A Tea of repentance & Liberation

CHEF KABUI

APRIL 9, 2021

A TEA OF REPENTANCE & LIBERATION

I have been thinking a lot about the story of tea this Spring. That is one of the incidental outcomes of the pandemic as we are stuck at home. That idea of being forced to spend a lot of time at home, means that we have enough time to look not only outtward but also inwards. That inward spirit got me looking at my backyard with different eyes. I noticed that I have a lot of eddible plants that grow wild.

The Spring seems to be just burgeoning with different species that are eddible within two weeks into Spring. Among the list of plants I found are chickweed, Dandelion, wild Blackberries and wild onions. There are two wild vegetables that are consumed in Kenya but whose name I am yet to find out.

I have enjoyed some of these early vegetables but that is not my focus today. My interest was the kind of tea I could make by incorporating some ingredient from my backyard. My search yielded Dandelion, Lemon Balm and young wild Blackberries leaves which made a great base for my tea. I added a few Blackberries, Tumeric, honey, fresh squeezed Pineapple and a fresh squeezed Lemon juice to complete this sumptuous drink.

I loved the floral flavors but also whole idea of creating a recipe that truly borders a repetance brew. I used the word brew because many of us have literally become drank with naivety of the consequences of our mindless consumption that is either the goal or consequence of capitalism. But the word brew touches on a another brew that is destroying the youth of my village.

As if to offer my libation to neutralize the two demons of addiction now emblematic of food, well and also brew: Injustice, I also decided on a brew that is a counter to the errant drink of the traditional tea. My tea turned out to be a thrill even to my children, who also happen to be my harshest critics.

As we enjoyed the tea, I took the opportunity to teach them about the history of tea. It was an eye-opener to them just like it was for me the first time I heard it. I especially couldn't believe how the tea leaves my mother used to cook for us during my youth in that magical land of Gathingira, the village of my birth, had their roots in China. It might be worth noting that my favorite metal cup with a nice glaze to it was also Chinese; and so was the ubiquitous neatly folded handkerchief I kept in my pocket as a village etiquette with British roots but more driven by my regular sneezing that was probably exacerbated by the increasing foreign diet in our food. Looking back, there were tell tell signs of a dietary coup in the offing. The coup had four things at it’s root and they were food, textile, God and language. Britain led the coup but China was a loyal sidekick.

The most interesting bit is how and who was responsible for spreading the tea leaves across the world to far of places including my little remote village.

The story started with the British explorers to China. Among the many things that fascinated these British explorers about China was gun powder and tea. Both would change the course of the world in ways few would have imagined in the early 1800s. Once the British explorers tasted the Chinese brew they were hooked. They took some back to Britain and soon after tea become the most popular drink in Britain.

The wealthy class couldn't get enough of the new drink. One has to bear in mind that beer was the default drink for workers due to the widespread problem of water contamination. Before long, politics of tea cropped into the trade. Britain realized that it could not sustainably keep buying the Chinese tea using silver and gold, the only two means of payment that the Chinese were willing to accept. They Chinese were also not willing to sell their cash cow by selling transplants of tea to the British, or anyone else for that matter.

The British were so adamant on growing their own tea that they finally decided to send a spy to go and steal the tea plants and sneak it out of the country. That was no easy feat. It took a lot of skills, courage and guile. The task was especially complications by the fact that the Chinese did not allow any of the foreign traders beyond the trading ports. Tea could probably rank as the first political drink of global proportion.

The story starts when the British East Indian Company decided to engage Scotish botanist named Robert Fortune in the espionage. In 1848, Fortune set out for a journey that would land him in Wu Si Shan Hills where he successfully managed to obtain the secrets of growing and processing tea. That is still the biggest espionage case in world history in terms of cash value.

The second tactic by the British was the introduction of opium in China in order to addict the Chinese with a commodity that the British had easy acess to. In so doing, the British would get opium from their colonies in India and buy tea with it instead of the more rare and expensive precious metals the Chinese were demanded as currency.

The Chinese did not fall for the trick laying down. The two countries went to war that is popularly known as the Boxer rebellion. The stakes were so high that it took a second Boxer rebellion to subdue the Chinese enough for British comfort. The chinese lost the war and opium flooded the Chinese market. One of the lingering consequences of the Chinese loss still lingers and continues to this day. That consequences was that of dividing the Chinese country into three parts of Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. That the seperation of Hong Kong was for only 50 years comes as no consolation to global security. Yet, it is the seperating China and Taiwan that carries the greatest source of global insecurity as it pits America and Chinese, two nuclear powers, against each other.

Once the Chines lost the war, opium dens become a common place in China as more and more Chinese became addicted to the drug. Many injustices happened and many lives were lost before the original Chinese drink could find its way to my village. Unbeknownst to my young taste bugs, I was partaking in the spreading the impact of the tea heist simply by drinking my mother’s brew. That simple and unassuming plant had made British East Indian company and Britain in general a lot of money, power and fueled its efforts to build a global empire. As evidence, we still call the chinese tea, British tea. British breakfast can't be complete without a brew made with the Chinese leaves.

