 and very excited to be the question asker, as I'm calling myself, of this series today. It is my pleasure to be presenting the Stories Women Carry, which is a six episode long series that will take place every Monday from this week. Highlighting creative practice of African women on the continent. With me today, before I introduce our panelists, I just want to highlight that this is actually the first series that the Howlbrown Theatre Commons is hosting, that has both Kenyan Sign Language and American Sign Language interpretation. So, thank you so much to Rory, who is here as our American Sign Language representative. Later on, Rafael, who will be switching out with her, who are both our Kenyan Sign Language interpreters. And without further ado, I want to also introduce our panelists for today, our first panelists for this series. Now, this person, it's very hard to introduce this person and do it justice because a bio is not enough, a speech is not enough, and we could be sitting here for the whole hour, and I'm just still talking about this person. But I'd like to start off by saying, hi Satawa, thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time to be one of our panelists for this series and for starting us off. Thank you so much, Karishma. I'm so, so thrilled to be here with you and welcome everybody who is on the team, as well as anybody who comes to listen. Yeah, yeah. So, folks, just to tell you a little bit about Satawa. I first met Satawa, not even been two years, but it feels like we have ancestrally and generationally known each other since we were even conceptions in our parents' minds. Ambassador Satawa now, actually, is what we should be calling her. And Ambassador Satawa, you'll be telling us about why we should be calling you Ambassador shortly. But Satawa, aside from being a veteran artist within our Kenyan theater scene here, is a poet, a performer, a writer, a storyteller in all sense of the word, and a fun fact about her is that she represented Kenya nationally and internationally in both hockey and in tennis. So we have quite the multidisciplinary artist, truly drawing from her cultural diplomacy work, her sports into her art. So it's very exciting to have you. And again, as I said, no introduction will do you justice. So I'm just going to throw it off to you and tell us why we should be calling you Ambassador today. And all the other wonderful things you've been up to. Great. So I have always wanted to be called Ambassador. I've always wanted to be an Ambassador of something. And finally, last week I got the call from Docky Box, Judy Kibinge and Mudamba Mudamba asked me to be the Ambassador for Good Pitch this year, which is happening on the 12th of November. So in 10 days time, and what Good Pitch does is that it creates a venue, an opportunity, an event that allows documentary film producers, people who produced a documentary film as under the Docky Box process. And they get to pitch to an audience of a very diverse audience. And they get to pitch to ask for something, the other things that they may need. So they've gotten some seed money, they've produced a film and then they get to ask for more money for the film, for example, or partnerships in some shape or form. Because these are films, these are documentary films that are intended to make a difference and to really transform society. And some of the films are just extraordinary. This year, one of them is looking, is Deryl and Kimathi, Kenya's freedom, a hero, whom we don't know where he is buried. So his daughter sets off to discover where he's buried and two Kenyan women are making the film about that. And there's another one from South Sudan which is Garan's daughter, who follows her mother, who is a filmmaker. And the film is about following her mother as her mother becomes a politician. She's one of the vice presidents in South Sudan. There's an Ethiopian film that is about the red terror. A young woman goes back to look for her aunt's legacy. Who disappeared during the red terror when she was about 23. She joined the freedom and communist struggle and she disappeared. So this young woman, Hanice, is going back to find her. So very diverse films and really exciting. Yeah. Thank you, Ambassador. That's why I'm the ambassador. It's very, that's why you're the ambassador. Yeah. Being championing and really being a part of this community of new work creators, eh? So I'm just going to stick with Ambassador because I love the sound of that, right? So Ambassador, tell us a lot of these stories that you've just spoken about, have this moment of going back or going back to rediscover things. And I know from knowing you and our conversations that you have a very strong connection to your roots. So tell us about the roots that make this tree that is Ambassador Sitawa. Who are you? Who are you as an artist? Where do you come from? What is your story? You're going to, Karishma, can you just ask me that again? Cause you went in and out. So I'm not quite. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. Yeah, nice. I said, so what are the roots that make this tree that is Ambassador Sitawa? Who are you? What is your practice? What is your story? You know, I had such an interesting experience this morning. I went to the funeral service of some very dear friends of mine. Their father passed away and I went to the service and they were incredibly generous in that they gave us this incredible view into this amazing man's life. And he comes from a similar community as I come from which is in Western Kenya. And it was extraordinary to listen to this and the parallels, cause my father passed away in 2017. And the parallels, I've known this man for many years since I was a child, but I didn't realize how much they had in common. Like how, you know, with my father, how similar they were, how proud they were of their roots. And so, you know, as a colonized person, one of the things that has happened is that we've been disconnected. And, you know, many families have not really taken time to connect their children and give them that legacy. And I was very fortunate in that I had a father who did that, he gave me my legacy. And I was listening and they was talking about a very similar, so my legacy on my father's side you know, he gave me 10 generations on his father's side and then he gave me four on his mother's side. So I have these people behind me and I have their names and I, you know, and then he was very much a storyteller, although this is not what he did for a living. But he told me stories. He told us stories, his children's stories all the time about his life, about, you know, himself. And you listen to about the past, about various relatives, you know, important moments in, you know, cultural moments, et cetera. And I listened, when I sat and listened to him, I also got the storytelling technique. So he had an amazing storytelling technique. And of course, you're imbibing this without even realizing you're imbibing it. And then I am of the generation that I'm on the, I had the traditional society and traditional world or, you know, I was part of it or it was part of me, even though we then when became very westernized and, you know, with the education and everything. But because my father and my mother were the first people to do well in their community, they then became like a magnet and lots of people, they were very generous. So they supported, you know, the usual African stories. So they supported lots of relatives. So our home was a hub where lots and lots of relatives would come, lots of people would come. And one of the things they brought was stories. So I was constantly told stories, traditional stories. And I just feel so lucky that I just had, you know, constantly being told these stories. And then my parents were very, both of them were very, you know, very, very progressive. So they gave all of us children everything that we needed. And, you know, were very excited about our academic, you know, for them, the academic was really important. And so, you know, I had, you know, really great, I went to really great schools. And in those schools, there was so much, so many opportunities. So, you know, to find yourself, to try out new things, art and music and theater and sport. And interestingly enough, the sport was actually also my father's legacy to me, to us, to his family, to his kids, because he was very, very good academically and he was very, very good at sports. So when I started playing, when I got interested in sports, you know, I had somebody who just supported me, you know, and would give me the things that I needed to, you know, make my, you know, to get to become as good as I needed to become. Yeah, so that is the, that is a background a bit, a little bit. Just a bit, but we'll dive more into that actually. I, you know, I find it really interesting, just so fascinating what you said about how people just came with their stories and your home became this sort of repository of space where your family, your friends, people that your parents were hosting came and just shared this gift of a story with you. How did that influence the kind of artist you are today? You know, can you tell us a little bit about some of the work that you have been making, some of the work you make and how that influenced it at all, your practice? Absolutely. I mean, I really was lucky, it was happening, I wasn't aware that it was happening but I was clearly imbibing it. So one of the things that when I set off and became a writer, a poet, a playwright, I had this repository of stories and then, and I also had technique with me. So one of the things, one of the things that I have always been interested in is the whole decolonizing. You know, I remember sitting in history classes as an absolutely hating history because the history was sitting in there and the history teacher says, speak, discover this and Livingstone did that, discovered the other and grant and whoever and I'd sit there and I'd think, if I accept what they're saying, it negates me, you know? Well, my relatives walking around with their eyes closed, you know, why are they talking about these foreigners coming and discovering these things, right? So the stories then also acted like a buffer. So then when I started to be really interested in decolonizing and making sense, like reading Boogie with Yongo, decolonizing the mind was wonderful because I was like, oh, this is what's happening to me. You know, I understood so much. I had this buffer and I also had technique that I didn't even realize I had. So now my job is to constantly remove this Western, you know, these lenses and the system that we have been immersed in and go back and it's a process, it's like peeling an onion. So you remove one so that another next layer, it becomes possible to remove the next layer and then it becomes possible to remove the next layer, right? So this is one of the things that I'm constantly doing. So if you look at some of my earlier poems, they were much more in the Western tradition and they're very like, you know, you can see my hands, they're much more in a box and now the work that I do is much freer. You know, so some of my latest work, for example, is, you know, after about 14 years now, I've been doing this