familiarity that brought this section alive. I feel, however, that the young Barack Obama began to understand more about his father during that visit, enough at least to suggest a reality and that reality persuaded him to stay with the dreams.

Dreams In A Time Of War by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Put simply, Dreams In A Time Of War by Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a beautiful book. But it is also challenging, engaging, shocking, endearing and enraging at the same time. It also offers truly enlightening insight into the psychology, motivation and eventual expression of a great writer. Anyone who has admired Ngugi’s A Grain of Wheat will adore Dreams In A Time Of War, because the fiction that rendered the novel such a complex and rewarding read is here as reality, in all its greater rawness of immediacy, contradiction and conflict.

Dreams In A Time Of War is an autobiography, covering Ngugi’s infant and childhood memories until the day he left home, as an adolescent primary school graduate, to join Alliance High School. Thus we journey in Ngugi’s account from a homestead shared with a father, four wives and numerous siblings to the start of a Western education with its subject boundaries and prescribed canals of thinking. It would be easy to suggest that this represented a journey from the traditional to the modern, but that would be naïve. It would also miss the point.

Tradition, in Ngugi’s recollections, is extremely important, especially the magic of language. Words, clearly, were always for him much more than labels. The Kikuyu language that was his birthright offered a richness of expression and meaning - not to mention an identity - that fired his imagination from a very young age. It was also a language that was denied and derided by at least part of an education system that proselytised on behalf of the colonial, the modern. Throughout Dreams In A Time Of War we are aware of this potential for conflict, where the clearly academically gifted young Ngugi yearns to read and learn, but is regularly reminded that the only acceptable vehicle for that activity was the English language. For some who emerged through the vicious selection for entry into the educated elite, this denial of identity led to a rejection of birthright, origin and perhaps culture, so that they might more completely and convincingly adopt the new status to which they aspired. In Ngugi’s case, this demanded denial of his own background led him to appreciate it, its values and its worth more acutely. It is a mark of the book and equally the man’s complexity, however, that he not only retained an insider’s appreciation and understanding of his birthright, but also embraced the English language and education to become one of the language’s greatest writers.

Ngugi’s description of tradition is never static. At the same time, his view of modernity is never uni-dimensional. He recognises that his people’s ceremonies have changed over the years and that their significance has altered. Old men’s stories may still enthral the young, but the world described has already changed. Farmers have been driven from their land. Estates growing crops for cash and bounded by fences have been established. Factories offering wage labour have opened. Many of the structures that bound families and communities together have been transformed, perhaps not broken down, but have at least been challenged by new allegiances and aspirations.

Equally the modern is not presented as a monolith. Two different education systems coexist, one that transmits only Christianity and European values, and one that admits local language and learning. In the same way that individuals are influenced by what they are taught, they are also transformed by their experience of employment, of nurture by institutions and comradeship. In Kenya, for some this included loyalty to King and country via service in two world wars, acceptance of Christianity, responsibility to exacting employers and land owners, as well as, for others, acknowledgement of and adherence to tradition, family values and kinship transmitted by oral culture. And the reality that Ngugi portrays so beautifully in this book is that these apparently opposing poles were often mixed up within the individual, almost every individual.

If there is still anyone who retains the notion that British Imperialism was tantamount to spreading pixie dust, then such a person ought to read Ngugi’s childhood memoir. Here are descriptions of hooded informers - no doubt paid to say the right names, of indiscriminate detention, concentration camps and cold-blooded murder. And all this was backed up by a wholly unjustified and erroneous assumption of racial superiority. By the way, it’s about the same way they treated the working class back home, even down to denying most of them access to the educational goodies that legitimise social class identity.

Readers please do not be put off by the difficulties posed by the Kikuyu names and words. If they are unfamiliar, then find a way of summarising and merely recognising them. But do read this beautiful childhood memoir and thus do understand a little more of the experiences that motivate writers - and others – to explain. The view is partial, of course, that is why it is both entertaining and illuminating.

From Cairo to Cape Town - A Home To Head For by Eric Olverson

A Home To Head For is something of a marathon, not for the reader, but for the author, Eric Olverson. To be accurate, Eric’s tale is significantly more than a literal marathon, about twelve thousand kilometres more, in fact, because Eric’s tale describes how he cycled the length of Africa.

