Petals of Blood

Content Warning: The source material includes discussions of sexual abuse and exploitation.

The epigraphs to Part 2 are both quotes from William Blake, an 18th- and 19th-century British poet. The first, from his poem “London,” discusses the streets of London and how a young sex worker disrupts family and marriage. The second, from his poem “The Human Abstract,” ironically points out the necessity of poverty for there to be the existence of pity.

Through their journey, Nyakinyua, Wanja’s grandmother, tells stories about Ilmorog’s history, beginning with its founding. Ndemi broke with his herd to begin tearing down the forests and cultivating the land that would become Ilmorog. Despite protests from those he left behind, he succeeded and became wealthy, passing down that wealth as Ilmorog became a prosperous center of trade. When Europeans came to trade with them, a white missionary was killed, leading to European warriors massacring the people of Ilmorog. As time went on, a farmer named Munoru was the first to receive a bike from the European people, which Nyakinyua claims “bewitched” him, making him uninterested in farming and ultimately leading many men to fight in a war for Great Britain against the Germans. This was the beginning of the people abandoning farming and the land, leading to the village’s decline.