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Showing posts from 2008

Charlady

Wipe the grime off, brush the cobwebs aside, Open the windows and let the light in. Hold my breath (but not too long) As the bulldozer sweeps away The dust mites’ kingdom. Pray hard that the dudus ain’t litigious ‘Cause I just did away with their precious habitat. The spiders are demonstratin’, The house centipedes feastin’, And the fruit flies hiding in the corner. Apocalypse is bearing down on them: “The end of the world! The end of the world!” And you! You just stand there watching, Doing nothing to help them, Doing nothing to give me a hand. You compose silly sonnets in your mind As the grease gives way to suds, And I scrub the kitchen floor, Mop it up and wipe it dry. This work is licensed to Rose Kahendi under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License .

Wandering...

Round and round in circles, Wandering in the sands of time, Beginnings blurred, And no sense of a resolution. Is that your fate?Set your sights on that hill yonder, Unburden yourself at the next oasis. Set your tents up, Live your life. Nobody knows what tomorrow brings. Death perhaps, or more desolation. But you can bring meaning to today By embracing today’s fears today, Not pushing them to tomorrow. Walk away from the mirages, Cease your desert wanderings, Take comfort in what you have here now, My child. And if it’s not enough, till, sow and weed. Nothing comes from yearning for the non-existent. Look up at the sky, my daughter. What do you see? The stars laid out in perfect order To show you your way. But, my daughter, tell me truthfully, Are they not the same heavens That our sisters in the South see when they look up? The perspective may vary, The constellations too, But it’s all one universe. You believe you’re setting your hopes high, Crossing the limits, When you journey

Can beginnings be dreamt anew?

To write is to tell of worlds yet unformed. To dream is to build new kingdoms abroad. But what of our living world and our aging kingdoms? What of the dystopian madness in which we dwell? Can we not change it, Scrap the old story? Can we not return to the blank drawing board, And sketch out new hopes, new dreams and tomorrows? We hold on to inspiration as if it’s our last drop of water, Hoping that it will revitalize the vision we dreamt of, Set right the lunacy we put into motion. Information we manipulate, refusing to settle on hard, concrete facts, Insisting instead on the abstract, the intangible, the unreal. If this is all intangible, then tell me, is the pain a dream? Is the crushing poverty a dream? Are the justice, oppression and hunger all an elaborate dream? When all that is tangible, cold, hard, concrete, and bitter Collides with our intangible dreams, Our dreams dissipate into the air as if made of smoke. The intangible versus the tangible- a mismatched

That's our Nairobi

Always in motion, That’s what I remember. Commuting Nairobi: Matatus and traffic, Queues round the block. Pollution, inconvenience, That was Nairobi. It still is Nairobi.That intangible sense that something’s about to happen, That history’s being made, That I’m a part of the scene, That is Nairobi, That’s what I kept of her. The markets, salons, Nyam choms and benga , The Sunday crusades and family outings, The singers, the saints, The lovers, the hypocrites, They make up Nairobi, They define the city. The bars round the corner- I can’t say I missed those, But what is Nairobi without her walev i? What is a city without its drunks, Its philosopher-poets, kings of the moment? Like it or hate it, That is Nairobi. Blooming, decaying, Nectar and maggots, Today and tomorrow, Now Jekyll, now Hyde, That’s our Nairobi A landscape of madness. This work is licensed to Rose Kahendi under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License .

Nostalgie ya belle époque

Who would have thought, 30 years ago, That we would be here today? Nostalgia… The words of Tabu Ley, Franco, drifting into the garden From the LP prayer, Carrying with them Memories of a time When we were us, Conscious and comfortable in our skins. Who would have thought We would remember those times as good times? It was a time before Mayi Mayi and UKIMWI, Janjaweed and Mungiki. I can’t lie. It was also a time of ashes and blood. But the hope that the phoenix would rise Gave us hope. We didn’t know this then. We had no sense of what the future would bring. We had no idea that we’d forever be turning back, Looking on past horizons with longing. We lived in the present then. Now we live in the past, While tentatively dipping our toes into the future, Testing it out, Hoping that it won’t burn. The present is too heavy to experience. So we save it up, Burn it onto DVDs and print it out on bleached paper. We will return 20 years hence with wisd

Sigh...

