Going away...

After close to 15 years in France,
15 years of schooling
of working
of giving birth to number2
of my kid sister coming hear and having to go back home
of living the ecstacy of winning a world cup
of living the blues of losing the world cup final
of only one socialist president
of 3 STRAIGHTright wing presidential victories
of 5 trips to my beloved country Kenya
of some long anyd forlorn winters
of beautiful life bringing springs
of unending blissful summers
of yet again the autumn announcing eminent winter
Of so so many things..
Me and mine have made a bold decision, we're going away!

We're going to the closest that we can come to living in the tropics again. You see, when I came here, 15 years ago, I was like so many in the diaspora, coming to school. I believed it was just gonna be the time it took to do my masters degree, then I'd go back home. Thank God I didn't know how long this road was gonna be. With all the windings , slopes and downhill descents. The going away from Kenya blues, are rantings I've stored on my mental hard drive, for another day. The important thing today is that I'm at long last getting ready to live something, dreamt, thought about, desired, run away from; postponed, for almost the entire 15 years I've been here. The urge to live in Africa again. There were always all sorts of excuses, some valid, some not so valid, for differing this decision. We've at long last reached a consensus, and so is it that in our Abandu safaris,today, we see, dream, and think this!
http://bahari.canalblog.com/archives/les_4_saisons/index.html

Yes, putting aside the practicalities we'll have to go through before finally "sailing" into the Lagoon aboard "Abandu Safaris express", right about now, my head is full of images, colours, fragrances, I look forward to reuniting with. For Mayotte being a tropical island, it's got so many similitudes with our own Kenyan coastal climate and consequently, similar flora and fauna. So is it that I salivate as I think of the embe dodos, the mapera, passion fruits, fenesi aka bread fruit, avocadoes, coconuts,msabibi, litchis..the list is endless. Next on my list are the fragranced plants..the legendry ylang ylang, frangpani (white, yellow anf pink varieties), hibiscus, so many nocturnal plants whose names I don't know...Then after these intoxicating fragrances, the tumbo will be more than happy to eat what we call "exotic" food here in France! Banana (matoke) is said to be the staple food in Mayotte. I won't say no to sweet potaotes, yams, aah roast and boiled maize, yams (tsinduma), and of course a real kuku, not these four legged insipid ones we eat here in Molière's country!All these seasoned with the island spices..vanilla, curmin, , clovers, cinnamon, safron....
The five senses sated, I hope to see what similarities we still have with our Shimaore sisters and brothers, hope to learn their language which is a variant of our own Swahili, and generally "sample" all those Indian ocean islands, with my ultimate dream being going to Zanzibar via the sea like it was done in the days of yonder.
I hope it'll be a worthwhile 2 or 4 years stay, at only 2 hours flight from Nairobi. Meanwhile, all the paper work is only just beginning. Deciding what to do with our "home" which we worked so hard on, "do we sell or rent it out?", fidning school for the totos, and getting ready for me to live as an "expatriate" in what for me is Africa!
The departure will actually only be next year around this time, July 2008 (for practical reasons), but from the many "goings away" I've lived in life, I've learnt one simple lesson: to truly go away, you have to start by "going away" in your head. This is the hardest part. Once oyu've done this, which is like turning the ignition key on, then your "Abandu safaris" is off, and all you need to do is keep pressing on the accelerator!
Wish us luck...Bon vent à nous!

Missing clubbing in Kenya!

I've had 2 glasses of champagne (don't try to know why), and since it's late at night, this is what I miss about Kenya right now. When you go clubbing in a huge group of girls with males from the family to protect you. Get to the club, all heads are turning like "where are these beauties from?". I open my mouth, they see I don't live here so they're all over like ...anyway you forgive.Then loud music in the club and you're clapping away with your girls. Then some guy absolutely wanna do collé-serré with you. And you dance all night. You're sipping some very bad cider or is it Smirnoff on ice (very bad quality Vodka mixed with soda), but that's sawa. At 1.00am you eat some nyama choma.You go home at 3.00am bila voice. You don't even know how you got home.You're woken up at 11.0am with your splitting headache to go wash...and go to church to confess all this!