Large areas in my region still grows tea to this day. The crops uses a disproportionate amount of land , leaving smaller area for growing food for local consumption. That fact of growing tea with chemical fertilizers, consuming sugar and eating gluten in bread for breakfast was a perfect recipe for the making of a regular running nose. The Chinese could at least take solace for their loss of their tea monopoly by appreciating the growth in their handkerchief market.

Tea gained such a stronghold amongst some farmers in my region that it was not a rare occurrence to have farmers growing tea on their farms but going to the market to buy food that would readily grow on their land but had opted to give tea priority over other foods.

Tea also uses chemical fertilizers that damage the ecosystem.

Apparently the ripples of the espionage that took place in 1848 are being felt thousands of miles from Wi Si Shan hills or Britain. While no Boxer rebellion has yet broken out in my village, the damaged ecosystem has been equally destructive. That damage is exacerbated by the unjust market that favor the foreign consumers to the detriment of the farmers of economically less powerful countries. That economic ecosystem of today is what we call global economy. Like the opium dens of old China, dens are now becoming common place in my home region.

Though these dens don't typically sell opium, the toxic cheap alcohol being sold is having somewhat similar results as that of the opium on the Chinese back in 1850s. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some of the chemicals used to brew sold in my village originated from China. It's rather ironical that the dens of toxic brews are coming up just at the Chinese are gaining in influence over the Kenyan economy. The Chinese influence may require me to come up with a recipe of yet another libation against a second form of toxic brew: debt. That is one libation that I am yet to come up with.

Food justice is more complicated than most people might guess. Once you are food-literate you will see the injustices stemming from food all around you. A tea of Repetance gains a whole new meaning, and flavor. As I sat in my backyard, watching the organic ecosystem of birds building nests, bees pollinating flowers and the countless other creatures instinctively playing their roles without anyone's urging or supervision. I wondered if at all it is possible for us to play our respective roles in the global ecosystem.

That thought immediately conjured images from as far back as 399 BCE. Those images were of Socrates drinking a cup of hemlock for his principled stand against fake gods and youth manipulation by the powerful. Many other toxic brews have been consumed since then. But the main reason we know about the story of Socrates is because Plato, a student of Socrates, recorded it in the dialogue of Apology. To accompany the ritual of the Tea of Repetance, I put my earphones and listened to Miles Davis tune, Bitches Brew and poured a libation to the ecosystem in my backyard but also to the courage of my ancestors both kin and otherwise who have struggled for an ecosystem marked by justice that was represented all the wonderful creatures both visible and invisible.

Sparticus and my backyard garden

While clearing the backyard shrubs in my backyard in preparation of our garden, I remembereda deep conversationI have been having with various people over the last year or so. I remembered the long process dealing with poor soil when I first started out over 17 years ago. The soil in this small space has really challenged me about conventional ideas about investments. How can I equate the value of a house and the value of the soil in my backyard? I find that as the house prices go up, I sleep less and less hours every night. As if that isn't enough, the taxes follow a one way road that only goes up.

Yet the quality of my life inside that house stays the same, at least assuming I am of above average intelligence to equip my self with adequate defense against malevolent forces that come modern day lifestyles. One of those challenges being colonized food. The kind of colonialism I am talking about is not an abstruct idea. One can be excused for the tendency to associate colonialism with national and racial entities. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. One does not need any special heuristic skills to understand the logic behind the above supposition.

While on a flight from Kenya to France, I used the 8 or so flight to think about the concept of food colonialism. It might be helpful to mention that I boarded the plane with everything I would need throughout the length flight except a parachute, a bathroom and water. In my person, I had a yams and Macadamia nuts from village, avocados and a sweet piece of cultural delicacy known as rùkùri. Rùkùri was masculine equivalence to red roses in western culture, except.

A man would cure the best part of a goat known as ikengeto and store it in an old bee hive. That piece of delicacy could last for years and was only shared between best friends. A traditional man's hut was rather simple in early days of my grandfather.

As far as fate would have it, my seat was in the first row facing the first class in the plane. I sat down comfortably in a reflective mood as I re

My CRADLE OF FOOD JUSTICE

I put alot of thought in the design of our farm in my ancestral home in the village of Gathingira, Murang’a Country. It is the place I spent my early childhood and almost all my school holidays during the two decades of my life. My parent’s farm has since been divided between my two brothers and I. It would have been hard for me to choose which third of the farm was my favorite, assuming that I had that option. There two particular areas that were both almost equally special and close to my heart.

The first was an area I spent many afternoons in grazing our cows, especially Kamore, they cow that was so loved by the family that when its daughter died, there was double mourning in the family as it was the last in the lineage of Kamore.

I was fond of that area which was referred to as the Rocky zone or Mahigainí. The name referred to the volcanic rocks strewn all around the area. Some of the rocks weigh several tons going by the visible part that was above ground but there is no telling how deep the rocks went below ground level.. I used to graze cows in this area as it was not viable for farming.

