Planning a festival can be a daunting task and ours has been nearly two years in the making. The Jalada Literary and Arts Festival kicked off on March 3rd and ran to March 31st with visits to five countries in-between; Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and DRC. It was essentially a festival on wheels, the first […]
I wore a red t-shirt and green and white shorts on my first trip to Mombasa by rail. This memory is clear, as is that of my father strapping in the security harness as I settled in to sleep on the top bunker in our compartment. In the 1990s, it was a special thing to […]
He was facing the stage, arms akimbo with perspiration gradually gluing a purple polo shirt to his back. Oblivious to the hordes of spectators in the cavernous warehouse, the light skinned man bobbed his head and snapped his fingers to the band’s high-energy polyrhythmic melody. Afrobeat prince, Femi Kuti had wandered among the mortals and […]
She said asthma is what prevented her from becoming a car mechanic and the profession is poorer for it. Stocky with closely-cropped natural hair, Stella is a mother of three and Kakamega town’s sole female motorcycle repairer. We picked her up early Monday morning and she was a delight to shoot given the hostile environment […]
The sun is a fussy performer at dawn and dusk. It promises everything, and nothing. Though we left Vic Hotel at 6:00am, Wanzalla had been awake well before that. Stirred to an anxious wakefulness every hour since he’d retired to bed. He peered at clock and sky before making for the lobby, raring to go. […]
White t-shirt on scraggy chest, Jean Pierre pulls on levers that turn bank notes into lager. The frothy piss flows into slim glasses that are quickly lined up before the small crowd of revellers hanging around the counter. His dark hair is licked silver at the temples. His eyes, two dark strobes that shine out […]