It Happened on the Way to War Read Free

mind. And if you complete the journey, you will be changed forever. The few, the proud, the Marines.”
    Illuminated with a paraffin lamp, Tabitha’s ten-by-ten was sparsely furnished and clean. I left my mud-caked boots on a step outside the front door. An outdated calendar hung on a wall with an advertisement for margarine; a small plastic cross hung on another wall. I sat down on her sofa while she disappeared behind the colorful kanga sheet that divided her shack into two parts: living room, and kitchen/bedroom. The sofa pillows were as hard as wood.
    Tabitha emerged with two plastic cups, a thermos of chai, and a tin with brown sugar. She had no money and only a handful of earthly possessions, but she had enough to make chai for a visitor in her home.
    â€œHow many do you take?” She pointed to the sugar tin.
    â€œOne, please.”
    Tabitha dropped a heaping spoonful of sugar into my cup, then dumped four spoonfuls into her own. She removed a note card from her purse and slid it across the table. It was one of the cards I had used in my life-history interviews with Kibera youth. The card had four questions:
    â€¢Â Â What are your greatest problems?
    â€¢Â Â Are there NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) doing anything about your problems?
    â€¢Â Â What are your aspirations?
    â€¢Â Â Were you in Kibera during the ethnic violence?
    â€œYou left this card behind when we first met. You always ask the youth about their problems. But you never asked me about my problems. You want problems?” Tabitha said softly but firmly, fingering her plastic cup of chai. “I’ll tell you problems.”
    Rarely had I been confronted in such a way. I asked Tabitha if I could turn on the tape recorder that I carried for my research.
    â€œIt’s okay.”
    I placed it on the table.
    Tabitha took a deep breath and began, “Now you can imagine the problems I’ve been having. Okay, I’m jobless. Staying the way I’m staying. Initially I used to work, yes, to help my children little by little. But then, you know, I lost my job. Now we’re just hanging. I’m almost at the street children level, the way you’re seeing me. And I’m educated. I’m a registered nurse. Imagine. Now, there are too many unemployed nurses. Once, I dreamed of starting a clinic for my own, but I’ve no savings. Do you think it’s easy to bring up children with no husband, no job, no business?”
    â€œSo how do you make your payments—your rent, food, and things?”
    â€œMy rent? For me to pay, even at the time I’m talking to you, I’m having an outstanding balance of four months. I usually rely on friends and relatives. If I go to somebody, maybe sympathizers, I say, ‘Give me something little,’ I pay the rent.”
    â€œWhere are your children?”
    â€œI’ve got the firstborn in the house. There used to be two others here. But when we can’t manage, they just got out and went back to their grandmother’s.” Tabitha referred to her “motherland,” her rural home in Nyanza Province near the shores of Lake Victoria. Every year thousands of people moved from the rural areas to the slums of Nairobi in search of greater opportunity.
    â€œThey’re not in school?” I asked.
    â€œThey’re not in school, even now.”
    â€œSo why do you stay in Kibera, mama ? Why not return to your motherland?”
    â€œI don’t have any land. We’re just pushing, you see. My husband was the firstborn in the family, but he died. I’m poor, but they [relatives in the rural areas] still think I’m the one to provide for them. Yet I’ve nothing to give.” She gestured to the mud wall with the old margarine calendar. Her sense of urgency was arresting. Tabitha’s problems were so vastly different from my own. Yet I’d felt a strong connection to her ever since she had warned me of my