The second best area was an area known then as Kwa Múgú. The area hosted the only beehive we had and I have fond memories of the only time I went to harvest the honey with the local honey sage from a nearby town known as Rwathia. The honey that the sage harvested magically connected me to his village in even deeper ways. I would find myself making regular trips to Rwathia for some love that was sweeter than honey. My sweet grandmother Njoki would talk in symbolic language that borders on poetry as she subtly sent me hints about the apple of my eye. How my grandmother knew that I was heading there some evenings after work to chance spending a little stollen moments with my queen of Rwathia,

I will never know. What I do know is that the experience of harvesting honey with my mother and also having two types of shrubs on the boundary near the hive made me much attached to the particular location.

The two shrubs were Magio and Kirùrite, both of which were greatly loved by goats. But that wasn’t all the fuss there was about the two shrubs. One Magio was the raw materials for making the most exquisite baskets I know. The women would remove the back of the shrub, then peal a very thin and fibereous inner side of the bark. That petticoat-bark would then be chewed it in the mouth and then roll it on the thigh to make a string that women would use to make baskets. I guess that this was the second manner in which the community microbiom was shared around.

I currently possess a basket that one of the family matriarchs made. That means I have traces of the microbiom of the woman who once chewed my baby food still in my possession. I remember the majestic woman with her dresses folded between their legs to the point where it would look like they were wearing shots. Seated on a three legged stool, she demonstrated her rolling mojo as she majestically peal the inner bark, chew it and then rolled it into strings in a manner that made it look as though she were dancing and ruminating at the same time. It was a cool rhythm to watch.

These particular shrubs are still there to this day. The fact that I am always weary about the “progress minded” spirit that has engulfed my community and its propensity to destroy cultural icons in the name of modernization. I was not sure that the rest of my family would be keen on preserving these childhood memories but again we all have our duties and I was keen to stay on my path. I therefore would have wanted to inherit my childhood’s cultural landmarks.

So when it turned out that had I been allocated the portion of land where the hive and the iconic shrubs were, I was elated. Unfortunately, right above the section where the beehive and the shrubs were located, I had also inherited another more recent less glamorous landmark. It doesn't have the sweet memories of the beehive or beneficial shrubs but it is a story that started sadly but ended up in a triumphant note.

It is on that location that i lost my most significant battle, It will was the lowest point of my work when I stood by as my brother bent down with a bottle of Roundup in hand and carefully poured it into a spraying pump, then boldly handed it to two young guys to start spraying of weeds. As I watched in dismay as the two young men hoisted the poisoned charlace on their back. Oblivious of the damage they were about to cause to my being and the hallowed ground that had nurtured my ancestors, the walked just few steps from where I was standing. Though I could not see thier faces as they pumped their death agent as they walked, their bodies looked ghostly.

I knew very well the dangers they were exposing themselves to for not having the correct work gear. But again the first victim of fire is what the firewood. The young men were both agents and victims all at the same time.

I had pleaded with my brother against the act but to no avail. Luckily, he has since become a born again food advocate for sustainabilityand food Sovereignty. That act symbolized the latent death that stems from the communiy ’s lack of awareness of the connection between food and the global empires.

These are not normal times, they are not times of peace nor is there a lull in suffering of those who are deficient in power.

On account of the foregoing background, we using this culturally rich land as a hub for food justice.

We have plans adrift for having amongst the foodiest one acre piece that can spread both the awareness, love and culture. But besides all the new herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits, we have 9 types of indigenous banana species. One in particular known as Mùtore has been growing in the family longer than anybody alive can remember. The banana species also known as Mùtahato was our primary baby food.

The coolest part of the process is that it used "bioblender" AKA the mother’s mouth to blend it for the child..

The mother would roast it by the fireside and then chew it finer than usual and then using her pointing finger, she would feed it into the baby's mouth. If the mother had to be away for whatever reason, an aunt or other close relatives would step in as the "Bioblender".

If I tell you that I went through the whole experience as a child, I have no doubt that you will not ask me again why food justice is so dear to me. I have the micro biom of many members of my community and that is the fountain of my love for food and community. Capitalism, Jesus and food illiteracy perpuated by colonialism has struggled that magical kingdom I just described.

The village now can neither breath nor chew. A small group however is fighting back. Resurrection is coming and we will march right out of the dark cave of ignorance and a new dawn is what lays on the other side of the Decolonization of our minds and our food. However far wide I travel, the food I ate in my village as a child and more important how I eat it and what it had in it forms a major part of my commitment to food justice. One day, the joy and love I received was enough to share with all those who care to listen and join in the beautiful symphony of my village tune. Even without eating the Mùtore bananas or having it processed the village way , they still can be made whole again through inspiration.

