The Help

She came to my home straight from the village, from the border between Kenya and Tanzania. She had never worked for anyone. She had never been away from home.

She left home to teach her husband a lesson. “I want to be away a whole year,” she said. “He doesn’t pay school fees, he doesn’t buy food. He’s only buying for his many girlfriends. He has like four.”

They had been sent home for several months now. They owed the school about Kshs 70,000 which she had tried to settle with petty trade like mitumba and vegetables… but it wasn’t enough. She needed work.

Her sister-in-law recommended her to me. And so she came to my house – a few weeks before I was due to go back to work from maternity.

We started from scratch. She had never used a stove. She had never taken transport in Nairobi. But by a week’s end, the house ran perfectly. And I was finally getting good sleep.

I read and researched a lot about child development. But even with her Class 8 education, she did everything the books say you should do with infants. She sang to her, with rhymes she made up. She spoke to her and entertained her at every moment. About how the birds were her friends, the teddy bears (which she called dogs) were her friends… instead of reprimanding her for refusing to do things as babies are wont to do, she always found a creative way around it. “Yum yum!” she’d encourage, “before the churries (what she called birds) come eat your food!”

We worked like that for five months. We had a rhythm. I never told her what to do. She always did it before I could’ve asked her.

And then she asked me if she could go home to see her children. Which of course, obliged. It had been five months since she’d been away from home. It was an ordinary Saturday. We said our goodbyes as we usually did, with the intonation and expectation of returning on Monday. But during the course of the day, several thoughts ran through my head… she had reconciled with her husband. Her children were back in school…

I opened the drawer where she normally kept her things and it was empty…

Perhaps some goodbyes are harder to say, we pretend they’re not forever.

I suppose I could’ve found a replacement immediately. But personally, I needed to grieve. I stayed/ worked from home, replaying our conversations – half in denial/ stupid hope that she would come back – waiting until the last day of her “leave” before finding someone else.

It’s normal, I know. People come and go. And I understand her reasons. I would’ve chosen them myself. But she wasn’t just my nanny. She was a blessing. And I would’ve liked a moment to really say goodbye.

-----------

UPDATE: Two weeks later she apologised for not saying goodbye

I put tulips under the pillows and set fire to the house

I thought it would be poetic - even if nobody would ever know. As if the smell of tulips would rage with the fire and burn with the memories of all the gifts he gave me and all the things he wanted me to be - that I wasn't.

But there was no aroma of tulips with the fire. They wilted in seconds the way plots of revenge sound stupid when spoken out loud.

With every affair, I thought I could erase him - bury him under new lovers and new memories. But he wouldn't go! He became even more present, like the lovers were embodying different aspects of him. Death by fire seemed to be the only way.

And so the fantasy became a reality, became a bonafide plot.

The timing was perfect and unsuspecting. We would eat, we would drink, we would talk like there was a tomorrow. And then as they rested with their bellies full and their minds at ease, I would light his tulips, I would light them all.

[So this was a writing exercise in which you pick three sentences several minutes after one another and write for five minutes before you pick a new sentence/writing prompt. The sentences/writing prompts were as follows:
- I put tulips under all the pillows and then set fire to the house
- I cheated on my spouse and it wasn't the first time
- The time he invited his mother to come to dinner]

becoming her

I am haunted by the idea of becoming
that woman in the narrow streets
with her billowing buibui 
and kohl lined eyes
who reveals more with her painted face
than she intends to hide

I am haunted by the promise of loss
where after years of devotion
you would take another
with lustre in her hair
and skin which is not marked by the passing of children
A child cum woman
to consume the desire you once had for me
the beauty I once kept for you
but now cannot keep from slipping away

