Enkai's Own Country

|°| Poet / Playwright.

|°| Communications. |°| Conservation.

|°| Indigenous Peoples Rights

[Bukayo Saka @BukayoSaka87]

You deserve more Arsenal fans 💔

[Oluwakayode🇨🇦 @Khaytweets]

Very poor performance, not the standard for a final.

To me, Kepa wasn’t even the main problem. How do you allow your team to be dominated like that in a final?

It’s a reality check, we’re not that team yet.

How do you lose to this Manchester City side like that in a final?

This result should serve as motivation to win the remainder of our Premier League games.

Lastly, kudos to our defenders, they did great. We just lack a creative midfielder and a star player like Alexis Sánchez who can carry the team.

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Your noise. Our fuel.

[Gooner Eurychus 🏆 @GoonerEG]

WE ALL WANT THIS RUN AGAIN. REPOST IF YOU BELIEVE.

[Mukoma Wa Ngugi @MukomaWaNgugi]

To understand how far Cuba has come, how it became a beacon of hope in theory and practice (an est. 10,000 Cubans died in Angola), and why we cannot let Cuba fall, Fidel Castro's 1953 defense speech, "History Will Absolve Me" is simply a must read.
https://t.co/d4QwomFVSF

[Oakland Institute @oak_institute]

.@WorldBank ‘s “critical failure” for planning/supervision of #REGROW project confirmed by @InspectionPanel.

But Bank’s action plan fails to address “serious harms” – forced evictions, human rights abuses & $70M in livelihood damages – for communities in Tanzania: https://t.co/sCWytQE01D

@Mittaloak @MichaelFakhri @UNSRVAW @fernanda_ho @savignygenevi @RelatorDd @adequatehousing @astridpuentes @Roduza @KaamilAhmed @TheChanzo @ThatBoyKhalifax @Katie_Surma @davidpilling @LatoyaAbulu @MariaSTsehai @Oleshangay

[Susanna Nordlund 🐐 🇹🇿 @SusannaN2]

#FreeEliudiLetimo

[Joyce Nyairo @jnyairo]

“With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams” Kenya is still beautiful✨
A country where some do remarkable good
for so many
with so little
despite the failures of successive govts
and because of a perpetual neglect that is fed by the greed of those at the top.
#HappyJamhuriDay

[Sophie Mugure Njehia @MugureNjehia]

A good day to remind you that it is NOT YET UHURU.
#JamuhuriDay2025 must be about what kind of leadership we want moving forward.

We want a presidency that is not afraid of criticism and can be held accountable.
A presidency that holds human life in high regard. A presidency that is after restorative justice. A presidency that is not afraid to address the public debt issue. A presidency that empowers the people of Kenya and one that rebrands the Kenyan spirit into one of Peace, Love and Unity 🇰🇪

Nimeona musicians wakiperform pale Nyayo Stadium. Almost seeing what 2027 will look like with Brandy Maina, Moji ShortBaba and Guardian Angel at the forefront of selling the KK agenda.

Anyway, Stay Vigilant
#RutoMustGo

[Mukoma Wa Ngugi @MukomaWaNgugi]

So much to say about Meja Mwangi - he is one of my literary parents - so much so that I dedicated my crime novel Nairobi Heat to him. What I admire about his popular writing beyond its beauty is how it blends politics and art. He is gone, yet he remains. https://t.co/3uLXJbhNjF

[Lexa W. Lubanga @Lexa_Lubanga]

I feel utterly speechless at this moment, but I must share about the incredible person in my life, not just as an author but as a dear friend. Oh dear Meja, my guiding force, I will dearly miss your laughter and endless joy. Thank you for transforming the literary world,

[Joyce Nyairo @jnyairo]

Meja Mwangi was a shape-shifter.
He carried the Kenyan novel beyond rural colonial life to urban postcolonial existence.

Soon, Meja turned to film to reach more audiences.

Then, as HIV/AIDS stilled many tongues, Meja unpacked our fears in “The Last Plague” (2000).

[Wamutahi @Son_of_Laikipia]

The emperor of New Singapore is selling taxpayers assets to get funds to build houses to sell to the taxpayers.

[Saitabao ole Kanchory @Saitabao]

While Truphena was hugging trees someone else is busy hacking them

[Tekel Mene @Tekel_Menes]

@nyanchwani Kill Me Quick and Going Down River Road are eternal. You read those stories and think they were written today. Ever relevant.

[Opus Dei @Nyongesa__]

@nyanchwani The Coakroach Dance reflects on the post colonial life in Nairobi. Alot has changed along Grogon rd, much still remains the same. The garages, prostitution, bars, and the syphilis. All remains present. RIP Meja Mwangi

[Silas Nyanchwani @nyanchwani]

Meja Mwangi, who died yesterday, is/was the Greatest KENYAN Writer of all time.

I emphasize KENYAN, before I get into trouble with Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s disciples. Ngugi, who died in May this year, was a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, a continental (African) and global figure, widely regarded as one of the most consequential postcolonial writers, thinkers, and philosophers, especially in the English-speaking world.

