@Wanuri

I have no super powers

2011-08-17T16:18:00.009+03:00

(We are) Unkissed lips Cold arms (You are) Gone Never was Bare Naked Scrapped (I feel) Human-like

I have no super powers

Mates - A short love story

2011-07-28T16:40:00.006+03:00

Awake. Awake. Awake. She repeats the mantra as if trying to will herself out of dream space. She knows the lines and the contours of sleep, the safety of beds and the uncertainty of all else. Even in the security of marriage, she does not know what the day brings. Will it be laughter or pain? Will it be dependent on the people who inevitably intrude into her psyche or will it be him? Him. Him. Him. She repeats his name, licking the taste of it in the cave of her mouth. How could she have ever known? When could she have ever loved more than now, in this moment? And still, why was she so resistant?

She turned back to the first words she heard that morning.

“You can be what you are required to be, just give in.”

What did that even mean? Sometimes she questioned if he knew her more than she knew herself. If her secrets were only known to him and hidden from her. That’s impossible. Awake. Awake. Awake.

The creamy porridge bubbled, filling the room with faint scents of cloves, cinnamon and rich coconut. Outside the window, green papaya hung heavy like breasts waiting to be squeezed. From a distance she could smell the rush of the ocean. Maybe there was time to drown beneath the salt before the day set in. The ripe orange papaya sliced open easily. A dark red belly, a tart lemon, black shiny seeds carefully emptied and composted and tree tomatoes beside. The plate looked so sensual that the colours made her blush. He would be out soon. He would be close soon. She could feel him as if he was a second skin hovering around hers. They were mates. Deeply entwined from points beyond past lifetimes. She marveled that they still knew each other. That they had found each other, many forms, many ages, many centuries later. And it was still the same. As it always was. So why the doubt?

She stood in front of him. He smiled as she fiddled with the fruit, arranging it on the plate. Stark rich shades of red against the tangy yellow against the turquoise plate. It would all be over so soon, leaving only skins and peels behind but still he was glad that she painstakingly tried to perfect the perfect.

He knew she felt him. Her spine curved to welcome his embrace. He was steady and awake. Alert from his meditation. He curled around her, noticing her fragility. Her strength was a guise. She needed him. He could tell by the way she leaned into his weight. And for a moment they both re-membered their oneness. Their beginning had no end and their end a new beginning.

“So? We going swimming. I want to be a shellfish today.” She smiled

Tarifa, Spain June 2011

2011-06-28T15:01:00.004+03:00

2011-06-28T14:57:00.004+03:00

Naivasha

2011-05-23T10:07:00.003+03:00

London in May

2011-05-19T11:29:00.003+03:00

A Moon Song

2011-05-08T21:43:00.015+03:00

I see you
Beautifully harassed by life
Thought tangled
On a balcony edge
Behind an ocean
That wrestles its own surf.
You sit
Feet sunk in sand
Resistant
To waves crashing
Against your heels.

I,
The moon
(seven times bright today)
Calls with mpenzi moan:

'Come with me and ride
Kaskazi heights where
I silver fill you
Protecting you from
Golden foe's rays that keep you
From chasing fish-es'

Instead
You watch
As I lift to orange heights
Trailing a glistening mermaid tail
On the bluegrey horizon
Of endless possibilities.

Love's Loss

2011-04-27T13:23:00.008+03:00

For Idil and Tim
(http://www.timhetherington.org/condolences/)

I am a witness. I saw Love. From the first Sun-dance in the cold and its timid kiss. I saw you wrestle with the newness of it. Through winter days, I wonder watched the shy hand-holding grow steady in warm glances. I beheld Love's conception.

I am a collector. I stored mementos of your love in pictures, emails, visits. I cradle memories of New York style meals in friend-owned restaurants. I hold the taste of French pasties and homemade pasta laughingly created in a small Cannes apartment. I clasp these gently.

I am a champion. I have jumped and shared red carpet pictures of Oscar glory. I proudly held your love up and pointed to it. I saw it run strong triumphing tantrums. Your love caught my breathe when arguments blew and I exhaled with their departure. I exalt your passion.

I am a dreamer. I have seen your children and eaten meals beside them. We astral played while their parents danced on moon beams. As futile the dream now, your Love is no less real. I embrace your release.

I am a commentator. I watch, dream, waiting to live. And when Love knocks, I run and challenge it. At first conflict, I deny Love's existence and choose a lesser substitute. After it passes, I love retrospectively.

But you dear heart,

You are a Lover. You choose Love over safety. You decide to be courageous and vulnerable. You give yourself fearlessly with softness and strength. In you Love shines and you are beautiful for it. As your watcher, dreamer, champion, I know Love exists because you do.

My wife's daughter

2011-03-29T15:21:00.005+03:00

We heralded

Our Spirit daughter

Of Fire and Water

And waited

Anxious

But she un-ready

Hesitated

We trumpeted

Indian Ocean Songs

Cajoling her

Steadily

From Astral form

But she uncertain

Retreated

We cried

Apart

Our dreaming

From her creation

Momentarily un-remembering

She taught

Release

Alasaa Queen

2011-03-11T11:02:00.003+03:00

Ghana shined me up. Heavy! I came home with a new glow. This beautifully, strong, resilient country made me feel as if I was cast in bronze and pedal stool-ized. I came home with a new title, a new taste and a new appreciation for the Ghana in me.

Most times, I have associated countries (especially on the continent) with female characteristics… but not this one. This is all male. Beautiful, strong, passionate, creative, loving, King! He reminded me of the greatness and vulnerability of Dume (Swahili for male, man). And this is for him.

Ghana fed me ripe yellow Alasaa. He offered the West African born fruit in a white ceramic bowl. The bowl sat on a dark wood reptilian shaped table in a studio where music sang out LOUD the complexity of him. He decreed that none of the Yo! Yo! Mentality music was allowed here. The table stood confident on hardwood floors that were shea butter shone by his hand. Across from me he sat talking astrology and explaining that we belong to two star signs; the star we were born under and the one under which we were conceived. After all, what was more significant? The mythical and timely joining of two beings to create one or the day a combination of science and biology thrust you out into the world. What a new thought! So logical and spiritual. It had the same newness of Alasaa with its tangy fresh sweetness that had me strummingtappingdancinglaughing. Like him. Ghana.

While driving in his Accran taxi’s Ghana did not create a thirdfourthfifth lanes of traffic because he felt his urgency was greater than the other. Instead he pulled slightly over when another came sprinting with lights flashing, hazards honking – he explained to me that the other taxi must have a greater need. Was that traffic etiquette I witnessed? Was that the same reason there was a flow of cars WITHOUT a traffic policeman in the centre of the mix? Wa! Accra!

Ghana’s roads on the manicured Accra side of him were smooth. But by then I had seen glimpses of his rugged depths and knew Accra to be a small portion of his parts. The elders of his people had created Alphabets that outdated dates. His body, a broad brown landscape easily bore the weight of different architectural influences, some that he boastingly pointed to and baritone said “My mosque tseee waaa!!!” Ghana housed some of the oldest mosques in Africa, I didn’t doubt it. How could I? I was surrounded by intricate (and locally frustrating) buildings that had me drop jawed. Where else but in his golden Accran region would a presidential mansion built on dollars many can’t imagine and guarded by a fence with un-interpretable symbols live unoccupied? His seemly extravagant choices challenged locals and foreigners alike not to stop and stare in awe at his disarmingly charming Ozymandias vanity.

As he led me through his prize city, he breathedspoke pidgin to me. A language that made more emotional sense to me than the purest English. A language that fixed meaning in spaces and stuck nuances between words where it would not normally fit. I decided there and then to start a Pan-African revolution that exchanged the English spoken in anglo(de)philed Africa for pidgin, in the same way I planned to strategically make Swahili the locally spoken Pan-African language. My mouth tried to stumble over this language newly forming in me while he gently fed balls of Fufu. His mother laughed as I finger licking ate everything and told her the memory of Ghana’s food will live through her. After pouring water to wash my palms clean, he held them and led me past Black star branded trains, kiosks and held my shoes as I took a picture of a man madly scribbling pavement prophecies.

When my cup was filled with the kindness of his time and energy, he gave more. In his art studio hung walls of wood and metal sculptors and on the floor were canvases of work. I was drawn to his last series of work of pregnant women. He kindly handed one of them to me for safe keeping in Kenya. Now in my house hangs ‘Waiting for divine intervention’; a large painting of a woman in meditation sitting belly-full on a wicker stool. I gave him my films. And in that instance we created a less complicated time when barter trade allowed fair and respectful human interaction.

Home now… Laden with fantastical prints, pure white shea butter, an oware game, a painting, a film (COZ OV MONI) and music. I lie sated in having been branded a new brown by his Sun and shone to a new gleam by his attention. I momentarily became his Alasaa Queen, and I salute him, my forever King Ghana.

Tunisia

2010-11-05T09:42:00.003+03:00

As always it starts at the airport. I am in Istanbul watching from a transit state of mind the passengers around me. These faceless, nameless strangers who pack the waiting lounges/bus/plane spaces will be my first impression of Tunisia. I have no inkling of Tunisia. I have never seen it in my mind’s eye. I have collected bits of information from various people on the way and stored phrases like; ‘Tunis is the Paris of Africa’ but I’ve never been to Paris, so that reference is lost on me. Around me are men wearing Arabic features with little resemblance to my conformist image of Africa. Here, I am the darkest hued African on the flight from Istanbul traveling back to the continent skeptically thinking, who is more African, them or me?

I travel surprisingly unharassed through multiple transit halls; airports and several check points without a Tunisian visa, holding only a letter in hand from the Ministry of Culture, 3000ksh and a bankrupt bankcard. Yes, as always I am super organized. From the plane I watch Africa rush toward me and feel the immensity of it reach into me and settle in my throat. This is the Northern most point of the continent. Only on one occasion have I felt so full of the vastness of Africa, when I was standing watching the sea from a Cape Town mountain. As I filled my lungs with Africa’s breath then, I had the feeling of all of Africa behind me. Supporting everything I know as me. Every definition, every experience, every gladness, hope and loss is a result of my time on this larger than life piece of earth. Now as I approach Tunisia I feel as if I am exhaling all my expectations into it.

