By Eric Wamanji
Early this week I did my fair share of trekking the streets of Nairobi in what turned out to be a wild goose chase – after classics.
When I promised my boss the two little books, I thought it’s gonna be as easy as buying a latte – pop up, pick, pay and leave.
I wish it were that easy.
My first port of call was the University of Nairobi’s (UoN) bookshop. To my disbelief and dismay, the bookshelves here were bare. “Sorry we don’t have the books,” a haggard looking chap muffled, before he continued to play, I think Candy Crush on his phone. “Can a university of UoN stature lack classics?” I marvelled, and then plunged into the city that seems to be in shreds.
It was the genesis of a protracted, windy wander amid the marinating sun, dust and discordance that is Nairobi. Folks, street after street, I learnt of Nairobi’s death of bookstores.
Interestingly, in Nairobi, all you see is a chain of bars. Many bars, big and small. Nairobi has developed a cult-like commitment to booze. Nairobians love their bottle, no doubt, well their fashion too. So every pigeonhole available is stuffed with the latest colourful fashion.
I came to a conclusion that it’s easier to bump on someone who might go to heaven in the city than to come across a bookstore.
Looks are good, and so is escape through a swig, but why are we least interested in brainpower? I know it’s a cliché that Kenyans don’t read. But, from whence a glamorous dressing gives you the wherewithal to manoeuvre the jumble that is today’s knowledge economy? And does booze bolster those faculties good enough for survival in this era?
But wait a minute. Does the reality in the city-centre give a hint why young chaps venerate the corrupt and can readily dabble in sleaze? Those living large after dalliances with the till have little regard for books. Society watches this. It copies. How else are we to sustain a lifestyle of booze, puff and rev?
It’s quite intriguing that in this city, where bookstores ought to stand, swanky discotheques take charge. Booze grace what would be bookshelves. And the tables that would host readers are now the great good places for binging and puffing.
After combing the high streets, I chanced along Moi Avenue. Here was once the home of Book Point then a Mecca of sorts for book lovers. At this point, you could get any title you craved. But today, at 1145 hours, the doors are locked, the shelves that used to display the latest are grimy, as if grieving its lost past splendour.
If Nairobi doesn’t read, what kind of daily conversation does her people engage in? Are our discourses informed by the pitiable contents of the news media? Or do we simply discuss CORD Vs Jubilee, Sonko Vs Joho? Are those banters spiced by intellectual scrupulousness or they are just like talk in Marikiti?
A folk argued that in the digital era, dead wood, as books are called, have no place in our society. Kindle, is King, she argued. Hmmm. How clever. But lets face it, first I agree; we can download any literature into our smart phone. That’s theory though. The ubiquity of digital in Kenya is yet to hit the Estonian or Seoul proportions. Plus, preening on screens, during our free time, it’s easier to notice fingers fidgeting gadgets and flirting with WhatsApp, Twitter, or Instagram all the time engaging in inane natter. We don’t read.
Dearth of reading explains the paucity of our critical thinking and, why everyday that flamboyant pastor cons us and why in 2017 we will vote with an ethnic mind-set. For not reading, our brains are starved and retreat to a state of torpor. Indeed, only a miserable society thinks material possessions- fashion, cars and wine, attained from graft, daddy, or brothel could make our Canaan. We are wrong. We are enslaving ourselves and we have no one to blame.
It’s my habit to have a collection at Rococo PR and Media. It helps me explore the world and understand human beings. Reading, has helped to humble my otherwise raw ego. For in reading, as we always say at Rococo, is when you know you don’t know.
But, well, enough of my unfounded pontificating, myopia and fret. I’m new in Jerusalem and so, if there are no bookstores, perhaps I should buy a short, and oh, yeah, waiter, some double-shots as well please.