Safari Ya Kisumu & Seeing the Real Shit

I landed at Kisumu International Airport (KIA) – at 0945HRS in the same week a section of the writerly community was traveling to Kampala for the Writivism Festival. It is always a relief to return. Nothing redeems my heart like a return ‘home.’ Forget about the landing thing – I was just playing the JJ card. You see, being a JJ is such an expensive affair, in fact, it is a burden especially when the city is as ruthless and cruel as Nairobi. 

So sometimes one disappears to the Lakeside and listens to the swish and swoosh of the waters – hear the chirping of birds and mooing of cows in the mid-morning – literally watch the sun set (I am not romanticising anything by the way). The drudgery and endless pandemonium of Nairobi makes small things matter a lot when one is in the village. Maybe I miss the village life so much for its quiet and blissful innocence.

But, again, for the time I stayed there, it was never easy. What with sometimes sleeping hungry, selling firewood to get money for the posho mill, teaching at the local primary schools with a meagre pay of less than $8 – I am serious! Less than $8. And the days when we would eat mahanya – githeri without beans – only maize accompanied with black tea without sugar.

 In The Champs, a documentary that chronicles the rags-to-riches-back-to-rags stories of Mike Tyson, Bernard Hopkins, and Evander Holyfield, Tyson talks of one never forgetting poverty no matter the money one gets thereafter. It surmises the entire feeling.

Let’s forget the talk of poverty lest I get accused by fellow contemporary writers of propagating ‘poverty porn’, and you know under the Western eyes, it degrades us. Instead, let’s get to serious business. My observations will fall in a list as follows:

1.      IN KISUMU CITY most businesses close around five p.m., according to my cousin who recently re-located there from Nairobi to sell mtumba clothes. Thereafter, you will find the Kisumu folk in supermarkets – Tuskys is a favourite. (I prefer the books section). Apart from supermarkets, it is the bars where Luos rest while swallowing absinthe after absinthe after absinthe waiting to watch ‘Baba’ speak on either KTN or NTV. Sometimes Citizen TV. Hardly K24.

2.      THE HEROES AND HEROINES are those we left in the village. Those who run their businesses and never give up. And thrive in spite of the extreme poverty – what with the ever rural-to-urban migration. Young men and women always running to the city in droves because of the myriad job opportunities, educational chances, and the sense of curiosity to break the village monotony. Therefore, it sounds rather foolish for some of us to go back to the village and start saying things like: ‘Kwani here in the village you guys don’t develop. Only stagnation. Bado hamna stima. Hakuna cyber.’ You can smell the pretensions of a first-timer when they return 10 KM away. What have you done in your capacity to bring that development and stop the stagnation? It is easier to theorize and romanticize and complain and go hammer and tongs on social media tucked in the city, oblivious of the real shit back home than to take some drastic action. Say go and work in the home county and use one’s education and skills to develop one’s people. Or even participation in community development by making contributions – not only financially, but offering advice where necessary and keeping tabs on the village progress. 

3.      CDF STILL DOING WONDERS in alleviating poverty and posting visible development such as building of health centres, primary and secondary schools, provision of water tanks etc. We can say how MPs sometimes in the past have embezzled the funds, but, still, the trickle-down is better than the nothing-at-all scenario of the ‘Nyayo Error’. 

4.      ‘TEDO’ OR MARRIAGE amongst younger girls still rife because I don’t know the reason. I will not pretend I know the exact truth. But I can speculate on poor parenting occasioned by misinformation, inability to provide for the family, therefore, girls are forced to get married with the hope that the husband will provide for the family-in-law. Lack of role models closer to the young girls and even boys is another factor that I suspect increases the pitiful cases where girls as young as 15 years get married. 

5.      AND FINALLY, MISSION TO AKALA market with my father to buy sheep – ram to be specific on Saturday. Encountering ‘brokers’ kwenye mnada called Jo-chumbu. My father told me if one bypasses a Ja-chumbu (singular), the person will not buy any livestock at a fair price because a Ja-chumbu spikes the market and poisons the mind of the seller.

Safari Ya Kisumu apart from giving me a front-view observation of our pretentions and the shit we load upon the village folk with the know-it-all attitude and the aloofness of kings deserving crowns when we land; I got to read peacefully and reflect. I fantasized mapping out my life with a few sins, fucking some wonderful woman – by wonderful I mean intelligent and nonconformist; doing something for the community and enjoying shit as it comes!