In the media and arts world, she
is known as the slightly built white woman ever in a fast stride, moving
from one assignment to the next.
Yet her name has misled hundreds of thousands of newspaper readers who have followed her writing career over the last 40 years.
“When
I meet one of my readers for the first time, the shock and surprise is
always evident. You see, over the years, most of them have built this
image of some Kikuyu mama because of my name.
“Imagine
I’m the only person waiting at a reception and the boss comes to
collect me. He finds only this small mzungu. He turns to the
receptionist and asks, where is she? The bewilderment is always
something to see,” she tells Lifestyle.
Her
byline is Margaretta wa Gacheru, a name that is as local as it can get.
To her colleagues in media and friends in the world of the arts, she is
simply Wa Gacheru. On Buru Buru’s route 58, she is known as mama Migwi.
Migwi is her son.
EXCHANGE STUDENT
Margaretta
does not just have a local name. Everything about her is local. Like
many other Kenyans working in Nairobi she travels in matatus and loves
Eastlands where she has lived for years. Her current abode is in
Kariobangi South.
Her 40-year-old
love affair with Kenya, the Kenyan people and Kenyan art stretches back
to 1974 when she first came to the country on a student exchange
programme. She arrived as Margaretta Swigert, which was her maiden name.
She was being funded by Rotary Club and in return she would work for
them as a speaking ambassador in the country.
And
she had everything worked out – or so she thought. See some bit of
Kenya, get two years of study for a Master’s degree in African
Literature at the University of Nairobi and then fly back home.
She
didn’t expect problems getting admitted at the university. She had
already obtained Bachelors and Masters degrees from universities back
home. But things didn’t work out as she had expected.
The
head of the Literature Department, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, didn’t think her
Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Comparative Religion had given her
the ideal foundation for graduate studies in Literature and politely
told her to take a walk and try her luck down the block.
Still
determined to pursue the course, she sought out Prof Micere Mugo who
was also in the department, asking her to intercede. Prof Wa Thiong’o
relented but then threw in a rider, “First she undertakes the
undergraduate Literature programme then we can take things from there.”
“He
left me no choices. So I enrolled for bachelors programme. I read day
and night. Somewhere in between, the university was closed for five
months and I took the opportunity to study on my own. It was perhaps the
most intensive study time I have ever engaged in. I finished the three
year programme in just over one year.”
So
she went back to Prof Wa Thiong’o, who, happy with her efforts,
admitted her to the department. But whereas she was more interested in
Pan African literature, the professor had different ideas.
He
recommended that she takes African-American literature based on the
writings of Malcom X. She turned in a thesis on the house nigger – a
pejorative term for the black slaves who worked in the master’s house as
a reward for their docility as opposed to the farm nigger, the more
rebellious one who would be sent to slave in harsher environments in the
fields.
Her journey in learning did
not end with the second Masters degree. She went on to earn two more
masters degrees capping up all with a PhD in 2011. With seven degrees
under her belt, Margaretta could easily be the most educated woman for
miles around.
Her stay at the
University of Nairobi changed the course of her life forever. The
Literature Department was a vibrant place which besides Wa Thiong’o had
on the faculty such names as Micere Mugo, Okot p’ Bitek, John Ruganda
and Jonathan Kariara among others.
PRIVATE JOURNAL
She
was instantly drawn to the robust drama scene at the university. “I
made my debut in the play, The Trial of Dedan Kimathi. With me on stage
was, Stephen Mwenesi, Kenneth Watene and Sibi Okumu. I was later invited
by Ruganda to join the university’s travelling theatre.”
In
the travelling theatre she had great friends who went out of their way
to help her through cultural transformation. Some simply didn’t like
her, a fact she attributes to unconscious xenophobia. Some just wanted
her out of the travelling theatre.
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