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David Mungoshi Shelling the Nuts
A friend used to complain about the gremlins in his laptop.
He said they played tricks on him in the fashion of the impious Puck in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and swore that if one listened really hard, he could detect the chuckles from deep inside the laptop.
This must all have rubbed off on me. How could I possibly have said: “Chitsva chiri muruoko?” “Chitsva chiri mutsoka” is more like it! Humblest apologies.
Kenya is irresistible. It is the home of literary giants like Ngugi, and intellectual luminaries like Shadreck Gutto (now based in South Africa) as well as the affable Kimani Gecau.
Talk of community-based theatre is incomplete without mention of Ngugi Wa Mirii, a theatre guru and incisive socio-political analyst.
Had time allowed, I would most certainly have gone to Limuru, Ngugi’s birthplace and home to community-based theatre.
In the period preceding the 2008 plebiscite in Zimbabwe, Wa Mirii invested his time and organisational skills seeking the requisite funding and organising print and electronic media workshops for editors and reporters.
The objective of the workshops was to standardise the reportage of elections in the wake of legislation enacted with that in mind.
Through the workshops, Wa Mirii was aiming at avoiding in Zimbabwe the kind of bloodletting that had followed the 2007 elections in Kenya.
The amended electoral act legislated against giving coverage to anyone openly advocating violence. It also prescribed that for as long as political parties were willing to pay for services rendered, they could have their advertisements printed and/or aired in any newspaper of their choice without bias or prejudice.
Media houses were expected to use wholesome language, with no expletives such as those that sometimes “creep into rallies”. Effectively, derogatory terms meant to demean a rival were proscribed. That was how such words as “octagenarian (in reference to former President, Robert Mugabe) puppet, chematama (a reference to deceased leader of the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai, and the perceived accentuation of his cheeks) were expunged from the country’s political discourse.
Kenya is the birthplace of early independence stalwart, Tom Mboya, who was shot dead outside a restaurant in Nairobi.
It is also the nation that gave the world the leftist Oginga Odinga (father to Raila Odinga), who wrote the insightful book “Not yet Uhuru.
Letta Mbulu later sang a song of the same title. In both cases, the case made was against neo-colonialism.
Like Angola, Kenya honoured its founding president, Jomo Kenyatta (real name Johnston Kamau) with a mausoleum. Jomo’s remains are immersed in a bed of ice at night and brought up each morning. It is probably not a coincidence that the writer of “Facing Mount Kenya” was, following his demise, buried in such a way that his remains face Mount Kenya. In poetic terms, Jomo Kenyatta is forever contemplating Mount Kenya.
Most indigenous East Africans speak KiSwahili, which in some ways sounds like ChiShona.
In addition, Kenyans also speak Gikuyu, Luo and Kalenjin and so on.
By most accounts, Gikuyu is probably the most colourful language given its no-holds-barred diction and discourse. Nothing is sacrosanct in Gikuyu; anyone can say anything, and anyhow about anything and use whatever language or expression seems appropriate for his or her purpose. There is no such thing as polite company. Some of the things that the Gikuyu can and do say without blinking would be unspeakable in Zimbabwe.
Kenya’s exploits in athletics are well-known the world over. Not until the Ethiopians came onto the scene, did a threat to Kenyan dominance arise, especially in the area of track events other than the sprints,
Britain’s middle distance Olympian Seb Coe, notwithstanding. Among Kenya’s all-time best athletes we automatically include the likes of Kipchoge Keino, an accomplished track and field athlete with four Olympic medals to his name (two gold and two silver) and Ezekiel Kemboi, the 3 000-metre steeplechase supremo with two gold medals to his name after his exploits at the Olympics in 2004 and 2014.
David Rudisha, (one gold in world record time) is the current Olympic, world champion and world record holder in the 800-metre race. At the London Olympics in 2012, Rudisha led from start to finish and won the gold medal in a race described as the greatest ever 800-metre race.
I have always wondered about Rudisha’s name. Among elderly Shona-speaking people, the word “Rhodesia” was always pronounced “Rudisha.”
That Kenya remains East Africa’s biggest economy and that she continues to make economic strides is a given.
