JESUS AND JUSTICE

JESUS AND JUSTICE: A 10 Point Reflection

By Njonjo Mue

Recently, I've been reflecting on the subject of Jesus and Justice. I am still walking along this exciting journey, but I have reached a few tentative conclusions which I'd like to share with you:

1. Our God is a God of justice. As the Old Testament reminds us, justice is the foundation of his throne.

2. Many people, and even whole societies, that claim to be Christian deny this foundational attribute of God in their actions, if not by their words. They preach and practice an incomplete gospel of individual salvation without any reference to the social implications of the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

3. Whether you embrace the purely individual gospel or the holistic gospel referred to in 2. above depends in part on your Christology and your eschatology.

4. If your Christology emphasises only the deity of Jesus Christ and his triumphant resurrection, you are likely to miss out on what God has to say about the pursuit of justice in the here and now and instead merely focus on defending Christ's deity while ignoring or excusing injustice and encouraging yourself and victims of injustice to await the second coming of Christ when all wrongs shall be made right.

5. Your eschatology is also likely to point only to a future end-time when all things will be made right with the return of Christ instead of getting actively involved in the pursuit of a more just world in the here and now.

6. But if in addition to acknowledging the deity, resurrection and return of Christ, we also recognise him as a very human servant of God who spoke prophetically to the unjust religious and political authorities of his time,

7 And if we can be inspired by his bodily suffering due to the injustice he encountered and endured, yet overcame,

8. And if our eschatology not only looks to the establishment of God's kingdom in some distant future, but as an ongoing and unfolding reality,

9. Then we begin to see ourselves not just as lucky members of a privileged club of the 'saved' whose tickets to heaven have been booked and who can therefore sit back and relax while we await the trip aboard 'Rapture Airlines'; we instead come to understand our mandate to work for the creation of a new cosmic and social order in the here and now that is radically different from the one over which the powers and principalities of this world preside.

10. As the author Jerry Folk writes in his book, 'Doing Theology, Doing Justice', "Those who live in and preside over this world are perhaps willing to accept the idea of God's reign coming sometime - but not here, and not now. Yet it is precisely this here-and-nowness that Jesus announces.... The life, death and resurrection of Jesus calls the new creation into existence here and now, in the midst of the old.... The old is already beginning to pass away. It is the presence of this end-time reality here and now that principalities and powers object to, not the abstract idea of an end time."

THE FIRST KISS... PART 3

THE FIRST KISS…

By Njonjo Mue

PART 3

The December holidays could not end soon enough once I managed to figure out who she was. It had happened in the most unexpected way.

A friend of my cousin's, who was in Form Two in Arthur House had also been at the BBQ during that magical night in late November. He was visiting us one day just before Christmas when he casually mentioned her name in conversation, asking me how she was doing.

"Who is that?" I asked, looking at him blankly.

"The chick I saw you with at the BBQ," he said. "Don't tell me that you've already forgotten her name."

"Of course not," I replied, recovering quickly. I did not want to disclose the nature of the curious challenge she had presented to me as a result of which I did not even know her name. But I was barely able to hide my excitement now that the code had been cracked.

I asked him how he knew her and he said that she had been one class ahead of him in primary school. When he came to Alliance, he had escorted her twice across the valley and had later tried to pursue her seriously but she had remained aloof and obviously considered herself beyond his reach, and so he had given up.

As the holidays drew to an end and we prepared to go back to school in January, I was so excited that I found it difficult to sleep through the night.

I imagined how it would be like having an acrossian girlfriend of my own. I no longer had to fear floating during joint events because she would be there for me, and when she happened not to be, there would be no pressure to socialise since everyone would know I was committed to this one person and would take my floating as a voluntary act of loyalty. Life would never be the same again.

January came soon enough and I went back to school to begin my Fourth Form.

I wondered about the best way to break the news that I had managed to find out her name so that we could get on with the business of discovering the ‘few more surprises’ that she had promised would be in store for me once I got over this hurdle.

Should I pay her a visit at Across during the first weekend? No, that would appear too desperate (though if truth be told, I was indeed desperate to see her again). Should I wait for the first joint function? That seemed too far since most clubs were still preparing their calendars for the term. Should I write her a letter? I was reluctant to do that based on my previous bad experience with letter writing.

In the end, it was not me who went looking for her, but she who came to me. I was sitting with some friends in the Dorm in the afternoon of the second Saturday after school opened sharing our various holiday escapades, some real but mostly imagined.

A Form 2 boy from Aggrey House walked in and announced that I had a visitor waiting to see me at the Parade Ground.

I was not used to receiving random visitors in school and so I wondered aloud who it could be as I started for the door.

“It’s an acrossian,” said the Form 2, his voice chiming with the exaggerated tone of the bearer of unexpected good tidings. My heart almost stopped.

I knew it could not be anyone else. I did not know any acrossian who would walk all the way unannounced across the valley to see me on a Saturday afternoon.

But I also doubted it was her. Wasn’t she supposed to wait until I found out who she was and sent word to her? But then I thought back to our first meeting at the BBQ in November and I remembered how she had come across as a woman who usually knew what she wanted and went for it. It had to be her.

I went back to my locker and quickly changed into more presentable clothes, applied a dab of cologne and dashed off towards the parade ground.

When I got there, I found her half-sitting, half leaning delicately back against the low stone platform on which the teachers usually stood as they addressed the school parade.

