Kenya National Archives

The swept floors are tiled neatly, so long ago. The high walls rise like ghouls that can eat your heart. Inside silence, high end louvers that can’t keep the hum away.

The throb of people outside trying to breach the pristine walls of history. There are no crowds here, just wait till you step out. And the throngs of human bundled up together in multicolor second hand clothes like a market merchandise. Thumping into each other calling each other to board old rusty busses, smearing sweat on each other, wiping lip balm on cheeks in feigned curtsies, gnawing flossed teeth with pieces of potato fries stuck uncomfortably in them. Anxious, worried unhappy sad.

Inside is history, vanished wood rails on the staircase gleaming. Tall windows like warriors of light. Dust on iron weapons, glass over bleaching newspapers about Joseph Murumbi.

Host of people who used proclaim cups from Phoenician ships, dead sweat of old skin that slept on salvaged mats from Persia the patterns, hand sewn.

Washed away bloods that must have been on the Turkana spear, or the rough texture of the palms that wielded the Luhya shield.

The last works of West Africa bronze smiths, Gods masques with slit mouths that remain open like sores, raffia that mimics synthetic hair, chopped nipped sand scrubbed crowns sitting on a pantheon of Kingship hierarchy.

Iron work that was done in kilns whose fires were not lit by matchboxes, beadwork that is half submerged into the stool of an ancient chief for the comfort of his arse, a headrest with dead moth eggs when it was still with its Maasai owner. A Somali knife slipped forgotten into its belt sheath.

Wangari Maathai recently dead, on pictures under glass display smiling. Tom Mboya dead long ago on this very street where the box building stands.

And paintings.

The painting.

The first flight of stairs to your left when you enter. Past the mosaic of Dedan Kimathi, and the attempt at the nooses and crevices of Kenyatta in pencil.

The gleaming staircases solid. The polished stair case rails. Deep brown like good mahogany. Simple lines for patterns.

And at the landing. An orange painting. An outcrop in the middle of a dusty desert. Stones about it scattered at the discretion of the painter. Insipid blue skyline, empty and probably hot. But loneliness, deep sad insignificant loneliness. Standing alone in the middle of nowhere the huge sore rock ,dusty in the desert, a shadow here and there a promise of relief from its locked lack of meaning. A painting like no other, sand orange, blue and rocks.

   

Visit the Kenya National Archives. Know your history.