Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)



I have been reading the old copy of Saturday Nation, a week end edition of the daily nation in Kenya. It was published some weeks ago. It has some enticing feature stories that have made me to reflect on a certain family value in Africa. The three feature stories I have been reading are ; Lupita Nyong’o stellar performance in the movie, 12 years a slave, in which she emerged a top American actor, attracting in the same course the most coveted Oscar prize, I have also read in the same paper the shooting literature star of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an American based Nigerian writress, who had had her last book Americana win the American Booker Prize, and lastly , I have also ready  a very captivating account of Wanjiku wa Ngugi’s spellbinding debutante in her book, the fall of saints. Wanjiku account was written by Proffessor Evans Mwangi a Thiong’o literary scholar based in Newyork. Mwangi being a Ngugi wa Thiongi’o, scholar wrote this article because Wanjiku wa Ngugi is also a daughter to the world famous Kenyan novelist, Ngugi Njogu wa Thiongi’o.
In each of the three above cases, emanates a significant observation that the fathers to the respective ladies are great men in their respective capacity, and that the ladies mentioned are now obvious heirs to the family names, family intellectual domain and family selling point respectively.
Lupita is heir to proffessor Peter Anyang Nyong’o, Adichie is an heir to the African literary heritage of proffessor Chinua Achebe, and While Wanjiku is a promising successor to Proffessor Thiongi’o.
These are actually a crystallization of strange unfolding that time has now challenged old mindset among African societies. The mindset in which Africans have not been counting girls as children .This family value has been there up to today. If an African man tells you that I don’t have a family it means that he is expressing three connotations; he is not married, he is married but he does not have a children, or he is married but his wife have only been bearing him girls, because if anything; an African man is only responsible for siring sons, daughters are a mistake of the wife.
This typology of family civilization got to its peak in the mid of  last year, when the Luo council of elders, hailing from Siaya County of Kenya, where Baraka Obama is rooted, expressed their open puzzle over Baraka Obama as per why he can’t take his time to have sons. They are now organizing a delegation that will go to America to counsel President Obama over the matter that he needs to re-organize his posterity strategy other than thinking in terms of Sasha and Malia.
What I mean is that Africans don’t believe if at all family interests can be carried forward through a daughter. They don’t believe if a girl can be an intellectual or command any wisdom that can go places. But realities from a historical experience that great African men don’t sire great sons but instead they sire great daughters must make this society of male chauvinists to have a mental paradigm shift in relation to child valuation and recognition. To accept a social déjàvu that daughters have a big capacity to carry forward the family name than the previously mistaken notion that they are only sons who can do this.
Facts on the ground range from the case of Julius Nyerere,Kwameh Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, Tom Mboya, Masinde Muliro, Nelson Mandela, Mutula Kilonzo, and Francis Imbuga just to mention a few African heroes. Justification of this list showing Africa’s reversal of Prospero complex abodes in the facts that; Susan Nyerere is currently the most outspoken in the Nyerere family. Similarly, Nkrumah’s daughter is currently a politician in Ghanaian parliament and very promising politically. Betty Shabazz X was recently reported to have put Louis Farrakhan on the spot over the ****** plot of her father the late Malcolm X.Mireille Fanon Mendes is the director of human rights activist organization known as Frantz Fanon foundation. This is the organization which recently recognized Mumia Abu-Jamal with a prestigious prize. Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African-American writer and journalist, author of six human rights focussed books and hundreds of similar spirited columns and articles. He has spent the last three decades on racially biased Pennsylvania’s death row. And now general population in America and in the world knows that Mumia Abu-Jamal was wrongfully convicted and sentenced for the ****** of Philadelphia Police man, Daniel Faulkner. His demand for a neutral trial and unconditional freedom is enmassely supported by heads of state, Nobel laureates, human rights organizations, scholars, religious leaders, artists and bioethical scientists. All this is nothing other than universal singing of the tune in the poetic writings of Frantz Omar Fanon entitled Facts of blackness, through his daughter Mireille.
And equally enough, those of you who have delved into posthumous family conditions of Richard Wright must have appreciated stellar performance of proffessor Julia Wright in respect to the genetic legacy of her father. Dr. Susan Mboya is currently living in South Africa and she is serving the society in the same tandem her late father Tom Mboya discharged anti-colonial service to the people of Kenya, Africa and world in general.Masinde Muliro has Mrs. Namwalie Muliro and Mutula Kilonzo has Kethi Kilonzo. The point is that, just like all of other heroes in Africa, these two great politicians have their daughters; Namwalie and Kethi as the heirs to their political legacy.
This phenomenon is not unique to Africa. But it is a universal genetic condition. The study of genetics has a concept that inferior genes of the mother are passed through an X chromosomes in XY to the sons, while superior genes of the father are passed through an X chromosome of the ** to the daughters.
Just but to wind up my story I want also to counsel The Luo council of elders that president Obama, their son who lives in America does not have misplaced values in projecting his posterity through Sasia and Malia. Personally I am aware that as per now there is no any African boy at age of Sasha Obama that has ever read Yann Martel’s Life of Mr. Pi. But in stark contrast the international media reported Sasha Obama to have vividly read this book until she commented to Baraka Obama that, ‘daddy, this is a very good book’.  And of course this is how an intellectual is made.
Mirela S Jul 2017
I'll stay near the fire of your heart,
Dreaming at the love we shared.
I'll kiss our memories while you're apart,
Flying with thee ... I dared!
And, when the flames will come to end
The magic moment will continue
Because my mind will just pretend
That you're with me...I see you!
Surround me with your gentle thoughts
Caress my hair and softly speak,
Confess me all your wildest scopes
And let me show you... You're unique!
Love will take care of both of us
Winter will not succeed to tame
The calling of our souls, and thus,
We'll be together an eternal flame!

