A Return… to Normalcy?

The last few days have brought a welcome distance from the Westgate attack.  I am no longer reading googlenews like it’s on a slow IV drip.  We aren’t turning on the TV anymore.  (Although a lasting impact of the whole thing is that Jonah now knows the word, “TV”.)  I am attempting to focus down on my research and running out for groceries when I need to.  You know, normal life stuff. 

My brother, GB, asked if it felt here like it did in NYC after 911.  Well, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for sure.  But I think not.  I don’t feel shell-shocked and terrified.  I am a bit more vigilant when walking into the mall, but I’m not holed up inside my house waiting for the next attack to happen.  Also, Nairobi isn’t my long-term home.  I don’t know if that makes all the difference, but it does give me some aesthetic distance from the attack. 

We are told that some of the attackers at the mall changed into everyday clothing and walked out with the rest of the rescued civilians.  They walk about this city.  They could be buying milk ahead of us in line at the grocery.  This is, of course, unsettling, but it serves as a reminder that this world is full of broken people – for certainly only the most broken individuals could commit such violent and indiscriminant crimes.  Individual trauma is all around us, whether it is in the form of those who experience violence or those who perpetrate it. 

A few friends have asked if we are going to leave Kenya.  No, not for the time being.  If there was another attack, and we are fortunate enough not to be victims, then possibly we might rethink our position.  But we’re staying put for now.

Thank you, everyone, who has been in contact with us over the last week.  We are so grateful for your well wishes.  I leave you with a beautiful poem written by Kofi Awoonor, a Ghanaian poet killed in the attack.  Link here.

 

ACROSS A NEW DAWN

Sometimes, we read the

lines in the green leaf

run our fingers over the

smooth of the precious wood

from our ancient trees;

Sometimes, even the sunset

puzzles, as we look

for the lines that propel the clouds,

the colour scheme

with the multiple designs

that the first artist put together

There is dancing in the streets again

the laughter of children rings

through the house

On the seaside, the ruins recent

from the latest storms

remind of ancestral wealth

pillaged purloined pawned

by an unthinking grandfather

who lived the life of a lord

and drove coming generations to

despair and ruin

*

But who says our time is up

that the box maker and the digger

are in conference

or that the preachers have aired their robes

and the choir and the drummers

are in rehearsal?

No; where the worm eats

a grain grows.

the consultant deities

have measured the time

with long winded

arguments of eternity

And death, when he comes

to the door with his own

inimitable calling card

shall find a homestead

resurrected with laughter and dance

and the festival of the meat

of the young lamb and the red porridge

of the new corn

*

We are the celebrants

whose fields were

overrun by rogues

and other bad men who

interrupted our dance

with obscene songs and bad gestures

Someone said an ailing fish

swam up our lagoon

seeking a place to lay its load

in consonance with the Original Plan

Master, if you can be the oarsman

for our boat

please do it, do it.

I asked you before

once upon a shore

at home, where the

seafront has narrowed

to the brief space of childhood

We welcome the travelers

come home on the new boat

fresh from the upright tree

From “Promises of Hope: New and Selected Poems,” selected by Kofi Anyidoho, University of Nebraska Press and the African Poetry Book Fund, 2014