for 14 years, is now much more, it's much closer to our traditions. So there's a lot of flow and the rhythm and the music is greater. There's an interesting link to nature, you know, which I find very interesting that there's a greater link to nature. You know, so some of the work that I've done recently, for example, from taking, it's one of the pieces called Taking My Father Home and it's told from a perspective of rivers, you know, a very specific river that talks and you can just see the nature all around telling the story, even telling the story about me playing tennis, but it's nature, you know, that is imbued, you know, and that speaks. And it's a process. I mean, I'm excited to continue working on myself and removing again the layers and seeing what will I look like? What will my work look like in two years' time? Yeah, yeah, you know, there's a very interesting thing when I'm experiencing your work or when I'm watching you speak or when I've had these conversations with you that what I find fascinating is it's not just in the work but also in your process and also in your technique. There's this sort of stripping down, the peeling of the onion that is manifesting, you know, in its own way, shape and form. Could you speak a little bit more about what the stripping down of the technique of making work looks like for you? I'm curious, I mean, yes, the product and, you know, we'll get to see it later, but I'm curious how your practice or your process is non-western. Okay. I'm very fortunate that I've had people write about my process because, you know, you're just, I'm just in the process doing whatever it is that I'm doing. And it really helps when other people say, oh, this is what you're doing. So one of the things that I learned when I started to write is I have a very collaborative way of working. And if I write a poem, a new Karishma, I think can attest to this. I may call somebody and I will share it and I'm staring at it because when it bounces off another human being, even when they're not physically present, I can hear it. I can hear what's working or not working. It's like music. I can hear the wrong notes, I can hear it. And so I actually need that, that's one of the things. So, you know, individual pieces, this is one of the things that I do. I think another thing is that the practice, that the product is as important as the process to produce the product. So when I write, when I'm writing something specific, it's coming out of a new layer. So I've taken off a layer. And that layer then makes that kind of work possible, the new kind of work possible. And so I know that working with them, when I did my first production, cut off my tongue, I automatically set off, got a cast. And then everybody in the cast created with me. I wrote the poetry, I wrote the show. But each piece was taken and owned and transformed by individuals, not necessarily in the writing, in the interpretation, in the performance itself. So there was a lot of collaboration, there was a lot of discussion, you know? And one of the things that somebody said to me is, but my process is very horizontal. So I'm not the boss, yeah? You are part, everybody is part of the process. Opinions, every opinion, I want your opinion. I know what I know. You know what I know, I wrote it down. So you know, this is what I think about something. But I want to know what is it you think? And what can I take from what you think and add it onto what I think? And then create a much more complex and true representation of what the world is. So I think another thing that one of the people said, and that I also agree with is that I embrace complexity. So I'm not expecting easy answers or writing pieces that are, you know, just see one side of an issue. I do want complexity. And sometimes you can, sometimes there's a sentence that can be heard, understood in several ways. And I really love that. And sometimes it works, a sentence can work with one above it to create one understanding and then the one below it to create another understanding. So very layered, very complex, but not confusing and not incomprehensible. You know, the idea of poetry, which I love as well. I mean, I love all forms of poetry. And sometimes people say, oh, we can't understand it. People can understand my work. I want you to understand it. But I also want you to understand the layers and not to go away thinking, she's gonna give, I'm not gonna give you the answers. You know, I'm not interested in the answers. You, everybody around has got the answers that fit their life and their understanding and whatever they're dealing with at the moment. So working, you know, so a lot of my work is, as I said, begins with me and where I am at the moment. And that taking off that layer allows another way of seeing another insight that you cannot get if you are, you know, when I was, you know, 16, you know, I wouldn't have had the insight that I am now, that I have now. I'm much older, I've seen much more in life. You know, so I'm constantly bringing myself to the table. As well, as a work of art. Right, and you are a work of art in every sense of the word, right? I mean, just for the folks listening in, the first time, I mean, a few days ago when Satawa and I were having a conversation, I said to her, her very existence, like with the way she dresses up is a work of art. All Satawa has to do is walk out of her house and that is art. And for those that know her personally and have tuned in, know that, understand that feeling of like, yes, these Satawa, the ambassador Satawa, the Fed Namwalya, has walked out of her room and art is being made. And not only her, but