KENYA THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD

 

OLAF REBEIRO

Kenya, through the eyes of a child

 

 

Olaf Rebeiro was the son of Dr Manual and Angela Ribeiro de Santana. The large Ribeiro family was founded by the pioneer doctor in Kenya Dr Rosendo Ribeiro and his wife Marguerite.

 

 

Most of the good land was settled by Colonialists “mzungu or (white settlers)” who grabbed and usurped all the good land which they designated the “White Highlands”.

 

The British, rulers, encouraged segregation among the Asian and other communities, including the local African tribes. Their philosophy was to “divide and rule” We termed it, the “Colour Bar”. The Goans in the group that I belonged to, adopted the “Sussagade” - or make no waves attitude to life in Kenya. The Boers (Dutch from South Africa) and Seychellois (who spoke a pidgin French patois) were a minority group in Nairobi.

 

The Europeans (mainly British) lived in what was considered the best locations while the Asians – Sikhs, Hindus, Ismailis, Muslims and Goans had their own areas. Goans were a separate group of Indians who had Portuguese ancestry and were all Roman Catholics. Although there was some intermingling between the various Asian groups, their clubs were separate. Thus, we had the Indian Gymkhana, the Sikh Club, the Patel Club and the Goan Gymkhana. Sports rivalry in Cricket, Soccer and Hockey was keen between these groups.  Schools were also separate. I went to the Dr Ribeiro Goan School founded by my grandfather.  The native Africans lived in their own villages and only came into the city to seek work.

 

The road to Mombasa – the coastal city was the starting point for the British settlers that travelled inland to places like Nairobi, Njoro, Kitale and Eldoret.  This coastal “highway” had signs that read - “Rhinos have the right of Way” or Pole Pole (drive slowly in Swahili). The road was not paved, there was a section of 10 miles called Mackinnon Rd. that was tarmacked. The alternative was to take the train to Mombasa. This train made stops at little “towns” where the natives came up to the train trying to sell their wares, or serenading us with music made from homemade instruments that produced melodious tones.

 

Since the train left at dusk, one could see large numbers of wildlife in their natural habitat heading to their favourite watering hole.  On the train, dinner was announced by the catering staff walking down the train tinkling on a xylophone…those who could not afford to eat in the dining carriage, packed sandwiches etc. On the return journey, the train made a long stop at Voi Station, since another engine had to be added to the rear to make the long climb to Nairobi (5000 ft.), On our return trip, we would be loaded with baskets of fruits, and delicacies like Halwa, (a jelly-like sweet) which the Coastal Arabs were experts at making. These halvas were packed in skillfully woven containers made from palm fronds. Another commodity was cashew nuts, and salted dried fish, like mackerel, shark and ray fish. Fruits such as custard-apple, mangoes, passion fruit and granadilla, madafus, (tender coconut), centras (tangerines). These were packed in a kikapu - (A large basket woven from the palm frond). Toddy was a favourite drink derived from the coconut stalks that produced the coconuts.  In Goa, it is used to make sannas, a kind of steamed bread. If toddy was left too long, it turned into a popular Goan vinegar. A little-known secret, Feni, one of Goa’s famous liquors was available in Mombasa, through illegal local moonshiners. In Nairobi, the natives were skilled in brewing alcohol from maize.

 

In Malindi and Mombasa, it was a common sight to see the local women (Giriama) go topless, it did not bother or faze anyone, I am sure it must have bothered some of the more strait-laced missionaries. Quite a contrast from the local Muslim women totally covered wearing the buibui or the hijab.

 

Cooking was done on a charcoal (Makara) brazier or (Jiko). It was a makeshift oven with a large container, the bottom layer was sand and the item to be baked was placed inside on the sand layer and covered with a metal cover and then hot coals were heaped on the top. It worked really well. This later progressed to the Primus stove, which used kerosene fuel. To start we had to pump it until a little kerosene collected in a cup at the base then let the pressure off, lighted the kerosene which heated the base, then closed the valve and pumped again and now the heated base vaporized the fuel coming in and we now had a star-shaped flame at the top. The danger of an explosion was always imminent. There were stories of Indian women who wore saris and thus were more prone to these fiery accidents…. The Jiko still had to be used for baking and heating the bath water in the debbes (4-gallon rectangular tin cans, originally oil containers). Many of the Africans were talented; they made the charcoal (makara) by slow-burning wood a couple of feet underground, covered with mud and a vent for a little air and another for the smoke. 

