Is Wapi Going anywhere?

By Mbaratho Mulago 

When a friend recently forwarded me an email inviting me to this month’s Wapi? act at the British Council, I was rather hesitant. In recent weeks, culture lovers have been treated to poor shows like tribal nights and the Obama Dream. But last week’s event was peculiar. Wapi? is a monthly gathering of a young, abrasive band of showbiz performers who do everything and anything with everything and anything to achieve nothing. You can even call them daring and offensive, but that would be bad publicity. So let’s call them ‘innovative’.They splatter unintelligible paint on the wall of a parking lot, or try to recite rhymes in bland American accent to a background of hip hop tunes. Then they blur the lines between music and literature, decency and obscenity and painting and graffiti and call it spontaneity. No wonder these things are pronounced ‘pooms and ‘uurt’.But whether you like it or not, a new wave of creativity has hit Nairobi. And it isn’t just literature or music or painting or dance. It is all these. And more.It is CDS and DVDs and bold print T shirts competing with Maasai attire and poetry in a shattering display of modern culture. It is music and painting and performance and carvings all jostling for space. It is Nandos and Gikomba and Maasai Market all rolled into one.

Wapi?, an acronym for ‘Words and Pictures’ is a creation of Nairobi’s new generation of poets, painters, musicians and nearly anyone who cares to dabble in the arts.According to Moses Mbasu (stagename Budha Blaze) of the British council, it is a fusion of underground artists who are looking for an opportunity, any opportunity to make their voices heard. “With the stroke of a paint brush or the nozzle of a spraying can, these so called underground artists represent the future of performing art here and beyond” Blaze quips, as he straightens a black scarf on his head.Last week, Blaze and co were celebrating ‘dadahood.’

This strange word is slang for womanhood or sisterhood, if you want to be gender sensitive. But though there were many women in the audience, few took their space at the podium. Acting, like most professions, is still male dominated, even when the emcee calls out for the ladies.Could this generation of trouser-sagging, spaghetti-toped, gum-chewing teen to twenty somethings be the new cultural Katrina that will upstage Taban lo Liyong’s nettle sting of a literary desert? Do they embody the simmering ebb of a cultural re awakening? Or do they simply stand for a lost culture? Are theirs the voices and strokes of a 21^st century rebellion against what Okot p Bitek stood for?Every midmonth, since Wapi came to Nairobi’s entertainment scene, Saturday afternoon outings have become more adventurous, surprising, even culturally daring.

The spectacle is the bravery and apparent rootlessness of the younger generation of Kenyans who want to recite grandmother’s tales in the accent of Bill Cosby.They are neither rural nor American, but try to be both. It’s called cultural fusion.Incidentally, wapi? is also the Kiswahili word for where? And it is here with us, apparently to stay, though sometimes it seems to me we are all lost. If he were here, Ugandan bard Okot p’Bitek would write another Song of Lawino as a final dirge to a dying culture.

Is it not enough to say Wapi? is a confused mixture of a dying and a new culture; it is more a living expression of the death of culture.It is a tribute to the homelessness and culturelessness of our generation. Its unrefined end product is a fusion of hip hop, spontaneous poetry, background music, sweat, chewing gum, rap rough passion, dreadlocks and an unexplainable dose of Mau Mau.Walking down Upper Hill road towards the British council’s new premises, the new artist is easy to spot. He’s a common figure. How can you ignore him?

His attitude is a middle finger. His pants hang low, that’s where his ignorance lingers. Did you see the pierced ears? And the earring? The tattoo on his bicep? His rebellion seems to shimmer shyly in the political undertones, like the neon lights of the city in the sun.With his military boots and faded jeans, he looks like a rebel soldier. And he is a soldier, at least in his own mind. His pace and demeanour is supposed to trigger a revolution His clean shaven head basks in the glory of urbanization’s sun. His thoughts are rhythmic stories and music.