She is your mother and grandmother and the wife
of every man who wants another

And I do not know whether you will become your father
or grandfather or every man with a wife or two
who still wants another

male justice

they descended on her like dogs let loose
from a cage they normally cannot leave
on prey they normally cannot touch
at least in the day
at least in public

they tore at her with so much vigour
it seemed they really believed
they could take from her
what had been taken from them
as if this were a way they could be remembered
by a world that had forgotten them

transposing their grievances
onto a woman whose blatant agency
spoke too loudly about their own lack

they swarmed around her
- a sea of beasts

taking clothes for dignity
privacy for power

being men who do not know how to be men
teaching a woman how to be a woman

http://thekenyanoline.com/this-is-yet-another-obnoxious-incident-that-happened-rape-in-public-in-nairobi%E2%80%BC%E2%80%BC%E2%80%BC/

her voice

I read a poem in reaction to the strippings in town and loved it so much I had to share it here:

disappearing women

several years ago, i sat down in a matatu and a man touched my thigh. i told him to stop touching me. the man next to him told me it was because my skirt was too short.

i began to wear longer skirts.

two days after that, a man at odeon reached out and squeezed my breasts between his long fingers as if checking for ripe tomatoes. i told him to stop touching me. he told me my shirt was cut too low for him to resist.

i began to wear shirts with a higher neckline.

a few days after that, a man at work run his hand over my butt and smiled at me. i told him to stop touching me. he said my trousers hugged my butt very nicely, told me he was only being appreciative and if i didn’t want him to be, i shouldn’t wear such tight clothes.

i began to wear looser trousers.

one weekend, my uncles sat in a circle and pointed out the things they appreciated about my body. i asked them to be quiet. they told me that as long as i remained single, i still belonged to them.

i went and found myself a man to marry.

several months later, my husband hit me for the umpteenth time because—i don’t even remember why. later, he apologised (again), and said that perhaps it was time we thought about growing our family, growing our love.

we had a daughter together. i wept.

at a party three weeks ago, someone in the crowd caressed my fully covered breasts and disappeared before i could say anything. my friends explained to me that childbirth had given me an admirable bosom.

i went home and chopped off my boobs and bled and bled and bled. my shirts no longer fit me.

last weekend, my husband stumbled into our bed piss-drunk and grabbed my butt. i told him to leave me alone, and he said my butt belonged to him. i told him itdid not and he hit me hard across the head. i think i remember our daughter crying. i woke up and felt the pain he had left between my legs. he told me that’s what love felt like sometimes. he did not notice the holes in my chest.

the next morning i sliced off my butt and bled and bled and bled. my trousers no longer fit me.

on tuesday, one of the men at the construction site down the street slapped at my hips and cried out to his friends to look at this woman with a flat chest and a flat butt, but hips that compensated for the lack. i told him i did not want his hands on me. he asked me if i thought he cared what i wanted.

i turned around and hobbled back home and carved and carved and carved until my hips lay on the floor. and i bled and bled and bled and bled.

yesterday morning, i drove to the doctor’s office to get something for the pain. he touched me. he touched me again. he kept touching me. he did not stop touching me. he told me he had always liked skinny women, had always thought the women around him were too thick for him.

i walked out of his office, drove home, sat on the bathroom floor and cut and bled and cut and bled and cut and bled.

i cut and bled and cut and bled until i disappeared.

earlier today, i hovered over my daughter and watched in horror as her teacher slid his hands into her panties, worked his fingers inside her, held her mouth shut until he was finished.

my daughter—no breasts, a little girl’s hips, skinny thighs, a flat butt— went home and took a knife and scraped at where it hurt. she bled and bled and bled and bled. she bled until it stopped hurting. she floated up to me and held my hand.

she whispered, “mummy, we’re safe now. they cannot reach us here.”

Playing With-Child

You play a game that no one knows
At first you imagine the life within
How much of it would be you
And how much of it would be him

And then you imagine
How you would relate to a one-year old
the first year
A two-year old
the second
A three-year old
the third year
Four -

Some years you forget to play
Other years like mornings you're not ready to begin
You stay in bed
Trying to keep warm
The memory of the sin

You keep the receipt as a testimony of a boy
that would have been
ten - now,
and of the price that you paid
and wish had been more.

beached secrets

She keeps her secrets like oceans do
buried in her belly
assumes that they will not bloat
believes that in Silence
there is no pain
there is no anger
that shuttles
between the sharpness of his tongue
and the hardening of her heart,
the face of his palm
and the soft of her cheek.

