Reflections
The Ones Who Are, But Don’t Exist: Being Nubian, and Kenyan
14 min read.It is so absurd, to the extent that without an ID, one cannot legally die, which is what happened to my father. He does not have a death certificate because he did not have an ID. The state neither recognized his life nor his death – he never existed.
When I was in high school, one of my uncles asked me if I had a boyfriend. It was a typical question that many of our parents or relatives ask at this rather awkward period of our lives. The conversation remained a playful exchange until my uncle got really stern and told me this: “Before you get into a relationship with someone, make sure they have an ID.” At the time I thought that remark to be rather odd, and didn’t know what to make of it. I dismissed it with the thought that maybe he was under the influence or maybe it was just a recommendation that adults give based on their personal bias such as “make sure they are God-fearing.”
I never thought much about national identification cards until it was time to get my own. I had never heard of any odd stories around securing this document, the legal evidence of initiation into adulthood. My cousins and older friends before me had had a fairly easy time, so I never imagined that it would be an experience that would change my life forever, or one that I would be writing about five years later.
The beginning
On the morning I went to apply for my ID, my mother, a very organized person, had prepared a folder containing the documents that were required by law. We went to the chief’s office – a walking distance – chatting and laughing as she teased me about what “adulthood” meant. We got there and there were a few young people, so I went in, oblivious of what would happen. My mom seemed a bit nervous but I was very excited. I was thinking of all the things I would be able to do; drive, travel alone, go out dancing, drink… She gave me the documents and I went into the application room, not knowing that I would come out a different person.
My father had died in 2007, seven years before I applied for my ID. I was aware that one of the requirements for the application process was copies of your parents’ identification cards and my birth certificate. The folder had a copy of my mom’s ID and my birth certificate. My father’s ID was not there because he didn’t have one.
When the chief asked me about my father’s documents and his ethnicity, I didn’t know what to say, because I was unprepared for any kind of interrogation. Actually, I didn’t even think that I was going to interact with the chief in any way. I had expected to be given forms, fill them, have my biometrics taken and go home in time for lunch, with my interim ID in hand. I called my mom into the room and had to witness her saying that my father never got an ID after decades of applying, because he was a Nubian and somewhere along the way, he gave up. In that moment I was being exposed to this kind of alternate existence that had not been a part of my reality but would affect how I saw everything from then on. For so many years, my mother had hoped that by the time I was applying for this document, that things would have changed and that I wouldn’t have to go through the humiliation that she witnessed my father go through for so long. She tried to explain the situation to the chief, but he dismissed her by saying “all foreign tribes must be vetted…huyu itabidi vetting.” (She will have to be vetted). The walk home was silent and heavy. My mother was teary and I was quiet.
Nubians were brought to Kenya from Sudan in the early 1890s to serve as soldiers in the British army under the Kings African Rifles, first during the building of the Uganda railway and second, in the First and Second World Wars. The British denied the Nubians the freedom to return back to Sudan after demobilization, and then categorized them as aliens, a label that has since been perpetuated by consecutive post-independence governments. Because they weren’t allowed to go back to Sudan, the British allocated the land that covers present-day Kibera to the community to settle on, but their status as “aliens” has meant that there can never be any legal documentation to show that the land in Kibra is, to my generation, Nubian ancestral land. This, in turn means that the state can and has refused to legitimize the rights of Nubians, keeping them in a permanent state of stagnation, which benefits powerful elites.
My father was Nubian. This label didn’t mean much to me in the sense that I never thought that being Nubian would shape my lived experience in any significant way. I just thought I was just a child, a person, a Kenyan. Outside of my grandmother’s house, this Nubian identity was basically an inconsequential part of who I was. Growing up I just found it strange, fascinating and finally tiring when people would ask me if Nubians were Kenyans, having never heard people asking Kikuyus or Kambas whether they were Kenyans. With my limited view of the world I just thought it was a game of popularity, like how we had the popular guys in school, who everyone knew, and the ones who were not so popular, but were still part of the school and still enjoyed the structural providences. So, Nubians, like the Mbeere and the Pemba, were just few in number and perhaps not well known, and my assumption was, even though these groups of people lacked social capital and recognition, they very much enjoyed all the rights that all other Kenyans enjoyed.
I did not know what vetting was or what it entailed in this case, and frankly, I had never heard of it. The chief had given us a piece of paper, on it, a list of documents that I was to produce to prove I was Kenyan enough for an ID. The list absurdly demanded that I bring; copies of my grandparents’ (dad’s parents) identification cards, my father’s death certificate, primary school and high school transcripts, my immunization card, and most surprising of all, a copy of the ID of our building’s caretaker, accompanied by a signed note saying that he knew me and that I was resident in the building I claimed to live in, for an extended period of time. There was also mention of appearing before a ‘council of elders’ and paying a fee to a magistrate.