The injustice of power Distancing

I once read the autobiography of Aung San Suu Kyi as a college student. I used to read about her in the major papers then. I was much younger and very thirsty for knowledge that could help me contextualize my condition as a young African who was reeling from a history of powerlessness and a future that was full of uncertainty . I was particularly interested in the story of Burma as one of the trilogy of Asian countries that I first heard as a young boy growing up in my village. The other two countries were China and India.
India was the only country out of the three that had historical connections I could taste. The Indians had been brought to Kenya during the colonization of Kenya as experienced builders of the railway. That is obviously a sanitized, half truth propagates that disguises the underlying injustices that informed the conscription of Indians. The truth of the matter is that India was also a sister country suffering from a wave of European violence on a global scale. It is sobering to realize that globalization as we know it today started with violence, food, markets. You can add culture and religion, though these were used as alibi at first but did later become an extremely lucrative source of wealth for those who invested in them. Ultimately, culture and religion become more permanent sources of not so visible violence.

The Indians did build the railway from the coastal town of Mombasa to the lakeside town of Kisumu. The rail had it's doubters from the onset. The wiser ones called the rail the "lunatic line", which was not without reason. The railway was extremely expensive and it's commercial viability was questionable at best. What few could have foreseen was the impact that the Indians would have on local food. So as a young boy in a small rural village, I could eat rice and chapati occasionally and during celebrations of all manner. So India was known to me through food.
Food in our household was almost exclusively served on Chinese flatware and cutlery. Most of the cups and plates had the stamp "made in China" on the bottom.
Burma was part of the village folklore as a result of men who had been recruited to fight for the British during the Second European war of 1914. I specifically avoid calling it a World war as I have noticed the loaded implication of such a term. By calling a World War, it's possible to assume that there was a unifying purpose for which the whole world was fighting for and from which all involved would benefit.

I obviously knew nothing about the war except that one of the elders, Gítango , was in the war. He retained an old heavy military coat from his days in the battle field. Beyond the cloak, I saw no other benefits from his involvement in the war. His deployment to Burma did make the asian country part of my village folklore and by extension an interest Burma in later years.
That was how I first became interested in Aung San Su Chì. Her struggle for justice gave my interest staying power.
After reading about her, it became obvious that she was connected to the power elite of her country. She received support from westerners that stood to gain financially from her rule.

What amazes me is the number of people who complained about her role in the suffering of the ethnic Rhuhinja people. The Rhuhinja were partly persecuted on religious grounds. That is why I mentioned that religion was not spread by the invaders as a majority but it has turned out that way. Religion was a source of serious contention historically amongst Europeans and Arabs. Other nations are now following the same footsteps of instability based on religious intolerance.
San Suu Chi did not have any real power. She entered into an unfair agreement with the military to help sanitize the military regime and help remove the crippling sanctions that were hurting those in power.
While I am not trying to absolve Aung San Suu Chi from responsibility for the suffering caused to the people of Burma , I cannot avoid noticing the old trend of neglecting the finer details behind global problems that always seem to come back and haunt us.

Aung San Suu Kyi was not the person most deserving of any peace prize then nor now. The Nobel committee also has its own agenda. That agenda is quite different from the billions of people who wait annually to find out who was lucky enough to join the list of Nobel laureates. Others use the opportunity to learn about new and interesting people worth learning about.

I am the first one to admit that I belong to that group. I have learned about a good number of writers and researchers that I wouldn't have otherwise known; at least not in the midterm. One such person was Waslawa Szymborska, the Polish poet who received the price in 1996 at the age of 74 years . I happened to be visiting Poland that year. It was nice to have something to strike a conversation with the learned people I met during my trip. That is the nice part.
Not so nice is the kind of normalization of blood money that perpetuates the power of those privileged at the expense of the dominated, who bore the brunt of the same oppressive practices that produced the privilege currently driving the gap between the haves and the hopeless. By giving the money away, Alfred Nobel keeps a tight grip on power into perpetuity.

All the good vibes and philanthropy can potentially disguise the fact that Alfred Nobel, the source of the money that is now awarded to people doing good things for a small price of always bearing the name of the Nobel mostly after their name is mentioned or written down. Alfred Nobel, much like most of the other wealthy robber barons of his time or the era did not make his money by farming organic foods or anything close. He made his money in the military industrial complex before the term was even coined. He was doing research on explosives and made his fortune selling the technology for making bombs. During his trials, he accidentally killed his brother, an accident he could not forgive himself for. He tasted first hand the poison in the charlace that poisoned the lives of millions of people globally. That technology probably was built on the technology of the guns and gunpowder first invented in China. That technology could have emotionally and physically damaged one of my village elders, Gitango. Those stories of Gitango brought Burma into the radar of my innocent mind.

India had been colonized by the British India Company starting in 1612. The British East Indian Company had a military of 200,000 soldiers by 1800. That number was twice the number of soldiers that England had at the time. While Alfred Nobel would not be born until the 1830s, his research in canon technology, along with more than 350 patents he held in his life as a chemist and engineer. That is what you call power. For all the pain and suffering he caused, the smartest of us, or at least those they consider the smartest and most worthy will bear the name of Nobel even after they pass away.
Aung San Suu Kyi has little power as she is not White and neither am I and many who are still operating under the principle of social distance not due to corona but the long standing historical tradition of being distant from power. I only knew three countries while growing up in the village. Now know way more countries from Asia and beyond, but how much closer does that bring me to power? A Nobel nomination is great but closing the distance to power is far better. It eliminates the power vacuum that produces the injustices we currently face. Sadly, these injustices are mostly invisible, disguised and underrated. We have actualized the popular monkey cartoon of seen no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Talk of a recipe of perpetual pain. We are in need of a cross that can hang and crucify our oblivion and cross over from a world of endarkening injustice to of one of justice and light.