When he is not clean shaven, he spots dark, long dreadlocks, a Sean John T shirt and a wooden carving of a giraffe for a necklace.Losing identification isn’t fun.  It’s called inspiration on low budget.Where does the Wapi story begin? I ask Garang.  In his characteristic blog speak Garang says, and I shall not edit this:“At Peppers Restaurant in Westlands, seated with leaders, writers and managers from Kenya dinning, and me pushing for the underground through HIPHOP to David Higgs, British council director, hazy from red wine, so he goes like “Muki i really don’t know what HIPHOP is all about, lets find a way to get underground acts together, then we might look into it. Yeha and at the far End of the table pretty Eva.

Be right back with more in a few minutes.

(This story was inspired of a blog by Muki Garang, one of Kenya’s most peculiar underground hip hop artists) 

Finally, hope for Kenya’s Aids widows

Cry, beloved widows

By Otieno Amisi 

When Benta Atieno came to Nairobi last month, she did not have a single cent on her. The twenty five year old widow yearned for a small ‘loan’ to start a small activity that could earn her some money to feed her five children.After her husband’s death two months ago, Benta had been literally chased out of her matrimonial home in Yimbo, Siaya district.

Her in laws accused her of ‘killing’ her husband with Aids. Her husband, a clerk at the Kenya Railways corporation, was fairly wealthy by local standards, but when he died, his brothers took away everything of value.Benta says the process of grabbing was carefully planned.“They quickly took away log books, land title deeds, electronic goods, bank cards, and anything they could lay their hands on. I realised that they had begun taking away some of the items away even before my husband died.”

After the mourning was over, Benta found herself with very little in her hands. “My husband had not put up a home in his rural village. Even the land on which our house stood was not in my husband’s name. It was family land. I had no right to use any of the land for farming. I had to leave these selfish people,” she recalls. Benta went back to her ageing mother for a while, but even there life was hostile. Though her mother agreed to take care of the children for some time, it was clear that she had to find something to do and somewhere else to go.Three months later, Benta ran away to Nairobi, hoping to find some form of employment or trade from which she could fend for herself ad her children. Luckily, a little known group called the Young Widows Advancement Programme came to her aid.Based in Kayole Estate, Nairobi, YWAP advances women like Benta some money and encourages them to form and join merry-go-round groups, where money is collected and given to one contributor at a time.The group also trains young widows to know their rights, so they can fight legal battles to reclaim their property when they are disinherited by their clans.According to Esther Agudha, the coordinator, the group is developing a model that will be used to protect young widows of Aids against the effects of discriminatory cultural practices.Agudha says YWAP model of social change is the use of 5 programmatic activities to strengthen young widows’ property and inheritance rights and access as a means of mitigating HIV/AIDS impact.  These activities entail advocacy to raise awareness through public forums, informational materials, and media; providing paralegal services through community-based volunteers and 3 lawyers who work pro-bono.The group runs a rescue centre, where women and their children can sleep and eat if they need a place to stay. It also organises psychosocial support groups for widows; and trains widows in preparing memory books and wills. With support from a donor, the group has been able to buy a computer, a digital camera, and 3 tape recorders.

These facilities have made it easier to collect and keep records of activities.Agudha says the practice of disinheriting widows is common in
Kenya, though there is little attempt to discourage it. Research organizations, being mostly male dominated, have tended to shy away from the issue. There is scanty little literature that is specific to women property rights and HIV/AIDS in
Kenya. But even the little information available confirms that widowhood exacerbates poverty in families.

Because of unfair cultural and social structures, women find it difficult to defend their property rights. They are also more vulnerable to HIV/Aids infection ad discrimination because of the social pressure to remain in difficult marriages.YWAP has developed teaching material on the plight of young widows in relation to sexual, property and inheritance rights. The documents also provide tips on psychosocial support like bereavement counseling. YWAP is turning the small library into a resource center.

A recent report by Human Rights Watch says that due to property rights violation in Kenya, women are forced by circumstances to participate in cultural practices that expose them to HIV. The group cites the practice of ritual cleansing before one is inherited by a male in-law after the death of her husband. “Failure to be cleansed and inherited means that widows lose their property rights, says the report, Double Standards: Women Property Rights Violation in
Kenya. The report is based on a recent study conducted in collaboration with the University of Nairobi. 