Tour d’Afrique (TDA for short) is an outfit that assists those wanting to cycle a long way – a very long way. Starting in Cairo, Egypt, their route heads south via Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia before reaching its destination of Cape Town in South Africa. Eric Olverson’s handlebar-mounted computer recorded a distance of 12,009 kilometres – including a detour or lost route or two along the way – which, in any language or circumstance, is a long way. It’s even further when much of it is across desert, or on dirt roads strewn with stones and pocked with potholes. In Eric’s case, the achievement goes way beyond even this.

Eric embarked upon the four month endeavour at the age of 59, having recently been seriously ill with bacterial meningitis and having lost bladder function as a result, causing him to require the use of catheters. If such facts are offered as detail, one must conclude that Eric must have been intensely motivated even to consider the challenge of cycling the length of Africa. And the fact that the motivation was to assist something outside of an unrelated to himself adds sincere respect to the awe felt at his achievement.

The motivation came from a desire to raise funds for a children’s home called Thamsanqa in Motherwell in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Eric visited in 2008, was impressed with what he saw and resolved to assist. Already a keen cyclist, a devotee of the mountain roads near his home in Spain, Eric latched onto the idea of a sponsored bike ride. And it’s not many of those that cover 12,000 kilometres! So, along with numerous other enthusiasts, and under the assisting wing of TDA, a company specialising in such cycling “holidays”, Eric set off from Cairo in a generally southerly direction.

The trip was organised so that the riders covered up to 200 kilometres a day, were generally fed from a support vehicle that preceded them and camped in recognised camp sites, sometimes associated with small hotels. Eric Olverson’s book, A Home To Head For, and his blog, ericonhisbike, are accounts of his trip. Indeed, anyone buying the book also donates to the Thamsanqa orphanage.

A Home To Head For is not a travel book. Nor is it a description of Africa as experienced as it was cycled. Neither, really, is it aimed at the cycling enthusiast keen to learn the detail of the challenge. In some ways it is more than any if these. The book is a tale of determination, Eric´s insistence on completing the task to the best of his ability. That he rarely allows doubt or low moments into the text is merely a reflection of how focused he remained on his challenge.

There was elation at the end, but relief too. Eventually, Eric was not one of the racers, but neither was he one of the tourists. By Cape Town, the reader has appreciated how much how much he wanted to do this trip and the determination he felt to see it through to completion. Don’t expect philosophising or much reflection, since in the four months there seemed to be little time for either. But do expect to feel the effort, even from your armchair, because Eric’s writing does communicate the experience. It was some achievement, and for a good cause.

A Grain Of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Returning to a masterpiece to re-examine its brilliance is always a risky business. There is always the threat of disappointment, a gradual realisation that an earlier decade’s evaluation might now reveal merely one’s own naiveté, a contemporary – and no doubt illusory - sophistication of falsely-assumed wisdom. Perhaps it might all be just appear a little mundane from new detachment.

So it was with some trepidation that I again began A Grain Of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o. I first read it in the 1970s when I lived in Kenya. In those days, the author still answered to ‘James’ and the novel was on the Literature in English syllabus for the East African Certificate of Education. Our students came from a poor area, weren’t the most academic and studied in their third language. I wonder daily at their commitment, hard work and achievement. A Grain Of Wheat is not an easy book. Over-simplification of a complex world was not amongst its author’s intentions.

I read it again a couple of times a decade later. Then I found layers that as a relative youngster I had missed. This was no longer just a work of historical fiction offering illustration and interpretation of Kenya’s struggle for independence. It was now also a committed political novel, never a polemic, however, since it was via the actions of its characters that the images and relationships were defined. And this time, nearly twenty more years on, I find the book’s stature has grown again. Not only has it passed the test of time, its themes have, if anything, become even more pertinent. And this time, confirming the book’s now unquestioned status as a masterpiece, I find yet another strand of meaning laced into its construction. It is not merely a masterpiece. Indeed, it ought to required reading for British students, just in case there might be anyone left with any doubts about the reality of colonialism.

A Grain Of Wheat is a novel. It is set in Kikuyuni, ridges rising north from the Nairobi area towards Mount Kenya, Kirinyaga, Girinyaga. The setting is real. Its story is placed firmly within a particular place and time. We are in the last years of Kenya’s struggle for independence, the goal of Uhuru. But Ngugi describes and illustrates this history via the lives and experiences of characters who inhabit a small town, Thabai. History tells us blankly the sum of their efforts, the eventual victory against the British, the lowering of the Union Jack in December 1963 and its replacement by Kenya’s black red and green. But via fiction, Ngugi gives us far more than this. We feel history develop via the experience, the detail, the suffering, the commitment, the inadequacies and the treachery of people who lived through the time.