she brings the spirits of her entire family, her entire ancestry with her, which I find very, very, very interesting. Not only in the technique and the process, but also in the work. Satawa, what topics interest you? What, I mean, you know, you've already started telling me about taking my father home. I know about Room of Lost Names, there's topics we like writing about or do you like performing or presenting about and why? Okay, I have written a lot of poetry around many, many issues and it depends on what is happening in the moment. I'm constantly listening and, you know, listening to stories and things that touch me. So, you know, taking my father home, I started to write in 2017 when my father passed away. He and I were very close and, you know, he just gave me so much and so I started to watch this as we journeyed home. And so what we do in my community, we spend, first of all, when you pass away, we spend in peacetime when there's no COVID, there's two weeks of planning, you know, the people come together, somebody said, somebody, a person buries themselves and that is so true. So, people come, you know, to support you and they contribute money, they contribute ideas, they contribute time and we, you know, like we'll have a budget and we raise whatever we needed to raise. And then we set off now and went for the actual burial. And as we set off, I started to write and it was just so fascinating for me. Being in a position in which the culture is very alive because normal times, you know, if you come to my house, you think, you know, I could be in New York, I could be anywhere. But when we have weddings and when we have funerals, when we have birth, a birth of children, that is when the culture becomes alive. And so we're living this culture and all sorts of incredible things were happening. There was a point during the day of the funeral where some of my male cousins came to me and said, they're gonna stop the funeral because my father died in the house and we have to pay a fine. And, you know, it was very, very, very dramatic. And if you'd seen me, you'd have thought, oh my goodness, she's so upset and, you know, so I sort of played along. And then it got resolved, you know, and then also something happened and, you know, so I'm watching this and it's like, it was a feast as a writer, it was a feast. So then I set off to write about it, to capture some of that. And I was also capturing it because there is this sense that these funeral practices are backward. We shouldn't do that or they waste money, you know. Because, you know, we feed people, thousands of, you know, you can get 1,000 people, you can get, you know, 500 people and then you have to feed them. And we did, we've got lots of people and, you know, because my father was a prominent person in the community and in Kenya. And so if we did, we fed them, but we don't do it by yourself. Your community is actually coming and supporting you. And I wanted people to understand that this is a valuable, valuable culture. These are valuable cultural practices and we need to, you know, reconcile ourselves with them and, you know, go back to understanding, what are we doing? What is the purpose of these many steps that we take? And if you're talking about a waste of money, why do people go to watch movies or drink, you know, go and eat out and alcohol, et cetera. You know, there's so many ways in which we allegedly waste money and we know we're not. Right? So this is for me, these are some of the cultural practices that I would like protected, that we need to protect and understand and understand that we have a mourning process that is not, you don't have to, when I hear about what happened to the West, that a person dies and then the families are left alone. I think how sad, because the family comes together, your friends come together, you know, and you're not alone and there are people to hold you. So, you know, that's one of the things. I mean, one of the other pieces that I've just recently written is Kim Pavita discovering an incredible Congolese woman, incredible who was born in 1684 and burnt at the stake by the Catholic church in Congo at age 22, because she told them that she could see, she had visions and she could see black saints walking hand in hand with white saints in paradise, in before God, and they were like, what? Not possible, among other things, you know, she was just an extraordinary, extraordinary woman and I'm gonna say it again, Kim Pavita, Google her, I don't need to tell you, just extraordinary people that we have on this continent. Yeah. Thanks, Satawa, thanks. I, you know, what you just said about funerals and marriages and the birth of children, what we'd call a Harambe here, like this coming together of community, whether it's for fundraising or whether it's, you know, to celebrate something or mourn a death, to me, sounds very much like the experience of what we would call going to the theater, right? You know, what you've explained is the idea of the West coming in and having a different understanding of what theater looks like is so different from the way the performance exists within these ritual practices, right? And then a play comes out of it, but the performance itself is that sense of community, is that way of life, is that preservation of that ritual tradition. Right. How do you navigate, you know, the balance then, because, you know, you have performed extensively across the country, but you're also an internationally acclaimed performer, how do you navigate the balance between what is happening on stage and understand the ritual practice or rituality around what is being