Does nothing make sense anymore? You take a step to the right, Hoping that this time you’ll finally emerge From the maze. But nothing doing. You end up in the same spot You started from yesterday. You wonder, is that the forked path I took before? Did I branch off to the right or the left? Then you realize it doesn’t matter. You tried both paths before, And both led you back to the same spot. Are you destined to walk round and round in circles, Viewing the same limited horizons, Yoked to the same relentless destiny? Is there a way out of the maze Or is the perception that a maze exists The biggest illusion yet? Is that an ironic smile on your face? Are you defeated? Is that emptiness in your soul? Is there really a point to any of this? When will you finally know that your heart has toiled and labored so For no reason at all? Will they ring a bell to tell you that it is all in vain? Or is this it? Is this sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach the only notice you will get? Th

Alchemy?

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is a rather simple story. I think its genius lies in its simplicity. The story can be followed by child and adult alike, each one connecting with some aspect of the story and deriving some magical truth out of it. The stories-within-the-story that captured my imagination the most included the one at the very beginning, ie the tale of Narcissus and the Lake. It’s such a funny statement on human nature. The idea that when each of us shows an interest in our fellow human, it is often a selfish interest is true, and sad in a funny way. Is it possible for a Narcissus to recognize the lake for its beauty, and for its generosity in sustaining various life forms or is he bound to only see his reflection when he peers at the lake’s surface? What of the lake? Does it not notice the vain, insecure man before it? How can the lake’s sole interest be the admiration of its reflection in Narcissus’s eyes? I hope I’m not as cynical as the one who coined and related that

Giving and receiving: reciprocity

There seems to be a general recognition that each one of us is perpetually in debt to our community, perhaps for its affording us opportunities that we wouldn’t otherwise have had access to. Some might resent this, so maybe I should modify this claim and state, in addition, that even when the community has been nothing but a source of heartbreak, many still feel an obligation to make it better so that others don’t have to suffer through the same negative experiences in the future. The challenge to give backto one’s society is a difficult one to meet, especially in this day and age. Life demands much of us- some would say too much- in the name of meeting our basic necessities. When the sun sets and its time to shuffle home and lay down to rest, few people have extra coins in their pockets to spare for a stranger. Still, there is something to be said about giving back. There is a reason why most religions ask their faithful to be their brother’s keeper. There’s a definite reason why char

Vast, black emptiness

I am painfully aware that I miss you, That I will never see you or talk to you again. The door shut in my face for the last time; We said our final goodbyes. All that is left now is the unspoken: Everything that should have been said but wasn’t said, Thick and pungent in the air. I knew your heart, I could read your soul. Not a word spoken, but I knew. And now… nothing but memories. I tried to push you away from the hole, but ended up plunging in myself. And now I’m falling, falling… When does this end? Now I’m angry with you, Angry that you left, Angry because you didn’t have a choice. The decision was made for you. And for me. I’m falling, falling… All around me vast, empty blackness, Inside me vast, black emptiness, And the painful awareness that you are gone. This work is licensed to Rose Kahendi under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License .

I can't speak

I want to write, but somehow I can’t. I see the images in my minds eye. I know the story, but the words are gone. Why? Can you understand the urgency behind my desire to write? Do you know how important it is for me to tell? I want to write of my pain and of the emptiness inside. I want to tell you of a loss that is still fresh. I want to cry, but can’t. My voice is gone, Gone. Nothing left but the heaviness, The pain-numbing music, And a bird trapped inside a gilt-cage, Wings a-flutter, bashing its head against the bars. You see my tears, but don’t understand. How can you? I can’t speak. First published in TakingITGlobal's Panorama Zine on 21st April, 2008.

Politics and Language in Africa's Postcolonial Experience

The writings of Ali A Mazrui and Alamin M Mazrui on language and Africa in The Power of Babel: Language and Governance in the African Experience , and in several other publications have provoked me to think deeply about the legacy of language policy in Africa. The thoughts that I outline below come from my engagement with the ideas set forth by these and other scholars. The development of language and politics in postcolonial Africa has taken divergent paths in different African states. In some cases specific language groups have expanded, while others have shrunk or even vanished. This could be attributed to improved communication in the geographical and linguistic senses, colonial and post-colonial language policies, the work of language promoters (including missionaries, ministers of education and broadcasting and, to some extent, teachers and linguists). In sub-Saharan Africa , official state languages (in which all official business, including the running of the government