A TRIBUTE TO EVANS N'GANG'A. DANCER, DESIGNER, DEDICATED ARTIST

A TRIBUTE TO EVANS N’GANG’A BY Margaretta wa Gacheru. Published Friday in Zuqka, Daily Nation of 29th March 2013 Evans N’gang’a was buried on Friday, March 22nd and I am sorry to say I only learned about his passing the day before when I saw the poster one of his friends had put up on the bulletin board of Alliance Francaise. To hear that the Kenyan cultural community has been robbed of such a young and multi-talented artist is deeply disturbing, especially when you hear he died in a road accident. More precisely, some careless driver who was over-speeding on Limuru Road smashed into the back of the boda boda motorcycle N’gang’a was seated on; he was on his way to teach his Yoga Class at the Windsor Hotel in the early morning hours of the week before. It was such a senseless way to die, and one that has broken many hearts of all the friends that Ng’ang’a had. Many of his nearest and dearest friends were artists like himself. Quite a few were his colleagues who hung out with him at The GoDown Art Center where he regularly rehearsed his modern dance. Others were his yoga students, and many more were his clients and customers who were fans of Ng’ang’a’s custom-made beaded jewelry. In fact, it was as a jewelry designer that I knew Ng’ang’a the best. I loved asking him to make me colorful beaded chokers and earrings and rings. I used to buy them both to wear myself and to give to family and friends as special gifts. What’s more, I was happy to hear he was expanding his line of bead designs to include beaded hand-bags that were both beautiful and quite practical as well. What impressed me about Ng’ang’a the jewelry designer was his dedication to detail as well as the care he took to create patterns that required painstaking attention and time. His jewelry designs were always distinctive and elegant. But I always felt that Ng’ang’a’s first love was contemporary dance. He identified more as a dancer than a designer, but then he was a young man with an abundance of artistic skills and talents. The saddest thing about his demise, apart from the hole he has left in so many people’s hearts, is that Ng’ang’a was just approaching his prime, just beginning to feel perfectly comfortable in his groove—as a teacher of the ancient art of yoga, as a contemporary dancer and as a jewelry designer who was never able to fully supply the demand that the public made on him for more of his beautiful bead designs. I am grateful that I still have a few of the necklaces, earrings and rings that Ng’ang’a made especially for me. I had been planning to call him to request for him to make me more chokers, but alas, I will have to make do with just the jewelry he left behind with me. You can be assured I will cherish those pieces and always remember Evans Ng’ang’a fondly and wish he was still around. He will be sorely missed, I know.

JACKY VIKE: A KENYAN STAR IS BORN

JACKY VIKE STARS ON STAGE, IN FILM, ON TV AND EVEN IN YOUTUBE BY MARGARETTA WA GACHERU Published in Saturday Nation, 29 March 2013 You may have seen her on NTV in Wash and Set playing Mildred, the naughty school girl who specializes in spreading rumors. Or you might have watched her playing the housegirl in Papa Shirandula on Citizen TV. And surely you couldn’t have missed her playing the baby ‘Hoe” in Nairobi Half Life. You might have even seen her on You Tube costarring in the current Web Series called Simiyu Samarai. But if you haven’t yet watched Jacky Vike playing the young orphan and heroine Roxana in the latest S.A.F.E. film production, Ni Sisi, then you haven’t yet seen her acting in a role that lets her spread her theatrical wings fully and fly out into a realm where she soars as one of Kenya’s most promising young actresses. Jacky has only been acting professionally for the past few years, having taken a leap of faith when she was just 18 to pursue a career that neither of her parents had approved of, but which she wanted passionately to try. “It was only my secondary school drama teacher who felt I had talent and should go for it,” she said. Fortunately, once she auditioned and got a part acting in set texts and traveling around the country-side with Theatrix Arts Ensemble, she got her people’s approval. And since then, she has not only worked with some of Kenya’s finest stage, film, radio and TV producers and directors – including everyone from Tosh Gitonga and Tom Tykwer (Nairobi Half Life) to Kamau wa Ndungu and Nick Reding (Ni Sisi) to David Aliwa (Theatrix Arts) and Peter Mudamba (KBC Radio) to Sammy Mwangi and Victor Ber (Heartstrings Kenya). She has acted in plays by everyone from Shakespeare and Cajeton Boy to scripts collectively devised by Heartstrings Kenya and S.A.F.E. Ghetto. She’s also acted everywhere from the Kenya National Theatre and local prime time TV to schools, churches and social halls all around the country. What’s more, it hasn’t only been with Theatrix Arts that she’s performed all across Kenya. She also did it with The Theatre Company when Keith Pearson cast her in a musical [which she helped choreograph] and took his cast all around the Rift Valley as part of TTC’s annual ‘Five by Ten’ Drama Festival. And more than a year before Ni Sisi was made into the film that premiered right before Kenya’s March 4th general elections Jacky was playing the strong, discerning Roxana while performing the same script live for literally thousands of Kenyans who came out all over the land to see SAFE Kenya’s free open-air productions. It was a show that entertained at the same time as it roused popular awareness about the paramount value of peace and about how not to be fooled around by self-serving politicians. Having the good fortune to discover her primary passion for acting back in primary school in Nairobi, Jacky actually got started performing with her dad who played the guitar and sang in church. “My dad used to accompany me as I sang all the Sunday School hymns. I started singing when I was around five,” said Jacky who claims she does more dancing than singing these days. “I’ve had to learn how to juggle my dancing with my acting,” she said, noting that since 2009 she’s been meeting with friends regularly at Kenya National Theater where they share their dance skills, doing everything from Hip hop, Afro-fusion and Salsa to contemporary dance and a novel new step known as Kapwera. She had to put her dancing on hold while she toured with Ni Sisi, but she says she’s getting back to it soon and she still does yoga whenever she has time. A child of the Kenya Schools Drama Festival, Jacky recalls that she first went to the festival doing a Luo dance with classmates from Heshima Primary School in Eastlands. By secondary, she headed to the Drama Festival every year, having been mentored by her drama teacher who was the first person to assure her she had a talent and ought to pursue it at any and all costs. Her parents weren’t keen, but after a year studying tourism [as her mother had wished], Jacky was convinced she wasn’t interested in doing anything else by act. It was that conviction that has been with her ever since and is the main reason why she goes to nearly every audition she hears about, be it from a friend, from Facebook or from a bulletin board notice. It has been those auditions which have changed Jacky’s life since they have not only helped her break into the local theatre scene. It was auditions that got her the part of ‘the Hoe’ in Nairobi Half Life, as well as the part of Mildred in the popular TV series ‘Wash and Set’. Auditions were also what enabled her to get into Heartstrings Kenya after she left the set text scene with the aim of expanding her theatrical horizons. However, auditions are not what got her the part of Roxana in Ni Sisi. That happened because she read the bulletin board at the National Theatre in 2008 soon after the post-election violence subsided and an ad hoc group named Actors for Peace called Kenyan thespians to volunteer to put in a performance to fundraise for the IDPs. “That was the first time I met Kamau wa Ndungu [one of the SAFE Kenya producers}. After that, I used to see him around. We also acted together in Nairobi half life, and it was after that that he called me and asked if I could understudy for the role of Roxana since the actress playing the part [Trizah Wairimu] was getting busy as she had just got a part in the popular TV series, Makutano Junction. That was Jacky’s big break. “Whenever Trizah was free, she would go with the company, but when she had other commitments, I got called. Then when the filming of Ni Sisi began, it was Nick [Reding, the co-director with Kamau and founder of SAFE Kenya] who asked me to do Roxana in the film. They also gave Trizah another part.” Roxana together with her village comrades, Schola and Jabali (Joseph Wairimu, who also starred as Mwas in Nairobi Half Life), turned out to be the heroes both on stage and in the film. They cleverly figured out the sneaky tactics of the conniving politician Mzito (Peter King) who planned to trick the villagers to voting him into office. But it was the way the three outwitted and exposed Mzito in the end that audiences especially liked and learned so much from. Today, Jacky is wide open as to whatever opportunities open up for her next, since despite her getting a monthly stipend from Citizen TV for acting regularly in Papa Shirandula, she sees herself as a free lance actor. But as she has practically been working non-stop since she went to that first audition at the National Theatre, don’t expect Jacky Vike to be out of the public eye for long. Whatever comes next for her, there’s little doubt it’s going to be a success. [Ni Sisi has been in the cinema at both Prestige Plaza and the Village Market. But if you can’t catch the film in either place, you can get a copy online by emailing hello@safekenya.org. ]