She looked composed and regal as if posing for a portrait, with her arms crossed over her chest, one leg bent at the knee and the foot resting gently against the wall.

The new school uniform she wore made her look somewhat smaller than I remembered her from our first meeting. It also made her look as sober and innocent now as the blue miniskirt had made her look sensual and provocative then.

“Hi, what a surprise!” I said, my voice sounding a pitch higher than usual in my own ear.

I was not sure how I should greet her. A mere handshake seemed too formal given how our last encounter had ended, and yet a hug in mid-afternoon in the middle of the parade ground might be interpreted as being a wee bit forward and invite trouble from some over-enthusiastic prefect.

I did neither, instead choosing to give her an endearing look that I hoped adequately communicated my dilemma.

“Well, I guessed that you’d failed the test and did not have the courage to admit it, so I thought I should come over and put you out of your misery,” she said, laughing gleefully with the confident manner of one accustomed to winning.

As she laughed, she tossed her head back in such a carefree way that I found myself instinctively joining in the laughter. But my excitement at seeing her made my own laughter go on a little too long.

“Ah, but you are wrong, my dear,” I said, regaining a measure of control. “Terribly wrong.”

I did not immediately tell her that I had already found out her name. It was my turn to play games now that she had brought herself willingly and unexpectedly to my territory.

“How much time do you have?” I asked. “Can we take a walk?” I was half-hoping to re-enact the memorable stroll we had taken at the BBQ, though of course, I knew that this time around we had to keep a respectable distance from each other.

I could almost feel the eyes of curious onlookers on our backs as we casually strolled, deep in conversation, past the dining hall and the swimming pool towards the lower gate.

I had never enjoyed being the centre of attention so much before in my life. I was suddenly in very good spirits and had to resist the urge to stop and say hello to random boys we passed on our way to ensure that they took note of my exceedingly good fortune.

I had once wandered into the beautifully manicured lawn of the Church of the Torch where I had spent a lazy afternoon lying alone on the soft grass reading a book and enjoying the sights and sounds.

At the time, I had thought it such a waste not to have anyone to share all this serenity with. I had, therefore, subconsciously made a decision that one day I would bring my acrossian girlfriend, if I was ever privileged to have one, here to share this beauty.

And so, once outside the lower gate, we turned left towards the junction and then walked up the hill past Musa Gitau Primary School and onto Hospital Road, enjoying the perfect afternoon weather that was neither too hot nor too cold.

Once inside the church compound, we spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on how each of us had spent the Christmas holidays after we had taken leave of each other in November.

We admired the grand architecture of the old church before settling down to sit on the grass and enjoying the giddy feelings of young teenagers falling in love.

From then on this church lawn would become one of our favourite places to hang out on the weekends. I would often read poetry to my newfound love as the majestic cathedral stood in silent witness. The birds also seemed to cheer us on as she regaled me with stories of growing up in her family farm in Nakuru.

It was the start of a whirlwind romance. We couldn’t see enough of each other.

Being one class apart, we did not let the fact that we did not have many club functions in common deter us. Instead, I would usually make a point of waiting for her at the end of a club meeting and she would skip the refreshments to spend time with me before I walked her across the valley.

And then there were the charity films that neither of us missed and yet hardly really watched as the highlight for us was the opportunity to sit together, holding hands in the darkened hall whispering sweet nothings to each other and rekindling memories of the first night we met.

We also exchanged letters, sometimes as many as three a week, making full use of the unique mail service that delivered letters to and from across twice daily.

All the while, we eagerly looked forward to the weekend and the obligatory walk up the hill to our favourite spot on the green lawn of the Church of the Torch.

It was a romance made in heaven whose details we were just faithfully working out here on earth. Surely the gods were smiling down upon us.

Or so I thought.

For all too soon, our fairytale romance came to an end. Suddenly and unexpectedly.

We had a date to meet at Across one Thursday evening after a Debating Society meeting. Earlier during the day, I had gone to Nairobi for a dental appointment.

Unfortunately, I never made it back in time to join the team going Across as the Kenya Bus broke down at Dagoretti Corner on our way back. I, therefore, wrote to her that same night apologising for not showing up and explaining what had happened. I ended the letter by telling her how much I had missed her.

Her reply, when it came, was a thunderbolt that knocked the breath out of me:

“I did not miss you at all”, the words leaped from the page assaulting my unbelieving eyes. “In fact, I never want to see you again.”

I thought it must have been a joke. But when I wrote to her two more letters that went unanswered, and two weeks passed without hearing a word from her, it started to dawn on me that she may have been serious after all.

I went Across to see her the following Saturday afternoon hoping at least to get an explanation, but when I sent for her, she did not come. Instead, a friend of hers came and told me flatly that she did not want to see me. “Why?” She was not at liberty to say.

To this day, I have no idea why our budding friendship came to such an abrupt end. I had been the perfect gentleman during those six months, at least as perfect a gentleman as any sixteen-year-old boy could be. Nor was it, as far as I could tell, the fact that she’d met someone else, for after that, she avoided all social functions.

And so, as suddenly as she had come into my life, she had gone away, taking my heart with her. For a while, I did not know whether it would ever be returned to me.

