Even poetry is a career
By Mwaura Samora msamora@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Sunday, September 19 2010 at 16:57
Posted Sunday, September 19 2010 at 16:57
Sitawa “Sweetawa” Wafula is among the artistic minds riding the crest of the giant poetic wave that is currently sweeping across Nairobi and the country.
What sets the 26-year-old above the rest in this rapidly emerging sector of the entertainment industry is the fact that she scripts her arithmetically savvy lyrical lines as much for art as to advance the welfare of the human course.
“How odd numbers experience most of the joys experienced by their even counterparts despite not being divisible by two,” she says in one verse that she has been using in a campaign for the girl child.
The gallantry and zeal with which Wafula does her thing belies the fact that she landed in the world she thrives in more by chance than choice.
“I never had any interest in poetry in high school beyond the mandatory literature lessons, hence composing or performing in public was never heard of in planet Sitawa,” she recounts.
Mathematics had always been Wafula’s subject of choice. So when she joined the University of Nairobi in 2003 for a degree in Actuarial Science, her sole mission was to graduate and establish a career in the world of high finance.
But unknown to her, destiny had already conspired to turn the tides of her life in a strange direction.
During the second year of her studies, she started to experience severe seizures which would put her down for weeks. Spells in and out of hospital became a regular feature of the diary of her life.
Apart from the interruptions to her academic work, the hospital bills were also rising, whittling down the family savings meant to cater for her school fees. She eventually dropped out of college in 2005 to concentrate on recuperation.
“This was hard on me and I eventually slipped into depression. Watching and listening to colleagues making plans for their graduation pushed me deeper into the psychological abyss,” she recalls.
But as Nelson Mandela once said “the greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
The soft spoken but iron willed entrepreneur narrates that during the crisis the “greatest tower to Sitawa” proved to be her resolute desire to live and have a strong belief in the Almighty.
“Today is the foundation of tomorrow, so things can only get better or worse depending on what you have going today. Therefore, I try my best to give my all today for a bigger, better, and brighter tomorrow,” she explains the life energy that kept her going in those tough times.
“Circumstances and people can only put you down if you allow them to.”
It was during that period that Wafula discovered the therapeutic benefits of creative writing, using this expressive art form to drain her inner pain.
“I loved my pen and paper for they were always there for me. I wrote a lot about things I needed to offload and this helped me a lot.”
She has compiled her pieces into a book that she hopes to launch soon.
However, even with the new-found way to vent her inner storms, more challenges awaited.
“I was still having seizures which would sometimes put me in hospital for up to two weeks so I couldn’t hold a job for long.
On one occasion, I blacked out as I was serving a client,” she explains.
On one occasion, I blacked out as I was serving a client,” she explains.
She laments the discrimination of employers against staff with chronic conditions.
Among the regular events that her company organises is the monthly poetry night at Discovery Restaurant where lovers of the spoken word congregate for an evening of reading and reciting poems.
She also conducts workshops for aspiring poets where she takes them through the basics of writing and performing.
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