EPTOne bright and sunny autumn day not too long ago, there was a young Kenyan man in his early 30s by the name of Kamau (silent warrior) with a small handsome son named Chiumbo (little).
Kamau had been raised in the village and knew nothing of city life. His family had already decided to give him the gift of marriage to a fellow girl from his village, only 14 years old. Kamau was at that time 21, strong, fearless, and brave. He knew nothing, but he knew that he did not want marriage. By a series of unfortunate events, Kamau was found to be the father of a newborn child in the village, even before the marriage had taken place. He was therefore banished from the village. But Kamau did not have anywhere to go.
One day Kamau received a phone call. It was from America. What Kamau heard on the other end of the conversation surprised him. He learned that he had family living in America, and they would be happy to help him in his time of need. All too soon Kamau found himself with an airplane ticket in hand and a young 1 year old baby boy in the other, making his way to Chicago.
The baby boy cried so much. Kamau did not know anything about America, but he knew it was the land of opportunity. At the same time he was afraid of the future.
PART 2
When Kamau and Chiumbo touched the ground they had not seen snow before and were mystified. In the airport they were received by an older Kenyan man and his wife and their two daughters. Kamau learned quickly that his uncle was a community organizer and senator, had attended Harvard Law School, and had lived in Hawaii, Indonesia, and Chicago, the son of a white mother and Kenyan father who had abandoned the young man.
The family made it clear they would provide for Kamau and Chiumbo until Kamau found a job and could provide for himself and his son. Kamau had not any education and was unskilled. He took work in a butcher's shop as he had experience with cutting meat. This led to an interest in cooking. Kamau was a slender man with a big appetite and he loved the smell of food. His uncle took Kamau's new career path with great enthusiasm.
"So you want to be a chef?" the older man asked.
"Yes" replied Kamau.
"Well then I will pay half of your tuition and the rest you will have to pay back with student loans and interest." Kamau was ecstatic. The next weekend Kamau cooked his uncle and his uncle's wife and two daughters traditional Kenyan food the way Kamau's own mother would cook. For the all too American taste buds, Kenyan food filled their mouths with wonder and amazement.
Kamau was a hard working and energetic student, trying new flavors and new ingredients. He graduated top of his class at the Chicago Culinary Institute and found a job as an executive chef at the Hilton Hotel at Boston. With Chiumbo in his arms again, but this time with a brand new car, Kamau wished his uncle and his family goodbye and was on his way.
Before leaving Kamau had this discussion with his uncle:
"Uncle, you have done so much for me, given me this new life, I must find a way to repay you."
"Fear not Kamau, you have become a shining star and I am proud of you. Kenya is proud of you."
"Uncle, I wish you long lasting success and prosperity in life. You are a soul with the purest and noblest of intentions and with the heart of a lion."
His uncle finally laughed and cried on Kamau's shoulder.
"Yes, Kamau, thank you so much. One day I hope I am the president of this country."
And with that they both started to laugh hysterically.
"Uncle, I see you still have that sharp sense of humor," Kamau said.
Kamau and Chiumbo entered the car and drove off. Uncle and his family looked until the car became just a distant dot on the horizon as the sun set.
PART 3
Encouraged that his uncle had gone to Harvard, and knowing that Boston was a very preppy town, Kamau wanted to enroll his son in the best and brightest preparatory academy.
By this time Chiumbo had turned 5 and knew more English than Swahili. Chiumbo was also into hip hop and Lil Wayne.
Kamau told his young son,
"Son, enough with this Little Wayne. I want you to be educated as your Uncle."
Chiumbo pretended to listen.
Kamau decided to put his son in Cranbrook School in Massachusetts, the same school that Mitt Romney had graduated from. The area around Cranbrook was very upscale and rich, with the school being surrounded by gated communities full of rich white people on all sides. Kamau was yet to take the job as executive chef at the Boston Hilton Hotel, and he still had to pay off his student loans. He wanted to send Chiumbo to Cranbrook but there was no way they could afford one of those mansions in the gated communities. He decided to rent a small town house on the outskirts of town, and he would drive his son to school everyday.