By then, I had figured out that what I was being subjected to was not standard procedure, but an act of institutionalized discrimination. I had been asking my friends about their experiences, and they all seemed to have flawless experiences. Most of them praised the government for “making the process easy.” On the other hand, my Nubian cousins weren’t even trying to get IDs. They already knew that hurdles were too great.
To the government, it was clear that Nubians were not human, because to be human is to belong. “At the age of 18, your life as a Kenyan stops” one Nubian youth from Kibra lamented. “It is only when you apply for an ID card that you realize you have been living a lie. This country does not want you, and the years you have spent here are all a farce.” Without an ID, one cannot register their sim card, therefore access to M-Pesa or any other form of mobile banking is impossible. One cannot vote, cannot access government buildings, cannot obtain a passport, cannot apply for jobs, higher education or even acquire a driver’s license. It is so absurd, to the extent that without an ID, one cannot legally die, which is what happened to my father. He does not have a death certificate because he did not have an ID. The state neither recognized his life nor his death. In the eyes of the state he never existed. To me, this is what statelessness truly means. The right to live and the right to die and the right to belong are taken away, without being granted in the first place.
Proving my humanity
Nubian youth today go to great lengths to get a chance to even apply for their identification cards. Many lie about belonging to other tribes, mostly the “popular ones,” many save up in order to afford to bribe officials in the many different offices they will likely have to go through. All this because the Kenyan state gets to play a game of the politics of exclusion and inclusion, who is “in” and who is “out”, but these acts have real implications to real people whose lives begin to be defined, first, by statelessness before they can claim to be anything else.
I have a great uncle, who by several untruths, social connections and stubbornness, was able to obtain an ID many years ago. His single ID caters to every official need that people in the family may have. Any dealings with the Kenyan government and he’s your guy. People depend on his vote to speak for many. Many M-Pesa transactions go through him. He takes people’s children to school; his bank account is basically communal. So this uncle’s details are the ones outlined on my father’s burial permit. The one legal document that bears my father’s names is his burial permit, written in my living uncle’s name, with my uncle’s ID number.
Back to my application for an ID. On the day that I returned to the chief’s office, I wasn’t hopeful. I wasn’t excited. I was dreading the humiliation of having to prove the only nationality I knew, in front of many people. I went with all the documents that had been demanded for the vetting process, except the death certificate which didn’t exist, and my grandparents’ IDs which also didn’t exist. Standing there, being talked down upon and ridiculed, all I could think of, strangely, was the caretaker. I had spent the week chasing him all over the estate. Once I explained the reason why I needed his help, he became too busy, an act he put up in order to get a bribe out of my mother and I. Being a heavy drinker, he always asked for “pesa ya kachupa”. I always said I didn’t have the money. Then he would get angry and tell me to look for him the next day. This went on for a couple of days until he finally gave me his ID which I photocopied and the next day he wrote a brief note, signed it and I attached it to the copy of the ID. The day I was going back to the chief, I met him at the gate, sober, telling me that he knew the chief. I didn’t know what that meant, but I saw my mum giving him a 200/- shilling note. Standing in front of the chief, I now knew what he meant. He could unravel this whole process just by his word of mouth. I felt so small and dispensable, like my life was hanging in the hands of these men who had more citizenship than me.
The chief sent me home, and as I was walking back, I was trying to think of all my family members; maybe I have lawyer cousin that I didn’t know about? I needed a lawyer, and I knew legal fees were expensive. See, the chief said the documents were insufficient to prove anything. The caretaker’s note was there, my mum even managed to find my immunization card, all my transcripts up to my final year of high school were there, but he said that the documents that were missing were the most important. So he advised that I seek the services of a lawyer in which I would swear an affidavit that my father died not being a citizen of Kenya, and that I was aware of this and was ready and willing to take the ID using my mother’s details only. This was to me, a protest to my protest. Here I was, trying my best to prove that I belonged, holding on to everything I knew about myself, but being told that I am not who I know I am, my life being unraveled, in an embarrassing and truly heartbreaking manner.
When I was turning 10, a year before my father died, my mom threw a birthday party for me. Till this day, even in the pictures, I have tears in my eyes because my dad couldn’t make it. I wanted him there so bad. He was my dad. Here I was, at 18, being asked to erase his existence in order to exist myself. I couldn’t process it. I just couldn’t. I always want him to be with me, and my country was asking me to wish away someone that I was part of who I was because of the favor of belonging; of legally obtaining the Kenyan identity.
