Abundance in Mariakani

Early this year(2022) I joined a program hosted by Africa No Filter, called The Emerging Fellows program. 12 artists from various fields around Africa were selected to artistically shift negative stereotypes attached to the African continent and so, for my project I focused on ‘Abundance’.

My project, “​​Abundance in Mariakani” is a project that challenges the belief amongst Africans that Africa is poverty stricken. Definitely, I acknowledge the fact that there is a significant case of poverty and low quality of life on a large scale around Africa, however this project focuses on the abundance of the land and the capabilities of our people, that being the ‘riches’. The narrative being shifted is for our people to see just how much can be done with the abundance around them. It is a huge topic to cover and so I started with a small town called Mariakani in Kilifi county, Kenya.

Mariakani is a small town which is an hour drive away from the coastline of Kenya. It is a trading hub and has been so for hundreds of years. I chose this location because I saw that part of my ancestors(The Kamba people) migrated there and settled yet I had never heard of the town. Unlike some of the cities/towns in Kenya whereby a quick online search would give me more than enough information to guess what those places are like, I noticed that I couldn’t quite make out a detailed guess of this location so I thought that this made for a great location to explore.

This project had actually started as a means to inspire Kenyans living in urban areas of the country to move to local and developing townships filled with abundance and potential, with the aim of developing them further. To understand this concept better, I needed to travel to Mariakani to explore its status quo, culture, people, and history; and so, I made the arrangements a month before travel, found a translator(Kombo), a tour guide(Raphael), a photographer(Wango), tagged along good vibes (my brother, Keiffi) and set out for 6 days to Mariakani. This wouldn’t have been possible without the much needed advice and encouragement from my program mentor, Bukola Ayebode, my parents and my friends.

This first ‘migration’ idea soon collapsed after the exploration done in Mariakani because I came to better understand the issues surrounding such developing areas and why people move away from them; this also led to my realization of the possible gentrification that would ensue from urbanized Kenyans relocating to such places. The idea which remained the same, however, was the fact that the land was still very abundant and full of potential and so the project then switched to shifting the mindsets of the people living in Mariakani rather than inspiring urban Kenyans to move to underdeveloped towns to develop them.

The exploration done in Mariakani was truly an unforgettable one, we visited the churches, museums, homesteads/villages, carried out 12 interviews and had conversations with the locals. With an ethnographic approach to understanding the area’s status quo and tying it to it’s history, the more questions arose and the deeper our conversations became.

One of the most unforgettable experiences was visiting the sacred Kaya forest. I hadn’t heard of it until this trip - the Kaya forest is home to a lot of Mijikenda homesteads and known to have one of the richest ecosystems in the world it is also placed on the endangered list under the UNESCO world heritage. There are 10 Kaya forests along the coastlines of Kenya which are (and have been for thousands of years) used by the Mijikenda for sacred, spiritual & cultural practices such as offering cattle sacrifices, praying, performing initiations, carrying out herbal medicine practices etc. These rituals are performed by a select group of Kaya elders who attain these important roles through inheritance. They protect the Kaya forests, maintain and regulate strict rules which protect these forests as well as guiding and granting permission to visitors who are keen on touring the forest. There is a lot to read about this, for those who are interested, there is a reference list at the end of this blog post.

3/18 of the Kaya elders of the Rabai tribe

From left to right; Gande Mwabumburi (87), Omar Munga (51), Daniel Begarero (67)

One other other unforgettable experience was our interaction with Saumu, an energetic and jovial Rabai herbal doctor with powers in performing exorcisms and treating various ailments with herbal medicine. After some resistance from her daughters who were suspicious of us,

For good reason as the Kaya elders had mentioned to us that elderly folk around the area were not safe due to a portion of the youth population believing that ‘witchcraft’ is performed typically by the elders and since it is ‘evil’ they are maliciously murdering them.

Saumu invited us into her hut and showed us her tools and some of the herbs she practices with. She explained to us how her powers were inherited first before she was an apprentice to her grandmother; according to Saumu her grandmother noticed her spiritual gift when as a little girl Saumu would locate items within the hut without being told where it was or knowing where to find it. During our visit, it was the time of Ramadan and so she could not demonstrate anything out of respect for the spirits that come with the religious ceremony.