It was early August. Kamau stood outside the steps of Cranbrook Preparatory Academy, Chiumbo's hand clutched tightly in his. Chiumbo, only 5 years old, was crying softly.
"I want you to know, son, that we can do anything as long as the bond between father and son is not broken, as long as you believe that your Kenyan ancestors look down on you from the heavens. Remember, we are one in this great circle of life."
And with that the pair walked towards the door.
PART 4
Once inside they were greeted by a large and fat balding man. The man was polite and showed Kamau to the principal's office. The hallways were decked in luxurious maple and the whole place looked magnificent. Chiumbo could see some boys and girls about his age walking around in uniforms. The principal's office was in a narrow adjoining corridor. The office was grand. Behind the large desk was an attractive Caucasian woman in her 40s, with pale porcelain like skin, with silky red hair tied up in a classy bun, horn rimmed rainbow glasses, lipstick, wearing a dark suit, and with probing blue eyes.
Kamau and Chiumbo stood in the doorway of the principal's office for what seemed like 15 minutes. She was talking to someone on the phone and didn't seem to notice them. After that she began to paint her fingernails. Kamau could smell the nail polish from 10 feet away. He had to clear his throat and cough for her to notice. She looked at them momentarily and said, "Yes?"
Kamau went towards the table and sat down in a chair opposite the principal as he motioned Chiumbo to do the same.
"Did I say you could sit down?" she asked.
"Sorry ma'am, but me and my son are here to discuss his enrollment in your school."
"Did I say you could sit down?" she repeated.
Kamau was stunned. "No...but" he stammered.
"Stand back up and ask politely if you can have a seat" she said.
Kamau did as told. "Ma'am, may I have a seat?" he asked.
"Do your legs hurt?" she asked in return.
Kamau was speechless. After a few seconds he finally sat down, more cautiously than before. He began to talk about his son wanting to be in the school, as the principal's eyes glared at the father and then the son, and then the father again.
She interrupted him. "Did you ask for my name?"
Kamau was nervous and sweating already. The name plate on the desk read "Susan Marie Keller".
"Miss Keller..." he started.
She seemed bored with the whole thing.
Finally she said, "After reviewing your son's credentials, we do not recommend enrollment at my school."
Kamau was stunned speechless, especially because Chiumbo was only 5 years old.
"But.." he started. "My son is very intelligent and has a strong level of English and math."
The principal smiled a little and took off her glasses. "Look..." she said, "I am concerned with your child."
Kamau didnt know what to say.
She went on. "At Cranbrook we value cooperation and achievement. I'm afraid your son will have a difficult time adjusting to our school's environment. He won't be able to make friends and will feel lonely and alienated. The culture shock is already too large. And, we also value strong parent-child relationships in this school. Parents are actively involved in their child's intellectual, psychological, and social development."
Kamau was stunned speechless.
She continued. "I don't doubt the quality of your parenthood. But parents at Cranbrook are actively involved in the community and have strong relationships with other parents, all of this contributes to the child's well being. I don't believe you can meaningfully relate to the other parents."
Kamau was stunned and in shock.
She put her glasses back on and peered through the top of the horn rims. She smiled and said, "But I only want the best for you and your child."
Kamau was almost in tears. He dropped to the ground and started to kiss her high heeled shoes. Tears streaming down his face, he muttered "Oh please, ma'am Miss Keller, please give my son Chiumbo a chance, he is a very good boy. I will do anything for him to get the best education."
The principal recoiled in terror. "Get your hands off me!" she shouted.
When he calmed down, she said "Alright, I will give your son a chance, but I warn you, it will not be easy."
Kamau nodded. "Yes ma'am."
The principal completed the paperwork and shook Chiumbo's hand. "Cranbrook extends a warm welcome to you. Pleased to have you at Cranbrook."
As father and son walked out the door, the principal smiled self-contentedly, knowing she had complete power and control. "Oh but I will do anything to make that little boy's life total hell, so he will go crying and screaming to his father to switch schools. And, I will do anything to make the father want to leave this district and community."
And with a mischievous grin she picked up the phone and made a phone call.
