Black Ghosts

N. Kamoche

Description

Dan Chiponda earns a scholarship to study in China and reluctantly leaves his native Zimbabwe for an uncertain future. Learning to take racial abuse in his stride, he dates a fellow student, Lai Ying, who is attracted to his easy-going manner. He remains haunted by the weight of his mother’s expectations, encapsulated by the image of the African fish eagle. Things take a dramatic turn when Chinese students pour into the streets in an orgy of violence to drive Africans out of town. The situation in Nanjing only stabilises when attention turns to the mayhem that is unraveling in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. But that is only the beginning of Dan’s troubles with the ‘Campus Gestapo’, loan sharks in Hong Kong, and the shock of his family getting caught up in the violence by Mugabe’s war vets.
Black Ghosts was inspired by stories of Africans living in China in the 1980s and, in particular, by the little known incident in Nanjing, where African and Chinese students engaged each other in a violent battle just months before the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Informations

• Publié par: East African Educational Publishers
• Date de parution: 26 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9789966566041
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Black Ghosts
Published by
East African Educational Publishers Ltd.
Brick Court, Mpaka Road/Woodvale Grove Westlands,
P. O. Box 45314, Nairobi – 00100, KENYA
Tel: [phone]
Cell: [phone] / 733 677 716 / 722 207 216
Email: [e-mail]
Website: www.eastafricanpublishers.com
East African Educational Publishers also has offices or is represented in the following countries: Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Sudan.
© Ken N. Kamoche, 2013
First Published by Master Publishing
An imprint of The CAN-DO! Company, 2013
This edition by EAEP, 2015
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-9966-56-023-0
Black Ghosts
Ken N. Kamoche
PEAK LIBRARY
1. Secret Lives – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
2. Matigari – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
3. A Grain of Wheat – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
4. Weep Not, Child – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
5. The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
6. Devil on the Cross – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
7. Petals of Blood – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
8. Wizard of the Crow – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
9. Homing In – Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
10. Coming to Birth – Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
11. Street Life – Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
12. The Present Moment – Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
13. Chira – Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
14. A Farm Called Kishinev – Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye
15. No Longer at Ease – Chinua Achebe
16. Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
17. A Man of the People – Chinua Achebe
18. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
19. Anthills of the Savannah – Chinua Achebe
20. The Strange Bride – Grace Ogot
21. Land Without Thunder – Grace Ogot
22. The Promised Land – Grace Ogot
23. The Other Woman – Grace Ogot
24. The Future Leaders – Mwangi Ruheni
25. White Teeth – Okot P’Bitek
26. Horn of My Love – Okot P’Bitek
27. Without a Conscience – Barbara Baumann
28. God’s Bits of Wood – Sembene Ousmane
29. Emperor Shaka the Great – Masizi Kunene
30. No Easy Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela
31. The Herdsman’s Daughter – Bernard Chahilu
32. Hearthstones – Kekelwa Nyaywa
33. Of Man and Lion – Beatrice Erlwanger
34. My Heart on Trial – Genga Idowu
35. Kosiya Kifefe – Arthur Gakwandi
36. Mine Boy – Peter Abrahams
37. Return to Paradise – Yusuf K Dawood
38. Takadini – Ben Hanson
39. Myths and Legends of the Swahili – Jan Knappert
40. Mau Mau Author in Detention – Gakaara wa Wanjau
41. Mission to Gehenna – Karanja wa Kang’ethe
42. Goatsmell – Nevanji Madanhire
43. Sunset in Africa – Peter M Nyarango
44. The Moon Also Sets – Osi Ogbu
45. Breaking Chains – Dorothea Holi
46. The Missing Links – Tobias O Otieno
47. I Shall Walk Alone – Paul Nakitare
48. A Season of Waiting – David Omowale
49. Igereka and Other African Narratives – John Ruganda
50. Before the Rooster Crows – Peter Kimani
51. A Nose for Money – Francis B Nyamnjoh
52. The Travail of Dieudonné – Francis B Nyamnjoh
53. A Journey Within – Florence Mbaya
54. Kill Me Quick – Meja Mwangi
55. Going Down River Road – Meja Mwangi
56. Striving for the Wind – Meja Mwangi
57. Carcase for Hounds – Meja Mwangi
58. The Last Plague – Meja Mwangi
59. The Big Chiefs – Meja Mwangi
60. The Slave – Elechi Amadi
61. The Concubine – Elechi Amadi
62. The Great Ponds – Elechi Amadi
63. The Doomed Conspiracy – Barrack O Muluka and Tobias O Otieno
64. The Lone Dancer – Joe Kiarie
65. Eye of the Storm – Yusuf K Dawood
