Reimagining Nairobi’s Green Identity!
Nairobi, a city that has lost 22% of its green spaces in under 18 years, when we speak about nature or conservation, often stuffy, colonial language is used, almost always proper English, hardly ever the Kenyanised mix of English and indigenous languages that are common to our everyday life.
Risto Zetu
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Kari na Bustani ya Ma-Dabo Fresh
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Kui na Keja ya Green Vibes
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Gallery
Kwanza, Risto (za) Nai Ni nini?
“Hii ni risto ya kuristo Nai.”
Language holds inordinate power in how we view our world, how we claim things as our own, and how we remember.
Yet, in Nairobi, a city that has lost 22% of its green spaces in under 18 years, when we speak about nature or conservation, often stuffy, colonial language is used, almost always proper English, hardly ever the Kenyanised mix of English and indigenous languages that are common to our everyday life. This disconnects us from the world right next to us. Nature does not sound like us. Nature has become an “other” to the urban Kenyan. It is not part of our story.
Few Nairobians will think of these green and in-between spaces as a right, yet, they are. Not a privilege, a right. Haki yangu, sio, bahati yangu. We are part of nature, not separate. This fragmentation is fodder for disconnection.
People Power
2020: Nairobians protesting the planned chopping/relocation of the iconic 100 –year old Mugumo tree situated in Westlands, to make way for the expressway. Then President Uhuru Kenyatta ‘saved’ the tree by a ‘leave it alone’ decree.
