Summary

As Act One opens, Kiguunda, a farm laborer, is preparing to host guests with his wife Wangeci and daughter Gathoni in their one-room house in Kenya. When the title-deed to Kiguunda’s one-and-a-half acres of land falls from its position on the wall to the floor, Wangeci asks Kiguunda why he is so obsessed with it. He explains that he is proud to own that land, however small it is. Wangeci tells him not to waste time staring at the deed and to focus on fixing their chairs, so that their wealthy guest, Kioi, has a place to sit.

A drunk then passes through the yard singing a song that begins with the line “I shall marry when I want” (4). Wangeci shouts at him to leave and berates him for his inebriation, but Kiguunda explains that the drunk only turned to alcohol after...