Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o Page A

the sighting of raindrops we dashed into the yard, formed a circle:
    Rain may you fall
I offer you a sacrifice
A young bull with bells
That sound ding dong
    Once a host of children, including my half sisters and half brothers—Wanja, Gacoki’s daughter; Gacungwa, Wangarĩ’s daughter; and Gakuha and Wanjirũ, Njeri’s son and daughter—and I were playing the game of Catch Me If You Can. I was running around each of the four huts, all of them chasing after me, when suddenly I tripped over something and fell. The sand scraped the skin off my left shoulder. The scar remained; it will always be there, a memory. Now banished from my larger family by my father, I was lucky to have my younger brother and the book of stories for companions and the solace of reunion with my mother in her father’s place, the place of her birth.
    I had met my maternal grandfather but only briefly. Given the absence of her mother, who lived in Elburgon, while her father lived in Limuru with Mũkami, his youngest wife, my mother may not have felt the need to make frequent visits. As for the children, our identity was always with the family of our father and not the in-laws, even when one was named after a relative on the mother’s side. I was named Ngũgĩ after my maternal grandfather. But my mother used to call me Njogu, “Elephant,” or the diminutive Mũkũgĩ, or “Little Papa.” Other women, particularly her co-wives, always referred to her as “Ngũgĩ’s daughter.”
    My grandfather was an imposing figure, dressed in a white undergarment, one side under his left arm, the ends pinned together over his right shoulder, a kind of one-sleeved tunic, and an equally long outer garment, a blanket of sorts, under the right arm and tied over his left shoulder. As Limuru was often cold and drizzly, particularly in July, he would sometimes wear a long coat over both. He was a big landowner in his own right, and, as the head and trustee of his entire Kamami subclan, he had flexibility over the rights of use of the clan’s extensive patrimony. Unlike my father, whose ancestors had no roots in Limuru, my grandfather, his extended family, and his entire subclan did, owning and controlling acres of cultivated and virgin lands. After the death of one of his cousins, he had inherited two widows, so he was also the titular head of the Ndũng’ũ family. Ndũng’ũ’s children, including Kĩmũchũ, the eldest, accepted and looked up to him as the head of the extended family. With Njango, the younger of the two widows, he had sired a son, Uncle Gĩcini. The whole web of family interconnections was a bit complicated, and I am not sure that I was able to understand all the nuances. The family lived in three different compounds in the same area.
    Having separated from his first wife, Grandmother Gathoni, Grandpa Ngũgĩ may have wondered if they had passed the germ of separation onto their daughter, and he was probably at a loss as to what to do after my mother left my father. Custom demanded he wait for the husband to sue for the return of his wife, which would open the door fordiscussions. My mother lodged in Njango’s hut, assumed to be a temporary arrangement by everyone. The arrival of my brother and me complicated matters.
    My father may have thought that our presence would exert pressure on her to come back and sue for peace on his terms, but our appearance may have actually made it easier for her to stick to her decision not to return to his domestic violence. Without us there, she would have found it difficult to stay away. Now she wanted her father to allow her to put up a hut of her own on his land. He was cautious. Being wise in the ways of customary law and practices, he wanted to wait for my father to send a delegation for formal talks. After all, she had been married legally, my father had paid the required dowry, and divorce would mean my grandfather would have to give back the dowry, goats. Besides, the community had no procedure for