Francophone African Art at Alliance Francaise

FRANCOPHONE AFRICAN ART THAT INSPIRED THE WESTERN WORLD By margaretta wa gacheru. Published in Business Daily magazine March 29, 2013 Any honest Art historian will admit that the seeds that grew into most of the 20th century Modern Art movements came from Africa, especially from Francophone countries like the Benin, Mali, DR Congo, Cameroon and Ivory Coast. Those countries’ sculptures, masks and textiles were among the African arts that inspired early 20th century artists like Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimpt among many others. For instance, the intricate geometric designs of Bakuba cloth from what had previously been the Royal Kuba Kingdom (now the DR Congo) had a profound influence on the Fauvist and the Bauhaus art movements. But often the influence of indigenous African art on Western art is overlooked. Artists like Picasso and Matisse are admired for their creative genius, when both men admitted they owned large Africana collections of sculptures, masks, textiles and amulets. Currently, at Nairobi’s Alliance Francaise, the whole ground floor gallery is filled with examples of the African art that is similar to that which affected those dramatic changes in European art at the turn of the 20th century. A collection of indigenous art and artifacts from eight West African countries has been on display since March 15th when the Francophiles living in Nairobi celebrated Francophone week all last week through music, films, cuisine, and the visual arts. The show will continue through April 21st and it is well worth spending sometime not just seeing but actually reading and studying the well-captioned indigenous art which has been brought to Kenya by one enterprising Cameroon curator and art collector, Abderahaman Njingou, assisted by his Cameroon colleague Mounchigam Mamouda Arouna. Njingou studied African Art and Culture at the University of Cheick Anta Diop. Diop himself was a renowned African historian who spent his scholarly life researching pre-colonial African culture and history with a view to restoring Africans’ sense of dignity and pride in their early empires and civilized societies. Njingou’s exhibition of Francophone African art echoes that same sentiment, as the artifacts he’s collected personally during his travels all around the region bear witness to the beauty, elegance, intelligence and civility of pre-colonial African cultures. Njingou admits that many of the 70 odd pieces are reproductions of art that has either been destroyed during or after the colonial period, situated in Western art galleries and museums or remaining among African villagers who refuse to relinquish or even sell their family antiques. The curator doesn’t try to pretend that his exhibition is filled with all original masks, sculptures, hand-carved doors, and musical instruments, which explains why his prices are so reasonable. For instance, his masks from Ivory Coast, Gabon and Congo run anywhere from KSh2,500 to Ksh5,000. His hand-carved doors and windows from Mali, which are replicas of originals sell for KSh20,000 and KSh8000 respectively. His beautiful Chokwe ‘guitar’ from the DR Congo goes for KSh45,000, but given that it’s four feet tall and an exquisite example of Congolese indigenous sculpture, that price is reasonable. Where the prices shoot sky high is when it comes to the original bronze antique sculptures that Njingou has brought by air, mainly from Benin, but also from Mali, Chad and Central Cameroon. Many of these pieces were produced by Royal court artisans who created specially to celebrate either the king and his court or deceased ancestors or animal spirits such as the leopards, horses or lions, life-size examples of which are all on display in the exhibition. The pair of bronze leopards from Benin Empire are going for KSh500,000 each. The Oba’s (king) head is a ‘steal’ for KSh120,000 while the king’s Ife goddess is Ksh300,000. Perhaps the most striking sculpture in the whole show is the galloping Horse and Horseman King (Fon) from Central Cameroon which Njingou says was cast in 1824. The curator has no problem pricing it at KSH800,000. Tastefully hung, the textile replicas of traditional Bogolanfini ‘mud’ cloth from Mali and Kuba cloth from the Congo are elegant as wall hangings, although they were originally used for everything from currency to clothing. One can easily see why the Modern Art movements were inspired by these amazing geometric designs which were hand woven out of raffia palm fibers. The exhibition also includes dolls, royal stools and one monumental mask used by Ivorian acrobats to entertain the king by leaping through the circular mask in a way similar to what modern day circus entertainers do. The Bobo mask from Burkina Faso is traditionally part of an annual Festival of Masks which is still celebrated. During colonial times, that country was called Upper Volta, but once Thomas Sankara took over as president, he changed the name to Burkina Faso, meaning Country of Free Men. This show of traditional Francophone African art, be it made out of beads, bronze, raffia grass or wood, reveals the indigenous artistic talents that ought to make one exceedingly proud to be ‘free’ African men and women.

Theatre and Law: lawyers double as actors

Phoenix Players' Father's Day: Melodrama or Comedy?

Theatre review of Phoenix Players' Father's Day coming shortly

Women Star at both National Museum & Goethe Institute

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Kenyan-women-artists-exhibit-their-work/-/1248928/1726752/-/ke0sgl/-/index.html WOMEN’S ARTISTRY ON SHOW ALL THIS MONTH BY Margaretta wa Gacheru March has de facto become the month for international women’s expose’s thanks to the United Nations setting aside one day, March 8th especially for the world’s women. In Nairobi this has meant that several creative arts centers are currently holding exhibitions on women. At Alliance Francaise there’s the Festival CulturElles featuring live performances by young Kenyan women as well as documentary films and award-winning photography by and about women. At the Nairobi National Museum there is a six women artists’ exhibition entitled Celebrating ‘Emerging’ Women Artists up until the end of the month. And at the Goethe Institute, Michael Soi’s collection of 42 portraits of Kenyan women will open tomorrow evening, March 23rd at 7pm and run through April 12th. Yet out of all the expositions running this month, it was only the French that featured live performances by young Kenyan women and only the Nairobi National Museum that has mounted works by women artists who are Kenyan. The performers were only given one-night stands at Alliance Francaise, but at least we got a taste for local spoken word artists like Anne Moraa orating with gifted school girls from Kibera Girls Soccer Academy, storytellers Arts and Oaks, and Namatsa who blended her poetry with melodious song. And listening to Jennifer ‘Ati Sanaa’ perform on the traditional nyatiti ‘harp’, which is normally only played by male musicians, was a special treat last Friday night. The visual art exhibition that promises to be the most engaging, impressive, colorful and celebratory of Kenyan women is Michael Soi’s at Goethe Institute. His Face of Nairobi show is part of GI’s ‘Sasa Nairobi’ series which has run since 2008 and aims to showcase contemporary Kenyan art. Soi’s collection includes 42 ‘faces’ of young Kenyan beauties. Clearly meant to symbolize the country’s 42 ethnic communities, Soi’s art implicitly sends out a timely message of women’s unity. In contrast to last year when Alliance Francaise’s art exhibition on Being Wanjiku was both implicitly and explicitly political, this year no one came close to acknowledging women’s role in Kenya’s political/electoral process apart from Soi whose work at least suggests a call for women’s solidarity, although I could be reading too much into his art. One Kenyan artist who’s never shy to have his art express his personal opinions, be they related to sports, politics or gender issues unearthed from inside local strip clubs and pubs, Soi’s Face of Nairobi is ‘tame’ by comparison to some of the artistic statements he makes featuring women. But his genuine affection for women and girls is best seen at his studio at The GoDown art center where his co-productions painted with his four and a half year old daughter Malli are permanently on show. At Nairobi National Museum, not all six women artists whose artworks fill the walls of the Creativity Gallery are ‘emerging’ out of nowhere. Several are self-taught, and two have never mounted public exhibitions before, namely Zipporah Irari and Lilian Achieng Wayodi, both of whom have fun doing abstract expressionist work using bright, bold and splashy colors. But two others are Kenyatta University graduates in Fine Arts. Caroline Khakula is a ceramic artist who founded the House of Nubia where she was recently joined by fellow KU grad and ceramicist Lilian Baronyo Ayieng’a whose ‘pit-fired’ clay shard and acrylic paintings on canvas are some of the most innovative works in this show. Her Disintegration of Africa is slightly disheartening, but her Crucifixion has a clear, clean modernist message. Gemini Vaghela hasn’t been specifically trained in fine art, but her academic background in ‘interactive multimedia technologies’, photography and IT clearly qualifies her to experiment in semi-abstract landscape painting as she does in this exhibition. The artist whose work I find most striking in this ‘emerging artists’ show is Florence Wangui, the microbiologist whose passion for drawing compelled her to shift her scientific studies from the lab to The GoDown where her mentor in charcoal drawing is Patrick Mukabi. Flo’s delicate and detailed portraits of farmyard hens and roosters first attracted attention at GoDown’s annual Art Bits exhibition in 2012, after which she was selected to be part of the Muthaiga Club’s Centenary Art Exhibition early this year. What all of these women artists have in common is a passion for the arts, be they performing or visual. This year we only saw a fraction of what Kenyan women artists are capable of creating, but hopefully next year we will see a whole lot more.

Sibi Okumu's new Script Addresses March Election

MEETINGS MARKS A TURNING POINT FOR PLAYWRIGHT SIBI-OKUMU BY Margaretta wa Gacheru Published February 15, 2013 in Saturday Nation, Nairobi John Sibi-Okumu’s brand new script Meetings couldn’t be better timed as it opened last night at Phoenix Players, directed by Nick Njache. Premiering just days before that fateful day, March 4th, Sibi-Okumu’s message won’t be overtly political or partisan. But it will have a moral, deeply embedded in the close encounters that transpire between relations and long-lost friends—and enemies—all of whom have histories that the playwright paints vividly through dialogue that will send chills up and down the spines of anyone who lived through those darkened days of the Moi era! Featuring two of Nairobi’s finest actors playing pivotal roles, Phoenix had the good fortune to get Lydia Gitachi to play Gran (short for grandmother) and Samson Psenjen to take the role of her son Augustus or Gus, who’s been out of Kenya for the past 26 years. In a timely style, Gus is coming back after having fled Kenya for his life. He’s lived in exile overseas, like so many real life activists who moved out quickly and sought asylum in countries like Norway, Zimbabwe and the U.S, which is where Gus had finally landed. But as he wanted to come home to vote in 2013, his return impels a series of meetings with any number of friends, enemies and former lovers whom he also hasn’t seen in the past quarter century. Theatre-lovers who have valued Sibi-Okumu’s previous plays, such as Role Play, Like Ripples on a Pond, In Search of the Drum Major and his work most recently produced at Phoenix Players, MinisterKaribu, may find Meetingsmore intricate and intriguing than his previous scripts; but maybe not. It will be for the public to judge. One thing is certain: Sibi-Okumu lays out many of the personal complications that derived from the 2007-2008 post-election violence and also from the 24 traumatic years under the previous political regime. Serving as a backdrop for more intimate and personal stories, Meetings could well be Sibi’s most ambitious script to date. Several of the original cast members meant to be in Meetingswere called away following the highly successful production of The Jury, which the U.S. Embassy had sponsored at Phoenix Players. Due to popular demand, the Americans called the cast to take The Jury to various schools around the country. This past week the highly-charged and brilliantly acted play was staged everywhere from Precious Blood Secondary School to U.S.I.U and Moi University to the Nakuru Players Theatre.

