Tales From Africa

By Susan Wood

Tales from Africa vividly captures the lives of many in Africa. Susan Wood’s explicit use of descriptive language gets the reader involved in the events described and at the same time relates with most of the happenings. She addresses a number of issues or themes quite characteristic of an African setting.

Social life is brought out in ‘The Wedding,’ in which she explores the preparations of the marriage between Paulina and David including the mention of how almost the entire society gets involved and how this perpetuates harmony within society. Further Polygamy and the importance of children are addressed in ‘A Woman’s lot.’

David in ‘The End of a Road’ mysteriously loses his life on the same day that he has just lost his job. In the story economic difficulties are brought out, the family is not able to afford a coffin for him. Mr Abdullah, the tailor struggles to raise fees for his children through tailoring and has to deal with those who steal from the shop.

Education in ‘A Supper Party’ brings groups from the region together to train on how to teach community health in Africa. Politics and how the coup d’état led to loss of jobs and separation of families, restrictions prescribed for some workers are depicted in ‘A Working Life.’

World War II, a historical event as well as the political events that are witnessed thereafter are illustrated in ‘Changing Times.’ Onyango kidnaps his employer’s children and holds them in a room to try and get ransom from the employer. A vice that continues to be witnessed.

The extensive use of local names from various communities such as: Wambui, Nganga, Onyango as well as mention of places like: Eldoret, Nakuru and Ngong serve to give the book authenticity.

Susan Wood’s artistic use of language further gets the reader immersed in her stories. A truly remarkable woman, this book reflects life – hers and the lives of many in Africa, her home. The late lady Wood has written seven books and until her death used to live in the home she and her late husband built on the outskirts of Nairobi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: XinXii
• Release date: Apr 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9789966007285

Book preview

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The Wedding

David Musoke shut the door of his car with a clip and locked it. He had been lucky to find a roadside tree under which to park it, to prevent it becoming so hot that it would be difficult to drive it when he returned. He was a man of medium height, with a round face, and a large mouth which barely hid two rows of bright even teeth, for he was, more often than not, smiling. Today he wore a soft blue shirt, a tie which might pass for'old school', and well creased khaki slacks. Instead of mounting the office steps to his consulting rooms, he passed the building and entered a coffee shop on the corner. Three men and two women greeted him as he entered, and he crossed the crowded room to join their table.

Come on, David, a big man, who looked the eldest of the three, made room for him. Surely not laggardly over the business of the day! he laughed, and the little company chattered excitedly, as David ordered his coffee, and took his place among them.

This was the small committee upon whom had devolved the responsibility for laying on David's wedding. They would each be representing a section of David's, or his fiancee's, family, and each would be responsible for bringing a certain amount of money to pay for the celebrations. Mishek, who came from the north of Kenya, had already agreed to organise all the soft drinks.

I can get them at cost price, he said, my cousin works in Kenya Bottlers.

I have a friend in Breweries said a slightly pretty woman who had not spoken until then. I know I can get the beer at cost also. She was shyly twisting a handkerchief, and became silent again immediately.

That's good, Rosie said David, it helps to have friends everywhere today, and he emptied his coffee cup.

Mishek interrupted to introduce a stranger who he had brought with him.The man sat quietly sipping his coffee and observing the rest of the company. He was dressed in a dark suit and his hair was greying at the temples, which against his black face gave him the air of an elder and a distinguished citizen.

This is Rev. Beulah Ngethe said Mishek. He is my friend and knows the Cathedral ministers well, and can arrange for the service to be held there.

David came from an old Christian family from the west of Uganda, and it was important to him to hold the service in the biggest and best church available. He shook Rev. Ngethe by the hand.

I hope you can arrange a choir too said David, I like a lot of singing, and perhaps we can include some of the old hymns in Ankole.

I will certainly ask if it is possible. Have you the script of the hymns, and are they set to well known tunes?

Oh yes, said David airily, And we'll have some English hymns too so that everyone can air their lungs! The men laughed heartily, and the women tittered, covering their mouths with their hands.

