To be a black person working to document black histories is to occupy 3 different worlds, in 3 different roles.
- A spokesperson for your erased past.
- An activist in your contested present.
- An architect of an alternative future.
What is happening in Tanzania is a deep deep shame to the Tanzania government and to UNESCO as well!!
More than 150,000 Maasai people face eviction from their ancestral land to pave way for luxury safari tourism and trophy hunting.
10 years ago I wrote a letter to the director of Kenya Railways asking for permission to document Kenya's railway history...
I was 20 years old, no connections, no funds. It seemed ridiculous that a young girl from nowhere would be interested in such an undertaking..
Many places in Nairobi and wider Kenya derive their origins from Maasai words. But what do these names reveal about the history, geography and history of Kenya?
What do they teach us about the importance of language for historical preservation? Let’s dive in.
THREAD
7 years ago I traveled across Kenya taking photos of railway stations and interviewing people along the way..
Now, with a lot of quaran-time on my hands , I started an Instagram page to relieve the journey
Is it a Kenyan function if you don't have the melon and pineapple on top of the cabbage that's next to the pilau, that's next to beef stew that's on top of the mukimo...
Nancy Baraza was dismissed for 'pinching a security guard's nose and threatening her with a loaded gun'...How is this dishonourable hooligan still a member of parliament, despite shooting a man point blank on camera.
Kenya, make it make sense.
More than 50 years after Kenya gained independence, details of the horrific atrocities committed by the British colonial government are still coming to light.
Now showing on
@Aljazeera
, A Very British Way of Torture is a must watch.
The government claims that the Maasai are a threat to wildlife and a threat to foreign investment in the country.
Yet Maasai culture is constantly being used to promote tourism..."Visit the tribal people of Africa" and other useless, self-serving agendas
My great grandmother was held in a detention camp for 7 years. I never met her but my grandfather shared her story with me.
It was painful for him to speak about what his mother went through... this remains the most humbling experience of my life - to make her story known.
A group of British and Kenyan historians from the Museum of British Colonialism are working together to build an online archive of British colonial detention camps in Kenya
I know this is far fetched but if anyone, I mean anyone ( cc
@netflix
👀) is looking to comission a travel / documentary type series looking at African history, culture , museums and everything in between...
Please know I am available to host it ☺️
In 2014, I received a response from KR granting the permission and for the next two years, thanks to the support of friends and family, I travelled between Mombasa and Kisumu documenting railway stations and interviewing people along the way
One of the BIGGEST failures of Kenya as an independent state is the deliberate silencing and erasure of this history.
Between 1952 - 1960 an estimated 160,000 people had passed through detention camps.
1090 hanged for Mau Mau crimes.
Let's talk about destroying wildlife on the continent...
Scottish hunter W. D. M. Bell spent over 16 years (1902 - 1918) in Africa and killed over 1011 elephants across several African countries!
Prince William has renewed his attack on population growth in Africa, blaming it for destroying wildlife on the continent
Critics have accused the Prince of hypocrisy for making such claims while expecting his third child
Last year, I embarked on a profound journey throughout Kenya to document the persistent echoes of colonialism.
It was raw, it was heartbreaking, it was extremely sobering -
One of the most painful things about watching these videos is the realisation that to this day, Kenya as an independent state has deliberately refrained from acknowledging, teaching and recognising this history..
Particularly that of the detention camps
My mum went back to school at 50! In 3 years she completed her diploma and her BA in Counselling Psychology 💜
This year she opened her own counseling practice in Nairobi.
If you need a therapist or know someone who is, please support her by getting in touch & sharing this 🙏🙏
Guys this is fascinating and haunting at the same time...
You can now listen to 100 year old recordings of Kamba dance and work songs recorded in 1911. Incredible!
Listen here
The violence of colonialism is that it will take everything you own and punish you for it.
And after it is done, it will take what you know then come back and teach you the very same knowledge it stole.
