We have had a partial lockdown in Kenya for a month or so, with a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and limited movement in and outside of Nairobi and t...
We have had a partial lockdown in Kenya for a month or so, with a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and limited movement in and outside of Nairobi and the coast. Restaurant restrictions were partially lifted last Monday, but on my one grocery shopping trip since mid-March, the only perceptible differences were people wearing masks and “non-essential” retailers generally being closed.
Being human means that when you cannot have something, you should miss it – in my case, the travelling for work and pleasure and, closer to home, the Spring Valley coffees.
Yet every morning I wake up to a racket of birdsong, the prospect of the finest Kenyan arabica made all of one floor down, and an imaginary Indian village wedding scene on a deep red background, and feel content.
On the one hand, constraints abound. Even today, marriage can – for women, Indian women – symbolise confinement. The oil painting has the profile of the groom in the background, face covered, riding a white horse, towards a crowd. The guests are mostly women, some carrying children. Conjectured wedding singing and chatter fill the canvas. In the foreground, the enigmatic bride and her bare-headed, western-dressed companion stare at the viewer, perhaps in anticipation. These portraits,...
