RENEWED ACUTE FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES had forced my father to give up our rented house in Woodley, where we had lived for almost eight years. Now we had nowhere to stay and were dependent on relatives and friends to put us up. There was no space anywhere for our things. Many things got lost at that time: the classical music records my father loved so much, as well as books, paintings, clothing, and kitchenware. We children watched our home disintegrate—and could do nothing to stop it. When the next break began, my father brought me directly from school to Ngara, the neighborhood where my Uncle Odima lived with his family. I was to spend the next several weeks with him. Uncle Odima, whom I later called “Soda Uncle,” because he worked at a beverage company for years, had come to Nairobi as a teenager. At that time, my father had found a school for him and taken on the payment of his school fees. My father let him live with us until he had graduated from high school. Years later, my father and I now stood at his door.