PART 5
Kamau's job as chef at the Hilton was going great, but his son was having a hard time at school. He was not making friends and was getting bullied. Most of the school was white. Chiumbo saw a black girl about his age but she was shy and did not talk to him. The work was also very advanced for kindergarten, and Chiumbo often got more difficult assignments than the rest of the class. Teachers saw him getting bullied but never did anything. Even when he would raise his hand in class he would not be picked to answer anything. When he got mad and shouted out the answers, teachers would get upset and threaten to call his father or tell the principal.
Home life wasn't so great either. Kamau tried to make friends with his neighbors or the parents of kids he met when he would drop off and pick up his son from school, but everyone gave him the cold shoulder. One night he came home to find his son crying and in shock. Burglars had broken into his home and had stolen some money and their brand new television. Chiumbo said that he was hiding underneath his bed, too afraid to let the men see him. Kamau called the police and the police said they would investigate but nothing happened.
One day, Chiumbo received a hard math problem in class. He could not do it, but the teacher called on him. No one in the class could do it. Then the teacher gave him a hard English question, and a hard geography question. Chiumbo could not do any of the problems. The teacher called him to the front of the class and paddled his behind. Chiumbo was crying but everyone in the class was laughing. Even the teacher was enjoying administering the punishment.
After a while Chiumbo raised his hand to ask if he could go to the bathroom. The teacher ignored his hand and never called on him to speak. After 15 minutes Chiumbo had to pee very badly, and he asked out loud if he could go to the bathroom, and the teacher was angry. "How dare you speak without being called on?" the young lady teacher asked. Chiumbo had enough, and he darted out of the class and ran to the boy's room. The teacher told 3 of the biggest boys in class, the ones who always bullied him, to watch Chiumbo.
As Chiumbo was unbuttoning his trousers, he heard the 3 big boys rush into the bathroom. He was standing at a urinal and about to pee, but the boys grabbed him by the collar and took him to a stall, where they lifted him and shoved him face first into the toilet bowl.
That night, when his daddy came home, Chiumbo had enough. He broke down and cried on his dad's lap. "Dad, I can't go back to the school, please please don't make me go back" he cried with tears rolling down his face. Kamau was shaken but went to the fridge to start to make dinner. All the food was gone from the refrigerator. Someone had broken in again and stole all the food, including the beers. All of a sudden the power in their home went out. "Dad, what's happening, I'm scared", cried Chiumbo. "It will be fine" Kamau said. "Come, let's eat outside and talk about everything" Kamau said as he wiped Chiumbo's tears off and hugged him.
Kamau started the car but one of his tires had been punctured. They walked back inside where Kamau knew he had a tire pump in the bedroom closet. But what he found in the bedroom shocked him. There was a cockroach infestation. Cockroaches everywhere.
Kamau started to break down. "Why oh why, have the Gods forsaken us" he cried in a pool of his own tears.
PART 6
The next day, Chiumbo received detention for getting a question wrong on his homework.
The teacher started,
"Why did you get this question wrong, Chiumbo?"
"I...I had a lot of problems in my house and my dad was crying", Chiumbo said. "I forgot about this problem on the other side of the paper."
"Enough" the teacher said. "If you can't do your homework, then you will get lunch detention where you will not be allowed to eat food, will not be allowed to go outside, and have to do extra math problems in this classroom. Do you understand, boy?"
Chiumbo bowed his head, feeling powerless.
He did the problems as he was told, but his teacher was still failing him. "Your progress in my class has been unsatisfactory, boy" the teacher said. "I will fail you for the year and this will go on your permanent record. Disciplinary problems and learning disabilities, that will be you for the rest of your life."
When it was time to go home, Chiumbo was exhausted and saddened. "I want to kill myself" he said to himself, "I want to die".
At the spot his dad picked him up, Chiumbo waited patiently. He said to himself "I won't do this anymore. From tomorrow I quit school."
He saw the black girl he had seen on the first day. He went up to her and wanted to talk to her. But she was still shy. Then he grabbed her waist and kissed her on the lips.
