Quest

When the world has stopped
I lean
On the thick trunk
Of my think tree
And wonder

Where is harmony?
My roving eye searches the horizon
Of the rose-tinged dusky sky
Of its elusive rays, penetrating canopy

Vision,
Are you buried with the far-reaching roots
That trace back to medicine lineages
Forever lost to contemporary generations?

And you, peace
Why do you play hide-and-seek?
Whistling through the bamboo
Like the cool evening breeze
That deceptively caresses the face
Oh so close… but gone, in the blink of an eye

Reveal yourselves
For it is in earnest
That I seek

Ethos or just what do you stand for?

I have been asking myself, in these days where the general global rhetoric is one of exclusion, intolerance and hatred, what is really lacking in people? Closer home in Kenya, i see the high cost of injustice, primarily perpetuated by a government that has repeatedly shown it cares little for the citizenry. 

Modern-day Kenya is built on a fragile national identity, around an elusive concept of unity, rather kin loyalties, conveniently manipulated by the political class. More lethal is the attitude of most Kenyan politicians; that they are not in office to serve but to be served. They enjoy all the trappings of power and wealth, funded by an overburdened taxpayer, yet they are not sated. They demand for billions more they have not even worked for. This sense of entitlement is compounded by a majority of the population that defends them in a warped logic of religious misinterpretation and only what i can call distorted cognition - continuous exposure to injustice over a long duration - to the extent that it becomes a pervasive national expression. A tragic acceptance of state terror, almost proudly excused, often vocalised in phrases like "At least he left us bones to lick…Elections have to be stolen…He has to appeal to the young electorate". All these lame arguments in tyrannical contexts of impunity, extra-judicial killings, contempt for the rule of law, corruption, failed systems, health care crisis, drought and a host of other internal and external threats. But somehow the enemy is the other Kenyan, not of 'our' tribe.

The only enemy we face is disenfranchisement. There is no justification for the poverty, uncontrolled disease, violence, insecurity and gross mismanagement of national resources, by a largely selfish political class, that ordinary Kenyans endure every day. 

Why can't this enemy be seen? Zero ethos. 

Few Kenyans have a set of values or benchmark by which they measure and assess the government. It gets worse with ivory tower existence where there is no empathy for those in less privileged situations and no collective determination to stand with the voiceless against injustice. Going by the vitriol spewed on the e-streets of social media and offline spaces, there is less constructive debate substantiated by facts and more ethnic bashing. In the end, the sycophants are the losers too. The plunderers go scot-free, laughing loudest in their frivolous tax-free lives, as Kenyans fail again to hold them accountable. 

It is glaringly clear that there is a lack of impartial understanding of what governance and leadership entails. There is a very narrow vision of the fundamental values that bring citizens together to examine a government's performance, beyond the election event which is just the tip of the iceberg. Citizen consciousness has to be a consistent expression that stems from a purposeful and lived conviction which is not swayed by the politics of the day. It is being able to identify, with no confusion, if a government has a clear development agenda and is implementing it in a well-planned manner with prudent fiscal management and a prioritisation of equal national projects, not selectively in ethnic strongholds.

Because most do not stand for the common good, they participate in the persecution of the poor, the sick, the refuge seeker, the unemployed, the minorities… They treat injustice with apathy because it is not their reality. We need not wait to experience indignity in order to say "this is unjust and unacceptable". Some rights are not negotiable. Even if one cannot claim them, they are due simply by being a human being. However, as is painfully obvious in today's world, people are less humane. Inhumanity thrives when people fail to stand up for humanity. Unless we stand for something, we will fall for anything.

Uke

There are books i like to reread. I never had the patience to do so in the past but now i do, i need to. I have realised that the magic potion of timeless female wisdom is life fuel.

I reread Wangari Maathai's memoir Unbowed: One Woman's Story and i pause to reflect on her words, as she agitated for equal pay:

"…sometimes you have to hold on to what you believe in because not everybody wishes you well or will give you what you deserve - not even your fellow women. Indeed, I found myself wanting to be more than the equal of some of the men i knew. I had higher aspirations and did not want to be compared with men of lesser ability and capacity. I wanted to be me". p. 117

When a friend recently asked me: Who is the Wangari Maathai of our generation? I hmm'd and ee'd and came up blank. It is not to say that there are no passionate women environmentalists out there. Rather, it is the scale of Wangari Maathai's commitment that defines her powerful legacy. She did the legwork. She made huge sacrifices. She did not stand around hoping that someone else would be brave enough to rally to the call. She stepped up and did her little thing with a big heart!

