Queerly Kenyan.

Once upon a time, there lived groups and communities of people in lands that had names famous to the next three ridges only, the land we all know as Kenya. Laws, rules and instructions existed. Not as many as we currently have but most of the innate ones that kept you from stabbing a person and stealing your mothers beads.

There was communal survival, needs were the force behind life; farm, hunt, worship, trade, dance, talk, the kind of things that brought continuity and comfort in living. Each of this and many more elements of their time grew and evolved simultaneously with their interactions and biology, my once starts in the late years of 1800.

Knock knock! And comes in a white stranger, he tells tales of his far away land and most open their huts in the beautiful African hospitality we still strive to imagine. The notion of just us and the 100km-away neighbor’s existence starts to erode. He painted pictures of science, art, religion, government and culture like we had never imagined through his demeanor, gifts and stories.

While chiefs and favored ones were enjoying the euphoria of the ‘money’ and sugar without the cane, the colonialist were offering the sweetest and most complicated insights of what we can do differently e.g. sell him some land for a few jobs and social division.

A few years or months for the fast ones, lead to a conclusion that things are not right and a match is done into far away land and we find many, many more like us. They are also what we learn we are too, Kenyans! They are a little different in tongue and manner but they are also under the white skiners like we.

The ‘luckier’ ones who get to cross the seas come back with more words of the white man’s beautiful land and others who do not look like us but are still under the whiters and the conclusion is quick; he is supreme. That doesn’t work; as always it’s favored among all masses of people to have those few who will note, speak and shout the problem.

The decision is as African as matoke and sisal skirted girls when we get a few leaders together in committees to do what they do best; talk. Their heroic actions have them in meetings and travel the world over as they speak for the underpaid workers and stolen resources to bring the wealth back home. The freedom cruise is living and the world over is talking of its sexiness.

The chance is here for people all over the globe to fight the divisions that were killing us in war and famine. Our leaders get on the deputy conversation of independence as the superpowers decide on the needs of the human race where the participants do not even know each other as they engage in their world wars tantrum.

Back home the Kenyans have ties to make with each other and have an approved language to interact with. When we are not occupied by the daily bread needs, we engage in education to fit in this white world that will clearly win this race if at all they hadn’t already. Ethnic stereotypes we hold for each other assist to start a conversation but before we know it, the joke has been taken too far.

In a few years we believe all the stories that our first urban parents who got to interact with a person of a different tribe for the first time told us. From then on with independence flowing freely on our flags, we are here to get this ball rolling. We have arms of the government to fill, land that has been freed, but more importantly because there was no way in hell we would survive without an instruction for every movement in our space, here as laws to govern us.

Naturally let’s get a few people to interpret them for us so that they can help remember not to harm our neighbor, as we clear up this poverty and land grabbing nightmare we are calling the nineties. Voices are getting louder in literature, democracy and media. Which keeps us occupied with a new struggle and milk is flowing in schools to the children’s further confusion.

The millennium hits us with realization that the global train has taken another turn in development and we run to it hard. Things are getting serious for our selected ‘leaders’ as Wanjiku(ordinary citizen) gets more intolerant of the failed promises and with MO1 out of the way and sure that the monster is no longer in our room. They get their mouths running, promises are made on the changes to come as they insist on the gifts we hold as a country in terms of resources, opportunities and global support and Wanjiku reignites the comfort once imagined when they gave us our folder flag and insinuated freedom.

We strive to be on the forefront and ensure we own this country and avoid resent mistakes and our post election embarrassment happens. The stereotypes and greed fuel us to the ugliest bloodshed by our people. With the historic promulgation on 2010 and a vision 2030 that shall ensure services are accessible to all regardless of location or economic status and that all persons live with equal opportunities. There is light at the end of the tunnel. 

As before how can we run without a committee? Lol. So we send our refined legal minds and throw in the public’s take which was a translation of what our Leader’s say was. Some play with the idea of a devolved system where wealth and power can be handed back to the people through counties and Wanjiku say’s yes.

Today; we are glued on our televisions with more anticipation than usual to listen to the months-long gay discussions that is supposed to create the door for leaders who feel the infringement of their unsupervised power to tamper with our young constitution. Wanjiku asks of the impact of this queer people and the how to work through the legal contradiction the media has insisted to exist.

Forgetting the important thoughts; how for years we have focused on the economic, financial, religious, social and academic structures inherited by lands that abolished them after repeated analysis that showed their flaws. We do not who we are as a people and hold on to our Ankara designs for a feel of our roots.

Facts have to be aired with Musevei’s AHB signing hours ago. African societies existed in harmony for years accepting and dealing with our differences. Same-sex marriage that even the LGBTIQ community has currently avoided to dream about was as ordinary and accepted as the medicine and all the other jokes that the colonialist pointed out as in our religion and dressing, just to mention but a few. Our most popular fables and myths that allowed the community to question our gender identity e.g. our famous Mugumo tree gender change possibility were all silenced with new books that had more followers than ours.

The white man no longer the enemy but our blind walk in this wilderness of notions that as Africans are being pushed to a stand, note it is in a time when unlike most we have not deliberated on our values collectively. The differences are now to the advantage of the 1% neo-liberal capitalists the drives wanjiku’s train. We are burying ourselves in distractions while we are losing sight of the Vision 2030 and baby constitution that is being mutilated behind our back.

The fight is not what we may think but am sure it shall be the end of our ‘freedom’ if we start deciding who gets a prison cell underneath this independence cruise. Families have managed to abolish all education of self: spiritual development, sexuality and morals. The queer African children all reach for the remote this evening hoping it’s not the day you are sent off before the neighbors realize you might be like the western gays people are talking about.

In honesty we are behind on these conversations in our dinner tables. We need to share our thoughts and run through what we really do not understand. Question over and over the things we have been programmed to silence. We accept a world of patriarchal fears whereby we think without the African masculine power we can still claim we shall be nothing in the face of a world without all the money, resources and diamonds to parade.

Think of the taxes you are diverted from conversing in a world where a meal is becoming a dream in our land. Forget homosexuality and think of your own sexuality journey, be it hetero or unknown. Talk to our children about how we loved back in our days, accept limitless questions and help your son understand how he is different and not throw his identity to the white men he has never even met. 

Africa is still learning itself. What contribution shall we remember you for.