As we land, I see the light skinned buildings have taken on color of the ocean. They remind me of the people. A man from the festival meets me before immigration, processes my papers and awards me a visa in record speed before whisking me through diplomatic exits. I love Tunis.

I understand the Paris statement now. I am standing on what can only be described as a promenade lined with trees. The word ‘promenade’ never had any meaning to me until now. One either side of the promenade are shops, hotels, restaurants, cafes. Seems everyone is outside sipping on Tunisian super sweet mint tea and tiny cups of expresso. Life is lived on the outside here. All the waiters are men. Interesting. And the President’s eyes watch you from every corner, every kiosk, shop, theatre.

The promenade runs all the way into the market area. And it was exactly like you expect an Arabic African market to be. The market is a densely packed area with slim pathways snaking between closely packs kiosks/stalls/shop openings. Young men lean put past the piles of turmeric colored spices and yell for passers-by to stop and look at their shoes/perfume/bags/ceramics. Women in Hijabs sell candied almonds and leather faced men sit behind intricately patterned fabric. We walk on cobbled ground in thickly packed side streets remembering the weight of age of this place. We pass Princes’ palaces that sit mute in museum silence between the hectic shops. As I pass one stall, I hear a man say ‘Salaam Kenya’ and I turn around surprised and reply with a hand on my heart before following my tribe of filmmakers into the folds of the overflowing market. The man made me feel as if I was all of Kenya and Kenya was but a distant cousin who had come to visit Tunis, his great grandaunt.

Unlike other festivals on the continent, Carthage Film Festival (the oldest African film festival) had the weight of the Ministry of Culture behind it. It is a government endorsed event and I was glad for it. Audiences (mostly local) showed up and filled auditoriums and theatres to watch the festival films. Last year the festival was rumored to have screened to over 200,000 audience members. And not just any audience, an interactive Tunisian audience who clap, stomp, shout at screens in mixes of Arabic and French. When I stand in front of them to introduce my film, they cheer as if they know me, as if I have always been their family. In this moment, I am accepted. I am fully African. As we watch the films, we (the filmmakers) feel the audience carry us on the backs of their unabashed, unembarrassed emotion. It is such a gift to the filmmakers who were present to enjoy their films with them.

For me, the film of the festival was Khalo Matabane’s “State of Violence”. A film about Bobedi, a man whose past catches up with him. In it, a beautifully intricate and simple love between the South African corporate (played by Fana Makoena) and his wife Joy comes to a brutal end when Joy is killed in front of him. Bobedi decides to hunt down the killer but has to return to the township that holds his most painful memories.

Later in an overheard interview between Khalo and a journalist, I hear Khalo talk about the history of violence and the space it still occupies in present day South Africa. In it he describes (and I paraphrase all this) the duality of many South Africans who refer to the perpetrators of violence as ‘them’. The unseen ‘them’ that once the country is rid of, the cities would be safer. The ‘them’ that is turned on by the taste of an unsavory life in crime and mostly live in crowded townships segregated from ‘us’. Khalo says that the ‘them’ are a result of years of combat, resistance and proud survival and express their anger and frustration of not living the promised dream of Mandela’s united South Africa with violence.

In his conversation, I remember listening to a woman on radio speak about the language of violence that we speak. She was referring to the violence attributed to the ‘Mungiki’ a vigilante group of men from low-income neighborhoods in and around Central Kenya. She felt the blame did not solely lie in the violent acts of the Mungiki but also in our inability to translate their language of violence into a dialogue we understand, words that we hear and acknowledge and are ready to claim responsibility for.

In the interview, Khalo refers to Thabo Mbeki’s ‘I am an African’ speech in which the former President claims all of the greatness and tragedy of Africa as being a part of him. For me the film is a visual ode to this speech because in it, Khalo’s “State of Violence” draws attention to the fact that the ‘them’ we fear is ‘us’. And there is no way to get away from ‘us’ without serious self-examination and forgiveness.

“Among us prowl the products of our immoral and amoral past - killers who have no sense of the worth of human life, rapists who have absolute disdain for the women of our country, animals who would seek to benefit from the vulnerability of the children, the disabled and the old, the rapacious who brook no obstacle in their quest for self-enrichment.

All this I know and know to be true because I am an African!

Because of that, I am also able to state this fundamental truth that I am born of a people who are heroes and heroines.

I am born of a people who would not tolerate oppression.

I am of a nation that would not allow that fear of death, torture, imprisonment, exile or persecution should result in the perpetuation of injustice.

The great masses who are our mother and father will not permit that the behaviour of the few results in the description of our country and people as barbaric.

Patient because history is on their side, these masses do not despair because today the weather is bad. Nor do they turn triumphalist when, tomorrow, the sun shines.

Whatever the circumstances they have lived through and because of that experience, they are determined to define for themselves who they are and who they should be.”

Thabo Mbeki

At the end of the festival, PUMZI won silver in the short film category. I joyfully acknowledged the pan-African-ness of a film that was shot in Cape Town (the Southern most root), awarded in Tunisia (the northern most tip) and made by an East African. This film has made me more African by exposing me to more parts of a greater me, parts that I travel to collect from every new experience of this beautiful, stubborn, giving, sacrificing, nurturing, struggle-filled and glorious multi-hued, multi-religious, multi-ethnic continent of happy contradictions. There is no one thing or person more African than the next because of these complexities. Now I am not only African but I am beginning to acknowledge that I am Africa itself.

Trinity Land (30 Sept)

2010-11-04T09:20:00.003+03:00

I am in Barbados Airport watching African faced people speak in lilted accents and I love them proudly. I am traveling to you, my Beloved Trinidad and already you have been engraved into my psyche in countless ways. I have met the stereotypically named Alistair and watched short afro-ed American women read romance novels (the kind with the old fashioned white people embracing on the cover), anxious to live their holiday-love dream. I am in their anxiety, I am in their impatience, I am ready to claim you.

I am in you, beloved Trinidad. I know your weather. Intimately. Your climate has been my lover on a different continent. I have lived it in my many Mombasa lifetimes. I remember the moment I drowned in love with you. I was sitting afloat your ocean tide watching the dark dense hills of green rise above your beach. I listened as voices rose in laughter and watched fathers and sons race ashore. I have traveled a lifetime to return to you for the first time.

And now as I sit on buses, planes, taxis that take me further from you, I wonder if the imprint of me has been erased from the skin of your land, if another lover has masked my scent with their own adventure. I have an open heart as a result of you, Beloved land. I have been yours for longer than time imagined. As I return in newly formed memories I know that no ocean divide can keep me from being with you. I came to claim you but instead I have been claimed by you. My heart is Trinidad. I only hope I am part of your heart too.

Venice Noire (11 Sept)

2010-11-03T17:13:00.006+03:00

Somebody hold me back! I’ve been walking around Venice like ‘exotica, exotica’ wondering why people look at me when they pass or sit or sip or… I’ve lived in foreign and I have visited foreign enough times to be comfortable with being the token black. But here, the gaze is different. It is that associated with the unusual, the kind bestowed on circus attractions. On the first day at lunch, a waiter commented to my companion that I was “special looking”. I may as well have been walking around within my own glass display cabinet in this museum-ed land. When I asked my Italian NBF why there were only 5 people in Venice (me, 3 west African men selling ‘real’ guchi and dochi kobana and one model/host at a restaurant) he suggested it was because Italy did not have a colony in Africa. I wanted to say what about Somalia and that was not because of lack of trying in Ethiopia, Eritrea... But we were still in the first blushes of a newly formed friendship.

And then came the film ‘Venus Noire’ directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. Wawawawa!!!! Never has a film affected me so dramatically. ‘Venus Noire’ is the story of Sarah ‘Saartjie’ Baartman (aka Venus Hottentot). The film opens with a woman’s body parts being presented to an audience of scientists. Already the introduction of the main character is depersonalized. She is an object in jars of formaldehyde without a back-story that runs longer than a sentence. Throughout the film, she is treated like a victim in her life; childlike and fragile, incapable of making any decisions without the South African mzungu’s help. In the one instance in the film when she can change her life, she is still treated like an inconsolable, sobbing, pathetic woman (the kind we all point fingers and poo poo at because they are letting the sex down). I was so devastated by the film that I was unable to even look the actress in the eye. She made a huge faux pas to the female sex by being associated with the film. Why would any woman allow herself to be so dehumanized, especially in the limited representation of Africa we already have on screen? After watching the film I complained to anyone who would listen about how violated I felt as an African woman watching it. The most common response was; “but the director makes great films, have you watched ‘Cous cous’?” My question is; what has the last film or the history of the filmmaker have to do with the film I just watched? I’m talking about THIS film. This film was destructive. It etched in the memory of audiences (especially the ones with little African knowledge) a deeply disparaging view of a sophisticated, witty, clever and very articulate woman who allowed herself to choose a career as a circus actor. By all accounts (google it) Sarah was an incredibly talented musician with an extraordinary sense of humour. She was willing to challenge race relations and stereotypes head on, something it seemed that the Director was unable or unwilling to do.

My Italian NBF says that it is the mark of a good film because of how much emotion it evoked. I beg to differ. However, I thank the film for solidifying my role in this world of Cinema. Recently a young writer asked me why my lead characters are women. I have vainly assumed that it is because I am exploring my alternative selves. But after this film and other similar bombardments of watching the hunter tell the lion’s stories, I now know I make films to defend the depiction of Africans. I make films because in them are characters that depict a holistic Africa, full of humor and sarcasm and challenges and complexity that are reflection of the human experience not a limited “Africa-ness” that has bogged down the minds of many people. I make films because of “Venus Noire”. I am the response. I am the lion. This is my roar.

Zinj-Bar by Louis Majanja

2010-07-23T13:07:00.003+03:00

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Zanzibar: Zinj-Bar (Kisiwa cha watu wa rangi)

2010-07-20T19:47:00.005+03:00

At night…

We sat skin to skin with the men, women, children of Zinj on the stone benches of the amphitheatre watching our breathe. We sat silent, one life, one stillness; awake in our collective consciousness. We shared a fleeting moment of reality. We felt the delicate weight of the ones past peeking over our shoulders, pointing through crevices of space at our simultaneous wakefulness. Heads became light, fists became palms. We were a full one-ness walking with the ones we were named for. We were ageless and infinite.

