The Music Of Kenyan Life

Thwack..thwack..thwack..*.silence.*...thwack..thwack..thwack..The strange rhythmic thumping continues for minutes outside my window, like a curious addicting drum beat. The rhythm stops when I go to investigate.

I find two young Kenyan women, sweat trickling from their almost-bald heads down the sides of their faces, gathered over a large wooden cauldron. They each hold a heavy wooden stick in their hands, which-coupled with the cauldron-reminds me of a massive pestle and mortar. The two sisters look up at me and smile; the sweat making their beautiful dark skin glisten in the morning light. With a quick glance at each other, the sisters assume a powerful position and resume pounding the contents of the cauldron with strong, practiced strokes. The cauldron contains large maize kernels, which now are almost mashed to oblivion. This process allows the maize to be later ground into flour at a parcel mill. With each strike, some of the flaky kernels float up in the air and stick to the sisters' sweaty arms and faces, and since much of their body was covered, they had been at work for some time. The sisters alternate their strikes into the center of the cauldron rhythmically, and as I stand and marvel at their fantastic precision my body reflexively sways to the hypnotic beat.

After the thrashing of the maize, the mashed remains are filtered in woven baskets from impurities. Shick, shick shick, ssssss. Shick shick shick, ssssss. The synchronized sisters work along side one another, creating the sound that reminds me of musical shakers. Just like the pounding, the shaking charms me, entering into my blood and possessing my body to move. In my mind I envision an entire band of Kenyan women as they go through the process of pounding and sifting maize-creating a magnificent African musical performance. The thought makes me giddy, which turns into an incoherent attempt at Swahili communication, “You are making music!” I say in Swahili. The sisters look at me confused, and respond with, “No, we are making flour.” At this point I am looking around, my eyes screaming out for someone who I could explain my realization to. Without any alternative, I try again with the sisters, “you hit the maize like on a drum, and when you do this,” (I point at what they are doing, since “to shake” has not entered my swahili vocabulary), “together it makes music.” It was my best attempt, and to my relief it was returned with a mixture of confusion and understanding written on their faces.

Weekly, the Kenyan women are hard at work pounding maize by hand. On top of cooking, doing all the house work and caring for the children, they don't complain but set to their task in seeming contentment. It was wonderful for me to hear a small piece of the beautiful music of their simple Kenyan life.