It's a Good Day to Come to Africa

Day One in Nairobi. Yellow-bright sun, dusty motoring downtown streets crowded with small businesses and flanked by shots of green trees and pink, orange, amber flowers. I have spent my morning wandering through this, my jet lag punctuated by exhilaration. Here! Here I am! No more of the planning and possibilities and soft-focus ideas about someday coming to Kenya; this is real!

And it is an amazing time to arrive in Africa, truly. So much is unfolding: most especially, the vote in Sudan that will probably create a new (hopefully more peaceful) nation. Meanwhile, fierce mediation is attempting to find a nonviolent and just solution to presidential gridlock in Cote d'Ivoire. Six of the world's ten fastest-growing economies over the last decade are in Africa and both wind farms and literary writing are on the rise in Kenya. A commitment to catalyzing the literary culture in Kenya was affirmed when the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, a prestigious national literary award, tripled its prize money to Sh150,000 and with this week's introduction of the William Burt Prize for African Literature for the authors of books targeting 12-15 year olds; it promises to give the top winner Sh945,600, or about $12,000 Canadian dollars. And through it all, new languages are evolving in brilliant hybridic brews.

I am so grateful to be here, for the chance to listen and to look and to learn, that I can barely speak.

Comments

[Monet]

I have been thinking of you all day...it was wonderful to get this update. Good things are on the horizon for both you and Africa. I can't wait to see what comes.

[Laura J. W. Ryan]

I am happy to hear you have landed in Africa and are enjoying yourself! I'm looking forward to reading about your adventures there!

[Anna Clark]

Thank you very much! Your well wishes mean a lot!