AMERICA's Violent Dinner.

African Americans have been cheated in every presidential election even before Emancipation Proclamation. But the complexity of justice in America in the eyes of the indigenous people and other marginalized communities is a story for another day. Let's look at the situation after Emancipation. The first senators who were elected in the South during reconstruction were booed during their first session in senate and that was the end their glory, at least politically. All that efforts to elect senators for the first time in the U.S had been a waste of emotions and energy. Yet another dream deferred and denied.

Following the presidential elections of 1896 between Rutherford B. Hayes and James Tilden, a 1877 Compromise was hatched between the Southern Democratic Party and the Republicans. Part of the agreement in the deal was that the Republicans would support the withdrawal of federal troops protecting freed slaves in the South.

What followed was probably the most repressive era against African Americans for over 80 years that followed.

An alliance between African Americans and the populist party in Wilmington saw African Americans win just about all the political seats.

The good Democrats gave those elected Black officials an ultimatum to either leave town or face violence and lynching. The African Americans read the handwriting on the wall and left town. Those who didn't were cought up in the Nov 1898 racist riots that left an estimated 300 African Americans dead and their homes and businesses torched.

Some people think that the American all time play, the Wizard of Oz, was an allegory of that gilded age.

So those saying that Trump is shaming American should realize that what they are saying is that a coup happens only to wealthy White people. American political system is just showing it's colors. Native Americans, poor Whites and Immigrants have equally suffered for being outside the mainstream politics.

Those groups of people will read from different script. The current political crisis is an appetizer, the the other three courses are already been served.

Ask us and please don't act surprised. Trump was true Wizard. Many just did ’t what kind of Wizard he was. Many of us didn't only know, but we know exactly what were expecting to see happen.

I hope that the current coup will be an equal opportunity victimizer and eventually a beneficiary. Like cowardly lion in Wizard of Oz we wish Americans courage to open their eyes. African Americans have an equal dose of learning to do. We have understand how the political game is played.

Voting only is not going to the trick. We have been voting all along and we are still lagging behind. Since Southern Democrts get reelected more often, they hold more chairmanship in the critical committees, the racist attitudes of south are still reflected in the national policy.

For good measure, we could add the story of food about the most beloved chef for the first president of U.S, George Washington, named Hercules Posey. Whoever named Hercules, must have consulted the oracles for his life needed Herculean strength. After doing a steller job for the first family, the dapper enslaved chef had to ran away as fugitive slave, leaving his three children behind. Even the chef could not get justice in return for his work.

We need that courage to act differently towards each other and demand the same from the governments if we are party to. Otherwise our coup will have succeeded. In that case African Americans will keep getting democratic apetizers while whites enjoys the whole course. Courage, O Courage, unspeakable American Courage to serve democracy equally is the only solution. We can't ask if America will ever learn. America is the quintessential learner. The question is what grade we can expect.

DECOLONIZING BOXING DAY

On Boxing day of this year, I thought hard about the state of Black Food. Then an idea came to me to that I could potentially use the creativity of artists to help solve this critical issue. If there is one artist whom I think would be most qualified for that purpose, it is Dean Hutton. My pick of Dean Hutton follows her victory, or rather of her installation at a gallery in Western Cape. Back in July of 2017 newspapers all over the world carried a story about an unusual case about a ruling by the South Africa magistrate DM Thulare. In his ruling, Thulale ruled  that the words “fuck white people” were neither racist nor hate speech. The case had been brought against a south African gallery that had displayed the work of Dean Hutton which bore the above words. The suit had been filed by Cape Party,  a white separatist group that aimed at making Western Cape a separate republic.

It is important to mention that Dean Hutton, who is herself white had placed a notice next to the installation that explained that the purpose of the exhibition was aimed at getting White people to face their privileged position in society.  I had been following the case for a while and like many, I was curious about what the final judgement would be. Well, it did finally come and it was not what I had expected. 

The White South African Govt passed numerous laws to keep supposedly superior Whites from sleeping with Africans. They officially said that Africans can't fuck White people, end of the story. Those laws were in the books for about 67 years. At some point the law was upgraded through the passage of  Immorality Act following doubts on the effectiveness of the less stringent Mixed Marriage Act. The Mixed Marriage Act appeared to have the obvious loop hole of having people just fuck without the cumbersome process of marriage, a process that did not offer any more pleasure to the process except some of the headaches we witness in some cases today whenever separation becomes necessary.

The anxiety of preserving purity was not only against Blacks, even Indians were not spared. After many whites started getting employed by Indians, this seemed to offer the Indians an unfair competitive advantage in access to White women. So a law was passed against white women working for Indians too. That is how Dean Hutton got the idea to challenge the crazy laws. 

