196 Books: Kenya

 One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir, by Binyavanga Wainaina

 

It's Kenya!

 

It's a summary!

In this vivid and compelling memoir, Binyavanga Wainaina tumbles through his middle-class Kenyan childhood out of kilter with the world around him. In One Day I Will Write About This Place, named a 2011 New York Times notable book, Wainaina brilliantly evokes family, tribe, and nationhood in joyous, ecstatic language.

Not much of a summary to be honest. THAT is what turned me onto this book??

 Look. I'm not sure I'm going to live long enough to finish this project. I prefer audiobooks but, you know, not as handy for annotation. So I'm just gonna keep taking for fucking ever to finish these books. 

And I really liked this one! He weaves beautiful images of the world around him and how he sees things. I'm just not good at sitting down with a book; it feels like I should be doing something more productive. Ah well, problems problems. 

Okay. Let's get into it. For me there were kind of 3 parts to this book: the joining of old world tribes and traditions with modern tech and society; his feelings of disconnection and awkwardness in his normal life; and his almost ethereal way of describing things. So, for this one, let's look at each. 

1. New and old ways of life

Wainaina's family seems to be quite proud of their cultural heritage and continue with language and traditions of their tribes. For example, he is circumcised in 1984 at age 13, and deemed a man. Another anecdote tells of girls sitting around listening to Lionel Richie, while Maasai warriors braid their hair. Then there's this one, "Something interesting is going on today, and the drivers are nervous. Sang tells me about a tradition among the Maasai: women are released from all domestic duties for a few months after giving birth. They are allowed to take over the land and claim any lovers that they choose." But, this is the 90s so things have changed a bit: the women are asking for political donations instead of intimacy. BUT. "Innocent enough, you'd think, but the amount of these donations must satisfy them or they will strip you naked and do unspeakable things to your body." The mix of old and new is something so cool that we don't get in America. 

2. Disconnection and awkwardness

Here's a good one to start with: "I wonder, sometimes, whether the substance we call reality is really an organization as formless as the puffy white lines that planes leave behind as they fly." Like, come on. That's just incredible. Wainaina goes through some periods of deep depression while he's at university. And, if you've ever been in that situation, but not realized you're that depressed or anxious (heeeey fellow chronic depressives!), you don't know why everything is just SO HARD. "When you are locked in your room, sluggish and lost inside yourself, the person you were who lived in the world is vague and distant to you." And then you get this one..."I have been fine the past few months, so much so that it is hard to explain to myself why I have been so... unable." I honestly felt this one in my core. It's like a different person inside your body and you don't know how to get back. Then maybe one day you just feel better. And it makes NO SENSE. Brains, do better. And of course, the perpetual thought: "I must live, not dream about living."

3. Binyavanga Wainaina's world

Okay. The way this man describes things is INCREDIBLE. The images and feelings he put in my mind were actually palpable. So, I'm basically just going to go through the quotes, they don't need anything more from me. 

"The thousand suns are breathing. They inhale, dim and cool into the leaves, and I let myself breathe with them; then they puff light forward and exhale, warming my body."

"Water has more shape and presence than air, but it is still colorless. Once you have the shape of water in your mouth, you discover your body. Because water is clear. It lets you taste your mouth, feel the pipe shape of your throat and the growing ball of your stomach as you drink."

"The wind swoops down, God breathes, and across the lake a million flamingoes rise, the edges of Lake Nakuru life, like pink skirts swollen by petticoats, now showing bits of blue panties, and God gasps, and skirts blow higher, the whole lake is blue and the sky is full of circling flamingoes." 

"My father is like warm bread: he smells good and radiates good biology, and my enzymes growl and glow around him." 

Lastly, there's a chapter about Wainaina's mother that really got me. He writes shortly about her life after her passing. This is the passage about him and his mother: "He cannot say no. He has her dreaminess, her absentmindedness. Her stubbornness . He does not have her will, her spine, or her refusal to accept uncertainties, to transcend them. He stands and falls into the tangle of his doubts. Always stands and falls and dreams. She too wanted to make beautiful things and maybe that is why she let him go, when sometimes she could have been sterner with him."       This gets me because my mom always says parents are supposed to give their children wings to fly and roots to return home to. I'm not a parent, but that seems like the best things you could give to your kids: courage to do your thing, and comfort to come back to.