Today I made a small kettle full of an elixir that I had never made before. This is my way of honoring all those who will be in the streets of Nairobi and ather town across the county as they fight to regain a handle of their future.
I grew up in the city of Nairobi in the early to late 80s. It’s one reason I am the kind of person I am today. It was like a city on the hill. I lived mostly in government housing with a garden, fruit trees and chickens.
I attended what was called Morning Show movies on Saturday mornings, rowed boats after the morning movie and then went swimming at a school swimming pool that would be open to the public in the afternoon and i wouldn't have spent a dollar for the whole day. On a good weekends when we started early enough, we would still have time to go to city park to use the swing, walk around City Park and also feed the monkeys. I cannot remember any single time I went to any of those places alone. We were always a number of boys .
Other times we would play soccer, walk to the library, walk around the down town area or even catch a play at the national theater. Then there were relatives to visit and soccer matches to watch at the city stadium. If all those failed for one reason or another, I would catch radio theater on the radio at 10.00 am and then listen to soccer matches on radio while seated on the porch I had cleaned earlier that morning along with my uniforms for the week. I barely had more than 5 pairs of trousers and 7 shirts. It was a modest life but full of culture and life. Each year, I spent three months at the farm with my mother, kinfolks and village fellows. I would have time to immerse myself in multigenerational relationships with my grandparent’s and eat mostly what we grew. Nowadays, my children want to go on vacation and to the beach. I digress.
Those were things that were available for us even though we never considered ourselves rich. While it wasn’t perfect. It's a heck of a life. Even the occasional thief captured and beaten by a mob still speaks to a collective sense of justice that would fade with time.The biggest upheaval in my time in Nairobi was an attempted coup in 1982, a story for another day.
Now I am grown and I am probably the age my father was when I first moved to the city. I remember the many freedom fighters that I got a chance to hang around whenever my father would insist that I accompany him to many business meeting and social gathering where he would often be one of the featured speakers. I would have never imagined then that I too would end up following in my father’s footsteps .
Well, here I am. Like my father before me, i find mystery in contemplative moments. It wasn't often that my father was just alone but there are times I could obviously tell that he was a bothered man. I remember once asking him if all was alright and he would keep me waiting for what felt like a whole season before offering a vague answer. Today is such a moment. The world is more like a war zone or atleast one on the verge of a transition. It’s not just the men, but everyone from the children, to the youth, we are hodgepodge of confusion.
As I spend my day today in deep thought. I will be meditating on saliva. I have been reaching deep into the recess of my memories of things I was taught, onb served but couldn’t understand. My indigenous community has a lot of lessons I draw from during this time. There was plenty of wisdom in plain sight and in plain words or sound. Consider the etymology of the word for saliva which is “Mata”. The first part of the word “Ma” means truth. “Ma” is also the prefix in the word for mother, which is “Maitu”.
I thefore meditated about the quality of saliva that i inherited from my parents and all the nurturing that saliva received by being infused by the microbiome of the people I interacted with by simply being in their presence, eating together and eating each other’s food. We never ordered any food cooked outside the home whenever we visited our friends and relatives .
Yet the last time I shared a meal with two of my close friends, the host ordered food from the health store in Chapel Hill. My friend had always imagined that all the cooked food sold at their hot bar was 100% organic.
I knew better and I jealously guard my salaiva better than I would guard any physical object regardless of what it is or how expensive it is. My saliva is not golden, it is both spirit and heritage . It is what I am. Without my salaiva, I am totally a different creature. I was born with it and it was further sanitized by my mother’s breast milk. After about three month , my mother started chewing roasted bananas, mixing the smokey flavors of the firewood from our ancestral home. I therefore tasted the taste of my local lanscape, the softness of motherland's saliva and the comfort of her warm bosom. The singing birds during the day, the chuckling crickets amidst the loud bull frogs farmed a most wonderfully background melody. I developed a great sense of my surroundings.
Every so often, my mother would spit on me. I would probably shut my eyes from the discomfort of the misty liquid. Yet it was too late as the saliva had already gotten into my eyes. My saliva and my tongue is my odyssey. While the Greeks had their Iliad and their Odyssey and the foundation of their society and their heritage, The Greek world was built on logic, philosophy theater. Their first book the Iliad was about the ‘what” of life while the Odyssey was about the “what” of life. I am at age of the odyssey, my journey home, I now understand the “why” of life. Out of the two major books that influenced the Greek empire, the Roman Empire and the modern Western Empire, it’s the odyssey that has been most influenced their thinking. I have my Tongue and Saliva which connect me with my characters like Wanjĩra and Kamakia, my grandparents, all those who went before them.
Now I cannot see injustice and pretend not to see. I cannot taste injustice in the food and pretend not to see. Most importantly , I received the guidance of who I am, as the constitution I live and eat by . and the wealth of the literacy to use my tongue to earn a living and to promote life worship. It’s by the saliva that I judge characters first. My mother and my ancestors handed me a most powerful tool and gift. I don’t guard it jealously but share it gracefully. Even when I am away from home, i stay connected to my village through my tongue and saliva. It’ll for that reason that I made one eclectic and flavor drink as homage to my ancestors, the saliva that connects us and my blessings to all those who will be out in the streets of Kenya fighting for their own OneTongue. If Wantam will bring the conducive environment for justice to prevail, so be it.
Any price is a fair price for justice and you cant have justice when your tongue and saliva are not just. That is probably why wr all have a phrase of speaking with two sides of your mouth. Keeping one’s words and tongue honest is one tall order. Young people are doomed if they allow someone with a corrupt tongue to rule and he or she will ultimately corrupt their saliva and by extension , the future generations . Yet what is good for the geese is good for the gander. The republic of saliva has to be one, just and indivisible. OneTongue can bring about ONETAM while also setting the just agenda for AllTIME.
Below is the recipe for my fasting .
ONETONGUE
Ingredients
Prickly Pear
Peach
Ginger
Anise Hyssop
Maple Syrup