How Beautiful We Were

“When Teacher Penda lectured on the government, we tried not to laugh as he stressed that it was made of the country’s most intelligent men…His Excellency was the smartest man in the world, he said; not many countries were blessed to have a president like ours. We did not argue; we’d lived long enough to know he was simply saying what he was paid to say.”

Living under a dictatorship and imperialism has affected the children; they know both when adults are lying to them and when to hold their tongues. The children tend toward distrust because of the dictatorship and Pexton’s constant empty promises.

“When one of our fathers had asked at a village meeting if he could take his sick child to the doctor there, in case that medicine man had herbs Sakani didn’t have, the Leader shook his head and said that it was best to keep the children separated—why confuse them about how the world works?”

The Leader is so committed to maintaining wealth disparity that he refuses even access to the laborer’s doctor to village residents. In his inability to imagine a more equitable world, the Leader believes it is better to keep people in the dark, where they are less likely to question the system around them than to imagine a world where everyone can access necessary resources.

“Perhaps our newfound hope is sustaining them, a sense that a winnable battle is being fought on their behalf. The air of Kosawa has grown lighter from the collective faith of its people: we know our time for doubt is gone.”

Bongo theorizes that the hope of people in Kosawa is keeping the seven ill children alive. Konga’s decision to steal the car keys forced everyone to imagine a new future because things could not go back to normal, thus galvanizing a collective faith that the people of Kosawa have not felt since Pexton’s arrival.

“That is why I want, desperately, as impossible as it seems, for her to grow up to be an unshackled woman, so that I may tell my brother, when we meet again, that though I’d failed at saving him from whoever felled him, I hadn’t failed in keeping his children safe by doing everything I could so they could grow up in a clean Kosawa.”

Bongo is motivated to better Kosawa on behalf of his brother, who died for Kosawa’s cause. This desire to improve the village for the youth and to avenge the violence that has already happened by continuing to exist runs throughout the novel: None of the violence will have been worth it if the children cannot live in a safe Kosawa.

“‘You call yourself small,’ Konga goes on, ‘and you say it with no shame.’ ‘There’s no shame in admitting that we’re in need of help from those with the power to free us,’ I say. ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Konga says, as if he’s heard such rubbish too many times. ‘But let me tell you something, sweet child. Something you may never have heard before and might never hear again after today: we are the only ones who can free ourselves.’”

Konga reappears in Kosawa and speaks lucidly to Bongo, Lusaka, and Tunis. Many of the characters in the book believe that if they can simply get government officials or Americans to hear about their plight, they will be saved, but Konga provides an alternative idea.

“Never would we have called him the Sick One if we’d been aware of how infirm he was—half dead, in fact. […] We only gave him that name because we could think of no better name for a man whose body offered us passing chances at superiority, and we needed it, as a salve for our heartache.”

A difference in worldview is emphasized in this quote, as the children feel bad for calling Kumbum “the Sick One” once they find out he is actually sick, despite the immense amount of harm that the Sick One justifies on behalf of Pexton and the dictatorial government.

“How heavy the blood flowed—the blood of our families, the blood of our friends. Why do we hope on when life has revealed itself to be meaningless?”

As Kosawa fights for liberation, the villagers’ efforts are constantly undone by extreme violence; as they take one step forward, their oppressors force them to take two steps back. Throughout the book, characters question why they fought for something when all they got out of it was further violence at the hands of the government.

“Our people were dying for lack of knowledge, they said, and if a child of ours could go to America and bring knowledge back to us, someday no government or corporation would be able to do to us the things they’ve been doing to us.”

The Restoration Movement emphasizes education as a means for liberation above all else, which forwards the dangerous idea that Kosawa is to blame for its own subjugation, not the people exploiting the land. Ultimately, this belief is disproven by Thula’s failure to save Kosawa, despite her American education.

“[…] then the song from the tale our mothers used to tell us when we were children, the one about the three little fishes who escaped the belly of a monstrous creature by itching the insides of its stomach for so long that the monster got a stomachache and vomited them out.”

This story can be seen as an allegory. The younger generation hopes to act like the little fish, slowly destroying Pexton’s property until the company finally gets too irritated and releases Kosawa. The novel often juxtaposes modern political reality with the wisdom Kosawa residents glean from traditional myths and stories.

“Men marry us young and die before us, taken away by nature or disobedience to our wisdom. At their deaths, we cry, we dry our eyes, we prepare to spend the rest of our lives taking care of the very young, the sick, and the very old.”

The men in Kosawa, such as Malabo, have no consideration for the amount of labor that the women in their lives will have to do if they are hurt or die. If a woman dies, the man is allowed to remarry; he does not have to spend his life caretaking. Under this double standard, men are able to be on the frontline of the liberation movement while the women must hold everything together behind the scenes.

“We placed the coffins in the earth and asked the Spirit for forgiveness for where we’d gone wrong—surely, we’d gone wrong somewhere; surely, we’d brought this upon ourselves. If not us, then our ancestors—which one of them had committed the wrong that doomed us? We did not think we would have any tears left by the time we go to Jakani and Sakani’s coffin, but that day we learned that within us lies an ocean.”

This quote shows a difference in worldview between Kosawa and its oppressors; the people in Kosawa assume that the misfortune of Pexton is happening as a karmic result of its own actions, not simply heartless exploitation caused by greed and expansion.

“Corporations in Europe that often gave His Excellency loans to create shared wealth told him that if he didn’t release the Four they’d stop lending to him, they couldn’t condone the unjust treatment of any human, but everyone knew that these lenders wouldn’t stop making the loans—keeping countries like ours in their debt was why they existed.”

