Achilles Plate in Dala

I was a great pleasure to spend time in Nairobi and Kisumu the last two weeks. The last time I was in Kisumu was in 1974, I was retracting my footsteps of 51 ago to the place where I attended what was called nursery school. In short, education for me started in Dala(home in Dhaluo) and Dala become home both intellectually and culturally. In other ways, it totally redefined what Dala means to me as a person to include what and with whom I eat.

By the time the two-days conference is over, I lrealized that I earned more about Kenyan the last two weeks than any other time in my entire life. Those two weeks put together marked the smartest group of Kenyans I have ever shared the same space with. Yet they were 110% on the opposite side in their food practice. The gathering was a conference about highly hazardous pesticides but I did not observe a single person practice what all those preseners preached.

I am now out of food and i will probably have to cut my time short if I cannot find clean food.

When the conference was actually concluded and the professor giving the vote of thanks to close the conference, he asked everyone to stand for a word of prayer. Everyone stood up. Ironically, passing, he recounted a story of a conference he once attended in Germany. The good professor noticed that the there was no invitation for prayers at the beginning of the conference and out concern quickly enquired about the oddity. The host quickly responded that prayer was not part of the agenda.

By the end of the story about the conference in Germany, everyone was standing except me. Prayer was not one of the agendas that had brought me to Kisumu for the first time since 1974. I felt a gap that is multitudes times between Kisumu Dala of the early 70s. Truly I say unto you, OneTongue is where struggle has to start and real Dala has to start with your stomach.

I left the dinning hall and headed to my room to catch some rest. I decided that I would be attending the conference at 9.00 pm on Tuesday night and I was in the bus an hour later. I arrived in morning and headed straight to the conference room only to find that I was the first to arrive. I truly couldn't miss the opportunity to participate at such an important gathering. I however didn't have enough time to prepare adequately for my food needs.

I arrived in my room and ate a few Chestnuts I was gifted by a bee farmer in Cologne and then went to sleep after agonising about how I could crush the handful of Macadamia nuts I had brought with me from our village farm.

As I was at the edge of lucid thought and sleep, I wondered about the two nuts I had in my possession for dinner. The German nut was soft and easy to break with my bare hands while the one from our farm was hard and impossible to break without a really hard stone and an equally hard surface. I slept before completing the train of thought. Please help me with your imagination to guess where I might have been going with the comparison.

To give you a hint, think about Achilles Plate. In case you need a juggling of the mind I could offer an appetizer. Achilles was the best Greek warrior during the Trojan war, but having been dipped into a river by his mother to make him invisible, the part of the hill where his mother was holding him from wasn’t protected and was therefore vulnerable and hence the phrase of "Achilles hill" as a byword of vulnerability or weakness. Sometimes I wonder if my mother decided to dip my stomach into a stream next yo our ancestral farm named Karurumo, making it impervious to anything except Just Food. If she did, I say Kung'u Maitú. My ancestors too deserve a share of their credit in this regard, and especially for the instructive proverb that says “ Ngwĩko ya arume nĩ nda” reminding men and women that food is as central as sex.

Maybe Achilles Plate should be the name of a condition of a person who knows so much but acts contrary to his knowledge.

As the conference ended, the senior professor giving the final words asked for everyone to stand for prayer. Everyone stood up and many closed their eyes. I didn’t stand up and kept my eyes open as I had already stood up for Just Food and almost everybody else was seated. I just sat there hoping and wishing that one day the call for just food will be answered just as quick without much hesitation.

Chef Kabui

The Hex Kitchen is a collaboration between Chef Kabui and the Hex community in a bid to promote food literacy, mindful eating and wealth creation. There is a natural connection between those who are fighting against fiat currency and those engaged in the struggle against fiat food. The two social ills of fiat currency and fiat food are at the heart of the tyrannic global world system we are now living in. That tyranny is directly connected to the climate crisis we face and there is no way we can solve one part of the problem without being mindful of the whole system, For a start, the Hex Kitchen is keen on addressing the issues of real money and real food as a basis on regaining our sovereign power. It is no accident that the struggle for food justice would find allies in cryptography and more specifically cryptocurrency. It is not a usual collaboration but yet it is one that makes sense on many levels. Chef Kabui has been studying and applying the power of food literacy, mindful eating and food justice in the struggle against oppression in general and specifically to people of African descent.

Chef Kabui has studied the disciplines of politics, anthropology and culinary arts and has designed a cuisine or rather an approach to food that is informed by the above experience and the indigenous knowledge that he gained from his Kenyan family’s history as sustainable farmers for generations. The combined experience and education resulted in the creation of a cuisine called Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine. It is a combination of the most sustainable practices in the growing, preparation of food with the goal of causing the least damage to the environment and maximizing the health benefits of the food. Those two conditions are necessary for a mindful community that ensures that justice thrives.

Chef Kabui has been pushing organic food and healthy eating based on his research and his own experience. The idea of healthy food and justice is not something that chef Kabui got into but was born in it. His family operated a farm and his father ran a restaurant in the capital city of Nairobi. Kabui grew up in the village with his mother where they grew almost all the food they consumed. It was at his family farm that he Kabui developed a love for fresh food and the art of consuming food following the natural cycles of seasons.

The collaboration aims to share the skills for healthy food to the Hex community and beyond. No community can survive without food and the Hex community is no different. The Hex Kitchen is another assembly point for the community to be nourished both physically and socially. While wealth is private, food is social and having a kitchen for the community to assemble is a great option for a community that is causing ripples across the world.

What to Expect

The Kitchen will have virtual classes, content on Youtube and other social media presence for a start. The goal is that the Kitchen will have a physical place that will have a kitchen in a farm that will grown food and have space that guest can visit. The farm will have a demonstration farm for the vegetables, fruits and herbs,

For the schedule of upcoming classes please visit our events section and find a class that is fit for your schedule.