Exploring Kenya's past

Located in the heart of downtown Nairobi is the Joseph Murumbi National Gallery — you can't miss it. Nevertheless, locals often walk right past the building and have no idea of what goes on inside. Once you enter, silence replaces the noise outside the large gallery used to preserve ancient artifacts. This is where we meet Serah Namulisa Kasembeli.

She recently returned to the country after finishing her doctorate which focused on slavery and colonialism. "They say to be a good teacher you have to be a good student," she says. "I wanted to write history from an African point of view and not from the European perspective as has been the case up until now. I wanted to write about history that is not mixed up with the period of colonialism."

We are encouraged to focus on the future nowadays and in Swahili there is a saying "let bygones be bygones." But that shouldn't obscure the fact that the past has its importance, an importance which inspired Kasembeli to begin her research into slavery and the effects of colonialism.

Kasembeli is stubborn by nature. She began her education in the Kilome region of Makueni County, Kenya. She was forced to look after her younger siblings for two years before graduating from secondary school and completing her first degree at Nairobi University.

That degree enabled her to become a teacher of literature. Teaching brought her a lot of joy because it allowed her to communicate with young people. Kasembeli appears deceivingly shy or timid when we meet at the Joseph Murumbi gallery where pictures, paintings and ancient spears and shields adorn the walls.

Along with the masks and statues displayed on a table or plinths they hold clues and secrets to the past.

Kasembeli firmly believes that history plays an important role in the present. The reality and impact of slavery should be given special attention from the beginning if we want to acknowledge our past.

"I start with slavery because if we haven't realized how this is affecting us today we cannot move forward," she says.

The importance of asking questions

For her, Kenya's history centers around colonialism and the slave trade. Although she found joy as a teacher, she soon started to question the learning process and the way she was being asked to teach certain subjects.

Kasembeli was taught that every teacher needed to outline a specific plan for the day's lesson and accomplish a specfic goal. She started asking herself questions and that drew her into the world of research, in order to find answers to the questions she was setting herself.

While teaching, she wrote a play titled Water but Wine, which examined ideas of an unjust society and how unfair that could be for particularly female students coming from the slums.

Through observing her students, Kasembeli realised that many girls are forced into ethically and morally dubious experiences in order to get an education and have enough money to live on.

This situation disturbed her, particularly because she could not find a solution to the problem. She made an effort to encourage students to work hard and believe in themselves in the hope that they would succeed in life and overcome any challenges they faced. And she was doing all this whilst completing her Master's degree at the University of Nairobi as well.

Challenges of the slave trade

When talking about the history of slavery, the Kisauni region on Kenya's coast shouldn't be ignored. There, Frere Town was of great importance after the slave trade was abolished. The ACK Emmanuel Church in Kengeleni was a special place, largely remembered because of its practice of ringing the church bell to warn people who could be captured and forced into slavery to go into hiding each time the slave drivers came. Although it was relatively rare for villages on the Kenyan Coast to be invaded in the search for potential slaves, it was from this region that many of the slaves began their long journey. That's because it is not far from Unguja Island's main market in Zanzibar — also a well-known slave market. Before being taken to Zanzibar, the slaves were kept in large caves in Shimoni south of Mombasa, Kenya. Slaves who were used as servants both at home and in the fields were brought from countries all along the Indian Ocean.

Kasembeli started researching the pain the slaves faced. "We need to deal with the suffering that took place, looking at what history is saying," she says. "We should look at it and say this is where we have come from. We should not try to hide it and say forget the past. There should be links made between history, particularly colonial history, and the present. Media outlets should be able to report this kind of thing accurately."

Moving ahead

Kasembeli faced a number of challenges while carrying out her research. She realized that people today just don't typically ask questions about their history. She recently obtained her PhD and is keen to publish her play so that it can be performed on stage.

Kasembeli was the first of four children. She has a sister and two brothers. She credits her joy of reading to her mother, a school principal, who had emphasized the importance of learning from books.

Her drive, she says, is due to her parents who were the envy of many of their relatives who sent their own children to live with the Kasembelis in order to get a proper education.

Kasembeli's father's job as a policeman meant that the family traveled often and lived in various parts of Kenya. This experience left Kasembeli with a desire to travel further afield. So far she has made it as far as Stellenbosch University in South Africa where she studies. 

This report is part of the African Roots series, a project realized in cooperation with the Gerda Henkel Foundation.