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It is an unlikely story, an improbable story, that brought Rasna Warah and I together. Years earlier, in Brussels, as I waited for the wheels of justice to turn in a case that I had brought against my former employer for unfair dismissal (I together with another colleague had blown the whistle on a management that was embezzling funds destined for support to the SME sector in African, Caribbean and Pacific states), Michela Wrong published It’s Our Turn to Eat, a riveting account of the Anglo Leasing scandal whose main protagonist was John Githongo, Kenya’s anti-corruption Czar now on the run for his life. As I read this John Le Carré-esque rendering of corruption at the highest echelons of the Kenyan state, I wondered what it might be like to work with someone of Githongo’s integrity.

A few years later, after the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organisation had found in my favour, I came back home, settled in the Kenyan countryside and started an organic market gardening business. Agriculture is not for the faint-hearted, especially if you have no background in farming. I was soon in need of employment to supplement my meagre earnings and so I put word out among friends that I was looking for editing work. You can imagine my surprise when one mid-morning John Githongo called me; I fell off my chair. 

Githongo took me on as consulting editor at The Elephant and thus did I meet Rasna in the flesh. I had just come on board when Inuka ni Sisi, the civil society organisation under which The Elephant falls, organised a workshop for its employees and collaborators; Rasna had been an early addition to the team. I had read Rasna in the Kenyan press over the years and her column in one of the dailies was a staple for me. But only at the end of the two-day workshop did I finally gather myself together and approach Rasna for an informal chat; she had seemed both formidable and unapproachable, her large kohl-rimmed eyes seeming to glare and throw a dare. 

Subbing Rasna’s opinion pieces for The Elephant inevitably led to exchanges of emails and telephone conversations that culminated in an invitation to what ended up being a long, enjoyable dinner at an excellent address. Exchanging our experiences of whistleblowing and challenging corruption within international institutions, we discovered we were a kindred spirit. We became friends. 

The range of subjects about which Rasna could write a compelling opinion piece was as wide as the range of issues that have plagued this country since before independence. An opinion piece by Rasna in my in-tray was anticipated pleasure and the opportunity to contemplate an issue affecting Kenyans from a uniquely considered perspective. Also, after three decades abroad, Rasna’s pieces contributed to quickly bringing me up to speed on the core issues facing this country. 

We spoke often and Rasna was generous with her invitations if I happened to be in Nairobi. And so it was that I attended the launch of the 2020 edition of the Nairobi Noir anthology of Kenyan writing to which she had contributed a short story. Have Another Roti brings together all the threads that weave the tapestry of her life, the questionings at the core of who Rasna was and how she confronted her life. In a few short pages, Rasna describes the mental dislocation brought about by suppressed memories, the pressures of colonial racial segregation that transmutes to segregation by class after independence, the taboo of love and friendship across racial lines, the meaning of nationality, citizenship and belonging. “The loss of home,” as Rasna puts it.

Rasna was profoundly Kenyan; she loved this our country and could never have lived anywhere else despite her sporadic what-ifs. What if she had chosen to remain in the UK or the US? Rasna had studied in both countries and, like many of our compatriots, could have chosen to remain. She did not.

To get to know the generous, complicated, conflicted, courageous Rasna was a gift. We spent hours on the phone remaking Kenya. Rasna could drive you to despair with her despair at the state of our nation. And then to elation as she celebrated the courage of Kenya’s Gen-Z in taking the ruling elites head-on. 

Rasna fought for us with her pen, framed for us with clarity and moral courage a vision of our better selves, of a more inclusive, less divided people, of the nation we could become. Rasna has left us to carry that vision, to see it through. We must.

Rasna loved us. She has left us far too soon.