66. The African Child – Camara Laye
67. Animal Farm – George Orwell
68. Stillborn – Diekoye Oyeyinka
69. Ugandan Affairs – Sira Kiwana
70. The Dolphin Catchers and other stories – Edited by Tom Odhiambo
71. Black Ghosts – Ken N. Kamoche
72. African Quilt – Harshi Syal Gill and Parvin D. Syal
Contents
Prelude: The First Step
Part 1
A Book and a Rice Bowl
White Card
I’ll Go With You
Lai Ying
My Silly Egg
Wang’s Den
A Rose is for Love
Chants, Sticks, and Banners
Trojan Girl
People’s Sanctuary
A Good Student
From the Sidelines
Part 2
Kowloon Promenade
Chacha
Chicken Treatment
So Long Time No See
Pipe Dream
Give Us a Break, Man
Unfinished Business
What were You Thinking?
We Make the Plan, Okay?
The Family is Everything
Take A Chance, Eggman
Part 3
This is the Life
Buffer Zone
True Gweilos
A New Beginning
This is Trespass
I’ll be Ready for You
Part 4
So long a wait
A Pretty Tight Deal
Dumb Tour Agent
The Fourth Chimurenga
I’m All Ears
Prelude: The First Step
I STOOD IN FRONT OF Mrs Chevo, the deputy head, my hands wrapped around my schoolbag, and stared at the scholarship application forms as though they were tainted.
“The Chinese ones are the only ones left,” she informed me, with a consolatory half-smile. “You must remember, Dan, that every opportunity is a blessing. And as you might recall from your history lessons, Chairman Mao taught his people that every journey starts with a single step. This is your first step.” Her voice was soft and reassuring, like that of my mother explaining why I needed to take my bitterroot cough mixture when I was a child.
I couldn’t see how going to study in China could possibly be a blessing. It felt more like a punishment, like being banished away from home, being sent on exile. In school, we liked to make jokes about this mysterious land where everyone dressed in the same drab, monochromatic outfits, walked around unsmiling, quoting from Mao’s Red Book at every opportunity.
“The Chinese have always been our friends,” declared Mrs Chevo, her voice assuming a less placatory edge. “Why can’t we work together? They supported the struggle, as you no doubt know.”
I knew that alright. When Zimbabwean freedom fighters waged war against the Ian Smith regime, China was one of the few non-African countries that supported us militarily. And during our six years of independence, President Mugabe pursued a Marxist-Leninist ideology, strengthening ties with China.
China hadn’t been my first choice. I went about the task of filling in the scholarship forms as if I was being coerced into it, half hoping I would be turned down. My class teacher made my nomination late, as though it were an afterthought. Since the day he caught me smoking and instigated my suspension from school for a week, he had always viewed me as a troublemaker. His attitude to me never improved after the smoking incident. It was as though his own son had let him down. But I was the top student in the class, so he had no choice but to nominate me for the few scholarships available to graduating high school students.
I reflected on the deputy head’s wisdom for a moment. If I was awarded the scholarship, I would be an unwilling participant in the magnanimity borne of a political dalliance. I had to start believing that going to China was in fact, at the very least, a blessing in disguise. My class teacher was getting his own back for all the grief he believed I had caused him. If only he knew how I had suffered to get that education, waking up at 4.30 a.m. every morning to study for an hour before helping mother tend her crops, then having to run five miles to school. Weekends, I had to help father on the tobacco farm and still find a few hours in the day to study and do my homework. Although Brian Walter didn’t approve of children working on the farm, the overseers allowed us, so we could make some extra cash for the family. I had to get those “A” grades. Every time I dozed away on a book late in the night by the faint yellow light of the paraffin lantern, every morning when the cocks crowed to coax me away from my warm blankets, I heard the voice of my father in my head. There’ll be time enough to sleep when you’re old. I truly believe he meant “when you’re dead” but didn’t want to scare me.
Word came seven months later. I was headed for China. The farthest I had ever been from Ndambu village was Harare, our capital city, on school field trips.
The headteacher was right. There was no way I was going to turn down this scholarship, even though I had earned a place at a local university.
Mother saw it as a leap in the dark. For several days, she wouldn’t let me out of her sight, as though afraid I would fly away without saying goodbye. She fussed over me, prevailing upon me to eat more and more, carefully scanning the post and asking if there were scholarships from other countries. After all, my cousin had gone to Canada the previous year. The pictures she sent conveyed a world that was magical in its colours and images, just like a dream. Students throwing snow balls at each other, clad in