More cups of coffee were ordered, and the meeting continued for another hour as no one seemed in a hurry, and it was pleasant joking together, and making arrangements for David, who was a popular and important man among them. After a while David began to be conscious that there might be patients waiting for him and begging their leave, he rose and made his way to his consulting rooms, high up in the next door building.

From this height it was possible to look out over the rambling buildings of Nairobi. Stretched out in the sun the city had a pearl-like quality, so many cream and white buildings, pale rosey blocks followed by greys here and there brown earth colours, with the railway tracks winding through in silver streams. The noise of the traffic rose up to where David stood, waiting for his first patient to be brought in. He had come to feel at home in this city of his adoption, and Paulina, his fiancee, who had trained here as a nurse, was happy in Nairobi and the two of them had many friends. David reflected on his luck at meeting Paulina with whom he was ecstatically in love. She had come from another part of Uganda, and they would never have met had it not been for the fact that they had both travelled to next-door Kenya to train.

While they were in Nairobi, the civil war in Uganda had made return both dangerous and difficult, and they had stayed on to work, and finally met each other at a course on child care.

Paulina, who also came from a strict Christian family, had withstood his advances for several months, but finally when her mother came down to visit her, and had approved of David, she capitulated. She was still very young, and very shy, and while David entertained his friends would sit quietly looking at her lap. Only her closest friends knew that she had laughing eyes behind her pretty face, and halo of black hair; she also had a quick brain and could be good company.

David was interrupted in his day dreaming by a knock on the door, and a neat nurse dressed in a white coat announced a mother, and child who had whooping cough.

Mary and Brian Reynolds had lived in Nairobi for most of their working lives, Brian had come after the war in 1948, and joined Government service where he had remained for the next forty years. He had worked solidly and well in the big hospital in the centre of Nairobi. After Independence he had continued as head of the Medical Department, and had taught many of the leading doctors of the day. Now he was grey haired and on the point of retiring, but he kept up a friendly relationship with many of his old students, among whom was young David Musoke. He regarded David as one of his brightest products, with a flair for treating people rather than patients, and who had absorbed some of the integrity of his old respected family, and the new profession he had entered.

Mary, who was younger than Brian was not in the medical profession, although she had absorbed a good deal of medical knowledge during her married life. Living in Kenya where medical knowledge was often scarce, she had extended what she had picked up, by using her lively intelligence on the everyday problems which constantly came her way.

She was a tall thin woman with a tanned skin, and brown hair and eyes. She seemed to have absorbed something of the sun both in her looks and personality for she gave out a warmth to which other people responded. She was seldom alone, and often involved in other peoples' lives, providing the answer to some momentarily difficult problem.

Both Mary and Brian felt at home in Africa, mainly because they liked the African people, and felt one with them in the struggle to develop their country and bring it into the modern world. They did not look at the problems from the outside but from the inside, and they brought to the problems both experience and sympathy.

It was one of those rare mornings in June, when the rains had cleared the air, and the sun, streaming through it, lit up the vivid colours of sky ad green land. Brian and Mary sat on their wide verandah, sipping coffee and talking of family matters, as they enjoyed the leisure of a Saturday morning on which they did not need to go to town.

I met young David Musoke the other day said Brian He's someone I really enjoy. That big smile and his ebullient confidence are endearing. He's not afraid to show his innocence, which is charming. I hear he's getting married. We should go to the wedding.

Yes, I'm fond of him too answered Mary. I should like to go to the wedding.

You know what he asked me the other day continued Brian spreading his toast, sipping the steaming coffee. I met him having lunch on his own, and he invited me to join him. He told me about his fiancee and asked me the most curious question. He said, Should I tell Paulina how much I love her? You see, he said it's not an African custom to have such speech between man and woman, but I would like to build our relationship in the modern manner, and I don't know how.

It never struck me before, but perhaps many other races never speak their love. Of course in Indian marriages love must grow, as all old time Indian marriages are arranged.You see how much influence the cinema, with its western idea of love must have had, that these old customs now feel in some way inadequate to those living in the modern idiom, no matter to which race they belong.