 

Africa was still known as the “Dark Continent” when my grandfather arrived in the coastal city by an Arab dhow that took approximately 40 days to sail from India to East Africa. Stepping off the ship, my grandfather was greeted by a bustle of activity as the English were preparing to build a railroad into the interior - up into the mountains where the climate was reported to be very conducive to living and the surroundings were a vast expanse of beautiful tropical forests populated with the most amazing variety of wildlife that was not yet described in any books. Coolies, wiry but tough and resilient were brought in from India to help with the construction of the railroad. My grandfather was fortunate to arrive at a time when the British were solely in need of a medical doctor. He set up his dispensary with boxes which originally contained goods arriving from Britain.

 

My grandfather, Dr Rosendo Ayres Ribeiro eventually discovered bubonic plague and devised native cures for jaundice and malaria. His services were rewarded with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) from the British Government. He was also installed as the Portuguese Consul for Kenya. It was an adventurous time. The most exciting of which was the lions that preyed on the workers building the railroad. My grandfather often recounted his experiences to us about the fear felt at that time as each night brought another savage attack by the lions. These episodes are vividly recorded in the book “Man-eaters of Tsavo” by John Henry Patterson.

 

Being fervent Catholics, most of our time revolved around the church. After Sunday services and a special lunch at home, we had to go to our grandparents’ home for dinner. Sunday dinners at my grandparent’s home were elaborate affairs and required the attendance of all family members. Having two uncles and five aunts – three of whom were in Kenya, together with all their children, Sunday dinners were indeed a banquet.  All of us young children were dispatched to the huge gazebo located some distance from the house and left to our own devices to entertain ourselves until the dinner gong sounded.

 

The best memory I have of my grandfather was seeing pictures of him riding his Zebra on his rounds and visiting his patients – a feat yet to be duplicated to date! He later sold the zebra to the Bombay zoo for 800 rupees.

                              

                   

the occasion. Servants were seen scurrying around either serving drinks or appetizers while others took turns turning the handle of the bucket in which the milk, cream and other ingredients slowly turned into the most delicious ice cream. At least for us young impressible children!

 

In our early years, we were taken care of by a maid specially brought from India. We soon got to know the housemaid better than our mother - since she spent all her time clothing, feeding and bathing us. We were always scrubbed down with gram flour since my mother believed that this would lighten our skin! Genetics be dammed!

 

Our ayah from Goa.

 

It was around 10 years of age that I first realized my father was a well-respected medical doctor in the Asian community. I remember often waking up in the middle of the night to patients banging on the front door or knocking on the bedroom window and pleading with my father to come out to help a very ill family member.  “Doctor Sahib - you must come rapidly and soonest” were the pleas of those at the door. I never remembered my father saying “No”. He always got up dressed, picked up his bag and had the chauffeur drive him to the patient’s home. It was years later that I learnt how worried my mother was until he returned home. Kenya was not the safest place to be out and about in the middle of the night.

 

He was also always in demand to raise the toast at weddings. Apparently, he had the knack of bringing humour and human insights to every bride and groom he toasted.  I never really got to know my father since he was either at work or home in time for dinner and a foot massage from one of the servants before heading off to the club to play a few rounds of bridge. All I remember was an imposing man close to six feet tall and of considerable girth that made approaching him rather intimidating. Meanwhile, our mother kept us busy reading to us, playing games like carom (an Indian board game), tabla (another Indian game), or doing jigsaw puzzles. Life was simple and carefree as far as I was concerned.

 

Before going to school each morning we would line up by the door in our khaki shorts and shirts wearing a pith helmet. My mother would then give each one of us a spoonful of cod liver oil. I never got used to its taste!

 

My most fond memory of my mother was sitting under the grand piano listening to her play Chopin.  In time, I got to know my favourites which I would beg her to play over and over again.  Soon, my older brother Graciano was given piano lessons by Father Wargosky, one of the priests at the local Catholic church. In time, I was required to attend recitals by my brother at the local conservatoire of music. The piano tuner – a refugee from Poland would come over at frequent intervals to tune the grand piano that took most of the space in the living room.