The issues of imperialism and international aid are major underlying themes in the novel. Over and over, corporations and wealthy countries talk sympathetically about exploitation as a way to distract from their continued financial support of the exploitation.

“We spoke about it daily, from the time we were seventeen, about the day we would repay Pexton in full […] what we would do to His Excellency. We fantasized about burning down buildings at Gardens, killing laborers, acquiring guns and going to Bezam and killing high-level government people. Such thoughts soothed us, the mere idea that we could make them fear us.”

Whereas many characters feel resigned or decide to leave Kosawa, Thula’s friends’ response to the violence they’ve faced is a desire to avenge those who have hurt them. The difference in responses to trauma is a theme that encourages readers to wonder why some characters decide against violence while others opt for it.

“They did not tell us that poison might travel through the soil from their site and shorten the lives of our children’s children. Why wouldn’t we be excited when the truth was so artfully withheld? It was all too easy to believe the sincerity in their eyes. We began dreaming of how splendid our lives would be. Everyone did, except for my husband.”

Big Papa is seen as a negative man by the villagers, but his pessimism about the world is consistently proven right; his inclination towards assuming bad intentions seems like a response to the assault that occurred in his childhood.

“No one was listening. Angry voices, including his own son’s, were drowning his, shouting back at him that the Sweet One and the Cute One were saying useless things, they were weak talkers. Wait, wait, patience, patience—that’s all they’ve ever said. How long should Kosawa wait?”

Sonni begs the children to stop destroying Pexton property. Some of the villagers believe that they need outside forces to be saved, while others abide by Konga’s belief that only they can save themselves.

“Oh, dear husband, I fear that, like you, Thula walks around consumed by all the ways the world has failed to protect its children. Like you, she seems doomed never to find peace until a new earth is born, one in which all are accorded the same level of dignity.”

Yaya compares Thula to Big Papa. Thula finds fulfillment in her fight against injustice and has a remarkable ability to maintain hope. Big Papa was similar in that he understood the injustices happening and could see them before other people could, but he was less able to find hope than Thula.

“We let them know, in case they’d never considered it, that they were our enemies by virtue of eating the scraps off the plates of our enemies.”

Despite Thula’s insistence that the government is the enemy, not the laborers, her friends see the laborers as enemies. Pexton uses villagers from one poor town to aid in the subjugation of another poor town; because Pexton did not offer the people of Kosawa jobs when they asked for them, a rift exists between villages.

“He believes in dialogue, in people sharing their stories, hearing others’ stories, enemies gaining new perspectives on each other. I’m tempted to laugh at his naïveté in thinking stories alone can do that. When I told him about your first attack at Gardens, he was aghast that we’d gone in that direction.”

Austin and Thula approach injustice and protest differently because of their lived experiences. Kosawa has been trying to get people to hear its story for Thula’s entire life, which is how she knows that Austin’s approach does not work.

“Living is painful. That’s why we so often forget that we’re dying, we’re too busy catering to our pains. I think it’s one of nature’s tricks—it needs us to not dwell on the fact that we’re dying, otherwise we’d spend our days eating low-hanging fruits from trees and splashing around in clear rivers and laughing while our pointless lives pass us by.”

This quote offers an explanation for the ongoing pain in the world. Some characters are better able to remember to laugh and metaphorically eat low-hanging fruits. Conversely, Thula and Big Papa have a difficult time ignoring their pain and enjoying life, while Juba ignores his pain to have an easier life.

“In Bezam, Thula taught at the government leadership school during the day and, in the evenings, invited her favorite students to her house to talk about revolutions… and to her they swore that they would join in fighting for Kosawa… we doubted that these students’ interest in our struggle came from a pure place…They had gained entrance into the school by virtue of their connections to powerful men—when did people ever rise up to put an end to their own privilege?”

The question at the end of this quote is central to the book: While people from Kosawa often assume that if others knew about their struggles, they would help them, this rarely happens.

“What the country needed was a government made of people like us, those who had suffered the consequences of bad policies and knew how things ought to be […] wasn’t it evident, I asked her, that good government was the solution to the ills of our nation?”

Juba exemplifies that trying to change things from within the system often fails. When Juba becomes a government official, despite being a person who has suffered the consequences of bad policies, he does not create any change but instead acclimates to the corruption expected of him.

“I’m certain true peace would be mine if I hadn’t become what I once loathed, but I no longer yearn for peace like I once did. I have accepted that, just as I live in the space between the dead and the living, I’ll always be whole outside and broken inside. I have let go of any hopes of ever being free.”

Early in the book, Juba struggles to differentiate himself from his sister and understand the meaning of freedom. In going the opposite direction from his sister and becoming a corrupt government official himself, Juba does not find the freedom he seeks. Neither sibling is free—one constrained by her inability to allow herself happiness if there is any injustice in the world, and the other constrained through resignation.

“We were refused one last chance to enter Kosawa and empty our huts. The government decided the land had become too contaminated for human presence. His Excellency ordered Kosawa burned […] our ancestors’ pride, ashes.”

It is darkly ironic that the same government that signed Kosawa’s land over to big oil now declares the polluted land too toxic to live on. The people of Kosawa have continued to live on their land despite its toxicity for generations, and the government has not cared. It is only when the civil disobedience and protest grow too impactful that the government makes everyone leave under the guise of caring about the health of the villagers—only to the return the land to the same extractor company that ruined it in the first place.