They admired freedom—but bitterness felt safer.
But beneath their admiration for Mandela, a deep irony lay buried in the soil of Gitithia. Mandela’s famous words “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison” had no place in their hearts. While they revered the man, they did not embrace his message. The villagers clung to their bitterness as if it were a precious inheritance, passed down from their ancestors who had lived through the brutality of colonial rule.
Generations before, their forefathers had been uprooted from their land, herded into concentration camps, and stripped of their dignity. When they returned to Gitithia, they did not return whole. They brought with them a simmering anger, an unspoken resentment that festered in their bones until they carried it to their graves. This colonial bitterness, unresolved and unspoken, seeped into the roots of the village, feeding the souls of the generations that followed.
The villagers did not realize that bitterness would be their prison. It clung to them like a shadow, unshakable and ever-present. It thrived in their homes, in their fields, in their churches. Family disputes became lifelong feuds. Brothers stopped speaking. Neighbors eyed each other with suspicion. Church members whispered behind one another’s backs. Every slight, every grievance, no matter how small, took root and blossomed into a deep, abiding bitterness that stained their spirits.
Even as the world outside Gitithia changed, the villagers remained trapped. Opportunities arose for some of them to travel far beyond the boundaries of their village. They found work in distant lands—Asia, Europe, America, Australia—lands of promise, where success seemed within reach. But distance could not untie them from the bitterness they carried. It followed them across oceans, into foreign cities, and into their hearts. Whether they stood beneath the skyscrapers of New York or the ancient temples of Kyoto, Gitithia’s bitterness lingered, undiminished by time or place.
In their travels, some found success, but it was always tainted. Their achievements felt hollow because bitterness colored every victory. They sent money back to Gitithia, but their contributions were half-hearted, driven by obligation rather than love for their village. They raised a hand to help, but bitterness weakened it. They prayed to God, attended church, and spoke of Christian forgiveness, but their souls remained tethered to the past, unable to let go of the pain that bound them.
Mandela had walked out of Robben Island a free man, unshackled by the bitterness that had every right to cling to him. He chose freedom—not just from physical imprisonment, but from the prison of his own heart. He used that freedom to uplift his people, to build a nation that could move forward despite its painful history.
But Gitithia’s villagers were not like Mandela. They held on to their grudges, their old wounds, nursing them in secret. And so, the opportunities they had—the chance to better their lives and the lives of others—slipped away. Every time they tried to rise, bitterness pulled them back down, like the roots of a tree too tangled in the earth to ever reach the sky. For example, one day a villager asked a priest who was preaching about forgiveness, “Will God ever forgive Ngati?” The priest responded, “oh yes.” The villager said, “I do not want that God you are talking about. And he left the mass.”
Gitithia could have been a village of progress, a place where unity and shared purpose flourished. But instead, it remained stuck in the past, a prisoner of its own making. The villagers spoke Mandela’s name with reverence, but they did not live his legacy. Instead, they lived in the shadow of their ancestors' bitterness, unable to see that true freedom could only come when they chose to let it go.