By day…

We skipped through stone towns on henna-ed heels playing hopscotch in our ancestor’s prints only stopping to drink coconut water and eat shok shok. We traveled through a maze of spice markets lined with sugar cane juice vendors following the musk that painted the lesso lined streets. After lunch, with sima lined stomachs as armor, we briefed the slave quarters and captivity pits. Our spirit guides led by Innocent watched our shamed silence and witnessed our embarrassed awe at the words used to reconstruct our history. Our hurt was collective, whole, timeless.

Under the star’s gaze…

In communal garden squares, young girls curled up against each other watching TV, while we celebrated with golden dhows at starlit concerts dancing to the sounds of kidume. We were appreciated. We were full. Sporadically escaping to forodha gardens where white clothed chiefs grilled, boiled and drowned our soul’s food in a pickled mango-coconut soup.

In the sea…

We washed our soles with Zinj sand. We scratched away the scabs of our heartbreaks and watched the remains ride with the dhows. In the Indian Ocean we felt the ones from before our birth set us free to return to them. With faith renewed we burnt our past and embraced our forward journey.

Nueeeeuuu Yarrrk!!!

2010-06-24T22:48:00.007+03:00

Kampala love!!!

2010-06-24T22:09:00.004+03:00

So in Kampala, I went to watch a portion of a film at a video hall. Wa! What. An. Experience. So, the room is rectangular, church hall shaped, with wooden church-type pews and dark. There are 2 TV screens in the front of the room. One plays football and the other a film (and sometimes at the same time). As the film plays, the sound is paused to allow for the translator to reinterpret, re-edit, rescript and sometimes translate the film. There was a constant, running commentary on the clothes, the kiss, the intention behind the smile. It seems that the best screenings of films are the kind with a live translator. So people are drawn to watch the film not for the film's sake but because of the translator. They are the celebrities. How refreshing.

Mombasa my heart...

2010-06-24T21:50:00.005+03:00

I have to be an adult and leave this behind. I have to earn my dream. I can't just slip into it. Or so I think. I am moving back to Nairobi for a while. Looking at these pictures, knowing what my heart yearns for and walking away makes me ache. But right now, me heart breaks more for the mini Kings and Queens who have recently introduced themselves into my existence. I am an aunt twice over this year. I am an Aunt, and my extended children live in Nairobi.

The Power of the Uniform

2010-06-24T00:16:00.003+03:00

I really tried not to get involved in the world cup. Really, I did... Until the opening ceremony. And then I HAD to support K’naan, and BLK JKS who played with Alicia Keyes… And then I HAD to watch the first game. And then it dawned on me that the World Cup is actually in Africa. And in a really basic “what have you done for me lately” way, I noticed the changes that the World Cup had on my life. For me, the World Cup means less traffic after work. For me, the World Cup means realizing that GOD only made one man (Anelka) and the rest are substitutes. That’s my World Cup.

Now, here I am watching the Ghana v Germany match and I hear myself saying “Go Africa!” Really? Who is this Africa? Does Africa mean black? I have heard people say how disappointed they felt when the “other” African team (France) did badly in the world cup. Following that were the multiple definitions that have been run around in conversations like; “I don’t support Algeria, they are a make believe African country” or “I only support sub-Saharan African countries”. Who have we become that we differentiate between the Africas? When did we start to harbor a them v us type mentality? It seems all it takes is men dressed in different color shirts to bring that out. We underestimate the power of the uniform.

Back to supporting “Africa”… Someone at some bar during some match (France v country X – I can’t think straight when Anelka is on TV) said that we can’t take our political ambition into the game (ahem… my reasons were purely aesthetic, I root for the better looking team!). He said you can’t support teams because they are black or African… you choose a team and support it from beginning to end. No matter what. No matter who plays against them. He (same bar guy) is supporting Brazil. Even if Brazil played against Ghana in the finals. He suggested supporting Africa was like supporting Arsenal. It was ‘aspirational’ football. It was like watching a chick flick when your own life is a romantic tragedy; it is the difference between what is and what ought.

However, all things considered, we the Africans are hedging a lot of bets on the outcome of the World Cup. If it goes well, we ALL have much to gain. Suddenly a light bulb will be lit in the Dark Continent and the ‘others’ will see what we always knew. That our Africa offers more than poverty and despair. We play football. We contribute. We have world-class facilities to host the world. We have parties and vuvuzelas and a magical disposition. And sometimes I guess it does take men in uniform for us to see the truth.

Kenya is my transit hall

2010-03-04T16:15:00.004+03:00

In Mombasa
I stood on the top of the apartment building I live in. In almost every direction there are shiny tin roofs glistening in duskish paint. Three mosques on 3 sides of the building sing out their calls to prayer one after the other. Overlapping like waves. I am about to leave for winter. I have been season hopping. Sundance. Mombasa. Berlin. Stockholm. Nairobi. London. Is the itinerary for the next month and a half. Inshallah. Who am I to plan?

I like my home. I am happy here. I am happy now.

In Berlin.

We were walking around with what can only be described as an African Mentality. The comments amongst us Africans (and yes, I can say that in a truly Pan-African sense – 9 films from 8 countries with 7 of the directors in Berlin representing them) went like this:

To taxi drivers:

“Driva, can you please take me to the blue hotel opposite the road with the large Opel sign.”

We think in landmarks. Every single one of us Africans in Berlin thought in landmarks. We described places in pictures. We didn’t try to remember the street names. Or the addresses. The cleverer ones of us took the hotel business cards… So taxi conversation was limited to silently handing the card over to the taxi driver.

When passing closed shops/ restaurants with furniture or merchandise outside:
“If I had a pick-up I could furnish my digz in a night.”

We are all stunned that Berliners just leave stuff outside after they close shop. Just like that. In the open for anyone to take. Is it us? Do we have trust issues? Or is it them? Honestly. Maybe that’s why Berlin’s major ‘s slogan for the city is “Broke but Sexy”. But let me ask you, would you leave your stuff outside, daring to trust? And it was the same thing with-

Train tickets:
“Kwani, no one checks your tickets?”

I didn’t see a single police person in the public travel areas. And I asked the rest and no one saw any either! What kind of country was this with no police? Nor was there a monitoring machine. Or a manned ticketing booth or electronic turnstiles. Nothing. You just walked into the train station, onto the platform and got on the train. No checking, nothing. And the truth is it made me complacent. I lost my ticket everyday coz no one was checking it, so what was the point of keeping track of it? Or maybe that was my thrill seeking side, daring this Berlin to ask me for my ticket. I am such a rebel.

I loved being in Berlin. I watched films for free (thank you Goethe Institut!) at the Berlinale, went to clubs (thank you Mickey!!! Dario!!!!) and some nice clubs… Like a Jazz club that Mickey discovered through his Mozambiquan clothes designer friend. Wawawa. It so completely perfect. Small, live jazz on small touchable platform, a warm voiced beauty with large masai earring crooning into the mic, with a projector behind the stage and theatre seats on the side (because the dance floor today was also a 50 seater theatre tomorrow) and (of course) couches in the back. Dark, smoky, with the stupidest jazz I have heard. Ever. Man, I danced. And danced. And was soooo drunk on life. I am finding many more of those drunk on life moments at film festivals. Life induced highs are the best!

In Berlin theatres I had these words in mind:

Strangers rub shoulders as they swarm in
Womb like theatres (red and dark and warm) against winter outsides
Ripe with projected potential
Silently awaiting
The birth
But the film
Right now
In this moment
Before the curtain folds back
And its face is exposed
Has met all expectations

I think Berlin is a city I could enjoy. And harbors a film festival I would love to be in!

And then I went to Stockholm:

The winter. Wawawawa… minus 25°C! What is that? I noticed the first thing on my body that freezes solid is my chin. And then I can’t speak properly. I love the Cineafrica festival in Stockholm. Great people. Who unlike Berliners cross the road even when the pedestrian light is red.

This year for the first time Cineafrica ran an industry forum and invited some of my favourite ‘African film’ men, like Keith Shiri and Pedro Pimenta. I could spend days on end talking with them. They schooled us all with their unminced thoughts. Clear. Concrete. Absolute. Until they contradicted themselves and were ready to drop, change, challenge and stand for a new truth. I like that in them. I have adopted that. An absolute momentary steadfastness to passing, fickle, shakeable judgment. What are we if we’re not change. Stagnant?

Keith reignited fire with words;
“Don’t cut off my hand and tell me I was born with one arm”.

We talked about our secret passion; the people who have come before us. And why it is important we remember them.

The day before, Pedro in discussion quoted Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety who said “African cinema does not exist, only African films”. And I have to agree. So a couple of days later in a Q&A session after screening PUMZI, I was asked what I expect from African Cinema in 5 – 10 years. I replied that I don’t know because I have no idea what Africa Cinema is. Is it films shot by Africans? Or films shot in Africa? Is it African stories? If so is “Blood Diamond” then African Cinema? In 5 – 10 years hopefully we have finally rid ourselves of boxes. And we will be making films. And cinema will exist as a result of good films and we will have conversations about films we enjoy and why. African. Or whatever. Note, no one ever asks about American Cinema.

My film of the festival was Raoul Peck’s “Moloch Tropical”. So layered. So detailed. So telling. About an elected Haitian Dictator who turns mad because of power. Raoul Peck (“Sometimes in April”, “Lumumba”) was in Stockholm too. And in his Q&A after being asked about the corruption of leaders in the third world he neatly turned the question on its head and answered (I paraphrase) that the election of leaders was the responsibility of every person in the room. In the same way the Haitians in the film elected their own corrupt dictator, the audience members supported the NGOs, IMFs, WHOs, World Banks and state run institutions that put the very same leaders into power. They elected the leaders themselves by supporting these institutions. They contribute to the corruption by staying silent. Ouch. In my head I was standing, clapping, allelujah-ing and amen-ing my bro’s speech. Knowledge can bitch slap a person.

Cameroon late 2009

2010-03-04T16:10:00.001+03:00

2010 and Jua Limeshikwa!