 My immediate question followig the judgement was if it would have been any different if the words were fuck Black people. It did not take me long to realize just how just how unnecessary such a statement would be since the very power that Dean Hutton was trying to get white people to question exponentially disadvantages Africans in serious ways. One such way is damaging their food culture. What would be an equivalent provocative statement then would be “fuck Black self-hate”. Such a statement would naturally be accompanied with a statement that explains that the aim of the statement is to examine how self-hate has contributed to the  suffering and diminishing Black people’s ability to empower their declining food culture and by extension, themselves.  

To be fair, I will be the first to admit that such a statement would not elicit the same kind of emotional reaction from people intended as the primary audience for many reasons. But that should not deter me from at least trying. It is a painful situation to be in a position where you are bombarded with actions, words and deeds that one knows very will can only lead to backward results. When it comes to traditional and indigenious food, the trend is that that food has been put in a box that is labelled inferior. It is a mind boggling idea for anyone who has not either experienced that food racism or noticed it. 

When I was growing up there were two words that were thrown around if reference to chicken that clearly demonstrates this malaise.  I grew up most of my life knowing that there was only one type of chicken. That meant that there was no need to distinguish one chicken from the next, all chickens were, well, chickens. 

But then a negative evolution happened right before our eyes without much notice. Packaged as advancement and progress, a new type of chicken was introduced. It had all the qualities that would naturally entice both the farmer and the buyer. In this case, the buyer in question was obviously assumed to be the sophisticated urban customer. It is amazing looking back that given the subsistence farming that was conducted in my village, the food was mainly grown for the cities and other countries. That meant that the power imbalance between those who worked and those who benefited from the labour dictated that the views of the farmers were equally biased against the village farmers. 

The newly introduced chicken did not only come to improve the market and the fortunes of the farmer and the buyer but had other ominous consequences. First and foremost, the relationship between the farmer and the buyer was so unequal as to jeopardize the viability of the long term existence of the farmers. Those intended as the market had so much power and influence over the lives of the farmer that at some point, the farmers ability to supply the demands of the market ends up consuming the farmer. The city and foreign buyers had so much that the farmer needed but the farmer only had two things that the market needed, that is his labour and his produce. The farmer’s own children were being prepared, not to farm, but to fit in the new culture of the urban and foreing dweller. Most of the born in the previous generation and in mine are mostly in urban and foreing countries. 

That imbalance can be best seen in the manner or results of the introduction of a new breed of chicken. The new chicken was celebrated as an agricultural breakthrough. The chicken grew much quicker and that meant more to the farmer. But the farmer was not sophisticated enough to do the deep math of the true cost of the chicken innovation. The chicken was therefore called “ngirigaca” the vernacular version of the word agriculture.

The traditional chicken could not possibly be unaffected by this new development. Unfortunately, the new term for the chicken exposed the unequal relationship between them and the new and the old order. The old chicken got the short end of the stick, just as in all other areas of interaction. A word that was borrowed from the swahili came to the rescue. Shenzi is an swahili word for that denotes something backward, stupid or ignorant. Our people therefore domesticated into

“Gicenji”.  It was hence the term that became the accepted term for referring to the traditional free-range chickens. Along the same lines, it is an accepted saying to use the term eating white as an indication of eating a balanced diet or a superior manner. 

Things stayed that way for a long time. The broiler chicken reigned in the market.  A stroll in town is all one needs to do to confirm that dominance. There are numerous eateries around the capital city’s downtown area as well as other highly populated urban areas where the broiler chickens are roasted in big rotisserie machines. They are the default chickens that are consumed by the urban and sophisticated urban masses. But those chickens were rarely consumed in the village when I was coming up. Those folks in the village ate the same chicken that they had given derogatory names. In the end, the healthier chicken still ended up causing a disease of the culture. That disease is called self-hatred and it has gone a long way in emasculating the spirit and ultimately the health of the country.  That was then, now we have the foreign powers coming in droves to cash in on the dominated and emasculated culture.

Foreign food companies are now taking over the local broilers chickens. KFC and Burger King can be spotted across the city and at the most popular eateries. Our cultural foods have now been put in a box with a big stamp on it that says “yakeee”. Yummy is for the foods of the winners. Ironically, the yakey foods are mostly available in joints whose byword in the U.S is whole paycheck. That is the reason why I saying fuck Black people will not be all too necessary, they are eating it.  Our food culture is not only in a box but it is in an upside down box. Those suffering from white privilege think that white food is healthier than their own but everywhere that privileged food gets introduced, the people suffer. Now China has half of its population is obese. 

So what does Boxing day represent? I would say a boxing match where our food is facing heavy punches enough to fuck our health and our existence, all while thinking that all is yummy with our lives. Our cultural crisis is turning us into a second-hand people. Decolonize that and stave off a gigantic crisis that is looming on the horizon.