She was relentless in her vision of environmental protection and upholding justice to the point of harassment and humiliation by the State and ridicule from fellow citizen. She never gave up. She stayed true to what she believed was right. Her spirit was formidable even as many schemed to saw her down. She stood firm, like the trees she valiantly defended.

She breathed and lived her philosophy. Even her house, that we went by during our primary school days, was all green! Everyone knew her home was the one covered in foliage. Then we saw her speaking boldly against the oppressive regime, protesting with mothers of detained sons, even as brutal police beat her and pulled out her braids, being jailed…and everyone said she was crazy.

In classic female persecution, attacks against her had little respect for her person or cause. Her private life was dissected in public in the misguided belief that it would break her. They forgot she was the buried seed that would sprout, and continue to do so in many generations after her. She bore the marks of a great visionary: leading in service and inspiration.

"I knew that the government was using me as a mirror in which other women would look at themselves. They were being asked to decide if that image was who they would like to be. Because i couldn't go into the women's hearts and tell them, "It's alright. I haven't done anything wrong. It's them, not me". It was okay for me to be called crazy and told i had insects in my head: That is the way people using their own mirror saw me. But i offered women a different mirror - my own. What is important, indeed necessary, is to hold up your own mirror to see yourself as you really are". p. 197

Wangari Maathai was a patriot whose life every Kenyan should be proud to refer to. She remains a remarkable example for girls and women on breaking away from the societal lie of female subjugation: that a "good woman" is one who does not rock the patriarchal boat and is not "bad-mannered" enough to dare speak up against injustice!

History never remembers good women. Nanjala Nyabola aptly reminds us of this in her article: Wangari Maathai was not a good woman. Kenya needs more of them.

A journey to your centre

As you go through life, consciously and subconsciously, somewhere along the way there is need to unburden, retreat into yourself, in order to return again, anew, to the world. It is a process that calls for great openness and honesty with your inner self in order to truly listen to what you need to leave behind in your journey ahead.

I like the Labyrinth for its representation of life: at times straightforward, at times circular, at times a maze but always with a way out…all is needed is sincerity and courage to step into oneself. The Labyrinth is a symbol of the two journeys we make in the pilgrimage of life, while responding to a Higher Call. “…the inner and the outer journeys, which are in fact one journey. It creates a sacred space and place that takes us out of our ego to “that which is within”. The way in is the way out”.

In every moment of great adversity or triumph, it is not an exaggeration that there is power within you to meet each in the right spirit. As you move inward, return to the beginning of your faith – uncluttered. Travel light; discard the few or many hats you wear, the demands and most importantly the noise. Leave behind the naysaying voice of guilt, resentment, 

self-hatred, failures, depression, shame and forgive yourself. Simply be and reckon with your true self, hidden in God.

Purge and focus on centering yourself in the stillness, recognising the emptiness that can only be filled by love. Receive wholly and gladly the gifts that come your way. See the possibility of the new and the light for your path so that as you move outwards back to your world, there is less anxiety and more peace in a simpler and more focused life.

That letter to your heart actually has as its reference Re: treat. Go on, make it your regular practice; slow down, find some soulful time, silence and satisfaction.

Hurts like brand new shoes...

The irony of new shoes. They hurt. They are not as comfortable as your worn ones that 

non-judgmentally welcome your corned toes. Your poor feet practically sigh in joy when slipped into this pair that your cobbler frowns when you return yet again…for another small fix. He knows your shoes. He remembers the sole he replaced. He knows when you prefer gum over sewing because your heart would not take the defacing of your precious shoes! He is resigned to the fact that you will always want same day service, nay, instant service because surely what does he expect you to wear?!

Shoes are a literal reflection of where we walk and of our life. For those with a few more choices, they are a reflection of our style, even mood. Some even go further to sacrifice sensibility for shoes, we can discuss wedding line-ups another day!

They mark important moments. For some generations, a start in formal education was the astonishing moment of having shoes for the first time at the relatively young age of 10, 12 thereabouts. Then there are the DIY middle-borns whose lives are distinctly marked by handed-down shoes. The fresh officer proudly receiving their boots to serve, earnestly struggles to do so…until the cancer of brute power and corruption spreads in their system and those same boots physically harm innocent civilians. The hopeful graduate endlessly polishing, the one pair they own, the night before the interview, leaving them in sight as they barely sleep in nervous excitement at the wondrous opportunity of employment. Trudging jaded years later in the same pair, which has no choice but to ‘tarmac’, yet have to stoically represent their desperate owner and be judged harshly for the inevitable wear and layer of dust. The special collection, which only the mega-money-maker church can assemble in the usher, prayer warrior and Praise-n-Worship leader shoes, if we may call them shoes. Shoes that any respectable cobbler would firmly refuse to fix again. And no saying can be more apt than ‘if you were in their shoes’…

The news emission on a struggling economy that without fail shows a sweeping view of citizens walking rapidly in all manner of shoes in varying stages of tear with the camera rising to capture the resolute expressions of faithful patriots as they endure yet another benevolent government. The feet of a straggling line of refugees…the mental image of a semblance of shoes, of former plastic creations barely held together by odd pieces of string unsure of reaching the next border safely and intact on the same body. The shiny, fashionable, imported pairs walking to the press conference, delicately delivering the compassionate leaders, who are doing their very best (!) to improve the situation of the exploited, unwashed, dying, shoeless masses.

