In this interview with
Tom Odhiambo, 82-year old Elimo Njau – real name Rekyaelimoo – talks about birth in Tanzania, education in Uganda and settling in Kenya, where he eventually set up Paa ya Paa Art Gallery. Paa ya Paa is a preeminent art gallery in Kenya, which has survived the ups and downs that afflict Kenyan art, since 1966. Elimo turned 82 on Sunday 24th of August this year.
Odhiambo: How did you end up in Kenya?
Elimo: The first time I was invited to paint murals on the life of Jesus Christ at the St. James and All Martyr’s Cathedral Anglican Church in Murang’a by Bishop Obadiah Kariuki. This was a very holy man. When I arrived, Bishop Kariuki hosted me and chiefs Kigo and Njiiri gave me a tour of the then Fort Hall District. We drove around in a Landrover. Those days people feared Landrovers and when they saw one they would salute whether there was a ‘mzungu’ or not because it was a colonial symbol.
I was twenty four and had just completed my studies at the Makerere University College. I was very frightened when I went to the Church, wondering, ‘My God, they’ve allowed me to spoil the walls.’ You know in churches the walls are very clean but the bishop was praying for me as I stayed with him. I really felt touched by the prayers as well as by the Virgin Mary.
I asked myself how I would paint the murals but eventually I believed I would be able to do it because as a child, I was born and kept alive by my father’s faith. I was supposed to die as a baby. The missionaries who were looking after me in the hospital told my father to take me home to die peacefully because I was very sick. My father took me home and prayed the whole night and the following morning he found me laughing and joking. I had recovered. And so he named me ‘Rekyaelimoo’- he told me that I wouldn’t have been alive if it were not for God.
Question: Was he Anglican or Catholic?
Answer: He was one of the founders of the Lutheran Church in Tanzania.
Question: How did your father get into the Lutheran Church?
Elimo: I’m originally from Tanzania. My father was educated by the Germans and became a teacher of Kiswahili, German and Agriculture. They gave him a scholarship to Germany but there was a mix up so that his name was there but with a different picture. He was grateful he didn’t go because the person who was taken in his place was so black and the Germans scrubbed him so much thinking the black skin was dirt. So my father didn’t go to Germany but was very well known. When they started a training college in Marangu, Kilimanjaro, they appointed him a teacher. He taught the first pastors in the Lutheran Church, then later Bishop Stephen Moshi, who later became my godfather. It was the beginning of the Church in East Africa, especially the Lutheran Church.
The Anglican Church is much older. My father wrote songs for the church, which are still being sung today. He also wrote poetry. He carved wooden spoons for us. He would take me to church on Sundays and sit us under a tree to listen to the pastor preach. I liked climbing the trees. Sometimes I would look at the tall trees and feel like they made me connect with God, which made a huge impact on me because I saw the place as an open air cathedral. That’s why you see plenty of trees in this compound. In Jesus’ days, he preached in the open and towards his crucifixion, he went to Gethsemane. This place – Paa ya Paa compound – can be a quiet place for retreat, meditation and quiet; to offer silence for artists to reflect and dream their works.
Question: So did you start school where your father was teaching?
Answer: Yes. We would walk to school. It was in the teacher training school where my father taught so we were very privileged to be in a college atmosphere. Afterwards, we went to the old Moshi School, run by a British headmaster. Those days, the teachers were very committed and good people. These days you don’t see such teachers. Some of them were like elder brothers, parents. Their commitment ensured we didn’t lose touch with the Christian faith during secondary school and even at Makerere.
Question: How did you go to Makerere?
Answer: When I was in junior secondary school, the East African Literature Bureau had a book competition to design the cover for a book, Miti ni Mali. I did a drawing though art wasn’t taught in school. My father inspired me into art by buying me a box of colors when I drew his portrait. When I went to school, I continued with it as a hobby. So after winning the EALB competition my head teacher was impressed and bought me a book, History of Art, from Cambridge. Then I went to Tabora School. Being born in a family of ten made obedience a key factor and it made things work well for me with my teachers. I did well but wasn’t sure if I would go to Makerere, so I took a P1 certificate to be a teacher like my father. My school head teacher said he knew some people in Makerere and recommended I do a special entry exam for Makerere which I passed. That’s how I joined Makerere. I was lucky because my elder brother was also in Makerere.
Question: How long did it take you to paint the murals?
Answer: I would work from six in the morning to six in the evening with a lunch break. They had no entertainment for the youth in those days, so all I did was work. I can say it was roughly 30 days. When you’re moved by the spirit it becomes like a song. If you look at them 50 years later – today, they look fresh like they were done yesterday. I used the murals for my final exams in Fine arts. After my final exams, I was appointed a lecturer.