The second tallest building in Africa after South Africa’s Carlton Centre in Johannesburg standing at 732 feet high and with a total of 50 floors is Kenya’s Britam Tower in Nairobi.
This building stands at 660 feet high and has 31 floors. Socially too, Kenya is “kicking”.
Nairobi’s ultra-modern Sarit Shopping Mall is a place that one had better see when in Nairobi.
The mall is more of a community centre with pride of place in people’s hearts. When cinema houses there do roaring business, need we be surprised that Kenya’s film industry is receiving the kind of impetus that has spawned mega stars like Lupita Nyong’o of “Twelve Years a Slave” and most recently, of “Black Panther”?
Lupita has Mexican citizenship; she was born in Mexico of Kenyan parents.
She appears to be suffering from an identity crisis as evidenced by her no-show at the Kisumu first world première of “Black Panther”. She attended the South African première instead, despite the crowds in Kenya, who were regularly filling the cinema houses in her honour.
Rather surprisingly and unconvincingly, Lupita made the following entry in her Twitter account:
“A gift to be back in the motherland to bring ‘Black Panther’ here for the South African Premier. The joy, love and excitement here and worldwide is spellbinding. Something really special is happening.”
The general feeling is that Lupita could have gone to Kisumu first, and South Africa next. Dear reader, there is no gainsaying that Kenya has contributed something more than sport to the world. What with Barack Hussein Obama big in America, and petite Lupita rising to great heights in the film industry! All things are possible for Kenya and for Africa.
A Shona saying goes: “Kushata kwezvimwe, kunaka kwezvimwe.” In other words, that hour is brightest which is darkest. The English say: “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Gloom is not forever; it is always just a phase.
Zimbabweans might want to remember this, especially now when painful decisions have to be made and not-so-pleasant solutions to persistent problems activated for the good of all, as Comrade Chinx sings in the classic “Roger Confirm”.
Kenya is steadfastly opposed to Al-Shabaab. The Somali-based wards and adherents of ISIS have, over the years, added to the list of terror incidents in Kenya among which, the major ones are: the 1975 Nairobi bombing as well as the JM Kariuki murder, the1980 Norfolk Hotel bombing, the1998 United States Embassy bombings, the 2002 Kikambala Hotel bombing as well as the Arkia Airlines missile attack in Mombasa, the 2012 Al-Shabaab attacks, the 2013 Westgate Mall shooting, 2014 Mpeketoni attacks and the 2015 Garissa attack.
In perhaps the most painful attack by Al-Shabaab, 147 people were killed at the Garissa University campus.
The list of misfortunes and the rather too regular attacks on Kenya must have made Kenyans feel somewhat insecure.
Perhaps feeling in some ways culpable, Obama sanctioned American assistance in security matters for Kenya.
Accordingly, the JKIA is now among the most secure international airports in the world. There is only one entrance into the airport.
Here, state-of-the-art apparatus scans cars and humans alike for anything that might be deemed to be a threat to the security of the airport.
This security checkpoint is about a kilometre away from JKIA buildings; if an explosion were to occur within its radius, the airport would remain safe and largely unscathed.
Kenyan currency is strong and dependable, and is currently at 100 Kenyan shillings to the US dollar. Cash is easily available and mobile money is also very widely-used. That must mean something is being done properly there. It may be time to share notes!
Kenya’s population, which as of Wednesday 3 October 2018, stood at 51 253,638 is catered for by 22 public universities, 14 chartered private universities and 13 Letter of Interim Authority (LIA) universities.
Happily, there now is a university of technology named after Field marshal Dedan Kimathi, the leader of the Kenya Land Army (KLA), commonly-known as the Mau Mau. There is also a Women’s University of Technology at Kiriri.
The statistics say 78 percent of Kenyans are literate. This bodes well for the book chain and could be one of the reasons why Zukiswa Warner, a South African writer, has moved to Kenya and is writing from there.
As I write this piece, it’s a gas with Slim Ali and the Hodi Boys, and my message to Zimbabwe is: “You can do it.” Wonderful song and message.
Online Reporter