Book harvesting...part 1

Many people who left school in Kenya more than 5 years ago, may not know what this is all about. I must confess I didn't know what it was till I got invited to one. I was gonna simply talk about this particular book harvesting, but I realise in fact the topic can be given a wider scope, as far as my "book harvesting" experience is concerned. To make things clear, "book harvesting" ofically is a sort of "harambee" to harvest books for a school. Now, before I tell you how, you'll ask me why would a school need to harvest books, What happened to the school library? This is where my second point comes in. Where did the books we used in school go to?


The answer to this second question is to be found in the streets and back streets of Nairobi. As an avid reader and a teacher, I've always loved purchasing books. Now, there're some books that truly marked my growing up. The syllabus books, novels you name it. In July 2005 when I went to Kenya, I decided I was gonna look for all those books we ready in primary school, put them in my library for posterity. To my chagrin, I realised after checking with Text Book centre and other reputable libraries in the city that msot of these books were not to be found any more as either they're no longer used in the syllabus, or they're simply out of print. When I told my little brother about my sad fate, he told me he knew where I could find virtually any book under the Sun. That's how I found myself on an Eastleigh (an estate in Nairobi, now dreaded for the underground activities that go on there). bound matatu.


Ndugu mdogo was right because no sooner had we arrived in Eastleigh than I found myself literally swimming in tons of tons of second hand text books.From the "Hallo Children of Standard 1...the first official school book I read in life to all the Mzee Safari books. Then of course some very rare books such as
1. Man, Civilization and Conquest ...Margaret Sherman
2.Peoples, Revolution and Nations by Derek Wilson
3. Fist edition of "poems from east Africa" Cook and Rubadiri
4. Poems of Black Africa Wole Soyinka
I also got all my Safari books from book one to four
May of those orange African readers' series
Sembane Ousmane's "God's bits of wood, Elechi Amadi's "The Concubine", an old tatarred copy of Okot pBtek's "Song of O'col and Song of Lawino.
In a nutshell, my escapade left me with a rack sack groaning under the weight of "treasures" some tattered, some pages yellow with age, some pages bearing marks of the previous owners imprints "Like this scrbbilings in an O Level Geography text book by Ojany and Ogendo...
BED..Accounts, Eco, Com and at the bottom Phy-Maths -Engineer . Probably a youngster pondering over which "combination as we called them, he should opt for in A level, in order to be assured a place in the university.

Abandu safaris express

So here I lay the first stone of my blog. I don't know what I'll write in, but I certainly know what "I'll not write therein!". Okey, that's a line picked straight from the just ended presidential elections where I live! "Je ne sais pas pour qui je vais voter, mais je sais pour qui je ne voterai pas...said one Fracois Bayrou.My immediate worry is getting "hooked up" and never finding my individual freedom once again, when I want "not to write anymore". We live in a world where everyone can get to know where you are 24/7 and can reach it 24/7!
Anyway, my Abandu safaris is a "clin d'oeil", to a vehicle I was once so fond of. In Kenya, the main means of transport are mini buses or even smaller covered pick-ups that we call "matatus". Each one of them usually has an evocative name such as "God's case no appeal" go figure! , ""Msamaria mwema (the good Samaritan), ""Bwana Msafiri" (the traveller), "Mla chake (he who eats his rightfully earned bread), and so on. Abandu safaris was such an appelation. It was the only vehicle that ferried people from my grandmother's village (Emanyulia) to town (Yala, Butere, Kisumu etc). So I'm hoping this abandu safaris will be taking me places. It may take me just to the next village , Eshirotsa, or bring me all the way to this desk where I'm typing from.
Watu wakae square, walete chapa, gari linaondoka!
Bon voyage à tous et à toutes!