21 July: Voi to Nakuru

We awoke in the morning, elephants sadly departed, and hit the road again, all the way back to Nakuru.  Not much to report, but I did manage to find a sort of nonsense reference in the following:

Groundnuts = peanuts

For any who don’t know, our own familiar “Yankee Doodle” is American Revolutionary nonsense and always delightful to encounter in the mom-and-pop shops of Kenya.  And in the same shop, this delightful parfum de l'homme:

Made with extract of ???

My only regret is that I didn’t purchase this, as I’m dying to find out more about Obama’s odiferous nature.  Many more hours on the dusty fusty rusty road brought us back to Merica Hotel, and looking forward to the next day, when we would do some field work at a local school…

20 July, 2010: Mombasa to Malindi to Voi

Adrian, Beatrice, and I left Mombasa early in order to make our appointment in Malindi, a few hours up the coast.  I felt as if I had made the best of the ISOLA conference, even though my time there was somewhat brief.  At least I hadn’t heaved my huts into the Indian ocean the day before, so all was not lost.  On the way out of the city, we happened to pass by a critical tourist shopping stop:

We are headed to a section of Malindi known as the first village in East Africa (so I’m told), and I politely decline seeing the coral pillar set by Vasco da Gama (a noble name referring to his mother’s varicose veins), to mark his “discovering” it.  We have come here to witness a traditional dance and to sit on the performers firmly until nonsense oozes out from their prepostulators.  As we wait for them to dry their drums (for the rains are coming and going), we visit the nearby butterfly farmers’ collective, a project that pays villagers in the local forest to farm butterflies rather than to cut down the trees and make charcoal, or some other less-than-lepidopterrific activity.

We return to the compound, where we suck down some coconut water and watch the show.  They begin with traditional dances, but once they are through, we ask about children’s games, trying to edge them ever onwards to nonsensical activities.

They demonstrate a few games, including the following one that seems fairly common throughout Kenya:

The leader of the group goes to great lengths to explain various games, songs, traditions, and old stories.

Because Adrian and Beatrice don’t speak the local language, much of the material has to be roughly translated on the spot into Kiswahili, making our selection process more difficult.  By the end of the afternoon, though, we have much footage and a lot of translation work ahead, to see what gems may be within.  

After giving us gifts of medicinal plants and flowers, the performers see us off, and we tootle our way (that’s about 6 hours of tootling, making my tootler a bit sore) back to Voi, our resting stop before going back to Nakuru.  We end up, after much driving around, getting rooms at the Red Elephant, a game park hotel.  In the darkness, about 30 yards from our hotel-hut doors, on the other side of a substantial fence, and standing placidly by a watering hole, a family of elephants slurps us to sleep.

Sunday-Monday, 18-19 July, 2010: ISOLA conference

On Sunday I was up early for the first session of the ISOLA conference, hoping that perhaps I could give my paper if a delegate did not arrive, since a scheduling snafu had slated my paper to arrive before I did.  I went to one of the panels that included Mubina Kirmani, an Indian Kenyan who had written a book on the large Indian population in the country—a topic that I thought might dovetail with my own research.  The panel members were all there, unfortunately for me, but they were kind enough to let me give a brief, 10-minute spiel on the Anthology.  Immediately after, I was called away by a conference worker because they had, at the last minute, found a spot where I could do my whole paper—a dollop of goop fortune on this, the last day and the last panel.  I was escorted to another open-air hut-like building, with a session already in progress.  After papers on music and dance, and the nature of conflict (not a bad preamble to nonsense), I was able to give my paper.  All went well, though there was an odd moment.  Just after I performed the throat singing piece, “Dürgan Chugaa” (from the group Alash), a whole troop of monkeys descended from the roof area and gathered on the rafters, looking on curiously.  The audience members found this most amusing, claiming that my grumbly kargyraa style of throat-singing had called the monkeys, which might very well be true. It was certainly a conference-first for me!

Yarn-artist's rendition of Mombasa monkey
mesmerized by throat singing. Note: the mesmereyes.