Mary was looking out over the small wild garden. A jumble of shrubs grew in abandon at the road edge hiding the traffic, smothering any noise so that the house was quiet and secluded, even though near the centre of town. Bracts of bougainvillaea bent to the ground from huge bushes, and the grass surrounding them needed cutting, so that the whole garden had an air of careless and abundant growth, unchecked by human interference or design. How strange she said pensively I don't think you can teach someone to express such a thing. It has to be spontaneous, borne of emotion and the wish to express that emotion in speech. It seems so natural to us. Perhaps David will find his own way if he needs to.

Brian ran his hands through his bushy grey hair, and folding his table napkin moved to sit on the verandah step in the sun.

The two weeks passed quickly for David. He hardly saw Paulina, who was surrounded by attention of her friends, and was fully occupied with dressmakers, bridesmaids and all the paraphernalia of the bride's part in a wedding. David, meanwhile, still had his practice to look after, and all his spare time was taken up with meetings with the wedding committee. Impressive Mercedes cars had been lent by friends for the occasion, the proceedings had been organised in detail. He and Paulina had visited the provost of the Cathedral and received a lecture on Christian marriage and now finally the day had dawned.

David woke in his small house in the hill suburb of Nairobi. It was an old wooden house, with a corrugated tin roof. It had been built some thirty years previously, and had housed some minor Government official. Wide verandahs surrounded the house making the central rooms dark and cool, but now as winter approached David would have been glad of a warm gleaming sun.

He rose with a feeling of inward joy and excitement. The old house, built on wooden stilts, shook with enthusiastic footfall, as he hurried out to do his last rounds before leaving his patients to the care of his friend Dr. Benjamin Kariuki.

Two o'clock, the advertised time of the wedding, saw the first few guests, mostly Europeans straggling into the Cathedral. Mary and Brian hung about in the chill afternoon and finally drifted into the church, and sat waiting for others to come.

The Cathedral was an ugly building, built after the First World War as European settlement had begun in earnest. It was of dark grey stone built in Victorian style, it might have been transplanted directly from a London suburb. The community had never been numerous enough to lavish much decoration on the interior, nor had the church missionaries of the day approved of such frivolity. Stark simplicity had been the emphasis, with the addition of a good organ; now, softened by flowers and the soothing strains of the organ, it became an impressive place of worship.

The guests hung about uncertainly as there were no signs of the wedding proceeding. Time passed, and the grey weather, melding with the greyness of the stone, was more natural to Scotland than Kenya. African guests then began to arrive in great numbers. Tall men in dark suits, women in brightly coloured dresses, and flocks of small children, like little birds in bright feathers alighted in the uncomfortable pews.

Half past two came and the bridegroom appeared. In the dull surroundings he was a golden figure. Dressed in a cream linen suit he exuded well-being and vitality. His big smile was radiant and he, and the best man, made their way confidently to the front of the church. It was not long before the organ changed to a triumphant march and the bridal procession entered. The choir filed in, a mixture of races in royal blue cassocks. The chief chorister held aloft a great ornamented cross and behind, followed, stepping carefully and slow, a tiny bridesmaid in white, her small feet pointing at each step in her new white shoes.

Behind her the bride came on the arm of her brother-in-law. Her black curls were hidden in a cascade of white veiling which reached to the floor and floated behind her in a long train.

Mary, standing close by the aisle, could watch closely as the procession advanced. As always she was moved by the solemnity with which the African race absorbed and enacted ceremonies reaching so far back into an alien culture and another time.

As Paulina advanced, closely followed by a flock of larger bridesmaids dressed in mauve pink chiffon and white socks and shoes, she was aware only of the man who took Paulina's arm and guided her up the aisle. He might have been a Knight Templar with his classic bone structure, the copper skin tight over the noble forehead. His deepset eyes had such a haunting sadness about them that he might, indeed, have come from another time, and finding himself in this alien setting, was struck