My mum wanted me to get the process done as soon as possible, because like any mother, she wanted to see my life moving. You don’t realize how hot Nairobi is during the dry months until you have to walk up and down Argwings Kodhek Road looking for an affordable lawyer. Luckily my mum remembered one of her friends from church who was a lawyer. She got his number from his wife; we called him up and were able to locate his office just before 3pm. We explained everything, and while he was baffled, he prepared the affidavit and I signed it soon after. I was soon back home but I was wondering if all those feelings were worth the trouble of trying to be a Kenyan.
I have heard stories of Nubians today only being allowed to apply for IDs on Tuesday and Thursday from 9am -1pm on each day, with only three government officials serving thousands of young and old Nubians. Other people from other tribes can apply on any day at any time that falls within the business hours. My father’s mother has been sick for decades. She had a growth in her abdomen that requires very specialized and expensive care. She doesn’t have an ID, therefore she can’t access insurance services. She knows she is in pain because she doesn’t possess any form of proof of citizenship. Hearing about this time that has been set aside for Nubians to apply for identification cards excites her, and she is happy at the prospect of more of her people being recognized as Kenyans and participating in society. She does not know that this process is just an extension of the injustice orchestrated by the oppressor, because the person who denies you your humanity cannot turn around and give it to you in small doses at their own convenience and by their rules. It is false and inhumane for a part of the population to be made to feel like their access to human rights is a favor and the little attention they are given, a privilege.
Where life stops
Like other Nubians, my uncle, the youngest of four sons, married outside of the Nubian tribe, hoping that this would mean that his children would have better chances of legal belonging. Creating a situation where people would rather marry outside of their tribe so that their children may have a chance of legally existing, is by design, ethnic and cultural genocide. My uncle was in a relationship with a woman from a different tribe, with whom he had a child and lived together. The girl was hiding her relationship from her family because of fear of their disapproval. Unfortunately, one way or another, her family found out and they forcefully removed her from my uncle’s home and took her, and the child, back home. Their reasons were that they had heard that Nubians are lazy; they sit around all day, without jobs and at the risk of deportation because they are not Kenyans.
A couple of years ago, another of my uncles, a father of three sons, was suddenly left by the mother of his children. She was frustrated by his lack of a steady income. She left him with the children, and we received word that she was married elsewhere. He would die two years after, because of lack of access to proper healthcare. He died still waiting for his ID application to be approved so that he could apply for insurance.
My uncles’ stories are testimonies of real life consequences of the evils of the state. This lack of legal identification affects more than just the one individual seeking the document. Many Nubian people are not able to provide for their families. They are left feeling that they are not doing right by their spouses, their children, and themselves. The situations that Nubians find themselves in are locked in by helplessness and despair. It is not my uncles’ faults that they are not able to even have the opportunity to have steady sources of income. When I see Nubian men, young and old, seating around their houses, playing draughts, I see men whose ability to affirm themselves has been taken away. So they carry their politics in their bodies. They talk to exist, to pass the time and fill the void of uncertainty. They talk, therefore they are. When I see my uncles, I don’t see ‘lazy, unmotivated’ people, which is a dominant narrative about the Nubian people. This stereotype is, behind the scenes, advanced by the difficulties faced in obtaining identification. When you don’t legally exist, legally love, legally die, when you don’t legally belong anywhere, it is easy for narratives about you to be formed and advanced by the people who belong. They have the voice, you don’t.
On the day that I was to pick up my ID, I was nervous about being turned away. It had been a couple of weeks of back and forth. After the humiliating vetting process where one man on the council tried to get me to sing the national anthem in Kiswahili, I just knew if I had to go through one more hurdle, I’d weep and probably just give up on the process all together. As I was standing in line, I thought about how I was being forced to basically denounce my father in order to be a ‘real Kenyan’. I wondered if that was the price I had to pay, and if any of it was worth it.
When I got home, I showed off the new shiny plastic proof that I was a human being worthy of being seen and heard to my mum, my cousins and my aunties. They were very happy. Getting this little thing was such an achievement and they all congratulated me for “keeping steady”, “staying strong” and “doing all it takes.” An outsider listening in might have genuinely thought that I was participating in a vigorous Olympic activity. And isn’t that absurd? I was just trying to drive and drink and party, and perhaps vote. It’s absurd. Every time I look at my ID card I feel like I am looking at the absurdity of it all. I hate being in situations where I am asked to ‘show ID’. It’s traumatic because it’s a symbol of the humiliation and the pain, and it hurts even more thinking of all the young Nubians who do not have the loopholes that I had, like having a mother of different ethnicity, or having gone to a national school which somehow made my transcripts more credible.