Paa ya Paa Celebrate Black History Month 2013

Paa ya Paa Celebrates Black History Month 2013 By Margaretta wa Gacheru Not published in Saturday Nation February 2013 In addition to his being the star playwright of the hour, what with his new play, Meetings, featuring at Phoenix Players for the rest of February, John Sibi Okumu also served as Life Saver at this year’s Black History month event held last Saturday at Paa ya Paa Art Gallery. Organized by the Gallery in collaboration with United States International University, the day was meant to celebrate the art and rich heritage of Africa, according to the USIU Lecturer, Dr. Dashanaba King. And so it did, with African art exhibited throughout ‘the ruins’, the nickname given to the stone remnants of the original PYP home and gallery that had survived the 1998 fire which destroyed most of the gallery’s and Elimo Njau’s priceless collections of sculptures, paintings and Africana books. And in addition to visual art, the day was also devoted to African music and dance, including performances by the brilliant blind and multi-talented musician Michel Ongaro accompanying the African American singer Denise Gordon on guitar and theBoma Tunes, a melodic new vocal group that recently graduated from the UNICEF-funded National Academy of Creative arts. In fact, the arts were well represented at PYP, but the African heritage aspect of the day did not fare as well. For some reason, all the panelists scheduled to discuss the theme of African ‘Emancipation-the Plight, Struggles and Successes’ never showed! Fortunately, Phillda Njau received the information in time to get alternate speakers, namely the African Art collector and Kenyan sugar farmer Anthony Athaide and the USIU Black history student scholar, retired Kenya army Major Githaga. Sibi Okumu came in as Moderator of the slender panel, having only learned at the last minute of the dramatic change of plan. But being such a seasoned and skillful ‘master of ceremonies’ he took the turnaround in his stride and, after brief contributions from the panelists, he opened discussion up to the audience which was a wise and wonderful change of plan. Fortunately, the audience was filled with thoughtful African American and Kenyans who had lots of constructive comments. One especially was by an African American Kenyan resident who remarked that his university professor had prophesied that Africa would rise in the 21st century, and he said that is exactly what it is doing right now. His sentiments were confirmed by both Athaide and Githaga. However both men shared cautionary notes: Athaide expressing concern that unless Africans, and specifically Kenyans, take seriously the need to ensure food security, the country could suffer a famine of unprecedented magnitude. Githaga, meanwhile, said he didn’t believe Kenya required a huge military; he even advised it be cut significantly. PYP’s celebration of black history month went well in spite of the last minute program alteration. But without a lively fielding of questions and comments from an erudite audience by Sibi Okumu, the day could have been a small disaster. Two other highpoints of the day’s celebrations were a solo performance by songstress Philipa Njau who was accompanied on piano by her mother Phillda and the exhibition of original paintings by Frenchman Louis Duval, who in addition to being an awesome painter is also the headmaster of the Kul Academy of Graphic Technology.

Endangered Stained Glass Window, the Largest in East Africa

Nani’s endangered stained glass masterpiece By Margaretta wa Gacheru Not yet published in Business Daily Written in 2012 While buildings tend to raise and come down in Nairobi so quickly these days that the public barely takes note, the current demolitions have become almost as common as the high-rise flats we see going up all around the town. Yet there is one demolition that resident artist Nani Croze is profoundly concerned about. And that is the former International Casino which since 1988 has contained the largest stained glass panel in all of East Africa. Situated just across from Nairobi National Museum on Museum Hill, the Leopardscape panel is Croze’s creation. Commissioned by Ludovico Gnecci in 1986, it took her and her assistant Mark Young, more than two years to construct the ten meter by three meter stained glass masterpiece, which is now in danger of being utterly demolished if something isn’t done to deter it, and as fast as possible! Which is why Croze is calling out for assistance and requesting: Can she please have her 3000 piece glass panel back? Not that she needs to take the massive welded metal and flat glass ‘canvas’ home with her to Kitengela where her jua kali glass workshop and studio are based. “The issue is not one of ownership but of saving this endangered work of art,” says Croze who would be happy if her Leopardscape went into a museum, church, art center or national art gallery (if only there was one!). “Just as long as the panel is safe.” Assisted in the panel’s installation by skilled Kenyan craftsmen Patrick Omondi and Daniel Harambee, Croze did the design for the monumental panel and Young orchestrated the installing of all 3,000 cut glass pieces, most of which had to be imported either from England, France, Germany or the United States. Meanwhile, the lead required for welding came from Belgium. But what makes the panel so precious is not just the meticulous work required to design and implement this intricate piece of stained glass art. It is also the extraordinary array of wildlife that sparkles through the colourful glass design when natural light comes through. Croze herself is very much a naturalist who got her start in the Kenyan art world back in the mid-1970s when her first job was drawing all sorts of wildlife species for Fleur Ng’weno’s Rainbow children’s magazine. Since then, she has not only painted a myriad of wall murals containing Kenyan wildlife; she has also created clusters of stained glass windows which are situated in a multitude of local churches and private homes all over the countryside. Mark Young, who was a graduate of fine art colleges in the UK, also helped to draw some of the panel animals, which included everything from zebra, wildebeest and ostrich to spiders, scorpions and other insects. There are even monkeys, hyena, water buffalo and bat-eared fox grazing on an expansive savannah plain. Fortunately, the panel still exists, according to Croze who peeks in frequently to check out the panel and ensure that, in spite of all the dust, grime and neglect the stained glass panel has endured, its colorful dawn-like glow remains. It will require careful cleaning once the panel is removed from its current location. But Croze is slightly panicked about the prospect of losing an important part of the artistic legacy she’d like to leave to Kenyans. Unfortunately, Croze didn’t have a chance to send out a hue and cry in a previous case when one church changed its pastor and the new one no longer loved the commissioned stained glass piece of her work. “I never want to go through that terrible experience again,” says Croze who admits that once she heard her windows had been demolished at the particular church, she felt sick. It was as if she had lost one of her children, since for her, creating art is quite similar to giving birth to a new life. So Croze is sounding the alarm and hoping the demolish squad and the developers will think twice about smashing the largest stained glass panel in Kenya. It’s a work of art that ought to remain in some permanent collection where all Kenyans can see and appreciate the Leopardscape.

'Grand Warrior' Rolf Schmidt & Renown Restaurateur Will be Missed

Renowned Restaurateur Rolf Schmidt dies at 69 By Margaretta wa Gacheru Published in Concierge Magazine in late 2012 Rolf Rainer Schmidt wasn’t just a five-star chef and restaurateur who started some of the most memorable eateries in Kenya, including The Red Bull, The Horseman, Rolf’s Place and the first African Heritage Restaurant which he opened shortly after arriving in Kenya from Tanzania in 1973. Before he died of cancer October 1st at aged 69 in his Kitengela home, the German-born former Judo black belt, polo player,white hunter and weightlifter lived out his dream to emulate his hero, Ernest Hemingway whose book, Green Hills of Africa had inspired him to come to Africa initially. Rising from poverty and the early loss of his parents, Schmidt overcame many obstacles in life, including the first bout of cancer which he beat in the early 1990s. Trained to be a chef in Upper Bavaria, his early working years took him to Switzerland, Sweden and the States before he joined the kitchen crew of a Swedish luxury liner that took all over the world. In 1966 he dropped off in Southern Africa where he became an executive chef in major hotels everywhere from Zimbabwe and Pakistan to Tanzania and finally Kenya, where he became a Kenyan citizen in 1978. According to his second wife Asmahan, Schmidt was always up for a challenge, always competitive, which partly explains why at age 50, he took up weight lifting after conquering his cancer and became a world champion power lifter in the Masters ‘over 50’ category. Shortly thereafter, he was awarded the “Order of the Grand Warrior of Kenya” by President Daniel arap Moi. Upon moving to Kitengela where he built Rolf’s Placein the early 1990s, Schmidt who had been captain of the Kenya Judo Club in the 1970s, launched the Kitengela Polo Club which he headed for several years. Working on numerous movie sets, Schmidt’s catering services often brought him into contact with film celebrities such as Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Angelina Jolie andOmar Shariff. It also led to his taking up acting parts on several of the same sets, which he enjoyed immensely. In 2011, Schmidt released his autobiography, No Need to Lie, published by Moran Publishers. He is survived by five children, Franzista by his German wife Eva, and four by his Kenyan wife Asmahan, namely Rayana, Adam, Safiya-Lena and Aliya. At his passing on October 1sthe was with his Kenyan partner Sarah who had been with him for several years.

Tabitha wa Thuka & Zihan Hassan at Talisman

[Backtracking on my arts stories because my blog would be incomplete without taking note of Tabitha and Zihan's art at the Talisman] Veteran artist and Nairobi newcomer join hands to bring worthy women’s show to Talisman By margaretta wa gacheru Published in late 2012 in Business Daily Nairobi Talisman restaurant in Karen is one of the most fashionable venues for showing contemporary Kenyan art. It’s also one of the most sought after spaces among local and global artists since many of its patrons like to buy art, especially when the price is right. “Some local artists have been spoiled by people who persuade them to jack up their once affordable prices,” said the restaurant’s new manager and chef Marcus...”They seem to forget that our customers are also locals who aren’t inclined to pay fortune for a work of art.” Tabitha wa Thuku and Zihan Hassan both seem to have learned that lesson as they’ve kept the paintings in their current joint exhibition at Talisman fairly affordable. This is especially good news in Tabitha’s case since the veteran artist’s paintings’ prices shot sky high while she was showing exclusively at Gallery Watatu where management insisted her works sell for prices comparable to those seen atinternational art fairs like the ones held in Maastricht, Basel or Venice. In spite of the high prices, Tabitha’s monumental mixed media paintings sold quite well at Watatu. Nonetheless, she moved on in 2011, first to Alliance Francaise to feature prominently in the International Women’s Day show, then to Vogue Gallery in Westlands, and now to link up with newcomer to the Nairobi art world, Zihan Hassan. Making up for lost time, since the University of Western Ontario sociology graduate only returned to Kenya late in 2010, [having spent half her life in Canada], Zihan took part in no less than ten group exhibitions in 2011plus one solo show also at Talisman. “I started painting Kenyan landscapes while living abroad since I was homesick for the country,” said the art correspondent for The Star. “The paintings in this show are similar to the ones I painted back then. All of them were inspired by my love of nature,” she added. Her most striking expression of that affinity for me is Zihan’s Blushing in the Light. Tabitha, on the other hand, says she “went wild over the color red” most recently. Walking through Talisman’s front door confirms that fact. Her monumental Red Blanket is a stunningly beautiful semi-abstract statement of the power and passion conveyed through that hue. She has several other flaming hot red paintings in this show. The rest are older, more subdued and subtle works, like her Honeymoon in which she blends muted earth-tones in a landscape that’s practically pastoral, idyllic. Zihan also has several landscapes in this show which she curiously entitled Shelter for a Sage. She also features trees in paintings like Golden Haze and Cinders; however, her scenes are stark, her tree branches are graceful, but leafless, naked and somber. The artist admits those paintings reflect what she calls “the dark side of nature,” which she feels has a beauty all its own. Two of the most charming of Zihan’s works are watercolors. The simplicity of her Apple Tree and Wheelbarrow both reveal a bright luminosity and fresh transparency that is absent from much of her other artworks. Both women have been painting practically all their lives. Both prefer mixed media and both paint using everything from the palms of their hands to palette knives, but rarely with actual paint brushes. Zihan also uses her fingernails, bits of hard cardboard and recycled rusty nails to etch into thick layers of acrylic paint. Meanwhile, Tabitha can use anything from kitchen cutlery, wooden sticks and tree twigs to woolen blankets to get a desired effect. Her eclectic and improvisational approach to art is one reason Zihan says she wanted to exhibit with her, adding she’s admired Tabitha’s art ever since her return to Kenya. But if Tabitha’s art looks effortless, it belies years of training, first as a textile designer coming out of Kenya Polytechnic, then as a ceramicist who studied at Buru Buru Institute of Fine Art (BIFA), then as a glass artist learning from Nani Croze at Kitengela Glass, then as a sculptor inspired by Morris Foit, and finally as a painter inspired by the likes of Rosemary Karuga, the grandmother of contemporary Kenyan art, who once taught in the same village where Tabitha was born. Zihan has also taken art courses all her life, although she majored in Sociology and Literature, not art. Her main source of inspiration she says is the unnamed ‘sage’ noted in their show’s name. Shelter ofthe Sage will be on through November.

