PROUDLY KENYAN

To My Daughter Who Will Never Be Born…
You will never be born because you died in my scrotum.
You died in my scrotum because I was killed.
I was killed because I didn’t vote for them.
I didn’t vote for them because I wasn’t their tribe.
I wasn’t their tribe because they taught us about “watu wetu”.
They taught us about Watu Wetu because they wanted votes, from us “Watu Wao”.


And we fought and raped and killed in their name and sang “tuko pamoja”.
After the prayer rally, I trekked in my yellow vuta pumz sandals to my slum house ;
while he rode in Yves Saint Laurent leather shoes placed on the floor mat of his Land-something V6 ;
to his palace right across the road, in Karen.
I still sang ”tuko pamoja”.

I couldn’t eat supper that night because I didn’t have any.
Besides, if I did, I didn’t have salt.
I could have borrowed salt, but in 2008 I killed my neighbor,
He who used to lend me salt,
Although he was not Watu Wetu, he still used to lend me salt.

The Watu Wetu who I only used to see on TV and at prayer rallies never lent me salt.
In fact, they used it to flavor the bacon they bought from the money they stole ;
that was meant to take you, my daughter to school.
You will never go to school anyway ;
because you died in my scrotum.

You died in my scrotum because my neighbor’s sons came to kill me.
My neighbor’s sons came to kill me because in 2008, I killed their father;
because I was cheering Watu Wetu and he was were cheering Watu Wao.

I wish I had learnt early enough that the real Watu Wetu are the ones from whom I borrowed chumvi when I had none.
The real Watu Wetu didn’t need votes so that they could fatten their bellies.

The real Watu Wetu are the ones who would have pushed your
mother on a wheelbarrow to the slum dispensary when she was about to
birth you.But you will never be born my daughter, you died in my scrotum.

I know you do not understand anything about watu wetu ;
Or why I sang for him tuko pamoja yet I lived in a slum and he lives in a palace.
You will never understand these things because you are a new breed.
You are a breed called Kenyan.
Your tribe doesn’t matter;
your second name doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters anyway, because you died in my scrotum when my neighbor’s sons killed me, because I killed my neighbor.