Thabai has a small town’s usual share of freedom fighters, collaborators, colonial officers, whites of both sexes, beautiful girls, ambitious men. There are Christians, traditionalists, traitors, old codgers and plenty of others who claim to be human. Acts perpetrated by the colonial administrators and their lackeys are sometimes nothing less than raw sadism. They seem to be motivated by a keen, though unjustifiable sense of superiority, an apparent mission to Anglicise an unwilling world. Ngugi could have concentrated on these acts, vilified their perpetrators and thus created simple bad-boys to serve his plot. But A Grain Of Wheat is much more subtle than that. In many ways, these people are victims as well. Their only advantage is that, for a while, they have power on their side. And it is the struggle of motivated people that must wrest this advantage from them.

A Grain Of Wheat presents characters who suffer for what they do, struggle to achieve what they want to become. They want to remain faithful to their convictions, but in a time of strife motives are often provided by the most pressing influence, and often that does not have right on its side.

What comes across this time from reading A Grain Of Wheat is the book’s intense Christian allegory. Joseph and Mary here are Gikonyo and Mumbi, perhaps an original coupling of legend. He is even a carpenter and Mumbi’s child actually belongs to someone else, Karanja. He is a man tainted with the sins of a previous age and surely he has passed these on to his child, who is born with their originality. And as far as Gikonyo is concerned, Mumbi’s child is a virgin birth.

The child, of course, is the new Kenya, born with all the injustices and sins of the past, but charged with its own independence, its potential to develop into its unknown future. The fact that it will be offered in sacrifice on the cross of capitalism is a reality lived in Ngugi’s later work.

A Grain Of Wheat not only bears re-reading. It is a powerful enough vision to sustain re-interpretation, though of course only at the level of detail. The book’s message was always clear, though always subtly drawn. It is a great, great achievement.

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A Grain of Wheat (Penguin Modern Classics)

Please Sir, There’s A Snake In The Art Room by Keith Geddes

In Please Sir, There’s A Snake In The Art Room author Keith Geddes has his principal character, Tom Thorne, address a series of challenges. Thorne, this principal character, is a pre-school principal, or headmaster, depending of the regime in question. His first task is to manage and strengthen a Twickenham prep-school, to bolster its students’ performance in common entrance exams. Along the way he has to deal with unruly parents, some of which are so despicably attractive that they quite put his off his stroke.

There are problem teachers, some of whom scheme, wheel and deal, or even take days off sick. There are, inevitably, students. Some of them perform, others under-perform. Some are almost anonymous, while some excel. There are sports fixtures where the school could do better, and there are success stories that outnumber the disappointments. And amid this, Tom Thorne finds himself a new wife, a new family and, believe it or not, a new job. Tom takes up the challenge of a headship in a Kenyan school, near the Ngong Hills outside Nairobi, right on the boundary of the Game Park.

There he institutes a similar mix of curriculum reform, staff management, pupil stewardship and parental relationship that he used in Twickenham and, you’ve guessed it, things work out well. Tom is certainly kept busy. In addition, Kenya provides him with occasional experiences that Twickenham would not, such as snakes, hippos, lions and even flowering plants.

Please Sir, There’s A Snake In The Art Room is not really a novel. In the tradition of Gervase Phinn, it’s more like a fictionalised professional diary, a diary containing the things that were too unprofessional to put in the real thing. It remains of interest to a general reader, because we have all been to school and so we can all empathise with the events, many of which are displayed with considerable humour. Head teacher Tom Thorne, we realise quite early on, bears a strong resemblance to a certain Keith Geddes, whose own life history has witnessed the exact transformations that the author inflicts on his fictional hero.

And so Keith Geddes’s book begins to read more like an autobiography than fiction. It is an anecdotal, light and light-hearted depiction of the professional and personal challenges that a head teacher has to address. And throughout it is also an enjoyable and often humorous experience for both pupils and teachers, despite the fact that navigating its waters is rarely plain sailing.

