Kicking it in Kawangware

Every Saturday morning at the Precious Blood school in Kawangware, a clutch of teenage boys gather for Art Club. There is a laid-back, wide-open, eclectic spirit about this space: this time has been filled with classical music and soccer games, karate and Simon Says. One of its coordinators told me that the great hope of Art Club is simply that it gives the boys a chance experience things that are new to them: to be not only witnesses, but participants in a world that is broader than the borders of their sometimes insular neighborhood. I had the delight of visiting the group as the guest host of a poetry and storytelling session. And it took about five seconds before I was utterly charmed by the energy and humor of these guys. Amazingly, it turns out, Barack Obama is related to every last one of them. ("He is my uncle!")

The session started late because most of the boys had another program that delayed them. I didn't mind, as it gave me the chance to hang out with three of the guys for awhile -- to bang on a drum we found in the classroom, to peer at the student art hanging from the walls, to kick at the little orange ball one of the guys had. Amos was the Art Club coordinator who was my partner for the session, and I also got to learn more about him: he's a Nairobi native who works in programs for teen girls most of the week, particularly in making sanitary pads more accessible to adolescents, and he has a brilliantly friendly personality. When the full group came together, Amos led us outside for a few physically-active games -- an icebreaker ritual that is the custom of Art Club, designed to cohere the group and get us laughing together.

When we moved back to class, I said my greetings and launched in with the collaborative and tactile storytelling activity that I'm fond of. We had a willingness to turn our tale darker: our main character was a 30-year-old thief who is raising a young daughter on his own (with a bit of help from his girlfriend; the mother of the child died years ago). He began his thieving ways when he was 14 to feed his family, but found himself so skilled at it, and so fond of luxuries, that he now steals as his fundamental habit. His mother will no longer speak to him. Often, he brings his little girl with him when he skulks through the night; he has been known to stuff her mouth with a bottle to keep her quiet in the crucial moments...

... and so, we told a tale together. Amos helped out with some translation between myself and the others. And when we all exhaled its ending, we slipped into the poetry part of the day. I read a long section of a Saadi Youssef poem that takes a big vantage and a big voice to the landscape of North Africa. We talked about it, and about what the East Africa counterpart poem would be: its sounds and stories. We are reading from Youssef's book of selected poems, incidentally: Without an Alphabet, Without a Face, translated by Khaled Mattawa. Amos paged through the book until he found a short poem he wanted to read aloud, and then he led a discussion about the multiple meanings that can be found in poems ... and also about colonialism. Because a poem is (rarely) about itself. And this Youssef poem opened up that particular door, and this particular conversation, on this particularly lovely Saturday.

Comments

[Angela]

Wow. Thanks for the beautiful write-up. I am so glad you had a chance to visit Art Club and share your artistic talent with the boys! Thanks again. - Angela

[community organisation development initiative]

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