presented? Hiroshma, just say that again. Okay, we're in the tech. Close, yeah. No problem. Just go ahead again. No problem. There's a part of me that's like, we're both in Nairobi, we should be doing this in the same room, I think. But here's to technology. You know, let's try. Next time, next time. Thank you to everybody for bearing with us. I'm just going to take a breath here so we can have, make sure we're all on the same page with technology. And I will ask my question now. What I was asking was how you navigate, given that you have performed internationally and extensively in the region as well, how do you navigate performing pieces that are understood as ritual practice in some parts of the world, but not necessarily in the same way in others? What has the audience response been? How have you made it more relevant to the audiences? If at all, have you, I guess? Right. Okay. Okay, so first of all, I don't think about an audience. I actually don't think about an audience. Because if I was going to think about an audience, who would I be thinking about? Which one? What I, but I do, but I have explored, I remember when I did cut off my tongue and we're getting incredible responses in Kenya and then we went to the UK and in four places, performed in four places, including the Hay Festival. And at the Hay Festival, most of the people who came were elderly Welsh people, you know, and they were responding in the same way as the Kenyans and then in Kenya, we performed it in a Langata women prison and Mthega Club, two polar opposites. And they were responding like, there's a place, there's one particular poem where I remember we said, you know, 500 kilometers on the Mawunga night bus and everybody laughed. I almost wanted to say, hold on, hold on. Why are you laughing? Why are you laughing? You know, what's your night bus? Why are you laughing? Okay. And I think the thing I've understood is, tell your truth, your truth. If you tell your truth, it is a human truth and it connects to everybody. So I've got a poem called, we leave our house to go, a long narrative poem called, we leave our house to go home. And I remember when I set off to write it, it was about the experience of, in a, okay, just for the non Kenyans. In Kenya, we have a home and we have a house. So Nairobi, where I live right now, this is my home, but where I come from, I mean, it's my house, but where I come from, right? So where my, you know, my ancestors come from, where my, when we were children would go back there and that is the home, right? So we leave our house to go home. And it's a whole journey. And it was an, you know, when I was a child, it was seven hours away, seven, eight hours away. They claimed it was seven, but I think sometimes it was like 10 hours away, you know, difficult. And where, you know, when we first went, you know, we'd lived in Nairobi for honestly, just a few years. I think we first went from Nairobi when I was eight or nine and we're squeezing a VW Beetle, there's five of us, five of us children, and then a mom and a dad and a cousin made. And then there's the luggage, you know, because we also used to take all our food with us. And we're traveling across the country to the Western part of Kenya, near the Uganda border. And we've got, we get punctures on the way and we are hungry and we are tired and we're squashed. And it was an incredible, and then we arrived in this place and, you know, these strange people who they told us were our relatives, you know, and, because it doesn't take long to forget, particularly if you're a child, to become used to something totally different. And they're so happy to see us and I remember them asking, they asked this irritating question. I can't tell you how irritated I used to get. Do you know me? And sometimes somebody would say, do you know, in my language, do you know me? I held you when your eyes were closed. Do you know me? I'm like, well, you've just told me that my eyes were closed. How would I know you? Right? So, and then there's a way in which, the traditional way in which they shake hands, you know? And they shake hands like this. And then they say this long thing. Swa, swa, swa, te, te, te, no, no, no, no. You know, they're going on and on. And I remember at some stage, my brothers would be like, mom, dad, tell them to stop. My hand is tired. So, and I would be bratishness. Yeah, so, that poem, listen to how specific it is to me. And then I perform it and shock, everybody gets it. Everybody gets it, because it's actually about dislocation. And we're all, your childhood is not who you are today. Even if you stayed in the same place, that childhood is not what does not, the present doesn't look anything like your childhood, right? And then many of us have moved. What is home? You go back and home is looking at you like, you're a weirdo and we were really weird. You know, we were a source of constant amusement. People would laugh at us all the time at the things we didn't know. We didn't know how to carry water on our heads anymore. Where I come from, you carry your heads on a large, very heavy pot on your head. And you go down hills and you climb back up the hills with the water, you know, full of water. And by the time we'd arrive home, we'd be wet. And they would just be rolling on the ground laughing. You know, I think, if you think about it, I mean, I read when I was growing up, the other thing that I did that I was very fortunate, that when I was growing up, I read a lot. You know, again, my father was a reader. So everybody in our family, we just read. And I got a serious, I became a serious addict. And so I'm reading lots and lots and lots of stuff. And, you know, I was reading Indian stories and Chinese and British and American and, you know, from everywhere. And if the story, if the person who the writer told their truth, it didn't matter that I've never, that I don't know, I've never seen, I've never been to China. I would get it. And I think that's the same thing. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you, Satawa. I mean, yeah, the minute you started speaking about the idea of displacement, you know, there's so much happening right now in the world where that specific poem, which didn't necessarily come from that space, could speak to refugee crisis, for example, the immigrant crisis or so many other things that are happening within our various contexts. You also started, you know, this, I guess, will be my last question before we move into our little gift presentation moment. You're speaking a lot about your father and also about how you're an avid reader and these other influences in your life that have shaped you as an artist. Could you speak a little bit more about who you are as a sportswoman and as an ambassador and a cultural diplomat and all of these other, these other hats that you wear? How do they influence you as an artist, as a maker? OK. OK. So I'll just talk about, first of all, being an environmentalist and working in development. So I'm an environmentalist. And when I was 14, I have very many epiphanies, OK? So when I was 14, I'm sitting in class and the teacher starts talking about the environment. And I was like, this is it. This thing that this woman has just said is it. I'm going to become an environmentalist. And over the years, somehow, I managed to maintain interest and I actually went to the US to study environmental studies. I did a master's degree in environmental studies. I got a scholarship to do a degree in environmental studies. I sometimes can't believe it, but it's true I did. And I worked in it for several years. And it really was amazing and it was very, very satisfying. I'm particularly working with communities. I was working with the United Nations, with working with communities, and getting them to use and managing their natural resources so they could meet their own needs. So school fees and so forth. So I had a whole range of different types of projects that I supported, from water projects around the country to biogas, energy projects, biogas, and livestock projects. And I think some of the most amazing butterfly project at the coast, the Kipepe project at the coast, which you may know, is one of the ones I supported. Organic farming was one of my favorite, really, really incredible. So just a whole range. In Pocotland, I remember supporting the Pocot farmers to reestablish an indigenous system of taking water from down in a valley and bringing it right up onto a hill and to irrigate their crops. So just an incredible experience. However, one of the things that pushed me towards becoming an artist or becoming a poet. Well, first of all, because it was my dream from when I was a child, which I didn't think I could do. But then as I continued working in development, in environment, in governance issues, women's rights issues, et cetera, human rights issues, I began to see that our problem was in our minds, what you think is what you create. And I began to see that we were adept at recreating poverty because the ideas that we had about ourselves, our colonial legacy, and then post-colonial, and all the stuff that has happened to us means that we very often recreate something negative rather than something positive. And then I thought, well, I'm going after the mind. So here I am. I'm after your minds. Yeah? If it comes to when it comes to sports, that's one of the things I really loved. And as I reflect on that, it was so interesting because I went to a particular school. And I wasn't very good at sports in that school. Everybody was much better than me. And then I had this experience where my mother moved us unceremoniously to a new school. And the school was full of mzungos. And we were very, very few Africans. And I arrived in the school and they put me somewhere. And I interpreted it as they're relegating me. And I sat there in that school. And I said to myself, you will see. And the school was very, very good at sports and very good academically. And within a term, I was on the hockey team. I was on the tennis team. And when I think about it now, I was like, what happened? I don't know what happened. But I felt exactly. I just thought because I suppose the incentive, because I thought I was being relegated to a nonsense, to a like putting me in the garbage, I rebelled. I was like, forget it. You're not going to do that to me. Watch this space. And I think it was, I mean, I loved absolutely love sports. I mean, I think it saved me in terms of even academically. My parents would tell me if I didn't do well in school, in my academics, they would stop me from playing sports. So wow, you know. So, you know, serious incentive and just and you know, the two sports are very different. So hockey is very physical. You know, you know, you run, you, you, you know, you just, it's a very much more freer kind of sport. And whereas tennis gets very intellectual and, you know, strategic and whatever. And also hockey is very dangerous. And that's one of the things I loved about it. I love that it was so dangerous, which I don't know what it says about me, but, you know, I'm sure it says a lot. You're a dangerous woman, Sitao. You're a dangerous woman. And then you learn how to, I mean, I hardly ever, ever got into trouble. I hardly ever got hit or