 

My own attempts at learning to play the violin were a miserable failure despite the patience of the tutor who faithfully showed up each evening after work. It was also the time when I realized that the deep trenches in our backyard were remnants of bomb shelters for us to take refuge in during World War II blackouts. We also had several of these trenches on our school grounds. We used these trenches to play Hide-And-Seek.

 

During rainstorms, we would rush out to the street where gushing water ran down the street drains and place our hastily constructed paper boats in the gushing water and then run alongside the gutters until the boats got too soggy and could no longer float. 

 

Most evenings were spent flying kites in the open field in front of our house. We built our own kites and strived to build one that would fly higher than the others.  The kites were made of thin transparent coloured paper glued with sticky rice onto a bamboo frame bent to resemble a kite. Some of the Indian boys would layer their kite strings with broken glass glued onto the strings. The joy was to get close to another kite and try to cut its strings with these broken glass-layered strings … and watch these kites fly into the distance never to be retrieved.

 

One time we were chased out of the field by the owner of the property. I tried to get through the barbed wire fence and cut my knee severely. It bled profusely for a while, scaring me immensely. However, my mother took it all in stride and held my knee under the outside fawcett until the bleeding stopped. I still have the scars on my knee from that episode.

 

During butterfly season, we had thousands of butterflies flying around. We would go out in the field with our butterfly nets trying to capture the most colourful butterflies which we would pin on a large board.

 

Another game we played almost daily was pushing a bicycle rim with a metal rod and seeing who could be the fastest down the street. One time while visiting a friend, we were pushing our rims as fast as we could when I hit a hidden gutter resulting in the metal rod piercing my lower abdomen. The family we were visiting rushed me home and my dad, being a medical doctor looked at the gaping hole, and ascertained I had not pierced any vital organs. He had a shunt inserted so that the pus that developed could be drained. It took several weeks before all the pus drained and I could walk again!  I decided to try a less risky game after this episode!

 

Infection by jiggers was a common occurrence on my toes since I was usually in sandals while playing in the yard. My mother would prick the infections and drain out the pus and then apply an antiseptic. Later, I decided to use shoes when going out to play!

 

At school, our main pastime during recess was playing marbles. Some marbles have such beautiful colours that we would compete to win these marbles. A beautifully coloured marble helped one get into a tournament, as all contestants tried to win these marbles. The marbles were put inside a circle roughly drawn in the dirt. The idea was to try and push out the marbles while standing and taking aim at the marbles. The marble pushed out of the circle was claimed by the person who pushed it out of the circle.

 

Meanwhile, my mother had a large tent put up in the backyard to plant her various tropical plants. In time she had quite a collection of exotic plants.

 

My Uncle Victor - our adopted uncle was fair-skinned and blonde – a British orphan. He would use black shoe polish on his hair to try to “blend” in with the rest of the family. We considered him fearless and always felt comforted in his presence.  One night some robbers tried to break into our house. My Uncle Victor grabbed the rifle and ran to the backyard and sat silently by the wall waiting for the robbers to show up again. One blast from his gun and all the natives hiding in the bushes took off in a hurry! We stood by the window in awe at my uncle’s courage in being out there on his own. In hindsight, it was obvious that spears were no match for a rifle!

 

Our latrines were a short walk from the main house with a bucket below. Every evening the local sanitary department would come around and take these buckets away replacing them with clean buckets.  Needless to say, the path behind our house smelled rather “strong”!

 

Medicines

 

Even though my father was a medical doctor, my mother still believed in traditional cures for our ailments. A warm bath with Eucalyptus leaves was the universal cure for colds. Datura leaves were made into a paste and applied to the jaws for mumps. Datura grows wild in Kenya and is a well-known poisonous plant. Leeches were another universal cure. Leaches were placed on the body and allowed to do their work. A bottle of leeches was always kept handy on the top shelf in the Kitchen. Leaves of a particular tree were boiled and used as a cure for jaundice. This worked very well. However, my father never divulged the name of this tree. Eau de Cologne was another universal standby for all manner of ills. Later my mother would swear by Vicks Vapo Rub for all chest and cough ailments. Another standby was Waterbury Compound. Splinters were treated with a cut onion blackened over the fire and then attached to the wound. It acted as a poultice!