2010-01-17T13:00:00.002+03:00

“Wanuri analala na jua limeshikwa!?!” That’s what our cleaner said. Wanuri is sleeping while the sun is caught… I was. I overslept and almost missed the eclipse.

Everything was dusk coloured. An eerie 8am magic hour. The birds were upset and scatted in the air, the near-by mosque was in prayer and the chatter from the surrounding houses was low and excited. Everyone looked in water basins, through khangas and broken sunglasses to watch the caught sun. It was a trip! That same evening I went to my first matanga. What is a matanga some may ask… well, a matanga is a party held after the death of someone to help raise money for the funeral expenses. A successful matanga must have, a LOUUUUD sound system, a killer MC and draw a crowd. Strangers with wallets are welcome. So at the matanga, someone will pay for another person (any person) to dance. If the chosen person doesn’t dance, they have to pay money to get out of it. The MC acts as the official negotiator for the length of the dance, the amount of money needed to get out of it, or the rate for the person to dance. Sometimes, the person is asked to sing, narrate, perform in some other way. The matanga we attended was for our friend’s neighbour, who died of a stomach-ache last week. I stood in the shadows to avoid the MC’s gaze lest someone ask me to dance. Levi and I didn’t have enough bail money. An eclipse and a matanga all in one day. It must mean something, right?

A kitten got us for Christmas. We were walking back from the beach and found an abandoned kitten in a box on a pile of smoldering trash. Levi, the soft-hearted soldier couldn’t just pass by… So, our house remains the half-way house for kittens on their way to KSPCA. Only problem is Mwambesa Elon Belly (the new kitten) has become rather attached to us, specifically our feet (and us to her). She keeps me company when I do the dishes and cook and busies Levi’s evenings with hand wrestling games… Methinks she is a keeper. She is vaccinated under the pretense that it will make it easier for her to get adopted by the right family.

This year has already started with a bang. PUMZI got into Sundance!!! It’s so weird and exhilarating at the same time. Wow! I am reading a book on how to gate crash parties with style… Yes. I’m all over this Sundance thing. I have no idea what to expect though. My plan… have fun, meet people, watch movies, meet more people and generally SHINE!

Here's to TRUTH, TRUST, FORGIVENESS AND FAITH...

Come 2010. I am ready.

This Year...

2009-11-21T17:44:00.004+03:00

Nov. 20th
(Mombasa)

This year…

I had a moment of doubt. I was glad to be around Levi. He said quite simply: ‘GOD will meet you at your need. At that specific point. GOD will see where you are and what you want, regardless if you’ve asked once or many times and GOD will meet you there. And when he grants what you ask and you find yourself at the door to your dream, do not wait. Open the door and walk through confidently. GOD wouldn’t have brought you this far unless he wanted you to do what he has set out in front of you. If you doubt, you might be left in the corridor and you might take a step back and then another until you find yourself back at your old house, when you should have been entering the front door of your mansion.”

I ask the Master that I don’t pray for anything but to learn how to move closer to him. All else is passing. Let me pray to GOD for GOD’s sake, not mine. “Seek ye First the Kingdom of God”.

Today is my beautiful sister-cousin’s earth day. I am blessed to know the women I do.

November 14th
(Karen/ Nairobi)

This year…

I just got into Nairobi from Germany via Mombasa (Jetlink again - Eish). And here I am standing, with wobbly voice reading a poem in front of an odd thousand people. A poem that I feel is much too hallmarky, but it’s a wedding. So…

The wedding is large and full of aunts, uncles, imposed relatives, friends, etc. It reminded me very concretely that I am a part of a large extended family network. A family that I love to dislike at the end of the wedding when they pinch my cheeks like I’m still five and jokingly ask me when it’s my turn to get married. It was cute the first couple, couple times… but then it gets weird when an Aunt calls an impromptu prayer meeting on the corner of the reception lawn to bless all the ‘unmarried ones’ in the same biblical ‘the lepers’ tone I remember from Catholic school. Yes. I was prayed for. I am obviously an incomplete woman. I have noticed that the itch people get when they arrive unmarried past 30 seems to be fed by the spreading rash among the parents who want to be the PMs (proud mothers) of the day. The parents grow more quietly desperate and some ask questions about their children’s sexuality when the ‘time’ comes and passes. The Aunts helpfully pointed out the ‘good looking’ men (financial and otherwise) loitering at the fringes of the reception. Whenever I met a man of marriable age, I felt as if my attributes are being weighed and correlated against dowry.

Marriage talk seems to be in the air. RC went to interview some Maasai recently for a documentary about health. RC mentioned that cattle dead from dehydration surrounded the Boma she visited. It sounded similar to the Kanampiu experience. When RC talked to the Maasai about the problems they have had as a result of the drought, the women said that many are unable to get married. There are no cows to pay dowry and no one trusts credit on dowry during periods of drought. This was not the first time I had heard that. Many people find it too expensive to marry during this financial/environmental crisis.

Later that night at the evening party, I had a heated argument about if Star trek is science fiction or science fiction/ fantasy, while the first song the couple danced to that night was “Blame it on the Alcohol”. Haha.

November 12th
(Bayreuth, Germany)

For Jules and Joe (2 days before the wedding)

Come Beloved One
Take my hand and lead me through the remembrance of tenderness
Forget the yester-ways and tomorrowness
Let us have this moment
Naked and Pure
Loving fiercely

Come Beloved One
We have searched all others to find us
Beyond Motion
Past time
We scream unified with childlike abandon
Open and honest
Loving courageously

Come Beloved One
We start this life with trembling anticipation
Promising to watch stars with planted feet
We are the hope we pinned our dreams on
We are creation and chance
Infinite and unwavering
Loving endlessly.

This Year...

2009-11-16T22:31:00.006+03:00

November 7th
(Mombasa Airport)

This year…

I am trying to create my first impressions of Germany from a Mombasa Airport terminal. The terminal is full, full, full. I am one of 3 black people (all originally Kenyan) traveling but the only one holding a Kenyan passport (hence the long wait at immigration as they tried to determine if I have the right visa. They don’t see many of my type – short term business travelers). The other two have married “up”. Or so it would seem from the unreturned smiles and quick glances away when I try to connect. I am ignored, unseen by them. Instead of replying my questions (asked in a dialect they actually understand), they lean their point-five babies toward the nearest Mzungu and in broken European ask some inane question about boarding passes.

The Europeans sport Masai bracelets, suncrisp faces, braided “human hair” extensions and fly through immigration "jambo-ing" and singing “Hakuna Matata” the national tourist anthem of Kenya.

(Sidebar) About 2 years ago, my cousin and I, tired of the “Jambo” tourist culture invented a reply to the greeting. Now, when tourists “Jambo” us in that high-pitched, “I can speak in local dialect, I am one with the natives” tone, we raise our clenched fists and reply “power to the people”. We are trying to start a movement. It hasn’t caught on yet (End sidebar).

On the way out, while being grilled for a full 15 minutes by the immigration officer (who must have thought I was a holiday love hang over), I watch a dreadlocked man and his Mzungu wife try and get past a blunt immigration woman, who after going through his passport asks in Swahili how his Giriama wife feels about him leaving the country with another woman. The man coughs out an "I don’t have another wife” as the immigration officer smirks and his Mzungu wife asks what she was saying. After handing back his passport, the immigration officer reminds him to send money to his wife back home when he gets to foreign. Much too personal if you ask me. Even for Immigration.

The only people trying to engage with me are the men, over the heads and shoulders of their wives. They seem not to remember that they left their “holiday love” romances at the beach. Before going any further, can I say I am super thrilled to be flying return from Mombasa to Germany (from 30°C heat to 3°C cold). Who would have thunk it? I guess the tourists would. They do it all the time. I have seen a whole variety of different airlines I have never seen before at Mombasa International, with flights directly to Austria, Italy, (I think even Greece) and other places foreign.

So far from this burnt-red monochromed crowd of foreigners, Germany seems like a place that is yearning for more. Like a place with an unquenched thirst. This is my humble, initial perception. I could end up being very wrong and I am open to contradicting myself.

This Year...

2009-11-06T16:20:00.004+03:00

November 6th
(Nairobi Airport)

This year…

Kenya has a way of making you feel helpless. The inefficient, apathetic businesses and the ever so brutal, insensitive, uncaring leaders. No wonder Kenyans respond with such overwhelming violence when the straw finally breaks.

Today, I am sitting at the airport. The flight to Mombasa has been delayed by…(???) hours. The airline (JETLINK) either don’t know when the next flight is scheduled or don’t care to say. So here we are, the passengers of said flight, waiting in a bloated airport terminal. Most of us discovered for ourselves that the flight was delayed when we saw a JETLINK branded airplane (that we assumed was ours), sitting on the sweaty tarmac board other passengers. Soon after, a warped, muted, one-time, rushed announcement said that the flight had been delayed by an hour.

An hour later, a slip of a woman (Jetlink employee) shows up at the boarding gate and whispers to a few passengers that the flight has been further delayed. Indefinitely. No explanations. No announcement. Nothing. So the news, as it does, trickles via a broken telephone system of ‘did you hear’ and ‘what did they say?’ sound bytes. I find out from the man next to me that our flight to Mombasa left for Sudan. Tempers rose with voices, the manager was called. A suit clad man with a slimy half smile who oozed no confidence nor sincerity apologizes and offers cold, compensation sandwiches. He swears that in another hour he will have an answer. But right now he has no clear solutions. When I asked for a full refund so I can change airlines, he condescendingly asked me to choose any airline (with an available seat) that might be leaving before his airline’s flight. I politely point out that I would be doing his job if I had to look for a replacement flight as a result of his company’s incompetence. Eish. He swore again that the next flight would leave on time (delayed time) once he confirmed if there was a plane for the flight. And we (the passengers) are left feeling disregarded, ignored and irate. The only reason I chose Jetlink is because Kenya Airways’ full page print advertisement stated that they were on-time 70% of the time. In my experience, I always fall into the 30% bracket.

The half smile manager is back an hour and 45 min later. He says that the flight attendants from the last flight have refused to fly to Mombasa so there is no crew. (What happened to the Mombasa crew?) So the passengers are called one by one from a printed record that shows when passengers purchased their tickets. They allocate seats on a first purchased basis on the next flight (on a different airline). I made the ‘A’ group. Half the flight will be left behind to wait on another plane (airline not specified).

The man next to me compares this to the last elections and his fear for the next. It seems that is our role. To look for solution when no answers are offered. To fill in the blanks when business, social and political structures fail. There is no responsibility, no accountability and no consequences when it all (inevitably) goes wrong.

Yesterday I received a joke from a friend about the power cuts in specific and the country in general. It read:

“Due to cut backs in all areas, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off!!!”

Not so funny anymore.

P.S. When I got to the other side, my luggage din't make the flight. Aurrghhhhhh!!!!!!

This year...

2009-11-02T14:09:00.003+03:00

November 1st
(Nairobi)

This year…

Yesterday my mother’s house was full of women. I don’t know what you call a group of women? A celebration of women? They had come for Wamaitha’s bridal shower. It was the mother’s bridal shower; the last chance for mothers, aunts, cousins, in-laws to tell the bride to be what to expect from marriage. A confidential, painfully intimate conversation between women. I have never heard my aunts, my mothers, my cousins speak so freely about their marriages, the problems they faced, their successes and sex. And sex. And sex. “It’s like servicing a car, make sure your car is well serviced because when you travel you want to make sure it works. And if you have to leave, you find it in the right condition when you get back”.

The mothers dispersed advice all day. The commandments of marriage. 1. Keep God and Spirituality at the centre of your marriage. 2. Know your man well and mind your friends, their talk will destroy your marriage. 3. Never tell your secrets nor talk about your disagreements, what happens between you and your husband should remain between the two of you. 4. Grease your face, never let the outside world see your pain or hardship. 5. Set your boundaries early and keep them. 6. Wear seductive underwear, be adventurous. 7. Keep the marriage bed sacred. 8. Do not use sex as a weapon or a threat. 9. Learn that there are 4 stages in marriage; Dreaming, drama, discovery and depth. Most don’t make it past drama. 10. Befriend your mother-in-law, she is your greatest ally. Above all, talk to your husband and never be afraid to tell him what you want. He’s not a mind reader.

The afternoon was full. I effortlessly slipped into the role of my mother’s daughter. I served roast meat, mukimo, tea, porridge. I found sweaters, made juice and listened in where I could. It reminded me of my role. Who I am because sometimes I forget. Yesterday I remembered that I am a daughter of many. I live in service of my elders.

That evening, there was a blackout. A NATIONWIDE blackout. Even in a nation where blackouts are regular, it is uncommon and extremely rare that the whole nation’s electricity goes off at the same time. In this Kenya of ours, the only way to make sense of the senseless things that happen is by offering an array of solutions. Most come as thinly disguised conspiracy theories. So when the electricity went off at about 6:30 came back at 10 and was off again before 11, and back about a half hour later. The concensus among the people I was with was that the government did not want the general public to see the news which runs at 7pm, 9pm and 11pm. Could this be true? Hmmmm…

This year...

2009-10-26T17:33:00.003+03:00

Oct 25th
(Stockholm, Sweden)

This year…

At the “Ubuntu” film festival, an outreach program during the European Development days my film was screened twice and sold out both times. It was an amazing festival. It had top caliber African films and documentaries and although their theme for the festival was Ubuntu, I walked away with a feeling for the strong women who were depicted in the films and documentaries. Great, wonderful, revolutionaries who don’t let politics, myopia or social or traditional norms stand in their way. Wow! I cannot congratulate the CineAfrica Film Festival team enough. Their next festival runs from the 24th – 28th Feb in Stockholm 2010.

I missed my flight and missed the first screening of “From A Whisper”. I know, shameful. I heard that people boo-ed when they were told I wasn’t able to make it. I can’t imagine that. The Sunday before the festival, there was a full-page article about me in the arts and culture section of the biggest Swedish newspaper. How unreal is that? Yes, this is my “but do I say” moment… I will enjoy it.

Stockholm is amazing. On the first night, I watched Zap Mama Live on stage. What?!?!? Legendary.

The day before I traveled, PUMZI had its world premiere at the opening ceremony of the Kenya International film festival where the guest of honor was the Vice President of Kenya. My guests of honor were my parents, my Aunt Wairimu and my family of friends. I missed my brother. He should have been there but he was doing the strongest thing he could possibly be doing for himself. I am so proud of my brother. I am so enamored and simultaneously heartbroken by my family.

PUMZI was well received. I thought the audience laughed in the wrong places but I can’t direct their reaction. PUMZI has been born, it is no longer in my womb, it has it’s own life and journey. I am curious to see where it goes.

This week I have cried and laughed and been encouraged. I have been overwhelmed and loved. What a week this year…

Oct 24th
(Stockholm, Sweden)

This year…

I am empowered, energized, challenged, inspired. I want to write. I want to make a love story. I want to fight for justice through my films. I want to be unafraid.

Women are great! They are God’s strongest and most humble creation.

I have watched strong documentaries about women. “Iron Ladies of Liberia” and “We are watching” (as part of the ‘Why Democracy’ series) brought a tear to my eye. (www.whydemocracy.net). Honest. Not because of the struggle or pain but because of the fortitude and heart the women in the film have. They have made me proud to be African. And prouder still to be woman.

After the film screenings, I was part of a very, very, very learned panel to discuss democracy in Africa. Does it work? Is it the best way? Can it be broken? Both panelists (other than myself) were ex-members of parliament in Sweden. One was the ambassador for democracy in Sweden, the other was the chairman of Forum Syd. I was a lone filmmaker with one feature film under her belt. Wawawawawa… what do I know? All I could do was speak from my limited experience and personal perspective on what I have seen in ‘democratic’ Kenya.

In ‘democratic’ Kenya, I have seen people register to vote in the hope that the next leader will provide a foundation from which they can exercise their human rights. The film from Egypt “We are watching” said it best, (I paraphrase), it said that people do not necessarily vote for political reasons, they vote for their basic human rights. The right to life, right to justice, the right to education. They vote because the life they live is hard and they deserve more. In 2007 I watched people line up for hours in silence and in peace, waiting to cast their vote. I watched them gleefully wave their ink branded fingers after they had exercised their democratic decision. Then, the next day, I watched the same people be cheated by lying, manipulative leaders who cared more about winning power than safety and peace and life. Leaders who cared nothing about human rights. Leaders whose sole concern was power and control. The same Kenyans who had been convinced that they could bring about change, that they could make a difference saw their voices silenced and their hands bound. The waiting, the lines, the promise of democratic change amounted to nothing. The following day was blood and tears and fire. Riots and senseless killing became their sound and the action of their hands. This is Kenya. This is our democracy. 2012 Kenya has the next round of elections. Many have sworn never to vote again. BBC says that people have started arming themselves in preparation for the next elections. I believe it. Judy Kibinge (an amazing filmmaker) is working on substantial documentaries that question our nature. This year she released “Peace Wanted Alive” and there are whispers that she will work on another documentary that examines our propensity for violence and what makes the machete nation we live in. After the elections I wrote a piece in which I blamed us, the sisters, brothers, mothers, wives who raised, bathed, fed, educated these unscrupulous leaders. We are the people to blame for our violence. We are our worst enemies. God help us before the next elections. God forgive us for our past weaknesses.

Oct 22nd
(Nairobi/ Addis Airport)

This year…

A fellow adventurer left on Monday. Without a backward glance. He left in silence. He left in fear. He left anger and hurt behind. I knew him as a traveler and a light spirit, but no one knows the matters of a man’s heart. Garth and I called ourselves the rogues. We were never people to fit in. We worked together on ‘Catch a Fire’ where he was a stills photographer and I was the behind the scenes documentary being. We shared small corners and absurdly awkward spaces, sneaking behind the scene pictures of growing relationships, capturing stolen moments and private sentiments. We learnt to fit in with each other between lenses and shared our own secret language and laughter. He’s absence makes me feel betrayed and cheated.

I have found there are few times in this life when we meet people we truly click with. He and I clicked. We fit. We made sense to each other. We were rogues. Garth was one of the few people who held my secrets. And I trusted him with them.

When hurt visits so abruptly, I feel as if I need to assess and reassess my part in it. Could I have been a better friend? Did I reach out enough? Could I have consoled, listened, cajoled more?

This year…

I think, where I was during his last days.

That week, I was in Kanampiu, Laikipia district deep in the heart of Samburu land doing a story on cattle rustling for the Kenya Human Rights Commission. We visited a village where Pokot and Samburu had waged war against each other a month ago. During the raid on the Samburu village, 11 Pokot and 22 Samburu were killed, no cattle were stolen but many were shot in the crossfire. When we got there, the boma was still surrounded by 100s of cows and sheep carcasses lying strewn around and in front of the manyattas (homesteads). The stink was fierce. Women picked their way around death and simultaneously wiped the snot from their children’s faces. In that village, a young, teenage Nyokabi barely smiles anymore. She lost her brother in the battle. She saw him being killed. She has only been married into this village a couple months and had moved there with her brother. She indicates with her hand how old he was. ‘This tall’ her hand does not reach her shoulder. I guess that he must have been about 10 years old. Her husband’s first wife is the same rika as her mother, the first wife tells Nyokabi that this is part of life. What a life.

The Samburu and Pokot have always fought. It was part of their history. It was how the young men got their stripes and how young wives intermarried. But that was before the land was segregated and confined. That was before ranchers had first pick on prime ranch land. That was before the drought took the baksheesh they were given to live on and dried it out beyond any redemption. Before the Pokot and Samburu would wander around a borderless land grazing cattle and never wander into enemy territory. Now, the land that was traditionally roamed is no longer available. Now, that land lives behind electric fences and is secured by police posts where they are charged 50 – 300ksh per head of cattle per month to graze on it. Now when their own land dries out, and the watering holes are nothing but cracked earth, they have nowhere else to go but to enemy country. Both sides feel abandoned by their country’s leaders and feel like the best portion of land, the bigger portion of land was given to the other. All that with a touch of capitalism (scavenging business men who buy cattle for next to nothing and pay in cash) and a light scattering of arms has created the African wild west.

