The common cliché in Kenya is that every Lavington has a Kawangware and every Ngumo and Lang’ata has a Kibera. This changes a bit to the East, Runda has a slum but Muthaiga has a mental hospital protecting it from Mathare slum. What does mental illness got to do with economic class?
Word has it that there lived a special mad man in Migori, South Nyanza. He would come from his home smartly dressed and engage people in normal talk and political discussions. When it came time to answer to a long call of nature, shock on you if you were not prepared. He would walk to an open space, and then proceed to fully undress himself. He would go ahead and relieve himself oblivious of people around him then dress up again. He would then proceed with the day’s business as usual.
Like the man from Migori, we are all prone to a surge of insanity. Then again, it is mad people who change the world. What matters is how you use the madness streak in you. Like the ‘mad men and women’ who went before us, those who were first misunderstood but later revered, we can make the world a better place.
John the Baptist and his cousin Jesus Christ were ‘mad men’ when they sprung into the scene in Israel. Galileo shocked the world with his revelation that the world is not flat like a table. William Wilberforce knew that Britain could survive economically without cheap labour from slaves. The irony is, these men were rejected by the people before what they said was believed. May our madness not separate us from each other like Mathare Mental Hospital but bridge the many social gaps that exist among us.
© 31 August 2011- otieno kenyatta
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