My grandmother is very happy that I was able to get an ID. She says that I should thank God for my mother, that I should be happy that I can participate in society, legally marry and legally die. When I go to visit her in Kibra, I pass the mosque at the corner, the children playing in a small open field next to a pile of garbage, the old men seated outside seemingly staring at nothing, the young men playing draughts next to the women painting beautiful henna patterns on each other. Sometimes I am unable to figure out if the glint in my eyes is my tears, or the glare from the shiny new apartments being put up by private developers, shiny like my new ID. I am lost to the realities of this place, Kibra, where people exist but not really, where nobody in the real Kenya knows the young men seated outside playing draughts are waiting for casual labour here and there, and the old men are seated in silence because there is nothing left to say, they have been talking about the same things for generations. My grandmother’s house is no longer a place where I excitedly go eat ngurusa and spicy beef while listening to taarab and her long stories. Now, it is a place where “real” life stops and everything happens day to day, because there is no security in thinking of the future. The future is a luxury left for ‘real’ Kenyans.
I have lecturers who, when I talk about Nubians in class, will still ask me where “these people” are from. There are adult Kenyans that don’t know the existence of Nubians in Kenya. During the census, we are grouped as “other.” Sometimes with my generation, when I say I’m Nubian, it is taken as a celebration of “blackness” and “authentic Africanness” because the word does not resonate as an ethnicity but as a label used to celebrate dark skin, kinky hair and non-European features. With my mum’s side of the family, my Nubian-ness is seen as the latent threat that may erupt one day and deny me opportunities that would have been accessible to me had my mother fallen in love with a person from the “right” tribe. On my dad’s side, my Nubian-ness is the thing I rejected, so much that I denounced my father’s involvement in my life – his entire existence – and took an ID claiming to only be my mother’s tribe. For me, it is the arrow in my heart. It does not pierce, it will not come out. I can feel it there, a constant reminder of a feeling I want but don’t know how to get, a feeling that I have but can’t seem to get rid of. It is my baptism by fire, my lens through which the world began to make sense through pain and contradictions.
To belong, and claim identity, in the Nubian Kenyan context, is to have privilege. It means that because you belong, you have the luxury to dream, to hope, to love. It means that you can participate in conversations around higher education, politics, health care, insurance, life, death. It means that the justice process is accessible, it means that you can live naturally as a human being, able to fully participate in choice, building community and that the possibility of dignity is a reality that is available. My uncle’s main concern that I end up in a romantic relationship with a person who has a national identification card was his way of taking care of me. It was his way of saying that he wanted me to have a chance at hope, at dreaming, at living as a person free of the complexities and humiliation of alienation.
Support The Elephant.
The Elephant is helping to build a truly public platform, while producing consistent, quality investigations, opinions and analysis. The Elephant cannot survive and grow without your participation. Now, more than ever, it is vital for The Elephant to reach as many people as possible.
Your support helps protect The Elephant's independence and it means we can continue keeping the democratic space free, open and robust. Every contribution, however big or small, is so valuable for our collective future.
Reflections
Women at Sea: Testimonies of Survivors Fleeing Across the Central Mediterranean
Anyone crossing the sea to escape a dangerous situation or to find a better life is in a vulnerable position, but women face the additional burdens of gender discrimination and, all too often, gender-based violence, along their routes. Women represent only a small proportion – around five per cent – of those who make the dangerous journey from Libya to Italy.
On board the Geo Barents, female survivors regularly disclose practices such as forced marriage or genital mutilation (affecting either themselves or their daughters) as being among the reasons they were forced to leave their homes. Women also face specific risks during their journeys – MSF medical teams report that women are proportionally more likely to suffer fuel burns during the Mediterranean crossing, as they tend to be placed in the middle of the boat where it is thought to be safest. . Many women rescued also report having experienced various forms of violence, including psychological and sexual violence and forced prostitution.
“The minute I was alone, they would have raped me.” Adanya, 34 years old, from Cameroon.
Among these women is Decrichelle, who fled a forced marriage to a violent husband with her baby. They left their home country of Nigeria and went via Niger to Algeria. When they arrived in the desert, Decrichelle’s daughter fell ill and she could not do anything to treat her because she had no access to care or medicine. The young girl died, and Decrichelle had to leave her behind before continuing the journey to Algeria: “an immense and inconsolable sadness” for her.
Decrichelle attempted to cross the sea once but was arrested and sent to prison, where she was released immediately, only to be taken by taxi to a brothel. Some Cameroonian friends helped her escape. For six months, she lived in the campos (the abandoned buildings or large outdoor spaces near the sea where traffickers gather migrants) before scraping together the money to pay her way for another crossing. “I want to be in a place where I can live like a normal person of my age. I want to be able to sleep at night,” she says. “I wanted to be here with my child. It hurts me to think that I am safe, and I left her in the desert.”