Railways Museum Art Gallery, one Among Many Art Hubs in Kenya

KENYA ART SCENE THRIVING NATIONWIDE By Margaretta wa Gacheru Published in Sunday Nation Mid-2012 While the fate of one of Nairobi’s oldest art galleries, Gallery Watatu is in limbo, the city’s newest art center just opened its first major exhibition. The Kenya Railways Museum Art Gallery is hosting a score of local artists organized by the Ngecha Artists Association. The Railways Gallery was the inspired idea of the Museum’s curator Maurice Barasa who called in a trio of talented Kenyan artists to help establish the Gallery. Evans Kangethe, Remy Musindi and Fredrick Kamau Mbugua are the master minds of the new gallery and of this first major showcase of mainly Ngecha artists. Featuring the fresh blood of young artists like Ken ‘Artifact’ Ndungu and Rose Kanini as well as seasoned supporters of Ngecha, such as Elkana Ong’esa and Harrison Mburu, the art of Kangethe, Musindi and Mbugua is some of the strongest works in this group show. Meanwhile, art centers across the city are buzzing with activity. At Kuona Trust, MaryAnn Muthoni’s one woman show called “The Women’s Vote” just opened with a decidedly feminist perspective on the forthcoming elections. At OneOff Gallery, the surrealist art of Paul Onditi is up until early next month. Coincidentally, more of Onditi’s art in on display as of this past Friday in Kisumu at the Kiboko Bay Hotel, part of a trio of artists (Beatrice Wanjiku, Patrick Mukabi and Onditi) whose artwork aims to ‘prime’ the Western Kenya public for the forthcoming Kisumu Art Festival opening early next month. Back in Nairobi, Patricia Njeri’s art is being showcased at the Talisman Restaurant in Karen while Alex Wainaina’s ‘junk art’ sculpture is up at Le Rustique in Westlands. Finally, the Nairobi National Museum’s Creativity Gallery is featuring a multifaceted “African Paper Art” exhibition entitled SanaayaMakaratasi. If it sounds like a drag, think again: the show features lovely sketches, collages and lithographs by artists from 12 African countries, including Kenyans like Kathy Katuti, Peterson Kamwathi, Justus Kyalo, Magdalene Odundo and Rosemary Karuga. Also at the Museum is a cartoon exhibition by Michael Munene entitled ‘Same Nature and the Funny!” But Nairobi and Kisumu aren’t the only active arenas where Kenyan artists are busy. In Tabaka, the second International Stone Sculptors Symposium entitled ‘African Stones Talk’ is underway until August 23rd, organized by the award-winning Kisii stone sculptor Elkana Ong’esa. And back at the Banana Hill Art Gallery, an exhibition of Three Tanzanian artists entitled ‘Exploring Art’ opened yesterday through August 31st. They are Lutengano Mwakishopile, Phidelice Gervasi and Cuthbert Semgoja.

Simon Muriithi, The Gift of Color

THE GIFT OF COLOUR BY Margaretta wa Gacheru Published October 2012, Business Daily Nairobi Catching up on stories i hadnt put on this blog After Simon Muriithi and Peterson Kamwathi attended their first printmaking workshop in the UK in 2006, their British instructor Mandy Bonnell gave a glowing assessment of their stay and study tour. “They came and gave us the gift of color,” she said, noting that the two were the only African artists in attendance at the art residency held in Bath. It’s that same “gift of color” that Muriithi reveals in his current exhibition of paintings at the OneOff Gallery which opened last Sunday in Rosslyn and runs through the month of October. ‘I use strong, warm colors in my art,” says Muriithi who admits he knows his careful blending of beautiful colors has a powerfully engaging effect on his audience. “Then once I’ve got their attention, I pass them my message,” he adds. Pointing to the stunning pastel painting just at the entrance of the ground floor gallery called “The Forest Guard,” the artist explains that his message in this case is environmental. The colorful butterflies and bright red lady bugs seem to be serving as sentinels, guarding the forest, their habitat, from total destruction. “People have to wake up and realize we have to save our forests or else they will all go,” he says, clearly empassioned and disturbed by the carelessness of his fellow man. “We had WangariMaathai among us, fighting for the life of the forest, but she was practically fighting that battle alone, and now she’s gone.” Yet his art reflects his enduring love for the beauty of nature in various forms. His exhibition includes one series on birds in various forms, another on a variety of flowers, and at the other entrance of the gallery, a regal womanly monarch butterfly claims the pride of place, as if she presides over the whole show. Muriithi might be faulted for painting ‘pretty’ pictures since every one of his canvases—filled with mixed media, oils and acrylic paints accessorized with delicate cotton twine designs—is attractive, even beautiful. But his art also tells stories. For instance, his ‘Romantic Cycle’ suggestively shows off a young man and his girlfriend riding a bicycle in a lush and colourfully green garden. It’s a painting one could write a whole novel about. The same goes for “Sweet Memories” which is also set in a radiant green garden filled with leafy banana trees and a couple seated in the grass, back to back and lost in thought. They might be remembering how their young love used to be or they might just be pondering their lives. Either way, both are wearing intense colors which are almost as powerful as the green banana leaves Muriithi painted using acrylics. Using a new technique that he devised while experimenting with acrylic paints, he says he discovered that he could “bend” the paints to blend in such a way that the greens veritably glowed with uncanny light and reds could automatically arouse passion! But some of his sweetest paintings have a dog—probably a Spaniel--in them: The Mushroom Pickers, The Forest Guard and the Musician. “I don’t have a dog myself, but what I have seen is that dogs are great listeners and loyal friends,” said Muriithi whose dogs all have long ears. Unlike past exhibitions which I have seen Muriithi hold over the years, everywhere from the Nairobi and RaMoMa Museums to Gallery Watatu and the Talisman, his current show has less surrealistic work and slightly more realism, as is evident in his Derby Day which reveals what learned about horses while visiting theNgong Racecourse to sketch and seem them racing round the track. He still indulges in whimsy and surrealism as when a work like ‘Gossiping Mates’ shows off a crested crane dressed in black and gold stripes chatting with his friend, the green chameleon. His work still has a slightly illustrative edge that would be perfect for illustrating certain children’s story books. But Muriithi’s art has also grown in focus, depth and social significanceas for instance in his other series of five miniature paintings entitled ‘Unity Face 1-5’. His diverse faces were all inspired by what he’s seen on Facebook, the online space on which he surfs for inspiration, which is something new for him. But then, he says he gets new thoughts every day and those are the ones he wants to work with in his art, not tired old issues out of the past. He’s got his sights clearly set on a positive present and future, and prefers not dwelling on or in the past.