 

If we “acted up, my mother would call the local “medicine man” – a withered old man. He would spread his different potions on the ground and chant. He would then take some red-hot dried chillies and go around our heads several times with them. He would then throw the chillies into the fire. If they did not burst and burn, it meant that the devil had not moved out of the body. He would then give you a good whipping as a last resort to remove the evil spirits (diste, a Konkani word) from the body. This seemed contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church! I guess Jesus could only do so much. 

 

Our House

 

Since our little house was getting too small as we grew up, my parents built a beautiful new home that we shortly moved into. The futuristic design of this home was designed by a young Indian architect who had just graduated from an architectural college in London.

 

We moved into this beautiful modern house in 1951 surrounded by majestic Nandi flame trees (Spathodea campanulata). The servants’ quarters were located at the back boundary of the property. Behind these quarters was a stone wall 8 ft. high topped with broken glass bottles embedded in cement to discourage intruders.   The most impressive room in the house was the living room full of hand-carved furniture from India. The living room was separated from the dining room by an elaborate wooden arch of the finest veneer installed by Italian craftsmen.  A bronze replica of the Last Supper was visible on the far wall. The upper and lowers verandas that curved around the front of the house had mosaic tile floors carefully designed and installed by skilled Italian craftsmen.

 

  Our Nairobi Home

  

   

                                                                         

Much to my sorrow, this home was demolished in 1990 to make way for an apartment complex. Progress cannot be denied!

 

High School

 

It was at the age of 13 that I first had to face the reality that my family was not the carefree family I always imagined it to be.  It all began when I was summoned home by one of the servants from a friend’s house since my father who had been ill, had taken a turn for the worse. It turned out my father was suffering from heart problems. This would keep him bedridden with 24-hour care by a group of nurses and family friends. I was woken up very early on the morning of March 19, 1952, with the news that my father had passed away at age 49. Dashed were his hopes of celebrating his 50^th birthday and 25 years in medical practice.

 

Confusion, anger, despair, tears, denial, more tears...what is coronary thrombosis that everyone was whispering about?  Oh, the finality of knowing I would never speak to my dad again.   By mid-morning, I saw my dad lying in an elaborate coffin on the dining room table. More tears, and the constant stream of mourners as the word spread that their beloved doctor had died, the rosary being recited continuously throughout the day and evening, hugs, and kisses from family and strangers - life changed in an instant! The funeral was a majestic affair.  Three priests celebrated the high mass. Reportedly, over a thousand people attended clogging the road to the church. The mass had ended before some of the mourners could even get close to the church.  I now reflect on my brother Hubert’s last stanza from the elegy to my dad written some years later: 

 

“There echoed in his breath the famous blood

Of seven centuries which now echoes

In my own, his legacy. My breath stands

Between oblivion and this lopped scion

Whose blood I share with the forest trees in bloom;

But I am his son, his resurrection.”

 

My mother, widowed at 33 years of age had to take care of the four of us ranging in age from 8-16 years. My brother soon left for schooling in Dublin, and I was transferred to a new school with European teachers, a first for an all-Indian school!  It was a school for boys only. Leaving the Dr Ribeiro Goan School (named after my grandfather), a mixed boys’ and girls’ school for an Indian school was close to heresy!  As a compromise, I had to attend catechism classes at the church after school. 

 

My sister and younger brother attended St. Teresa’s school in Eastleigh, a suburb of Nairobi. It was much later that I discovered that my brother had been molested by one of the priests – a fate I narrowly escaped from at the parish priest’s residence behind the church - by jumping out of a window and running home. Abuse changed my brother forever. It is unfortunate he never lived long enough to see the church finally brought to account for its rampant abuse of children. My mother was always in denial and blamed us for spreading vicious rumours. When my mother finally realized the extent of the abuse and tried to rectify the situation, it was much too late!  I never did find out how many were molested in that far outpost of the Catholic Church. A very detailed and vivid description of the abuse by the clergy with firsthand accounts is given in Cyprian Fernandes’s book “Yesterday in Paradise” (Balboa Press).