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Mission - a review by David Holiday

It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel. The writer Phillip Spires is a master at his craft and after buying the book I visited his website searching for more titles but alas found none. The book is a compelling, beautiful read, set in Africa detailing a story from the eyes of different characters. The description of Africa gives "a beam me up Scotty" effect and at times you feel you are almost walking the dusty roads with a searing sun on your back. The characters are no less impressive, I particularly warmed to several of them. A long read, not your average 'beach holiday read' but certainly worthwhile and rewarding. View the book on amazon Mission

Mission - a review by Timothy Harman

This is a beautifully crafted book, rich in sensuous language evoking a flavour of Africa. The structure of the book is most unusual, with events, past and present, revolving around one particular episode. It is a story that holds you, envelops you, until the very last page. The characterisation is truly masterful. The plot intriguing. This is not a light, something and nothing, beach read, it has a depth and atmosphere that only a truly talented author can create. It is a classic and it is certainly one of my all time favourite books. I shall be most disappointed if this book doesn't win one of the prizes for literature. View the book on amazon Mission

Mission by Philip Spires - a review by Cao Duc Thac

Budget airlines have made travelling far easier in recent years and many of us have enjoyed holidays in exotic places: on safaris in East Africa, trekking through Nepal, cruising the Amazon. However, after putting away the souvenirs and sorting out the snap shots, we often feel that there is something amiss. Yes, the animals are great, the local markets colourful and some of the foods quite exquisite. But do we get to know anything of the local people? We exchange a few words with them, engage in bargaining over prices, and laugh over misunderstandings, but we know nothing of their hopes and aspirations. Sometimes, we may have serious conversations in bars or restaurants with some locals that are fluent in our language or with some expatriates working in the country. Unfortunately, even these conversations may be just stereo-types: the country is utterly corrupted, the government is hopelessly incompetent; the people have not moved from the Middle Ages, etc. Mission, by Philip Spires, offers an armchair exploration of the locals and foreign workers in a poor village in Kenya. Through their stories, we get to know their hopes and aspirations, their dilemmas, the circumstances that force them to act the way they do and, ultimately, their humanity. The book begins with a car accident in which the village drunk, a character nobody liked much, got killed. However, the day of the accident proves to be fateful for the major characters of the book. Like Kurosawa’s movie Rashomon, each of the major characters – a Catholic priest who cares more about the welfare of the people in this life than for their souls in the next life, an earnest young Kenyan who wants to become a Catholic priest, a couple of local entrepreneurs who cleverly exploit the business and political opportunities in Kenya just after it gained independence etc – tells their hopes and ambitions, their circumstances and their dilemmas. The car accident at the beginning of the book turns out to be the denouement for the major characters. The book is only published recently but has been incubated by Philip over many years while he spent time in Kenya, London, Brunei and the United Arab Emirates. While his portrayal of Kenya and London is quite vivid, we also recognise the basic humanity of the characters in the book. It is comforting to know that while we face different circumstances, we are basically the same round the world. This is a message we need to remind ourselves constantly as tribal and sectarian conflicts exploded in recent years. Review by Cao Thac, Australia View this book on amazon Mission

Mission - Some extracts from the novel

The title of Mission's first chapter is Michael. Here is how it starts

 ... Enter Michael, dishevelled and panting. His movements are hurried, agitated and anxious. The kitchen door creaks on its hinges after his disinterested push. It does not close and it swings ajar behind him. In an instant, Michael has crossed the room as if out of a desire to distance himself from some pursuer, but now he is cornered. He stops, thinks for a moment and, realising the futility of trying to run away, returns to the door. He pauses there and, with his head cocked on one side, listens intently, trying to discern the frantic sounds of a shouted argument taking place outside. The sounds are dulled and muffled by echoes, but he stays where he is, afraid to approach them. There are several voices: at least five are shouting in apparent opposition without any one gaining the ascendancy. Thus all blend to form a single, incoherent and meaningless noise. Trying to listen is pointless and so, with a rueful shake of the head, he advances into the room again, but this time he moves more slowly, with greater resignation, beneath some weight. He decides to sit but cannot relax. Perched on the very edge of the settee, he leans forward with his head bowed and his hands resting on his knees. He seems poised to act but is powerless. He can do nothing, now. It is too late. Still without success he tries again to make.........

The second chapter, entitled Mulonzya, deals primarily with the local member of parliament, James Mulonzya. But his father, Abel, and son, Charles play significant roles, as does an idealistic administrator, John Mwangangi, recently returned from a successful legal career in London. James and Charles are having dinner with John ... 