But, eventually, it came back, in bits and pieces. As I wrote her long letters of lament which I never sent and took lonely walks up the hill to breathe the fresh air that we had shared at the Church of the Torch. As I silently re-read the poems that I had read to her in happier times and I remembered the moments that we had spent together during those magical months. All this, surely but agonizingly slowly, brought my tender, aching heart back to me and, eventually, released me to move on.

With the passage of time, I have often wondered whether what we had was true love or just a passing infatuation between two teenagers.

But whether the love was real or imagined, the memories of the moments we shared in school and on the hills and valleys around Kikuyu during the first two terms of 1984 remain some of the most defining features of my youth.

/The End/nm….

THE FIRST KISS ... PART 2

THE FIRST KISS....

By Njonjo Mue

PART 2

If there is such a thing as an SI Unit for beauty, up until this point in my life, my SI Unit had been one Judy Achieng (not her real name). Back in Form 2, I had laid my eyes on her at some function in school and had immediately fallen head over heels for her.

But my courage had entirely failed me at the last minute each time I had tried to speak to her. And so I had decided to express my interest by penning a love letter to her. I had then eagerly waited for her reply to come.

But days had turned into weeks and weeks had become months, but the much-anticipated letter never arrived.

From then on, I had kept a relatively low profile, finding comfort in observing the comings and goings on the social scene in quiet anonymity and from a safe distance. I, therefore, thought I was relatively unknown at Alliance Girls.

And yet here was this perfect stranger standing elegantly before me, smiling knowingly and proclaiming that she knew who I was. She did this with a familiarity that I found both unnerving and reassuring in equal measure.

The annual Hospital Hill barbecue would take place at the school hall on the last Thursday of November. It was usually a family affair with parents and guardians catching up with each other in the hall over drinks and nyama choma. Their children, meanwhile, mingled freely with their friends nearby only coming in once in a while to take a bite of the food and reassure their parents that they were okay, before disappearing again into the night. All the while the latest music played in the background giving the entire event the aura of a serious street party.

“Would you like to take a walk?” I ventured to ask her, expecting the worst but hoping for the best.

“Sure,” she said, almost in a whisper. “And where exactly would you like to take me this evening, Mr. Mue?” She asked.

She said ‘Mr. Mue’ with all the feigned respect of an overpaid butler accompanied by a slight bow. The dancing in her eyes seemed to suggest that this evening might be pregnant with possibilities for me.

“Well, I thought we could move a little further from the hall,” I offered, “where the music is not so loud, so we can talk a little.”

I knew it was really just a reasonable excuse to move away from the light and the crowd in the hope that some privacy and darkness might yield unexpected dividends. I half expected her to object, but she obliged.

Soon, we were strolling away from the crowd escorted by the fading sound of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross as they sang their hit duet, Endless Love.

[My love,

There's only you in my life

The only thing that's bright

My first love,

You're every breath that I take

You're every step I make…]

I casually slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her closer to me. She did not complain. I held her tighter, so tight in fact that we struggled to maintain our balance. Only then did I loosen my grip on my newfound treasure.

We walked towards our unknown destination with the sudden urgency of a new love still waiting to be discovered.

[And I

I want to share

All my love with you

No one else will do...]

As we walked passed what must have been the administration building, I could vaguely make out the school motto written boldly above the entrance. It stated, “Nothing but the best.”

I took this as a message from the heavens that our romantic stroll under the night’s moonless sky was the beginning of something very special.

[And your eyes

Your eyes, your eyes

They tell me how much you care

Ooh yes, you will always be

My endless love...]

“You seem to know all about me, but I know nothing about you except that you are an Acrossian,” I gently protested, stopping and turning her to face me as I leaned against a wall as soon as I felt we had gone far enough to guarantee our privacy.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, playfully tugging at the lapels of my jacket. “I can either tell you everything about me now and then you will never see me again. Or I can give you a couple of hints and if you manage to find out who I am by the time we open school in January...” she paused and smiled coyly, the mysterious sparkle returning to her eyes. “You might just be in for a few more surprises.”

“If I choose the latter,” I said, putting my negotiating hat on, “I will need a deposit guaranteeing my investment.”

“Agreed,” she said.

When I asked her to give me the hints, she told me that she was a class behind me at Across and was in Bruce House. But she would not tell me her name. That was what I needed to find out by January if this night was to become not just the beginning of the end but only the end of the beginning.

All too soon, I knew that we needed to be heading back to the hall before a search party was sent out to look for us as the barbecue was nearing the end. Lionel Richie and Diana Ross also seemed to be coming to the end of their song which for some reason the DJ had decided to play again.

[Two hearts,

Two hearts that beat as one

Our lives have just begun…]

“And my deposit?” I asked as I gently repositioned her so that we switched positions with her back now against the wall.

By now I had given up my jacket to help keep her warm, and so I couldn’t tell whether the shiver I felt was the result of the light breeze that was blowing our way or whether it was coming from somewhere deep within me.

“I thought you’d never ask,” She whispered, instinctively moving closer to me in sweet surrender and closing her eyes.

[Forever

I'll hold you close in my arms

I can't resist your charm…]

As I held her close, I noticed that she too was shivering.

For what seemed like an eternity, none of us spoke. We stood there swaying gently as if dancing to the wind, and listening to the silence that only gave way to the sound of our own two hearts beating as one.

[And love

Oh, love

I'll be a fool

For you,

I'm sure

You know I don't mind

Oh, you know I don't mind…]

When the moment finally came, it came without warning and was as surprising as it was expected. Our lips found each other and we kissed, lightly at first, then, deeply and passionately, as if we had no intention of ever letting go.

