SHIBALE VILLAGE IMMORTALIZED IN MUSIC, STORY, AND DANCE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

They took us on a GPS-styled dive into the tiny once sugar-coated town of Shibale last Sunday afternoon at Kenya Cultural Centre. Storytellers Mark Wabwire and Allan Wasike exposed us to their intimate, insider perspective on the political and social life of a land once ruled by Big Sugar. But before they could give us all the chilling and thrilling details of that land, (once ruled as the kingdom of Mumia Aukah), they had to explain why they were so concerned with the ‘Bigger Boys of Shibale’ that they entitled their performance the same. In essence, they gave us a microscopic view of what is essentially true in every village, town, city, and county in Kenya where there’s a government of some sort and a bureaucracy. It is there that you will always find people, mostly men, jockeying for power and fighting to gain the upper hand and higher status than their fellow citizens, slaves, and servants. There seems to be an inherent desire to be ‘bigger’ than the other. It can even lead to lives being lost in scramble to reach the top.

Once Wabwire and Wasike got through that clarification, they had a whole other layer of storytelling to explain before they could put their finger on who the ‘Bigger Boys of Shibale’ really were. First, they had to tell us about Sugar and the Failed Sugar Industry. That was essential information since Shibale was the heart and soul of the sugar industry in its heyday. The town’s rich history left a deep impact on the community. Its economy thrived during that time, and the music and night life were unforgettably alive and vibrant back then. That was also the time that Salle and Kevin were growing up, aspiring to be Big Men, and not just ‘big’ men, but ‘Bigger’ men. In Salle’s case, that likelihood was much dimmer than it was for Kevin since Kevo came from a powerful and rich family; his dad was a tycoon who’d made his fortune in molasses. Meanwhile, Salle’s dad died when he was very young so his family was matriarchal; that meant he was brought up by a single mom who was poor and struggled to feed her kids by selling chang’aa.

Nonetheless, both boys ended up vying for power in Shibale and the ladders they climbed and fell from and climbed again were the minutiae that our two storytellers had so much fun relaying. But Wabwire and Wasike are not simply storytellers. They are a twosome who perform in a symbiotic style that operates not only as they share their story (which Wabwire actually scripted) taking turns from sentence to sentence. They also share in a constant dance, backed up by a four-man band. At some point, it dawns on you that we have seen this dynamic duo before. It was pre-pandemic and the two are unmistakable, having produced, “Something must kill a man’ back in 2020. They have upgraded their show quite a bit since then. For instance, they still work closely with a musical quartet but the instruments are different. They are all electrified now, including the keyboard and synthesizer, full drum kit, saxophone and bass guitar. The quartet still provides a low-key musical medley that doesn’t detract, but rather enhances the journey that these two soul brothers take us on. Their sound system is also impressive. But at times, one felt the two took the long way around rather than go straight to where we needed to be to hear about the areas of competition that the two politicians took most seriously. Of course, control of sugar companies and the firms that made the whole industry work, from the land to the lorries, and the local government were a few of the arenas that Salle and Kevin competed in. Then there was the big issue of the clubs, the drinking holes where the workers would come every night to replenish their spirits so they could go to work the following day revived and feeling okay.

But what turned out to be among the biggest areas of contention between the two was one beautiful woman named Val. She was married to Kevin but divorced him and went with Salle. That was one of the many reasons Kevo shot Salle practically at point blank range. It was a tragedy but it confirmed the storytellers’ contention that ‘There will always be a Bigger man,’ so it might be best to retain one’s humility and stay alive.