| Voluntary Drinking Overseas | Voluntary Drinking Overseas
"My name is Kamau."
That was the lanky English volunteer introducing himself to
me. He wore Maasai bracelets made in Kikuyuland, Brazilian beads, the
ubiquitous Bob Marley T-shirt and what I call Volunteer Denim (jeans perfectly
worn out and dyed an even shade of dirty).
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| Readerless Kenyans |
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Readerless Kenyans
Like words, numbers lie -- especially numbers derived from
quasi-scientific surveys of personal habits and filtered through the
distorting lens of the popular press. That's why we should question the
recently released results of a poll by
the Kenya National Library Services showing that 85 per cent of
literate Kenyans "read something" in the last one year. It should be
rejected because it perpetuates a myth about our reading habits.
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| Kosgei |
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Kosgei
When I was in High School, and used to work on my Dad's leased
wheat and barley farms in Maasailand, there was this guy called Kosgei.
He was
an alcoholic. We all shared room in small rickety wooden cottages, and used
tents or rented rooms when we did contract harvesting in different parts of
Tipis. Kosgei never shared a room with anybody. He would buy changaa and drink,
cook for himself. He spoke to no one. He had a few kids in the area with
different women; the joke was always ma ... |
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| The development charade: empowerment, and other myths |
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The development charade: empowerment, and other myths
Rasna Warah provides an interesting explanation of how this
anthology got its curious name. She was working for one of the 20 UN
organisations operating in Afghanistan in 2002, shortly after a US-led
coalition ousted the Taliban from power, when she had a chance meeting with a
Canadian aid worker. He asked her: "Which category do you place yourself under?
Missionary, mercenary or misfit?" Presumably he had formed the opinion that all
expatriate development workers fell into one ... |
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| A tribute to E.S. Atieno-Odhiambo | A tribute to E.S Atieno-Odhiambo
Atieno was my friend ever since he was completing his
DPhil in Oxford in the 1960s. In letters
I used to call him 'ruoth'; he used to call me 'wuod ajuoga'. In the days of e-mail we were always asking
each other questions about the facts and ideas of Kenya's history. It is terrible to think that I can never
again turn to him for advice. Atieno was
a man with whom one could immediately feel at home. If we had not seen each other for a year or
more we could pick... |
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| Knowledge and the Kenyan University | Knowledge and the Kenyan University
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education demonstrates that African universities
face a crisis in hiring and retaining new Ph.D. holders, many of whom choose to
go into industry or NGOs. Fewer than half of University-based academics have
doctorates in their respective disciplines. As the piece points out, "most
institutions have focused on raising student numbers rather than on improving
the quality of education and research."
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| The Hard Life of Miriam Makeba was the Good Life | The Hard Life of Miriam Makeba was the Good Life
Miriam Makeba died of a heart attack while performing on stage in southern Italy last week. It was almost a month after my grandmother Mariam Wangui Mathenge was felled as she fed cows on her farm in Nyeri.
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| Facing Facing Mount Kenya |
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Facing Facing Mount Kenya
In 1971, Heinemann Educational Books published an abridged version of Jomo Kenyatta's Facing Mount Kenya. I have yet to research how or whether this book was used within schools, but it was reprinted at least six times between its first publication and 1991 (1972, 1973, 1975, 1981, 1984, 1987). Again, I have yet to find out whether it has been subsequently republished.
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| Monday Puzzle 2 | Monday Puzzle 2
Ali wanted to become a lawyer but could not pay Juma. Juma agreed to teach him law on the condition that, as soon as Ali won his first case, he would pay Juma.
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| Review: Say You Are One of Them |
 | Review: Say You Are One of Them
When I first browsed Uwem Akpan ’s Say You Are One of Them, I was not impressed. I dismissed it as the emerging face of war/poverty porn camouflaged in digestible cameos to whip up emotions for a pretty penny. I tossed it under the bed to rot in the company of other literary duds and forgot all about it. And then Oprah’s million dollar marketing machine came calling. I had to reconsider.
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| Homeland by George Obama (Review) |
.jpg) | Homeland by George Obama (Review)
The main reason to read a book by a man named Obama who is not the president of the United States is simple: to understand better the Obama who is president. With this as a test, does a new memoir from a Kenyan half brother to our very own Barack Obama - an African resident of Nairobi who shares our president's surname and his long-deceased father but not his mother - shed any light on President Obama as a leader?