SEcularizaTION of a not so sacred holiday

It is Christmas today for most places in the world. But it's also the end of year and a day mandated as a holiday in most countries with a significant Christian population. For those indigenous souls still struggling to breath under the yoke of domination by unjustice vampire cultures whose ultimate goal is the creation of a global empire culture at the expense of the multitude of diverses . Nothing can be more unsustainable than that.

Just as the growing of monoculture groups is deleterious to food sustainability, monoculture can potentially be even worse. Empiricism is a cultural misadventure with the ability of accelerating global crisis quicker than anything else I know. I am speaking here in the context of man's capacity to use technology to bring about mass extinction of whole world.

This is not the easiest story to share but it's the honest dose that brings about justice. After all, each cultural survival is the primary result of that culture. One culture can't and shouldn't sacrife itself solely for the sake of another culture. To ask of that is to engage in robbery with violence.

Here is the back story.

Europe was engaged in a similar battle over the sectarian struggle for domination by the many religious sect as far back as the founding of Christianity. That struggle has been everything else but peaceful. The best example to use an an illustration is a gnostic group that started in Languedoc,France known as the Cathars between 12th to 14th century. I obviously chose the group because amongst other interesting things, the adherents were vegetarians and created their own rules and culture. Secondly, the group's ideology had been influenced by Armenians. As fate would have it, the massacres of the Armenians in modern day Turkey 700 years later would give us the word genocide. The word was first coined in early 1920s to describe the mass killing of Armenians for political reasons.

The cathars were constructed to be a threat to the domination of the Catholic church. Like many other sects that existed then and before, there was bound to be a struggle for power. In the end, a final solution was hatched by pope. He ordered the massacre of all the people living in areas that were predominately Cathars. But things were not that easy.

There was a slight problem when those sent to carry out the orders paused for enquire how they would distinguish the Cathars from the Catholics living in those areas, considering that the Cathars were a very tolerant group. The pope was reported to have infamously ordered the killing of people and let God choose his own from the dead. What more can show the kind of cultural hubris and arrogance of an organization deemed to be the source and center of the sacred by billions?

Around the same time the Carthars were being massacred the Arabs had already estabished the enslavement of Africans as a trade but largely restricted to the costal regions of Africa. By the 13th and 14th centuries, Christians made inroads into the interior in search of wealth but also winning souls for their deity. Unlike Europe, the debate and consequent struggle did not last for long. At least not in any scale that necessitated the kind of massacre that marked the many sects that tried to live outside the controling influence of the pope. However the longterm acquiescence of my indigenous communities have very similar outcomes to those of the old gnostic sects.

African cultures have become subservient to the cultures of the empire builders. Oppression I always say is essentially a form of alienation. Economic oppression is the alienation from one's labour. Political oppression is the alienation from self-government. Cultural oppression is the alienation of one's culture. In that light, to call the end of year Christmas is great for those benefiting from empire-building but bad for everyone else.

Recognizing that on the part of those interested in correcting historical injustices is a good first step of halting the rollers that are keeping thier knees of the African and other indigenous culture. As it is, those cultures are not breathing. That is evident in the increased alienation amongst many African cultures. I am a witness of such incidents in my own culture.

The more these religions and political ideologies take root, the more alienated my people and country become. If accepting these cultural domination is the panacea of progress, my community stands as a stark proof to the contrary. Simple things that these people could do such as self-government and cultural vibrancy or on a roller coaster headed in opposite direction where almost all the community would chose to be headed. That explains neocolonialism and why my responsibility to those who have resisted this elienation is my own act of civil obedience to my indigenous sensibilities. Civic disobedience is for tomorrow. Today I stake my hopes in my indigenous heart. Tomorrow the same heart will examine the box my culture is in.

Turning pink memories into black gold

As a young boy in the village known as Jumbi, I have vague memories of a small pink card that made my mother smile like I had never seen her smile. Anyone who knew my mother would be taken aback by such a herculean task knowing just how easy it was for my mother to smile. She was both a comedian and an accomplished smiler, if ever there was such a thing. 

This was around October in 1973 and my mother had just returned from the annual national Agricultural Show helded in the capital city of Nairobi. In those days, it took a whole day and then some just to cover the 72 mile distance in the only bus that travelled the route.  I remember my mother waking everybody up on the day she was traveling. I could not remember my family waking up earlier than that before. One of my brothers had to take some of the food bags to the road and keep watch, other members of the family had to warm up some food and help package it to send with  my mother and her friends who were accompanying her to the city. Other members had to help start the fire to warm the water and milk the cow, so that my mother could take some fresh milk for  a family in the city. It was a hectic morning. 

The bus could be heard from miles away. In a silent village such as ours, young children could recognize a vehicle from miles off, just from its horn or sound of the engine. There were so few cars in the whole region that young people would memorize all the number plates, make and model of all the vehicles within a ten to fifteen mile radius. It was such a big affair for a village member to go to Nairobi that my brother had been dispatched to some of the neighboring families to alert them that my mother would be traveling. It was an opportunity for those family members and neighbors to send letters or messages to their relatives in the city. Such an announcement also brought its own demands. Some family members who were not literate would ask the literate members of the community to write letters on their behalf. Such occurrences were followed by a hefty evening of gossip, as those literate members of the community would now know some of the problems that were going on at a domestic level. 