Thinking about how we can collectively archive this moment. Document everything digitally but also keep your placards, posters and other physical items...
We shall find a way to bring this together from different parts of the country and form a physical archive.
I could say that this railway project was the start of everything but the journey began a long time ago in Ngong...Under the shielding arms of my mother (a warrior in her own right) and at the feet of my grandparents. 💕
I feel that this is also a fight for the preservation of indigenous knowledge.
We're already seeing the West claim that Africans need to practice environmental sustainability and other tales etc...
Yet these are the very same practices being called 'primitive'
Indigenous people have continually expressed concerns over UNESCO world heritage status - citing a lack of participation in the nomination & management of sites, as well as concerns about loss of rights to lands & resources…
The designation of Ngorongoro as a World heritage site greatly restricted land use in the area.....Despite worsening drought conditions over the past years, the community has not been allowed to go crops in certain parts and grazing land is limited.
For decades researchers could not figure out why Veery birds cut their breeding season short in some years and not in others
When they examined hurricane data alongside migration data they found that the birds change their breeding pattern in anticipation of impending hurricanes
What head of state allows an old white man call the people of his/her country PRIMITIVE and then goes proudly to launch this film in the US?
Shame on you
@SuluhuSamia
and shame on you
@PeterSGreenberg
How DARE YOU? Primitive tribes? 🤬🤬🤬🤬
@PBS
you better pull this ASAP!
This is not an about conservation or a care for wildlife it is about money & profits from licensed hunting.
Since the 1980s, the Tanzanian gvmnt's campaign to disposes Maasai people has centered around the mentality that Maasai people are backward and do not have equal rights
Police directly firing into Holy Family Basilica church where injured protesters are receiving medical treatment - "Msituue sisi ni red cross"... This is tyranny.
#RejectFinanceBill2024
Kenyan creatives - There is a collection of 100 year old recordings of Kamba and Tharaka songs available here
These are free of copyright and are available under the public domain. Use them to inspire your art, use them to keep these voices alive.
Guys this is fascinating and haunting at the same time...
You can now listen to 100 year old recordings of Kamba dance and work songs recorded in 1911. Incredible!
Listen here
Malidoma Some once shared -
'Certain journeys are journeys of the spirit, before you get started you own the journey, but after you begin the journey owns you'.
Thinking about how we can collectively archive this moment. Document everything digitally but also keep your placards, posters and other physical items...
We shall find a way to bring this together from different parts of the country and form a physical archive.
We've started a citizen archive that accepts physical and digital contributions. There are also drop off points across the country and diaspora as well.
As we saw that Rachel & the Ford Foundation article taken down, and know the fickle nature of the internet/service providers (including X), we should start thinking about archiving outside of these sites and on physical media too.
#RutoMustGo
Dear friends, documenting the history of this moment is also an act of collective resistance.
As we watch the political class twist narratives in real-time, we must remember that what is at stake here is not just truth but also memory...
The people I've met, the places I've seen, the stories I've been so blessed to receive and share. I'm grateful for what's come and that which is yet to manifest...
I understood from a young age that life was fleeting. That even as we watched so many loved ones go, we had to believe that there was still so much more to come...
It's been interesting to see how people have used this moment to recontextualise the complexities of Mau Mau & other movements in Kenyan history...
While history often guides us in understanding the present, sometimes the present itself provides a potent blueprint of the past
We begin with places named according to the vegetation and plant life.
In Nairobi areas such as Limuru, Gigiri and Kileleshwa are named after particular plant species.
This world is a painful place 💔 Murdering young people, beating children, dismembering bodies. For what? For calling you out, for asking you to be accountable?
You have stolen more than you could ever need..& you still kill someone whose only crime is fighting for today
Sick!
Maridadi Zawadi Gift Shop - Bush Garden Restaurant, Karen.
Walked in to purchase something, attendant says "Unajua hamfai kukuwa hapa..last times locals waliiba" Proceeds to tell me to leave.