Nigerian Curator Contributes to Cosmopolitan Kenya

PROMOTING PAN African Art IN A CLIMATE OF COSMOPOLITANISM BY Margaretta wa gacheru Published February 2013 in Business Daily, Nairobi Nairobi has been taking on an increasingly cosmopolitan and even Pan African character in recent times, at least in the realm of the visual arts. There are several factors that have contributed to this trend. One is that art centers like Kuona Trust, Banana Hill and Red Hill Art Galleries all are bringing in visiting artists from around the region for exhibitions. Kuona Trust has been especially dynamic in this regard, having accelerated its artists’ residency program to include not only Ugandans and Tanzanians in its rigorous art residencies. It has also had artists from Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria and UKcoming to create original art while rubbing shoulders with some ofKenya’s most original and experimental artists. Another factor is the recent launch of the Circle Art Agency, a new art consultancy firm aiming to link Kenyan artists to the global art market as well as grow an indigenous art market. Headed by a former Tate Modern curator, Fiona Fox, Kuona Trust’s Danda Jaroljmek and avid art collector Arvind Vohara, the agency also aims to cultivate greater appreciation of thecontemporary Kenyan visual art scene which is vibrant but not yet well known. The other factor that has enhanced a cosmopolitan sensibility on the local art scene is a Nigerian curator named Oluwatosin Onile-Ere Rotimi or Tosin for short. It was Tosin, for instance, who’s responsible for bringing the bright young West African artist Phillips Nzekwe to Nairobi’s Kuona Trust for a two-month art residency, the fruits of which are currently on display at the Nairobi Art Centre since February 17th. It was she who also introduced Nairobi art lovers to the acclaimed Ghanaian painter Kofi Agorsor when she curated an exhibition of his art at the Banana Hill Art Gallery a year ago. The petite art consultant/curator came here from Abuja with her family in late 2010, but she didn’t leave behind her passion for contemporary African art. Prior to coming, she had been an active promoter of West African artists, including renowned Nigerian artists like Bruce Onobrakpiya and Niki Seven Seven as well as acclaimed Ghanaian artists like Nyournuwofia (a.k.a. Queen of women) and Agboola Adisa as well as others from Benin, Cameroon, Senegal and Togo. So what else is Tosin bringing to Kenya besides her curatorial background and keen affection for African art?Probably the biggest thing she’s doingcurrently is organizing the first East to West African Biennale in Kenya, scheduled to open this September in art centres around Nairobi. Planning to include artists’ works from more than a dozen countries, Tosin sees the EtAW biennale as not only a bridge between west and east Africa.She also plans to organize workshops for local and Pan African artists, conducted mainly by artists she represents. Phillips Nzekwe is one of the artistslikely to volunteerin the EtWA workshops, if he is still in Kenya come September. His current exhibition at NACreveals his prodigious output of both sculptures and three-dimensional relief paintings, all of which were produced during his stay at Kuona. Some of his most intriguing art is painted and sculpted in mixed media (from saw dust and sand to acrylic paints, wire mesh and newspaper scraps) on corrugated iron sheets. His Neighborhood Moods, for instance derives from his time spent in local slums where he found rare beauty amidst poverty, single mothers featuring prominently in that piece. His sculpted horse and rider in Matatu Stories is a metaphor forthemadcap phenomenon common in both West and East Africa, namely ordinary people having to go places fast, and thus latching ontohigh-speed matatus. Combining the anatomical eye of a Remington (the 19th century American sculptor) with the social realism seen inJosephBertiers’ matatu art, Nzekwe’s skillful sensitivity and knack for quickly picking up the Kenyan energy is apparent at the Art Centre. Nzekwe has already had a one open day at his Kuona studio, but his current exhibition allows a wider art-loving public to see his ingenious work for themselves. As his agent, Tosin says her promoting his art is in keeping with her main motivation which is “to help grow an indigenous art market because that is where the future of contemporary African art needs to thrive. We need to stop looking outside the region for a market for our art; we need to gain greater appreciation of the beauty that exists right here so we don’t lose any more African art to collections and galleries in other parts of the world.”

Gallery Watatu's On-going Saga

Many things have changed with Gallery Watatu since i wrote this story in May 2012. For one, most of Gallery Watatu's art has been 'containerized' and shifted to Nani Croze's Kitengela Glass Trust 'for safe keeping'. Many Kenyan art lovers are saddened by the near-death status of Gallery Watatu. But a year ago, the gallery was already struggling. For some reason, the Nation bosses didnt want to print the story below, but it gaves quite a bit of useful background. THE SAGA OF GALLERY WATATU By Margaretta wa Gacheru Never Published by Nation Media Group. Written May 10, 2012 Ever since the West African spouse of the late Ruth Schaffner died without a will in August 2011, life at Gallery Watatu (one of Nairobi’s oldest commercial art galleries) has been in limbo. It’s been particularly painful for Adama Diawara’s business partner, Osei Kofi to watch the family of his friend feuding over the Ivorian businessman’s properties, including Gallery Watatu. “What makes it especially disappointing is that I was present when Adama expressed his explicit wish to have his son Mutari [by a previous marriage] and daughter Hawa manage his estate after he was gone,” said Kofi who was a friend of Watatu for many years before he and Adama went into business together. “Even before we became business partners, I used to take Adama’s artworks and sell them in Europe on his behalf,” Kofi said. Confessing that his efforts were often what enabled Adama to pay the rent for the Lonrho House space, Kofi for years was the equivalent of a silent partner who helped keep Gallery Watatu alive. Yet once the old man died without signing the necessary papers to settle his estate, he inadvertently created multiple complications not just to the family but also to the artists who relied on Watatu for exposure and sales for years. One of the biggest complications has been the intervention of a Kenyan woman who claims to be Adama’s ‘wife’ and ‘widow’ and thus, a key beneficiary of his estate. It’s true that Esther Njoroge had two daughters by Adama out of wedlock while he was married to Ruth, the German-American owner of Watatu who was his senior by two decades. But according to Morris, a former manager of Watatu who had worked both for Ruth and for Adama, the mother of his two daughters had never lived together with the man. “However, when the babies arrived, Ruth accepted them and even bought the woman a house to bring up her children in,” said Yony Waite, one of the three founders of Watatu back in the late 1960s Nonetheless, Kofi says Adama had warned him not to allow Esther to step foot in Gallery Watatu, “He foresaw the woman would complicate all our lives.” To avoid further hassles with the Diawara family, Kofi has decided to relocate Gallery Watatu to Westlands where he has already bonded with a new hotel coming up that will become the Gallery’s new home. “The hotel is opening around October this year, so I will be giving more details when the time comes near,” Kofi said. In the interim, he recently called a meeting of Watatu artists to inform them his plan and to encourage them to stick with him. He also recommended they take their artworks away, both to simplify the move out of Lonrho House and to help ensure the safety of their work. “Unfortunately, Esther showed up in the middle of the meeting, demanding to know why she hadn’t been informed it was happening,” said Kofi who recalls how he took heart in the presence of the artists and told the woman her lack of cooperation with Adama’s children had created havoc both to the family and to the gallery as well. Right after that, the situation got out of hand. Kofi lost control as one of the longstanding Watatu artists, Wanyu Brush, began a tirade against the so-called widow. “He accused her of destroying the gallery with her interference and non-cooperation. He also called her several unsavory names. He even told her she should never step foot in the Gallery again since that had been the wish of Adama himself,” Kofi said. So far, the woman has taken Brush’s warnings seriously. She hasn’t shown her face at the gallery since that day. However, Esther has already done sufficient damage. According to Mutari, during Adama’s last days Esther arrived at his father’s home, the one he once shared with Ruth, and moved herself in. “By then, Adama was too weak to tell her to go, so when he died, she was there to claim she was the grieving widow entitled to her inheritance.” Pitting her interests against Adama’s son Mutari and even against her own daughter Hawa, Esther apparently had little interest in taking over Watatu. She was more interested in the land Adama had obtained around Kenya in his lifetime. But since she is said to have been offered “good will” money in the millions to get Watatu out of Lonrho House as soon as possible, Esther has played her part in getting the gallery to relocate. For many friends of Watatu, the news that the gallery is shifting to Westlands is long overdue. “The Nairobi Art Market has definitely moved outside the city centre,” Kofi said. In fact, Watatu has been under pressure for years to move out of the space which is not only congested with cars, buses and pedestrians, but also has no parking and no security. Further details will be forthcoming, so watch this space.

Kuona Artists Showcased at Village Market

KENYA ART SHOWCASED FOR CHARITY BY Margaretta wa Gacheru Published March 8, 2013 in Business Daily, Kenya There was a spectacular showcase of contemporary Kenyan art at Village Market through the last few days of February. Poorly publicized, the group show, featuring nearly forty Kuona-connected artists, was given way too short a booking for the public to come out in full force to see. Nonetheless, the charity fund-raiser entitled ‘Peace through Service,’ which was organized by Kuona Trust in collaboration with the Rotary Club Nairobi East made the most dazzling usage of Village Market’s Exhibition Hall that I’ve ever seen. That hall is used to showcase everything from Persian carpets and home interiors from the Far East. But increasingly, it is being used as a strategic visual arts venue featuring excellent group and solo shows. It has hosted everything from the annual ManjanoArt Competition to everyone from the Lake Basin and Ngecha artists to individuals like Peter Elungat and Geraldine Robarts. But the Kuonaartists’ showcase was an eye-opening experience, enabling any doubters in the reality of ‘contemporary Kenyan art’ to be liberated from any illusion that Kenya’s only good for sandy beaches, safaris and wildlife. The reality is that Kenyan art is fresh, vibrant, rapidly evolving and diverse. At least that’s what I found at Village Market. Some of the artists whose works were on display are already well known locally, such as the Citizen-TV children’s art teacher and painter Patrick Mukabi, sculptor GakunjuKaigwa whose fiberglass lions graced Nairobi malls and city streets a few years back and sculptress Maggie Otieno who’s currently heading the East Africa branch of the Arterial Network. Many of the others are widely known among fellow artists, yet the public at large may not be well acquainted with, for instance, the MaasaiMbili artists who took part in this show, including Ashif, KevoStero, and Wycliffe Opondo. Others whose names and artworks ought to be well known here are John Silver Kimani (who might be better known in Holland than in his homeland Kenya), Cyrus Nganga (whose wirey, iconic C-Stunner shades are currently on show in Los Angeles). Paul Onditi (whose emblematic character Smokey is featured in nearly all his art work mirroring the artist’s own stroll through life) and Dennis Muraguri whose matatu prints are perfect stand-ins for the mobile matatu art we used to see on nearly all Nairobi streets until Michuki’s Rule came into effect and almost killed the local craft. One aspect of the Peace Through Service show that stood out strongly for me was the distinctly Kenyan flavor of the artistry. As with Muraguri’smatatus, so the Nairobi cityscapes of MaryAnn Muthoni and OmoshKindeh reflected essentially Kenyan contours. Kenyan people were also effectively portrayed in sculptures by David Mwaniki and Anthony Wanjau as well as by the colorful bus and bar paintings by the family team of Michael Soi and his young daughter Mali. Moses Nyawanda’s portrait of middle aged market mamas was very different from the rotund mamas that Mukabi paints and also far removed from the rural mamas who were on the move in Fred Abuya’s stain-glass window-like painting; but they all reflect different dimensions of Kenyan contemporary life. Other artists in the show who exhibited more mundane features of everyday Kenyan life are KephaMosoti whose wooden sculptures of scruffy, well-worn shoes and thread-bare blankets are beautiful in their ‘ordinary’ appeal. So are Kaigwa’s well-shaped stools and the backside of Jackie Karuti’s form-fitting shorts! One stereotypic image of Kenya that was happily absent from this show was that of Maasaimorans. Normally used to entice tourists to come visit the land of the ‘noble savage’, there was just one multi-colored portrait of two Maasai maids by Rosemary Ahoro which was a lovely contrast to the native cliché. But Kuona also opens its doors to visiting artists from elsewhere in the region, such as AdilRouf from Morocco, ErmiasEkube from Eritrea and Ali Yasser Mohammed the Sudanese painter who’s been a resident of Kenya for many years. Finally, some uninformed observers of Kenyan art claim we have few sculptors of merit, yet this exhibition debunks that claim as well, given it not only showcased the sculptures ofKaigwa, Mwaniki and Wanjau. It also amplifies the three-dimensional forms of MeshakOiro, Gor Soudan and Kevin Oduor whose sculpture of Wanjiku, Kenya’s Every Woman currently resides in the Chief Justice’s office to remind the public that Art is one of the best means of expressing the spirit of a people. While the Peace through Service exhibition closes last week, all the art that wasn’t sold to raise funds for Rotary Nairobi East’s pet projects in Korogocho, Thika, Makindu and Kajiado will be on display for sale at Kuona Trust in Hurlingham.