The Samburu boma we visited, located in Kanampiu held about 300 people from different families and was guarded by morans. Young, unmarried men between the ages of 18 – 30. One of them, Simon the Moran asked one of the crew for me. He was prepared to offer 20 cows, 20 goats “na ata punda” (and even a donkey) as dowry should I accept. They crew willingly bargained on my behalf and had we been in the bush a couple days longer, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them organize a truck to pick up their wares. They (my loving, gracious crew mates) asked me what kind of tyre brand (Firestone or Goodyear) I would make my shoes from and if I needed a collapsible shovel to dig my latrines. They had jokes for days.

The following day we went to meet the Pokot. As they had been the most recent aggressors in the battle, we went accompanied by 2 armed police. I had joked that the Pokot ‘enemies’ would welcome us with the same love and grace and hospitality we enjoyed with the Samburu. I was right. The Pokot we met were; 1. Generous, beautiful, laughing. 2. Insulted that we had visited them with armed escorts. They argued that the media continuously depict them as the bad guys. If anything happens in that region, the Pokot are blamed. Even while the Samburu stage attacks and kill Pokots they hide behind the forgiving cloaks of reporters and leaders. After interviewing both sides, and watching the acres and acres of ranchland housing fat cows and drinking holes shielded behind secure fences, I felt I knew less about the truth then when we started. I think that if the Samburu and the Pokot were ever to unite and talk about the real issues they faced, no fence would keep their cozy neighbors safe.

I think, my fellow sojourner would have liked the ruggedness of the landscape, the crude humour and the delicate coloured beads that mark the territory Samburu and Pokot. I think, how much I would have liked to share it with him and have him go home and regale his sons about his adventures in the Laikipia district. I feel cheated by his leaving. I am a rogue without a rogue companion.

“One bracelet alone, does not jingle”.

Oct 7th
(Bamako, Mali)

This year…

I visited my country-in-law. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my country. Love its rhythm, it’s dance and I’m continuously, passionately frustrated by its myopic, selfish, power driven leaders. In a way only a person in love can be. And then came Mali.

Mali is Africa. It has retained the beauty and the compassion I have long associated with Africa. In Mali, people are driven by hospitality and kindness rather than money. In Mali, the divisions between class are less apparent, everyone dresses alike and eats in the same places. I was thrown.

When we arrived and the airplane doors opened, we walked into stiff heat. It felt like someone had sprayed starch in the air to keep the heat hard and unpenetratable. The airport was a small series of bungalows fitted against each other. Once we entered, we started to negotiate the exchange rate, through a man who knew a man who worked outside the airport as a black market forex dealer.

Every time I enter a new country, there are a couple things that I notice. Police, public transport, food. In Mali, most people in the city ride motorcycles. Men, women, everyone. I watched a baby, cloth strapped on his mother’s back and the mother pressed against the driver’s body as they carefreely wove through traffic. Muis, our translator, explained that the government was trying to institute driving licenses. Good idea. Great. In the middle of Bamako runs the Niger. Thick, large, powerful. Fishermen lethargically pull tilapia from the river and float to the riverbanks to sell fresh produce. And food was sold everywhere. On the sides of streets, corners, entrances. It reminded me of Mombasa. Karanja the cameraman was adamant that we carry lemon everywhere and squeeze liberally before eating anything. Thank God for his advice.

On one of our visits to the villages, I met a woman who asked me for my lesso in jest. I gave it to her without hesitation and when she tried to return it, I refused. It was a gift from a daughter to a mother, I said. Before we left, she sent a bagful of eggs via a local scientist. I was deeply humbled. I had made it. I was accepted.

This year…

As a result of Mali, I want to define myself as African. As a collection of the best the continent has rather than a small sub group within a nation within a border. This year, I am limitless. I am encompassing. I have the Niger flowing through me and the Indian ocean washing my feet. This year, I am bigger than my imaginings and grateful for this journey. May it continue. May it make my family strong and learned. May I learn more of myself through the exploration of the continent. Inshallah.

This Year...

2009-09-19T16:45:00.004+03:00

Sept 18
(Nairobi)

This year…

Levi blew up a show at the Goethe Institut! It was beautiful. He sang ‘Zingatia’, the song from the FROM A WHISPER soundtrack and ‘Negus Negust’. Wa!

This year…

Bagol blessed me with the kindest compliment. He said to me, ‘I am loyal. I can’t say I’m a fan-atic, but I am loyal’. What greater treasure. I am so humbled that the work is noticed and appreciated.

Last night, a friend proposed an amazing documentary that he would like me to be a part of. It is a film about much pain and suffering. Of loss and finding. Of politricks. Of hope. Over the last couple of year in Kenya, since the emergence of the dreaded Mungiki (a violent, vigilante/ mafia type group that is said to run transportation, illegal breweries and ‘security’ for small kiosks and businesses in Nairobi) an alarming number of young men an boys have gone missing. Some disappearances are due to police ‘investigations’, others not. The Kenya Human Rights Commission made a list available for families looking for their children to sign up. 600 families registered missing children. My stomach squeezed tight when I heard. He said this is not a film. It is a movement. Maybe my next film found me. Maybe.

Sept 16
(Nairobi)

This year…

Levi and I watched a documentary about Africans and African Americans in America. It was based on a series of video recorded conversations. In it, an African American commented on the heartbreak of coming back to the continent and not being embraced by the locals. The locals instead thought of them as ‘Mzungu’. Foreign. Different. Other. We watched the people in the conversation debate whether it is myopia or disregard on the part of Africans. Why didn’t the Africans welcome them? Here’s why…

The colonizers made all of us suffer. They taught us of our strangeness and disparity, while burdening us with back, knee, heart breaking weight. We thought of survival. We think of survival. What we are going to eat. When we are going to eat. In school we barely learn about our own history and are instead fed manipulated propaganda about our own recent past. The recent past that belongs to our grandparents. So if we are unclear about what happened 2 generations past, what do we know about our ancestors?

Levi response to the film is that African Americans should come to the continent to help build it. Levi says that African Americans are the brain and we are the bodies. We need each other. They have lived through adversity and overcome in a foreign land. Levi says it is time to be Pan African and until the disconnected are reconnected we can never be truly Pan African.

I think that in this day where Africans have become so divided by tribe and country, it is beautiful to see Africans (transplanted Africans and Africans from the Diaspora) who regard themselves as Africans first. An encompassing African that transcends tribe or race. An African before a sub culture. What I have seen is that African Americans have the ability to embrace the continent completely. In a way that Africans from the continent do not.

Sept 15
(Amsterdam airport)

This year…

I attended my 3rd film festival and there are a couple of pet peeves (suddenly arisen) that I would like to address.

1. What the *$#@ happened to documentary filmmaking? When did this emergence of wobbly cam film footage with no storyline, a vague premise and hours of talking heads suddenly become filmmaking? Where are the real storytellers that use documentary as a medium? What happened to cinema? Except for one film at the festival “Princessa de Afrik”, the documentaries I saw were barely character sketches and kernels of interesting ideas that could have been summed up in one sentence rather than 52 minutes. Have we become that irresponsible? Have we such blatant disregard for our audiences and our subjects? Will the real documentary filmmakers please stand up! Claim your space because a lot of people with a whim for filmmaking are getting up in the morning, holding frantic, shakycam cameras to faces, piecing unstructured footage with barely researched information together and sending it to film festivals under the guise of filmmaking. I am appalled as a filmmaker and even more so as a storyteller.

2. At the end of every screening, where filmmakers from Africa were present, there seemed to be a disquieting yearn from the European audience to hear about the malignance of Africa. Why didn’t the filmmaker comment about the poverty? Was the filmmaker safe from their oppressive governments? Did the filmmaker make their own camera from bits of rubbish? It seems the films are a success if the filmmaker has a ‘failure of Africa’ story attached to it. If the filmmaker themselves are survivors of war, genital mutilation, persecution or the film itself is about the said topics. So it seems curious that a film going audience with a love for Africa or even African cinema goes to watch films in hope that the films degrade, abuse or vilify Africa or Africans. Is Africa only accessible if the people are viewed as victims or persecutors? I have decided to script my next ‘African woe’ story to go with my film. In it my mutilated mother sold her left kidney to finance the film while I, weak with diarrhea from government sponsored cholera was ostracized by my country for creating an uncomfortable film and now I live in exile in Eastern Europe to avoid the backlash of my independence. How about any filmmaker from the shoe string budget kind to Hollywood types face adversity when making films. It happens. Please wake up. Africa does not have exclusivity on human suffering. Wake up. Any filmmaker in ANY country who deals with controversial, anti “government” topics will find it tricky to live. It might manifest in subtle ways like finding it impossible to finance their next film or in more physically aggressive ways. Any filmmaker. Anywhere. Please wake the hell up.

3. If I knew of African men through the films that circulate then I would say that every single one is abusive, deceptive, unfaithful, arrogant, male chauvinistic. Really? Then I must know the exceptions to that rule. Because the ones that invade my life and my films are loyal, beautiful, kind, loving, selfless, supportive, curious, strong and sometimes heartbreaking. I want to continuously champion these men to the world.

Last week we had a conversation between friends about women empowerment. How the West has run campaigns to empower women through education, rights, power to say ‘no’. In some cases, empowering women has led to an increase in domestic violence as the man doesn’t how to work with an ‘empowered’ woman. If this is the case, then shouldn’t we have joint gender empowerment allowing men who are so often regarded as bad, cruel, disloyal to feel strength in being sensitive, kind, loving? As far as I can tell, that doesn’t happen through a one sided representation of men in film.

Sept 11
(Amsterdam – Day 2)
This year…

I walked along an Amsterdam canal with Jon, the dancer originally from New York. We were in the same B & B and decided to share a mint tea. Jon left America about 2 years ago after he was heartbroken by Bush and evicted by ‘Friends’ (the TV Show). The pre-friends New York was punchy, artistic, challenging, ominous. It had an edge. In cinema we glimpsed at its niches through Spike Lee and Woody Allen’s eyes. And then along came ‘Friends’ that depicted a middle America, middle class, racially monochrome New York, who sat around coffee shops and apartments, barely working, with no artistic streak. ‘Friends’ he argues drove up the real estate prices in New York while simultaneously diluting its essence.