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| Africa's Media Explosion |
 | Africa's Media Explosion
Charles Muigai is concerned that two years after violence broke out in Kenya following disputed elections, Kenyans have done little to avoid a repeat in the 2012 elections. Muigai said Kenyans are not having in-depth discussions about what happened.
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| Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Review) |
 | Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Review)
The rebels fought for resources. Charles Taylor fought to stay in power. Young boys were recruited to fight in a war they barely understood. And the women of Liberia, they fought for survival, theirs and Liberia’s.
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| Deconstructing and Reconstructing Gender |
 | Deconstructing and Reconstructing Gender
When the Jamaican reggae maestro, Jimmy Cliff sung “Many Rivers to Cross ” in far-flung Jamaica in 1972, the philosophical thread was certainly universal binding all struggling people who may or may not have envisioned the connection. But as one decodes the encrypted archeological relics of the living legend and the Noble Peace Laureate, Wangari Maathai , in her memoir: “Unbowed ,” there is no doubt that she has wandered across many rivers—the pain, the frustration...
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| Soundtracks |
 | Soundtracks
I was not a happy child, but many of the scattered happy moments that I remember of my younger days had some random MJ track playing in the background, and that's why I feel like a distant relative has died.
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| Bar & Bakery: NGO made in Heaven |
 | Bar & Bakery: NGO made in Heaven
At a Bar & Bakery in a mid-west town, a
man I had just met declared, "Well, Kenyans like to form altruistic
organizations with a money making agenda, I decided to form a money making
organization with an altruistic agenda."
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| Cut of My Tongue: A review |
Cut off My Tongue: A review
"Cut off My
Tongue" which is devised as a show of dramatized poetry that incorporates spoken
poetry, music, dance and movement opens at 7pm today, March 10th, at the Alliance Francaise Theatre.
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| Dead Aid: A review |
 | Dead Aid: A review
The question of international aid to developing countries is one of the most
controversial subjects in modern development literature. One simply needs to
look at any local bookshop under the "current affairs" section and you are hit
with many large and often time consuming volumes on the subject.
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| Kenya Burning : a review |
 | Kenya Burning: a review
‘Kenya Burning' presents itself as a landmark,a reminder, an incredible collection of
photos taken during last year's post-poll violence. It is beautifully shot, with
images that are haunting, unbelievably painful, poignant, repulsive, dramatic,
thought-provoking, soul-stirring- you run through the gamut of anguished
adjectives. The exhibition, at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre,
Nairobi, runs from 28th February to 3rd March.
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| From Jhelum To Tana: A Search for Identity |
 | "From Jhelum To Tana": A Search for Identity
On a personal journey to find her history and identity, angered by the lack of recognition given to Indians in Kenya's fight for independence, and inspired by a portrait of her great-grandfather, it took Neera Kapur-Dromson five years to write From Jhelum to Tana.
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| Conflict, or, All a Writer Needs |
 | Conflict, or, All a Writer Needs
Incredibly, no one went over their five minutes. Going by the event’s title – “Writer’s Stories: Unpacking Kenya’s Crisis Session” – not to mention the venue, a Nairobi University lecture hall, all signs were pointing to a listener’s crisis of over-pontification.
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| Sunday Salon |
 | Sunday Salon
Heads up – the Ugandans are here. Two swept in from Kampala to dominate last week’s Sunday Salon: Kalundi Serumaga, that verbal assassin of a journalist, and David Kaiza, who recently traded in journalism for, shall we say, ethnotravelogue-ism.
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| My Name, My Race: A Young African's Untold Story |
My Name, My Race: A Young African's Untold Story
When I began working on my memoir, I decided to lay the facts bare; even though uncomfortable, these are meant to probe the hearts and the minds of society. I warn my readers to literally shed their ethnic and racial prejudices before plunging into this book full of angst, suspense, hope and despair, culminating in the search for true justice, for it has the potential to turn people into ‘anti-racism racists’ or ‘anti-tribalism tribalists’ effortlessly.
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| Kitchen Toto |
 | Kitchen Toto
Kenyan film has made large strides in quality and distribution. Encouragingly also, a growing, cultured middle class is adding to the viability of these efforts.
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| Malooned movie |
Malooned- the movie
A week ago I had the pleasure of getting to watch the latest craze on the Kenyan film scene, Malooned! Its taken me a while, but I thought I would share it with you. Warning- spoiler ahead.
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| Purple Hibiscus |
Purple Hibiscus
The first time I read Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, I could not put it down. I finished it up in one sitting.
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