July to August 2013, a period in which I wanted so much to nail down some 'huge' project. I had discovered that in my home location (which is Nyandarua county, Kenya) there was plenty of clay. The only challenge was, even as a little research in the net would disclose, the clay was inorganic.
Now I could finally ascribe the misfortunes we had faced over the 5-year period to one thing, the inorganic clay. Every time we planted a tree, and the dry season came, the tree would wither and dry. And it also explained why the surviving flower plants would be so weak in the dry season, the numerous wattles in our land and the neighbouring lands were not left either. Only the African Olive (Olea Africana) species was left standing and would be forever green.
The organic clay is so compact that even roots do not penetrate it! In three days I dug a 6-feet hole, 6 feet in diameter and needless to say, I spent a whole week of recovery from back pains and muscle strains.
But I was happy that in our backyard there would be excavated a limitless amount of a commodity that I love working with. You know, moulding pots and sculptural reliefs. What I like most moulding is human busts. And the following few weeks I made several pots, a relief and a free-standing figure which was supposed to be my dad.
But something was not right with the clay. Maybe it was how I prepared it. I could tell something was very wrong, but I couldn't afford to look back. Besides I wasn't for the impending humiliation after a failure of a project both mum and dad were keenly following right from the start, and every step of the way. Neighbors were in it too. So I had to be right.
All along my mind was so alive in the sense that it made me realize opportunities that would go to great extent in helping our youth who are unemployed. I could see me being a manager of a huge company that printed ceramic wears. I could also see me printing my sculptures in the comfort of a 3-D printer and I could see a hoard of the unemployed in the neighborhood carrying with themselves paychecks from my office. We working together, after all at some point in life we were together.
But it still remained that the land belonged to my dad and unless I went ahead and convincingly persuaded him into thinking of how valuable the organic clay was and therefore had him quit farming and hand it all over to me, I would not make any progress in the All-time project in my mind. And oh, I heard the neighboring land was a government property so ... poor me.
I had to wait for the pots to dry, patience always has killed me so I found a way out of it by telling mum to take me to the neighboring county, Laikipia where I spent most of my childhood days. I have always seen yet a lot of virginity in the area. The uncontrolled wildlife is threatening to farming though if you gave a hand and was successful, the land yields in a hundred fold.
This county boasts of the Alpa- Jeta, a wildlife holding park that is almost nine hundred thousand acres of land and which has the white rhino! I remember walking surround the area and chasing giraffes. My brother and I, being the little boys we were, would run all our race only to see the giraffe always comfortably way ahead of us. oh and somebody told me that it has a 360 degree round so it was fatal for us to do what we did.
And the honey, bees were all over the place. One struck me while I had disguised myself with a branch of a bush on top of my head and my brother was harvesting the honey. Now I told my mum that I wanted to try the lost wax method of casting so i had to go back to Laikipia.
In Laikipia the mornings, especially in the wee hours, were the most enjoyable. Birds sung without a break, they must have been in thousands. And all through the day there were tiny flying insects which sung in unison. Chickens loved eating these most and there was a day we slaughtered a chicken and told mum that it was the insects that had killed it.
Each and everyone in our family usually has fond memories of the place but it was not for that reason that Mum agreed to take me there. I was clever enough to add more gravity to my points. I would get my brother, once again, involved.
He does a Climate change and development course in the same University I attend, and being so obvious, climate change would be evident in Laikipia. After all it was for the same very reason that we fled away to the Mountains, a replica of the Biblical Lot and Abraham story.
So mum agreed. And we went. We actually decided to remind ourselves of the long distances we would walk by foot back in the days and there was a six-hour non-stop trekking ahead of us. And several others during the three days we spent there. I was actually was to be left for a week but since my family had the fear of insecurity, we decided to stay for three days.
I was the ambassador for my brother in the research of climate change in the area, though I did not take any notes. I would not. I was not trained in fieldwork after all. I was only an artist.
I thought that since trees live long, long enough than even a typical human lifespan, a lot would be borrowed from them if strictly and keenly scrutinized. I would draw an acacia tree which I knew and had been seeing it since I was a kid. And several others.
But I didn't. Why? Because the tree was cut down. And the others too. I only so gully erosion take its toll all over and the dams shallow with soil having most of their bottom.
When I looked around, something kept on lingering in my mind: there used to live people here. The big question was not where they went, it was why they went away.
When I was in classes 2 to 6, the local primary which my elder siblings attended too was one of the best in the region, often producing talented youth athletes. Back then a typical class consisted of an average of 25 pupils but when I enquired an old schoolmate of the school population, I could not believe it when I heard a fluttering 6 pupils in average and 6 teachers running the whole school. What broke my heart was that even the candidates did not do their exams in the school, they went to other schools elsewhere during the eve of the examination.
My mum told me that there were endless stories to write about the small area, lonely and surrounded by the Alpa-jeta on one side, ADC ranch on the other, and another huge ranch that belonged to a family member of the former president of Kenya. She and I thought that if a group of investors bought all the land, and ventured into cattle rearing, it would be the only way to save the area. For as long as even the few people that were left in the area lived on, and as long as they were ignorant of today's global challenges e.g. global warming, they would still continue bringing the land into ashes.
"You will often take a lot of time to think of ways to help someone, only to realize that the only way to save them is to own them." I thought.
But something in my mind dismissed the idea of owning them, they had their rights after all and the fact that for an average of 10 years they had persevered in the harsh environment meant everything. It said that that was their life.
After the three days I went back home. Disappointed and at the same time professing a speck of hope in my heart. What I found home broke my heart.
All the clay pots had broken except for the dad figure. I knew something was wrong all along, even in my handling of the clay. I realized i had not given it time to age, given my tiring patience episodes.
But I could not simply give up the idea that at home there was clay, plenty of it and I would someday create an empire. More on the wattle carving and hard wood from a collection in my dad's workshop is for another day. All I have for today is that clay sculpture.
