retriever & bearer of indigenous Afrikan lifeways
It’s been a while since I have done a life update post so here goes. I decided to take a sabbatical this year to focus on healing and skilling myself up in preparation for the work that I believe I am called to do. This to me is to heal and reconnect community relationships, and to heal and reconnect our relationship with the earth. Here’s some of what I’ve been…
I teach a regular dance class in Nairobi, after doing the same in Brazil and Mexico. My classes draw heavily on African and Afro-diasporic traditions (ie traditions from the African diaspora). I think of my dance classes as sharing and getting to know cultures, so I try and give some background to each dance choreography we do. This is also because I have been entrusted with this information by my…
The bodaboda guy drops me off on the grounds in front of an old colonial-style mansion. I’m not sure this is the place but there’s a few people looking as lost as I am beginning to feel. A short walk around confirms the beauty of the setting- the edge of the Arboretum forest in Nairobi. I am here for the beginning of what will be a 7 weekend long course…
I attended some events of the Kwani? Literary Festival that was held 2 weeks ago in various locations around Nairobi. The festival brought together authors from countries including South Africa, Somalia, D.R.C., Senegal, U.S.A., Ghana, Tanzania, Italy and our very own Kenya to consider questions of language in new ways. If you are familiar with African writing, then you know that the question of what language to write in, and…
This cold that takes residence in, chills, and sets your bones. You’re seated inside but you might as well have been walking outside in a Wellesley winter. Seated in these stone houses: borrowed, gifted, stolen, forced- they were not meant for the unwarmed cold. They come with chimneys, diligently built into every sitting room. And as diligently used to prop wooden flowerpots, store old newspapers, and confound the odd bat…