News

CHRONICLES 9: Poetry, Memory and Adventure

by

Egara Kabaji

Before taking up my research residency as a Cluster Chronicler at the University of Bayreuth, I was developing an anthology of poetry for upper primary school learners in Kenya. It is tentatively entitled Our Stubborn Goat and Other Poems. This creative enterprise is grounded in the Narrative Transformation Model (NTM).

NTM is a conceptual framework that establishes creative writing as a systematic, rigorous process of scholarly inquiry rather than a mere exercise in pure fiction. The model shows that writers generate aesthetic, cultural and human knowledge by investigating reality through observation, experience and research. They transform the findings into literary narratives.

In constructing the poem that is the subject of this chronicle, I operationalised NTM’s eight interconnected stages: curiosity, immersion, observation, investigation, reflection, imaginative transformation, narrative construction and narrative validation. During my immersion in Bayreuth, my systematic observations of everyday life, including the quiet markets, the shy sun, the clean streets, cars driving on the right side of the road, electronic museum guides and the absence of ugali, supplied the empirical material for creative reflection.

The imaginative transformation occurred when I adopted the narrative perspective of an African child visiting Bayreuth. He reports his observations to his peers in Kenya through the poem. I try to filter the transcultural encounters through the innocent, curious gaze of a child. Thus, the poem transforms lived cross-cultural realities into an accessible text ("Let me tell you what I saw!"). This communicates insights into human diversity to young readers. This artistic intervention aligns with the theoretical agenda of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence. It seeks to reconfigure African Studies by reimagining the world from African perspectives through three core concepts: multiplicity, relationality and reflexivity.

In this poem, I try to capture the simultaneity of heterogeneous lifeworlds. The child inhabits the memory of vibrant, sunlit and noisy Kenyan markets alongside the cool, quiet and orderly atmosphere of Bayreuth. I do not reduce these differences to rigid binaries or hierarchies. Instead, I let the child celebrate multiplicity. He concludes that human variation is what makes the world interesting.

I bring in the concept of relationality as the child makes sense of the unfamiliar German environment through continuous comparisons with his home. In a significant way, the poem exercises reflexivity by reflecting on cultural assumptions. Through the child's fresh eyes, European practices are gently destabilised and made subject to childlike wonder. This is the experiment.

POEM

My Adventure in the Land of the Germans

I visited Bayreuth,
A city far, far away from home.
It is in the country of the Germans.
Let me tell you what I saw!

I looked up into the skies,
But I could not see the sun.
I searched and searched with my eyes,
But the sun was nowhere to be seen.
Then I saw the clouds give way slowly,
And there it was, Germany's sun!
It was a shy little sun,
It had weak and gentle rays.
I was surprised!

At home in Kenya, the sun shines brightly,
Sometimes it makes us run for shade.
But here, even the sun seems to whisper.

Let me tell you what I saw!

I visited the market.
People were buying and selling.
But they did everything in silence!
Nobody was calling out to customers,
Nobody was haggling over prices.
Eh! These people, the Germans!

At home, a market is a noisy place.
Traders call out, customers bargain,
And everybody seems to have something to say.

Let me tell you what I saw!

I walked through the streets.
They were clean, very clean.
I looked left and right.
I saw only a few people.
Where have all the people gone?
I asked my father.
He told me they were hiding in their houses.
It was too cold to walk outside.

At home, people are everywhere,
Walking, talking, laughing and greeting one another.
But here, the cold keeps people indoors.

Let me tell you what I saw!

I looked at the roads.
Cars were driving on the wrong side!
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
Eh! These people, the Germans!

At home, we drive on the left,
But here, they keep to the right.
Who taught them to drive this way?

Let me tell you what I saw!

I went to a museum.
I thought someone would take me through the rooms,
To explain the things I was seeing.
But nobody came!
Instead, they gave me a small gadget.
I put it to my ear,
And it began telling me the stories.
It guided me from one room to another.
Eh! These people, the Germans!

Let me tell you what I saw!

Then I went to their hotel.
Guess what I saw?
No ugali!
Can you imagine?
I looked at the menu,
I looked again,
No ugali, no githeri,
No mukimo to remind me of home.
They have their own food.
I began dreaming of ugali and sukuma wiki.

Eh! These people, the Germans!

Let me tell you what I saw!

The people are good.
They greet me when we meet.
Some smile and some stop to talk.
They have warmth in their hearts.

I have learnt that people are different,
And that is what makes the world interesting.

Now I must go back home to Kenya.

East or west, Kenya is home!

END