Scene I — The Silence After
(Complete darkness. No music. No slogans. No cheering. Only wind. Slow light rises on the unfinished road. The same road. The same potholes. The same broken signboard: “Coming Soon: Modern Lari Highway” The sign now hangs crooked. Half destroyed by rain. Mzee Kihoto enters slowly carrying a lantern. He walks carefully around potholes as though navigating history itself. He stops center stage. Looks at audience. Long silence.)
Mzee Kihoto: There is something dangerous about repeated suffering. Eventually…people adjust to it. (Pause.) At first bad leadership shocks a nation. Then it disappoints a nation. Then finally… it entertains a nation. (Long silence.) And that is when collapse truly begins. (He places lantern beside road sign.) I have watched this community for many years. I have watched; roads launched more times than completed, dispensaries opened without medicine, schools built or painted without teachers, youth graduate into unemployment, and leaders become richer. Yet every election…the music returns. And suddenly memory disappears.
(Lights widen slowly. Several villagers emerge silently from darkness; Nyina wa Wanja, Kamau, Elder, women carrying water, unemployed youth, tired workers. Nobody speaks initially. They simply exist. Heavy. Exhausted.)
Nyina wa Wanja: I used to think poverty was our greatest problem. Now I know the problem is our mind. We keep voting in the wrong people because of handouts. We are definitely like a chicken that is lured with maize to get into a cage. If we do not use our mind well we will keep repeating our mistakes.
Elder: We no longer expect honesty. Only slightly better thieves.
(Bitter laughter.)
Kamau: Do you know what frightens me most? Not politicians. Not bad leadership. Not even poverty. What frightens me… is how easily we the people adapt to bad leadership. And finally, we become parents of bad leadership.
Woman: What choice do ordinary people have?
Kamau: Memory. Memory of bad leaders. Memory of poor choices. That is the choice. But we do not accept we make fatal mistakes.
(Complete darkness. No music. No slogans. No cheering. Only wind. Slow light rises on the unfinished road. The same road. The same potholes. The same broken signboard: “Coming Soon: Modern Lari Highway” The sign now hangs crooked. Half destroyed by rain. Mzee Kihoto enters slowly carrying a lantern. He walks carefully around potholes as though navigating history itself. He stops center stage. Looks at audience. Long silence.)
Mzee Kihoto: There is something dangerous about repeated suffering. Eventually…people adjust to it. (Pause.) At first bad leadership shocks a nation. Then it disappoints a nation. Then finally… it entertains a nation. (Long silence.) And that is when collapse truly begins. (He places lantern beside road sign.) I have watched this community for many years. I have watched; roads launched more times than completed, dispensaries opened without medicine, schools built or painted without teachers, youth graduate into unemployment, and leaders become richer. Yet every election…the music returns. And suddenly memory disappears.
(Lights widen slowly. Several villagers emerge silently from darkness; Nyina wa Wanja, Kamau, Elder, women carrying water, unemployed youth, tired workers. Nobody speaks initially. They simply exist. Heavy. Exhausted.)
Nyina wa Wanja: I used to think poverty was our greatest problem. Now I know the problem is our mind. We keep voting in the wrong people because of handouts. We are definitely like a chicken that is lured with maize to get into a cage. If we do not use our mind well we will keep repeating our mistakes.
Elder: We no longer expect honesty. Only slightly better thieves.
(Bitter laughter.)
Kamau: Do you know what frightens me most? Not politicians. Not bad leadership. Not even poverty. What frightens me… is how easily we the people adapt to bad leadership. And finally, we become parents of bad leadership.
Woman: What choice do ordinary people have?
Kamau: Memory. Memory of bad leaders. Memory of poor choices. That is the choice. But we do not accept we make fatal mistakes.