Beyond the difficulties women face on migration routes and in Libya, MSF teams on board the Geo Barents often witness the strong bonds that develop between survivors on the women’s deck. The women come together to support one another with daily tasks and childcare.
“In Libya, I was sleeping under trucks and buses as I did not have any money.” Afia, 24 years old, from Ghana.
“I want to tell women: it is not your fault. You are exactly the same person as you were before. You are even stronger,” says Lucia, deputy project coordinator aboard the Geo Barents, who has herself experienced rape. “I think it has been really moving to see these women, who actually escaped what I experienced for an hour of my life, and in their struggle, their strength and their hope, [they do not stop] this fight,” she adds.
Meanwhile, when male survivors are asked about the people they left behind or the reasons for their journey, a woman is always mentioned in their stories. Ahmed, 28 years old, was born in Sudan to Eritrean parents who moved to Sudan to escape the war. Having lived all his life as a refugee, Ahmed never felt that he belonged in Sudan. He wished to leave, but as an undocumented person, unable to return to Eritrea for fear of military conscription and an oppressive dictatorial regime, he decided to travel to Libya and cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
Ahmed’s mother was the only one who stood by him when he decided to convert from Christianity to Islam, despite harassment from his other family members. “[Converting to Islam] affected me, affected my friendships… for sure [I faced issues because of that]. At first, from the family… in the beginning, I was secretive… until my family knew; then the harassment started. But my mother accepted me. She told me, ‘Whatever makes you comfortable, do it.’” Ahmed says his mother is one of the reason she was able to make the journey from Sudan through Egypt and into Libya. “She has a really big role in my life. She was continuously supportive and motivating me, wishing me the best. She is my inspiration… I hope to meet her again.”
“I know if I tell my mother I am in Libya, she will be crying every day.” Ibrahim, 28 years old, from Nigeria.
Nejma, cultural mediator on board the Geo Barents, explains her bond with survivors like Decrichelle and Ahmed: “I am African and I am Middle Eastern. I am a mother. I am a woman. There are so many things that link us together. Maybe also the fact that I had to flee. That is a big part of it. I think it helps me understand where people are at the moment we find them; it is an understanding that books could never teach me.”
Cultural Mediator Nejma Banks converses with some survivors aboard the Geo Barrents
As a refugee herself, Nejma shares what helped her to move forward in the places she fled to. “[Survivors need to] keep the strength… once they disembark in Europe, it is not the end of the journey,” she says. “It is a different challenge: to not let go of who they are, to never forget who they are, where they are from. To be very proud of their origins. Because you will not know where to go if you do not know where you came from. And I want my brothers and sisters from Africa and the Middle East, or anywhere, to remember who they are. It will make it easier to move forward.”
–
The photographers
These stories of the women on board the Geo Barents were collected during rotations of the ship at sea. The portraits and testimonies were captured by two female photographers, with a view to amplify women’s voices, while respecting cultural sensitivities:
Mahka Eslami is an Iranian photographer, who was born in Paris and lived there until the age of seven before her parents returned to Tehran. While studying engineering in Iran, she worked as a journalist for the Chelcheragh. She returned to France where she finished her engineering studies before branching out into documentary photography and transmedia writing to become an independent photographer. Her work has been published by Le Monde, Libération, Society, Néon and Les Inrockuptibles.
Nyancho NwaNri is a lens-based artist and documentarian from Lagos, Nigeria, whose work revolves around African history, culture and spiritual traditions, as well as social and environmental issues. Her documentary works have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Aljazeera, Reuters, Quartz andGeographical Magazine.
Background information
MSF has been running search and rescue activities in the central Mediterranean since 2015, working on eight different search and rescue vessels, alone or in partnership with other NGOs. Since 2015, MSF teams have provided lifesaving assistance to more than 85,000 people in distress at sea. MSF relaunched search and rescue activities in the central Mediterranean in May 2021, chartering its own ship, the Geo Barents, to rescue people in distress, to provide emergency medical care to rescued people, and to amplify the voices of survivors of the world’s deadliest sea crossing. Since May 2021, the MSF team on board the Geo Barents has rescued 6,194 people, recovered the bodies of 11 people and assisted in the delivery of one baby.
This story was first published by Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF).
Reflections
Nairobi, Nairobae, Nairoberry
Cacophonous, labyrinthine, gluttonous, angry, envious, charming, paradoxical, mysterious, confusing, alluring.
