Writing my Gikuyu Nation

I was socialised Gikuyu.

Growing up in the Kiambu of the eighties, all I ever wanted to be was a blinged out Gikuyu.

I wanted the Datsun twero, the ‘Godfather’ hat, the cowboy boots.

And when I heard that there was a Gikuyu, with a big bar in America called Kilimanjaro, I didn’t pause to marvel, just upgraded my dream. Me, two Friesians and a goat. Behind a picket fence in Dallas.

POLITICAL WRITING IN MY KENYA

I do not write. I protest.

Chips Isiyo Funga

For Bruno Schultz my private Pole: a lesson in translation; anticipating progress in your work.

***

Well it is bye to strangers who might come back our way as admirers in the made up ‘bravura’ of our revolution. Those are what ifs… The demons we didn’t kill- destined to come back and haunt Nairobi. Unless we turn them into Goddesses on the eve of the writing of Nairobi Histories.


Goddess, meet Nairobi Nyap Technician. Comrade NyapTech, Insatiable Goddess. Go forth, Nairobi, and fornicate.

Trust me, you are free to sow vulcanised oats.

“Sixteen rounds,” Nyaptech Nairumours sms’d, “and the Malaya kips wantnG so… Nayo!!!”

Hapa ni Nairobi.

Writing My Nairobi

I learnt to tell stories in a world where there was no theory. I knew no Feminism; I was just a boy telling the stories of the life and the living in the idiom of my world. I knew no historical materialism; class struggles, just that there were things we didn’t have- things we wanted- and that Moi and Kenyatta had stolen them.

***

There is a Nairobi where Dinda, my mtaa Pharmacist, refers to women (and cars, phones, stereos) as Malaya.

Malaya, (n.); (Pl.) Malayas

Translation:

ENG: virgin (kamalaya). Girl. Woman. The way a man or a woman who has sex with men, women and mzungu pets for a living describes him/herself. A kept man. A man who has been tested and proven a sex machine.

NGO SPEAK: GirlChild™

KIS: bikira. Mwana dada. Jogoo (Nyap-Teknisheni)

***

Uptown Reggae- Downtown Feminism

I am surrounded by breasts.

I like this part of Rezorous-

The kitchen grill- to your right.

It is like kuku porno with feathers on-

Three star chips funga.

And the reggae?

“Every, every night…” The Gladiators shout from my memories of Papa Charlie, outta Club Brilliant; JahKey Marley at Hollywood; Pupa Davis at Monte Carlo. “…someone’s always talking about music… reggae music…” But ‘something a gwan’ with this Uptown Reggae inside Rezorous every Thursday night.

Boombaclaat Sounds. F.M. Reggae.

The music is crowd sourced.

“Bend Over! Bend Over!” The speakers blare.

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Colonial Penetration Lowers the Risk of Clitoral Mutilation

A couple of Martinis later and its time for sundowners. A Date With The African Sunset. Ms. Femme now knows the clitoris to adult ratio in Sub-Saharan Africa. How African women are living with less and less clitoris? Factoring in for: Christianity or animist; Maasai or Zulu. The savage depths of clitorial mutilation vary from one community to the next. Colonial Penetration Lowers the Risk of Clitorial Mutilation.

Colonial Penetration Lowers the Risk of Clitorial Mutilation

A couple of Martinis later and its time for sundowners. A Date With The African Sunset. Ms. Femme now knows the clitoris to adult ratio in Sub-Saharan Africa. How African women are living with less and less clitoris? Factoring in for: Christianity or animist; Maasai or Zulu. The savage depths of clitorial mutilation vary from one community to the next. Colonial Penetration Lowers the Risk of Clitorial Mutilation.

Kenyan Tales from a Digital Age?

The avatar kicks at us, trips on his customised @Mash Auto car key but collects himself into an eye roll emoticon flushed back into the linearity and predictability of the Kenyan internet night by the Twitter API