In the House of the Interpreter by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o

Author:Ngugi wa'Thiong'o [Thiong’o, Ngugi wa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-90770-7
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-11-06T05:00:00+00:00

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On October 4, a month into the third term, the Soviets, or the Russians as we called them, launched Sputnik I into space—the first man-made, earth-orbiting satellite in history. For some reason, this did not make a splash at our school. But on November 4 everything changed. News reached Kenya, as it did all over the world, that the same Russians had now launched Sputnik II, and it carried a dog named Laika. This event raised a hue and cry from white people from all corners of the colony: the Russians had sent a dog to die in space.

At an emergency school assembly, Carey Francis condemned this premeditated cruelty. Some students could not understand how the death of a dog in space could spur such anger and grief. For me, Laika rhymed with Malaika, and it sounded as if an angel had been sent to space, but then angels dwelled in a heaven beyond the clouds. An angel sent to die in heaven?

Then I learned that Laika was actually a stray dog from the streets of Moscow. The Gĩkũyũ word for stray dogs, ngui cia njangiri, or simply njangiri, was also the word for the homeless and the irresponsible. Boys threw stones at stray dogs. Despite the fact that dogs had once bitten me, I never could stand their screams: they eerily evoked the cries of humans in pain.

In our new village, stray dogs turned into hordes of marauders roaming the streets, often fighting among themselves for leftovers. The hungry dogs became bolder, sometimes growling and snatching food from little children and old people. The colonial state must have been given the order to reduce their population because there came a time when, instead of boys chasing dogs for fun, it was armed home guards hunting and gunning them down. Hunting dogs became an official colonial sport. Three or four policemen could chase the dogs across hills and valleys, competing with each other to see who could bag the most. By zigging and zagging with speed, the dogs often frustrated their marksmanship.

During the entire anti-stray-dog campaign, I never heard of voices raised in protest. And now this outburst for Laika! Looking back on all the dogs killed in our village, I could not help noting the irony that a stray dog from the streets of Moscow had done what no human had ever done before; that though forced, a njangiri had been the chosen vehicle for dramatizing the dawn of a new age. Once again the street had demonstrated its power.

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