Kwani? 05, Part 1

Excerpts From Kwani? 05, Part 1
Truth does not set you free. Instead, truth sets loose. It risks what we hold dear. And there are no assurances.
Daring truth entails risking all we might want to preserve. It means daring to break with family and friends. It means disturbing the fragile peace we inhabit by having difficult conversations. It means telling our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers, and friends that their political choices are unpalatable-Excerpt from ‘Daring Truth’ by Jeremeiah Okongo.

I saw someone being killed in town at the matatu station called Kalenjin airport because the matatus there carry people heading into the North Rift. The IDPs who had been evicted from Eldoret were very bitter and were going around looking for Kalenjins to avenge their losses. They came to Kalenjin airport because they knew that’s where most of them board matatus to go home. Unfortunately, one man was caught by the group. They beat him up and stabbed him to death. I was not noticed because I look like a Kikuyu.- Kevin Koros, a 20-year-old actor from Lakeview, near Nakuru.

When my uncle saw some people approaching his home, he called the chief again who didn’t answer the call. When the Kalenjin youths reached my grandparents’ compound they said they were looking for my uncle to kill him. When they spotted him running away they tried to shoot him with arrows, but luckily none hit him. My uncle and grandparents moved to Nyahururu to start a new life. – Gladys Maina, currently living in Kikuyu, Central Province.

We spend most of our lives listening to every word of those politicians. That’s why we are suffering, especially the middle class and poor people. The rich from Westlands, Lavington, Runda are very safe. -Alvando Msamani, electronics salesman,Dandora.

I was born in Baringo. I’m a Kikuyu, but I learnt Kalenjin before my mother tongue. Most of my friends are Kalenjin. But today I don’t want to see any one of them. I really hate myself for saying that.

I cannot go back to Central Province. The language they speak there is totally different from the Kikuyu I speak here. When I speak my Kikuyu there, they start laughing at me. And when I go to Baringo, where I grew up, they look at me as a foreigner. If I don’t belong in the Rift Valley, where else can I fit? I am married to a Luhya! – Jesse Njoroge, Nakuru Read more

Kwani? Open Mic – Tuesday 1st September 2009

Featured Poet: Kingwa Kamencu
Venue: Club Soundd
Time: 7 PM

Kingwa Kamencu is an award winning Kenyan writer and author of ‘To Grasp at a Star’. She writes widely in different genres. Her work has been published in ‘The Jambula Tree and other Stories’, ‘Sable Lit mag’ ( UK ) and by FEMRITE ( Uganda ) as well as in local dailies and magazines. She was a writer in residence in the 2008 Femrite Regional Women Writers Residence in Uganda and a participant of the 2008 Caine Prize writers workshop in South Africa . She will read from a poetry anthology she is working on, ‘My Soul Strives, my Body Craves’.

Her biggest influences in poetry are local poets Muthoni Garland, Bantu Mwaura, Shailja Patel, Tony Mochama, Ndanu Mungala, Njeri Wangari, Philo Ikonya, Khainga Okwembah, Jacob Oketch and Wanjiku Mwaurah among many other hugely talented others. Out of Kenya she has been influenced by Tupac Shakur, Bertolt Brecht, Leopold Senghor, Anna Akhmatova and Epictetan philosophies.

This will be an open mic reading cum going away poetry bash for Kingwa who leaves for Oxford University at the end of the month to pursue an MSc. in African Studies.

Open Mic slots are open from 6pm all are welcome to register.

Also get copies of Kwani? 05 part 1 Kwani? 05 part 2 and our latest Kwani-nis at bookstores and get the best of Kenyan Writing.

KARIBUNI

NB: We shall get something exciting to do.

Time, Space, Character and the Writer

The Archives: A month after the Kwani? launch, some highlights and thoughts by Samuel Munene

Kenyan writers don’t keep time. Or, maybe, they treat every event as a story writing exercise and arrive late to intentionally build up plot tension. Or how else could one explain that none of the invited guests and writers for the Kwani? launch at Club Afrique had arrived ten minutes to seven. Designated time was quarter past six.

So, the band played on, awaiting the writers to develop their characters. A short pretty lady belted her blues, like an original Esther Phillips circa 1970s , something about Jeremiah 29.11. I downloaded the bible on my phone and confirmed her lyrics. Brave New World. The electronic book is really here. But we were all at the launch to disagree and pay homage to the pretty (and bulky) things to be launched and sold. To be taken home, held in hand, and left for a friend and another generation to enjoy. Read more

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