A recent study on HIV/AIDS and Land Rights indicates that HIV/Aids increases tenure insecurity amongst widows because of stigmatization. Widows who lose husbands to HIV/AIDS are often dispossessed by in-laws or even their own grown up children. Banks then rush to close on land that was used as collateral to obtain a loan by the deceased husband. The study, conducted in Thika, Bondo and Embu districts, indicates that the impact of HIV/Aids on land rights is often contextual, depending on land pressure, cultural reactions to HIV/Aids and the status and treatment of women.Agudha says furthermore, many young widows are further impoverished and left indebted to shylocks, relatives and employers because of the huge medical bills occasioned by HIV/Aids.

YWAP is seeking support from the government and other development partners to strengthen economic self-reliance of widows through income generating programs. The group gives seed money to widows to start income generating activities. So far, eleven women, among the Benta, have bee assisted in his way.‘We need more support to fight unfair practices against widows. HIV/Aids has considerable socio-economic impact, demanding readjustment in many ways. It is important to understand the relationship between property disinheritance and HIV/Aids.

“Dispossession and disinheritance is a result of weak protection of widows’ property rights, which further exposes young widows to HIV infection and re infection. Some widows opt to be inherited by in-laws to retain a hold on family property,” she says.A recent UN report says early widowhood occasioned by HIV/Aids means more women are cut off from social and family support when they need it most. This is the time when women’s financial needs are highest because they are supporting young children. When they lose their property, the consequences are passed on to the children.

Unless help is forthcoming, the children will not go to school and will continue to live in squalor, then die of Aids themselves.In recent weeks, YWAP’s activities have attracted the attention of the media. Kenya Times newspapers in a weekly column name Aids Watch and the Kenya Television Network in a special prime time news called Mending The Ribbon. The group has also been mentioned in East Africa’s leading Legal issues Magazine, The Lawyer.Agudha says with increasing publicity, more women are now coming up for legal and psychological support.“The number of widows seeking services here is becoming overwhelming, and we need more support,” she says.

My beef with bloggers

The net is here, but where are the writers?

Nothing will probably shake the art of writing more than the coming of the internet. In recent years, East Africa’s creative writers have had to contend with a myriad of problems, ranging from lack of publishing opportunities to lack of training.So when a group of writers from across East Africa gathered recently at Lukenya campsite to discuss the future of creative writing, it was not surprising that the mater of the internet came up.The internet is perhaps the greatest thing to happen to writers. But could also be the rope with which they hang themselves. Today, all manner of amateur writers are creating sites and blogs and spewing junk in the name of journalism and creative writing. One advantage – and also perhaps the greatest disadvantage – of the internet is that it is spontaneous. You can google something like ‘Living in Nairobi’ and get hundreds of links to sites offering details about hotels, movies, books, medicare and almost anything ever written about our city in the sun. This is all fine, except that it is so easy and exciting to put stuff on the internet many bloggers don’t bother cleaning their copy. So the net is full of poorly written and barely edited copy that should never have seen the light of day at all.Grammar is being badly compromised, and so are all the rules of good, serious writing.Just before the Lukenya workshop, I had a brief altercation with James Murua, a blogger who runs a site called
Nairobi Living dot com. I told Murua to try and inject a sense of professionalism in his site if he expected to attract and retain his audience. Perhaps I was a little too harsh on him, but I later learnt that Murua, like many people across the world with blogs and websites, is not a journalist.Now that is exactly where the problem is. When web designers and school children and lunatics begin to beam their thoughts and pictures for the world to see, you feel the need for good writers, editors and photographers. Before I get mad, I want to share with you my interaction with Murua. 

Dear Bandit,If you want to review Kenyan art, get serious with your language and put your thoughts straight. And get names right and issues in a national/international context. Or just list what’s happened, paste a few pictures and log off. This country badly needs serious reviewers/critics of the arts, and that’s what I thought I would find in webbandit. There’s no use trying to write about the art if you can’t write it artistically. This country is already full of badly written literature and the internet has no justification sogging up our brains with rubbish. Get some critic to do your stuff for you.

