German | Kenyan
I am a half Kenyan, half German Sufi. I consider myself mixed-race. I also identify as Black and African. My Mother is from Kenya and my Father is German. They met in Nairobi in the late seventies at a party. They married in Kenya and I was born in Bonn, West Germany in 1985. My Mother is half Luo and half Kikuyu, which is a combination that is still uncommon nowadays as the two tribes tend to distrust one another. As a result of the mixture, her parents spoke English to one another and not their mother tongue. My Kenyan Grandfather was fortunate to study at Oxford and worked as a diplomat in Ethiopia and Switzerland. His siblings were Ambassadors in various countries in Europe. So my Kenyan family is already very cosmopolitan. My cousin whom I grew up with is half Kenyan half Italian. Our families are very intertwined, so we grew up like twins. English was mainly spoken at home. Christmas is usually in warm Kenya, but we celebrate it on Christmas Eve like most Germans and we often have German Lebkuchen and stolen. If our Kenyan/Italian family is there then we have some Panatone and if our Kenyan Swedish cousins are there then its Swedish toasts.
I personally believe that interracial relationships and children are the future. There is so much strength in mixing. Though it can make some feel like outsiders, it can also make you more compassionate to others and be someone of many worlds. It can also provide healing for very polar cultures and nations. On the other hand, many people I know are intercultural in their own ways; through their experiences, travels, education and relationships. And this is a great wealth to have too. I was lucky to grow up with a whole group of interracial children in Kenya, for instance we had birthday parties with kids that were Italian/Kenyan, Canadian/Ethiopian, Ethiopian/Italian or inter-cultural so White Polish/Swedish but Kenyan by nationality.
When I was born in Bonn in 1985 my Kenyan mother struggled there racially; not overtly but she found people unfriendly and unwelcoming because she was Black. I was in Bavaria recently to visit my friends and their new born child who is Zulu/German and I found the same feelings my Mum experienced were what my Zulu friend was experiencing too. Again, not overt racism but just a slight coldness and misunderstanding from people. So, I think it really depends on the places you are in and the people you are surrounded by. I believe it is important to stay open to the ‘other’ and not be limited by your own perceptions of people or limitations of yourself.
I truly believe that you are the sum of your experiences, so though I have some very strong Kenyan attributes, and my mind is German in many ways, I also had a British education in Kenya, graduated from high school in France, lived in Holland and South Africa since and later became a Sufi Muslim. So, my culture is unique to me, as I am sure yours is to you. So we are an amalgam of what ‘rings true for us’. I have certain things I am looking for in a partner that are not dictated by his or my culture, such as kindness, but I will admit, I do want someone who is worldly. That is important to me; Worldly and open, kind of course and a few other things.
I have experienced a lot of confusion about my identity. I have always feel like I stick out, often feeling like the odd one out which really unsettled me. In Kenya, I was never Kenyan enough. I get called Mzungu (White person) and in Germany, I am obviously Black and Germany, different to England, does not have real space for Black Germans. So feeling out of place, always made me want to blend in, which in its own way has worked against me. I am only now really owning my strength with having Teutonic blood AND coming from the Cradle of Africa where mankind began. Only now am I owning my ‘mane’ and wearing my hair out loudly and proudly, instead of making my hair neat, ‘acceptable’ and not ‘bushy’.
When I was young, the first British school I went to in Kenya really traumatised me. It was very pro English to the point where I felt my race was not enough. I felt ugly and dirty and that stayed with me for a long time. I began to consider myself German and not Kenyan/German. At 7, I went home one day and so I could look like the English girls, I cut a fringe and lo and behold, with my afro hair, it backfired! It obviously didn’t stay down and I ended up with a dark cloud over my forehead for years. It’s shocking how racism, imperialism and consequential self-hatred can be so entrenched. I spent two years in the South of France and experienced a lot of prejudice about Africans. A guy asked me once if I was sure I wouldn’t give him HIV. I was 17 and at that age it can really mess with your perception of yourself. I later lived in Cape Town for five years and let me tell you, it was not easy at all as Cape Town is still a very racist and prejudiced city. In hindsight it forced me to really come to terms with and understand my racial identity. In South Africa there is a race called ‘Coloureds’, they are a mixture of different races over various generations. They very much have their own culture and sometimes language. Though I looked like I was coloured, I didn’t consider myself to be one, as my culture was not theirs. My one parent was Black and the other White. I also did not have the same history or nor language. This made me more aware of where I was from and how it made me who I was. Though I longed to be monotone, was a polytonic, this spurred me to come to terms with the richness of my heritage. I was also very offended by how many coloureds never acknowledged their Black ancestry only their White, and many were racist towards (full) Black people. Anyway, in Cape town I realised I define who I am, not the other. What cannot be removed from me is my attachment to my kanga. A kanga is a cloth from the East African coast that is multipurpose. Its ornate with designs (flowers, stars, cell phone) and it often has a proverb on it. I love my kanga and will go nowhere without it. You can wear it when you get home to chill, it can be an apron when cooking a tasty stew, it can be a headscarf, sarong, you can sleep with it, you can pray with it, you can carry your baby in it, and you can use it as a pillow case (when you are somewhere where you just can’t trust the sheets).
I grew up in Kenya and I had spent my last 10 years there, before I moved to the UK. Living in Kenya as an adult, was very gratifying for me. I began to understand myself and Kenya more. I was born in Germany and lived there as a toddler. I’ve been there for summers and a month or two here and there but my German is not great and that means I cannot connect as deeply to the culture. I would very much like to spend more time there, and I would like to master the language. Every time I am there I feel I get ‘downloads’ on a spiritual and ancestral level. Almost like it fills in parts of myself. Nevertheless, when you are ‘African’ it’s very hard to get it out of your blood, so I still feel more Kenyan than German.
At the moment I work for myself, so I cannot say anything about my workplace, but since moving to the UK, I have a feeling that because I identify as an African filmmaker, people think less of my work. Could that be revealing what they think about Africa? I also see that when you come from different worlds you can have the perspective of all the worlds, and when you are in a world that seems ‘cosmopolitan’ you think that people are the same as you but you realise that they only have the limited perception of their world when you have the advantage of seeing all the worlds. I have also learnt that when we consider ourselves ‘open-minded’ it’s very dangerous as we often stop checking ourselves.