an ex-mas feast: a short story in the current (6/13) issue of the new yorker is a fictional story about a family living on the edge on on the streets in nairobi. it is written from the perspective of jigana, a young boy on the edge of the precipice that is life as a street kid.
the writer is uwen akpan, a nigerian jesuit priest who is working on a series of stories about children in various parts of africa. he spent some time in nairobi in 2000 and actually spoke to some of the street kids around adams arcade when he lived there. he also received some technical help from binyanbvanga wainaina of kwani? fame who spiced up the story with a little nairobi slang.(new yorker interview here).
excerpt; jigana has just sniffed some glue to stave off hunger while waiting for his sister to come home with the x-mas feast.
I was floating. My bones were inflammable. My thoughts went out like electric currents into the night, its counter-currents running into each other, and, in a flash of sparks, I was hanging on the door of the city bus, going to school. I hid my uniform in my bag so that I could ride free like other street children. Numbers and letters of the alphabet jumped at me, scurrying across the page as if they had something to say. The flares came faster and faster, blackboards burned brighter and brighter. In the beams of sunlight leaking through the holes in the school roof, I saw the teacher writing around the cracks and patches on the blackboard like a skillful matatu driver threading his way through our pothole-ridden roads. Then I raced down our lopsided, bald field with an orange for a rugby ball, jumping the gullies and breaking tackles. I was already the oldest kid in my class.
Posted by kamau at June 6, 2005 11:14 PM