🍹 Hi, Story

A few nights ago, I dreamt about someone who’s not in my life anymore. Random people make cameo appearances in my dreams all the time, but I hadn’t thought of the star of my nighttime film in ages.. ugly memories and such.

Anyway, I woke up, had a good chuckle, and went about my day, which at some point involved contacting my bank about some charging issue. Guess what the agent I was connected to was called? My dream star’s name!

And they want to convince us we’re not living in a simulation.

BTW, AI is coming for dream interpreters’ jobs, too.

My decision to study History in high school wasn’t super nuanced. I performed better in it than I did in Geography, and, as can be evidenced by this newsletter, I don’t mind writing ad infinitum.

I wasn’t particularly interested in learning about the past or pursuing a related field in the future. History was, to me, the “good enough” guy you get with because he’s alright and you’re bored.

It was one of my 2 As in KCSE, so I guess that worked out. But I only realized history’s (small h) importance way after school.

There’s an abundance of Euro-American stories recounting what happened in the 1800s as vividly as what’s currently breaking. It’s no wonder that the whole world has some familiarity with these stories. Of course, that can also be attributed to their goings-on indirectly influencing us.

Recently, I was thinking about my discovery that Martin Luther King Jr. (the guy who had a dream that actually helped people) was unfaithful to his wife, and his extracurricular activities were only discovered because the FBI was tailing him because the government was concerned about his escalating influence in the civil rights movement because…

It’s riveting stuff. I ate it up and left no crumbs, particularly since my source was discussing whether the America of 2023 would accept MLK as a flawed person who’d done more good than bad in his life, or if they’d cancel him and Black people’s rights would be set back at least 20 years.

I didn’t think you guys would be interested in American History thought experiments, yet that’s kind of all I know (sorry, Ms. Njagi). So I consulted the omniscient Google for similar African accounts.

I’m sure there’s dirt on some African leaders that could lead us to the MLK conversation. But heh, si nilitafuta. So that my exploration wasn’t a total waste of time, here are some not-so-presidential things I found out about Mzee Kenyatta:

• He “fought” for independence, only to shapeshift into a dictatorial neo-colonialist. (Good time to point out that we didn’t fight them out of here. We just weren’t worth the trouble anymore.)

• He married his 4th wife, Mama Ngina, when he was ~54, and she was 18. Love is love?

It’s also fascinating stuff, but I feel like we’re missing huge sections of it. For example, I vividly remember the History textbook, or a teacher, mentioning that Kenyatta was the beberu’s best choice for president. Hence, both parties went to some length to ensure he ran undisputed. I searched high and low, but there’s nothing credible on that online. (Mtaniangalilia kwa dark web? 🙈)

African stories got passed down mainly through oral avenues. Then slavery and colonialism happened. To justify their inhumanity, the whites asserted that Africa was a wild beast without a history, even doing us the favor of “discovering” features we had all along.

Our oral-only stories stood no chance against this constant barrage of Western denial, exacerbated by our unfriendly visitors’ upper hand: they could write and disseminate narratives about Africa that rationalized their cause.

Fortunately, the subjugation ended and left us with something beautiful amid the madness—literacy. We’ve been slowly picking up the pieces and rediscovering histories that were on the brink of extinction.

Through a combination of oral traditions and archeological discoveries, researchers who care about Africa are putting the jigsaws that are African stories back together.

I think that’s super cool. This exploration lays the ground for exhaustive African true crime podcasts, African investment tutorials, and multivariate data sets. Heck, maybe we’ll even get a solid estimate of Mansa Musa's net worth.

I’m still mostly excited about the dirt; it makes for better Kessentials, but I’ll take anything I can get, if I’m being honest.

Here are Ihediwa Nkemjika Chimee’s articulate thoughts on the demolition and eventual reconstruction of African history, perfect for those who get those elusive happy hormones from this type of stuff.

Another great source of disappearing African narratives and life lessons? Our grandparents! If yours are still around, you’ve got a treasure trove of stories right there.

Late>never,

Kessentials.