JABOYA, ONE OF THE NOMINEES FOR THE KENYA THEATRE AWARDS, WON

“Jaboya” is Dhuluo meaning “fish for sex” and it’s a form of gendered trade that is commonly used to describe what happens every day when the fisherman at Lake Victoria come back to land and find scores of women waiting to sell themselves for fish. “It’s a function of poverty and lack of choices,” BD Life is told by Kathy Tate-Bradish, an HIV educator who works in Western Kenya. “It’s the major factor resulting in the counties along the lake having the highest prevalence of HIV in Kenya,” she addS. To best understand the meaning of Jaboya, one needed to be at KNT recently to watch Millaz Players’ performance of Jaboya. Scripted by Emmanuel Chindia, the play managed to capture the vibrant, sensual energy that swells the shore every time the men come in with their catch of the day. That’s when Women scrabble to be first in line since the transactions involve both money and fish for the sex freely exchanged. So we meet a stew of quibbling female fish mongers, all competing for access to the men with the most fish. And for a man like Odongo (Sultan ), he can have sex with no less than five women a night as we see as he argues with Otieno (Samuel Barasa) over the boat he’s promised to him. It’s the Chief (Gaitan Brian) who strongly suggests to the women that they need to stop quibbling among themselves and organize to buy a boat of their own. His suggestion is antithetical to the traditional taboo related to women never becoming fisherwomen. it's a contentious theme that runs through the play; it essentially calls on women to challenge man-made taboos. “There’s no reason women can’t be fishermen,” Chief says, sounding like a true feminist, not a government emissary spewing the conventional patriarcal party line. It takes some time for the women to hear what he’s saying and appreciate his radical wisdom. But eventually, they start believing that owning a boat of their own makes a lot of sense. But they still have probl trusting one another and identifying one honest leader among them who they can all trust. But once they do, they set up their own ‘chama’ (or economic merry-go-round) to raise the cash required to buy a boat. They can almost raise the funds required but for Sh50. That money comes from Kamum (Faith Wambui), the bright schoolgirl, Kamum (Faith Wamvui) who won a cash prize for her high marks. She understands the implications of the women being liberated financially. Yet by her making that sacrifice, she is left with insufficient funds for school fees. She’s left stranded at home. Her only hope is that her problem will be resolved once the women buy the boat, which they’re about to do as the story ends. But the women cannot end all the outmoded taboos in a single act of revolutionary courage. A remaining one involves Beryl’s family which has a timeline on sex. All sex is outlawed within a specific time-frame that the family specifies. Tragically, Opiyo (Mike Ndaka) ignores that one taboo with Beryl (Mary Mutabe) and for this, he dies, illustrating how deeply entrenched cultural beliefs still are in Luo and African culture generally. No one except Odongo feels the pain at Opiyo’s demise since they’d been bosom buddies for years. The issue at hand is the program of the women, who’d essentially been sex workers as well as fish mongers before. But now, they are on a quest to obtain their economic freedom, once they can own the boat equally, and collectively share the spoils of fishing for their own food and their fish business. One hopes Millaz takes this play to Nyanza and to the lake where they can invite women to come see the show and see themselves represented and hear revolutionary ideas that they might learn from. Jaboya is an impressive production, directed by Mike Ndeda, assisted by Faiz Ouma. The show’s choreographer did such a good job that the movements of characters flowed naturally from the script’s action. The show's writer, Chindia was masterful in assembling so many controversial issues while keeping them flowing organically until he found a logical way for the women to rise above their oppressive circumstances and find a viable means of potentially solving their problems. All power to the women and to Millaz Players as well. Jaboya is one of the many theatre nominees shortlisted for the Kenya Theatre Awards. They were announced at the official opening of the People's Choice segment of the Awards, keynoted by CS for Youth, the Creative Economy, and Sports, Ababu Namwamba last Tuesday, January 25th 2024 at Talenta Hela in Talenta Plaza. CS Ababu officially opened the public portal for everyone to vote online for their choice of winning candidates. Public voting will continues for three weeks, after which voting will be closed to tally up the winners. They will all be announced on February 23, 2024.