['cause you,

You mean the world to me

Oh

I know

I've found in you

My endless love.]

Eventually, we reluctantly pulled away from each other and walked back, hand in hand, to the hall where the party was just ending.

She was even more strikingly beautiful in the full light inside the hall than she had looked in the soft glow of the lone street lamp when I had first laid eyes upon her earlier that evening.

I was reunited with my cousins and she with her friend. We said goodbye with a handshake and an innocent peck on the cheek, promising to look each other up when school opened after the Christmas break.

As I left Hospital Hill School that Thursday night in late November 1983, I was excited at the fact that there was a distinct possibility that I might soon join the ranks of the elite club of those boys in school who had their very own Acrossian.

But before that could happen, I also knew that I had my work cut out for me.

[TO BE CONCLUDED....]

THE FIRST KISS...

THE FIRST KISS...

PART ONE

A true story by Njonjo Mue

The year was 1983. I was a 14-year-old Form 3 student at Alliance High School. It was the year President Moi had called a snap election to rid his government of the sympathizers of my namesake, Charles Njonjo, following the unsuccessful 1982 coup attempt. The subsequent 'Msaliti' saga had dominated national politics and Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' had stormed the airwaves with the hurricane force of Katrina.

It was late November and school was out. My cousins and I had gone to Hospital Hill Primary School one Thursday evening to attend one of the year's highlights - the annual barbecue.

As the sun went down, I took a quiet stroll to enjoy the early evening breeze and get away from other boys who had found their opposites and were busy exchanging sweet nothings. From the sound system just outside the school hall, 'Kool and the Gang' were urging us in song to 'Get down on it' and to 'Celebrate Good Times'. That was when I spotted her. And the very sight of her just took my breath away.

Her dark smooth skin seemed to radiate warmth against the soft glow of the lone street lamp beneath which she stood speaking quietly to a friend. Her distinct features remain etched in my memory to this day. She had short hair, bushy but well-trimmed eyebrows, and eyes that seemed to sparkle with mystery as she spoke as if inviting her audience to guess what she really meant, which was far deeper than the words that actually escaped from her delicate lips.

She wore a simple grey chiffon blouse that gave the upper part of her body an exquisite floating appearance, and a pleated navy-blue mini-skirt that stopped just above her knees, exposing the finest pair of legs I had ever seen.

I needed to speak to her. No, make that I had to speak to her. My very life seemed to depend on it.

You can therefore imagine my consternation when, upon saying hello and telling her my name, she replied nonchalantly, "I know you."

"But... but... you couldn't possibly..." I stammered, my heart beating like an African drum. I did not know whether it was a good or bad sign that she claimed to know me, or even whether she was mistaking me for someone else.

"You are an acrossian in Sellwood House," she said with the regal authority of Wangu wa Makeri. The fact that she had used the word 'acrossian' in reference to my school confirmed that she was also an acrossian from Alliance Girls, which was across the valley from our school. And the fact that she knew my House, made it clear that she had the right person in mind.

As if on cue, her friend melted into the night leaving just the two of us standing alone silhouetted against the soft glow of the lone street lamp inside Hospital Hill Primary School.

[To be continued...]

THE FLAG

THE FLAG
By Njonjo Mue

The flag, our flag
The symbol of our freedom

They told me the black
Was for the people, all the people
And the red for the blood
The price of our freedom
The green for the land, our land.
And the white for peace.

And yet, here I am
Back in Courtroom 7
Because I flew the flag, our flag
Without a title

They tell me
The fine is a million
Or five years of my freedom
for flying the flag, our flag
Without Permission.

16 October 2018

KENYA: THE OLD IS DEAD, BEHOLD THE NEW IS COME

On October 19, 2017, I wrote a Facebook Update about the old dying and the new being born. The dynasties that had controlled Kenya's fortunes and misfortunes since independence were at an advanced stage of collapse.

Since then, the repeat election has been held, the President has been sworn in, the other President has also sworn himself in, and then there was a mysterious handshake at Harambee House between the two protagonist in this epic drama.

These twists and turns are hard to follow. But I know this for sure, the latest detente between the two dynasties is going nowhere and is taking Kenya nowhere. It is a trick meant to hoodwink and pacify Kenyans who have rejected utterly the idea that our fortunes as a nation will continue to be determined by a handful of rich families while the rest of us barely survive on crumbs thrown down from the master's table.

In the heavenlies, the shift has already occurred and God Almighty has written the following update on his Facebook Wall concerning the Kenyattas, the Mois, the Odingas, the Rutos, the Musalias, the Kalonzos, the Wetangulas, the Sonkos:

Ezekiel 21 (KJV)

"24 Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.

25 And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end,

26 Thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.

27 I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him."

The hour is late.

Those who in the past have gained power and riches through witchcraft, oppression, manipulation, violence and bribery will be swept away.

The best they can do now if they hope to survive to see a new Kenya is to resign their office promptly and start living their lives as ordinary citizens. This is their only way out.

If you linger on the seat of oppression, you will be swept away, viciously and immediately; and upon the ashes of these fallen, we shall build a new Kenya, one where justice truly is our shield and defender. This new Kenya will be the spring board to a great revival which will quickly spread to our neighbours, the rest of Africa and to the uttermost parts of the world, until the whole earth is filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

A new dawn is coming
A new age to come
When the children of promise
Shall flow together as one

A truth long neglected
But the time has now come
When the children of promise
Shall stand together as one.

