By Ogova Ondego
Published September 28, 2019
That every normal human being needs a time and a place to reflect on life is a given. Whether it is for team-bonding, strategy-hammering, peace-building, soul-searching or spiritual-meditation, this calls for some kind of solitude, aloneness or retreat from routine activities.
Would you like to hear more about a venue that might just be right for you and your lover, company, chama or family retreat?
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I just came across the place you may consider for your next conference, seminar, workshop, board meeting. And it is just some two hours away from the bustle and hustle of Nairobi City. This is an arts and culture centre, a pop literature and information communication technology museum, a botanic garden and a home, complete with traditional architecture in a rural Akamba setting.
The place, at the border of Machakos and Makueni counties of Ukambani on the eastern side of Nairobi, is the brainchild of David Gian Maillu, one of Africa’s most prolific writers who is also considered the father of pop literature in Kenya. It is therefore little surprising that the centre, designed, built and owned by Maillu, revolves around the book: writing, editing, design, publishing.
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As you enter the house-cum literature museum-cum culture centre you see real books not on traditional shelves but hanging on the four walls of the room as if they were paintings, posters or photographs.
“Welcome home,” a beaming Maillu says, a broad smile crossing his face as he extends his hand and ushers you into the cavernous maisonette that he has designed and built. “A copy of every book that I have ever written is stored in this museum.”
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Is this a studio, an office, a creative writing college, a book museum or a centre of culture and the arts?, I ask.
“It is all of these and many more things rolled into one,” says Maillu, a musician, painter, philosopher, theologian, palmist and politician who is better known for his writing. The man is an enigma that is wrapped up in mystery.
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“I stand as the most published author in Africa,” Maillu says as he takes you on a tour of the house and the compound. “My ability to write, edit and design enabled me to launch and operate a successful publishing career.”
Hundreds of copies of Maillu’s books–published by Comb Books, Maillu Publishing House, African Comb Books, Macmillan Education, East African Educational Publishers, Jomo Kenyatta Foundation, Kenya Literature Bureau, Evans and Brothers, Long Horn, and MPB Enterprises–are available in this literature museum.
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If you only associate Maillu with titles such as After 4:30, My Dear Bottle or even Unfit for Human Consumption, this book museum introduces you to titles such as Mbengo and the Princess, My High school Love, Kisa cha Peremende, Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Cost of Being beautiful, The Government’s Daughter, Beautiful Wendo, The Ayah, Untouchable, The Kommon man, Our Kind of Polygamy, Kadosa, Broken Drum, The Black Adam and Eve, African Indigenous Political Philosophy, My Dear Mariana, Ki’ kyambonie, The Nairobian and Forgive and Forget.
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Maillu is particularly proud of the 1120-page Broken Drum, seven-volume Kadosa, African Indigenous Political Philosophy and KA: Holy Book of Neter that he describes as ‘My major works’.
A visit to this book museum in Makueni accords you the rare opportunity to leaf through all these books that could be described as a national treasure.
Also on display in the various rooms of the house are a sample of tools that were at one time or another used in or related to book production: archaic type writers; manual cameras for still photography; primitive computer monitors, screens and key boards; and fixed telephone sets.
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A room that can accommodate up to 120 conference delegates sits on the first floor of the house, giving you an eye-pleasing view of the scattered trees, shrubs and herbs growing naturally on semi arid red soil. This is welcome relief from the monotony of the environment-assaulting concrete, steel and glassy skyscrapers of Nairobi.
The maisonette that is built of natural stone also has smaller rooms that could accommodate 15 – 20 people.
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But if you, like me, enjoy natural environment, you are likely to take your time under the shady trees or walking around the open fields. A botanic garden, a shrine and a couple of nurseries in which seedlings of various plants are grown are also at hand.
Of special note is a meeting area in which naturally-occurring stones have been arranged in the form of a table and seats for four to six people. It is utilitarian art.
This venue may also be suitable for performance-, screen- and, of course, literary arts.