"So the idea is this,” John continued. “The Father has been told he can use the school bus from Mutune once a week for nothing. All he will do is provide the petrol. The nuns have been very generous to us. Without the vehicle we could do nothing. Near Nairobi there is a group of Europeans who are researching into agricultural techniques for some agricultural research agency. Their farm is very productive but is subsidised, so it does not need to make a profit. Michael has persuaded them to sell us their maize and beans at a cheap rate. We will then bring it to Migwani, Mwingi, Mutonguni or wherever in the lorry and then sell off some of it to people who can afford it until we have covered costs and raised enough money for the next trip and then we will distribute the rest free to people who have nothing.” “That is illegal,” said Charles curtly. “You need a licence to trade grain.” “Ah, but we are not trading, Charles...” “You are selling some of it so surely the law would rule that you are trading.” “But that's only to get us started. If we can get enough reasonably well-off people to give a hundred shillings each - and regularly - we will be able to carry on without having to sell any of the food. It could then never be argued that we were affecting the traders' business because we would be supplying only those people who had absolutely no money to buy food for themselves.” “And how would you identify such people? On whose word do you judge whether a particular family can or cannot afford to feed itself?” “Priests, Chiefs, District Officers, Members of Parliament....” The argument had suddenly become very serious. “This food... It will only go to Catholics, then?” asked Mulonzya, as usual firmly grasping quite the wrong end of the other's meaning. “Oh no. To anyone who is in need of it.” Charles spoke again. His voice spoke the words of a mind already made up. “What you propose is illegal. You need a licence to trade grain. Your school bus is licensed to carry children, not merchandise. Mutune is a government-funded school. I am sure that the Ministry of Education would not like to think that their property is being misused in this way. It is definitely illegal.” “You forget that I am trained in law. I would certainly be prepared to test what you say in the courts. Anyway, the whole project would be done in the name of the Church. Would you like to be seen to bring about a case against the Roman Catholic Church?” “If it is illegal we would oppose it,” said Charles. “It would certainly be against our interests. We would have to consult with our legal advisers, of course, but I have no doubt in my mind when I say that, whoever started such a scheme, we would seek to stop it through the courts.” James Mulonzya almost interrupted his son. “Would you, Mr Mwangangi, a magistrate and civil servant openly break the law?” There was some sincere as well as calculated shock in his voice. “If the law were to stand in the way of a simple, non-profit-making humanitarian scheme such as this, especially in an area racked with famine, then the law must be changed.” There was a hint of the beginning of anger in John's voice. “If there must be a test case then so be it. Meanwhile people who would have gone hungry will be fed.” Charles and James Mulonzya began to laugh as he spoke. There was no disrespect, however, only familiarity. Both father and son knew that they had trod this ground far more regularly and successfully than their potential adversary. “Ah John, but now you are talking politics.”

The third chapter, called Janet, is set mainly in London, thirty years on from the other four. When she left college, Janet worked in Migwani's school and was Father Michael's neighbour for two years. For two years after she returned from Africa, she corresponded with Michael, during a period of personal crisis, but she had not met him until unannounced he reappeared in her life.

Turning back into the hall, the pause having done no more than shortened her next step, she looked down to see the long Kashmiri runner reveal herringboned terracotta tiles at its edges abutting the now stripped skirts and Janet Smythe, née Rowlandson, felt a sudden and unexpected twinge of nerves, a slight tightening of the breath alongside the slightest tingle of the spine, the kind of shiver she thought she used to feel when her first boyfriend arrived at the family home to pick her up. Now more than thirty years beyond such nonsense, the unexpected nervous trill forced a pause, a mere shortening of the rhythm of her step, just as she passed the second door on her left, which looked into the front room, beyond the closed folding doors. There, presenting the back of his large head above the back of a voluminous easy chair that faced into the room, was David, her husband, precisely where she expected to find him, holding the double spread of his broadsheet high up to catch the brighter light of the hallway behind him, absorbed in a minor piece at the foot of page seven, his head gently nodding to the regularity of the Bach fugues that Janet could just hear scratching from within foam pads of his headphones. “I’ll get it,” she said ritualistically, as she passed the open door, knowing full well he couldn’t hear. Thus she did not even check for a response which even at best would be a minor noise, not quite a grunt and definitely not a word, if, indeed, such a reference to the obvious might merit any recognition. And so Janet reached the door, a large, wide and heavy hardwood structure, white within and black to the street, hinged on the right, solid panelled in the lower half, but admitting two decorative stained glass panels above, their uneven frosting not allowing any view of those waiting outside, who invariably presented only fuzzed silhouettes against the scattered back-light of the streetlamps. As she turned the latch, Janet’s memory momentarily recreated childhood, prompted by the beautiful symmetry of the diffused street lights and thus reminding her of those same shapes her infancy called ‘angels’ in the frosted glass door of her parents’ suburban semi. Swinging the door open, she smiled at the two priests waiting in the cold and dark of a November evening.

