Kenyan Ramblings

• Once, we were men

  Posted: May 21, 2008, 10:31 am by Tafsiri Hii

  Once, we were men

  We hunted

  Our weapons crude, our clothing barely protecting us from the harsh weather

  Still, we hunted,

  Gathered

  And brought home the spoils

  Proudly, we watched

  As our women roasted the wildebeest and our children shared the wild berries

  We lived as one; my child was your child

  My people were your people

  Your home was my home.

  
  

  Today, we no longer hunt game

  Instead, we hunt each other

  And gather dead bodies

  In the name of love, God, country, tribe, race, resources, and freedom,

  We crush each other, easily

  As we would crush an irritating bug crawling on our skins

  Ethnic cleansing, genocide, crimes against humanity

  Sophisticated words for heinous deeds

  Racism

  Tribalism

  Nepotism

  Xenophobia

  -isms and phobias

  We focus on our differences and find a reason to shed blood.

  
  

  Once, we were men

  We tilled the earth

  Ignoring the sweat and the pains from our exertions

  We would dig, plant, weed, water and harvest

  We coaxed and cared for the earth, gently

  (Like we would a beautiful woman)

  Until it bore us fruit

  From sunrise to sunset

  We would speak to the soil

  And to the crop it bore us.

  
  

  Now, we no longer work the earth

  Instead, we steal

  It’s a hard-knock life, we explain

  So we take out our guns and rob our brothers, our neighbours and our friends

  Our children, they walk the streets aimlessly

  Begging

  Pleading

  Beseeching

  For a morsel to still their grumbling stomachs

  The light has gone out of their eyes,

  The youth out of their limbs

  They no longer run

  They drag their feet instead, slowly like old men who have seen too much.

  Kwashiorkor

  Malaria

  Diarrhea

  Malnutrition -

  Unwanted companions for our children

  Our children are dying

  Our women, they can’t stop crying

  Yet, our only concern is pleasure, self-gratification
  

  So we fuck indiscriminately – man, woman, child, and animal

  And just for the hell of it, we rape our sisters, our daughters and our mothers

  Cruelly, we bear more and more children

  Only to subject them to the same fate

  
  

  Once, we stood tall and roared like lions

  Today, we crawl in our own shit like dreaded rats

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes