Produced by Studio 63 Productions
Wazee Wa Kenya: Mohamed Mohamud
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WAZEE WA KENYA: MOHAMED MOHAMUD
During the contentious 1960’s, as African states enjoyed their newly gained independence, Kenya and Somalia were at the verge of erupting into a full scale war. The hilly semi-arid Kenyan town of Isiolo descended into mayhem as the shifta, a group of Somali militia, took up arms and launched a ferocious guerilla warfare against the Kenyan government. They demanded a secession from Kenya and a merger with Somalia.
The government’s response of unassailable brutality created a great deal of polarization.
Mohamed Mohamud, a young man in his twenties, was part of those rounded up and condemned into monitored and fenced concentration camps.
WAZEE WA KENYA: ZAHRA SUGULEY YUSUF
Zahra Suguley Yusuf's restless quest for a better life has seen her suffer all sorts of mishaps. From the very onset, her tale is a poignant overcoming of loss after loss. As a child, her mother was taken away from her. Her older sisters took up the maternal role and raised her well but they died just when she started maturing. Her first husband was deported. Her second husband abandoned her for another woman. Of the seven children she birthed, only three have survived.
Yusuf narrates how her son succumbed to a foreigner’s mendacity and in the process lost his sanity. As a bright 13 year old boy, her son had a shortcoming of following people around. But the unproportionate price he ended up paying for this simple pubescent mistake would end up affecting him and his mother for the rest of their lives.
Regardless of his mental condition, sulub has shown progenic loyalty to his mother. Of her remaining children, only he stuck with her, keeping her company.
“The elderly are contrived from a volatile mixture of ingredients: fragility, senility, illness, fear and a looming shadow of death. Yet very few of us discuss their plights. And those who do, do so using insensitive platitudes.”
Kenya’s Probation and Aftercare Services Documentary. Story: John Lokomoi (PLEAD Project, UNODC).
“I wasn’t trying to kill someone. I was just doing my job. ”