May the LORD find us faithful and worthy at his hour of coming.

End/nm/30 May 2018

AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD.... EPISODE 8

AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD...

By Njonjo Mue

EPISODE NINE

PREQUEL THREE

WHEN THE AMBULANCE WOULD COME

If these great lawyers had contributed to the dream of a successful career launch for me, the real incubator of the dream was my family.

Together with my twin sister, I had the privilege of being the last born in a large family of eleven - four brothers and seven sisters in all.

Being the babies in such a large family had its own distinct benefits. Most important, by the time we came along, our parents were happy to delegate many aspects of our parenting to our elder siblings, and yet there were certain lines these delegates could not cross when it came to disciplining us. So, we had a fairly relaxed time growing up.

Also, being the babies, we only got assigned the lightest of chores, which left me room to experiment and get into all kinds of mischief. I usually led other estate boys in undertaking all sorts of experiments, some downright dangerous. I remember once we started a fire that almost destroyed the Metal Box factory. As the firefighters battled the inferno before it engulfed the plant, we ran away and then returned tentatively to join the crown in watching and wondering aloud how such a big fire could have started and spread so quickly, and who on earth could have started it.

Being a last born also meant that I learned a lot by sheer absorption as I listened in on my siblings discuss their homework. And so, long before I even went to school, I knew the names of the key capital cities in the world, which countries were oil exporters, the parts of a flower, the process of photosynthesis, the gestation cycle of a butterfly, what the transatlantic slave trade was all about, and why Abraham Lincoln went to war.

My brother Kamau, who was then in High School, had an intimate relationship with his books and would spend long afternoons in the small park behind our house reading quietly by himself, often forgetting even to come home for lunch. As he was my role model, I too grew to love books, first the Rainbow children’s magazine that came out every Sunday and I sacrificed some of my lunch money to buy, then the Tintin and Asterix comics that I borrowed from my rich cousins, sometimes without their permission, then later graduating to Barbara Kimenye’s Moses series, Big Ben of London, Spear, as well as the American adventure novel series, Hardy Boys.

All through my early childhood, my father remained a pillar of gentle strength for the family, who was there to guide, to provide, to encourage and to discipline as the occasion required.

But on this Friday afternoon, it was my mother that I missed the most as I re-read my letter informing me that I would soon be on my way to Oxford. She had died of complications from an operation at Thika District Hospital to remove her appendix when I was only fourteen years old. Ever since then, every time I had an important milestone to celebrate, or a difficult decision to make, or a heartache to share, I would find myself wishing she were there for me to talk to. She was many things to many people, but to me, she was the epitome of grace under fire.

My mother was kind, intelligent, and gifted in many ways. She especially had a way of making some of the most crucial decisions concerning our household and letting my father take all the credit. The poor man had all these brilliant ideas that had been passed on to him ever so subtly by his wife, that he genuinely thought that they were his own.

And she was the life of the estate. A mentor to the many young wives of the factory workers who had migrated from the village to our estate to join their husbands; a mother to all the children who would often come to visit our house and refuse to leave, especially if the aroma of chapatis wafted from the kitchen to announce in advance what we would be having for supper; and a counsellor to many young trainees at the factory who drank a bit too much.

She was also generous to a fault, and many were the nights when we found ourselves hosting strangers who had gotten lost on their way or had come from the village to visit someone who had moved on.

My mother was a woman of faith and was an active member of the Mothers Union at the St. Andrews Anglican Church in Thika which was our home church and where attending Sunday School was not optional for her children. She ensured that we had every opportunity to know her God and to love him with the same passion as she did.

Mum worked hard and taught us to respect work no matter what our hands found to do, as well as to respect workers whatever work they happened to be doing. She herself was a cleaner on the factory floor but she would refer to the broom she used for sweeping as her special purple pen (purple being the colour of royalty) and the place where she happened to be cleaning as her office. She was the essence of dignity.

Most of the time, she had a sunny disposition, creatively solving the problems of every day life and adding a spark to what might otherwise have been a humdrum existence.

But then, there were those days.

Those days when dark clouds of despair seemed to conspire to envelope her and take her to a place where we could not reach her. I was too young then to understand what manner of sadness this was and what caused it. How could anyone descend into that depth of gloom, a melancholy that seemed to take the very essence of life entirely away from her and leave only the body to continue with the seemingly tedious business of living?

During those seasons, my mother would sometimes be taken away by ambulance and would be gone for weeks on end. No one would tell us where she had gone or when she would be back. Most conversations by the adults suddenly turned into whispers that seemed intended to discuss everything and anything except our missing mother. And when she was brought back to us, she would only slowly start to emerge out of the dungeon and reconnect with us more out of her love compelling her to reach out to her bewildered children rather than a natural desire to do so of her own accord. She simply did not have the energy.

But eventually, aided by Largactil tablets which she took religiously, she would be wholly restored to us and life would thankfully return to normal. But to this day, every time I hear the siren of an ambulance in the streets, I freeze momentarily, fearing that it is going to my childhood house to take our mother away from us again.

And then there were the other times, when she became too happy, slept too little, was too active and filled with energy, full of too many ideas, and spoke too fast for our young minds to follow. She was never violent. Indeed she was lucid most of the time with all the things she said during these times of extreme happiness actually making sense when taken one at a time and if only they could be followed through to their logical conclusion.

