East African Poetry

Below are three poems by East African writers that I have come across, like, and can relate to/understand after spending time here, and appreciate.  Enjoy.

Building the Nation by Henry Barlow

Today I did my share

In building the nation.

I drove a Permanent Secretary

To an important urgent function

In fact to a luncheon at the Vic.

The menu reflected its importance

Cold Bell beer with small talk,

Then fried chicken with niceties

Wine to fill the hollowness of the laughs

Ice-cream to cover the stereotype jokes

Coffee to keep the PS awake on return journey.

I drove the Permanent Secretary back.

He yawned many times in back of the car

Then to keep awake, he suddenly asked,

Did you have any lunch friend?

I replied looking straight ahead

And secretly smiling at his belated concern

That I had not, but was slimming!

Upon which he said with a seriousness

That amused more than annoyed me,

Mwananchi, I too had none!

I attended to matters of state.

Highly delicate diplomatic duties you know,

And friend, it goes against my grain,

Causes me stomach ulcers and wind.

Ah, he continued, yawning again,

The pains we suffer in building the nation!

So the PS had ulcers too!

My ulcers I think are equally painful

Only they are caused by hunger,

Not sumptuous lunches!

So two nation builders

Arrived home this evening

With terrible stomach pains

The result of building the nation –

-Different ways.

The Guilt of Giving by Laban Erapu

You’ve seen that heap of rags

That pollutes the airconditioned

City Centre,

That louse that creeps about

In the clean core of sophistication;

You’ve seen him waylay his betters

And make them start—

Especially when they have no change.

You recall the day you came upon him

And were startled by his silent presence

Intruding into your preoccupation:

You hurled a coin

Which missed the mark

And rolled into the gutter

Where he groped for it

With a chilling grotesque gratitude

That followe3d you down the street.

You dived into the nearest shop

To escape the stare

Of the scandalised crowd

That found you guilty

Of recalling attention

To the impenetrable patience

They had learnt not to see.

I Speak for the Bush by Everett Standa

When my friend sees me

He swells and pants like a frog

Because I talk the wisdom of the bush!

He says we from the bush

Do not understand civilized ways

For we tell our women

To keep the hem of their dresses

Below the knee.

We from the bush, my friend insists,

Do not know how to ‘enjoy’:

When we come to the civilized city,

Like nuns, we stay away from nightclubs

Where women belong to no men

And men belong to no women

And these civilized people

Quarrel and fight like hungry lions!

But, my friend, why do men

With crippled legs, lifeless eyes,

Wooden legs, empty stomachs

Wander about the streets

Of this civilized world?

Teach me, my friend, the trick,

So that my eyes may not

See those whose houses have no walls

But emptiness all around;

Show me the wax you use

To seal your ears

To stop hearing the cry of the hungry;

Teach me the new wisdom

Which tells men

To talk about money and not love

When they meet women;

Tell your God to convert

Me to the faith of the indifferent,

The faith of those

Who will never listen until

They are shaken with blows.

I speak for the bush:

You speak for the civilized—

Will you hear me?

Captured Moments

The chameleon I finally got to see and hold!

 Walking through the tea estates, there were people plucking tea and people taking theirs to be weighed.

Several of my siblings and I went to a river where we crossed just ahead 

of a waterfall which is used to produce hydroelectricity.

I love seeing kids passing their time peacefully outdoors.

Christmas

It’s funny how we come to associate one thing or another with a particular event.  To me Christmas is supposed to be accompanied by cold weather (usually snow), Christmas music, a tree and baked goods.  Here in Kenya, although it is a day of family get-togethers, a holiday, it doesn’t seem like Christmas to me.  No cold weather.  In fact, it is in the 70s (I think).  No familiar Christmas tunes.  No evergreen trees…not even a plastic one.  No baked goods. 

On Christmas Eve, there was no children’s re-enactment of the Christmas story, but the girls and I plaited our hair.  On Christmas, we celebrated the day by spending all morning preparing food with 3 different fires and a jiko.  We made about 100 chapati, rice, potatoes, sukuma wikii, peas, beans, mandazi, and a few other things, slaughtered a goat and a chicken (something I did not witness, but the cries reached the kitchen), and cleaned the place despite the rain in preparation for about 50 family members who were coming.  The sun shone as the visitors arrived, but poured down as we carried plates of food from the kitchen to the house (to the sitting room and bedrooms) to be served.  It was a busy, but enjoyable day, that like most celebratory events in Kenya revolved around eating, drinking tea, and giving/listening to speeches.  Hope you had a merry Christmas.  Happy New Year!

SIM Card Rescue

One thing I thought I’d learned was that pit latrines are unforgiving.  When something falls in, it is never coming out.  Well, perhaps I don’t give them enough credit.  Perhaps latrines have a tiny bit of heart.  We often take our mobile phones to the outhouse at night so we can check for anything inside before using them.

The other night, Chepngetich’s phone slipped and the back came off.  Her battery and SIM card bounced and disappeared rapidly down the hole in the floor.  Now, most people would have written them off and decided that it was better to just purchase new ones, but Chepngetich was determined to get her SIM card back.