Nairobi. A cacophony of matatu hoots and booming bongs from church bells. All in inexplicable harmony. Like a Beethoven piece. A muezzin’s melody moves the ummah from a minaret here, a bus conductor — shouting from the most pimped out mathree — moves umati there. A hawker here. An ambulance there. But there’s also a silent monotone. The sound of hope dying. Of someone stealing two billion every day, of the clock going tick-tock from your 9 to 5. There’s that saying: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? But what if it’s in the middle of Waiyaki Way? Just because someone thinks giving us an expressway will absolve him of war crimes. While in reality, all it does is leave all the marabou storks homeless.
Nairobi. A labyrinth of lipstick-stained shot glasses and semi-filled ashtrays. Where a party starts regardless of where the limbs of the clock point. And only ends when everyone is browned out and on the brink of calling the one that got away. Nairobi is looking for coins during traffic because you want to help the beggar, who is patient enough to receive the donation before snatching your phone. It is being stagnant in that same traffic for long enough to buy crisps made with transformer oil and served in compact disk wrapping. And like clockwork, you put the window back up because Nairobbery isn’t just a play on words. But the ones that hurt the most are the conmen, because nigga I trusted you!
Nairobi. Where gluttony is second nature. A kaleidoscope of too much gold tequila and too many smokie pasuas. Of good pasta and wine in overpriced restaurants. Of ramen noodles and pre-cooked meat. Where nothing is ever enough. We drink and eat to our fill because life sucks. Why wouldn’t it? Our last president’s advisor was the bottom of a Jameson bottle and our current one’s advisor is Jesus. The spirit guides the nation either way, I guess. But still, Nairobi tastes like chances and do-overs. It tastes like anxieties and aspirations and I know it doesn’t feel like it but today you omoka na 3-piecer then one day you omoka, for real.
Nairobi. Reeks of piss and thrifted clothes. Fresh bakeries and Subway. Old currency and that one cologne every man in their early 20s wears. Smells like fighting your titans and sending a million job applications. Nairobi. Where you can go weeks without a lover’s touch but only days without a cop grabbing you by the wedgie into a mariamu because you shouldn’t be idle as you wait for your Uber outside Alchemist. Because of course in that time you should take up a sport, play an instrument, solve world peace, et cetera.
There are few occasions when pride will linger. Like when Kipchoge finishes a marathon in under two hours. When Lupita wins an Oscar. The hubris you feel when your copy makes it to the billboard on UN Avenue. Or when your lame joke gets five retweets because Kenyans on Twitter will massacre you if you think you’re the next Churchill. Orrrr that one time we were all watching Money Heist and so gassed that Nairobi was one of the characters.
Sadly, Nairobi pride also comes in with its individualism. Everyone is out here on their own trying to get some bread whether they’re in the upper class getting baguettes and rye bread or in the lower class getting Supaloaf. I get it though, the city doesn’t let anyone rest from the grind and the hustle and the drudgery. And the wealth gap is bigger than Vera Sidika’s bunda. But ironically, the city is a paradox. An optical illusion. Sometimes the people are so ready to convene in community that it kinda revives the fickle hope you have in humanity. From safe spaces to fundraisers to a simple hearty conversation with your Uber driver.
And there’s obviously that murky feeling of greed that comes from 90 per cent of our politicians. When you’re at the bottom of the food chain it’s called hunger, but the higher you climb the more you want and it becomes indulgence. Greed makes them say and do all kinds of things. Like apologising to Arab countries that are exploiting Kenyans because they don’t want to be cut off. Y’all know any juakali guys we can commission for guillotines? – Heads gotta roll. Because how will I steal cooking oil and flour and end up in a cold cell but they’ll steal billions and end up with a second five-year term?
I think wrath is the most Nairobi-esque of the cardinal sins. We’re angry at the police. At the government, at global warming, at nduthis, at KPLC, at Zuku, at Safaricom, at KCB, at each other. Agonizingly though, our anger fizzles out as fast as it blazes up. I don’t think we’re ever angry enough.
And then there’s the envy. You know you’ll get there eventually but that gets lost in translation when you see someone with better because that sparks something in you even though we are all on different paths at different paces. Whether it’s a BMW or an airfryer, the question stays: Why not me? And also I’m personally jealous of the people who’ve managed to move out of Nairobi to Naivasha, Watamu or wherever. It feels like they’ve figured their way out the maze while I’m still at a dead end wondering whether I can just hop out the sides. Doesn’t matter what it is, our eyes are as green as the parks and spaces we so desperately need in this godforsaken city.
