MEMORIES OF COOL WATERS By Gimbiya Mae Kettering Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts In Creative Writing Chair: Professor Charles-R. Larson PrafessorEIIen J.Lev; Dean of the College y j Date 2005 American University Washington, DC 20016 sun "MERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1425713 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 1425713 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © COPYRIGHT by Gimbiya Mae Kettering 2005 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION To my parents, Merlyn and Una Kettering for opening the world to me. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MEMORIES OF COOL WATERS BY Gimbiya Mae Kettering ABSTRACT Set in the 1980s and 1990s, this novel interweaves the life of a young biracial woman and Kenya’s maturation. An emblematic character, Jacaranda symbolizes a generation that came of age during Kenya’s transformation from a dictatorship to a society on the verge of democracy. As the novel opens, Jacaranda’s childhood is as idyllic as the Nairobi suburbs where she lives with her white mother and matemal-grandmother, descendants of the colonial settlers. Yet the absence of her father and vague memories of violence hint at a darker past that will eventually be revealed as Jacaranda meets her father, who was taken political prisoner following the failed coup attempt in 1982, and comes to terms with her heritage in a country overrun by American imports and entertainment. The novel ends with the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy and a difficult choice that the nearly adult Jacaranda must make. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS According to an African proverb, it takes a village to raise a child and the same might also be said of writing a novel. There are so many people who inspired and supported me during the drafting of this thesis project and who were patient with me until its completion. Starting with all the professors of the Literature Department. In particular, thank you to my thesis committee, Professor Larson and Professor Levy, for not letting me settle for anything less than a novel. Your continued feedback is greatly appreciated, as without your questions, insights, and challenges this book would not have existed. You have helped me translate a Kenyan story for an American audience and been sensitive to so many cultural issues. Most especially, thank you for the extra year with your guidance. Only another writer can understand how important family is when writing. Thanks to Mom and Dad for telling me to follow my dreams, always. Kahlil, thank you for helping me remember our childhood in Kenya and staying up with me into the morning during so many drafts. Thanks to all of you for living so patiently with me, reminding me to eat and sleep, and helping me with laundry and proof-reading with equal cheer. Lisa, I wish you every success in our own writing endeavors. Thank you for the encouragement, coffee, and wisdom.Asante sana to Anjali and Eddie for all the Swahili translations and corrections, for helping me do research that I could not do in the United States, sending me books, and being my first Kenyan readers. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT il ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................... iii PREFACE: COMING TO BIRTH. .............. 1 PART I: NYAYO NYAYO JU .......................................................................... 12 PART II: SABA SABA ..................... .. ........................ 153 PART III: NUSU NUSU ........................................ 291 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PROLOGUE: COMING TO BIRTH This is what I knew o f1980: It was the year that the presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda would hold talks for the first time in ten years a promising sign for the East African community. The Pope came to Kenya and prayed for peace. I knew that Kenya sided with the United States and became one of 62 countries to boycott the Moscow Olympics that year. I knew that 1980 was the year of my birth. I knew that I had been bom with the green eyes that are characteristics of the women in my family. At my birth, my hair was sparse and still colourless. I was born with hair that tricked everyone into believing that my body would keep the secrets of my true heritage. Within months it would darken to the black hair that betrayed me as a child by growing in thick, tight curls that kept safe the secret of my paternity from prying combs. I was born before politics, when Kenya was a single-party democracy holding back the communist influence from spreading from Ethiopia through the horn of Africa. I did not know what was really written on my birth certificate or how I came to be named after a type o f tree. In a family, silent and fractured, much went unspoken about the missing men. I knew better than to ask. Instead, I made up my own story. 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 I imagined that Mum spent the afternoon listlessly in the hospital bed, nervously tracing the faded insignia of Nairobi Hospital on the blue sheet, pale and thin from too many hard washings with OMO. Mum was never good at being still, especially when nervous or worried. Without realizing, she might have begun to pick at the frayed hem and found a loose thread that gave way to her gentle pull. I knew that Mum still thought of herself as Sumar. Not yet Mum. Never Mummy. Nor Mama. She was not ready to be a mother. She was overwhelmed. Most sisters of the hospital would probably have sensed Sumar’s nervousness and fear. Most of the nurses would probably have been sympathetic, but they were too busy and overworked to take time to talk to her. Besides, they would not consider it in their place. In my imagination, a young, inexperienced sister in her still crisp, still fresh, white uniform charged into the room balancing a small tray. The sister might have smiled a moment, but her face dropped into a frown when she noticed Sumar ruining a perfectly good sheet. Or her frown might have been at the pale blue, satin bed jacket that would have been fitting for Sumar’s sense o f style. Sumar would have glared back at the sister, angry because it seemed like everyone was frowning at her those days. The sister would place the tray on the table next to Sumar. On the tray there would have been a small metal cup of pills and a large drinking glass filled with water. Perhaps, using the straightening the sheets as a pretext, the sister would move the hem to protect it from my mother’s grasp. Then, she would have handed the glass of water to Sumar and offered her the pills from the cup. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 “I won’t take those. ” Sumar would have said. “I don’t need them. ” “They are from the doctor, ” the sister might have tried to explain. “Am i sick? ” asked Sumar rhetorically, her accent suddenly changing, the way it did when she was joking or thought it would make Africans understand her better. “Do I need such medicines? I had a baby, not malaria! ” Hearing an almost authentic Kenyan accent coming from the pale, blonde woman would have startled the sister. However, she remained silent, except for a heavy sigh. According to her name badge, her name might have been Naomi or Susan or Beatrice, since everyone in Kenya had to have a Christian name. But, she would continue to think of herself by her tribal name. Perhaps Waichera. This would not be a name that anyone at the hospital knew. Waichera was young and unsure how to talk to this white woman, a patient and an agemate. She had only come just now from a rural nursing school, where she was top of her class. But, she had never actually seen a white person this close before; she was still shy and a bit unnerved by eyes that could be so green and empty. In her village only albinos had such eyes, and they were nearly blind. Despite her nursing degree, Beatrice did not completely believe that the eyes mzungus,o f white people, could truly see colours as sharply as brown eyes. “Are you ready to see visitors? ” Beatrice would have asked. “No, ’’ would have been Sumar’s inevitable reply. Partly because she was a stubborn young woman.