At 11 pm, she and I and one other person, went out to the latrine.  She could see them resting on the top of the manure pile below.  At first we thought we’d use a hoe, but the head (blade) was too wide to fit down the hole and the handles would not have been long enough anyway.  On to Plan B.  Sticks.  Chepngetich and I ripped 2 long branches off of some nearby trees and stripped the twigs to have two long sticks.  I held the flashlight, while she carefully reached the two branches downwards to retrieve the card.  She declared that the battery was not nearly as important as the tiny SIM card.  She reached the card, but the problem was pulling it up and out.  It kept slipping out of the ends of the branches. 

Plan C.  We searched for a plastic lid about 2 inches in diameter an stabbed a hole in the centre with a knife.  We then got another long stick and placed the lid on the end.  With more careful and calculated actions, we hauled both the SIM card and the battery out of the muck.  I ran and got some paper to hold them with and we carried them to the water spigot.  Chepgnetich threw numerous handfuls of water on them and wiped them with a leaf, before taking them inside and drying them. 

What celebration and laughter erupted when she tried them and both the battery and the SIM card functioned properly!  Nothing had been lost.  No one believed that we had really retrieved the items from the latrine.  It was so funny and something I won’t easily forget.

Rules on the Road

Driving down Nebraska’s highways, it’s easy to get a lead foot or simply be tempted to set the cruise control five mph over the speed limit to reduce the amount of time spent on the road.  Both come with the risk of those dreaded red and blue lights appearing in the rearview mirror.  When suddenly meeting a police car, you hold your breath, silently praying it won’t swiftly turn around and pull you over.  When approaching a construction zone, you hope you won’t have to sit for twenty minutes awaiting your turn to proceed slowly down the single lane. 

The unwritten/informal rules of the road in Kenya are different.  First of all, in semi-rural areas, there is no need to worry about police cars, as there are few officers and they certainly do not have cars.  Instead, the traffic police known for corruption, stand on the edge of the road.  Robert Ngeno, who shares this opinion with many, stated, “That’s the only job there is that people wake up and go to the road to get money without doing any work!” 

More times than not, when I have been in a vehicle, we have been waved over to the side.  The driver then drops a bribe (usually 200 Kenyan shillings or about $2.40) out the window and is then signaled to continue onwards.  There is no problem. For personal vehicles—at times I think there isn’t any real problem, but for public vehicles, which are always overcrowded, paying the small bribe keeps them from suffering severe consequences as new traffic laws dictate. 

While I was in Nairobi a few weeks ago, the new traffic laws went into effect.  No, I think some changes ought to be made as Kenyan roads are among the most dangerous in the world with a very high number of fatalities in traffic accidents, but in my opinion, the consequences for offenses under the new laws are unreasonable.  Take for example someone having no insurance on his/her vehicle, even if it expired only one or two days prior.  This person could face a fine of 500,000 Ksh (nearly $6,000) or 10 years of imprisonment!  Of course this led to an uproar and many Kenyans (especially in Nairobi) did something that they are great at—They went on strike and rioted.  I was in Nairobi’s Central Business District, when I noticed something amiss.  To my horror, I watched as conductors shoved people out of buses and matatus, honked their horns, and drove recklessly: speeding, careening around corners, barreling over medians, driving on the wrong side of the streets and nearly hitting people all while empty inside.  Angry citizens began to throw things at the vehicles.  I knew I had to get out of there.  After two hours of searching for a vehicle willing to carry passengers down Thika Road, I was forced to pay 300 Ksh as opposed to the normal 80 ksh to Juja, but it was worth getting out of town.  Prices were very much inflated over the next few days and are now fixed at higher rates than they were back in November. 

Before entering any vehicle, I am sure to negotiate the fare so as to prevent being overcharged or having an argument within.  Most vehicles are stuffed far beyond capacity—the records of vehicles that I been in are 16 people in Corollas meant to carry 4-5 people, 26 people in Nissans intended for 14, and 4 people on motorbikes which are not designed for more than 2.  Overstuffed vehicles are not the only things on the roads that are often riddled with potholes and quite often large rocks and dust, not to mention an insane number of speed bumps.  I’ve seen roads shared  by lorries (semi-trucks), motorcycles (bodabodas), matatus, private cars, buses, donkeys pulling carts or packing sacks of maize, pedestrians, and camels. 

The roads are like mazes—various forms of transport speeding around others while dodging potholes and taking unmarked detours.  In many places—especially between Kericho and Kisumu or Litein and Eldoret, the roads are supposedly under construction, so vehicles are forced to go down onto rough dusty paths and come back up after some time, without any signs of directing them.  Other surprises to drivers can be unmarked speed bumps and sometimes series of them.  Between two small towns in Bureti District, is a series of speed bumps: 1 bar, 2 bars, 3,4,3,2,1 within a few hundred feet.  Vehicles weave back and forth across the two lanes as they rumble slowly over them making them seem more dangerous to me than if the vehicles were driving quickly.

As uncomfortable as public transport can be at times, I’m thankful I don’t have to drive these crazy roads and remember to keep on the left-hand side.  I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand them.

Patience

Is patience a virtue? 

Where does it come from?

Where does it go?

Is is hope dying?

Is it not caring? 

Is it growing?

Is it learning? 

Is it loving and forgiving? 

More than anything else,

it is something I’m learning,

but sometimes it’s so hard!

Recent Snapshots

Me and Madam Daisy with Class 6 West

Pupils at Kimori Academy on closing day

A glimpse of the Great Rift Valley

A small piece of the crowd at a university graduation