My Legacy Proposal
By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (private March 10, 2022)
Thank you so
much Nazim for suggesting I take seriously the issue of my own Legacy. What
will I leave behind that I am proud to report? What role do I feel I have
played in the Kenyan arts scene over the past 45 years? Why should I consider
myself a ‘walking archive’? These are valid questions that I believe my proposal
and my legacy should address.
‘THE WALKING
ARCHIVE’
Having come
to Kenya in 1974 on a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Fellowship for a year of
study at the University of Nairobi, that year has stretched into more than 45
years of learning about Kenyan culture and the arts.
I felt
humbled and honored to be a student of the world acclaimed novelist, Ngugi wa Thiong’o
at UON, and even more humbled when I got my first major journalistic job with a
man I call the ‘grandfather of Kenyan journalism’, Hilary Ng’weno. Hilary hired
me to write for his brand new Sunday newspaper, The Nairobi Times. I was hired
specifically to write about African arts, and more specifically, Kenyan arts
such as theatre, visual art, books, music, festivals, dance, and so on. I have
been largely doing that ever since, with several years off for family reasons
and for further studies in the US. I was also hired to write Personality Profiles
on notable Kenyan (and international) figures such as Professor Wangari Maathai.
My knowledge
of Kenyan contemporary culture and art is not comprehensive, by any means. But
I have been writing about artists in a wide variety of fields since 1976 when I
first got a job with the publication, Target, owned by the National Christian
Council of Kenya. I was still a graduate student at UON, but I also needed a
job since I was almost exhausting the generous stipend I had been given by the
Rotarians.
I propose
writing an autobiographical book that focused more specifically on my
relationship as a writer with the Kenyan arts. In order to write this book, some
research would be required. I (or an assistant) would need to do the following:
1. 1970s: Find the articles I wrote for
The Nairobi Times and Weekly Review where I began working from August 1977.
Back issues are in McMillan Library although the library’s collection could be
incomplete. There might be need to get in touch with the family of Hilary Ng’weno
who would know how to access Hilary’s early publications.
2. 1980s: I worked for The Nairobi Times
until 1983, until the paper was bought by President Daniel arap Moi. Our name
was changed to Kenya Times. But I continued writing about the Kenyan arts and
artists. I worked at Kenya Times with intermittent departures, first working
for UNESCO as a communication consultant, then at Women’s World Banking, the
Africa Regional Office.
3. My UN and NGO days. I was
disillusioned with UNESCO but it was an opportunity I went with for several
months. I worked for Women’s World Banking following the 1985 International
Conference on Women held in Nairobi that year. I went to WWB out of my
appreciation for the hard work of African women and I remained there until
1991, when I went back to Nation Media.
4. 1990s: At the Daily Nation, I had
three weekly columns which I would like to retrieve. I had one on film, another
on visual arts, and another on theatre. I also wrote feature stories for the
Sunday Nation. This went on throughout the 1990s until late 1999 when I got a
distress call from my mother in the US. Her need of assistance compelled me to
return to Chicago, where I stayed for almost a decade with periodical return
trips to Kenya when I would go straight back to writing for Nation during the
month that I stayed in Nairobi.
5. 2000s: While in the US, I obtained a Masters
degree in Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of
Journalism, another Masters in Sociology from Loyola University Chicago and a
Doctorate in the same also from Loyola. I had studied Sociology and Comparative
Religions as an undergraduate at DePauw University in Indiana, which is why I
felt it best to continue in that field though I focused on Globalization and
the Sociology of Media for the Ph.D.
6. 2010’s: I returned to Kenya to do my
field research for the doctorate in 2009 and 2010 after which I received the Ph.D
in 2011 and came back straight to Kenya at the end of that year. During my days
as a grad student, I occasionally wrote a column for the Nation entitled ‘Letter
from America’, reminiscent of one of my journalistic idols, Alister Cook. Following
my Masters in journalism, I also got a job writing for a suburban newspaper for
the Lerner Publications.
7. 2012 to now: Once I returned to Nairobi,
I started working straight away. Initially, I wrote for The Star as a feature
writer, and then at Business Daily of the Nation Media Group which is where I
have been up until now. And for better or worse, I am still doing what Hilary
Ng’weno asked me to do, namely to write about the Kenyan arts from a Kenyan
point of view.
8. The blog: In 2016 I began keeping a
blog-archive of almost all of my published stories entitled Kenyan Arts Review.
I had kept an earlier blog called Margaretta’s Jua Kali Diary, but I wasn’t as
consistent with it so it still hangs on Facebook, where I rarely posted any
stories. I wish I had begun keeping that blog much earlier, but I have never
taken a computer course and am slightly techie-shy when it comes to knowing how
to do clever things on the internet. My blog also includes my photography which
got relatively good.
9. My life: I have started several times to write my story for my granddaughters, but my life has been so busy, I have never kept it up. I also started ‘journaling’ at the suggestion of my fellow Rotarian Mike Eldon. I became a Rotarian in late 2018 out the realization that I deserved to pay Rotary back for their bringing me to Kenya in the first place. I am not quite ‘Rotary material’ as I don’t have a big bank account or a booming business. But I was invited by a sweet Indian artist who is also a financial consultant with a prosperous family business. I’m happy to support Rotary values of ‘service above self’ but my main area of focus has to be The Arts Collecting some or all of these publications could be a daunting task. I have a few of these articles from my early days, but very few.
Ideally, I could get some funding in order to devote myself
to that research work.
Calling myself a ‘Walking Archive’ has to do with my having
been on the spot for so many events that are now part of Kenyan contemporary
history. Few people are around who have consistently (or inconsistently) written
about Kenyan culture as I have done. One exception is Zarina Patel, who I
revere. But otherwise, my friend Alan Donovan who came to Kenya in 1970 and
worked closely with Joseph Murumbi just died several months ago.
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