Ni Sisi, A Powerful Film with An Enlightening Message

NEW KENYAN FILM HAS POWERFUL AND URGENT MESSAGE By Margaretta wa Gacheru Published in Zuqka in Daily Nation March 15, 2013 Ni Sisi is the sort of must-see movie that every Kenyan ought to watch.Normally, I am not so judgmental or bossy, but in this case, there’s no time to beat around the bush. The March 4th General Elections is over but the aftermath is still fraught with unresolved issues associated with everything from IEBC’s credibility to whether there will be a run-off to the impending decision by the Supreme Court. So it is still the case that much is at stake related to the way these issues are resolved. From what we saw during that last election and all the emotion-wrought violence that ensued—some spontaneous, some premeditated, it was clearly un-necessary and also uncharacteristic of-Kenyans who by nature are not killers, gangsters or thugs. That is just one of the messages that comes through loud and clear in Ni Sisi, the latest S.A.F.E. production currently being screened at Prestige Plaza and the Village Market as well as in Mombasa and Kisumu. The original story was devised and performedlive by a brilliant bunch of passionate Kenyan actors who understood the power of performance and the need to use it to rouse public awareness quickly. Doing so in daring style, the cast, assisted by S.A.F.E.’s founder-director Nick Reding, told a story filled first with a rich mixture of humor, laughter and the bittersweet experience of a young girl named Roxana (Jacky Vike) who just lost her mother, who’d been raped during the 2007-8 post-election violence, leaving her so traumatized, she commited suicide. Ni Sisi starts in the present-day but quickly reflects back on the devastating effects of that period when some Kenyans lost control and allowed malicious animal instincts to take charge of their bodies and minds. But part of the genius of the screenplay, drafted by Reding and based wholly on the devised live performances, is that it exposes what else was at play in those darkened days when some Kenyans forgot their humanity and turned into mobsters and monsters. What’s so ingeniously exposed in Ni Sisi is just how flagrantly ordinary Kenyans were used and manipulated by self-serving politicians to elicit fear among the people, using racial and tribal stereotypes, rumor-mongering and plenty of cash to cause havoc that would not just kill people’s morale but kill them physically as well. Ni Sisi does an amazing job of exposing thereal enemies of peace, freedom, social justice and democracy.They are embodies in the character of Mzito (Peter King), a shopkeeper who’s so hungry for power that he’s intent on becoming a member of Parliament sothat he too can take his turn to ‘eat’ the national cake. Mzito is a mean-spirited, small-minded and manipulative man who clearly doesn’t know the meaning of kindness, as we quickly see by the cruel way he treats his shop worker Tall (Godfrey Ojiambo) and also Roxana who he tries to seduce. Fortunately, he fails since this girl is too wise to be tricked by a lusty bugger who could have easily raped her in the same careless and ugly style as her mother had been during the 2008 chaos. But Mzito is ready to win the election by any means necessary. His first weapon is the rumor which he cleverly plants, using a few village people who he pays as well as his witchy wife who’s as much of a pretender as he is. Next, he uses seduction and emotional manipulation of Pastor Maria (TrizahMusymby), one of the three village women (Edna Daisy as Zippy, Mercy Wanjiru as Nene) who start off in the film as bosom buddies; their friendship tested once Mzito turns Maria upside down. I won’t give the story away as it’s filled with suspense that I wouldn’t want to spoil for audiences. But I will say the story’s delightful narrator Jabali (Joseph KimaniWairimu, who also starred as Mwas in Nairobi Half Life) is just as clever and insightful as Roxana, so they devise strategies to expose Mzito who almost succeeds in twisting the minds of his unsuspecting constituents. It is that element of manipulation of the innocent by the power hungry politician that resounds in Ni Sisi. But it’s also got anotherimportant message which is that Kenyans need never be duped again into becoming either destroyers or docile sheep who are just too easily taken in by the tools of tribalism, the tactics of ‘divide and rule’ or the tendency to believe evil men can succeed in the end. Thanks to generous support ofHivos, Safaricom, the Minority Rights Group,and the Australian High Commission as well as the hard work put in by an outstanding cast and crew of Kenyans, (mostly members of the two theatre groups – S.A.F.E. Ghetto from Nairobi and S.A.F.E. Kwani from Mombasa), the producers, KamauwaNdungu, KrysteenSavane, and Nick Reding created a glorious film.

March 4th General Elections Inspired Artistic Energies

ELECTIONS IGNITE ARTISTIC FIRES IN KENYA BY Margaretta wa gacheru Kenya’s forthcoming general elections have inspired a slew of artistic activities, including everything from feature films like the new One Fine Day/Ginger Ink production, Something Necessary and Ni Sisi by SAFE to plays like Heartstrings’Resolutions Broken in Kenya and the Phoenix Players production of The Jury. The latest live production which runs through this weekend at Phoenix Players is John Sibi Okumu’s brand new script simply entitled Meetings. Best known in the region as a TV commentator and interviewer, most recently seen this past week interrogating all eight Presidential candidates on KISS TV, Sibi’s first love is nonetheless the theatre as would have been plain to anyone who saw him perform over the years, acting as the lead in plays like Sophocles’ King Oedipus, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, or in films like The Constant Gardenerand Shake Hands with the Devil. During working hours however he teaches French at one of Nairobi’s more elite secondary schools. But after hours, he is usually busy either acting, directing or scriptwriting original plays, such as In Search of a Drum Major, Ripples on the Pond, and Role Play as well as his most recent production, Minister....Karibu. Like Minister...Karibu, his latest play, Meetings, is quite political, especially in light of the forthcoming Kenyan Elections. Not that it’s either polemical or partisan, but it does expose the way politics, especially electoral politics, can have a profound impact on ordinary people’s everyday lives. Meetingsdoesn’t dwell on the past, although it does portray the present day experience of two families, looking forward to the upcoming General Elections, at the same time as it reflects back on the past fifty plus years of Kenyan history, including four generations of one of them. The families come from radically different backgrounds, yet they are inextricably bound together, first by the younger generation who, despite coming from different ethnic communities, intent to get married irrespective of what their elders think. The other link is found in the youngsters’, Fauolata (JacklineNjoroge) and Zeke’s (Martin Githinji) fathers, one of whom, namely Gus (Samson Psenjen), was a radical student leader whose support of the failed coup d’etat of 1982 led to his being hauled away to Nyayo House where he was torture until he managed to flee the country for his life. The other, Meshak (Harry Ebale), is a wealthy contractor who was Gus’ roommate at college and the Home Guard-like traitor who’s believed to have been the rat who squealed on Gus, a reprehensible deed which led not only to the latter’s torture but also to 26 years of life in exile, first in Tanzania, then Norway and finally in the US. There’s little doubt that a number of Sibi’s characters mirror real life figures who have played significant roles in shaping present day Kenya. They include everyone from student activists who, among many others, were tortured under Moi’s repressive regime to tribalists, spies, opportunists and traitors who preferred sustaining the status quo since it promised them hefty benefits once it was their ‘turn to eat.’ But Sibi doesn’t stop with his implicit critique of the Moi era. Through his reflection on four generations of the family of Gus, he exposes the strengths and flaws of both pre-Independence Kenya which Gus’ grandfather benefited from as far as Western education is concerned, and post-Independent Kenya starting from Kenyatta through Moi to these last days of the Kibaki era. The play also mirrors the uncertainty of these times, what with none of us knowing what will ensue from the March 4th elections. But it’s significant that Gus has come back home after more than a quarter century in order to vote. It’s his arrival on the scene that precipitates all the ‘meetings’ and the unearthing of skeletons from the past. Gus comes home with his teenage son Samora (George Mulei), whose parents are both Kenyan, but whose identities shifted dramatically during the 2007-8 post-election violence. Sibi doesn’t shy away from tackling that troubling topic, tribalism, the bitter consequences of which didn’t just reverberate in Kenya; they also rocked the Kenyan Diaspora as well. Gus’ divorce was a direct result of that narrowing of loyalties, from one nation to one tribe. Two of the most critical meetings for Gus are first, one with the daughter Faoulata who was born after he’d fled, and the other with her mother Esther (Jane Gathoni) who didn’t tell him before he left that their child was on her way. Both of these encounters reveal how well Sibi knits the personal with the political, since Gus didn’t leave for lack of love for Esther, but as the political climate was toxic at the time, he had little choice but to flee for his life. Still, Gus carries a lot of guilt for all that’s happened. Ironically, we can see he’s not the only one with excess baggage. The one character who is unburdened with guilt is Gran (Lydia Gitachu), Gus’ mother and Faoulata’s grandmother. She’s a reconciler and a healer as well as a writer and actress in her time! She also embodies the sense of living history and memory that permeates the play. She transcends time-lines and the tribal barriers that nearly destroyed Kenya five years ago. It is she and her grandchildren who provide the hopeful promise of Sibi’s play, which is otherwise open-ended. Meetings must be Sibi-Okumu’s most ambitious play to date. Whether he succeeds in encapsulating the whole of contemporary Kenyan history in one work is for audiences to decide. So far, the verdict is still out. But Meetings clearly has my vote!