Once -
she thought to leave him
before her son could begin
to remember
but it had become so familiar
that even her son
didn't know any other way to be

And so she relived it
every time she witnessed him
shuttle his anger
from his fists to his wife

And still she kept her silence
with all the will of a martyr

Unaware that her secrets
had long since floated
like bodies
even oceans no longer want to keep

Crazy Type Love

For Sheila,

Thank you for inviting me to your wedding. Here is the poem that you asked me to recite. May you always have the crazy type love.


CRAZY TYPE LOVE

I want this love
the crazy type love
the kind that keeps you nervous
part panic-stricken, part aroused
by its uncertainty

The kind that is as raw and as visceral
as the knee-jerk moment of revenge
the kind that makes you want to
throw yourself
into a ring with a crazed man
as if that would escape it!

The kind that is ruled by instinct
that leaves you stripped of pride
and dumb with wonder

The kind which needs expression
by every means possible
so that I would mark my skin
or exhaust my strength
because to keep it inside me?
- unrealised -
physically aches

The kind in which
thoughts of him
connect with
dreams of her
so that you find each other
in your wake
and continue your company in your sleep

The kind that is emboldened
by the rhythm and repeat of intertwining

The kind that keeps you drugged
and devoted
so that even a prolonged absence
and many antidotes later
never quite erase
the imprint of you

And so I hang
on your every word and gesture
only too aware that it might end
just as simply
as one wakes from a dream

And I am at once nostalgic
Anticipating that it might end
and desperate to prolong
the most I have ever
and may just ever
feel alive

I want this love
because I am afraid of this love
and I am afraid of this love
because I want this love

And so today, in sum of what is and what has been and what could be,
we simply say, “I do”.

Brick Lane (2007)

I'd been working so hard at position papers and magazine articles that I'd forgotten about the beauty of narratives or how the power of fiction can have just as much force as non-fiction. And so I treated myself to watching a little storytelling, thanks to the nostalic film based on the book of the same name by Monica Ali, Brick Lane. The title doesn't suggest much in the way of how the story will unfold itself, except to allude to the recurring metaphor of finding one's belonging; whether among rice paddies or brick lanes...

It is the story of identities, made to search for because of migration. It is the story of resilience, analogised through the experiences of one family; it asks the question of whether we will ever unpack our bags? And answers it on the realise that we have been home all along.

The sub-plots voice the issues of early marriage, the entitlements of women and the girl-child, the challenges facing muslims immediately post 9/11. It is through the characters that we experience the pain of quixotic ambition, the sorrow in compensating for inadequacies and all matter of things that lack. It is through them, that we remember and in so doing, appreciate the simple joys and the grander realisations.


Tied beautifully by a soundtrack that elicits nostalgia and a script so poetic it leaves its words on our tongues, Brick Lane is one of those gems you carry away in your pocket. Because when you watch it you are reminded a little bit of where you've been and promised a little bit more about where you're going.


Director: Sarah Gavron
Critics Rating: *****

Reconciliation and Healing

On the eve of the 17th anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide, Alliance Francaise screened Anne Aghion's "In Rwanda We Say, the family that does not speak dies (2004), the second part of the documentary trilogy on the Gacaca (grass) justice in Rwanda.

Aghion delves into the process of community-based justice and the context within which 'justice' is negotiated, which in the Gacaca courts has been observed as being lenient in the interests of reintegration, comments Dr. Phil Clark, Lecturer in Comparative and International Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies and panelist to the plenary after the screening.

The film revolves around testimonies of feelings towards the victims, the genocidaires and the Gacaca process. Aghion does well to illustrate the incredulous feat of the two living side by side again after the genocide. She captures the resignation felt by those left without children, husbands, siblings, parents... to live again alongside their perpetrators.

after months of lying low like beasts in the rain...

we must get along with them because they outnumber us....

why don't they come for me? I have no one to look after, I am already dead....

if I had to talk to him, I'd ask him 'how did you get a taste for it? Are you sated?'

what kinds of questions are these? I am a mother with no more children and they ask me how I feel? These white people ask very strange questions...

