Trek Afrika Art Gallery

A story has been told about a small boy in my rural home who liked to go the market, he had to be on his best behavior for weeks to qualify to accompany Mama to the market. He used to bribe his way out by doing most of the housework. On the eve of the market day an announcement would be made over dinner about the lucky winner to make the trip to the market the next day.

   While at the market, he enjoyed seeing so many people dressed in bright colors and going about their business. You could bump into your uncle whom you hadn’t seen for sometimes, at this point you definitely knew a doughnut was on the way, before you knew it, there was your aunt right in front of you, you could not believe your double luck but you had to work very fast, only this time you would let the eyes do the talking lest Mama caught you ‘begging’ for goodies from your relatives. You looked into your aunt’s eyes and smiled, then pointedly directed your eyes at a glass of juice sold nearby, then you looked at your aunt once more and smiled. She knew what to do , she just bought the juice and brought it to you, that way you could sip the juice and sneer at Mama to silently say ‘ the juice was only brought to me Mama l never asked for it’
By evening you could be so full that you could even forgive dinner.

   That boy was me when l was growing up ,In every market painting that I do, there is always a figure or a posture like someone I know back in the village, it could be our noisy neighbor who sang all day tunelessly her bad voice notwithstanding, she terrorized the whole village with her bad singing ,she reminded me of either a frog trapped in a bottle trying to croak itself out or someone singing while biting on a piece of hard wood with your nose pinched. When she started singing her dog also barked in unison or it could be our querulous neighbor who fought everyone. Sometimes it is our other neighbor who always smiled endlessly or our other mean neighbor who never let her children out to play with the other children, ironically we would meet at school and play as much.

There are times when I see the village bully Mrs. Dodo, she never seemed to imagine there was another color a part from white ,all her clothes were white, she even wore white when going to work in the garden, she had a white cat, a white cow, a boy in my school claimed to have
overheard her making enquiries about the possibilities of a white donkey at the market but more frightening was the fact that she was rumoured to be a witch although no one proved it.

With all these memories I couldn’t think of anything better to paint other than a market scene.

Weddings in Africa vary from one place to another due to diverse cultures. ln my village, weddings are actually a matter of life and death. lt is a ceremony that brings out both the best and worst of behaviors of people in my village. There are those who hold lifelong grudges just because they were not invited to so and so’s wedding.
A wedding in my village is never a wedding without the feasting and merry making, otherwise your wedding will never make it to the village’s local top ten wedding charts, l mean no one will ever talk about it if not to sneer.

During our time as children it was even more fun than nowadays whereby weddings have become more private to the society at large. There is no longer the euphoria that would grip the village once a wedding was announced.

 I remember how the village messenger would arrive in the homestead on his noisy rickety bicycle with his bell ringing irritably, you had to get out of the way quickly because his bike never had breaks.

He would use the soles of his funny brown boots that had seen better days to apply friction on the ground until he would stop violently almost capsizing his bicycle but he never fell over to our disappointment because as children it was fun to see an adult fall down.

You could always guess the reason for his visit from the look on his face and he had many faces for different occasions. After exchanging pleasantries, he would go into the tedious task of opening his brown bag.

By the time the bag got opened, we would be so mad with him but when he fished the many wedding invitation cards then it was time to celebrate. The messenger would then leave to go to the neighbors to make another delivery but only after taking several cups of tea. The same ritual would be repeated at the other neighbors’ houses. Of course we knew this because we went to the same school with our neighbors’ children and we discussed the issue in details. l remember how one time we had a hard time trying to calculate just how many liters of tea the messenger took after visiting all the houses in the village. We never got the right answer.

By evening, the whole village would be in a frenzy mood, women would be seen in groups discussing what to wear and what to cook on the big day, they would even discuss the scenes in the last wedding, Mrs Mambo, who was the most talkative one would be heard speaking in a sneering voice about how so and so behaved or misbehaved, she had a  high pitched voice .There was also Mrs Yala, a very humble lady but it was the many ducks that she kept in her house that scared children, we never wanted to go to her house because of the ducks, what she fed them no one knew. She never talked much, all she did was to nod to everything that was being said. Mrs Otwelo could be heard singing all evening, she was tall and snooty but when she walked, it was like drunken three legged giraffe trying to lean on one side. My cousin Mary always got me in trouble because she always laughed at her.

     Men never seemed to be bothered by attending weddings in my village but there were some who made it their duty to avail their fortune telling skills, the only reason they attended weddings was to predict how long the marriage would last, if the bride was beautiful enough, these men would scrutinize every everything about the bride. Mr Maka, a tall slim figure with a beard that would put the Taliban’s to shame, walked as if he was a president in waiting, his strides were confident but it was his “fortune” telling skills that people respected, even if whatever he predicted never came to pass, people still believed him. At one time he was only seen by appointment.

During Mr Jona and Pat’s wedding he made an observation that baffled everyone, while the ceremony was going on, someone asked him what he thought of the bride, he looked as if he had swallowed a bee, then his jaws fell, and he looked sad then he became angry and said “what a waste!! This young man has been taken for a ride, look at the bride, don’t you have eyes”? The startled neighbor was lost for words, obviously he loudly wondered why Mr Maka said such nasty words. On further inquiry about what was wrong with the bride, Mr Maka said” just look at how the bride is smiling all the time, she is actually laughing at him, she knows she is just in the marriage for Mr Jona’s money, she just wants to separate him from his money then leave him poorer than he found him.