Blue Mireille, 12.01.2016
Mirela S May 2017
Like a horse I’m running  
Through my dreams and tears,  
Galloping and sweating  
Vanishing all fears.  
  
Like a horse I’m running,  
Wandering in open spaces,  
Comforting my feeling,  
I’ll win all the races.  
  
Like a horse I'm running,  
Snickering my hopes,  
Banishing and sinning,  
Cutting all the ropes.  
  
Like a horse I’m running  
And I’ll never stop  
Till the end of dreaming,  
When I’ll see the top.  
  
Blue Mireille, 26.08.2015
Mirela S Jun 2017
Time just stepped away
Away from tenderness
Away from happiness
Catching the moonlight's ray

Rain just swept the dreams
Dreams of endlessness
Dreams of daringness
Transforming all in tears

Dust just covered the traces
Traces from loneliness
Traces from joyfulness
Hiding the time in lost watches

Blue Mireille, 07.06.2016
Mirela S May 2017
In the night's dark ocean we found love  
Deep and sweet surrender, like a blindfold dove...  
  
In the minutes of silence we found grace  
Gentle and caressing, like a blissful lace...  
  
In the loudness of our mind, we found peace  
Beautiful and dreamy, like a harmless caprice...  
  
In the speechless conversations, we found words  
Meaningful and touchy, like the guitars chords...  
  
In the tears of heaven, we found calming rain  
Comfortable feeling for our hardest pain...  
  
In the heart of storms, we found charming light  
Stunning and suppressing our meaningless soul fight...  
  
and now I say: Good night!  
  
Blue Mireille, 22.09.2015
Mirela S May 2017
Spread your tears on my closed eyes  
Gentle touch of rain romance...  
Make my soul embrace the flights  
Sweet surrender solace...  

Put your fingers on my lips  
Timeless scent of autumn...  
Fill my thoughts with lovely trips  
Free my spirit succumb...  

Give my body freshly trills  
Balm for inner fire...  
- Tell me what your fall still feels?  
- Magic soul desire...  

Blue Mireille, 25.09.2015
Mirela S Apr 2015
Did you see the rain
Falling down my dreams?
Did you felt the pain
Drying all my tears?
I've just seen the night
Washing the bad years...
I've just found my sight
Running from my fears...
Did you hear the wind
Blowing all the whispers?
I've been always blind...
I see now the answers...

