The Kenya Drama Festival

On April 15 and 16 we returned to Kakamega for the Kenya National Drama Festival.  This is a long event, that pits primary, secondary, and university students into a competition for original works of art, including dance, theater, monologues, and even film (though the film didn't seem to work out very well).  The event lasts for over a week, though we were only there for two days.  We went with Faith, who had brought her school group here years before, when she was a teacher in Kenya, and wanted to relive the moment, I think.  We saw some interesting things, and I wanted to share a few of them with you.

This is a picture of the auditorium where the secondary schools were having their performances.  We only saw a couple of things, because we were late.  It is a looong matatu ride from Eldoret.  This was held at a boys secondary school in Kakamega.

The first thing we saw was a drama in French about a girl who gets in trouble at school.  This was a secondary school production, and was well done.  This is the girls mother.

This was the school.  The students make all the sets and bring them from schools all across the country to the festival.  The productions were pretty elaborate, as you shall see.

The next thing we saw was an incredibly elaborate dance.  The theme of the festival was national unity and reconciliation.  You may not know this (I did but didn't, if you know what I mean), but after the 2007 elections in Kenya there was incredible violence in the country, and many people were killed, and the killings were ethnically based.  So, reconciliation is a big thing in the country.  In this dance, there is a couple getting married, but if I read it right a parent is objecting because the girl is marrying someone from a different group or tribe (don't really like that word).  In the end the parents are reconciled to their daughter marrying someone of a different group.

Here is the wedding in progress, a the beginning of the dance.  Its complicated, but the next bit is a video to give you flavor (if it work) of the dances.

This dance actually got second place at the festival, it was really incredible to watch.

We stayed at the Kakamega Golf Hotel, and it was very nice.  This was another one of the places that the British used to come to get away from the hotter areas of Kenya and play golf.  I don't believe that this is the original hotel, it looks a bit more 1960s or 1970s, and the British left in 1963.  But it was a very nice place.

Another shot of the hotel.

These are little bandas where we had lunch at the hotel.  They are nice.

The hotel pool.  It started to rain before we could get in.  Disappointing.

Evan at the hotel.  We were actually not excited about going to the festival, but it turned out to be a great experience.

On Monday we went to the competition for the colleges and universities, at a girl's school outside of town.  We were lucky enough to see our second award winning production, about a woman police officer who is neglecting and maybe abusing her husband.  This was in English, and easy to follow.  Spousal abuse is a huge problem here, with men beating on wives, wives beating on (drunken) husbands.  So that was kind of the central theme of this play.

Here is the husband, Mr. Jefferson (pronounced Meeeeeester Jefferson by the villagers in the play), and he has climbed a tree and is threatening to commit suicide because his wife is being so mean to him.

They call in the priest to help Mr. Jefferson and Mrs. Jefferson reconcile.

They do a flashback, recalling how the couple met....

How they courted... The two leads were very good and this was all quite fun and funny.

And how they got married.  Note the hair.  You do NOT see that kind of hair in Kenya now.

They talked Mr. Jefferson down from the tree, and the family (they had two kids, who were also hilarious) walked off happy.  At one point they had angels appear to speed the healing process (the figure in white), but to be blunt, Evan and I almost lost it because it looked like someone from the Ku Klux Klan had invaded the stage.  Only someone from the American South would probably think that.  This was a very good production.

 Another art form that shows up is the monologue, usually running about 15 or 20 minutes.  This is drawn from the African story telling tradition.  Some we saw were humorous, but this one, of a woman who has been abused, and is sheltered in a hospital, was serious and I thought was very good.

She was very passionate, and of course they write these themselves.

Very passionate performance.

Evan in front of a sculpture at the girl's school.  He did not want to do this trip, but by the end we were both saying it was a lot of fun.  We were laughing, since we were the only mzungus there, that we could tell people we were talent scouts for Jay Z or P Diddy or something like that.

This is me, getting ready for the long ride back to Eldoret.  I think what I liked, besides the great performances, was the fact that this is something tourists don't see.  This is why you come to live somewhere like Kenya for months at a time, so that you can begin to understand the culture.  I think this helped me understand it better.