PAINTERS BUILD BRIDGES BETWEEN KENYA AND EUROPE BY Margaretta wa gacheru The Lamu Painters Festival was only inaugurated three years ago after Herbert Menzer, a retired German restaurateur from Hamburg, came to Lamu for the first time in 2006 and quickly adopted it as his second home. He was especially drawn to Shela, the picturesque seaside village just three and a half kilometres east of Lamu Fort and where he built his first house two years after that. The first artist Menzer called to Shela was his fellow Hamburger, professional photographer Roland Klemp. “Herbert needed photographs to put up on his website, www.lamuholiday.com, and that is how I also came to be charmed by the beauty of Shela and the people who live there,” said Klemp who currently has a photography exhibition mounted at the Lamu Fort, which pays tribute to the warm, authentic openness of the Lamu people. Today, both Menzer and Klemp divide their lives between Shela and Europe. Klemp estimates he’s spent a total of eleven months in Kenya since he first arrived in 2008. In contrast, Menzer now spends around six months out a year on Lamu island. “I have lived and worked in many parts of the world, but when I ‘discovered’ Lamu, I was so inspired I felt I had a duty to share it with others,” said Menzer who has worked around artists and intellectuals most of his adult life. “We had restaurants in Germany and Holland, and whenever we opened one, it was always in an urban theatre district, which meant that artists gravitated to us,” said Menzer who hoped to have a similar culturally rich experience in Kenya. To ensure that happened, he took some time before he selected the artists he wanted to invite to the first Lamu Painters Festival, which was held in Shela in 2011. Several of the artists who came to that first festival are in Shela right now during the third three week festival that closes at the end of February. Jurgin Lieppert, a fellow German who Menzer fondly nicknamed ‘the Duke’ has been to all three painters festivals. So has Piet Groenendijk, a Dutch painter who first met Herbert, as did so many of the other artists currently attending this year, at one of the numerous painters festivals held in the Netherlands. Menzer apparently took his cue to launch the Lamu Painters Festival from the Dutch who hold ‘painters festivals’ in various parts of the country as often as five or six times a year, according to Dorien van Diemen, one of the 15 artists invited to come to Shela this year. Dorien is Dutch like a third of the painters who arrived in Lamu in February for the Festival that Menzer plans in future to make a biennial affair. The other four are Margreet Boonstra, Karin Brouwer, Diederik Vermeulen and Piet. And like most of the artists who were invited this year, they all initially met Menzer at a painters’ festival. The other artists whom he met in the same way include the Siberian-born painter Natalia Dik and the Irish-born artist Bairbre Duggan, both of whom live in Holland, as well as the German painter/physics professor Dr. Jacob Kerssemakers. The other German who is in Shela with his Finnish friend and fellow artist Pekka Hepolutha, is Andre Krigar. Fortunately, not all the painters Menzer invited were European. He also called four Nairobi-based Kenyans and asked them to attend his festival. They include Patrick Kinuthia, Justus Kyalo, Samuel Githui and El Tayeb Dawelbeit, all of whom, apart from Githui, had never been to Shela before. Githui attended the festival a year ago and El Tayeb had been to Lamu back in 2004 when he attended a Wasanii Workshop at Yony Waite’s Wildebeeste Gallery and Workshop. “I’m not sure how Herbert found me,” admitted Patrick Kinuthia who normally works out of his Red Hill studio. “But I’m really glad he did. I’ve never been to Shela before and I love the experience of painting at the Coast.” Kinuthia has been prolific during his stay at Shela and plans to hold an exhibition of his coastal paintings later this year. Meanwhile, El Tayeb has spent most of his time either painting on found objects or sketching local sights as did Jacob Kerssemakers, who not only sketched a series of dhows which were grounded at Matondone, the village known for its excellent dhow builders. He also painted panoramic scrolls, some of which are six feet wide when spread out flat. Meanwhile, Kyalo has spent most time sketching, taking photographs and hanging out with the locals while taking in the beauty of the island. And as Githui didn’t arrive until the last week of the festival, he promised to surprise us with new work when (and if) we return to Shela for the official festival closing when all the artists’ works will be up at the Baitil Aman Hotel. Some of the finest paintings that were already hung at the Hotel before I left Lamu were ones painted in Matondone during a day-long excursion to that enchanting fishing village which has yet to be found by flocks of tourists. Most of the Matondone villagers were gone that day however since two presidential candidates had come to Lamu to campaign and the local voters wanted to see them. Those remaining were mainly artisans and workers who were happy to sit like professional models and be painted as they worked. That meant that Andre Kriger was able to capture the kinetic energy of Omar, the dome palm leaf weaver; Karin Brouwer was able to catch a sweet ‘Mama Safi’ vigorously washing clothes by the bucket-load, and Dorien van Dieman efficiently painted the molten power of Mahamud, the one and only blacksmith in the village who was clearly unfazed by the heat that permeated the whole mud and mangrove hut where he worked. Menzer gives full credit for the success of the artists’ day at Matondone to freelance electrician Salim Mirza, a native of Shela who studied Electrical Engineering at Mombasa Polytechnic and speaks several languages, including German, French and Italian as well as Kiswahili, Kitaita and English. “If it hadn’t been for Salim and his assistant Mafreeza, our Matondone trip couldn’t have worked out so well. They were our bridges to the local people of the village.” Menzer, in fact, is all about ‘building bridges’ not just between the locals of the Lamu coast and European painters, but also among artists from Kenya and those from Europe. Three years ago, he invited Nairobi-based painters Patrick Mukabi and Fitsum Berhe Woldelibanos to his first Lamu Painters Festival. Then the second year, despite his scaling down his program, he hosted Piet, Jurgen and Githui even as he continued constructing his four Swahili-styled homes. “If you look carefully, you will see Herbert hasn’t forgotten a single detail of the original Swahili architecture in his houses,” said Roland Klemp. “The main difference is that in place of coral bricks, he used plaster and cement.” The effect is remarkably similar to the original Swahili style. The other notable difference between the antique Swahili homes and Menzer’s replicas is the smoothness of his stairs leading up to each individual suite, all of which have open-air windows like the originals and all with incredible views of the Indian Ocean. This year, several artists stayed in Menzer’s Swahili houses. The rest stayed at Bastil Aman, the hotel where one can see an exhibition of the paintings made by the artists during the Festival. The exhibition hall is frankly not quite large enough to show all the remarkable works by the 15 prolific painters, a few of whom display their art outside the hall. This is fitting since a number of these same painters include themselves in an art movement currently alive and well in Europe called the ‘Plain Air’ or Open Air movement. These are painters who only paint outdoors, irrespective of whether there is rain, snow, sleet or sunshine! Among the painters who consider themselves “plain air” painters are Margreet, Dorien, Andre, Jurgin, Diederik and Natalia. The rest don’t confine themselves to any one style of painting although they all, including the Kenyans, often paint in the open air. Natalia, who also paints portraits and still-lifes with a roof over her head, says she still considers herself ‘plain air’ since she loves to paint out of doors whenever she can, especially when and where the weather is temperate. In any case, most of the paintings produced during the festival were created out of doors, as for instance when the artists chose to paint the Maulidi Festival procession which brought together Muslims from all over North Africa and the Middle East to Lamu to celebrate the birthday of the prophet Muhammed. Situating themselves on several second floor balconies overlooking the town’s main boulevard beside the seashore, the painters had to quickly cultivate patience as the procession was two hours behind schedule. But when the droves of dancing and singing young men finally snaked their way past the painters, destined for the town’s main mosque, the artists worked swiftly to complete their paintings which often featured the kanzu-clad teams of joyful dancers. That procession produced some of the most colorful and captivating paintings that I saw during my brief time with the artists in Lamu. What they’ll create during the remainder of the festival is anybody’s guess, but I recommend taking a trip by bus or plane to the island before the end of the month if you want to see a colorful and eclectic collection of paintings produced by Kenyans working side by side like-minded European artists, most of whom had never been to Africa before and who were frankly in awe of the beauty they found on Lamu island.