because you learn how to, you're playing with danger. So you learn how to evade it. And the only times that I did get into problems was when we, we went to, you know, like my school and my team, a couple of times won the national Nairobi League and we then went to represent Nairobi, the national, national sports competition. And the other kids hated us because we came, you know, we were incredibly elite. You know, we spoke English, you know, the way I speak English. And so, you know, we were just like, they just, everybody just hated us and they would go for us. And so, you know, there are times when I'd have horns because the ball had hit me or a stick had hit me, you know, or whatever. And, you know, there was a time when we actually quit. We're like, this is too dangerous. We're leaving. The tennis was much more, yeah. You know, you know, that's like, I lived here, I am. Here you are telling a story. Here I am telling a story. And then tennis was much, much more, you know, it allowed a lot of travel. So I ended up traveling a lot from when I was pretty young out of Kenya, within Kenya, out of Kenya. And, but both of them, one of the things that was happening for us, because I was among the first generation, we were literally decolonizing the sport and getting a lot of, so we got a lot of flak, a lot of resistance. So we're in white spaces where, you know, these were white sports in Kenya and there we are. And, you know, little kids, you know, I got called monkey when I was a, you know, when I was a child in Kenya, I didn't have to leave anywhere to be called monkey by these little white kids at a certain club, which I shan't mention, you know, and then our parents weren't like the Mzungu parents, they weren't there. So we were on our own, you know, battling these battles. I don't even think, I hardly ever told my parents. During the time it was happening, I never told them anything. I never told them a single thing about the experiences I was going through. Stuff just happened and you had to deal with it. And so, you know, you'd get, you know, unfair judgments and you'd be by yourself on the court and all the other kids and their parents and the organizers are white and the ball is being called out when you concede in. And you just, you just, it's amazing now when I think about it, we just like, okay, we talk about it among ourselves, like, you know, that is really unfair, no, no, no, no, I actually won. But you didn't make a fuss and you just, okay, this is it. And then you come back and say, next time I'm beating you and you're gonna have to make sure that it's really hard for them to do that to you. You know, and in the end it was. You're a dangerous woman and it taught you how to fight and it's what you are today and it's very clear, right? Like there are so many experiences beyond your art that have made you the artist that you are. In every sense of the word. Yeah, absolutely. Speaking about your artistry, you know, Satawai, this is my most, I've been waiting for this for a while now but just to share with our audiences, Satawai has something special prepared for us that she'd like to share. So as I mentioned, it'll be my last sort of question and I want to hand it over to you to give us the gift that is your work, Satawai. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so give me a moment. Take your time. I had it all set up. Oh, there it is. Okay, yeah, set up. I was looking at the wrong script. So I'm going to share with you an excerpt from Taking My Father Home. And some of it I've performed but some of it I haven't. So I've been reworking the script and so I'm going to share this with you. And I just want to mention that it's just a part of it. So let me tell you about River Lusumu. Where I come from in Western Kenya, there's a river, River Lusumu, which used to be an incredibly huge river. It still is and incredibly significant for me and my people, the Banyala Bandombi. And one of the things that happened was that as we migrated from the West, from Uganda and came and ended up coming into Kenya, we used to live in forests. And for some reason the Kabaka wanted us out of the forest and we wouldn't get out of the forest. So he sent an army and they say something I read that was recorded of that time that the river, the Banyala were killed in such numbers that River Lusumu was red with the blood of the Banyala. So that's just a little snippet from history, many, many, in the 19th century. So Taking My Father Home. River Lusumu squeezes herself into a narrow channel. She becomes a thin ribbon of water and I hear her complaining and fighting to get past the rocks in her way. She stops her struggle to speak to me. You have done well. You have done well to bring your father home. Not everyone does the right thing. The sun glints off her surface. Her voice whispers with relief. He's back home. You have done well. He's been gone for years, building a life on airplanes in boardrooms, chairing meetings, advising governments, building institutions, leading the way. She continues in a low whisper. I have to strain to hear. Your father was the beginning of things. When you are the beginning of things, where do you find the center of a trail to lead you? When you're the beginning of things, to whom do you confide when your new life stares? When you are the beginning of things, how do you make your way back home? River Lusumu turns into a bully, spreads herself into a vast marsh, only to reappear again as a rhythmic waterfall, thundering over a steep cliff into an endless gorge. I am taking my father home. A daughter's loss. I know you pay the price sometimes for your