When KSB went down last week, Lenza, a Kenyan resident in Stockholm, was turning 40 and she had thrown a huge birthday party at Skanstull on Saturday the 12th where friends were invited to boogie down.
I was not left out in the grand coalition of pals who were invited to sample food at the birthday extravaganza. Rukia, a close confidant of Lenza who had just emerged from her 40th birthday “invitation only” bash, had even wired omena that worked well to stress the Kenyan factor in the evening’s menu. One could realize that a lot of labour had been pumped into the event because everything seemed to have been falling in place.
When I checked out, I discovered that my close buddy, Marky was also on the guest list and since he had just returned from Kenya, I was certain that there would be lots of squib about the situation in Kenya. This was a good way for me to update my hard drive which depends on the Internet and occasional phone calls to Kenya for the situation on the ground. Marky had been down there during the post election crisis and part of the excitement in meeting him was tied to an expectation of tales from Kenya.
To be sure, I called Marky just on time for a link up. When we arrived, I was surprised that the place was already filled up with Wakenya from all walks of life engaged in all kinds of party activities. It was just around 22 hrs but almost everybody who mattered was already there – Barry, Odero, Jimmy, Nyakwar Oyundi aka Gidigidi, Sundy, Mama Priakendel, Bridget, Jasper, Oyugi, Nancy among others and people kept on coming until the place was packed to capacity. Otuga, Coolie, Meryl, Prisca, Atieno had all left their normal business to join in the Party. There was a very new circumstance in Stockolm.
There had been no Kenyan Party in this city since December 15th when Sound of Blackness threw a bash at Norsborg which, nevertheless, ended in violence, police, ambulance and blood on the floor. A Rwandese national who tried to mess up at the Party was floored by a Kenyan Ninja and he had to be taken away in a stretcher.
For the first time since 1998, Kenyans in Stockholm failed to link up at a new year’s Party on December 31st. Kibaki had just stolen elections and Kenyans had just began to cut one another’s throats with pangas, chasing neighbors away from their homes, burning children in churches or locking up people in rooms then roasting them alive. It was not the time for parties.
Suddenly, some Kenyans were being referred to as “members of a certain community” while others joined the “enemy tribe” whose brothers and sisters were “cleaning the Rift Valley” and converting people into IDPs. It has now been reported that Raila and his friend Kibaki, who are responsible for creating the IDP species, will be going to the camps to view their creation languishing in the camps and to discuss how these poor Kenyans can get back to their shacks because life must go on. Kibaki rigged elections while Raila wanted him to step down and in the process, IDPs were created in large numbers.
As the post election crisis deepened, I called my friends from “a certain community” in Stockholm to try and check if the crisis in Kenya may have drifted in Stockholm to affect our friendship. Things were fine and I was happy that we shared the same point of view when it came to the future of Kenya – one Kenya. There was no fear that I would become another IDP in another part of Stockholm because of a surprise attack. However, a friend of mine became a unique IDP here during this period because he was evicted from his flat after a disagreement with his Swedish rib. The matter is personal and it can only be left there.
The December 31st Party miss had been followed by a “No Party interlude” on December 25th last year, time when Kenyans in Stockholm traditionally celebrated X-mass with children’s activities, youth parties and wazee hukumbuka sessions. Part of the explanation is that there is no longer an active and organized Kenyan community in Stockholm to levels that could be compared to KUWA with many Kenyans opting to retreat into individual or personal Networks for social life.
At the end of January, February and March, the Kenya Party scene was dry, just like the Sahara. Looking for a Party in Stockholm was like looking for a lagoon in Lokitaung. Sound of Blackness, a promising group that took Wakenya by storm soon after the group was launched, had retreated into inactivity without explanations.
Opportunists who used to take advantage of the “Party vacuum” to cash in as Kenyans literally crawled on their knees for a bash had all returned to their spider holes because of charges that they were simply exploiting Wakenya “to get rich”. Although these guys were filling up a very important vacuum, some Kenyans (watu wengine) looked at them with different lenses. Other Party organizers have been wallowing in scandal and throwing a bash has not been opportune. The Lenza birthday Party was therefore a welcome break from Party ukamwe and who was I to miss it after a clean invitation?
DJ JIMMY’S CONCERNS WITH THE LADIES
When we arrived, there was no question that the Party had been conquered by ladies who far much outnumbered the dukes. The situation was such that a tactical bachelor Club member of any size or color could easily walk away with a pair of boobs because the “free ones” aka spinsters were available in all kinds of brands. I thought DJ Jimmy could take advantage so when I met him at Arlanda International airport, I quickly threw an inquiry.
The Kenyan DJ had just returned from Paris where he had gone shopping and he really amused me. He said that he tried to sample the girls but that he was disappointed because the ones who looked “available” were so poorly dressed that he failed to get attracted. He complained that many of them had not painted their finger nails with cutex, did not refresh their lip-sticks while they had cheap imitation jewels hanging on their ears as if they were living in poverty and deprivation. He said that Kenyan ladies should avoid cheap perfumes because some bachelors know the difference between a good perfume and a pesa nane perfume. It was the strongest attack on Kenya-Stockholm ladies by a practicing bachelor in recent times.
Jimmy, who drives a BMW and nothing else, had attended a Ugandan Party the previous week-end and he said that he had a big problem trying to chose from the big attractive mixture of cute Ugandan ladies who kept on criss-crossing his path. According to Jimmy, the girls were very sophisticated and that it is him who had to work hard to impress them. At one point, a lady reportedly dismissed his bling as not worth more than 20.000 kr.
In a lengthy interview which was totally impromptu, the Kenyan DJ lamented that the hair styles at the Kenyan bash were less appealing as if our ladies were finding salon services too expensive.
He never made any serious attempts because he was fearing that with the kinda stuff the girls were wrapped in, he would find himself travelling to London for shopping or being part of the “make-up” budget when he was supposed to be more concerned with entertainment bills at discotheques and a Taxi trip back to his crib to feast on his catch.
When he was last at Nairobi’s Florida 2000 in December, Jimmy said that ladies were dressed as if they had Phds in the art of dressing. In the streets of Nairobi, he kept on turning his head left and right as he sampled the different designs that covered flesh in the city.
When I asked him what could be done to save the situation in Stockholm, he appealed to Kenyan researchers to find out what was happening among Kenyan ladies here whom, he said, had reduced “dressing and sophistication standards” to pathetic levels. He also appealed to Kenyan ladies to stop dressing like Swedes whom, he said, do not know how to dress.
Jimmy challenged any Kenyan lady who doubted his analysis to give him a date so that he could show some pictures of ladies who were dressed as if they were going to fetch water from the river. “You could actually think that they were going to the market to buy mbuta fish”, he said. I just had to leave the Kenyan DJ alone because he had already filled me up for the day so we agreed to keep in touch.
Regardless of Jimmy’s views, the Lenza party was a big hit. I had missed the birthday Party of Sunday’s son because of some bizz and when I met him at the party, there was a lot of catching up to do. After the Rukia bash and the Lenza hit, another Kenyan is turning 45 and a fresh bash has been fixed this Sato.
The problem is that these kinda bashes cannot be advertized at KSB as many Kenyans begin to adopt the culture of “By Invitation Only”. The Kenya-Stockholm post election social Network may have undergone a complete metamorphosis and if you are not linked to any Network, you might find yourself waiting for public parties that may not materialize very soon. You might even find yourself “displaced” from the social scene and end up as a new breed of IDP, left to starve for company.
Okoth Osewe
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