The plenary afterwards brought out issues of Gacaca's efficacy; it allowed lower-level perpetrators to be brought to trial (which is wanting from international criminal justice) and it allowed Rwandans to tell and verify their stories which in the process reintegrated the victims as well into post-genocide Rwandan society. But the constant telling and re-opening of wounds has also caused a lot of trauma. And sentences are more often decided to be community service instead of imprisonment. Clark relays how such an informal process has received criticism from human rights groups believing the legal justice system to be the only means by which justice should be decided.

And the other paneilsts Hassan Omar, Commissioner, KNCHR and Dr. Mzalendo Kibunjia, Chairman, National Cohesion and Integration Commission were brought to question Kenya's own justice and reconciliation process in the wake of the ICC trials and the run-up to the 2012 elections.

Can a local tribunal answer to the crimes of the post-election violence? And for whose justice will we be pursuing?

flamenco flow

She were like a gypsy summoned to court - stylising what characterises flamenco to the crescendos and diminuendos of Ricardo Garcia's guitar. He - writes his own song as he runs his fingers in fortepiano and she taps her heels to his fevered plucks...

snippets (part two)

'Self-indulgent bullshit'.

So I attended the Slam Open Mic at Dass on the 18th February and to say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. I thought I remembered more meaningful poetry the last time I went. I thought I remembered more meaningful entertainment, through the use of music to accompany the poetry or floetry, the last time I went. But perhaps things have changed and the Slam Open Mic is an entirely different event from the Open Mics/Poetry Nites that also happen at Dass.

I say that there are several things to juggle which is what outdoes these anspiring poets;
1) They have to be entertaining which usually means that they will rely on storytelling, which in turn will focus on making humour out of current affairs which in effect will cheapen their 'poems',
2) They will want to be deep but in literally claiming and reclaiming to be deep will end up showing off about nothing or being self-indulgent and
3) They will try to rhyme or to do spoken word/floetry which may compromise the content of the poetry itself.

And so we left before finding out who won that round. I mean, 3 hours? (8pm to 11pm and it hadn't even finished) - it's a bit much.

snippets

 I suppose I'm still recollecting myself and my position on art events in Nairobi. So here are snippets of my experiences since the beginning of 2011.

I watched Clint Eastwood's 'Gran Torino' on the 2nd Jan and was genuinely surprised by the ending. Walt's bravado throughout the film almost bespoke of a grand showdown in the final scene. So it was reflective to show Walt's input through martyrdom instead of heroism (of the Hollywood kind). His sacrifice was so pure it was almost spiritual.

Part of my disruption in blogging was because I was moving house. The last few days of living in my old house (on a mattress on the floor with belongings yet to be packed into boxes), I watched 'Dances with Wolves', a film I was too young to remember.And there was something comforting about it. Perhaps it was John Barry's musical score. Perhaps it was the poetry of the narration. Or the story itself of new worlds taking over old worlds, or an appreciation of the land and the peoples of the land and the discovery of our place in it. Either way, it kept me from feeling sentimental about leaving my old house. It kept me preoccupied between going to work and packing my stuff.

So by February I was in a new apartment and with the prospect of being taken on as permanent staff at work... which didn't work out lol. But I'm still here and I'll stay until the end of my contract... wondering what the next step will be. Perhaps I won't renew my contract but finally write that script and shoot that movie...

I watch 'Black Swan' and find myself wanting at the end of it. The paranoia and reality checks throughout the film spoil the twist in the ending. You have bought into the inner turmoil already and so all you can do is wait for her to overcome it.

Alliance Francaise hosted a series of human rights films and forums in the second week of February. I watched 'Kikulacho' and 'Seeking Peace and Justice in Africa'. Kikulacho, short for Kikulacho Kimo nguoni mwako, (that which bites you is from you/within your clothes), ie. the bite within, tackles the question of corruption and corruption primarily in the form of land grabbing and the embezzlement of public funds. The allocation of lands following independence is discussed and high profile corruption cases such as the Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing scandals are also revealed. I applaud Rayani for his boldness in articulating these sad instances in our history but I also hoped he would be even braver or be allowed to be even braver and name names or go into such detail that there would be no need to name names. His tongue-in-cheek approach using animations is remindful of Michael Moore's style of criticism.

