when the heart rests

i feel sad ... but i feel happy too ... i feel so warm and closeted ... like all the scares i had of the big world were all my creation ... that all the evil in the world could be found in me ... and that all i had to be afraid of ... was me or not

i always had this thoughts ... that everyone i came across was just a figment of my imagination ... that someone was just carrying out a farce to please or to annoy me ... may be africa and all its problems did not exist ... may be america was not that powerful that it could invade our living room with its images of a better life that we could only pant for

there was no africa or europe or america or asia or australia in Iten where i grew up ... the rest of the world was far away ... or may be it was just too close only that i did not care ... but with the trees my mother had planted ... the orchard ... the fog ... the field hand who went on with his duties as glum as Uncle Tom would have been ... it was just me and my thoughts ... dream i did dream .

i made images of kingdoms and giant thick forests where the strangest of animals lived ... i saw brave, heroic lasses wielding magic swords running away through the thick forests ... running away from evil lords/wicked witches/ugly trolls who sought to capture them ... and from then on ... the tales of my people and the tales of the outside world merged in me

they say the voice that sings from outside africa is louder than the voice that sings from africa ... every day as i trudged to school we were taught concepts that were too far divorced from the lives we led around ... but that was ok ... science is never different ... it might have found others earlier and the ones who are a tad behind had better learn from those who can call themselves the masters ... still if only a teacher would have made me see the valley that lay to the west of our home ... if someone would have told me to take a keener look at the wood, stone and leaf around

western education made me a dreamer ... i dreamt of a world far beyond ... and the people around me became little ... i too became little ... and so did Kabon .... the old grandma who trudged barefoot to thatch her house

the world used to come to iten once in a while ... the International Safari Rally ... helicopters buzzed around and blew up blouses ... opening up sneak previews for the voyeurs ... and then the colors ... it is so strange to see a mix of color ... it brings life into a sharper reality ... people of all colors moving around ... and the cars and the helicopters

i have read far and wide ... the tutors at school have always thought of me as clever ... i just find myself odd ... in one way or another ... knowing and being interested in things no one else cares about ... who wants to hear about Tenochtilan or Genghis Khan ... who needs the past when you have a whole future fresh and unexplored ... who cares about Bugganes and Guanacos, or whether mammoths could be cloned or that the cross between a lion and a tiger is a liger and that the latter grows so much larger than the parents

may be i should forget the big, wide world for a while ... and focus on me ... improve on me ...create a rock, solid self-image with a pure fountain inside ... may be others would love to drink from that ... others that make my world