“her mother was burned alive as she watched” cannot casually be passed by. How do eyes imagine the sight of a loved one in flames? and the smell and the smell and the smell and 12. It smells exactly like what it is – Sherman Alexie, Fire as a Verb and Noun I find the Wagalla massacre outside…
Tag: kenya
Postcards on Dictatorship
The problem, I have come to realise, is that some bodies just refuse to be passive. You ascribe certain narratives. These narratives are meant to fully inform all decision. It is all the information they need. The problem continues to be that some bodies ask “but what about that other stuff?” Refuse: verb Indicate or show that one is not…
Finding Kenya
An audio clip I had once on my phone has Redykulass talking about police brutality. It begins with a police man asking rapid fire questions “kijana unaenda wapi? Unatoka wapi? Jina lako ni nani? Babako anaitwa nani? Apana jibu nani?” At this point there is the sound of violence before the harassment continues. The police talk about how they can charge the…
Unbecoming in Staccato
Somewhere in the darkness he dropped his pen and no one has seen him since. I’ve wanted to return to the beginning. But that just leads to the questions “where did it start?” and rarely ever follows through to “How can we stop it?” Gukira writes about living in the embers of Banning Kenya: “Any intact system, no matter…
Count the Bodies
Wycliffe Nyamweya was murdered. A few weeks later Kwekwe Mwandaza was murdered in her home. She was shot in her bed after armed men stormed their house with guns. Both murders were carried out by the police. “five suspected gangsters were gunned down they are suspected no more” – Something Quite Unlike Myself I’m tired of writing about death. More…
Give this Essay a Fighting Chance
Here, where the smell of charred flesh dances in the wind and lingers before ascending into forgotten dreams. Here where fists of men meet fists of men and women and children are marked as battlefields. Here where ideologies are nothing but reasons to die. No, excuses to kill. Here where gutters have seen so much deoxygenated blood…
Are you Safe Now?
Silence is a form of poisonous knowledge. A paper I’m reading quotes Veena Das on this. It comes at a time when I’m thinking about the current state of the Somali people in Kenya. I’m thinking about the stories we’ve heard and seen. And, more particularly, I’m thinking, and frustrated over the large scale silence the dehumanisation has received. Even…
Finding Meaning
…to be disposable means we can never be casual about our ongoing vulnerability – Keguro Macharia This word disposable has refused to leave me. In a washroom at a mall a man blows his nose with a paper towel and throws it in the bin. My mind tells me that disposability is exactly like that. Bodies that can be used…
And Still It Continues…
Date: October 16, 2013: I decide to walk down to meet a friend and, maybe, do a write up about her dev school. It has been done before – it’s a famous school. I decide to do it again anyway. On my way there, a man jumps off the back of a bodaboda, pistol in hand. He robs the people walking down the side…