There is a woman in Somalia

There is a woman in Rwanda

There is a woman in Sudan

There is a woman in the Congo

And she hurts like (and she hurts like, and she hurts like...)

Brand new shoes.

~ Pearls ~ India Arie feat. Dobet Gnahore [Originally by Sade]

We have a massive problem

We have a deep-seated problem. If men calling themselves uncles can rape their 3-year old niece to 'punish' her mother and Uhuru Kenyatta, who calls himself president of this thing called Kenya, blames the mother...we have a massive problem. If you think that gender-based violence against women is a non-issue, you are the problem. If you do not respect a woman's yes, no, her space, her body, her rights, you are the problem. If you abuse your wife (including marital rape), your girlfriend, your female relatives, your female colleagues or any girl and woman you don't even know, you are the problem. If you support stripping of a woman, recording of her humiliation and her rape in public because you think her dress is your choice, then you are the problem. If you cheer on cowardly hiding behind social media, sharing these videos in demented perversion, then you are the problem. You are the rot that is Kenya today. Let's take this outside...i need men to tell me what they are doing to be honourable towards women, to be the positive influence in their male circles, to respect girls and women and to groom boys to do the same. Tell me.

I will lift her up

"A friend is the one you connect with, the one you trust, and the one whom you share your confidences with, knowing it's safe. You talk to her regularly about everything and nothing in particular. You even call her just to complain. A good friend acknowledges that you need her to vent to. If you are going through a difficult time and you don't call her and tell her about it, later she says, "Why didn't you call me?". It's not about solving the problem, or getting advice or answers. It is about sharing and being there, being present for your friend."  

Celebrating Friendship Among Women: The Power of True Women Connections

Margery Kabuya

My mother called me last evening. I could tell she was tired, she could tell i was spaced out. I really was not focusing on what she was saying but on her voice. Each word and intonation conjured a mental image in my mind; of the crinkle in her brow at the start of the conversation, of the clearing of the crease lines as we spoke about the upcoming family event, of the animation on her face as her errand list for me grew (and remember to do this...get that!) and finally, of the full-bodied laughter as we got to her favourite subject: her precious grandsons. By the time i hang up, my depression over the continued violation of girls and women's rights had lifted slightly, not entirely. I found myself thinking: Mama, will the nightmares go away? When will society respect us?

I thought of my sisters, female relatives and girlfriends whom i laugh with, argue with, cry with, journey with. The women who love me, cheer me on and understand me. This special sorority that knows what it is to bleed yet forge on in the face of adversity.

I smile when they smile, i rejoice when they rejoice, i am broken when they are broken. It is this deep connection that makes me understand the damage any violation causes to any girl or woman. It hurts me to see any girl or woman suffer abuse of any kind and humiliation that crushes her spirit and puts off the light in her life. It is what propels me to stand up for her in a society that is increasingly failing to protect us! It is what gives me courage not to be shaken even if there are those who think we are weak! It is what gives me clarity of mind to know that the greatest goal lies ahead, and no one shall detract me from it! That goal is a safe society for all girls and women. I refuse to be part of the rot that fuels our indignity. I tell it to any man or woman who is quick to violate us. I will say this again and i will not tire of saying it: when my Sister is down, i will lift her up. #16Days 

The human battle

Inspiration to re-think one's existence and one's purpose can come from different sources. I'm a big believer in finding joy in small things but i also occasionally seek something bigger, something greater. Sitting in listening to Wole Soyinka give his tribute to Wangari Maathai and delivering his challenge to us, i returned to that well where my spirit was invigorated.

In a world where we seem to be caught up in more suffering than celebration of life, in spaces where we no longer feel so safe, in wondering about what we can do to make it right...the words of Wole Soyinka couldn't be a more powerful reminder: "Perhaps it is high time we declare ourselves fundamentalists of human liberty!"

Get Wole Soyinka's full lecture "Parables from Wangari Maathai’s Trees" here.

Photo Credit: Anyu

Light

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. 
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 

Martin Luther King Jr. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

Photo Credit: pushbacknow.net