After tea, Jon, the traveling dancer explained that many a time he has met and tried to hang on to the people he has shared moments with. He doesn’t any more. The moment was meant to be just that. Complete. Fleeting. Transient. We said goodbye, did not exchange numbers, emails, Facebook names and went our way.

Later that night after the festival, an Egyptian filmmaker, a Dutch student, a South African actor and myself sat around and debated the definition of racism (sidebar: the actor and the filmmaker defined Racism as an act that stops or makes it difficult for someone to exercise their human rights. So calling someone a racial slur is not racist but rather mean, prejudiced, rude, ignorant. Being racist is refusing entry, violence, segregation because of race. Interesting.) – we also talked about gender politics and the heartbreak of ‘Skin’.

Sept 10
(Amsterdam – Day 1)

This year…

I woke up groggy after an 8-hour plane ride. I couldn’t sleep at all. So I watched the movies… I have no brain activity left. I am staying at a small bed and breakfast type in the centre of town. ‘The BackStage Hotel’ with 45 degree stairs (no elevator) and I am on the topmost floor. Of course.

First impressions of Amsterdam:

Quiet, pastel, paved, manicured beauty.

I walked the city in search of coffee. But it seems the latest rage in Amsterdam is fresh mint tea. Stuff mint leaves still attached to stem and plunge them into freshly boiled water. From where I sit, Amsterdam streets are covered in cobblestone. The footpaths, the bicycle lanes, the roads. I wasn’t sure where I was meant to pass and where the cars pass. When I wasn’t standing out in this calm town, playing dodge with the cars, I was the conspicuous one in a bright yellow dress, with a turquoise stomach patch while everyone else was in pastel, grey and black. In this pastel indoctrinated country, I felt like a primary colored rebel. I loved it.

The first film I watched at the film festival was ‘Skin’. The film is about a white couple who give birth to a coloured child in Apartheid South Africa. It’s called the ‘kickback gene’. The father fought to have his child classified as white despite her kinky hair and coffee and cream complexion. I sat next to the woman the film is based on after the film. I was uncomfortable rubbing shoulders with the character as she watched her other self make love, argue, be beaten, hurt. At the end of the film, the filmmaker ran a Q & A with the filmmaker and the person the film was based on, Sandra. Sandra is such a soft, humble person. When she started to speak, someone from the back of the room shouted “Could you speak up!”. It made my blood hot. Every question she was asked, the filmmaker would take it upon himself to simplify it for her, lest she doesn’t understand. And every time she answered, the filmmaker would correct and fill in the gaps he was sure she had missed in the story. The woman was his elder. Eish.

I want to believe that true filmmakers learn from their own films. Films become the teachers, mentors, lovers, mothers. When the filmmaker tries to impose himself on his film, it corrupts. When the filmmaker refuses to listen to the heart of his film, it breaks.

At the end of the Q & A, Sandra was asked what she would have liked to achieve through the film. In the film, after Sandra married a black man, her family disowned her. She never saw her brothers again. And her parents died without really knowing their grandchildren. Sandra answered that she would like her brothers to find her and forgive her for marrying a black man. When I told Levi the story, he was silent for a long time, his eyes clouded over and then he said, ‘That hurt’. It did. That hurt.

This year...

2009-08-15T10:29:00.006+03:00

August 9

This year… I am home at my parents’ house. I have missed it. The whole house. The creaky stairs, the mouldy walls, the knick knacks, the back yard with 30 trees (my brother counted). I have missed my people; the parents, my brother, 23 my cousin Matu, 17 (who has come to stay a while), Tata (who runs the house), Tata’s helper. It’s a full house. And even fuller because this weekend, my grandparents (my father’s parents) are staying. The ones my brother and I are named after. My Cucu (grandmother) is about to turn 84 and my Guka (grandfather) is 86 (ish). In Kikuyu because we are named after them, we are in the same Riika (age group) as them. So, I am 84. And beautiful. And radiant. They came into Nairobi from Nyeri for a health check up. Rather they came to tell the doctor to reduce their medication. Besides, like Cucu says, their diet has changed she uses goat's milk in the house now. And they grow amaranth for flour. The doctor approved.

I sat with them. I asked them questions about growing up. This is the generation I am writing about. They are my film, my story. These grandparents from this place. They both grew up in Nyeri and were the same riika (age group) as a majority of Mau Mau. Guka (my grandfather) was a teacher from the age of 16. Cucu went to the same school as Kimathi. I'm still tripping off... my Cucu went to school. How progressive are the great-grands to let their daughters go to school. This was a time of equality. A time when boundaries were stretching. A time of ambition. The brink of war. When they were in their 20s, my granparents were forced off their land and relocated to one of the reserve. They left the family land that Guka had grown up on and married Cucu into. The reserves held mostly single mother families, the old and the young. Most men of age either worked on plantations, for settler, were in detention, in the army or Mau Mau cadres. Through a series of taxes and laws, the colonial government had made it impossible for people to farm their own land, keep cattle or goats or chicken and refused them to trade. In these reserves, at the height of the war, the women were terrorized by the home guards employed by the colonial government. They would come into the reserves and beat the women. They beat my grandmother. They beat Cucu. They used divide and conquer tactics by employing people from other tribes and setting them against each other. They instituted curfews. Women after a day of forced labour were only allowed to out one hour in a day. To get firewood, fetch water, visit the shamba were food was grown. One hour. If you came back late, you were put in detention for 3 months. Cucu laughed as she remembers. A friend of hers was sent to detention for being late. These are their memories. Eish...

I sat with Cucu all afternoon.The sun was warm. There has been no rain for a while. Tata's aloe vera's are suffering. We sat in front of the house. Her on one of the brown faux-bamboo kitchen chairs. Me on the floor. Just the 2 of us. She likes my hair. She says people shouldn't spend time or money on hair. She thinks I look like her daughter, my Aunt Mumbi. I do. Same complexion. Same build. (Sidetrack: This weekend was family photo weekend. I saw old pictures of my Aunts. Oh my gosh. My family is stunning). My namesake and I talked about marriage. Well, she talked, I listened. She said that nothing in life goes in one way. There is no life or marriage that is just good. There is no marriage that is just bad. It's a mix. Both are thrown in, equally. And only through sticking through the hard days will you find the good. She taught me how to make Amaranth porridge. The sour kind. I can't wait to have my kitchen back. I think I want to go write in Nyeri in their house for a while. As soon as I settle into Mombasa. I want to spend time with them. I haven't in a while.

So the house has dogs again. Little fluffy white dogs given to us by one of Mummy’s aunts. We have always had dogs in this house. The first were jack russels named Blackie, Brownie and a beautiful cross of everything fluffy called Lancy. Lancy was more ‘my’ dog. She would sit below the tree while I read from up among the branches. She was easy to be around. All dogs have been named by Tata, who (back in the days of milk and honey) would feed them freshly made food every morning and talk to them in Kikuyu. She still talks to them in Kikuyu. Blackie learnt how to open and close the kitchen door. Mummy is convinced to this day that Blackie committed suicide after her second miscarriage. True story. Anyway, this year we have 3 white fluffy dogs (who I previously called mud, muddier and the other one) only to find out that Tata has named them Tom, Wasi wasi (problems) and Suzy. I swear there had previously been another Suzie - one of Lancy's descendants. These new ones are the yappie types. They would have failed in South Africa (who recently passed legislation that dogs can only bark 6 minutes an hour).

This year I am learning gentleness and humility and servitude from my cousin Matu. He is so gracious.

This year, my cousin Matu told a story about a yeeeaaaaarrrs back on a day in my grandfather’s (my mother's side) house when they were caught swimming in the fountain. “They” were my younger cousins, 6 boys and 2 girls (ages 3 – 10) were caught by my aunt. My eldest cousin, 15 was told by his mother to beat the younger cousins for playing in the fountain. So he locks all of them in the room and tells the younger cousins to cry. My elder cousin didn't want to beat them so he told them to cry real tears or he won ‘t let them out of the room. The children cry wet, saliva slimed tears before the elder cousin lets them out. However, my cousin 15 is not as lenient the following day when they went to play in the fountain again. He beat them this time. The second time they were just taking the piss. Being disrespectful.

This year, cousin, 15 is now cousin 26 and was recently in detention in the States for being ‘out of status’. Shame. He called. He's anxious about coming back. Man. Foreign is a trip. It tricks you into being so comfortable, when time comes to go home you get anxious. I remember how I felt. I had to ante up to come home. Spiritually. Emotionally. Especially when you know what you want to do when you get back. You have to be ready to swing because fighting for your passion is hard. Following your heart is tricky. My cousin is donning his armor.

This year I realized that Spirituality is not a hobby. It is not something I should pick up when I feel bored or upset. It is a constant, devoted, discipline. It requires attention. It requires self-control. It is needs patience and perseverance. It is not easy. This year I realize that my family sees me. And I am not the change I want to see, so I'm uncomfortable with the person they know. I gave myself change for a birthday present at the right time. Now is the time to be the one I want to be. Eish. If only I could teleport (star trek - wise) that little spacial difference between realization and actuality.

In Satsung, Master said “Your location matters. Change your location and your angle of vision will change”.

This year...

2009-08-01T12:32:00.005+03:00

August 1

This year… I hurt.

My throat is tight. If I speak, I will break.

“I prepare myself for a war. And I don’t know what I’m doing this for”.
Damien Rice.

This year I am running out of fight. I am becoming apathetic about being misunderstood by the people I love. I am seeking solace in the corner of my own understanding and listening to the sound of the Master. I am choosing silence. How can I explain heartbreak to the person who goes through it alongside me? Why do I feel like I must explain my own hurt? Does it matter if it is never understood? Does it make the hurt anymore or any less? Does it change the pattern after pattern after pattern of misconstrued words and feelings? Does it provide a path out of this maze of emotion and manipulation? And in all this what does letting go really mean? I feel no reprieve.

This year...

2009-08-01T12:29:00.002+03:00

July 16
(Cape Town)

Behold the Master.

Kahen is 5 months!

This year. Kahen turned 5 months. He is 5 months. He giggles and sits and recognizes people. How beautiful is that! Ariama is 6 months. The children are growing. Our greatest, greatests are growing!