I found Murua a very brave man. Though he was baffled, he wrote back:

Hi Otieno, I really apologise that I do not review the arts up to your standards. I have not been writing for a long time and am still learning how to do it. Perhaps you can show me some Kenyan websites that have done serious reviews on art that are written artistically. It may help me improve my language and keep my thoughts straightcheers .

The problem is that Murua’s site is supposed to be a record of some of the latest happenings around Nairobi. Actually, it is the only indigenous guide to
Nairobi presently available on the net. It even attempts to report and review the arts. But it is written in back street
Nairobi’s semi English that reads like Amos Tutuola. It is light, cheap journalism that mixes English generously with a variety of local languages. Murua does not bother with grammar or punctuation, and cares even less about style. But he has his fans, like Joseph Ngujiri who wrote back, describing
Nairobi Living dot com as ‘extremely enjoyable reading’ and my remarks as ‘caustic and patronizing.’ 

I will let Ngujiri speak for himself:“I wonder what Otieno Amisi means by reviewing art “artistically.” The very act of the Bandit putting his thoughts on paper is artistic enough.Reading Amisi’s letter one gets the disturbing feeling that there is a formula or indeed a manual for writing art (Oh how I would hate that day). The last time I checked, art is dynamic and can be expressed in many forms. This is not science, where one has to follow mind-numbing formulaes. By using strong words like “Rubbish”, “serious” and “badly written” Amisi is being both cheeky and malicious. The Web Bandit to me is a much welcome break from what the old school “art writers and critics” have been forcing their archaic ideas on us for a very long time now. Now that a new breed of brave and exciting writers are coming to the fore, the old guards are feeling threatened.Amisi should come out of the cocoon of past thinking and realise that we are in the age of Popular Culture, and that what the Bandit is doing is the in-thing. Remember art being dynamic.The Bandit should keep in mind that “critics” like Amisi will always be there to pour cold water on progressive thinking Kenyans. He should take heart and never falter in his effort to enliven our live with his unique humour and refreshing line of thought. And man, the Bandit’s grasp of language is taiiiiiiight!Regards, Joseph Ngunjiri .

The verdict is yours.

this and other provocative essays are now available on www.writethatstory.wordpress.com