father's success. I look up to find River Lusumu cradling my old sorrows in a warm, soft voice. She continues. You remember the many times your father was absent at crucial moments in your life? I remember. I nod too scared to speak in case the heartache of so many years ago breaks through. I remember. He wasn't home for my old levels. He wasn't home for my A-levels either. I remain silent in fear of betraying my father's memory. River Lusumu has no such worries and continues to speak quite freely. Let's go to your tennis career. Remember how your dream began to soar and you became the girl to beat? I smile and remember as memories of one tennis match after another slide passed, stopping every so often it's a special momentous match. River Lusumu continues with my memories and then that one match. You are up. Six love for one. Remember? I remember. I was winning. You made the mistake of moving on before you had finished the job, before the final ball had flown past your opponent. I remember. River Lusumu shouts, her words admonish me for this long ago slip up. Your mind swaggered. It cast itself in the guise of a winner. Did it not? At just six love for one, ripples interrupt the smooth flow of the river. 40-15 game. 4-2. It's okay. You're still ahead and you're serving. Your mind was dismissive and self assured. Wasn't it? Deuce advantage you. Your smug mind actually smugged. River Lusumu sigh is knowing all too well what is to follow. I remember. Deuce advantage her. Game 4-3. Whispers broadcast your imminent fall and a gloating crowd gathers. I remember. Just like that with no warning at all. The crowd signaled. I was no longer there darling. I was yesterday's news. They demanded a fresh new champion. I bristled with resistance. Only River Lusumu was on my side. Deuce advantage you. You stared down that crowd. One girl versus many eyes demanding her fall. I remember. Deuce advantage her. Game 4-all. I remember. I remember. The crowd jumps up and leashing noisy ecstasy and gobbling up all my confidence. It was in that moment that I discovered what it is to choke. I am choking. Rigamotti sets in and my body loses its natural flow. Remember? River Lusumu finishes the story. In the last set, your arms rebelled. They refuse to take orders from your derelict mind. There was a brief moment when you want to games in a row under hostile crowd. Crowd growled. The final point road passed you. The crowd erupted in celebration. In that moment, my eyes reached out in search of my father. Only to find myself alone in a world full of enemies reveling in my fall. I remember. I remember. River Lusumu flows so smoothly. She almost stands still. I am taking my father home. And now he's back home. The river is ecstatic. She bounces on pebbles with glee. The river goes into reflection whirling and dredging up old memories, gathering streams, brooks and rivulets of memory. The river sighs in relief. He is home. Now listen to the tributes flowing, flowing, pouring, filling every pot, overflowing every vessel. When he left, he looked just like these villagers come to mourn him. There he is, a two-year-old boy, looking at light through wide open eyes. Then he becomes that child of six, herding cows and sheep with casual ease. River Lusumu whispers a secret in his herd. There is a big black and white bull with long horns and a filthy temper. But the bull is no match for your father and his seasoned expertise. The river laughs at this runaway memory. There, look there. I look and I see a thin young boy of 15 standing in the distance, anchored to the ground by only the all-knowing confidence of a teenager. The river has already moved on and is now pointing out the new young man about to stride out into the world in a borrowed jacket, patched trousers, worn and ironed to a shine. Well, all these my father wants. I am taking my father home. I will stop there. Thank you. Thank you so much, Satawa. There's no better way for us to call it a wrap here, just leaving us with so many questions and so much to take away and think about. I'm lost for words myself as you can see. So I, thank you. Thank you very much, Satawa. Thank you. I, you know, yeah. I just want to also thank Rory and Raphael and Lucy. Thank you so much for being here and communicating the story using different words and different language with our other, you know, our audience members. Thank you so much to the HowlRound Commons for hosting us on this series and to the Merribee Musical Theatre Initiative and the Tiberias Foundation as well for being co-producers. And Satawa, just thank you for the gift that you are for us, the young ones on, and old ones and everybody here in Kenya and my whole family, you know. Maybe if you could just share with us what is the best way to follow your work so that our other audience members and listeners can follow you, let us know. OK. OK, I mean, I'm on social media and you can follow my work there. I've been doing quite a lot of work online lately, which is a lot of fun. And I will have new initiatives quite soon. Yeah. I look forward to engaging with all of you and thank you, everybody. Thank you for the whole team and such a great initiative. It's been an incredible session. Thank you so much. Thank you, Satawa. And so we'll sign off here, but feel free to tune in for our conversation next week. It's the same time, same place at the comfort of your couch. We have another wonderful panelist joining us next week. So I hope to see you all soon at 8 p.m. East Africa time. I believe that's 12 p.m. New York time and 9 p.m. California time. So it's 9 a.m. California time. Sorry, see you all then. OK, take care.