/ARTS WEEKLY/THEATRE-KENYA: On the Receiving End of Abusive Words

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Katy Salmon

NAIROBI, Apr 1 2003 (IPS) - The word vagina is just a biological term for a woman’s genitalia. But try mentioning it in public in Kenya and you will find yourself on the receiving end of a stream of far more shocking, abusive words.

In this conservative country, tradition reigns and decent people are not supposed to talk about vaginas.

Some Kenyans believe that women should not wear trousers because it encourages them to become sex workers. Others unsympathetically dismiss women who have been stripped naked in public for wearing mini-skirts as having been "asking for it".

Enter Mumbi Kaigwa, Kenya’s feted actress, producer and director, with a daring dream – to stage Eve Ansler’s award-winning play ‘The Vagina Monologues’ in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

The play is frank and explicit, based on hundreds of interviews Ensler held with women about their relationships with their vaginas. Readings range from the jokey – ‘What would your vagina wear? What would it say?’ – to horrific testimonies of rape and abuse.

After early performances, Ensler was often approached by women telling her about their own experiences of violence. She began to use performances to raise funds for organisations working to stop violence against women and girls.

From this, ‘V-Day’ was born, as a global fund-and awareness-raising movement with events being staged in hundreds of venues around the world, from Nova Scotia to Manila.

"I’ve been asked time and again, ‘Do you think Kenya is ready for ‘The Vagina Monologues’?" Kaigwa recalls.

"Before you answer that question, describe how a day, from the time you wake up, will change when there is no more violence. How will your thoughts change, your clothes change, your body change, your feelings change?

"How will it change the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you treat other people, the way you expect to be treated? Then ask yourself if Kenya is ready," she says.

It was not easy.

"I’ve had people calling me and insulting me, telling me, ‘We’d better not see you in the streets. We thought you were a more respectable person, how could you be associated with something like this? You are making our women rebel’," says actress Lorna Irungu, who took part in the play and also helped with publicity.

One female member of parliament said she had wanted to take part but decided not to because of the abuse she would have received from male members of the House.

Kenya’s second largest daily newspaper, the ‘East African Standard’, didn’t even have the guts to print the word vagina, instead writing ”v