Once the bus was within an earshot, the whole family accompanied my mother to the road and waited for the bus to arrive.The bus arrived and the family helped the loud bus attendant to load the bags of food destined for the city.  I later learned that the bus driver would drive for about 15 miles and decide that he was too tired to drive. He would park the bus at the next shopping center and then walk into a bar and order himself a few rounds of beer, all while the travelers waited patiently in the bus. The driver of a bus was a very important person and a celebrity in the village in those days. Whenever we would play with other children, it was not unusual for some of us to impersonate the characters of bus drivers. Movie stars and celebrities were very local in those days; nowadays American celebrities are household names even in the village . No one would dare question the driver, lest he get upset and throw the keys at them and demand that they drive themselves to the destination. Luckily, the travelers were mostly people who knew each other very well and had loads of food to eat. It was a great opportunity for folks to catch up with each other. 

When I came to the U.S and got quite familiar with the concept of vacation, I wondered why people in my village never took any time to go on vacation. I am now more familiar with the whole cultural difference but if I did not know better, I could use the experience of travel as an example of how small things could have the same value as taking a long excursion to some remote place. Consider for a moment that the same driver who would take two hours breaks would return to the bus and to the cheers of the same passengers who had been waiting patiently. It was not uncommon for the passengers to sing songs of praise for the driver. Whenever the bus would come to a bridge, the passengers would alight and then allow the kamikaze driver to risk his own life by driving the bus across a bridge whose viability was questionable.

But the most famous spot on the whole journey was Kanjama. It was the steepest hill in the region. The spot has been immortalized in famous songs by the biggest musical legend from the region. The was little doubt that whoever was asleep was would be woken up by others seating nearby. The whole climb of the hill was a spectacle. Each bus had a garget, sometimes as simple as a rock that was carried in the bus. The bus attend would get out of the bus at the bottom of the hill and follow the bus as it went up the hill. If the bus just paused a bit as the driver was chaining the gears, the bus attendant would place the rock behind the back tire to keep the bus from rolling backwards. The passengers would be busy singing at full throttle, mostly encouraging the driver and his attendant to deliver the multitude from the tribulation at hand. It was a time of great joy whenever the bus made it to the top of the hill. Many would have sworn that the driver was the best driver that ever lived. From there, it was smooth sailing to what the locals called “Kiamatawa” or literally the place of light. It was called that as it was the only place with electricity and street lights.

I would imagine that the trip back could not have been any different. The hill that made the toughest spot on the first leg of the trip would still be a nightmare on the return leg. More accidents had happened on the downhill drive than uphill drive.

My mother was gone for a few days and must have attended the whole agricultural show over the four days. She also spent a few days with my father, who had a business in the city. Upon her return, she brought many goodies from the city, the favorite of children my age being biscuits. I was too preoccupied with eating the biscuits and playing with a toy of a wooden carving of a Maasai warrior to pay attention to much else. Now that I think about it, jumping up and down is a universal way of celebration. “Ouch” is the universal language mishap.

From all the activities that were going on I still managed to gather that my mother was most excited about a small pink card. The whole family huddled together as one of my sisters read the message it carried. You could have thought that she was a judge reading out the judgement for a capital offense. Whatever, the verdict, it could not have been that bad. Everyone was overjoyed to the point of jumping up and down just like the Maasai people do in their dance. The idea of hugs had not yet been incorporated into the culture in our village. But, my mother was the one who appeared to be most joyous. 

I was not in the least bothered with the festive family. I was busy enjoying biscuits and candy that my mother had bought for her youngest son. My mother walked into the house with the card she had been holding and filed it somewhere. When she returned, she entertained the family with the adventures of the trip and updates about my father. Then the next day started just like any other and that was the last I have ever heard about the trip or the pink card. That is until this year when my oldest sister sent me a picture of the card below. I could not believe my eyes. It was the pink card from back in 1973 and it clearly indicated that my mother had won first place in a national competition at the Agricultural show of Kenya for being the best farmer in a particular class.  Like a stream of a mighty river, my memories went back into the recess of my mind and brought back the memories of the card. 

It occurred to me that farming is not just something I like to do but it is something in my blood. As I close one of the toughest years of my life. I am glad to announce that I am opening the Thayu Food Literacy & Sustainability Centre at one of my mother’s farms. IShe might not have been literate about books, but she was literate about food. That is the message that will be advanced by the center. The food that will be grown and the message that will be carried  will be about a profit to the soul and the food system. I am carrying on her legacy and turning my memories of the pink card, and what it represented to her into black for profit.  Black is the signifying color for profit. It is probably the few positive references of the color black. Our goal is to make the small Food Literacy & Sustainability Centre  a positive force for the community and broader world through its impact. Our focus is food as a medium  for liberation, sustainability and empowerment. Join us and find out how you can be part of our mission.