How not to market books

It is that time of the year again when our ‘illiterate’ nation gets to see and talk about books. The Nairobi International book fair opens at the Sarit Centre next week, and only recently we joined the literate world in marking world (il)literacy day on September 12. Whenever anyone talks about Kenyans’ poor reading habits, I get mad. There are literally millions of people, including myself, who earn their daily bread from book or reading related careers. I am talking about virtually all professions and occupations– teachers, preachers, librarians, accountants, publishers, lawyers, doctors, actors, book distributors. And virtually anyone in today’s world. I, for one, have lived the larger part of my life either teaching or writing, and I get very irritated when some bureaucrats who make a living out of books open their mouths. I bought and read books when I was a student. I bought and read books when I was a teacher. Now as a journalist, I virtually spend all my days reading one book or another. So all that talk about poor reading culture is pure bullshit. It is uncreative, even selfish balderdash, like a vinyl record stuck in that “East Africa is a literary desert talk” some forty years ago by the loud mouthed Sudanese writer Taban lo Liyong. If Kenya’s don’t read, our newspapers shouldn’t be on the stock exchange. If Kenyans don’t read, why hasn’t the printing industry folded up? Why do we have new newspapers and magazines and books and publishing houses popping every few weeks. The unlikely reality is that publishers and booksellers hurl hundreds of new books onto the market each month. And people lap them up even if they cost a fortune like Raila Odinga’s Enigma?If Kenyans don’t read, what do our newspapers and book industries live on? Airburger, I suppose? Yet only recently, the National Book development Council, the body charged with promoting reading among Kenya, was moaning again. Now, those who know the council for its worth know they were merely replaying a ritual, rehearsed and perfected over the years, to mark world literacy day. Now you know that September 12 is World literacy day, when a few people pretending to be worried about illiteracy gather to mourn that there are too many people who can’t read or write. Then predictably, they all go back and do nothing until the next funeral comes in September. Hear the Book Council’s remix of the literary barrenness song: “Kenyans are slowly sliding into illiteracy due to a poor reading culture. Unless the Government enacts a policy to encourage reading, the economy is threatened.” While it is true that we don’t have enough libraries, what is there to read in the existing libraries to read? Many libraries can’t tell you when they last renewed a subscription to The National Geographic, or the London Review of Books, or The African Journal of Ecology, for instance. If they have anything worth reading, its probably free copy and it is likely to be with the librarian’s semi literate relatives at home. Any other stuff worth looking at is locked up in some chilly and dust smelling section called ‘Africana’ or ‘Reserve.’ Even in the imposing Jomo Kenyatta Memorial Library at Nairobi University’s main campus, journals are as rare as the white rhinos. The racks are bare, the shelves dusty and the rows of shelves look no better than the inside of a morgue. There is a huge, missing link between publishers and libraries on one hand, and readers and booksellers on the other. Then there is a gaping, missing link between reading and pleasure. Bookshop attendants are rude, ignorant and cold. Newspaper vendors, though more enthusiastic, sell you papers they know nothing about. Our children actually believe that reading is like the death penalty, a punishment for watching TV or breaking a piece of cutlery. In the name of fair trade, the government won’t touch the book trade. So we have a surplus of mitumba books (rejects of an outdated, foreign syllabus). Good books, which can only be printed outside the country (prohibitive printing and paper costs), are themselves prohibitively expensive. Paper manufacturers produce low quality paper. Like the cycle of poverty, this one too is endless. Even if the government erected libraries in every village and stocked them with books, we would not claim to be a reading nation. The government cannot force our heads over dull text if we don’t have intelligently written and attractively laid out books at prices we can afford. The government’s library plan died donkey years ago. The initial plan was to have a public library in each district, but some districts were left out for some unexplained reasons. Now, decades later, we have nearly double the number of districts and four times as many thirsty readers a stunted book industry. National Book Council chairman Samwel Maitha says unless there is a greater impetus towards creating a reading nation, the country’s economy is under threat. But he does not tell us where that impetus is supposed to come from. His organisation, perhaps? Tagging reading to the economy at a theoretical level alone is not enough. While reading plays a major role in our ‘information society’ and enhances our participation in national development, our parliament has no provision for libraries or book publishing, even in its grandest development endeavour the Constituency Development Act. Currently, there are only 42 community libraries countrywide, but students have been reported to burn books after final examinations. Maitha says many people only read books to pass examinations because Kenya’s education system is punitive and our culture is orally inclined. This is all true. But once a year activities like a children’s tent, a book exhibition or occasional book donation to some remote school is like a drop in the ocean. What we need is a thorough integration of reading into our national psyche. As a country, we need to force publishing to respond to rising demand by investing in training and rewarding writers, making available affordable, quality paper, increasing book visibility and supporting school and community book clubs. Waiting to whine on World Literacy Day or organising trade fairs just won’t take us anywhere. Otieno Amisi, an editor with Oakland Media Services Limited, Nairobi has been published in Prof Bernth Lindfors’ Black African Literature in English, 1997-1999, James Currey Publishers, London, 2003.

This paper was originally presented at theEast African Writers’ Workshop held in Nairobi, on 23rd September, 2006.

Celebrating Lwanda Magere

Puppeteers celebrate ‘man of stone’ as Nairobi basks in creativity
By Creative Ventures