These kinds of interactions and new information sprouted a thousand thoughts and realizations; for starters, the people that we interacted with who had a lot of knowledge surrounding tribal practices and the likes were mostly elderly people. Respectfully and expectedly, these elderly folk took no interest in ‘new’ religions like the widely spread Christianity and Islamic faith. They were also indifferent towards their successors either continuing on with the traditions or adopting new ones. The other interactions we had with the locals presented a common thought pattern amongst most people in and around Mariakani; first, that tribal practices are primitive and deemed evil. Second, the colonial way of life (language, education, etc.) is the way of the future and of advancement. Third, majority of the participants did not have much desire to preserve traditional culture as to them, those were just things of the past. Lastly, there was show of several villages however there were no signs of community projects other than the cultural centre we visited. These mentalities then made me realise that the narrative shift begins with the people of Mariakani; a deeper understanding needs to be made around the importance of cultural preservation and how improvements can be made on some of those cultural attributes and used in afro futuristic ways, e.g scaling up their communities and having a communal sense of responsibility for one another, or utilizing their land and labor to plant more medicinal herbs for surrounding communities etc.

Mariakani and the area surrounding it is abundant with enchantingly spoken Kiswahili, delicious food, rich culture as well as a biodiverse ecosystem, with several medicinal herbs, fruits, vegetables and rich soils. I was surprised to see coconut tree forests and no Kenyan-owned coconut factory to process all of it, or to see wild cashew trees growing in several areas but no cashew products being sold around. The land and culture offers several opportunities to grow thriving communities. Moving this point further, there was an interesting conversation we had with a man named Theophilus,

he told us in detail about the misuse of land and how several heads of villages sell the land cheaply; land which holds their homes and families leading to the destruction of family structures and even tradition. This happens as a result of poor education and little understanding around the value of land; value relating to both how much the land costs and how much you could generate from it.This problem also leads to large amounts of untouched lands or commercial buildings which don’t add long term value to the surrounding communities. It does not need to be this way and the people residing in and around Mariakani should be made aware of such problems; there needs to be a new cycle of learning and unlearning regarding the current belief systems which will spark a big bang of ideas and innovation, making way for a more sustainable future.

There is a lot more to write about regarding this trip and so, I will talk about the rest whilst referencing the artwork inspired by this short trip.The artwork is a series of 7 conceptual paintings with colourful landscapes, beautiful skies, giant flowers, giant fruits/veggies to represent abundance and the repeated element of blue strings that act as metaphors of the thoughts and ideas that either hold us down or free us. The paintings have lots of other symbols that represent Mariakani’s history and culture(mainly of the Mijikenda tribe as it is the dominant tribe of that region) as well as visuals pertaining to what kind of environments the people in Mariakani could have once they see how enriched and capable they are to achieve such.

Symbols of freedom, 2022

'Symbols of freedom’, is a painting that touches on the woman’s restricted position in several social and religious setups and how a mental separation from such beliefs is a start to clearing the way to an advanced and bright future.

In Mariakani, my experience as a woman was a little more challenging than what I am used to. For starters, I recognize that I crossed some cultural/religious boundaries when I would occasionally wear shorts slightly above the knee with an accompanied sleeveless shirt, causing occasional glares - the coastal regions of Kenya are primarily made up of people who follow the Islamic faith - and so, I understand how that may have been perceived as provocative in that context. However, it made me realize that the Christian faith is not so different (speaking in reference to the majority) when it comes to women being required to ‘cover up’ in order to preserve respect. While choosing to cover up for modesty is valid and often meaningful, problems arise when that choice becomes a basis for judging others who express themselves differently. It’s a little ironic as a juxtaposition is formed between a person doing a ‘moral’ thing and the judgement that follows from said person when they see another not being ‘moral’, when really it is also ‘immoral’ to be judgemental. Anyways… this particular element of religion has seeped into everyday norms in places like Mariakani.

To add to that point, as I was doing some research, I found that long before the influence of other cultures/religions, some sub clans of the Mijikenda tribe wore very minimal clothing, basically women typically had their breasts exposed. And truly, It makes sense with all the heat in that region. Covering up or revealing one’s skin is not really a question of morals but a question of culture and in some cases, atmosphere/environment.

n the name of righteousness, many women face shame. This kind of mindset is a problem which does not only sit within its own facet of an issue but it also bleeds and spreads into one big multifaceted issue; for example, the more we feel justified to judge a woman’s presentation of herself (whether or not she has certain intentions), the more inclined we feel to impose our opinions on her rather than letting her be, and what often comes with criticism of others is a build up of self-inflicted insecurities, this can then lead to unnecessary competition among women and the whole multifaceted issue turns into a situation whereby there’s more criticism than there is the act of uplifting.

