Sunday with Poets

Nairobi on Sunday is ideal. 

Little traffic. Lazy strollers form cute pairs as they chat leisurely on tree-lined avenues. Kids with painted faces lick ice cream. Radiant adults with their moods uplifted by some church. None of the angry bustling throng that choke sidewalks the rest of the week.

Image from Kenya-advisor.com

I savored the rare fortune of being invited to a poetry gig on a Sunday afternoon. It was low-key, as events go. We occupied a classroom. Poets performed their pieces and got instant feedback. The gang was funny, intelligent, visionary and inquisitive. The poems, performed by veterans and newbies alike, covered the full ideological continuum from fiery-revolutionary to lovesick-romantic. Even the atheists and the believers got their two minutes' tiff. No theme between the cryptic arcane and the simplest what-you-hear-is-what-you get escaped recital. There were those who read and there were those who performed from memory - no pressure.

All the while there I was thinking, "I'm in heaven." And drawing related cartoons. Amidst the orange hue of sunset, It briefly occurred to me to wonder whether all this idealism was good for a young mind like mine, but I instantly banished such satanic doubts from my mind. Rarely do I assemble with a group of like-minded, young, artistic souls. I even felt bad returning to my relatively mundane existence at the end of the event.

You can catch (one of?) these brilliant minds here > "Hisia Zangu Blog." (I have taken you to their leader). Their events are certainly worth any Nairobi Sunday afternoon.