When a team of Kenyan puppeteers take the stage this afternoon at the Kenya National theatre, they will be presenting an old story that has enthralled many audiences for years.
But why does the ancient folktale around Lwanda Magere refuse to fade away? This ancient tale of an invincible tribal hero akin to the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah has proved so popular it has been staged for years by numerous theatre groups.
Is it our unending feuds over land and water that propels artists to seek meaning in tales of ancient tribal feuds? Or is theatre simply a re-enactment of our modern day feuds over the national cake?
Only last month, Kenya’s Afro fusion King Eric Wainaina hosted a two week workshop on the tribal warrior, after a hugely successful musical under the same theme two years ago.
This time, the legend will be staged differently – using puppetry. While puppetry is not exactly an ancient art form, it is less common on Kenyan stages, save for occasional children’s shows.
In the story, the hero, whose body is made of stone, seeks to avenge his people’s honour, lost in a recent tribal war. But the hunter becomes the hunted. The antagonists, the people of the hills, forced to eat humble pie, send a gift in the form of a beautiful bride to the great warrior.
The bride slowly and deliberately engulfs the once invincible fighter in a web of lust and a fever so strong the warrior is estranged from his one true love, Nyaber and his people. Against the wisdom of Nyaber and advice of the ancestors, he entrusts his secret to Cheptoo, and this begins the end of the great Man of Stone.
The performance also includes rod, body, object and shadow puppetry. It will be presented with an accompaniment of music from a variety of Kenyan communities, including an assortment of dance and movement.
This show kicks off in Nairobi today at the International Puppetry festival, which runs till 19th October.
According to Philemon Odhiambo, the festival is a project of the Family Programmes Promotion Services, one of the most vibrant troupes of puppeteers (actors who use an ancient artform that imitates of human beings to entertain and educate people on crucial social issues)
In 2002 festival, the festival — then dubbed Edupuppets — attracted eleven puppet theatre teams from Africa, Europe and Asia. The participants came from the Netherlands, Indonesia, United States of America, Finland, Israel, Germany, Uganda and Kenya.
Two years later, nine international puppet theatre companies participated. They came from Singapore, France, Austria, the Netherlands, the United States of America, Finland, Israel, Germany, and Kenya.
This year’s festival will celebrate the power of puppetry as a performing art that promotes cultural integration and cooperation. Its goal is to present puppetry that is multi-disciplinary, inter-cultural, cross-border and experimental. The festival is being organised by CHAPS and UNIMA Kenya Chapter.
The festival will feature performances in puppet, mask, object and visual theatre. It will take the form of workshops, exhibitions of puppets, masks and reading materials on puppetry as well as keynote plenary presentations in puppet theatre and therapy.
According to Festival Co-ordinator Philemon Odhiambo, who is also president – UNIMA Kenya
of Community Health Awareness Puppeteers, the festival will encourage creativity, improve puppetry skills and enhance the quality of puppet theatre performances by exposing Kenyan and African puppeteers and audiences to contemporary puppetry techniques, skills and professional performances.
The festival will also include school puppetry clubs, and tomorrow has been set aside for children.
Besides performances, consultants will conduct workshops with children to construct puppets and scripts.
Besides Chaps, other groups expected at the event include Nyawita Theatre Troupe from Kisumu, Tear Group and House of Courage. Artists from Italy and South Africa will also present. The festival is supported by Afrikalia Belgium, the Goethe Institute, the Ministry of Gender, Culture, Sport and Social Services and the Department of Culture.

Meanwhile, Kenyan artists have their hands full. Two weeks ago, a reading of a German novel at the Goethe Institute brought back Mumbi Kaigwa to the limelight again. Kaigwa, one of Kenya’s most respected screen and stage actresses who has gone into theatre administration, was reading alongside German Ulrike Koltermann from Eagles and Angels – by Juli Zeh. Eagles and Angels is part love story, part crime thriller in which the complex plot unfolds with a wickedly ingenious structure, full of bizarre twists and turns. Soon after, there was Nairobi’s first Gallery Walk, followed by a health and human rights 2007 calendar exhibition at the Goethe-Institute sponsored by the Ministry of Health, GTZ-Health Programme and the Department of culture.
The calendar event sought to inform, educate and communicate messages to the public about the
health and the related human rights situation in Kenya. Artist Andrew Orengo won Shs 50,000 with a painting on child labour received while Shine Tani of Banana Art Gallery won the special creativity award Shine with a piece against forced circumcision.
Five-second runners up got cash prize of Shs 30,000 each and a certificate
As the curtains rose on October, a jazz Concert by Yakou Tribe showcased Japanese urban fantasies of movement and change in an interpretative journey through the night of October 2.
And just as Hearstrings Ensemble close their hugely successful show, Over my Dead Body the gates will fly open for Derek Benfield’s Fish out of Water on 19th. October.