 

I attended the Dr Ribeiro Goan School (named after my grandfather). All Goans attended this school. In high school, my mother decided to transfer me to an Asian school much to the consternation of the parish priest. High school was an invaluable experience since I got to mingle with Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs. In time, my closest friends were a Muslim and a Sikh.  I got to respect their cultures and their customs and was often invited into their homes. My friendship with my Sikh friend Ranjit Singh Bedi has lasted to this day – over 65 years - although we went our separate ways after high school – Ranjit to Britain and me to the United States.

 

It was in High School that I realized I was a very good sprinter and could beat anyone in the school. I was sure of winning most of the events when the unexpected happened. While at my Aunt’s house, I fractured my ankle. By the time I healed, I missed all the athletic events and I was never the same again.

 

I did manage to get a place on the high school hockey and football teams. We played matches against other High School teams. We were not a very good team. However, I enjoyed playing much to the dismay of my mother who much preferred if I studied instead!

 

The British had their own schools which we greatly envied since they had swimming pools, the best of sports equipment and beautiful well-manicured school grounds. We were never allowed to trespass on these grounds for any reason. The annual multi-racial track meets were the only time we could compete against the white schools.  Why was there this segregation, I often wondered? What made us so different? Did we not eat the same food, dress the same way, and play the same games? Why the difference? My dad never spoke about it in our presence. My mother would often be angry and upset that we were shunned at civic functions despite the fact that my grandfather was the Portuguese Consul and my dad was so well-known in the community. We spoke Portuguese at home. My mother spoke several languages including Portuguese, English, French, Gujarati (an Indian dialect) and Konkani (a Goan dialect).

 

Every day coming home from school, I would go to the garden and climb the mango tree and look for a ripe mango which I would then pick and sit under the tree and eat with great delight. This was my daily after-school snack! If there were no mangoes, I would climb the guava or pomegranate tree looking for some ripe fruit. Usually, there was always some fruit I could find in the garden. It was under the mango tree that I looked at some pictures given to me by my friend. It quickly enlightened me about what sex was all about and life was never the same!

 

One day I came home from school to find a bunch of baboons had come over from the forest across the street and were ravaging our fruit trees. It was not unusual to have a baboon or two come over from the forest. However, to see so many was most unusual.  Nothing would get them to move along. In fact, they became aggressive when the servants tried to shoo them away!

 

Another time, we were invaded by swarms of locusts. The sky darkened from the sheer size of the swarm and after they left, all vegetation had been completely stripped away. The servants meanwhile built a fire and put frying pans on it. They then caught as many of the insects as they flew by and threw them into the pans - and then ate the fried locusts! I did not have the courage to try them! We occasionally had these locust swarms each year. Ah, the joys of living in Africa!

 

Although Kenya was far from the battlefront, we had to black out our windows and often heard the wailing of the warning sirens at the fire station. The Italians invaded Kenya – they took Moyale and Fort Harrington eventually liberated in 1941. Malindi was also bombed.  Kenya ended up with a lot of Italian POWs. They were detailed to build the road along the Rift valley escarpment, going North. Halfway they constructed a little Chapel overlooking the Great Rift Valley. It was a stop for many of our trips and picnics. Looking down was a terrific view of the Great Rift Valley, which stretched for over 3000 miles, starting in Lebanon and via East Africa, south to Mozambique. The “Axis” Italian POWs were from the North African front, mainly Somalia, Eretria and Ethiopia. Rommel was further, to the north. During this period, food was rationed, and families were given Ration Coupons, I do not know how this sticks in my mind, as I was very young at that time. Maybe because it was frequently discussed at home. The African Regiment that fought the Germans & Italians was the K.A.R. (King’s African Rifles). They also had South African and Rhodesian soldiers in Kenya – the KAR later served in the Burma campaign alongside the Gurkha regiments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

 

Since the Goan community to which I belonged, was strong Catholics, our lives revolved around the church. Mass every Sunday (dressed in our finest), church every evening during Holy Week and midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Attendance was also required on other special feast days. We were also required to attend each Friday the Stations of the Cross where we knelt before each picture of the stages of Christ’s journey up Mount Calvary depicted around the interior walls of the church. These stations of the cross were donated by my mother.