After the session, and over the next couple of days, I was able to meet many oral literature scholars from different countries, many of whom were interested in our project and may be able to contribute. 

The sessions having finished around noon, Adrian and I declined the conference trip to Mombasa in order to orchestrate our fieldwork material from the Osiri Beach area and even begin a little translation.  We sat in the lobby as the monsoon-like rains fell and darkness settled, finally able to look back on our long hours of recordings.

On Monday, I went on the conference excursion to the “marine park” and Wasini Island.  After an hour and a half rough boat ride, during which many folks got sick (not I, with a steely stare at the horizon and a steady chew of my South African biltung (jerky)), they cast out the anchor in the open sea and told us to don our swimming costumes—for the marine park turned out to be under water!  Most of us, dressed in our conference casual, were not quite prepared to go snorkeling—and besides, our green pallor would have made us difficult to distinguish, and pluck out, from the heaving seas.  We headed to Wasini Island for a lovely lunch, a tour through the village, and a look at the coral gardens, a green plain bordering mangrove swamp, dotted with jagged coral boulders in fantastical shapes.

Saturday, 17 July 2010: Voi to Mombasa and ISOLA conference

I didn’t want to make the first pizza from the last blog entry too obvious, but I have tell you now that our hotel last night was called the Silent Resort, and true to such a topsy-turvy adventure, it turned out that all night long, I listened to the dulcet thumping of a delightfully repetitive African pop bass line.  And when I say all night, I mean all night…music still pumping as we left… Whence the beat, you might ask?  No doubt the natives in the secret underground caverns that stretch from Egypt to the Grand Canyon, via Voi and surely a right (or wrong) turn in Albuquerque.

Adrian, Beatrice, and I packed ourselves back into our trusty car—which has by now had a flat tire, a punctured gas tank, and alignment perfectly calibrated for Moon craters, and hit it bright and early for Mombasa and the 8^th conference of the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA).  The terrain went from scrubby des(s)ert to coconut cream pie as we hit the coast, where the heat and humidity are fairly staggering (though they’ve got nothing on a Delhi summer). 

We arrived in the afternoon at the conference hotel and venue, called the Leisure Lodge, which, despite its name, is not a retirement home in Florida but rather a lovely beach-hut-turned-circus-tent kind of resort, complete with monkeys inside and outside the main structures.  Because we had arrived after the start of the conference, Adrian and I had to slide into conference mode immediately, as we attended papers, meals, and schmoozing sessions.  I was fortunate to be able to meet with Judith Jefwa, a professor at the University of Nairobi, with whom I had been in touch via email a few month earlier, and who had expressed some interest in contributing to the anthology.  I also briefly met Dr. Peter Wasamba, chair of the Literature department at Nairobi and head organizer of the conference, who was kind enough not only to insert me into the conference late, but also to distribute among the delegates the Call For Papers flyers for the anthology.  The sessions on this day and the following were fascinating, especially for a scholar very much of the page such as myself.  As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the performative aspect of oral literature represents a whole new dimension to art, and it was eminently and elementally edifying to be among top scholars in the field.

What better way to top off a day of oral literature scholarly discourse than to enjoy the massive hotel buffet while listening to a local musician’s Casio goodness renditions of John Denver? 

I would have preferred the Beatles, or at least this Beetle.

Friday 16 July, 2010: Nakuru to Voi

Note Bene: For all those who have tried to post comments in the past, I believe I’ve fixed the problem—so please do post your comments!

Baobob

Today was another slog of driving, from Nakuru to Voi, a town much closer to Mombasa and also where Adrian and Beatrice’s son, Paul, goes to college.  The drive was long, but completely rewarding.  We went away from the green climes of western and central Kenya and were moving into the eastern part, which is much dryer and hotter.  The grassy plains, with waves of tall brown grass hiding, no doubt, many a lion and lesser quangle-wangle, are dotted with gorgeous acacia trees which soon gave way to baobobs.  I realize now that the trees that I’ve been drawing all my life have actually been baobob trees, even though I’ve never met one. 