The female body has long been oversexualized. As per what someone told me, for a very long time, “a woman’s breasts are not viewed first as a body part that aids in providing sustenance for a child but as this sexual body part with the sole purpose of arousing another”. This can be applied to a woman’s curves, then her hair, her legs, her eyes… do you see the pattern? That for as long as a woman is beautiful, she can be easily viewed as a sex symbol; in many cases leading several women to feel shame for having such features or worse, blaming themselves for sexual assaults against them, with the famous line, What was she wearing to justify that because she looked ‘too beautiful beyond an appropriate display of beauty’ then it is her fault. This is how a small ‘harmless’ belief can spiral into multifaceted problems like these, in this case against women.

his painting is not advocating for any specific campaign like ‘free the nipple’, but instead serves as a reminder that ‘harmless’ thoughts can actually be very harmful in the grand scheme of things and if dealt with at the root, we would be able to tackle bigger problems once these smaller ones are out of the way.

Polarity of choice, 2022

Polarity of choices is a painting that focuses on how the gravity of our choices shift our world views and also how we interact with those very worlds. Some of our decisions cause us to fall and cause our world to appear upside down or dark, other decisions place us in a peaceful spaces with little resistance, and other times our minds are not quite made up because we’re still exploring, leading us to have transformational experiences whereby there is a shift from one world view to another.

The giant flowers represent the womb of possibilities; a visual representation of cause and effect. In this case, the flower being the ‘cause’ and everything that emerges from it -the trees, the people - being the ‘effect’. As multidimensional beings, humans are capable of traversing several given situations through the means of making decisions, carrying through with them or rectifying them. For example, if one is battling with self doubt, their multidimensional nature will lead them to doubt nearly everything they do like their feelings, faith/spirituality and even their existence. The decision to continuously feed the doubt would eventually lead one to feeling lost and depressed. This person would have explored the dimension of self doubt and fed it to several aspects of their lives causing them to fall; However they can shift and move into one other dimension by deciding to shift their mindsets to doing things with deep intention like praying for health and then acting on being healthy or expressing oneself because of wanting to be understood etc, all of this causing them to float and settle into a dimension of self-love which then permeates into other areas of their lives.

Here I am referring to the people of Mariakani collectively deciding that they can make a difference within their communities by planting the seeds of ideas, putting in the work and then watching those ideas bloom. The blue string is a representation of negative belief systems. The more one clings to those beliefs, the more strings they have on their bodies, the fewer the strings, the more open one is to shifting their mentalities around certain things.

The garden of Mariakani, 2022

The Garden Of Mariakani is a visual representation of the transatlantic slave trade, colonisation by the British and the forms that these two things came in; trade of goods and cultural elements like religion. There is also a play on the ‘tree of knowledge and the ‘Garden of Eden’ from the book of ‘Genesis’ in the bible. The island in the painting is the ‘garden’ with all things good like gold, sustenance and a comfortable ecosystem oozing with life and the surrounding area is barren so as to insinuate that the land has been stripped dry beyond repair for greedy reasons.

Circling back to a conversation we had with Theophilus, 'we no longer have community land, it's all individually owned'. This comment got me thinking about how the need to own individual land is not very sustainable on a large scale, something which I am reading more into before I can form solid opinions around such. However this dry, barren land in the painting represents global warming issues, yes, Mariakani is a biodiverse area (especially around the forested areas) however when we went there early in the year it was hit with a horrible drought, as seen in the image below.

This led Daniel Begarero, one of the kaya elders to travel to different parts of the world (Peru, America, Amsterdam, China and Lesotho) as a delegate who talks about traditional means of combating climate change.

The island in the painting is isolated so as to communicate that the greed is closing in to take advantage of that area. Which is representative of the areas surrounding the Kaya forests and how many(both foreign and local people) seek to use its land/timber. The lady being pulled away, represents the mental capturing of the Mijikenda people and the overall submission to the new rule of that time. The blue string, again, representing negative belief systems that found their ways into the minds of the people by whichever means they got there.

The Garden Of Mariakani Represents the history of Mariakani and why it is in its current state today; with the evidence of the Arabic-Kenyan foods, the Arabic-originated languages or the British schooling systems. The current state of Mariakani and the people living there is not ideal, however, the lands are fertile and bursting with diverse life forms hence the interest taken by the frequent visitors they have had for the past few thousand years. What would be the reaction amongst the people of Mariakani be if they all understood this?

Knock, knock, what are you doing? 2022

Knock, knock, what are you doing?, is a painting that tackles who the people of Mariakani are and why they do what they do; do they follow their passions despite the risks or do they conform to unfulfilling activities out of convenience? Is there an awareness there and what changes once one is made aware of this?

Mariakani being a developing town, means that a lot of people are struggling financially. This should not be the case if there are several communities with people in them who can support one another. If a few people decide to challenge the status quo and lead with an afro-futuristic mindset, then the surrounding people would prosper through adopting new systems of being.

