Kenya needs a fresh coat of paint

As women in leadership and civil society agitate for increased representation of women through legislation, another group is raising its voice in a different forum — art.

To help this group of women realise their dreams, a local publisher, Contact Zones Nairobi, in collaboration with German cultural centre Goethe-Institut published a collection of poems and short stories, Fresh Paint Vol. 2 (2015).

It offers bits and pieces of the experiences of living in contemporary Kenya, as seen through the eyes of the young women whose works are in this anthology.

The writers’ aim is to “tell the Kenyan story into the 21st Century.”

Some of the stories appear as sketches but the collection is a kind of canvas on which, using words and images, the writers paint a collage that is the Kenyan nation today.

A few of the pieces will suffice to illustrate my point.

Louise Nzomo’s story, A Changing Nairobi, captures the changes in Nairobi and other parts of the county. It tells the story of a young woman who observes as city council bulldozers demolish unlicensed road side structures which the lower cadre of “entrepreneurs” use for their businesses.

The demolition is done to pave way for road construction.

TODAY’S KENYA

In a matter of hours, fruit vendors, food and liquor sellers, hair dressers, carpenters, tailors and others lose their livelihoods.  

Nzomo’s story illustrates today’s Kenya in which the authorities do not see the irony of further impoverishing the poor when they can uplift their lives, or at the very least, be more humane and relocate them.

Nebila, Abdulmelik’s poem, Are You That Place? laments about the chaos that characterises Nairobi.

She asks, in part, Are you that concrete jungle/crumbling under the weight of/ manoeuvring, manipulative matatus/...where freedom is plastered on bus stops/ and injustice is deeply rooted/ into territorial boundaries/where Tusker runs like maji/where unga is revolutionised/and revolutions are most definitely not televised/ where rain commands the city/and payday drives traffic/ Are you the capital of thieves and robbers?” Nebila’s thoughts about Nairobi, and Kenya in general, should  concern us all because they are a reflection of the kind of society that we have become — disorganised, dishonest and greedy.

LEADERS FIGHT IN PUBLIC

Perhaps Nebila should have asked: Are you that place/ where leaders drive on the wrong side of the road/ where road markings do not exist/ where robbers operate in full view of police officers/ where trees are cut down and stones are used to ‘decorate’ roads. Are you that country/ where 10 per cent is not just a figure/ where ‘leaders’ fight in public, and shamelessly utter inciting statements?”

The poem is aimed at provoking change in the attitude and behaviour of Kenyans.

MARRIED MAN’S MISTRESS

Florence Onyango’s Robbed captures the hurdles that a girl faces in her journey to adulthood. At only eight years old, the girl is raped by her friend’s seventeen-year-old brother. Her mother then beats her for “playing with boys” and does not report the matter to the police because the boy’s mother begs her not to ruin his future as he is an A student.

At 14, she starts an affair with her class teacher and when it is discovered the headmistress protects the teacher.

At 16, she begins to smoke bhang and abuse alcohol.

In the university, she becomes a mistress of a rich married man who treats her like a puppy . . . she needs the extra pocket money he provides.

At the workplace, her boss insists on her dressing provocatively in meetings and flirting with potential clients until they sign contracts.

Onyango is concerned about child molestation, sexual exploitation of young women, and the complacency of adults in such cases.

Why do parents, security officers, and other figures of authority let down girls by shielding perpetrators of these crimes?

Where are children’s and girls’ rights activists when the victims need them?

A BETTER TOMORROW

Who will protect the Kenyan girl from the robbers of her dignity and innocence?

Gloria Mwaniga gives the collection a fresh twist by writing a poem in Kiswahili.

Kosa Langu is a love poem that will lift the reader’s spirit and give hope of a better tomorrow in a Kenya that is largely characterised by disillusionment.

That it is written in Kiswahili, the national language, reminds us of the cords that bind us as Kenyans despite our diverse backgrounds.

Fresh Paint is indeed representative of the stories that Kenya should make part of its psyche as it journeys through the 21st Century.

It is an artistic submission of Kenyans’ thoughts, dreams, fears and aspirations.

The book was launched at the Goethe Institut on  July 23.

The writer teaches Literature at the University of Nairobi. jennifer.muchiri@uonbi.ac.ke