Haidhuru

Asiye kujua, hakuthamini
S/he who doesn’t know you, doesn’t value you- - -

Last week while walking down to my office from the metro and this very frivolous driver kept coming towards me like I was gonna argue over who had right of way. “Rock, automobile or Mutumia?” Auto trumps woman all the time. Then, he had the nerve to be pissed off when I gave him the finger! How? I mean, 1) the light was green -for me and 2) this is DC where pedestrians have ZERO (0.o) manners - at least according to all my buddies who drive pay parking tickets in DC . I mean, DC has almost replaced the pedestrian testicular fortitude that I had acquired in Boston (wanna see hubris? Forget those Greek gods docu-dramas. Go see how Boston pedestrians kwanza those Davis/ Harvard square ones are). Of course my nuts were shrunk down to size by B-more (where the zebra crossing is a suggestion rather than the law. Those mofos will run you over faster than Nairobi drivers if you believe that)…

Yeah… so I start thinking about how it’s so sadly strangely tragic how worthless a precious life can be.. My jamaa, brother, mother etc. could be run over by a stupid driver like that and barring heftier insurance premiums, this would not even be a blip on his radar screen. And I think how life stops in the Mutumia household when e.g. jamaa has a headache and suddenly, lights are put on a dimmer, cool cloths hunted for foreheads, soothing voices are adopted - all because his head hurts. Ditto for me. Like someone gives a damn about my happiness, my existence. I matter and I count. And if you were to go down a whole metro car/ street/ school bus, these stories of people who matter and count would be multiplied a hundred and thousand times and again and again.

Only, the only ones who know this truth- of the intrinsic and unique assigned value to you, are your nearest and dearest- because after all, they know you… and knowing is assigning value after all.

And it got me thinking about Brother Hugh, who I just cannot get out of my mind. Like his amazing tribute for the ordinary, kawa folks who are brought by the coal trains from all over Southern Africa to work the mines of S. Africa. I’m sure that even before he sang “Stimela’, these guys were valued by their peeps. Their bruises incurred by some misplaced shovel, mattered and counted. Women heard their coal dust induced coughing and worried. And fretted and winced every time. But it takes Stimela to make me think about what these guys go through. And lest I’m accused of glamorizing SA just ‘cause, well South Africa is pretty fashionable right now… I’m sure even our ‘drab’ industrial area laborers, there is some woman who feels pain when her man tells her how he walked those 10 miles home as he wanted to save the 20 shillings fare and she wishes that she could change it— y’know? If I ruled the world and all that … But it takes, a Faka Toure to gistify Timbukto, a Chinua Achebe to give props to just another farmer who didn’t even come from a good family etc. to make me remember that these people I meet everyday are not just extras in this amazing movie featuring Mutumia and people just like me- y’know?

Which makes sense. After all, it takes a personal narrative for people to understand and value that which they are not going through. You can read the story of a woman who “once had a farm in the Ng’ong hills” and you celebrate the success of her coffee farm with her. It takes a Ngugi wa Thion’go to make me also feel such pride for Njoroge as he goes to school; start to hope for him as he eyes Miss Chief, y’know? ‘Cause it’s our narratives are what truly, show how special, unique, multifaceted and truly wonderful we all are.

Which is why I love blogs… Blogs, I think, have really changed the lanscape of what gets told. Whose narrative gets heard. I know that the story tellers are still not Everyman in random Murang’a or Got Alila village. I know that you’ve got to own a computer, phone line and the finances to pay for the phone line. Which excludes many, many stories. But! But! It certainly makes a big change from usual fare whereby it used to be the mainstream that would be profiled (i.e. ‘already famous’) or the same African fare i.e. the ‘exotic’ African or the one that’s a ‘victim’ (Sijui nani, 2005). Like the saying says “Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”. C’est vrai. No? I’m reading stories of chamber maids in London, brokers in Murang’a, lawyers in the making, gay Nigerians, aid workers in Rwanda, Kenyan bankers, Khartoum nurses, Nyeri couch potatoes. …

And surely, my blog cup overflows.

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Yeah.. I know Ms. Prou. In my defense, I’ve shibad mpaka I have miro-lepsy (BC, 2004/5?)—google ni sare, lakini my search skills are bilas today so… tafuteni tafadhali… iti (sic)was very funeee sijui story za -lepsy na -ritis na … ya tafuteni…

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