Worries of the Heart: Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya

by Kenda Mutongi

Growing up in the Maragoli community in Kenya, Kenda Mutongi encountered a perplexing contradiction. While the young teachers at her village school railed against colonialism, many of her elders, including her widowed mother, praised their former British masters. In this moving book, Mutongi explores how both the challenges and contradictions of colonial rule and the frustrations and failures of independence shaped the lives of Maragoli widows and their complex relations with each other, their families, and the larger community.
            Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, rates of widowhood have been remarkably high in Kenya. Yet despite their numbers, widows and their families exist at the margins of society, and their lives act as a barometer for the harsh realities of rural Kenya. Mutongi here argues that widows survive by publicly airing their social, economic, and political problems, their “worries of the heart.” Initially aimed at the men in their community, and then their colonial rulers, this strategy changed after independence as widows increasingly invoked the language of citizenship to demand their rights from the new leaders of Kenya—leaders whose failure to meet the needs of ordinary citizens has led to deep disenchantment and altered Kenyans’ view of their colonial past. An innovative blend of ethnography and historical research, Worries of the Heart is a poignant narrative rich with insights into postcolonial Africa.

Genres: Nonfiction, Africa

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

Reviews

[Jim Gulley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book traced the lives of several generations of Kenyan families from precolonial to colonial and, finally, postcolonial rule. It was derived from a set of oral history interviews with what the author described as her “informants.” Mutongi builds her narrative around the perspective of widows in the west Kenyan village of Maragoli. These women used a social strategy known as “kehenda mwoyo,” or “worries of the heart” to manipulate the male members of their family to help them in the ways they saw fit. The book does not have an argument. Instead, it poses a question: were the people of Maragoli better off before, during, or after colonialism? The author lets the reader decide.

Mutongi’s section on colonial rule is a combination of British administration and US missionaries influencing the Kenyan society. She explored the activities and goals of Quaker missionaries and the impact of what she calls “practical Christianity.” In 1963, Kenya achieved independence from British rule. The new government struggled to meet the expectations of the peasant class and had the unintended consequence of usurping traditional roles and responsibilities with deleterious results. Mutongi concluded that her informants preferred colonial rule over self-government. This conclusion annoyed the author.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another of the lost college books, this one by my professor. It's the kind of sociological accessible yet academic look at a very specific community that you would only encounter in college, but it was really good. Similar to Haruko's World in that way...an excellent way of getting to know a culture without being able to go live there yourself.

[Josh Ridgway · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this book for a graduate class - only part of it was assigned reading, but I had to finish. Mutongi writes and investigates an interesting side of Kenya many have not discovered before. A must for African studies.

[em petlev · Rating 3 out of 5]

we need more books on african history so this book is definitely important to have. i did find it repetitive and a bit confusingly organized

[Anne Lutomia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Written in an accessible manner that offers detailed perspectives of colonial and postcolonial experiences of a section of Kenyan this book combines ethnographic and historical research to globaly gaze at that worries of Maragoli widows (period 1940-1960). Mutongi not only discusses the roots of widowhood in the Maragoli community, she also delves into the lived experiences of the widows as young girls, young single mothers and as old women. By so doing the women are able to process their experience during colonial and post colonial time, experiences of the converted christians and non coverted, luhya masculinity and femininity during colonial and post colonial time. Importantly, this women raise an interesting point in the disruption of the nationalism archive by their "nostalgia" of colonialism era. This nostalgia is driven by the facts that the African leaders did not deliver on their promises after independence and the reinscribing of patriarchy. This is a must read for Kenyans and scholars of colonial and post-colonial Africa.

[Pat Hardy]

Very scientific though interesting view of African culture from the inside and from a widow's vantage point.. I didn't finish it.