When Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and I became friends, he had recently arrived as a visiting professor at Yale University. A few weeks later at a time when I was traumatized and distraught, he helped me through a very difficult period by listening, by asking thoughtful questions, by providing sensible advice, and by making me laugh. An advisee and Kiswahili teaching assistant I had recruited to Yale had murdered his former fiancee and killed himself. Then a newspaper report claimed that this happened because of a violent African language cult at Yale where I was the Director of the Program in African Languages. The Dean of Yale College decided to investigate these absurd charges, although his secretary called it ‘just a routine program review’. One afternoon, shortly after we first met, Ngũgĩ stopped by the Yale Program in African Languages office and overheard me on the phone talking with a reporter and telling him his questions were racist and ethnocentric. Ngũgĩ suggested that he answer the phone for me for a while and I listened while he calmly and patiently explained to the reporter that studying African languages was a worthwhile intellectual practice and not a bizarre or threatening activity. I relaxed and laughed for the first time in a while, and I began learning about Ngũgĩ's skills in effective listening, his kindness, and his generosity.

Later over dinner, and the first of what became over a quite a few excellent meals at a wide range of downtown New Haven restaurants, Ngũgĩ listened while I talked about what had happened.