Baobill

Baoscott

Massive, sectioned trunks that narrow dramatically into branches twisted fantastically.  After a long drive, with Adrian bravely taking on the endless random speed bumps and bribe-baiting police, and overtaking the black-cloud-spewing overloaded trucks moving 20 miles per hour, we arrived in Voi, where we immediately met with Paul, who introduced me to a young man and two elders from a local tribe, from the hills nearby.  We went to our hotel balcony where our guests recited nursery rhymes, game rhymes, and my favorite (even if not nonsense), the “beer blessing,” a ceremony performed by the father to the son when the son is to have his first beer.  It involves the father spitting/spraying beer on the son’s forehead and rubbing the beer into the scalp in long massaging motions, all the while warning him of the dangers of drinking.  We found one interesting nonsense piece that seems to be in many versions throughout Kenya, a rhyme recited when the children are going through the crops with sticks to kill the locusts (locusts which, by the way, I saw today… apparently quite a delicacy, as well).  Many thanks to all participants, especially those who came from the hills…

After the session, we had dinner, only to encounter these pizzas:

 If anyone can explain the naming of any of these, I would be most appreciative.  I know you have all missed the menus from last summer in Eastern Europe, so I hope this begins to satisfy you…  Suggestions in the comments, below??

Thursday, 15 July, 2010: The legend of Gor Mahia

It was time to leave dear Homa Bay, and none too soon, for my life surely was in danger.  Forget the lion, the leopard, the buffulated buffalo, and the homuncular hippo—the most deadly African beast is surely the Four-Post Jellyfish.

It seems that this particular specimen had roosted over my bed, and so I had no choice but to vacate, seeing as I had left my jelly-extraction kit back in my leopard-skin pillbox hatbox box. I escaped unslimed, and we headed out to the next adventure, to learn of Gor Mahia, the famous Luo hero, known for his bravery, wisdom, and diplomacy, not to mention his magic.  He was most certainly a real person who, in his youth, had led the Luo in successful battles against neighboring tribes.  His did this, so it is told, sometimes by transforming himself into different creatures and objects, his favorite shape being that of a termite mound.  When the British arrived, Gor Mahia, then the leader of his people, saw the hard reality of the situation and collaborated with them to save his tribe.  Other tribes fought back and were easily slaughtered by the British.  Over the years, many stories were told about his different adventures, and it was Adrian’s field work that gathered these legends into a grand retelling, The Epic of Gor Mahia (Pangolin Publishers, 2003).  This day, we were to drive to the burial site of Gor Mahia in order to listen to one of the elders tell us some of the stories.

We were headed into the most remote region of western Kenya yet, from pocky pavement, to dirt road, to dirtier road, to roads where we had to stop the car and move large rocks out of the way, and finally to little more than a foot trail.  Adrian warned me that if it rained, we would be stuck, all while the clouds were gathering in purple piles to the east.  We finally parked the car just amongst the tufts of tall grass, below the hill that contained the burial site.  A short walk up brought us to a clearing, with a group of locals led by one of the descendents of Gor Mahia.  The site was no more than some mounds of dirt, demarcated by stones, but the interested parties were hoping to build a proper monument in the near future.  As we were shown the site, our storyteller arrived, an old behatted man who had much trouble navigating the dirt, stones, and trenches. Eventually, the men were all seated on top of the grave site, thanks to a collection massive wooden chairs that had been dragged from who knows where, while the women sat on the ground on the outskirts of the area.  Just as our master storyteller began, a few thick raindrops fell, and we were told that this was naturally Gor Mahia’s blessing.  The clouds passed, and we listened, under the baking sun, to the legends of the great Luo hero.

 Even Adrian, who has done so much research on Gor Mahia, learned a few new stories, and while the nonsense was most likely hiding under that rocks and stones, the stories we heard added much to our knowledge of Luo people, their history and culture, not to mention their vivid imagination.

