by William Rubel after stories by Babu of Wamba

These stories are based on recordings I made in Wamba, Kenya, of Donald Zakayo, known by his family and friends, as Babu. The stories I recorded fell into distinct categories. These included children’s tales, stories of warriors coming in contact with technology for the first time, stories of crime and passion, stories about the colonial era, stories about stupid ‘mazungus’ — white people who make mistakes through arrogance — and stories about local characters.

The ten stories I include here were seleced simply because I thought they were the most interesting of the stories. Many of these stories depict brutal acts of sadisitic violence. Are they true? I have no idea. When I asked friends in Maralal about Sanana, a musician whose music you can find elsewhere on this web site, I was given a different explanation about why Sanana became a beggar than the one Babu gave, and when I told both these stories to an anthropologist while waiting for my plane home in the Nairobi airport a third possibility was suggested. And so, as with many works of fiction, there may be more than one path the underlying truth.

The stories largely take place in the manyattas, small groupings of small huts surrounded by a fence made out of the branches of thorny accacia trees. The huts are small structures built of sticks and plasted with dung. They are round, there is a small door, and no windows. The roof is low and one cannot stand up in them. Stories that take place in village structure — like in’The Thief’s Hand’ — are more substantial — taller, but the walls may be made of mud although a few houses are plastered, and I would imagine a plastered house for ‘The Jealous Boyfreind.’

I have read all these stories to Babu, with the exception of ‘Sanana’, more or less in the version that I am publishing here. He approves of them all.