But back home, Ngugi’s universe was the Kikuyu community (nothing absolutely wrong with this, as some of his detractors kept harping about it every time he was perennially nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature). Ngugi’s first four novels were set against the backdrop of the Mau Mau and colonialism. None of these in any way negates Ngugi’s contribution to Kenyan letters, but he was of the world.

Enter Meja Mwangi.
Meja was ours. Kenyan to the core.
Meja Mwangi’s literature was more cosmopolitan, as most of his books were set in Nairobi, a synecdoche for Kenya and the Kenyan.

I first read Going Down River while in Class 8 or Form 1. I couldn’t put the book down. The prose was viscerally realistic. The writing was too detailed; it’s little wonder I learned later in life that Meja Mwangi went on to be a filmmaker. I wish I could watch any of his screen productions. Mwangi was only 28 when he penned what I consider the greatest Kenyan novel of all time and generations.

Nearly 35 years later, when the film Nairobi Half-Life was released, I observed that very little of Nairobi had changed between 1976 and 2012. Nairobi Half-Life was a descendant of Going Down River Road. That Nairobi underclass that will never change, no matter the speed of our internet, the Expressways, you people adopting BDSM, and such.

Around 2014, my uncle (bless his soul) took me back to Kibera to show me where I was born and spent part of my childhood. It was almost 20 years later. For sure, the roads were now paved, and there were huge streetlights, but that slum vibe was still there. My uncle took me to a woman who had been brewing chang’aa since the 1980s, still doing her thing, and introduced me to her, and told her this is the Son of Norah, and she was like, “How did you get so big?”

While there, I couldn’t help but think about how every part of Nairobi changes: people move on, out, and about, but our slums eternally retain that gritty persona. People may come and go, but newcomers always slip into the slum persona like gloves.

Anyone who grew up in Nairobi’s slums, Eastlands, Kawangware, Kangemi, can identify with all the characters in Meja Mwangi’s books, such as Going Down River Road, Kill Me Quick, Cockroach Dance, and a host of his other latter-day works. Any Kenyan, for that matter, save for the upper middle-class and the rich folks who live in a completely different Nairobi. Kill Me Quick " is the story most of us can relate to, because education promised us so much, and we moved to Nairobi, but now we live with no jobs, and all we can do is drink cheap liquor (Kill Me Quick), eat miraa, and smoke joints, because we are disillusioned. Younger millennials and Gen Zs definitely know what I am talking about.

Along with other writers such as Mwangi Ruheni, Mwangi Gicheru, Charles Mangua, and the Kibera brothers, Meja was among those who captured the zeitgeist of Nairobi and Kenya, as writers like Ngugi became full ideologues and full-time revolutionaries. Mwangi opted to be a revolutionary with his pen, hiding behind satire (that escaped authorities), while entertaining and provoking us.

Sadly, Mwangi was extremely reclusive and rarely granted interviews to scholars or journalists.

Last year, he wanted to come out and meet his fans and lovers of his work, thanks to the spirited efforts of his adopted literary daughter, @Lexa_Lubanga. We cleared our schedules in readiness to meet the man, the myth, and the legend himself, but unfortunately, he was taken ill, and that particular meet-up didn’t happen, and none would ever happen, as he has been sickly, and now he is gone.

A few years back, I asked what the Kenyan novel should be, and my choice was Going Down River Road.

The irony of his dying on the Eve of our 62nd anniversary of Independence is not lost on me, more so when successive regimes are determined to keep the youth poor, unemployed, and disillusioned, like a character in Mwangi’s book.

You can draw a straight line from Going Down River Road, to Ukoo Fulani’s Tafsiri Hii (1997), to Nairobi Half Life (2012), to Wakadinali’s Geri Inengi (2021), to whatever song that will come out of Kayole in 2030, depicting the never-changing life in the ghetto.

He leaves behind a vast body of work.

May Meja Mwangi travel well to the land yonder. Say hi to Ngugi wa Thiong’o, David Mulwa, Mwangi Gicheru, Margaret Ogola, Grace Ogot, Micere Mugo, Binyavanga Wainaina, and all the great men and women of letters we lost.

Photo: Courtesy

[Maria Sarungi Tsehai @MariaSTsehai]

Samia Suluhu family INC running the ILLEGITIMATE government in #Tanzania
Minister of Finance - brother in law
Minister of Health - son in law
Minister of Defence - family friend who was the matchmaker of family marriage
Deputy Minister of Work - niece
Special seat MP - daughter
Deputy Minister of Education - daughter

Huu ni zaidi ya upumbavu! Sasa mmeua Okt 29 na mnapanga kuua zaidi Dec 9 kwa ajili ya family and friends ya mtu mmoja!? Hebu mjipime akili! Watu milioni 70 tuongozwe kiwaki hivi?
#SamiaMustGo #TanzaniaMassacre

[Enkai's Own Country @_Maisson]

Mnatuona aje nyinyi?

[Kenya Wildlife Service @KWSKenya]

STATEMENT ON CLAIMS OF WILDEBEEST MIGRATION BLOCKAGE IN THE MAASAI MARA NATIONAL RESERVE

[Kenya Wildlife Service @KWSKenya]

STATEMENT ON CLAIMS OF WILDEBEEST MIGRATION BLOCKAGE IN THE MAASAI MARA NATIONAL RESERVE