The disappearance of intellectual wealth in African communities is directly linked to imperial missionary work that killed professions such as storytelling, rainmaking and divination, all of which had seasoned experts, trade secrets and years’ worth of researched knowledge often dressed up in ritual for the consumer. Born-again African Christians stopped telling tall tales about ogres…
Some 20 years ago, I was in the cast of Samuel Beckett’s one-acts, directed by a visiting French company, Theatre du Shaman. The thing is, we struggled to see the humor the director insisted was in Beckett. We just couldn’t see it. How on earth could the doom-and-gloom of Beckett’s absurd theatre be funny? We…
A response to Bikozulu’s “A Letter to Kenyans Abroad” http://bikozulu.co.ke/a-letter-to-kenyans-abroad/ For a long time I’ve fought the itch to respond to blogs, tweets, status updates and newspaper articles from Kenyans at home that bash Kenyans abroad for their accents and attitudes. I had decided it’s too trivial. Until today when “A Letter to Kenyans Abroad” arrived…
Sight Savers was about two miles from where we lived in Nairobi. One could walk down hill for about an hour along the stretch of Mbagathi Way, or take a matatu from Kenyatta Market. When I sauntered into this organization and asked for a job from out of the blues, I had zero expectations because…
Analytical works published in regional and global magazines.
The International Crisis Group will list you the top ten conflicts going on around the globe. When I last used their analysis last Fall, all nations with active war, the kind that comes with ceaseless bloodshed and loss of life, were in those parts of the world where people have learnt to turn a blind…
The train station at Lviv is packed, Ukrainians are fleeing war. The entry point at Medyka into Poland is bursting at the seams with those seeking refuge. A hotel in Kharkiv is overflowing with families looking for warmth as bitter cold sinks its teeth into the flesh of those bombed out. In all these situations,…