Say You're One of Them

First of all, I made a mistake listening to Say You're One of Them: although the narrators all brought an authenticity to their readings that I couldn't have conjured in my head (not just with that easy rhythm I associate with Africans speaking English but also by pronouncing all the foreign words I might have been tempted to skip over), it was a mistake because the audio version only included select stories from the hard copy, and the two novellas were edited out. What I did hear, however, was compelling and interesting and horrifying enough to make me want to seek out the actual book.

In each of the three short stories I listened to, different countries in Africa are experienced through the eyes of children living there. What Language is That? and My Parents' Bedroom are similar: in each we have families living in relative prosperity, with loving and concerned parents raising their children in peaceful homes until a crisis breaks out -- a Christian/Muslim conflict in Ethiopia in the former and the Hutu/Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in the latter -- and it's uncomfortable and gripping to experience the loss of the childish innocence of the narrators. Perhaps more horrifying, however, is the unquestioned acceptance of a tragic lifestyle in the third story, An Ex-Mas Feast, which begins:

Now that my eldest sister, Maisha, was twelve, none of us knew how to relate to her anymore. She had never forgiven our parents for not being rich enough to send her to school. She had been behaving like a cat that was going feral: she came home less and less frequently, staying only to change her clothes and give me some money to pass on to our parents. When home, she avoided them as best she could, as if their presence reminded her of too many things in our lives that needed money. Though she would snap at Baba occasionally, she never said anything to Mama. Sometimes Mama went out of her way to provoke her. "Malaya! Whore! You don't even have breasts yet!" she'd say. Maisha would ignore her.

Maisha shared her thoughts with Naema, our ten-year-old sister, more than she did with the rest of us combined, mostly talking about the dos and don'ts of a street girl. Maisha let Naema try on her high heels, showed her how to doll up her face, how to use toothpaste and a brush. She told her to run away from any man who beat her, no matter how much money he offered her, and that she would treat Naema like Mama if she grew up to have too many children. She told Naema that it was better to starve to death than go out with any man without a condom.

That a twelve-year-old would need to prostitute herself to support her family (that lives under a tarp on the streets of Nairobi; sniffing glue to suppress hunger and using the smallest baby as a prop for begging) is, naturally, repulsive to me, but the situation is laid out matter-of-fact -- it isn't played for pity or provocation; this is just the way it is for some children. And that's what's so brilliant about Say You're One of Them: it simply asks the reader to witness reality without trying to inflame guilt or pass judgement on who is ultimately to blame.

And yet, I couldn't help but feel like a bit of a voyeur -- do I have the right to stop and gawk at my neighbours just because they left their curtains drawn? Do I have a duty to look if the scene is ugly? These stories aren't mawkish but they broke my heart nonetheless -- I'm looking forward to reading the rest of them.