'Seeking Peace and Justice in Africa' once more brought the question of peace versus justice but also enlightened me as to the disconnect between the idealistic ambitions of the ICC and its practical limitations. For what it's worth, I hope it continues and I hope it receives much support.

Blue Mothertongue

Mawiyoo in her collection of poetry entitled, Blue Mothertongue, writes of a nostalgia, yearns for a better understanding of culture and identity if not a retaking of it, in a world that continues to globalise. She queries our role and place across borders, writing about migrants in their long-distance communications, cross-racial relationships, abandonment of tongues and wisdom, describing their surrendering as "sins we committed", criticising the "hope-fool - muttering that [he is] content" to hide in America.

She throws us in to the frozen moment of a Heard: Traffic Light Monologue, capturing the sheng of today and the expressions that embody our multitude of afflictions; exemplifying corruption with the ineffectiveness of the City Hall Mayor, speculating on the rise of HIV and dispairing on the lack of change any digging or exposure of "marecommendations," will be bring about.

(to be continued. i'm still reading it. lol)

'To be a Man' Anthology Review

'To be a Man' comprises of poems from the Kwani Poetry Competition 2007-2008 of the same title but also poems on sexuality, gender and human rights. Judged by John Sibi-Okumo, Stephen Derwent Partington, Muthoni Garland and Garnette Oluoch-Olunya, it brings out the best and the most stark perspectives on manhood with poems such as _____ revealing the sickness of debased humanity, with "Mercy Don't You Understand That I Am A Man" by Samuel Munene and _______ by ______ detailing the skewed priorities men have of their role and importance in marriage, fatherhood and society at large.

Tom Odhiambo, Professor of English at the University of Nairobi asserts in an AMKA forum that our poets are our historians and that they take a special importance where our history is not being written. This anthology presents a snapshot of Kenya's "disturbed masculinities" with poems such as ______ providing the reverse of our expectations of men, in our forbidding them to cry or to fall in love, in our disapproval of their empathy for women.

'To be a Man" is important for pronouncing our societal norms and ills as regards the role of our men and our women and in Part 2 for denouncing the gender and human rights abuses that occur only too often.

I hope to see more iniatives of this kind from Kwani and other publishers in the future. Poems from this collection will also be performed at the next Kwani Open Mic.

[author's apology: i have lost my anthology :( but once i buy another copy, i'll fill in the blanks. but i thought i should put it the draft up anyway to encourage debate]

Giles Elie-dit-cosaque

Elie-dit-cosaque blew me away today with his documentary "Zetwal" (Twinkl). Firstly because he successfully conveyed Robert Saint-Rose's conviction to go to the moon with a space shuttle fuelled by the force of Aime Cesaire's poetry. And secondly because it was a fiction documentary which not only impels you to think more critically about what you consume but inspires you to go to lengths with art, to push new boundaries and to test new methods.

The subject, Robert Saint-Rose dreams of going to the moon, dreams of being the first Martinican to step foot on it. And so he builds a spaceshuttle. He consults with friends and professors (albeit an English professor), he calculates and he designs and it is this energy that is reminiscent of our secret yearnings and our abandoned potentiality, as Patrick Chamoiseau (or the character of Patrick Chamoiseau) describes.

The scientist (I forget his name) or again the character of the scientist validates Saint-Rose's aspirations by explaining them as theories that we have not succeeded at "as yet", which effectively redeems Saint-Rose from appearing to be a fool to being a dreamer, a man before his time who believes in things that have not yet been proved, in things that have not yet been accepted by the greater public.

Primarily a tribute to Cesaire's poetry, Elie-dit-Cosaque aims as well to express a feel for the West Indies, the spirit of its people and the relationship between France and the DOM-TOMs. He fulfils as such with the storytelling skill of the interviewees, with the Martinican hope for seeing beyond the island and most importantly, with audience members moved to read Cesaire.

We are dared to think again about the thin line between fiction and truth and enlivened to possess as much belief and determination as our Robert Saint-Rose, who though fictional is now listed in some sites as among
men of achievement in Martinique. "And why not?" shrugs Elie-dit Cosaque.

