More Debriefing of a Very Old Grandmother

It takes more than one person to have an opinion. -- Juju (My translation: A strong opinion can only be formed after hearing the perspectives of others.) Juju means grandmother in Kimeru. She just keeps dropping these nuggets of knowledge in the middle of stories. I can't wait until I can start doing that.

So, 1901.

My grandmother remembers 1901 as the year when she first saw a white man in the area. Later it turns out, he was actually Indian. The name they called him translates into the Wanderer because that’s just what he did, wander. Settlers have to actually settle in an area. When they saw the wanderer, they would run home and tell their parents that they saw God. Parents would sacrifice a goat each time this happened. I’m quite pleased that this practice has stopped considering how many Indians inhabit Kenya, let alone the earth. We’d probably be out of goats, and that would be a bad thing for Kenyans and my diet.

I asked my grandmother the logical follow-up question. What did she think the first time that she saw a white person. She said that she thought they were unhealthy and weak. She thought that if you just swatted them they would run away like a chicken. She actually said, “run away like a chicken.” A literal chicken. I tried this yesterday and it did not work. I just got stared at like I was crazy. But, when in Rome, right? She also thought that if you pinched a white person, his/her skin would fall off.

At least nowadays, if someone hasn’t seen a person of a different color before, they’ve at least seen them on television, a newspaper, book, or magazine. In Africa today, there are probably few places where they haven’t seen white people, and many where people rarely see white people. Largely because Jesus Christ has been almost everywhere. And where missionaries have left an area, there remain pictures of that long-haired white Jesus Christ all over churches, bibles, and matatus (the local minivan public transport system). So even though the people in an area may not know any white people first-hand, they still worship one as the son of God. What effect does this have on people? I’m almost sure that it does have one that I’ll explore in a subsequent post.

My grandmother was an early convert to Christianity. It will be interesting to hear how and why my grandmother transitioned from her initial impressions of white people to being converted by them in a relatively short period of time. Once I know (and get to a computer), so will you.