Nairobi. The city of miniskirts and cheers baba jackets. Lust dripping down the sides of our mouths because we can’t seem to contain it under our tongues. I don’t even know why people bother to go to Vasha for WRC when they live in the city of sexual debauchery where the only thing that’s on heat more than the sun is whatever’s between people’s legs. Where even Christian Grey would pause and do a double-take. Where ropes aren’t just for skipping and leashes aren’t just for dogs. If you find ordered love in the city, you must have saved refugees and orphans in your past life. This is the city where the flesh is truly willing.
You know that intense sloth-like feeling when you wanna wake up for Sunday brunch at Brew Bistro or K1 and then later watch Hamilton race at around 4 when all the mimosas have hit your head and you’re surprised that your wig is still intact? Or the next day when you’re trying to get out of your covers and you’re thinking about that beastly Nairobi traffic you’re about to face and all you can do is tweet “Nimewacha pombe mimi”. Truthfully though, other than that and a few other instances, the pace is too fast for me. I just wanna be in a dera next to the beach drinking a passion caipiroska and eating viazi karai cause why are y’all always running?
And y’all are way too fast when coming up with new words too. There’s like a million words for currency, ass, sex, sherehe, et cetera. Truly, there is a certain linguistic je ne sais quoi when it comes to the Nairobian’s language. It stops being a transaction of random syllables and begins to become an understanding of feelings, emotions and behaviour. I, especially, like how we knead it into our art. We sneak it into our music and get phenomena like gengetone.
We compress it into our films and get Nairobi Half Life. We squeeze it into our visual pieces and get Michael Soi. One thing about Nairobians is we do not cower in silence, we have words to say and we shall say them. Even if that means running a president out of Twitter. That’s why our writers are as staggeringly sensational as they are. Ngartia. Sookie. Grey. Muthaka. Laria. Abu. And those are just my friends, dawg.
But it’s not just the writing. The fashion. Rosemary Wangari. Nicole Wendo. Samantha Nyakoe. The music. Mau from Nowhere, Vallerie Muthoni, Karun, Maya Amolo, XPRSO. Just a Band. The films. The painting. Muthoni Matu. Zolesa. The architecture. The cinema. The theatre. Too Early for Birds is back! et cetera. Man, I gotta tell ya, when God was cooking up the cauldron of this city, he went hard on the talent. Quote me on this: a lot of exceptional creatives from this city are gonna hit the world with a head-splitting bang in a couple of years.
Nairobi. Despite the crowds, the queues and the poor drainage, it still has a charm. Mysterious. Confusing. Alluring. Despite the fact that you can only truly enjoy the Nairobi experience if you’re a bird or an expat, me I love it still.
Nairobians, keep sinning, keep winning!
Reflections
The Enemy Within
Death hangs heavily over people with cancer – it is always there, reminding you of your mortality.
So, this is what happens when a doctor tells you that you have cancer. The first response is disbelief (how can this be true?), followed by anger (I don’t deserve this, I never hurt anyone), and then a deep sense of grief and loss (what will I miss when I die, and how will my loved ones cope without me?)
They say cancer is the result of pent-up anger and resentment. Apparently, years of holding on to these emotions make your cells misbehave and become toxic. Cancer cells end up eating up healthy cells, leaving the body so full of poison that it collapses from lack of vitality. The jury is still out on whether lifestyle choices generate cancer in the body because people who lead healthy lives seem to be as prone to cancer as those who don’t. Nonetheless, when you find out you have cancer, your first reaction is to blame yourself. It is sort of like being told you have HIV. (Was I responsible for this? Was I reckless? Should I have used a condom?)
Friends and relatives will tell you that breast cancer is beatable, that they know so many women who had breast cancer and lived healthy lives years after treatment. What they don’t tell you is that all the literature points to a short life expectancy after the discovery of cancer. The chances of recurrence are high, even with chemotherapy, mastectomy or radiation, the traditional methods to “cure” breast cancer. I have read studies where women who had chemotherapy had an equal chance of recurrence as those who didn’t. So, death hangs heavily over people with cancer – it is always there, constantly reminding you of your mortality.
Most people are so afraid of cancer that they can’t even say the word. The receptionist at an oncologist’s office actually asked me what kind of “C” I had – never used the word cancer. Yet she deals with cancer patients every day. Another oncologist I consulted couldn’t even make eye contact with me and rushed me through a diagnosis I couldn’t understand, perhaps believing that my cancer was contagious?
The thing is that cancer is not like any other disease that can be cured through surgery or drugs. It requires months of treatment and constant monitoring. It’s not like having malaria or a broken bone. It is like having an enemy residing in your body, hostile, predatory, waiting to pounce at any moment.