The big bullies from class saw him and pushed him to the ground. "Look, we got ourselves a negro ladykiller" they laughed. And with that one of the boys pinned Chiumbo's arms back and another boy kicked Chiumbo right in the balls. Another bully tried to choke him.
They all left when they saw his dad coming. "Son, what happened?"
Chiumbo said nothing but ran to his dad and cried and cried and cried.
When they got home, they were crying together in the living room. "Son, this is not going good. I love to be a chef in America, but they lied to me and said I had a job as a chef. All I do all day is clean the bathrooms and clean the tables after customers are done eating. They don't let me touch the food. Our house is in a bad condition, no power, thieves, no food, cockroaches. No one in town or at your school will talk to us. You are having a bad time at school. Son, I want to go back to Africa."
All of a sudden Kamau smelled the faint odor of something burning. "Son, let's go get out of the house now!" he yelled. A few seconds after they got out, the house was burning. It was starting to get dark and the neighbors were gathering to watch the scene. A few of them laughed, most of them smiled. The Cranbrook principal, when hearing that the Kamau house was starting to burn, rushed into her Mercedes S Class parked in her upscale mansion at the gated community and drove a few minutes to the townhouse on the fringes of town.
A crowd had already gathered. But no police were to be found. No firetruck or firefighters either. Kamau saw the principal in her horn rimmed glasses, pale skin, red hair in rollers and in a nightgown. Kamau saw her and ran towards her, screaming profanities and hurling insults, "You!"
"You! Are responsible for everything that's happened here" he yelled.
The principal was unfazed. "Oh please, what on Earth are you talking about?" Miss Keller rolled her eyes.
"You! You spread the rumor in my office that I was a womanizer and slept with women every night. You made my son's life in school hell by telling his teacher to make him want to commit suicide. You took the power from my home and encouraged thieves and started the cockroach infestation. You told everyone not to speak with us, you told the bullies in school to hurt my poor boy Chiumbo, You bribed the police or the firefighters to not give a damn about us, You are the only reason for all of this."
The principal took it in stride. "You're a rather angry black man aren't you? You belong in jail you know", she said.
"Why?" Kamau responded. "Because I'm black? Because of the color of my skin?"
"No", Susan Marie Keller continued, "Because we don't tolerate people who bring trouble to our valued and cherished community" she said with a smile.
Her husband was by her side, a fat porky man with a brown mustache. Apparently she wore the pants in their house. The man opened his mouth at last.
"Hey, don't talk to my wife like that. At this rate we should have burned a cross on your lawn and hung your likes from a tree a long time ago."
He continued, "My wife is a very nice and sexy lady. She would never hurt anyone unless they hurt her first. I've seen her on vacations, in her tiny bikini and flaunting that body, on road trips where she showed me her amazing feet in flip flops wearing tank tops and jeans, when she was at home doing some voodoo rituals with a candle on top of a skull and wearing a tight black dress that showed off her luscious breasts. We got 5 cats at home and 3 amazing daughters, she's a wonderful mom and a wonderful wife. She makes love to me every night. She used to dance in Las Vegas, knows about oral techniques from Japan, and reads Shakespeare in bed. She likes good music, good museums, good wine. Good food and good coffee too."
"On the other hand, you folk bring us community a bad bad name. You should go back to Africa along with your little kid, go back to where people fight and kill each other all the time, a place of no civilization and people worshipping gods that don't exist. Go back to your place of no technology and no culture. Learn some manners, boy."
His breath smelled of liquor, but an idiot is an idiot.
Kamau, defeated, packed his stuff. Chiumbo had cried so much all his tears had dried up.
It was no use, there was no point fighting when the rules were so stacked against you.
Kamau decided to be the civilized one. "Thanks for treating me so well. May God Bless you all" he said with a smile. And he walked to the nearest bus top with Chiumbo, having no possessions other than the clothes on their backs.
The civilized one is he who can suffer injustice but use the experience to grow. The civilized one is he who does not complain but fights a battle he knows in his heart must be fought. The civilized one is he who still has hope for a brighter tomorrow.
And as Kamau and Chiumbo left, walking hand in hand into the sunset, the crowd behind them watched as they became just a dot on the horizon.
haha
