september-2018

20 / HABARI
HABARI / 21
The largest landlocked
country in the world is
Kazakhstan, followed by
Mongolia, Chad and Niger.
Column
Only Asia is bigger than Africa. Africa
covers over 30 million sq km.
It’s been proven that going on a
holiday reduces stress and helps
against depression.
Arts & Culture
From the most northern point of Africa,
Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia, it’s 8,000 km
to the southernmost tip, Cape Agulhas.
Our picks
African Podcasts
Put in your earphones and listen to
these 100 percent African podcasts
while doing house chores, working
out in the gym or flying.
Jackson Biko
Nose Dive
Sometimes, when I’m waiting for my sticky chicken wings
order in a fast food restaurant – while staring at the number on
my receipt – I often feel sad that I missed the era of the huntergatherer
by a good 1,200 years.
I suspect that I would have been a great hunter. I’m not
blessed with 20-20 vision, but I do have a wonderful sense of
smell. I keep the smells of people in my head. Especially ex-girlfriends.
I even know what my landlord smells like (bad news). I
can also smell mischief. I also never forget routes, which is a
great talent for a hunter. If I would go to a place in the dead of
the night, I would always be able to find it again. Like a leopard,
I can remain in the shadows for ages, stalking, watching and
waiting. I know that I would have been a great hunter 1,200
years ago. This idea of waiting for food in restaurants doesn’t
suit my talents. I’m living in the wrong era.
I grew up in an era where the men – who I grew up
around – defined manhood by some ridiculous parameters.
For instance, you couldn’t cry as a man. Wait, you could cry,
but you couldn’t be seen crying; certainly not in front of women
or children. (This was the same thing about 50 years before I
was born.) If you were to cry, it could only be a war cry. You
didn’t wear your emotions on your sleeve as an African man. If
a woman broke your heart, you would never stay in your house
– curtains drawn – listening to Céline Dion like we do now. You
remained stoic. You – as an African male – were never to admit
to being scared or insecure. Some of us, as early as 1990, still
went out to hunt for lions in groups as a form of initiation in
some communities here in Kenya. He who faces a lion surely
can’t be a Céline Dion fan. We grew up with fathers and uncles
who told us constantly, “be a man!” But they never elaborated,
so we filled in the gaps in (disastrous) ways that we deemed fit.
Don’t get me wrong; I love free Wi-Fi and looking up what
“mitochondria” means on the Internet. I love the fact that I can
FaceTime someone in Boston from a veranda in my ancestral
village of Ka’ Nyasoro, in the heartland of South Nyanza,
Kenya. I think that knowing tomorrow’s temperature today is
pretty cool too. But still, I feel saddened that I missed the part
when men would go hunting and do some gathering; when men
would know their spears from their weights, and would stalk an
animal for a whole day before driving a spear into its neck. I
missed the adoration of the womenfolk when the men dragged
home a meal for the week.
I just came back from a wonderful holiday in Zanzibar. I
was staying at an enchanting place called Bluebay Beach Resort
& Spa. I didn’t plan to do a spa because of said hunter-gatherer
in me, but one day, as I passed this place – which looked like the
Garden of Eden – I heard a soft-string instrument and caught a
glimpse of some Asian girls walking around with bare feet. Of
course, I was curious. (Of the Asian girls, mostly, not the music.)
When I inquired, I was told that it was a spa; Oasis Spa, to be
“He who faces a lion
surely can’t be a Céline
Dion fan”
precise. I had nothing to lose; not my ego, nor my reputation, so
I tried it. A very softly spoken and petite Thai masseuse, called
Yaya, did her magic on me with her small hands. It felt like she
had five hands, because she gave my whole body pleasure at the
same time. I have done many massages, but this one was special
because it made me feel so good that I became vulnerable
and I felt guilty. Or rather, the hunter in me did.
I wondered what my father would have said had he seen me
walking around that garden in a robe carrying that miniature
earthen cup of black masala tea, speaking softly to my chakra.
“Sleep is the best form of therapy for a man who has worked
hard, Biko,” is my best guess. And, after a massage or two, I’d
probably agree with that statement.
Illustration: Hannah Wieslander
Shutterstock
Event
Book Lovers
A go-to event for book lovers: the
Aké Arts and Book Festival takes
place in Nigeria’s economic capital
Lagos from 24 to 27 October. This
literary, cultural and arts event was
founded five years ago by the
Nigerian writer Lola Shoneyin.
Her goal? To get people to pick up
a book and start reading. The festival
has a full programme of book
chats, panel discussions, workshops
and exhibitions. The 2018 edition is
themed, Fantastical Futures, and
will focus largely on a reimagined
African future.
~ akefestival.org
Fashion
Connecting Fashion
Showcasing the diversity of African fashion brands to the world is the goal of Industrie
Africa, a website launched by Tanzanian Nisha Kanabar and American Georgia Bobley.
Their platform connects Africa’s fragmented fashion scenes, showing that African fashion
is more than just a trend, and way more than just wax-print motifs in regular fashion.
~ industrieafrica.com
“Forget
yesterday,
act on today
and get
a hold on
tomorrow”
– Jaachynma N.E.Agu –
Not Your African Cliché
| Nigeria
Join these four
Nigerian women in
their sometimes fun
and often captivating
conversations about
Africans on the
continent and in the diaspora. Recent topics
include human trafficking, African millennials
and a two-episode-long recap of Hollywood
blockbuster Black Panther.
facebook.com/NYACPodcast
#TheThreadedExchange
| South Africa
Creative entrepreneur
Siya Beyile, founder of
men’s fashion platform
The Threaded Man,
receives guests from all
professions for an hourlong
talk about how to stay on track to achieve a
stellar career.
cliffcentral.com/thethreadedexchange
Kunakirwa
| Zimbabwe
Music lovers, listen
up. Kunakirwa
is a “Zimbabwe all the way” podcast and
provides a unique selection of the best and
latest Zimbabwean music, as well as insight
information and fun facts about the performing
artists.
kunakirwa.com
Otherwise? | Kenya
Whether it’s women’s
rights or corruption,
host Brenda Wambui
doesn’t shy away
from tackling Kenyan
current affairs on her
podcast Otherwise? Join
Brenda on her quest for what she describes as
“understanding the nature of Kenya”.
otherwisepodcast.com