Charles was now at a crossroads. He could go on to high school, or he could stop and devote all his time to making enough money to keep himself alive and possibly save a little. Charles felt sure that God had big plans for him and that he should go on to high school and university. He just had to figure out how God would provide the money to do so. High school fees were more expensive than fees for primary school, and Charles knew that he could not earn enough money himself to attend classes. He prayed every night that God would open up a way for him to attend high school. He asked anyone who might help him. Although some of his uncles were doing well in their small businesses, when Charles approached them, he got the same answer: “You are not our responsibility. We have our own families to take care of. Go and ask someone else.”
As the start of the new school year rolled around, Charles prayed harder. He wondered if someone at church would sponsor him or if one of his uncles would change his mind. But nothing happened. School started, and Charles watched as the children he had gone to primary school with now walked to high school each morning in their new brown-and-green uniforms. As hard as it was to admit, Charles knew that his dream of going to high school was just that—a dream. The reality was that he would work in the fields while his former schoolmates went on to high school and beyond. Charles realized that one day, five or ten years from now, they could well be his overseers, telling him what to do and doling out his meager wages. The realization stung.
“Where are You, God?” Charles pleaded. “I thought You cared about me and wanted me to have a good life, but You have not provided the money for me to go to school.” Charles cried every night for two weeks. Since it made no difference, after that he tried to forget his dream of getting a good education.
Now that he did not have to pay school fees, Charles had a little money left over at the end of each month. He saved it and gradually used it to outfit himself. First he bought a pair of shoes, then a new shirt and pants.
As he worked away in the fields, Charles began thinking about leaving the Kathithyamaa area. As he looked around, he could see no opportunities for him. He wanted to have a wife and children one day, but how could he possibly look after them properly on the wages he was earning? He had to find something else—something better.
In late January 1967, Charles set out for Ndalani, where his family was now living. Since becoming a Christian, he had been praying for his parents every night. He wanted to see them again. As he headed for Ndalani, Charles carried a woven bag with him in which he stowed his Bible and correspondence-course notes, along with some sugar for his mother.
Charles walked all day. The sun was setting as he approached Ndalani, an even more depressing place than he had imagined. The landscape was barren, and a layer of red dust coated everything. There were few gardens and even fewer trees. The huts were made of mud, and emaciated children in rags hung around the doorways. How, he wondered, does the government expect the poorest people from the cities to make a living in a place like this?
Charles asked around and soon learned where his family’s hut was located. It looked as dismal as the other huts. His brother Dickson was sitting outside. He didn’t recognize Charles at first, but soon the two of them were hugging. Charles’s mother came out of the hut and gasped. “You’re back!” she exclaimed. “How well you look.”
Charles smiled. His new clothes were a stark contrast to his mother’s tattered ones. And his mother looked older and tired, very tired. Rhoda wept as she hugged her son. It felt strange to Charles. For the first time he was taller than his mother. His brothers had also grown. He learned that his mother had given birth to two new brothers.
As Charles walked inside the hut, his stomach tensed. There was nothing there—no food, no beds, no table, no kerosene lamp, no schoolbooks. Charles fought against the waves of disgust that he felt toward his father for not working to provide the basic needs of his family.
When his father came home, Charles wasn’t sure how their meeting would go. Daudi did not smile or greet him. In fact, Charles wondered if he even registered that his oldest son had come home.
Because the family hut had no room for him, Charles set to building himself a small mud-brick hut next to the family dwelling. He had no idea how long he would stay in Ndalani. Tradition dictated that the oldest son should help his parents financially, and Charles was determined to be a good son.
After two months, Charles was deeply discouraged. He could not find a regular job that paid him enough to help his family. It was now April, the middle of the rainy season, and Charles checked his money pouch. He had only sixpence left. Unless something changed, he would become a burden to his family and not be the help to them he had wanted to be. He soon realized that he would have to leave, find a job elsewhere, and send back money to help support them.
Charles packed his few belongings into a bag and said goodbye to his family. He had decided to head to Nairobi, sixty miles away, where, perhaps, he could find a decent job. After all, Charles told himself, I can now read and write, skills that might make me good for something other than field work.
Chapter 5
Opportunity
Charles set out on his walk to the capital city. He estimated it would take him three days to cover the distance. He hoped it wouldn’t take any longer, since he had no food with him. He sang hymns along the way and read some psalms to bolster his spirit. He drank water from drainage ditches at the side of the road, and occasionally a shopkeeper would feel sorry for him and give him a sugar candy.
As Charles approached the slums on the eastern edge of Nairobi, the reality of what he was doing hit him. He didn’t know a single person in the capital. He was a penniless eighteen-year-old from the country. Not only that, as he walked through the slums, he began to feel depressed. The same squalor in which poor people lived in the countryside was all around him. Women squatted beside fires cooking meager meals while young children dressed in ragged clothes ran around. The stench from so many people living together without proper sanitation made Charles gag. Had all these people also come to Nairobi seeking a better life just as he had? Charles stopped and prayed that God would guide him in the right direction. He had no idea where to head in the big, sprawling city.
The sun was high in the sky as Charles approached the suburb of Kileleshwa, two and a half miles from the center of Nairobi. He was amazed at how everything changed abruptly from the other parts of the city he had passed through. The streets here were tree-lined and swept clean, and large bungalow-style houses sat behind tall fences with wrought-iron gates. The houses were surrounded by neatly clipped lawns and beautiful flower gardens. As Charles walked slowly through these streets, he tried to ignore the gnawing in his stomach, a combination of hunger and nervousness.
Charles stopped in front of a large white house. He peered through the metal bars of the gate at the beautiful house. In a courtyard off to the side he could see an old woman folding laundry from the clothesline and a middle-aged man peeling onions over a bowl. Charles took a deep breath. It was time to step up and see what would happen next. He picked up a stone from the road and used it to knock on the gate. The metallic clanging reverberated across the courtyard, and the man peeling the onions looked up. As Charles smiled through the bars, the man came over. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” Charles replied. “Is the owner in?”
“Why?” the servant asked. “Do you know them?”
Charles smiled again. “No, but I want to ask for work. May I please talk to them.”
The servant stood there for what seemed like a long time, eyeing Charles up and down. Then he nodded and turned away. Charles watched as he walked into the house through the side door. A minute went by, then two, then five. Charles began to wonder if the servant had really gone to find the owner. He waited and prayed.
A woman wearing a beautiful embroidered skirt and top emerged from the house. Charles could see that she was Indian. “Young man,” she said, giving Charles a bright smile, “what can I do for you?”
“I need work,” Charles replied.
“What can you do?” she asked.
“Anything you want.”
“And how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Can you cut grass and weed the garden?”
“Of course,” Charles said, hoping he could tell the flowers from the weeds. Until now he had only worked in vegetable gardens.
“And do laundry?”
“Most certainly,” he said, feeling his hopes rise. Surely the woman would not be asking such detailed questions if she wasn’t thinking of hiring him.
“I think you will do nicely,” the woman said. She unlocked the gate and swung it open. “Welcome to our house. My name is Mrs. D’Souza, and I live here with my husband and two sons, Colin and Eric.”
Charles stepped through the gate and into a new world.
“You will live in the servants’ quarters and eat your meals there, and I will pay you one American dollar a month. How does that sound?”
Charles could hardly trust himself to speak. How did it sound? Like heaven! A house to live in, a steady supply of meals, and twelve dollars a year as well.
As Charles adjusted to life in Nairobi, he often thanked God for how perfectly the new job fit his needs. He soon learned that Mr. and Mrs. D’Souza were from Goa in India and that they were devout Catholics. They understood Charles’s desire to go to church and made sure that he had time off on Sundays to do so. Moreover, they both took the time to talk with him and learn about his background.
Work at the house was hard, whether cutting three acres of grass with a hand sickle or hauling the wet bedding up and over the clothesline, but Charles didn’t mind. In fact, compared to his previous life he felt positively carefree.
At the end of the first month, Mrs. D’Souza paid Charles his dollar salary. Charles sent most of it to his family in Ndalani through the post office. What little Charles kept for himself he stashed in a tin box under his bed. Bit by bit, he saved enough to make the biggest purchase of his life: a radio. How wonderful it was to sit on a stool at the back of the servants’ quarters and listen to the BBC. From the radio he learned that a music group from England named the Beatles was taking the world by storm with a loud and different kind of music. He also learned that an Englishman named Francis Chichester had arrived back in Plymouth, England, after sailing his yacht single-handedly around the world. Charles tried to imagine what sailing around the world on your own would be like. After all, he had never even seen the ocean. He had only read about it in geography books. He also learned that an American spacecraft called Surveyor 3 had landed on the moon and sent photographs and television images of the moon’s surface back to earth. The moon? Charles could hardly believe it. The radio became a window to a wider world for him, a world Charles wanted to be a part of.
It seemed like every week or so Mrs. D’Souza gave Charles some new responsibility. He was allowed into the house to dust the shelves and was sent to the market to buy supplies. Charles worked hard, and although he was grateful for the opportunity to be a house servant, he never stopped thinking about better opportunities. He took correspondence courses from England in various subjects that interested him and was fascinated whenever he overheard Mr. D’Souza having a conversation with his business partners. Cirion D’Souza was a wealthy man. Charles could see that, but he wanted to know how the man had become wealthy. Was it possible to start with nothing and become rich and important? Charles was sure that it was if he trusted God and worked hard.
After Charles had been working at the house for four months, Mrs. D’Souza sat down beside him one afternoon and said, “You are a very hard-working young man. What do you want to do with your life?”