But they did not come one at a time. They were often jumbled up, one idea seemingly racing to catch up with the one before it to avoid being overtaken by the one following it. It was like those safari rally cars that we would go and see as they passed through Kilimambogo Check Point every Easter. Nor could the ideas be followed to their logical conclusion because one idea quickly morphed into another with such unusual ease, at least to her, but leaving the rest of us struggling to keep up.

During those times, I liked staying close to my mother and listening to her animated ideas about how the two of us could change the world, end all the pain, feed the hungry children and pay the workers a fair price for their labour, using powers that only the two of us possessed but no one else knew about.

I stayed with her not only because I found her so intriguing to listen to but also because I knew she needed someone to share all these ideas with. By staying close to her, I also hoped to persuade any adult who took an unwelcome interest in her that what she was saying was making perfect sense to me, so as to prevent them from coming back with an ambulance to take my mother away. But just sitting with her would often leave me gasping for breath as I chased down all these thoughts in different directions trying to keep up and hold on to my mother.

And oftentimes, try as I might, I simply could not keep up and I would eventually be left terrified and exhausted, peering deep into the horizon helplessly watching her disappear in a kaleidoscope of colourful thoughts to a place where I could not follow.

And then the ambulance would come.

END OF EPISODE NINE

[ COMING UP IN EPISODE TEN... At the start of SEASON TWO, having come so close to death at the height, or rather the depth, of the depression, I now fall head over heels in love with the very idea of living as I unknowingly start to leave the plains of hope and breathe the fresh air of extreme joy on the foothills of the mountains of mania. ]

AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD ..... EPISODE 7

AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD

By Njonjo Mue

PART SEVEN

PREQUEL TWO

STAY ON YOUR LANE

I stared at the letter from the Rhodes Trust for a long time, fearing that I was dreaming and I would soon have to wake up to continue my search for scholarships.

When I returned from the kitchen where I had gone to get myself a cup of tea and found the letter still sitting on my desk, I began to will myself into believing that my exceedingly good fortune was actually real. I also allowed myself the luxury of reflecting on the journey that had led me to this memorable day, Friday, December 7th 1990.

As I have stated before, I have always had an uneasy relationship with the law as practiced in Kenya. However, I have always found lawyers to be quite fascinating. And so, as I quietly sipped my cup of tea and savoured my success at being awarded this prestigious scholarship on this Friday afternoon, I could not help recalling some of those lawyers who had, in one way or another, shaped my own career so far.

First there was Githu Muigai. He was my teacher at university. My first encounter with him, when he was a young, suave, lecturer newly returned from Columbia University with a Masters Degree, was not a pleasant one. It was towards the end of my First Year during the moot court when I first met him. Githu was acting as the presiding judge sitting on a panel together with Okech Owiti and Dr. David Gachuki.

I recall that I did not have the money to buy myself a suit by the time of the moot court. I therefore dressed as smartly as I could in the circumstances, in grey trousers, a grey sweater, a white shirt and a red tie.

Judge Githu’s opening remarks were directed at me, “Counsel, you are outrageously dressed!” This elicited guffaws of laughter from my classmates who were required to be part of the audience. But it deeply embarrassed me.

I wondered whether to tell Githu that I did not yet own a suit, or I should just ignore him and proceed with my submissions. Time being limited, I did the latter, but I cost my team comprising Harun Ndubi and Lucy Mugo some marks for being “outrageously dressed.”

Although I felt embarrassed by Githu at the time, his remarks may well have ensured that I was got the Rhodes scholarship three years later. For some time after I was elected scholar, I learned from an associate at Kaplan & Stratton whose father sat on the selection committee that there had been stiff competition between myself and another candidate. Eventually, the committee had chosen me over him.

What was the tiebreaker? The other candidate had come for the interview wearing a sweater instead of a jacket and tie.

Looking back, I am therefore grateful that Githu had pointed out, even if not so subtly, that I was “outrageously dressed,” for it taught me that first impressions last, and it is possible for one’s dress to speak so loudly that one’s audience cannot hear one’s message. To this day, I often remember that incident when I sit on interview panels and observe some young people show up inappropriately dressed for interviews.

My other interaction with Githu came about during our second year when he taught Jurisprudence, which was an optional subject. I attended a few of his lessons before I dropped the subject for being far too complicated for me. But that was not before I heard Githu explaining to us the difference between murder and assassination. I am not sure now what the relevance of this was, but I shall never forget his hilarious illustration:

“If a mad man should burst into this lecture room right now, wielding a machine gun, and shoot us all dead,” he said and paused for effect, the pause also giving me time to think that he'd probably been in America too long.

Then he continued, “Tomorrow’s headlines would read, ‘Students gunned down, as Professor is assassinated.”

He referred to himself as Professor long before he earned that title and even before he got his doctorate. But no one complained because many of his students loved him, admiring his command of the law, his polished English, his wit, and his sense of humour.

And then there was the real Professor, Jacton Boma Ojwang who taught First Year constitutional law. He actually taught the other class in the double-intake that had enabled our A-level class of 1986 to catch up with the class of 1985 when we were admitted together in 1987.