Boniface, the fourth chapter, describes the difficult life of a young teacher in a town near to Migwani. He is chosen by Father Michael to manage one of the Church's projects, but his chapter is primarily concerned with his family relations.

A violent crash shook Boniface out of his dream. He had seen it coming for almost a minute, but had not prepared himself for the shock. The car had laboured to the summit of a shallow rise to reveal a view of the road ahead. In a broad curve it swept across a wide valley, at the bottom of which a grey and narrow concrete bridge contrasted with the brown unedged earth of the rest of their route. On the down slope, Michael pressed his foot to the floor and the car quickly picked up speed. Boniface knew that at the bottom of the valley, where the road crossed a river bed, the junction between the murram of the road and the concrete of the bridge had worn badly, leaving a vertical step between the two surfaces, several inches high in parts. Everyone who travelled the main road knew the spot. Even the more irresponsible bus drivers would slow to a crawl here to negotiate the bump, but could still not prevent the flow of abuse from the rear seats when their vehicles lurched as they crossed onto the bridge and threw the most vulnerable passengers momentarily into the air. There was simply no way of avoiding it. By the time Michael's car hit the ramp, it was doing fifty miles per hour, but of those inside the car only Josephine, Boniface's wife, seemed concerned by the looming danger. Not until the wheels hit the step and lifted the entire car into the air did either of the men in front of her show any reaction. A split second before impact, she tried to utter a warning shout, but it was already too late. The car hit the ridge, flew into the air and came down with what seemed like a gigantic crash, flinging her from her seat and transforming her intended shout into a long high-pitched scream. Boniface simply held on. Michael's previously vacant expression disappeared, transformed by the widening of his eyes to one of undiluted shock and surprise. After only a short skid, which the priest quickly and easily controlled, the car sped on without either a word or glance shared. Some moments later, Boniface did turn to face his wife who was bent low over the child in her lap and holding the top of her head which had bumped hard against the roof. He offered a short comforting smile to ease her discomfort and said, “Don't worry, Josephine. Father always drives like this.”

The final chapter introduces Munyasya, an ex-army officer who, late in life, has become destitute. It is his mission, however, which endures, despite being revealed as misguided. He is apparently possessed by the spirit of his long-dead step-father.

In the bottle is my madness, the spirit which haunts me, exhausts me, taunts me, entraps me. I, the hunter, the warrior, am caged like a monkey. Let me free! Let me free to live my own life and die my own death. You hold the key, not I. I would break the lock but I can't find the door. Another drink. Another drink to bring me closer to you, to hold you near until you let me go. Do you hear? You? Nzoka? Do you hear? He had been ignored until then. Hundreds of people had passed him by, but even those whom he had befriended in the past offered neither greeting nor any sign of recognition. People had met and stood in conversation less than spitting distance from where he lay without even acknowledging his presence. It was as if he had become a part of the tree beneath which he sat, merely an exposed root to be stepped over and avoided lest one should trip. His constant, almost silent murmuring remained always inaudible amongst the daily bustle of the market place, especially on market day, itself, when this flat triangle of hardened, bare, red earth rang with the noise and commotion of trade and humanity. These last words which he said, however, this oft-repeated question, habitually delivered with the air of a command, these words were never a whisper. Every muscle in him strained and shook to throw out the sound. His entire skeleton of a body stiffened and convulsed, the words grumbling forth from deep within his squelching chest. Thrown out as if spewed in rejection, the sound bellowed like thunder, chased by its own echo. It demanded attention, and received it, albeit begrudgingly and obliquely. It forced people to react, to look his way and thus acknowledge his presence. At such moments, all conversation, all business stopped for a moment as heads turned towards Munyasya's tree. Those with no direct view craned their necks to see, would jostle for position for just a glimpse, but no-one would want to go too close. No-one would ever answer. No-one would ever intervene. View the book on amazon Mission