2019!! Kenya.
" Maasai woman, date unknown, location unknown, name unknown."
A couple of personal thoughts this morning around building empathy when working with African historical collections.
How do we imagine the unsaid, the unspoken, the ignored? ...We try.
Between Mombasa and Voi there's a town called Samburu..
My family and I are deliberating on why this town would be called Samburu when the Samburu community resides much further away.
Any idea why?
THE MYSTERY OF THE TOWN CALLED SAMBURU NEAR MOMBASA
Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts on this, here are a couple of theories.
But first a little bit of context…
Between Mombasa and Voi there's a town called Samburu..
My family and I are deliberating on why this town would be called Samburu when the Samburu community resides much further away.
Any idea why?
This is Sir Evelyn Baring.
As governor of Kenya from 1952-59, he commissioned a system of concentration and slave labour camps, in which tens of thousands were tortured and mutilated, beaten and burnt to death.
He is Dominic Cummings’s grandfather-in-law.
It has been challenging, it has been scary, it has been life giving, it has been fulfilling, it has been beautiful...
I sit here in deep awe and humility as I look at how my journey has unfolded..
It really is heartbreaking to think of writing this about a sister, a cousin and a friend. There are words that should never be written down.
Naneu Muthoni was brutally murdered by her estranged boyfriend who is now on the run. Please circulate widely
It is also a common misconception that Dagoretti is a bastardization of the English phrase ‘the great corner’ which falls into a popular trope of Africans inability to pronounce English words.
This theory floats an indigenous origin of the name rooted in natural environment.
My small bro was admitted to the bar. Thinking about my mum and the journey it took to get here...
Life moves fast, but some days it moves slow. With joy, gratitude and an immense amount of love.
So honoured that my first project for
@AfricaDHeritage
will be working with
@museumofbc
to create digital reconstructions of former detention camps in Kenya.
This is an important, undocumented and now disappearing history. Here's a brief overview
As a primarily pastoralist community, Maasai people have for centuries had deep respect and care for their natural environment.
The relationship between the community and the environment is not one of resource extraction rather one of mutual respect, care and benefit.
A crowd has climbed onto the statue of colonial King Léopold II in
#Brussels
chanting “murderer” and waving the flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo where his atrocities took place.
#DRC
🇨🇩
#BlackLivesMatter
Really interesting how Maasai imagery is always used to promote uptake of one form of technology or another..
From smart phones to air conditioners??
We've somehow internalised this notion that Maasais are always the last frontier in technological shifts...
#Kenya
is making excellent progress to achieve its target of universal
#broadband
coverage by 2030, and there is an opportunity for the government to accelerate the country’s
#digital
transformation. Find out more here 👉
Since 2018 we have been working to document and visualize detention camps and concentration villages setup in Kenya during the colonial period.
This work is important for several reasons...
Proud to be sharing the first 3D reconstructions of structures in former colonial detention camps in Kenya.
We focused on two sites in Nyeri that were former camps but are now secondary schools.
@museumofbc
Aguthi Works Camp and Mweru Works Camp
So honoured that my first project for
@AfricaDHeritage
will be working with
@museumofbc
to create digital reconstructions of former detention camps in Kenya.
This is an important, undocumented and now disappearing history. Here's a brief overview
Naivasha directly translates to lake which makes saying lake Naivasha a redundancy reminiscent of Chai tea 🙂.
Embulbul near Ngong town refers to a small pond (embolbol).
Could this also be the origin of Burburu as well?
In 1964, Malcolm X gave a speech to presidents of newly independent African countries at the Organisation of African Unity in Cairo.
If you read one thing today, let it be this.
Karunaini - At the site where Dedan Kimathi was shot. A politician erected a monument last year with his name beside Kimathi's photo!
Someone scraped it off!
Thinking about how we can collectively archive this moment. Document everything digitally but also keep your placards, posters and other physical items...