 

My mother would spend each Saturday at the church making up the beautiful flower bouquets that decorated the altar on Sundays. As an altar boy, I was required to serve at mass each morning at 6.30 am. I would leave the house at 6 am and run down the road to the church that was approximately ¾ miles away, dash into the sacristy, put on my vestments and with another altar boy, lead the Father to the altar. All prayers were in Latin and we had to respond in Latin (although most of the words were meaningless to me).

 

Although the vast congregations at the church were Goans, the priests were all from the Holy Ghost missionary in Ireland. They made sure that the Europeans got the front rows at mass. Yes, segregation was also practised in the Catholic Church! My grandfather and grandmother were given front-row seats since they had contributed large sums of money to the church and helped pay for the marble altar. Yes, money did make a difference!  Later on, my mother paid for some of the priest’s vestments and was given special privileges.

 

After mass, it was customary for us to visit some of my parents’ friends before going home to a delicious meal prepared by the cook. Often, we had some of my parent’s friends join us for Sunday lunch. I loved these meals since it was the only time we children, were allowed to drink a glass of Woodehouse cider.

 

It was much later that I learned about the abuses by the priests of young boys (see below). It was one of the reasons I left the Catholic Church – a religion I believed was based on fear of eternal damnation and based on “do as I say” and ignoring the abuses committed by the priests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE MAU MAU REVOLUTION

My High School years were during a tumultuous period in the history of Kenya as the natives began to agitate for independence. The savagery of the attacks against the white farmers in the Highlands was sufficient to scare us all. In retaliation, the British forces performed equally savage atrocities against the native population with the encouragement of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

My mother tried her best to hide the newspapers that daily carried accounts of the savagery on both sides. The inhumanity and unimaginable cruelty reported daily on both sides of the conflict left me in shock and despair that this is what civilization had come to. My most vivid memory was reading how the British troop laid the African prisoners on the ground and drove their trucks over them continuously until they died, taking bets as to how long it would take them to die.

All our teachers came to school with pistols in holsters strapped to their waists. Rifles were stored in the principal’s office. We had to have constant drills on how to prepare for an attack. The reality of the situation was brought home when bodies were found buried in the vacant ground just beyond our school.  This uprising called the Mau Mau Insurrection would come to dominate all my high school years.

We had loaded guns in each room of the house in case of a surprise attack. Whenever my mother heard a noise at night, she would wake us up and we would follow her around with loaded guns in our hands. Most of the time it was just rats playing in the ceiling!

I reflect on how brilliantly my brother Hubert described this period in his poem “The Mau Mau Remembered” in his book “El Peregrino”- I quote:

Order shook apart under implacable hooves,

Orphaning blades sundered our world into halves;

And innocent blood ridden into the soil,

As if massacre could ransom the country’s soul!

Freedom could have come with paper as with panga -

Machine-gunned black and quartered white, will your pain go

The way of passing rage and be forgiven,

Or will death take the saddle and fear govern

As before? If we had pledged with England,

Would she have kept her word? It was from her we learned

All that is best and worst; the passion and the pain,

But honour most of all, no politician’s pun.

History is plastic. In fifteen years of peace

Pity and stench of war lost in a heavy purse.

The hunted who when mentioned made our senses numb

Now are modern heroes and give the streets their name.

The land is still again, no screaming cracks the night;

In the Abedares only Nandi blossoms burn.

It is to a free Kenya, children now are born,

But their races’ conscience is voiceless and betrayed,

A wilderness of words chokes like a hangman’s knot-

Never will paths of honour in our day be trod”

 

Behind our house was the Indian High school with the running track close to our backyard.  I spent evenings with a group of friends running on the track and dreaming of becoming champions.  Other times we played hockey and again dreamed of being champions. Ultimately some of our friends ended up trying out for the Olympics one did make it to the Rome Olympics in 1960 in track and another two made it to the Olympics on the Kenya hockey team.  I had to give up my dreams of glory as my mother insisted, and I had to go to Britain for my post-graduate education.