Andiah: Stories about small things, small moments, small relationships and...

Andiah Kisia’s rural home is at Kidundu, Vihiga, where she sponsors a community library. She presently lives in Nairobi, taking a break, after working in several countries including Cameroon and Ghana. 

Andiah recalls that her curiosity to reading was kindled by Wanjiru the Sacrifice and other children tales. She recalls Luanda Magere, the heroic legend. She was very young then and the curiosity fire to today today burns bright. 

From little childhood stories, Andiah adds that at her youth she consumed a lot of political and radical stories, that she says again she did wean herself over and took to cynical ones, a taste that she now balances with.

However Andiah today wants and desires nothing but neighborhood stories. Of small moments, small things, small relationships and incredible beauty of everyday life. What of a Nairobi story? What of a Buruburu or South C story? She asks. 

Not so lucky to hear from the mouth of her grandparents while growing up, she but does recall her grandfather speak of Nandi night raiders who would be selling and buying with them at market in the day. Here it hit Andiah that blood antagonists were people again to be met and associated with on a different scale. 

Top is that, among other benefits to reading, it develops in one a sense of empathy. The reader is able to put their feet in the shoes of the characters. And to read best is not to read for any other reason but for fun and pleasure. 

Today the world is gadget-centered, young readers prefer seeing and hearing to reading. In UK the reading level is 9years (similar to USA Grade 3). Though rural Kenya is slowly being encroached by the gadgets, Andia observes that the little ‘hot’ clips of little concentration span on the phones may not be of benefit as reading and internalizing the stories in books would. Hence ‘let not great be enemy of good’, a saying she picks as essential for life. 

And finally, Andiah observed that a system to track books for circulation would prevent loss of books and misplacements of them. Books are expensive, investment is needed and more effort is required to access support. 

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A clap for Andiah for accepting to be the 1st Guest to Our Mama Heritage Cultural Series Talks & Fundaraisers