Kenya Dig It? ~ Nyimbo ya Watalii!

[bloodyrosemccoy]

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Whoa. I just had a flashback.

 

Somewhere today while surfing Youtube, my sister and I came across video with the song “Jambo Bwana”—a stupid little song geared for tourists who come to Kenya.

 

I admit: I clicked the link just to have a listen.

 

And suddenly I was on a street corner in the speedy Mombasa twilight, with its constant flow of pedestrians, the lights of the shops blinking pools of peach warmth into the dark as we stood outside the Blue Room,* and Juli’s face was lighting up as that goofy little song blasted out of a CD store.

I was a few days into my four-month stint in Kenya, still a little homesick and hoping that our superpowered academic director was going to get my bag back, stunned to think I was on the other side of the world and still overwhelmed by the blue of that Indian Ocean and the white of the sun and the narrow alleys and the constant greetings.

I was outside Fort Jesus for my daily walk, chatting with the lineup of vendors as they haggled the price of postcards with me and sold their knickknacks to the tourists for outrageously inflated prices while I laughed—because students may be white, but everyone knows they don’t have money and can’t pay, so they get better prices.

I was watching a man shimmy up a coconut tree on a spice plantation in Zanzibar to cut down coconuts, singing the song and substituting “Zanzibar” for “Kenya,” with cats and scrawny chickens gathered at everyone’s feet waiting for scraps of coconut meat.**

I was walking with my heroic friend Joseph, trying to explain in my mangled ASL-KSL that that silly song was playing again.

I was sitting with Tito and Gachoki in their tiny studio-shop under my flat, discussing comics and admiring their art.

 

Four months all at once, bound together by an inane, ubiquitous, touristy song.

 

Really, the thing was everywhere.  We were all pretty sick of it by the end, and vowed never to listen to it again—it was about jerk tourists, and kitschy, and the lyrics were silly, and dammit, it was everywhere.  And up till today, I hadn’t listened to it again.

 

And so I had forgotten how much it was associated with.

 

Every once in a while I wonder if that was really me over there, since it was such a dissociation from my normal life. But this song made it real again, from the taste of that passion juice to the glare of the sun. It exists still.

 

I’m so glad memory works that way.  We need those little triggers around to keep our pasts real.

 

 

Sing along!

Jambo! Jambo Bwana!                      Hello! Hello, sir!

Habari gani?                                       How are you?

Nzuri sana!                                          Very well!

Wageni mwakaribishwa                    Guests are welcome

Kenya yetu!                                         To our Kenya!

Hakuna matata!                                 There are no problems!***

 

 

*Not well-named, as the décor was like a malt shoppe from the ’50s, only with more sambusas.

 

**Apparently, cats like coconut meat.  You have learned something today!

 
***Told you the lyrics were stupid.