Most people around the world have a need to work in order to earn an income. Living with an individualistic mindset, this takes a heavier toll on a person and there is a desperation to do things out of convenience as those things serve as an easier tool for survival. E.g being hired as an accountant when you really want to pursue another business venture. However, living with a communal mindset, and with an actual community, one would easily be able to survive and trade their labour/skill in order to pursue whichever business venture they’re after because the system of that community will take care of them. Taking a risk like this puts one in an interesting vacuum of emotion as there’s this feeling of vulnerability and adventure. Stepping into an unknown territory but doing it freely because you understand how it could be good is a necessary experience for everybody as supposed to tying yourself down to things that do not fulfil you. Saying all of this, I definitely have taken into consideration that for a lot of people this is much easier said than done due to complicated life situations which act as obstacles to taking such risks and so, I’m speaking from a relative point of view, whereby innovative ideas and communal structures can help solve such problems.

This piece also touches on connecting with nature and with one's roots. The office cubicle acts as a cold, man-made barrier between the men inside it and the soft earth. The grass peeking through and the roots breaking through the wall are direct connotations referring to nature being more powerful than mankind and its inventions. And so we need to treat the earth with respect and utilize it’s abundance effectively and sustainably.

Those who step out of the cubicle, vulnerable and adventurous, are somewhat responsible for utilizing the earth effectively in order to make the their environments better, and by default their brothers and sisters.

Tying this back to the Mariakani element, this is an example of a mindset that needs adopting. A narrative that should be switched to.

Where do the vigangos go? 2022

Where do the vigangos go? Is a visual representation of the ancestors that the vigangos are made in tribute to. The thick fluffy clouds and giant-look of the ancestors signify their power and grace.

Look beyond thyself, 2022

Challenges the fact that as humans we often look as far as our individual lives go; will you look at your own reflection forever, or will you look beyond it or even behind it to gain a deeper understanding of what is and what you wish to see?

This piece was inspired by a line from a song in the ‘Prince of Egypt’ movie, where one of the characters, Jethro encourages Moses to do the big things that he is destined to do. The line goes ‘a single thread in the tapestry cannot see the beauty of the grand design’. So as to say that the thread is so bloody tiny that it clearly cannot see the grand scheme of the collective threads coming together beautifully to create these patterns. The thread should just have faith that it is woven into a beautiful tapestry where it has to move through a black background then through a pastel blue background; just as life takes us through some very rough patches and other times, through very smooth ones. It does not help to fixate on how horrible things are for your individual world view but it does help to have faith and understand that one can direct their threads into the dimensions of life that they want, by having faith and by understanding that there is more beyond their individual lives; an interconnected web that weaves everything together, both big and small.

Mariakani city 2070, 2022

Mariakani city is a sustainably developed city with skyscrapers which have been designed to nourish the air and support plant life among several other things. The building with a glass dome is inspired by the vigango sculptures which serve as homes to the Mijikenda ancestors. Mariakani city functions with sustainable systems which support the vitality of various communities within the city. The culture and it’s knowledge is well preserved and ever evolving with several forms of tributes made to those that came before. There are still issues to tackle like greed and global warming, however everything is in a better state than it was before and there are new, innovative projects coming up to tackle such issues.

"The First Ones" is an oilon canvas piece displaying 2 women draped in flowers and surrounded by natural elements. This was inspired by these elders, whose vast knowledge of plant medicine and passion for protecting the forest sparked the realization that there exists a deep connection between African heritage and nature. The Kaya forest, so sacred that shoes are not allowed to touch its ground, symbolizes a belief that nature itself is holy and part of a greater, beautiful whole.

The women in the painting also represent the first people who likely held this knowledge and understanding. The circles on their foreheads symbolize vigango, the carved wooden tombstone heads used by the Giriama tribe to mark elders’ burial sites. These vigango serve as conduits, connecting the spirits of the ancestors to the community, offering wisdom and strength to those still living. The women’s footsteps, guiding the growth of grass and plant life, symbolize the deep connection between nature and ancestors, illustrating how ancestral wisdom nurtures and fosters the growth of life in the world around us.

References:

Kaya forest

• https://sacredland.org/kaya-forests-kenya/

• https://journals.openedition.org/africanistes/4971

Herbal medicines grown by the mijikenda (Start page 12 of pdf)

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297763332_Survey_of_Medicinal_Plants_used_by_the_Giriama_of_Kilifi_County_Kenya_The_Pharmaceutical_Journal_of_Kenya_Vol_21_4_2014

History of Mariakani

• https://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/kenya-descendants-of-freed-slaves-in-identity-crisis/

Examples of practical afro-futuristic projects that tie to how Mariakani's people may begin to shift their mind sets

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBrNnZtjyKU

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD23gIlr52Y

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4_QTraA7Mg