We shall find a way to bring this together from different parts of the country and form a physical archive.
British Museum has at least 73,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa, France has 90,000 most of which they stole frm Colonies.
Belgium’s Royal Museum for Cen Africa has 120,000& Germany’s Humboldt Forum has 75,000 -incl 10,000 looted frm what is now Tanzania
Water sources also play a crucial role in determining place names within Maasai language.
A place such as Embakasi derives its name from the Maasai name for Athi river which also points us to the trees native to the area.
Early notions of Africans having no history due to 'lack of written records' point to European ignorance of the complexities of indigenous knowledge systems where history was a living thing, embodied in people, places, relationships and environment.
" Calling Slavery x is like calling the Holocaust x... ". That the severity of black suffering cannot be understood unless it is equated in some way to white suffering is also a form of violence against black people.
I couldn't soak up the art, history and culture that Senegal and the surrounding region has to offer if I had 10 lifetimes. But in this 1 lifetime I feel privileged to encounter just a fraction of it...
Some places also have multiple names reflecting dual purposes.
Ngong for instance derives its name from enkong’u enkare as it is the source of the Mbagathi river.
Ngong was also known as Enchorro Emuny - rhino watering pool.
I think about this quote every time I remember that.
1. There's an Africa Museum in Brussels.
2. Which started off as a human zoo displaying Congolese people. ( Justifying Leopold's civilisation mission)
Knowledge of the environment was crucial for survival and enabled the community to know which plants can be found where, where water sources are, where different animals are found, and how to anticipate weather conditions/seasonal changes.
What would an open data project to map and support the return of African artefacts look like?
This is the question
@OpenRestitution
will seek to answer.
Proud and excited to share our latest project. ☺️🙌🏾
This is your periodical reminder that Patrice Lumumba was executed by a firing squad.
His body was then buried and later exhumed.
Then reburied and exhumed once more.
After which it was cut up with a hacksaw, and dissolved in concentrated sulfuric acid.
The daughter of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba has written to the King of Belgium calling for a return of her father's "relics",- an apparent reference to teeth taken from his body after his assassination in 1961:
NOTHING GROWS WHERE DEDAN KIMATHI'S BLOOD WAS SPILLED
On this bare patch of land in the middle of a vast tea plantation in Karunaini, Nyeri, nothing grows. Perhaps nothing ever will...
#MadarakaDay
Kericho government is currently bringing a case against the British government for human rights violations and loss of land by the Kipsigis and Talai.
Land which is currently owned by multinational tea companies like Finlays, on lease for 999 years!
Similar to Ngong’s association with rhinos, Ol kalou (place of ants) also derives its origins from animal life present in this region.
The name also reveals a deeper relationship between landscape and traditional customs/rituals
Our latest project brings together an INCREDIBLE group of Kenyan thinkers to unravel the myth of development.
Building on Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.. Launching this Saturday!! Join us
One of the ways in which this geographical knowledge was transmitted was through language and place naming
As we begin, it is important to note many of these names have changed spelling and pronunciation based on interactions with other languages such as Kamba, Gikuyu, English..
By the early 19th century, the community occupied both sides of the rift valley. A vast area stretching from as far north as Lake Baringo all the way to central Tanzania in the south, with some sections of occupation being 200km wide
This
#Swedengate
conversation is about more than just food, its a conversation about humanness and ways of
being human.
If you're wondering why African people are making "a big deal" out of this, this passage captures it beautifully.
Dr.Naomi Kipury whose work informs this research notes that we can categorize Maasai geographical names based on: plant life, natural features, colors and patterns, topography, animals, and legends.
In the 1960's there were an estimated 8000 Black Rhinos in Tsavo, by 1980's there were only 10.
My grandfather Daniel Meteur Sindiyo was instrumental in the Rhino Rescue project of 1985 which begun with a manual survey of rhinos in the country. Here he is on one of the surveys