Before long word had spread around that the bride was a gold digger, someone even swore that she was wanted in a distant village for fraud, nevertheless, the wedding went on and Pat became Mrs Jona, Mrs Jona is still happily married to this day ,however, Mr Maka doesn’t have his fortune telling “powers” any more.
All in all, weddings brought people together, the villagers felt they had a sense of belonging during these wonderful times.

This painting is all about life and its challenges, if you let people put you down then you will surely stay down, just like Mr.Jona who lived with one part of him worrying about Mr Maka’s predictions but another stronger part in him pushed him to look on the brighter side hence his marriage survived the ups and downs of my village.

Every evening after dinner we would gather by the fire place to listen to folk tales, the narrator was either our grandfather or our aunt. lt was a time no child could afford to miss. There are times l wish l could go back to those days.

As the story goes, there were no zebras but donkeys then, one day there was to be a wedding in the animal village, just like in the human world animals also love weddings. lt was announced that there was to be big wedding and all the animals were supposed to attend, however, only those dressed smartly could attend. The donkey’s dull color was a frowned upon. This feeling gave donkeys a lot of concern, it was common knowledge that the donkeys would not attend the wedding.

 As days went by, the donkeys were working frantically to find a way to change their color. lt was only after one Mr Rabbit came up with an idea that he could change the donkey colors by painting them in stripes of black and white that the donkeys relaxed. This big news was greeted with a lot of excited cheers from other animals but the donkeys cheered the loudest.

 A day was set aside to do this task of transforming the donkeys into beauties, the artist was ready with his paint, he told all the donkeys to line up orderly so that he could paint them one by one, there was a lot of excitement, lots of singing and dancing while they waited for their turn. When the first donkey got his new look it was difficult now to control the rest of the donkeys, the excitement had gotten the better of them but order was restored once the artist threatened to stop the whole exercise. One by one they got the black and white stripes and the artist was getting tired too, nevertheless he continued with the task of the day. The other animals were somehow thinking of doing something about their colors too but that is a story for another day, at least that is what the narrator told us.

 You and me know how it can be difficult to control crowds not to mention if people are waiting to gain something, in this case it was the animals jostling and kicking one another, cries of “please please behave yourself” from the artist were ignored. A gazelle was kicked for trying to restore order, a warthog was slapped twice because he did nothing but smile. Someone was sent to fetch the lion at least to control things but the messenger found the lion having his lunch, he couldn’t be bothered, his hurt look conveyed that that was no time to disturb him while feeding. The messenger gave up.

 When someone gave a frightening cry that the paint was running out, the whole area became a battle field, everyone wanted to get to the front and by so doing they kicked the last tin of paint. Blame was all over, others cried in frustration and there were those  who turned against the artist.
 For those donkeys that had been painted ,things changed immediately, they now became ZEBRAS, the zebras wanted nothing to do with donkeys any more, after all they were now going to attend the prestigious wedding. After the wedding it was obvious that the donkeys would not stay together with the zebras and the zebras thought by staying near the donkeys they could loose their stripes. This animosity escalated to a fight of the zebras and donkeys, the donkeys eventually kicked the zebras out of the village but since the zebras were considered beautiful all the other animals followed them into the wild. To this day donkeys are still sulking, never happy, always braying and calling out to other animals to come back to the village.

Now you know why Zebras have black and white stripes ?

There was nothing l liked more than telling stories, when l was growing up you had to be seen to be doing something almost every time. lf you were not sweeping the homestead then you were washing the dishes or cooking, just to keep away from being punished for being idle.

  Our parents always shouted “an idle mind is a devil’s factory “every time you seemed to pass the time lazily, but nevertheless we knew the best time to tell stories uninterrupted was during the weekend when we went to the river to do our laundry. With my favorite cousins Mary, Naomi and Rebecca we always looked forward to the weekend.

  Everyone piled their laundry until the weekend when washing would take place. At the riverside you would be forgiven to think it was a school day. Children from the neighborhood would meet there. We would tell jokes and stories as we waited for our laundry to dry.

  Every time l looked at all the beautiful display with clothes in bright colors spread all over ,l wanted to keep the memory over and over .l would have liked to take photos but alas ! a camera in those days was a luxury preserve for the village photographer.

  He Was a man  who was sure of himself, he never wore any other shoes apart from big brown boots and never ironed his clothes. What struck me most was his arrogance, he had little respect for anyone, not even the authority figures in our village. You should have seen him reprimand our village’s most respected man, the headmaster during a photo session just because he didn’t smile broad enough, or when our much loved veterinary officer kept clutching his brown bag in either hands. Mr photo man would make strange noises that would make you think of a bee trapped in a bottle if you didn’t obey his orders. No one dared to argue because if you did then the photo shoot would be cancelled at once.

   How l wished l could take photos of the beautiful display of color at the riverside during our washing days but l had no money to pay him besides it would have been an insult to this intelligence.

    I was so determined to keep the washing scene with me and so l learned to file everything l saw but this was done in my mind hence the THE WASHING DAY painting.