This year, tomorrow, I will meet my oldest friend and my first boyfriend. I was there when Kabura lost her first tooth. Actually, I threw away it away. The parents put it in my hand and I chucked it. It was yucky. She’s still not over it. And I guess that’s not a debt easily repaid.

Kabura, Bora and me all grew up together. My mother, her father and both his parents were in med school together. Nairobi University in the 70s. We have known each other since before we were bellies. Bora and I dated for 4 and some years (ages 18 – 21 and then 6 months when I was 22). I try not to think that he is the longest relationship I have had to date. And that was over 7 years ago. We were a long distance (ocean-wise) couple. A constant trail of goodbyes. Maybe that’s one reason I hate airports. Dr. Kabura (paediatrician-in-waiting) and Dr. Bora (cardiologist-in-waiting) are spending some time in Cape Town. Kabura will bunk on my bed and I’ll sleep on a borrowed air mattress from Amira. My room is juuuust big enough. When I spend time with them, I remember the remnants of the last me and more about the one that won’t change.

This year… I have just finished a cut of Pumzi. I think. It was cut in an uncomfortably short time. We are managing (ish) but still… We’re in the finessing stage (of picture edit – lock cut in 2 days). My editor and I are not the type that were meant to work together. We would never have crossed paths if it wasn’t for this film. Different blood types. Different take on life. Different rhythm. My God has a plan. I keep him in mind. And mostly I breathe. Deep. I said recently that I want to be a person who puts the Most high at the centre of every conversation, thought and deed. OK. Here we are.

This year, in a Satsung, Eugene read a passage where Master says, (I paraphrase); “A thief knows he is a thief but he wants the people around him to say; ‘What a good person you are. How hard you try. What a misunderstood soul you are’. All the time, the thief knows inside of himself that he is a thief.” That stung.

This year, a most graceful man impressed me. We tried to work together but this wasn’t to be our project. He bowed out with such candour and love, that I was humbled and impressed. Thank you for the gentle lesson.

July 7
(Cape Town)

This year I am watching Michael Jackson’s Memorial Service on a small, fuzzy TV in a shared apartment on Drury Street. I listen to my favourite poet‘s words for him. She wrote; “We had him, and we are the world”. Right now, Lionel Ritchie is on, singing a hymn. The acoustics are bad. How awful for Micheal.

I don’t know what it is about his death that disturbs me. I know that his death brought people together. Literally. To listen to hymns. To pay tribute to creativity. To share a moment.

Now Micheal is singing. It’s strange to hear a man sing at his own memorial.

When I was 10, the parents gave me Michael Jackson’s “I’m Bad” for a gift for my first Holy Communion. And Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”. True story. They figured that’s what all the kids were listening to. The irony was lost on them then… looking back, I think the joke was probably on me.

When I was about 10, I remember meeting a Jackson (Jermaine). My Aunt was his travel agent and snuck us in to meet him while he was at Carnivore. When I was 15, we (the massive) danced to Thriller during the end of the year talent show. We were dressed in black suits with white skeletons painted on them. When I was 21, I remember listening to heated ‘Prince’ vs ‘Michael’ arguments at IHOP in LA. I can mark moments of my life through his work. And I live across continents. Talk about Butterfly effect.

Stevie Wonder is singing ‘I never dreamed you’d leave in Summer’.

Jennifer Hudson made the memorial singers cut? Man, she has a good agent. Or maybe it’s coz she’s pregnant. Al Sharpton just said to Michael’s children ‘Ain’t nothing strange about your daddy, what’s strange is what he had to deal with’. Best line ever today. He should be a scriptwriter or a speech writer for a guerrilla fighter. I guess he’s a Rev. That’s political enough. And the LA massive rallied up Brooke Shields to represent. She laments about her pain and her loss. Eish. Funerals are a trip. Everyone wants to be seen as the one who loved the most. The ones who hurt the most are silent.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to mourn your brother while the rest of the world sit in a stadium and demand to be entertained by his funeral. The next day, the news caster said that the TV channels had anticipated it to be the most watched show this year but it didn’t live up to it. Only 30-odd million people were estimated to have watched it. (In America).

June 29
(Cape Town)

This year I have looked at myself. I have no hair to hide behind anymore and I am beginning to see myself. My face. It’s angles. The honesty. I think people look at me these days as if I am naked. They glance at me then look away embarrassed. It’s as if they’re not sure what to think. Is this look too bold? Am I declaring something that everyone else can see but me?

This new look also makes me notice my body. I noticed I hold my breathe in when I look at myself, as if trying to present the best possible me to myself. As if I would love myself less if I saw the flaws. 29 years ago my mother gave birth to a girl. Now this body takes her place. That’s strange to me.

This year I am listening to Prince “Old friends for sale”.

This year I am living with a pattern maker in a 2-bedroom house on Drury Lane, right behind the Fruit and Veg city on Roeland Street, Cape Town. 15 min walk from the IMP Production house. When I walked up the hill this morning, Ben Harper’s “Still I Rise” was my anthem. I like days with anthems. They set a pace. The song made me think of my cloak. The one I haven’t made. It will be a beautiful lesso cloak. From the brown khanga material I brought with me from home. It will have a hood. Like a superhero. And I will be a bald, floral superhero with a cape. This year.

June 28
(Cape Town)

I have decided to keep a travel journal. And break it up into “this year”s…

So. It’s June, a week past my birthday and so far, this year I made “Pumzi”. A small epic about Maitu (Mother and Our Truth). This year I shaved my head. After holding in it 8 years of stuff, and memories and touches. This year I gave myself change for a birthday present. This year (so far) I think my new head looks like it belongs to a body that owns wings.

This year I will create a new company. I will name it… ? I will leave dada behind. It was a beautiful seed. This year, my home is Mombasa. I am in Cape Town now but I have lived by the sea wherever I am so far. This year my moon hasn’t been full for 4 months. It’s the longest time it has gone missing. I feel my worry pressing on me on my right ovary. This year I will be healthy. This year I will have money. This year I will feel I deserve it.

This year… today is J’s day. Happy Earth strong.

Heart Shatter

2009-06-05T16:09:00.005+03:00

Hearts don't break. They shatter. Break implies that we can pick up the pieces and glue them back together with Super Duper glue.

Pieces of my heart have shattered. They cannot be reconstituted. They cannot be sown back. And it's not so much the shattering that hurts but rather missing the pieces that I lost. I want the wholeness of before. I'm learned enough to know that new parts will grow... but it's the old pieces I miss. I want them back. Even if it is just to put in my pocket. And take out once in a while and stroke...

Every heartache I have had was assigned a song. A single track soundtrack. My first major heartbreak... was assigned 'King of Sorrows'... man did it ever say everything. This one... I don't know. Maybe it's the age. This turning older thing. Every break means starting afresh... and sometimes I feel too tired to start over. To pick up and brush off. Which song says that?

After I finished my first feature film I wrote a poem called 'Kill your dream before it wakes'. Being a filmmaker has been the hardest thing I have done. The biggest heartbreak. I have lost friends. I have lost love. I have hurt. I have cried endless tears. I have grown a callous. I have learnt to be stronger... but right now I would shoot the person who said 'That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger'. Maybe I don't want to be strong. And after it all, I still wake up, calculate rent and food for the month, bite my tongue as I eat rice and beans and rice and beans and rice and beans a whole month and think... if I didn't have this then what would I be? Who would I be?

This life... this love... this dream...

Lorraine Hansberry Quote

2009-05-28T02:34:00.004+03:00

"There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him; what he's been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most; when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning -- because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so. When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is."

[from Raisin in the Sun]

Athuri: Men (Kikuyu)

2009-04-22T16:00:00.002+03:00

Kikuyu is interesting to me. Take the word Athuri – men; or muthuri - man. Literally translated means the one(s) who choose. What do they choose?

I am learning more and more about Men everyday. And who they are in regards to me. I am learning mostly from my family. My father. My uncles. Like today in a family group email, it was mentioned that problems should be resolved within the family first before allowing the clan to be involved. My uncle said. ‘We [the clan] follow the lead of the family’. How can the clan contribute to something they do not have first hand knowledge of?

I come from a large family. My father’s side of the family (Big up the WAJEE MASSIVE) started an email group a couple of years ago. The group keeps the family informed on family news. The group congratulates. Up-dates. Raises concern. Gives advice. Creates and disseminates knowledge on small business propositions in the countryside (like creating bio-fuel from goat dung) and Job opportunities in the city. Raises school fees. The email group is a modern village. A real virtual village.

Yesterday I was asked what I thought the future would be like for Africans (about to go into pre-prod on a futuristic short film). I said in many ways technology will homogenize a whole bunch of social norms globally but I hoped that the innate African-ness, the village-ness of us would not disappear. I like my virtual council of elders. I wonder if soon enough we will have to pay virtual penalties of virtual cattle to the virtual village council. Hmmm… There’s an idea.

An integral member of the Wajee family passed recently. I watched my uncles, my father and my cousins step up. They were the shoulders and the backbone. They comfort and the strength. They took care of all arrangements, made the phone calls, took care of my aunt, talked to my cousins about their loss. They fulfilled the traditional role of ‘man’. And I needed that. I needed them to meet my expectations of my definition at that time. And looking around the family at the church service, I realized that I was not the only one looking for it.

A week later after my friend Ocim’s father passed, Ocim talked of what he learnt about being a man from watching the funeral. As the first son he had to sit in at meetings with elders, clan people, extended family. Many of whom he did not know but who all knew his father and all expected him to be laid to rest in a certain way. In this culture, the clan and village had a say in the last rites of the departed. He watched his father’s friends represent him. He watched them talk respectfully about the person who raised him. He watched the village in which his father was known offer gifts, food and prayer during the week leading up to the funeral. Each wanting to promise enough to quantify what his father meant to them. Sheep, chicken, goats, cows were sent to the family. Ocim said it wasn’t until this point that he realized that being a man is being part of a community. A community that is greater than your friends and immediate family. A community made of neighbours and villagers. It was strange to me that Ocim needed to redefine mahood for himself. To me he is a man. A mark I rarely put on the male of my rika (generation). He is responsible. He is a father. He loves better. I’ve known him a long time. And in my rika (age group) men that do take up their posts as fathers are men to me. Ocim is a man. Plain and simple. The rest need to be circumcised.