Although he was not my lecturer, I would gate-crash his classes once in a while just to understand how the other half lived. On the whole, he was an excellent teacher and a deep thinker, but I struggled with his theory that the President of an African country had other sources of authority other than the Constitution.

These extra-constitutional sources of power, JB argued, were based on the President’s charisma that he exuded among his people. To me, this was a high-sounding justification for the argument that in Africa, the President was above the law. I could not agree with that. I stopped gate-crashing his classes.

I was to run into another JB during my clinical attachment at the Thika law courts during the long vacation at the end of our second year in 1989. I was seconded to my home town of Thika together with my classmates Ann Mwangi and Muthoni Kariuki. The clinicals were tailored to give students exposure to courtroom proceedings. The presiding senior magistrate, in our case Mr. JB Muturi, the future Speaker of the National Assembly, would have one of us in turns sit with him as he heard cases. This gave us, at least me, a sense of power over the hapless litigants, many of whom started speaking in awe of us referring to us as "The new judges."

The magistrate also gave us the opportunity to draft judgments for cases that were coming to an end. I noticed that when I drafted a judgement for him, JB hardly edited it before delivering it. This made me feel very proud of myself and even start to imagine that I could, after all, contribute to the practice of law from the Bench rather from the Bar. But this feeling did not last long after the clinical programme had ended.

Back at Kaplan & Stratton, two of my favourite partners were Fred Ojiambo and Amos Wako. I had known Fred since my days at Alliance High School when he was a favourite guest preacher in Chapel. I was now delighted to be working with him and learn from him and to notice the consistency of his faith and character despite being one of the most senior partners in one of the most prestigious law firms in the country.

Amos Wako had been one of the three partners that had come to Parklands Campus for interviews to recruit pupils when I was selected. When I reported for pupillage and we were being shown around the firm and introduced to partners and staff by Mr. Wainaina, the partner in charge of pupillage, Mr. Wako had said that he had an open-door policy and that we should feel free to pop in at any time. I took him quite literally.

I would therefore go to his office early in the morning before the workday began and pick up any subject that struck my fancy and engage him in robust debate on law and politics. We argued, for instance, about why, as a UN Special Rapporteur, he was always so quick to issue statements condemning human rights violations in far-flung places like South Africa and East Timor while maintaining a loud silence when it came to calling out the brutality of the Moi regime.

From 8.30 a.m. every morning, Wako was my boss. But before that time, we were equals and he encouraged me to challenge him on any topic. I lived for those moments.

My land law lecturer in First Year of university had been one Smoking Wanjala, another one who insisted on being referred to as ‘Professor’ in the absence of a PhD, or simply by faith that it was on its way. His opening sentence on the first day of the first lesson was to explain to us that despite what we had read on the class schedule, ‘Land Law’ was a misnomer. “The subject I am here to teach is called ‘the Law of Property in Land’.” He assured the class that this was not merely a distinction without a difference. I am not sure I understood him.

Wanjala was one of my favourite lecturers. He knew how to work hard but also, being still relatively young, how to play hard. During the week, he would be a serious lecturer who did not take lightly any missed deadlines for submitting assignments or any indication that one had not completed their assigned reading. But over the weekend, we would often bump into him at Boulevard Hotel having drinks with friends. At such times, his generosity always assured us of an extra beer or two, which were much appreciated by a group of often broke students.

Wanjala also supervised my dissertation during my Third Year during which season I developed a close friendship with him. I will always remember that it was him who, over drinks at the Hotel Boulevard one Friday evening, introduced us to then newly released Les Wanyika song, ‘Afro’, actually taking the time to teach us the lyrics which he thought represented the most sublime poetry. He then requested the DJ to play the song several times until, by the time I left the bar, feeling rather tipsy after probably having one two many, I sang the chorus all the way to my room at Parklands campus:

Afro wa Kirinyaga Sagana e eeeh

Usiniweke pembeni mama aaah

Ingawa wako wengi wazuri mami 

Lakini nimekuchagua wewe eeeh

Tabia zako sawa na sura yako

Nimeridhika kuwa na wewe eeeh

Sagana unipeleke mama oh oh

Nikawaoune wazazi wako mama aaa

Na Tz pia tufike mami iii

Ukawaone baba na mama eeeh

Mengine mengi sisemi Afro

Uamuzi nakuwachia wewe eeeh

Mwisho nakuombea salama Afro

Mpaka siku tutako onana mami

Oh

'Afro' has remained an all-time favourite of mine ever since.

And then there were my peers including Keriako Tobiko with whom I overlapped briefly as he completed his pupillage at Kaplan & Stratton before heading off to Cambridge for his Masters, and Kioko Kilukumi who was also in the same cohort with Tobiko at Kaplan.

By the early 1990s, all these friends and colleagues had already started making a mark in society through their illustrious careers. Later, at the height (or should I say the depth) of my depression, thinking about them and their diverse successes would only illustrate to me how far I had fallen. It would make me wonder where I had taken a wrong turn so that I was not able to claim my place among the great.

As I started recovering, however, the memory of these successful lawyers and the time I had spent with them became a pillar to lean on as I reminded myself that I had, after all, not cheated my way into their illustrious company during those happier times, but I had earned the right to be there.

Much later, after what I consider now to be my complete recovery, I am able to celebrate each one of them without thinking any less of myself because I finally recognise the fact that in life, there is really no competition.

We are each assigned our own lane, and God shall not judge me based on not performing like any one of them or any of the countless other very successful individuals that I have had the privilege of working with over the years.

