The Poet Who Went to a Mall in Nairobi

9/24/2013

From my shelf; from the web

The name jumped out of a random paragraph about the horror. A world-renowned poet was caught in the madness in an upscale mall in Nairobi.

I heard about Kofi Awoonor in 1976 when I was covering Long Island for the Times. His friends at the State University at Stony Brook were publicizing his arrest in his homeland of Ghana. He said he had driven a friend in political trouble across the border because that’s what friends do. He had been at Stony Brook before going home, and had many admirers in the States, including two Pulitzer Prize winners, Louis Simpson and Bernard Malamud.

Of everything I did on that story, I most remember calling the Ghanaian embassy in Washington, D.C., browbeating some telephone-answerer, saying, “Doesn’t your country know it has imprisoned an important artist, a man the world knows?” Reporters know how to make ourselves obnoxious in cases like this, and I’d like to think I did.

Ghana came to its senses in 10 months and released him for time served and assured him that he remained a citizen in good standing. He had dropped from 165 pounds to 135 pounds but said he caught up with his reading in prison. He also got a collection of poems out of his little sabbatical, called The House by the Sea, after the prison where he lived.

In January of 1978 he returned to Stony Brook to see his friends, and drink wine, and recite poetry. One he read was dedicated to his daughter Amewsika, whose name means, The Human Being Is More Precious Than Gold.

            Tomorrow my love
            You will turn eleven
            I had promised a party;
            But worry not, I won’t be there.
            Your mother will give you a party;
            Tell me if she doesn’t.
            Where am I? Well, very near you.
            But there are iron bars on my door.
            A man stands there with a gun.
            He brings me food and water
            Now and then
            And I dream that soon
            You and I and all of us
            Will be free!

Kofi Awoonor lived and wrote and taught from Ghana, and served as a diplomat, for the rest of his life, which ended this week while traveling to Kenya for a literary festival, as a prominent voice of Africa, of humanity. Other men with guns appeared at the mall and slaughtered innocents.

I went to a bookshelf – I knew just where it was – and found his book, The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara, which I had read as I prepared to write the two stories while he was imprisoned. At the reception in Stony Brook, he had inscribed the book for me, the only time we met.

I want to add that I am grateful to Ghana for giving him back his life, his voice. I have since come to meet Ghanaian soccer fans in Germany and Brooklyn and South Africa, the nicest people. They mingled with Americans at the World Cup in 2010, some carrying flags of both nations. I think of Ghana as Kofi Awoonor’s homeland, and grieve along with the nation.

The article from the Sahara Reporters:

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/ghanaian-author-kofi-awoonor-killed-kenya

Ed martin

9/24/2013 05:49:15 am

Thank you, George, for sharing this memory of one precious life bringing a sharper focus to this horror.

Alan Rubin link

9/26/2013 10:14:11 pm

George

The loss of Kofi Awoonor in the Nairobi bombing does not make it any more tragic, it emphasizes that all the victims were important to others.

It is always upsetting that shortly after every high profile killing; people's memories seem to recede rapidly. Also, it seems that life in non-white countries is less valuable.

My views on this were reinforced after reading “The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912” by Thomas Pakenham and “King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa” by Adam Hochschild.

Solomon Gyimah, a long time employee, was from Ghana. He was one of the kindest and most gentle people I have known. He was the head of the Ashanti tribe for the metro NYC area and also did much to help their economy in Ghana.

I soon learned that when he said that he had to miss work for family matters, it was for the Ashanti community, not his immediate family.

I had contributed to an event at the Museum of Natural History that honored the chief from his village. The back of the program listed over 1000 years of their tribal history. I had never thought of such long histories for Africa.

My appliance business received many decent refrigerators as trade-ins, which we sold to companies that specialized in used appliances. Solomon asked if he could ship them to Ghana where they were of great value.

Shortly before a container was to be shipped, members of his community would fill the refrigerators with clothing and other items of value which would ride free.

On a 2008 two week safari in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia, I realized how much I had come to understand tribalism from Solomon. All the guides and employees at the four camps were mirror images of him.

How can Africa have so much violence in the midst of such gentleness? Colonialism has left a terrible legacy, which has not been much improved by many of the present governments.

Africa’s disease and poverty are mostly overlooked by the West. We were in Zimbabwe six weeks before their elections in 2008. Everyone was excited about finally replacing Mugabe, Obama running for president and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. It was an exhilerating time to be there. There was hope that the economy could recover with new leadership. It was obvious that the election was stolen when it took over six weeks to count the votes.

Inflation was so high that school teachers were on strike for over a year as their pay could not purchase anything. The tall, very thin, principle at the school we visited was the only teacher for eight well behaved classes. The students were bright eyed and full of hope, in spite of the poverty.

I've gone on too long, but it is upsetting when human resources all over the world, including here at home, are being wasted due to indifference.

Thor A. Larsen

9/28/2013 02:19:07 am

Thank you George and Alan for your thoughtful reflection on gifted Africans and experiences with African people. Africa has certainly experienced and continues to experience profound human tragedies.
My wife Arlene and I visited South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana in March and found the experience exhilarating, yet with a troubling feeling. The scenery, the wildlife, and Capetown with its surroundings were visually very rewarding. Interactions with African locals in a number of venues brought out their warmth and kindness as described by you both.
The troubling signs we could not miss included the extreme range in wealth seen within a few miles in Capetown and Johannesburg. Several other troubling aspects are the lack of universal health coverage and access to education, key ingredients for reducing poverty in a nation. Our view is that South Africa, on surface very beautiful, is a powder-keg. Hopefully, we are wrong!!

George Vecsey

9/28/2013 03:40:04 am

To Ed, Alan, Thor: thanks for your notes. Alan saw first-hand the connections and loyalties of a tribal leader - in NYC.
I felt I never made that kind of contact during the 2010 World Cup. The cadre who ran the WC - Danny Jordaan, one of Mandela's younger followers, and his staff - were admirable. I do a riff on him in my upcoming soccer book. I saw some modern B/W mingling in Johannesburg, but found that city and Sandton, the nouveau section, so cold, so isolated, But the schedule and work of the World Cup probably kept me from getting any feel whatsoever. The Ghanaian fans were wonderful; nicest game I have ever covered. Best, GV

Andy Kusi-Appiah

2/2/2014 04:48:02 pm

"How can Africa have so much violence in the midst of such gentleness? Colonialism has left a terrible legacy, which has not been much improved by many of the present governments."

Easy to answer: The gentleness you see is only for your eyes.
the problem in Africa is not about governments, it is about the people (greed, apathy and pettiness). Tribalism is one major cause of the many wars.......

Brian Savin

10/7/2013 01:50:48 pm

My kids went to college with an African student who knew him as a political figure in that country, rather than poet. Very active.

George Vecsey

10/11/2013 03:51:06 pm

Brian, that wasn't clear before his imprisonment, but in later years he was an ambassador to, I think, Cuba and Brazil. Whether the face of government changed, or he did, I cannot tell. I was surprised to learn he had been an ambassador. GV

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The Poet Who Went to a Mall in Nairobi

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