Osiri Hill, Kenya, Part 2

 Wednesday, 14 July, 2010

I spent another day in the company of the Luo around Osiri Hill.  We arrived a little earlier than yesterday since we had so much to do, and this was our last day here.  As happened yesterday, a group of dancers and singers met our car.  This time, it was a group of women, in fact, an organization headed by Hellen Akinyi Kanda Nyakobiero, that benefits local women and children.  They hopped and popped and helped bring some of the others out of their shyness throughout the day.

 No more opening ceremonies for this day—we got right down to it, having performances throughout the day of stories, riddles, history, quizzing on traditions and customs, and proverbs.  It seems that, thanks in part to Hellen, but also to the general vibe, people were a bit more relaxed today, which led to some wonderful interactive oral literature.  I should perhaps mention that performances here, and also generally in Africa, involve the audience in ways that would seem downright inappropriate to a western audience.  The performers often go through a ritual call-and-response greeting and then, throughout the performance, entertain the audience’s comment, jibes, often incorporating them into the whole.  There is a kind of willing participation—active rather than passive reception—that enlivens the performances here and makes them unique to the occasion.  Of course, I will be exploring how nonsense may play a role in this distinctly African way of performing.

In our break from performances, we walked down to the shores of Lake Victoria, where I could, if I so desired, walk in the steps of the hippo, their tracks sunk deep in the mud. 

We walked through the fields of wild ongongo, tall and strong arid wildflowers, to return to the hut.

And now it was time for my performances…  Because most of the audience had little or no English, I chose the more performative pieces, “The Bathing Hymn” from The Tenth Rasa, and “The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles” (from Jethro Tull’s A Passion Play—and by the way, thank you Mrs. Quinto, not only for the leather trousers but for allowing me to perform this in Oral Communication in the Year of Dour Gourd, 198XX).

"This is the story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles!"

Towards the end of the day, we were able to ask the participants to give some of the children’s rhymes they knew, which of course are often brimming with nonsense (and this is why people are reluctant to perform them, sadly).  And then, as an experiment of sorts, we actually asked them for nonsense.  Of course, the word for "nonsense" in Luo, in its literal meaning, does not designate a literary genre, although there is a different word, oyuma, that implies a kind of silliness and stupidity of speech that has some semblance of structure.  Adrian tried to explain a little, but we left the rest up to the group as to how they might represent a performance of oyuma.  The result was hilarious:

This film is of Hellen Akinyi Kanda Nyakobiero, the leader of the dance group mentioned above.  A few people arose and performed this kind of piece, ones mostly involving sounds, laughter, wild gestures and facial expressions, and audience engagement.  Few words were spoken, and the audience loved it.  Most interesting to me was that it seemed that this kind of performance was an accepted part of their repertoire—a kind of nonsense performance that even Adrian, who has done significant research and field work, didn’t know (note bene: Adrian’s field work has mostly involved the story of the Luo hero, Gor Mahia, which is distinctly non-nonsensical).  As texts, these are mostly just sounds and gibberish, and so my western scholarly brainbean wants  immediately to exclude them from the nonsense cannon.  As performance of oral literature, however, they have structure, sense implication, and other goodliness that my students will recognize as hallmarks of the Real Thing.  As I try to consider concepts of performance nonsense, which would have to be the main mode of African nonsense oral literature, I can see how these “texts” could indeed be considered nonsense.  Certainly fodder for future floundering.

By way of a croaking goodbye, I performed one last piece, “Dürgen Chugaa,” the Tuvan fast-talking nonsense chant by the group Alash, in my best counter-counter-baritone kargyraa throat-singing.

After a long, leguminous day of nonsensical proporpoises, we had to say our goodbyes, with an array of speeches and much goodwill bubbling up and reaching from Lake Victoria to the top of the Inspiration Tree.  One of the men said to the crowd that these performances reminded them of the richness of their own oral literature—something that, with “developed” cultures continually encroaching on the “developing,” they tend to forget. I was told to bring word of the Luo to Obama himself, and I promise that if I ever meet him, I shall. 

Imagine spiritual ostrich feathers on my head