It seems a positive frame of mind is critical in recovering from cancer. I got calls from women who told me they bounced right back into their lives after months of treatment as if nothing had happened, that I mustn’t believe all the literature, that I should get all the treatments done and go back to living a normal life. They didn’t explain to me why they have been working from home since their treatment started and since their so-called “recovery”. Others are more honest about their experiences. A South African women called to tell me that her experience with chemotherapy had damaged her heart, and she is on life-long medication that makes her urinate every few minutes, which means she can no longer work in an office. Instead of destroying the cancer, the chemo destroyed healthy cells in her heart. She is cancer-free but now disabled in other ways. Another friend told me her aunt died not from the cancer, but from the chemo.
What the doctors and the optimists don’t tell you is that both chemotherapy and radiation have debilitating impacts on your body. They literally are poisons injected into your body to kill another poison. Sort of like a vaccine but not quite because they do not boost your immunity. Both chemotherapy and radiation therapies involve weeks of hospital visits that cost an arm and leg. Nausea, burns on your body, fatigue are common side effects.
A friend from Boston who has studied alternative ways of healing from cancer (including not getting any treatment at all) tells me that each woman with breast cancer has to make an individual choice about what kind of treatment she should get. Doctors trained in Western medicine will be quick to put you on chemotherapy and the other treatments without giving you other options. Desperate and eager to cling onto life, the patient with cancer readily accepts any treatment, not realising that not only is it a very long process, but very costly as well. Mental preparation and psychological support are also necessary before embarking on the long and arduous journey called cancer treatment. People become life-long patients; some recover well, others not so well. Some women opt for no treatment, preferring to lead a good quality of life before the disease ravages the body.
I am looking at alternative methods of healing, including Pranic healing that works on your energy fields and chakras. So far it seems to be helping me, but only time will tell if I will be a success story. I have certainly started eating more, and those dizzy spells in the morning seem to be getting rarer.
The biopsy results are not yet out, so I am still not sure what the oncologist will prescribe, but in Kenya, the modus operandi seems to follow the same script: mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy or radiation and some kind of hormone treatment. Am I ready to go there? Not sure. Women who lose their breasts speak of feeling like an amputee; the loss of an organ that defines their femininity impacts their identity and self-esteem. Others are more casual about losing their breasts, (“It’s just fat,” one woman told me). `
The other thing about cancer is that when you have it, you think of nothing else. Everything is a blur. Someone wants to make small talk, and all you want to do is look the other way or scream. (Can’t you see I have cancer? Do you really want to discuss the weather?) You think about your life in vivid film shots. Your past suddenly comes into sharp focus, both the happy and sad days. You begin questioning the meaning of life in ways you never did before. Cancer prepares you for death the way a fatal car accident doesn’t. Is sudden death preferable to dying slowly because you can’t see it coming? Not sure.
But let me not be the purveyor of doom and gloom. The reason I am writing this article is that I have learned wonderful things about myself and other people. One of the things I have learned is that people can be kind and generous when they know you are in pain. People I don’t even know and have never met have sent me good wishes, prayers and even money for my treatment. Friends and family have sent food and offered accommodation. An Indian friend called to say that if I opted to go to India for treatment, I could stay in his home for as long as I needed. These generous and kind offers have literally brought tears to my eyes.
What I also learned is that my life’s work has not been a waste, and that my readers love and admire me for my writing. I didn’t realise I had inspired so many people, not just in Kenya but around the world, through words I have penned. That is a really important things for me to know and hold onto right now – to realise that I had a gift that I used well, and which helped others. And to know that when I go, my writing will live on.
I also learned that life is very, very short. So, we must not postpone the things we need to do. If your job makes you unhappy, quit. If a relationship is toxic, leave it. If people around you are making you feel bad about yourself, walk away. Surround yourself with people who love and cherish you. Love is very important for human survival, so distribute it freely. Be kind and generous. This thing called life is temporary, so enjoy every moment and live it as if every day is your last.
-
Politics2 weeks agoKenya: No Country for Women
-
Data Stories2 weeks agoUK Tea Firms Fail in Closing Gender Pay Gap in Their Kenyan Holdings
-
Politics2 weeks agoKenya and Its Unreformable Police Force
-
Politics1 week agoWhat’s #Trending in Pastoralist Kenya?
-
Reflections2 weeks agoWomen at Sea: Testimonies of Survivors Fleeing Across the Central Mediterranean
-
Op-Eds1 week agoQueer Lawfare in Africa – Legal Strategies in Contexts of LGBTIQ+ Criminalisation and Politicisation
-
Politics5 days agoNotes From Uganda’s Sexual Culture War
-
Podcasts2 weeks agoMental Health Dimensions in Governance