MAY DAY NAIROBI 2024

The citizens of Kenya continue to face difficult times. The increased cost of basic and essential household items such as food, transport, education, and energy has led to unrest highlighting the high cost of living for ordinary Kenyans. Contributing factors include a prolonged drought experienced in 2022 and into 2023, significant depreciation of the Kenyan shilling, a plethora of new taxes introduced by the new regime, and recent floods have all added to the misery of the common 'wananchi' (citizen). Slum dwellers, who generally live day-to-day, are usually the first to be impacted. Casual work is their mainstay, and an absence of work means no food or fuel for cooking that day.

The government at all levels has, at best, been indifferent to its people’s troubles and seems to regularly find new ways to torment them. The closure of schools is just one such issue. The end of term 1 holidays are gazetted by law as two weeks, but now schools have been closed for over a month. The government had neither money nor food to keep them open, and now floods have prevented them from reopening. For our school going children, it is largely a case of 'no school, no food, daytime food anyway.'

In all this misery, there has been only one winner: 'The Ruben Centre Orchestra.' A one-week holiday music program was initiated, and daily, over one hundred and twenty kids and about fifteen instructors have enabled great learning outcomes for the orchestra.

Seeing young people come alive as they foster their talents in music has been a source of great delight to me personally, and this was personified when I attended a concert held at All Saints Cathedral in downtown Nairobi. A packed cathedral with a great social cross-section of people gathered for a performance by the Nairobi Music Society together with the Nairobi Orchestra of Haydn’s Creation & Schubert’s Mass in G (Click here to see and listen to a brief snippet).

A music philistine like myself would never normally darken the door of such a grand occasion; however, I was issued an invitation from one of our very own orchestra members. It turned out that not one, but five of our older orchestra students, who have now just completed their high school, have been invited into the Nairobi Orchestra. (Click here to see and listen to a brief snippet.)

I call it vertical dialogue, where all social classes mingle as one; something sadly infrequently occurring. Pursuing this theme in conversation with one of our orchestra kids, Collins, I learned how rich the whole experience is for him. In addition to being supported with transport for weekly practice at one of the city’s finest international schools, he is making a variety of friends from different cultures and age groups. The Ruben Centre’s motto of “empowering Mukuru community” is alive and well, surely!

[L-R] Ruth, Br. Frank, ColSlins, Ruben Orchestra conductor Brian, Purity, Marion and Phillis

A Coming of Age

Winners of the grand cash price of Ksh. 5000 standing with Br. Frank.

The Ruben Orchestra began in a humble fashion just ten years ago when I welcomed the Ghetto Classics Orchestra, or the flagship of the Art Of Music Foundation, and its founder Elizabeth Njoroge, to bring their program to the Ruben Centre. A few primary students playing recorder in 2014, and fast forward to 2024, the presence of these five kids at the Cathedral, together with a two-week music holiday program where the older students tutored the younger learners; surely real sustainability at work!Orchestra students were invited to establish various brass and string quartets and quintets early in the camp, and the final day concert concluded with a competition for these groups as well as the whole orchestra. Prize money from KSHS 5,000/- for the first prize all the way to KSHS 1,000/- for fifth ensured very real enthusiasm among the groups. Congratulations!!

Now over a month into the schools' closures, I can truly declare that the only winners in all this tough time are the orchestra kids. The planned one-week became two weeks and could have been three weeks due to the unforeseen further delaying the opening of Term II announcement by the Education Ministry at 2:00 AM this very Monday morning and the scheduled opening day. African fiction writer Bryce Courtney was onto something with his phrase that sums up much of life here, 'Africa Wins Again.'

This great holiday program was only possible thanks to funds raised at Tracey Centre Melbourne in January when our international opera performer Breana Stillman, together with Louise of ERFA, prepared a delightful evening of Opera in The Gardens, and I am now paying tribute to everyone who made the occasion so successful and enjoyable.

Enjoy the images from the camp and may you concur with me, "Truly Gorgeous! ...And a real ray of sunshine in bleak desperate times here in Kenya."

With thanks,

Br. Frank

Director

Summary from Brian Mwanika, Ruben Orchestra Conductor

During the April holiday, the Ruben Center hosted a music camp from April 15th to April 19th. The camp was led by our alumni students who completed high school last year, serving as instrumental tutors. These included Collins Odhiambo and Marion Nasike on violin, Tracy Muia on cello, Winnie Njeri on double bass, Miriam Wanjiru and Veronicah Mwende on flute, Winfred Ayieko and Vionah Awuor on clarinet, Centrine Nekesa on saxophones, Peninah Akhaere on trumpet, Phylis Amolo on trombone, and Jemimah Mwende handling choir and recorders. The camp engaged one hundred pupils across different instruments. The repertoire focused on music from Disney movies, such as Encanto, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Avengers, Remember Me, Moana, and Hamilton. Players formed ten ensembles to compete against each other, culminating in awards for the top five groups. This camp not only enhanced their musical skills but also fostered creativity, socialization, personal development, and physical and mental fitness, providing an inspiring and safe environment for growth.

Edits: Gregory Barake