Blue Mireille, 28.04.2015
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2018
my grandfather will die a communist,
he still marks his words
with a no sense of embarrassment
with regards to the regime,
Soviet satellites on one hand,
banana republics on the other...
    my grandmother's brother
always makes the point:
that he was raised by the church and God,
while my grandfather by
the P.R.L. (polska rzeczpospolita ludowa)...
oddly enough, you don't seem
to find old communist being hunted
by operations, notably paperclip...
the angel of death died of a stroke
while swimming in Argentina...
so much for the other horrible deaths
in his shadow...
          currently in Poland
you have a restablishment of
               the unholy communion
of the church, and state...
            macro Vatican of the north...
for any outsider who doesn't see this,
what the west clung to by
creating a border separating church
from state... is obsolete in the current
climate of this land...
   the church has somehow fused itself
with the state...
        of all the current city-states,
London, Paris, Moscow...
       theres but one church-city...
      which can only spawn Poland,
as being the first church-state...
like my grandfather, i'd honestly prefer
they grey bureaucratic attire of communist
suits... than this pomp & circumstance
of the piglet clergy...
            I don't know, I didn't exactly
live, through the "horrors"
   of the imposed Martiall Law of 1981...
but sure as he'll no Soviet tank
grinded its way into Warsaw...
  as the interpretation of Pharaoh's
dream: seven fat years, followed by
seven lean years...
                  point being, with due
comparison on everything premature,
notably premature birth,
   and premature dementia...
       communism of the 20th century?
premature...
     the fact that the ideology still remains
like an extended form of pedagogy
in "immature" adults...
and considering that communism was
first tested in Mongolia, before it took
the shape of something worth
a cold war, and the cultural exchange
programme of the Moscow-Washington
pen-pals...
             no one can deny
the cultural loot of the cold war,
the acting where one side pretended to
be evil, the other side pretended to be poor,
yet both sides played the cheater's *****
trick, of fighting proxy wars,
      and talking about collateral damage...
only that the Russians,  as was me clear
with the current climate,
had the audacity to show their
ergonomic tact:
                     Newton's third law:
for every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction...
    mainstream media calls this
symmetrical, I like to call it:
                              dividere aequalis...
with newton as the far far away precursor
of la chetelier and all things
mannered upon equilibrium...
                         but talk of a universal
living allowance,  the onslaught
of an invisible Mongolian horde
of machines...
              20th century communism
was premature,
    how else could you make a frame
of reference to the current year
with children marching in protest,
               and the talk of late capitalism?
20th century communism
   was premature, crafted by Slavs,
hotheaded, infuriated unlike
the dull eyed tea and crumpet brigade
of the hibernian Isles of Europe...
          already the transition period
in Scandinavia...
                      I don't even know how
to write a critique of capitalism without
thinking about over-production,
subsequently waste
   subsequently owning a a pair of Levis
jeans where you could still read:
made in the USA... 20 years later...
             absolutely no authenticity
in any subsequent critique of this system...
but at leat during the cold war
there was a fertile cultural exchange
program,
                 a compatibility of interests...
if the Russians had a ***** secret
surrounding their nuclear programs,
Amricans can have their little
pharmacological soup regime... thing...
premature depression...
a term not widely used,
   insomnia, the mainstream illness
of being exposed to light pollution,
notably the lux measurements in Hong Kong...
countered with: I wrote this in the presence
of two flickering bellydancers...
comfy light, almost medieval...
        after all,
aren't there more than one way of
applying capitalism?
              there never is, one business
model...
               just because the Slavic
version of Marxism didn't work,
notably with the expulsion of Jews...
  doesn't mean that, in 5he current climate,
a germanic version of communism
isn't attempting its attempt...
              and still...
    the expulsion of Jews...
   if not in the mainstream guise...
well... horror and some other word
for it... a holocaust survivor...
    mireille knoll (85), stabbed 11 times
with her body set alight...
a ******* cherry on top!
              then again...
    maybe the current "revisionism"
of communism of the 20th century is
benign...
              boring and too safe to be anything
more than egoistic moral tripping...
hard to become intoxicated on words
when the past too close to comfort
had its neukleinabenteuer...
                  and we have?
   0 hour contracts, and a "work ethic"...
hard not to see capitalism enter
a dementia period of its own existence...
no wonder that when someone gets
paid Alice in wonderland salaries for
kicking a ball, that photobombing spam
reels is also begging...
     which can only mean one thing:
the internet's les miserables...
     because the authentic beggars,
on the street, seem to have *****...
                         not to mention that I was
probably the last of my age-group
that still bought ***** mags from newsagents...
which is something, the easy-****-access
generation knows little, or nothing of.
Mirela S May 2017
Where do the souls go,  
When tears are pending on my heart?  
Where do the memories flow,  
When pictures leaving us apart?  
Where do the time glow,  
When our spirit is still young... most part?  
Where does it end the rainbow,  
When dreams are closer to be start?  
Answers I'm not supposed to know,  
For not to be self outsmart...  
  
Blue Mireille, 08.11.2015
Mirela S May 2017
I will dance with the sun  
Whenever it will shine  
I'll sing and I'll wait for that time  
When the light is mine...  

I will dance with the sun  
And the melody will be  
Whatever my heart will yearn  
And you will be with me...  

I will dance with the sun  
And in his warm embrace  
I'll give my final charm  
Surrender to his grace...  


inspirată de fotografia lui Jianping Li  
Blue Mireille, 02.04.2016
Mirela S May 2017
And I'll be waiting for the Sun to come again  
To dry my tears and make me smile  
To warm my hair and let him hold me for a while  
Knowing my wander was never in vain...  

And I'll be always the romantic girl  
Who danced with the shadows and sometimes in rain  
Watching the clouds, walking through my pain,  
But never forgetting the nights sweetest pearl...  

And I'll be just in front of the moon  
Amazed by her splendor and her beautiful grace,  
Filling my soul with the love I erased  
In the youngest years gone so soon...  

Blue Mireille, 21.06.2016
Mirela S May 2017
...and when the moon wants to hide from your eyes,  
Just close them and listen the whisper of your dreams...  
  
...and when the moon shows up through the clouds,  
Just try to sing her song and wipe your tears...  
  
...and when you see the moon between the stars,  
Just hear my love thoughts, enchanting your ears...  
  
Blue Mireille, 25.10.2015

— The End —