'Why not?' exactly as the film concludes with a quotation from Jorge Luis Borges;

... All this is true because I invented it...

Kaha Mohamed Aden

Kaha performs "The Fourth Way" next Weds 27th October at the UoN, Education Building, rm 213, 3F from 0900-1100.

The Italian Institute of Culture posts her presentation as;

words, a song and pictures. It starts with a metaphor of the town - my home town - Mogadishu, that I left twenty four years ago and that in nineteen years of non-civil war takes on multiple meanings symbolised by four ways or roads. The first way is Mogadishu’s heart, facing the Indian Ocean and acting as a bridge to the East: almost a myth, in the nostalgic words of Ibn Battuta, the Marco Polo of the Islamic world. A past made of trade and commerce, cultural exchanges, knowledge and the scent of a thousand spices from Puntland becomes the starting point toward our contemporaneity. The second way introduces a less mythical but important stage in the development of the town where it has impressed a strong mark: the colonial period, with its monuments and the signs left by the Italian domination. The identity of the town and the Somali people is reshaped in the confrontation with colonialism and its ways, and so we have the third way, born out of the struggle against colonialism: the way of socialism, hope and emancipation as exemplified by the deeply changed role of women. The pictures of women from the ‘70s tell a tale of projects of emancipation, cultural mélange, opening to the outside world. A popular song dating from those years reminds us of those years: male voices criticizing the new habits, and feminine voices refusing a return to the past. But the future can be a dangerous joker and presents us with a leap back in to the past. Such words as “clan”, that seemed forgotten and finished, surface back in our life and tragically mark human relationships. From dictatorship, the fourth way leads straight to a bloody war among brothers, and to destruction as a total project. Women cast off the clothes of hope and freedom and lock themselves up, covering their slender bodies as if they were trying to protect themselves from a situation of violence and unpredictable danger.

and a bio of Kaha Mohamed Aden as being born in Mogadishu (Somalia). She graduated in economics at University of Pavia and took her Master degree at the European School for Advanced Studies in Cooperation and Development-IUSS in Pavia (Italy).

At the moment she is involved in the field of immigration and intercultural understanding including numerous conferences, seminars and roundtables throughout Italy.

In September 2010, the first collection of her short stories, Fra-intendimenti, was published by Nottetempo, Rome.

Sounds interesting! Check it out :)

Jane Bussman

 

I attended Jane Bussman's show tonight at the Vineyard and Wine Bar and was so glad I went! Well, I love comedy and would go anytime but what I loved most about the show was how she married entertainment with international affairs. How she brought out the conflict in Uganda but still managed to make us laugh about the small things; whether they be the indiosyncracies of the developing world (she described one NO sign at her hotel, preventing, army uniform, machetes, guns in the same circle as coca cola and slippers) or the ironies of the business of development ("the hotel was so expensive," she says, "you had to work at a charity to be able to afford to stay there.")

Perhaps a little nervous at first, she was a lot more relaxed during the second half. And it was only then that it dawned on me that perhaps this was a real story! Everyone knows that comedians make up, borrow or twist their anecdotes, so when I realised that she managed to make comedy out of truth/tragedy and some serious issues, that was when she really impressed me.

the addiction of music

there's two kinds of music they say. one that goes with your breathing (like the didgeridoos) and one that goes with the beat of your heart. the latter is the more common. to me, it explains why music is so influential, why music is so addictive. it's hard not to be drawn to or to remain removed from something that beats with you.

[BC music cites studies linking musical choices to personality types]

Self-Sacrifice

He finds it unattractive but I consider it the highest form of love. There's this quote (I don't remember where from) that I used to love sharing. It goes;

The world takes us to the silver screen, where couples kiss and says "this is love." God takes us to the foot of a cross where a man hangs for us and says "this is love."

Perhaps he means that I take it too far, that I lose myself in loving him more than loving myself. Only Asian films latch on to this I find, coupling their virtues like reservation and silence with the self-sacrifice kind of love. The Koreans particularly employ this with films such as, The Old Garden or (to be continued)