Question: You never went to Tanzania again after being hired in Makerere? How long did you teach in Makerere?
Answer: No. I would go there for short
periods to visit my parents. Otherwise I would just send them ten percent of my earnings. I taught at Makerere till December 1962.When at Makerere we had a challenge of getting painting materials. So we agreed with the students to use local materials to make colors, for example charcoal, clay, ashes, leaves, tree barks, etc. We even made pictures for the blind using textures. Through trial and error we made an exhibition with materials which never came from abroad. The exhibition was very successful and schools came to see it and it eventually even toured Germany. The head of the Sorsbie’s Gallery in Nairobi asked for the exhibition and paid for it to come to Nairobi.
Question: Is that exhibition that created interest in you in Nairobi and did you resign your job at Makerere or how did you come to Nairobi?
Answer: People were following me, telling me to attend conferences in Congo, Ghana and other places. They sent me a ticket to go to Accra, and I accepted the invitation and went. The exhibition that went to Germany was named ‘Do Not Copy.’ The then director of Sorsbie’s Gallery in Nairobi – started by Sir Malin Sorsbie –was Alex Mitchell and he invited me to Nairobi to become his deputy. He gave me a house in Westlands. When I drove to his office, a Sudanese guard told me ‘Mzee, hakuna kazi hapa’. They also gave me an entertainment allowance but I wondered why? I was very rural. Later, he told me that the money was for guests who would come to the gallery. I told him to keep the entertainment in the gallery and keep the money. If I had known I would have used the money to make tea!
Question: Were there other black artists in Nairobi?
Answer: Not really. But later there were people like Jonathan Kariara, Hillary Ng’weno, Fleur Ng’weno; a whole bunch of educated, artsy Africans in Nairobi. We started meeting every Friday in different homes to discuss the latest short story writing by Jonathan Kariara, latest poetry. Kariara was working at Oxford University Press. This was the team that started Paa ya Paa. We decided that instead of meeting in houses, I start my own studio and we started working from there, together with some of my students from Makerere. We started the East African Institute of Social and Cultural Affairs, together with Bethwell Ogot and his wife Grace, alongside a German who ran a programme called ‘East Africa Today’ on Radio Deutsch Welle, East Africa. There I interviewed Chinua Achebe.
Question: Were you still working for the Sorsbie’s?
Answer: I worked there for a year then was joined by Louis Mwaniki, a very gifted artist trained in Makerere, through Gerald Moore from the Makerere Extra-Mural Department. That time Mwaniki had a problem with his Italian wife and we had to help the family sort it out, which made me report to work late the following day. My boss reprimanded me for being late and I told him I would set up the last exhibition and quit at the end of that month. I gave a notice and resigned but also lost the house. But my first wife was appointed head of the Nairobi Girl’s High School and we moved in her staff house at Woodley.
Question: When and where did you meet your wife, Philda?
Answer: She worked in the church where I worked, for long. She worked as a church photographer in Latin America. Then she was sent to East Africa to do photographs. Philda was sent to do a story and she finished and went back. When I moved to Dar es Salaam – to teach at the University – I had to leave Paa ya Paa under my house girl; I didn’t want to close it down. I wrote to the Lutheran Church in America to send us someone to help run the gallery. They sent Philda plus a salary. When we came back to Nairobi we requested for accommodation at her place, as her guests. Her term ended in two years and she went back to the USA. The rest is history.
Question: How many children do you have together with her?
Answer: Three; two daughters and a son. I also have two children from my first marriage.
Question: Any of your children who joined art?
Answer: Yes. For instance, my two daughters painted the walls of the gallery – at the entrance of the home/gallery – before going to America. Another doesn’t like this art of pleasing tourists. One of my daughters sings very well.
Question: What made you and fellow artists from Makerere East African, because artists today aren’t really transnational?
Elimo: My English teachers were real people; they taught us to be human and to create traditions. Today’s generations aren’t interested in traditions. For instance, art is pure if it’s priceless – I don’t paint for money, such as in the case of the Murang’a church murals. Today people are driven by competition, jealousy, hatred, etc. Those teachers of the old days were humanists; it was a generation of generosity, the whole world. The whole world was positive; these were personalities that were edible; you felt nourished then when in the company of others. The English and Swahili languages also played a big part in linking people from the region.
Question: When are you planning to finish the extra murals for the church in Murang’a?
Answer: I’m dreaming every night, to finish. As a very spiritual person, I believe I will finish them. They are: Deposition of the Body, the Road to Emmaus, the Resurrection and the Ascension. They’ll complete the story that I started in 1956/1957 with the first five stages in the life of Jesus Christ namely, the Birth of Christ, the Baptism, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.
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