Meeting of Strangers

Glimpses of Life Under Colonial Rule

Sitting on the balcony one cool evening, Wa-Noa momentarily lapses into deep meditation as he reflects on the gaping disparities in his life. His thoughts wander around three consecutive generations of an African family, over a time span stretching from the eighteen eighties to the nineteen sixties. Narrated in a candid and richly informative historical background, Meeting of Strangers underscores the impacts of colonialism and its gruesome manifestations, on the natural lives of Africans. It is a story of a boy growing up in the British Colony of Kenya, the acrimonious confrontations between cultures and religions, colour prejudice and segregation in all facets of life and the traumatizing moments under an imposed State of Emergency. It is about denial of justice, marginalization, arbitrary arrests, forceful land annexation, and restriction of movement, unjust taxation, forced labour, conscription to war, and a segregated education system specifically crafted to ensure only a minuscule of African children ever progressed beyond the rudimentary level. It is about perseverance, struggle, determination and hope, and above all, it is about one of the lucky few who surmounted the daunting colonialist hurdles to achieve academic and professional accolades.