It saddens me when many people look at my aged face (see picture) and start entertaining ugly thoughts to the effect that I was never a kid. I was and I grew up in a small town in the Rift Valley that was ethnically mixed, in what one would be allowed to refer as being a Kenyan cultural melting pot even though the population was quite small. It is the power of comparatives (or is it called proportions) that is guiding us here.
I attended school, although I used to skip afternoon classes to pick an ancient variety of zambarau we called ndĩrũ that only grew on the river banks, and which turned the tongues purple, hence my low level of educational achievement. In school we had boys and girls from all corners of the vast country that is Kenya and we only referred to them by their one name, but never by their tribes. We did not know our tribes until some people who were paid by the government and were called teachers, taught us that some of us were Luo because we ate kamongo and others were Kikuyu because they ate waru and others were Kalenjin because they drank mursik.
There were many friends and some of their names are still fresh on my mind: There was Kwayera, Mũkundi, Waithĩra, Aronyi, Kipsang, Maloba, Wangũi, Owiti, Mbũgua (no relation to Jobjow), Kubano, Nyaruai, Omondi, Matoke (not the banana), Chepkosgei, Kĩmani (not Pastor Lee), Akinyi, Mwanaisha, Juma, Madaka and of course there was a Kamau. Sometimes we would have two sharing one name and we would differentiate them by calling them Nekesa 'A' and Nekesa 'B'. We were all equal. The only person who was not equal (apart from our teachers) was Miss Emily (she of late memories) because she was a Sunday school teacher and was white. All the rest of us were black.
We are no longer kids. Some of us became teachers, others makanga, farmers, failed politicians, office workers (some as bosses and others as sweepers). Two even became semiprofessional footballers. I know one who became an ATM Dad (a man who only sends money to his kids but doesn't see them). Another became a top cop and another was shot to death in the USA. But when I last checked on them, I was surprised when told that Kwayera had become a Luhya, Akinyi a Luo, Mũkundi a Kikuyu and Kipsang a Kalenjin. What was even worse, they are not talking to each other. Mũkundi who had married Chepkosgei's cousin got crazy orders from two sides simultaneously. His people told him to return his wife to her family, and her family demanded her back. He did not know what to do with the kids (now grownups), who neither belonged to the Kikuyu nor the Kalenjin side as they are the true embodiment of the Kenya we want.
Yes, we used to have our own style of skirmishes, and many a times we went home with bloodied noses. Mediation was of the highest order, because we believed in still being friends the next day. When some of us stole Mũkundi's finger-licking lunch, little did we know that he had used newly sprouted bush spinach called terere that causes havoc to your stomach if you are eating it for the first time. Mũkundi went hungry and he cursed those who ate his food. When we went home we were hit by a diarrhea that was worse than a dysentery outbreak. For fear of death, the next day we confessed to Mũkundi, and in his wisdom he exercised a fine art of mediation where he fined each of us fifty cents. Not having money, we paid it in other forms (some of us stole eggs from our homes to pay him). But the moral of the event is that the art of mediation was in existence, perfect and biding even among us kids.
Today I hear all manner of accusation. Kibaki amebaki na (read steal) kura zetu and Odinga is A Liar (spell his first name backwards). As grownups we should look back to the power of mediation we possessed as children instead of sending our kin to early graves. We also know the power of mediation that Jesus wields and that is a fact. Do we need to go down as low as taking Kofi Annan from a retirement that he deserves, taking a graceful lady from the duties of looking after one of Africa's greatest statesman Nelson Mandela, or go the route of accepting President Bush's offer of sending Dr Condoleezza Rice (who does not even know what a tribe is, despite her mastery of the Russian language) to mediate? It will end up being nothing short of an episode that I thought I had forgotten, until now: Eating ugali at State House. Please excuse some of us if we interpret it to mean there is a wali wa pilau party at State House. The American woman has no relation with mchele.
Yusto Onesmo has reminded us, through his song Yesu ni Muweza (Jesus is the enabler) that a lot of our problems could be solved if we look to Jesus' power of mediation. I do not even know where Jobjow got this video from. The young musician, Yusto, is full of energy so much so that in the entire length of the video he is captured doing antics in the name of choreography some of which are unrealistic, but nonetheless help to illustrate his joy. Where he uses karate movements to demonstrate how Jesus shapes us, the video will certainly provide a compelling view to our younger citizens when they sit in front of their TV screens to savor the music. Parents, allow your kids to watch this video and they will end up spending more time in the house.
Coming at a time when Kenyans need the reassurance that peace is achievable, the song's message is music to our ears. Yusto has managed to give us a preview of the great powers that Jesus possesses, not just among human beings but among natural phenomenon including the act of calming a rough sea. But the most telling is when He is able to read the mind of Zakayo, as it shows that He can also read our minds and know what we require and end up giving it to us. That is the healing process we urgently need in Kenya. We need peace in Kenya and no amount of talking under the guise of mediation among the warring sides will bring it until we acknowledge Jesus as Muweza as Justo has rightly put it.
The video has a trailer of about 48 seconds, which I believe is not entirely necessary as it takes away almost a minute of the great song whose melody is quite uplifting. Too much video antics remind me of the puppets they used to show us in Sunday school. It does not appeal very much to have three or four images of him or his singers appear on the screen at the same time. On two occasions he has introduced snippets of footage showing three dwarfs dancing (1:21 – 1:22 and 2:04 – 02:06). If the dwarfs ware part of the singing team, I would have no problem with that. But the way they are dropped in and taken out before the viewer understands why they are appearing in the first place is no different from the way dwarfs have been misused in sideshows at circuses all over the world. But I have no problem with the one dwarf used (3:30 – 3:43) to portray the short man Zakayo.
It is because of the humbling message and its temperamental melody that Yusto Onesmo's song earns four green stars.
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