‘It was your turn to walk Wanja home today.’
‘Abdulla, you surprise me. You mean you were not glad to walk a girl home?’ said Wanja in
pretended anger.
‘It is only to make sure that my turn tomorrow is still there,’ Abdulla said.
This Africa knows only one law. You eat somebody or you are eaten.
Борьба начинается там, где ты теперь находишься.
I will tell you about the true secret of the white man’s power: money. Money moves the world. Money is time. Money is beauty. Money is elegance. Money is power. Why, with money I can even buy the princess of England. The one who recently came here. Money is freedom. With money I can buy freedom for all our people. Instead of this suicidal talk of guns and pistols and oaths of black unity to drive out the white man, we should learn from him how to make money. With money we can bring light into darkness. With money we can get rid of our fears and our superstitions. <...> Give me money and I can buy holiness and kindness and charity, indeed buy my way to heaven, and the sacred gates will open at my approach. That is the power we want.
‘I went to the office.
‘Well, I said: I only wanted a job.
‘They said: a cripple?
‘I said: a cripple: must he not eat?
A lot of words is poison, a few words are sugar.
But boys were always more confident about the future than us girls. They seemed to know what they wanted to become later in life: whereas with us girls the future seemed vague... It was as if we knew that no matter what efforts we put into our studies, our road led to the kitchen and to the bedroom.