[ END OF PREQUEL TWO ]

[COMING UP IN PREQUEL THREE... I will finally have the honour of properly introducing you to the Proverbs 31 woman that I was privileged to call my mother and to take you back to a time and place when and where I first encountered the disease that dares not speak its name, long before the condition hopped on to the genetic code and found its way into the highways and byways of my own beautiful bipolar mind.  ]

AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD ..... EPISODE 6

AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD

PART SIX

By Njonjo Mue

The journey so far…

At the end of SEASON ONE, I had just miraculously gotten a job in November 1992 upon my discharge from hospital. This marked an important milestone as I thought I had finally overcome depression. Indeed, my doctor herself told me during one of the review visits to her clinic that I had made a remarkable recovery.

But what I could not have known at the time was that what I had was not really simple depression, but bipolar disorder, and that my remarkable recovery was just part of the journey out of the valley of despair before ascending the mountains of mania.

SEASON TWO will tell of my life on these mountains. But first, let's fill in this break by going back to a time before Oxford.

PREQUEL ONE

WAY BACK WHEN LIFE WAS NORMAL

Long before I went to Law School, I knew that I did not want to practice law. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those kids whose parents forced them to do a particular subject. I was passionate about studying law. I just did not want to practice it in our courts.

My first exposure to the courts and our criminal justice system was when I was in lower Primary School. My elder brother, Mwaura, together with his best friend Peter, often got themselves into trouble with the law. My parents and elder siblings being too busy with work and school, I was usually the one dispatched to the Thika courthouse to listen in on their case and bring back a report as to how much fine they would have to pay. My brother Kamau would then go and pay the fine to secure my brother’s freedom.

Even at that early stage, I could notice how the system worked against the poor who were being processed like meat on a conveyer belt without due regard to a proper delivery of justice.

And then there was the case of Frank Sandstrom. In 1980 when I was in Standard 7, this American sailor was arrested in Mombasa and charged with killing a Kenyan girl, Monica Njeri who was alleged to have been a sex worker. He was prosecuted in record time by an all white court – White Magistrate, White Prosecutor and white defence lawyer. Within two days, a verdict had been delivered and the sailor handed over to his mother to take him back home to America. The sentence? A fine of KSh. 500. Five hundred shillings for taking a human life!

By this time, I had come to realise that our courts were little more than bastions of injustice and that things needed to change. And despite my passion for the law, I couldn’t contribute to that change by practicing in the same courts.

By the time I was approaching the end of my degree programme at the University of Nairobi early 1990, I had made up my mind that the only way to escape the corridors of injustice and yet make a contribution using the law as a tool for social change was to acquire a graduate degree.

I knew I could not, for the life of me, raise the money to support myself through graduate school, and so acquiring a graduate degree was fully dependent on obtaining a full scholarship. I really wanted to go to America. Therefore, shortly after I graduated from Parklands Campus in early 1990, I visited the offices of American Cultural Centre at the back of the National Bank Building and obtained the addresses of close to 100 universities and colleges in all the 50 states.

I wrote the same letter of inquiry to each of them seeking to know if they had a graduate law programme and also if they offered any form of financial assistance. I got all sorts of responses – we do not have a law programme; we do not have a graduate programme; we do not have financial aid for foreign students; we are a women only college.

In the end, my earnest prayer to enroll for a graduate programme was answered in an unexpected way.

In June 1990, as I was receiving this string of bad news from the US, I chanced upon an advert in the Daily Nation inviting applications for the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. England was really not my first choice for studies, but what harm would it do to try? I knew it was a long shot. There was only one Rhodes Scholarship offered annually. But I also knew that if the servants at the wedding in Cana of Galilee had not filled the jars with water, the Master would have had nothing to turn into wine. And so, I still put in my application.

In mid-November, I received an invitation to interview for the Scholarship on December 6 at the boardroom of Hamilton, Harrison and Matthews Advocates in ICEA Building, where the Secretary of the Selection Panel, JDM Sylvester was Senior Partner. The day after the interview, at the Library of Kaplan & Stratton Advocates where I was doing my pupillage, I received a letter informing me that I had been elected Rhodes Scholar for Kenya for 1991.

I also received that year’s Oxford University prospectus, which contained pristine pictures of the colleges taken during various seasons of the year. Some looked like modern day postcards, others like paintings straight out of Victorian England.

I could hardly believe that soon, I would be calling this place home as I immersed myself in learning with all this history standing in silent witness, cheering me on to a future that could only be destined for greatness.

I could already see myself walking or riding my bicycle along these old beautiful streets amid the famous dreaming spires of Oxford. During warmer weather, I would be punting along the River Isis, with newly acquired friends from diverse countries, and eating strawberries and cream as we watched cricket (which I now determined to learn how to watch), and generally having a grand time, both working hard and playing hard. I could hardly wait for this new season of my life to start. I was elated.

Elated.

Yes, I knew what that word meant at the time, before the switch responsible for regulating my moods was apparently permanently switched off at the onset my bipolar diagnosis. After this, I had to navigate my way through life, aided by medicines, always second-guessing my moods.

In those days, I was able to experience the whole range of human emotions that normal people do – happiness and sadness, frustration and anger, fear and anxiety. I was able to understand the causes and effects of these emotions and, more importantly, I knew how to handle them.

But that was way back when life was normal.