Page 66 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 29

Art & Culture

with some female neighbors while washing clothes at the central water point. It was a center of

information for many neighborhoods’ secret affairs and full of hysterical laughter in different
tones and voices. No neighborhood was left behind in the gossip. Occasionally, a fight would
break out between antagonistic women for revealing their neighbors’ gossip. We knew that our

landlady was the widow of a rich man who had two sons, and her sons were serving long-term
sentences for bank robbery with violence. The landlady inherited millions of dollars after win-
ning a court case against her brother-in-law. Last month, her rental houses were demolished by
city askaris for building on stolen land. The landlady had prepared a grave for her own, only to
be buried in it.

During the lockdown in 2020, we were arrested and jailed in Corona prisons in our houses and
homes, a style adopted by President Museveni of Uganda against his political opponents. I had

moved to another Mabati new rental house next to the former landlady’s rental plot. I saw an
opportunity to hold an art session at the water point. This time, it was dry without a crusade of
gossiping women. The caretaker knew the consequences and ensured the water taps were dry
during the daytime. For me, it was an advantage to transform the water point into an art space.
Within five days, I had attracted a large group of children, for whom I demanded 10 shillings

each. I remember the children running up and down, playing with clay, some screaming and
shouting with excitement. Their faces were full of paint, and their clothes were stained with
colors. Some children drew my head, comparing it to a hare’s ears and a monkey’s face. Little

did I realize that my neighbors were infuriated with me. I later learned that some children were
stealing money from their parents.

Before the rays of sunshine blocked Nairobi’s skyscrapers from the east, I heard spotless
rubber scandals sounding toward my house. A baggy pair of trousers, an untucked short-sleeve

shirt, and a red-colored faded cap on his forehead stood written “Ni Mungu Tu” (It is only
God). He flipped open the black-faded door curtain. “This is Nailopi!” (This is Nairobi), he
uttered in English colored by his mother tongue as he sniffed air while battling the flu. He

then vanished out of my sight, humming music: “Maya ni mabatarao makwa, “Ngai hingiria,
ndunyihanyihiirwo.”” (These are my needs; oh God, please provide; you are not lacking.) “A
week did not end; I did not see any children coming around me. Some children remained in
their houses, just looking round the edge of the doors. There was a deep silence in the plot
building, and no child stepped out or raised voices of joy. Any time I placed my paint and easel

at the water point, no child came out. Some children playing along the stairs would frown and
run away, shouting “Wooi Mwendaa ndo huyu” “Wooi Mwendaa ndo huyu (here is a mad-
man).

An intrusion of cockroaches and bedbugs scattered to bed hideouts occurred when I angrily
crushed my small radio against a dusty floor. Indeed, I was tired of the devastating COVID-19

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