Author: Jean Davison 

Publisher: Kirinyaga Publishers, Texas, USA

ISBN: 0-9785150-0-5

When the American anthropologist and author Jean Davison returns to her home base in Kenya’s verdant highland, she is not merely crossing political boundaries; she is, instead, transcending ethnic lines to assess the social change in her beloved Kenyan people. It’s been over a decade now since she last enjoyed her stay with her friends in Kenya and Jean’s curiosity to know about the whereabouts of these almost magically attractive women of color has taken the form of ‘calls’ that are inviting her to return to Africa. So she does in a time when political change in Kenya is shifting toward a more democratic set up. For Jean, it’s the perfect moment to soothe her nostalgic nerve by catching up with the stories of Kenyan women with whom she has long acquainted.

In her fluent, spontaneous, and clear style of reproducing her memories in the form of stories, Jean explains the metaphor of the ostrich as it pertains to the life in the green hillsides of Kirinyaga, literally meaning ‘the mountain of the ostrich’. The natives living in the ‘shadow’ of this once-snowy mountain represent the spirit of the ostrich-fiercely protective of its freedom but ready to bury its head in sand when some untoward wind thwarts their natural ease. Jean’s mention of the ‘new beginnings’ that she feels upon her return to Kenya hooks the reader on whether the shift in status quo is a bold awakening or a cowering of the ostrich.

The Ostrich Wakes is a cross-genre book, at once history and biography; travel and cultural exploration; gender analysis in Kenya as well as a political observation. The richest content of the book, however, is the trans-generational portrayal of a Kenyan woman’s life seen through the eyes of a an anthropologist, and more so through the eyes of a woman from the developed west who left her society’s stereotypes behind to make a wholesome experience of her travel to Africa.

Jean’s interviews with the younger generation of several Kenyan women, and some men, present the bridge between the older times of worshipping cultural practices to the more aware stage of striving for a better life through education and vocational training. Waking from the time of female circumcision and unbridled polygyny to self-fulfillment and independence, the ‘ostrich’ has come to eye the transition of a woman working in the tea fields to one managing the government offices. As Jean infers, today’s Kenyan woman values three things above all else: respect for women, their physical security, and education.

While the social improvement witnessed by Jean is the crux of her book, the reader’s curiosity is baited by the issue of the ostrich’s’ obliviousness to serious health matters like AIDS and the collateral damage associated with urbanization. Jean has worked hard to unveil the general resistance among Kenyans to discuss AIDS openly because their culture tends to discourage discussing it. As the risk is there, the metaphor of the ostrich is illustrated by Jean in the context of the ‘animal’ shrinking from the ominous ‘winds’ of AIDS by burying its head in the sand of its tradition. But, as the author sees the scenario, the ostrich people are awakening, shaking off the lethargy and despair, and hope lights the horizon of their existence. 

The Ostrich Wakes is an inspiring journey of a woman who describes her characters so lovingly and imparts the full aura of the place that is still in the cool embrace of Mother Nature. For a long while, Jean’s return to the waking ostrich will serve to wake the many slumbering ostriches of our modern, educated, and sophisticated world.                            

The above review was contributed by: Ernest Dempsey,  pen name of Karim Khan. Karim  is  from Pakistan and is a Research Associate in Geology and he writes fiction, nonfiction, and book reviews. To read more of Karim's Reviews CLICK HERE