Banana Hill Art Gallery becomes Regional Art Center

This article appeared in Business Daily on March 15, 2013 BANANA HILL GALLERY THRIVING WITH EAST AFRICAN ARTISTS BY Margaretta wa Gacheru Banana Hill Art Gallery is one of the busiest art centers in Kenya, featuring artists from all around the East and Central African region, including Kenya. The one factor that makes this so is the Gallery's roving art dealer and self-taught painter, Shine Tani. Shine hasn’t excluded Kenyan artists from his gallery entirely, as we just saw throughout February when the inimitable art of the Ngecha artist Sebastian Kiarie was on display in his A Moment from Every Day exhibition. Kiarie’sone-man show included both new glass sculptures as well as a series of whimsical portraits featuring Wedding parties, market mamas, couples looking blissfully ‘in love’ and one mama busy making chapati. I confess I have been a fan of Kiarie’s since the Nineties when he was still an agronomy student at Egerton University. He had picked up painting while awaiting entry to the university, his mentor being a local Ngecha bar artist named Mage. Bar art – the kind seen not only in local pubs but in butcheries, beauty salons and tea hotels all over Kenya – had been Kiarie’s main source of artistic inspiration.And the basic aesthetic skills he learned from Mage became the basis for his winning the ‘Most Promising Kenyan Artist’ prize during the East African Industries for East African Art exhibition in 1995. Since then, he’s fulfilled that promise as both an innovator who fearlessly experiments in new media such as bronze, scrap metal and glass and as a painter whose art is not only part of the National Museums of Kenya permanent art collection; it’s also in private and public collections in Europe and the US. Nonetheless, in the past few years, Shine has made a point of keeping the gallery alive and vibrant by not relying solely on local artists. Instead, in an effort to keep his clients and the public at large curious and eager to see what new talents he’s found, shine puts up new exhibitionsin the gallery at least once a month. Shine has trekked all around the region since 2007. He’s moved mainly by bus to cultural capitals, from Kampala and Entebbe to Arusha and Dar es Salaam, stopping off at various places in between in search of talents new to Nairobi. In the process, he's met and booked a whole range of regional artists such as BoscoBakunzi from Rwanda, Paul Kaspa and Ngura Yusuf from Uganda, LutenganoMwakishopile and LudovickKaija from Tanzania as well as BezalelNgabo from the DRC. These are artists who were previously unknown to the Kenyan public but whose artwork has been exciting, diverse, eye-catching and even affordable as compared to some of the other Nairobi galleries, such as Gallery Watatu which, under the stewardship of the Ghanaian art dealer Osei Kofi, asked exorbitant prices (as if he were living in Europe and dealing in Euros and US dollars). The result of Kofi’s setting his prices so high is that he rarely soldsculptures or paintings and thus, he disappointed most artists he'd promised to make millionaires when he first arrived on the Nairobi art scene acting like the artists’ messiah. Currently, Kofi is residing in Geneva, Switzerland after having containerized the Gallery Watatu collections, including art works that technically still belong to local artists, not to Watatu or to Kofi. Having moved out of Lonrho House in Nairobi’s CBD before he left town, Kofi shifted the bulk of Watatu’s inventory to Kitengela Glass Trust where NaniCroze kindly donated space in her new upstairs open air art gallery to effectively serve as a Gallery Watatu Annex. It’s an unfortunate state of affairs, according to artists like the founding mother of Gallery Watatu,Yony Waite, who feels the de facto folding of the Gallery has left a vacuum in the Nairobi art world which has yet to be filled. Waite, who owns the Wildebeeste Gallery and Workshop in Lamu, is busy rebuilding herWildebeeste West Gallery out at Athi River which burned down a year ago. In the meantime, Banana Hill Art Gallery is doing a good job filling its pearly white walls with regional art on a regular basis. Currently hosting another gifted Ugandan painter, Hassan Mukiibi who has been in and out of Nairobi for the last few months and met Shine when he was looking for a venue to exhibit his art. Shine had been highly recommended to Mukiibi by fellow Ugandans who’ve exhibited at Banana Hill over the last few years. They include painters likeIsmael Kateregga, Ssali Yusuf, Mark Kassi, Jjukko Hood and many others. Mukiibi’s art bears some resemblance to Ssali Yusuf’s, especially when it comes to his affinity for painting beautiful Ugandan women with large colorful headdresses and long flowing gowns. But his individuality comes through in his semi-abstract work which is filled with bright and luminous colors. His Birdscape is one of the most enchanting in the show, which runs through most of March in Banana Hill.

Expanding Vocational Training in Kenya w.Chinese support

YOUTH POLYTECHNICS UPGRADED WITH CHINESE SUPPORT By Margaretta wa Gacheru. Published in Daily Nation's Springboard March 11, 2013 One of President Kibaki’s greatest achievements during his days in Kenya’s highest office has been his consistent focus on education. His early decision to make primary education free for all Kenyans was one of his first markers of success. And now, during the latter days of his administration, he again has highlighted his deep love of learning as well as his commitment to seeing Kenyans one day rank among the most highly educated in Africa. That must be the motive behind the current expansion of university education which is unprecedented in Kenyan history. For instance, university enrollment rose from 75,000 in 2002 to 251.554 in 2012. Government-sponsored student admissions to public universities rose from 23 percent in 2003 to 42 percent. And in the process, young women’s enrollment rose from 23 percent in 2002 to 42.9 percent in 2012. The President also launched 15 new public universities in the last few months, all with a view to achieving the goal set in Vision 2030. In February alone, he inaugurated six new universities —two at the Coast, others in Eldoret, Narok, Nyeri and Kajiado. Yet the fact that all 15 came into being as a result of upgrading colleges and polytechnics has generated mixed feelings among a number of educationists and education-loving Kenyans. Some have questioned the wisdom of such a rapid shift at the institutional level. They have wondered whether there will be sufficient faculty to teach these new burgeoning student bodies. But numbers are not the only issue being raised: Will the teachers be qualified to cope with classrooms and lecture halls that are bound to be brimming over. Will the quality of education be diluted now that the current focus seems to be more on quantity than quality? The other question being asked relates not so much to quality but to kind of learning experience. Do Kenyans need more theoretical learning, which is what universities normally offer; or does the country need more technically qualified youth equipped with practical skills, the sort that were previously being taught at the polytechnics and colleges which are now part of the university system? Some critics will say that question is a ‘no-brainer’ since universities tend to turn out prospective ‘white collar’ workers, yet what Kenya needs is a technically-skilled workforce equipped to start up their own small businesses. Fortunately, the Ministry of Higher Education hasn’t forgotten about vocational training of Kenyans despite the media’s obsession with expansion of the university system. What hasn’t gotten much coverage is the fact that a whole slew of new vocational training institutes are being established through an agreement signed by the governments of Kenya and China to upgrade rural youth polytechnics to the rank of technical training institutes. From Bungoma, Kakamega and Kisii to Meru, Machakos, Muranga and the Rift Valley, the Kenya-China Technical Vocational Education Training program (TVET) has been equipping rural polytechnics with machines and trainers contracted through the Chinese firm, Avic International, (the same engineering company that is currently constructing the new Terminal 4 at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and supplying firefighting equipment to the National Youth Service. “So far, we’ve been helping the Ministry to establish ten new technical training centers all across Kenya,” said Qi Lin, the Project Manager who has just completed the first phase of training Kenyan instructors in operating sophisticated machinery brought in from China. The instructor/’trainees’ came from all ten technical training institutes (nine of which were recently upgraded from youth polytechnics), including Bushangala TTI and Shamberere TTI in Kakamega County, Kisiwa TTI and Matili TTI in Bungoma County, Wote TTI in Machakos, Kirua TTI in Meru, Keroka TTI in Kisii, Murang’a TTI and Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology in Nakuru. “Once we have installed all the machines and trained the Kenyan instructors, we’ll move on to Phase Two of the project where we will repeat the same installation and training process at 40 more new vocational training institutes,” added Lin who’s been in Kenya since 2010, overseeing this US$20 million project. Having hit the ground running, Lin has clocked in thousands of kilometers by road since he arrived two and a half years ago. He has been doing everything from vetting local polytechnics to select the ten best ones (out of the 20 suggested by the Ministry of Higher Education) to vetting poly instructors to select the 24 best qualified in the fields of mechanical and electrical engineering to train--both in China and Kenya on how to operate the brand new machines. It’s a major technology transfer project in which the 28 year old aeronautical engineer has overseen the importation and installation of 153 container-loads of three different types of machines meant not only for the training of qualified Kenyan technicians, but also to upgrade Kenya’s manufacturing sector in the process. A portion of the machines have already filled electrical and electronic labs, others are still being installed in mechanical engineering departments with support from Avic’s Chinese installation team, and the remainder, called ‘advanced rapid prototyping’ machines, will allow Kenyan technicians to reproduce everything from spare parts and soda bottles to jaw bones and original works of art! The one university where all three sets of machines have been installed is the former Kenya Polytechnic. Renamed early this year when President Kibaki officially launched Phase One of the TVET project, the Poly’s new name is the Technical University of Kenya or the Kenya-China Friendship Technology Training Centre. The former Kenya Polytechnic is also where the 24 Kenyan instructors that Lin hand-picked just completed their one-month ‘refresher’ course in operating the machines. Having spent four months in China in 2011 at two of the best technical training colleges in the country, these 24 will in future be responsible for teaching young Kenyans how to operate the same machines. In China, experienced Kenyan teachers like Emmanuel Okech, who’s taught Mechanical engineering for 16 years at Bushangala Youth Polytechnic, studied rapid prototyping at Xi’an Jiaotong University’s National Engineering Research Center of Rapid Manufacturing with Dr. ‘Jim’ Chi Jinchun. Dr. Chi is one of the 19 Chinese instructors who taught qualified Kenyan engineers like Okech, David Maru and Mary Naban’gala and then followed them back to Kenya to continue their training to ensure they could master the machines on their own home turf. “We also brought 40 Chinese mechanics to assemble and install the machines once they got through Customs,” noted Lin. “A portion of them will remain in Kenya to maintain the machines for the duration of their two year warranty,” he added. Other Kenyan instructors like Kennedy Natoka, who teaches at the Kisiwa Technical Training Institute, studied at the Inner Mongolia Technical College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, an award-winning school which, according to Lin, is one of the best vocational training centers in China. “We selected eight Kenyan instructors in each of the three engineering fields to train in China,” said Lin who feels strongly that the success of the TVET project will be measured by how well Kenyans themselves are able to operate the machines in the future. “That is why we place so much emphasis on practical training. We have seen other countries bring machinery to Kenya, but it rarely gets put to good use because the donor countries simply sell Kenya the machines but don’t bother to train Kenyans in their usage,” added Lin who introduced me to one team of Chinese trainers who didn’t speak either English or Kiswahili. “But they know the ‘universal language of Science’ and they work closely with me,” said Li Man Liang in perfect English. A qualified electrical engineer herself, Li acted as an interpreter/translator throughout the Kenyans’ training, liaising between them and the Chinese instructors to ensure the teaching was clear. “Because the training is more practical and ‘hands-on’ than theoretical,” added Qi Lin, “most of the teaching has involved our trainers showing the Kenyans how the machines work.” Acknowledging that the machinery is a major investment, Lin says he hopes the Kenyans who learn to operate the machines will link up with the private sector to expand Kenyan manufacturing in all kinds of fields. Noting that the machines can manufacture everything from conveyer belts and traffic lights to spare parts of all types, Lin says the possibilities are limitless. “People wonder how the Chinese economy has grown so fast. Well, it’s largely because we focusing on training skilled workers in various fields of manufacturing. That is how we became the manufacturing capital of the world. Kenya will now have a similar capacity to do the same for all of Africa if they utilize these machines well and link up local technicians with private sector manufacturers. I’d love to see that happen and I’m happy to assist,” Lin said.