Sibi, the master of many trades

Teacher (for 28 years). Screenwriter. Radio and TV presenter. Trilingual Emcee, moderator. Quizmaster (Zain Africa Challenge). Actor. Narrator. Musical director. Playwright ( nine plays to date). Print journalist (10 years now). Proofreader. Translator. Editor. Tutor in English and French. Media consultant. Father. Husband. Shakespeare enthusiast. Ferocious lover of books. Mwalimu.

But simply? Man of the Arts.

That’s how one can try to condense John Sibi-Okumu in a thumbnail; daunting as it is limiting. Because the man is more. He’s layer over layer of intrigue and festering intellect and the crustiest of wit. An onion of a man.

We met in his wonderful house, up in his study in the attic, a woodland of books on every wall and antique framed monochrome posters.

Art lives at Sibi’s.

He’s intense, smart and engaging. He speaks with flourish.
-----------------------------

What’s happening with you, Mwalimu?

I’ve been extremely well. Do you know it’s been eight years since you last interviewed me? I haven’t granted any interview since then. (Smile).

What have you been up to?

I taught French then I resigned after about 28 years. Then I became a broadcaster, doing the Zain Africa Challenge mainly because the scenario had become slightly daunting. My children by that stage were at university.

I then decided to re-invent myself with an eye on the salary and worked for KISS TV. I had my own show ‘‘JSO at 7.’’ KISS TV shut down.

So I was in a bit of a quandary then I branded myself as a conference moderator. A media consultant. I get some kudos for being a bilingual moderator. So now I do big conferences. 

I told a lady friend I was coming to interview Sibi- Okumu and she squealed,”Oh I love Sibi! Can I come? He speaks so well!” Where did you learn to speak like that? Obviously you weren’t born with that diction and twang!

We’re all products of our personal histories. There is that great sort of confluence between talent and opportunity. Now, the opportunity for me was that one. You can imagine me as a seven-year-old. My father, John Abraham Sibi-Okumu, went to study in the UK. He was the first African magistrate in this country. I joined him in the UK with my mother. A boy from Bunyala, Budalangi.  When I came back as a 10- year-old I went to a high- cost privileged school: Muthaiga Primary.

There was only me and my half-sister. My father had had a child with an Englishwoman. So we were the only people of colour in that school. I was never going to become a scientist. I was never seduced by the copper sulfate crystals. I never wanted to find out the origins of e=mc2.

So I became wonky, I became a jerk. But I became a literary jerk.I won the reading prize in Form Two. Hitherto it had always been won by wazungus and there was a special prize for Africans. When I came along, they had to scrap the special prize for the nominated speakers because I twanged better than the jungus. I became nerdy about French and ended up studying French.

There seem to be quite a few books around here...

I read a lot and I copy. I would find a really good speech by Barack or something and copy it in longhand and I would do this for a page of English and a page of French every single day.

Wow!

When I ended up in university in France everybody was like ‘‘Wow! This guy speaks with a really cool French accent’’. There’s a perfectionist bone in my nature. I want to get good at something. I want to compete with myself. But I set very high standards for myself in terms of what I do in terms of conduct with my fellow human beings. I want to be seen as good as a person and having good skills.

That’s powerful, Sibi! So what are you trying to perfect right now?

Now that we’re getting to the tea time and the sunset of our lives I feel like I haven’t written… I started writing plays. Again I’m going at it elaborately.  I want time to write and I’ve got lots to write about. Of course, because our lives are all these beautiful stories to be written, ideally. Exactly.

If you were to look back at your life, what’s the one thing you’d want to undo or do properly?

Again, we’re into the world of philosophy, I disagree with you because I think we’re all dealt a card. I was dealt the card of having a family that was broken because my father was in the political climate that existed when he came back. He was targeted and sidelined in a way that made adolescence – high school - very difficult.

You see people try to say that if you’re polished and everything else then everything has been in a silver platter. But I think if I were to write my memoirs, there’s a modicum of sufficient suffering there to make it quite difficult.

So I’m lucky that despite all these trials and tribulations, I felt that I was capable. I was capable intellectually and I was capable creatively and therefore as I said, having created the perfectionist bone, it wasn’t a quick fix, so I started drilling, drilling at life.

You taught French for 28 years. That’s a long time teaching.

Private school meant free education for my children, good education like I had. The best I can give my kids is the same. So we did Hillcrest from 1980 to 2001. I quit the English system to go into the American system. I joined International School of Kenya in Gigiri from 2001 to 2008. Head of modern languages, teaching French. I wanted to be in the classroom, never posited myself to be an administrator, I wanted to teach, I wanted to pass on. I wanted my students to be good.

You taught, but what has the world taught you?

Perseverance. Don’t give up. Keep at it. Keep on going.Is there a particular book that had the most impact in your life?Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. It was the first full length novel that I read. And I couldn’t put it down.

Are you excited about African Literature?

Oh yeah! Forget the accent, I’m the quintessential native here. I’m carrying the flag. Anything African, Pan-African, that is, I’m into that bag -as we used to say in the 70s. I wish I had met Sembene Ousmane. Are you familiar with him?

Uhm, no, afraid not.

Senegalese writer, phenomenal. One of my bucket list things was always thinking ‘‘how can I get to Dakar and meet Sembene Ousmane, my hero. And of course you have to salute the prodigious intellect of Wole Soyinka. I respect what Ngugi Wa Thion’go has done and youngsters like Binyavanga Wainaina and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor.

You’re now in your 60s. If you were to stand before men half your age, what’s the one thing you’d tell them?

That it’s important to have a sense of values. And if those values guide you, then if you are a position of leadership you should be in a situation where from your job you don’t clean the society of billions of shillings. Now I’m not saying that I’m a good person… but I don’t think that I could get into a situation where I’d clean the society of billions of shillings. I just wouldn’t do it. Because it’s wrong.

So if they were to hand you a government position, you wouldn’t you take it?

No. Because I think there are certain temperaments that work for that job. You know, I want to be able to walk into the market place, talk to a gardener and mingle and just be real and be human. I don’t want followers. So no, I wouldn’t. Gosh! I hope that phone call never comes. (Laughs).

What do you do for fun?

Listen to music. I listen to everything.

[His phone rings as if on cue]

Your ringtone is Cold Play’s “Clocks!” Look at you Sibi, cool and all!

(Chuckles) I listen to Cold Play! I listen to Franco, Tabu Ley and so on because dad listened to them back in the day when I thought they were uncool. I listen to the two Bobs, Bob Marley – genius - and Bob Dylan the poet. I’ve got his lyrics, he should get the Nobel Prize for his poetry.

I was a 60s child turned adolescent. We had a choice between the Beatles and Rolling Stones and because they were a bit edgy and ill behaved, I’m a Rolling Stones man.

I read, a lot. I got myself a box set CD of the complete works of William Shakespeare. All 37 plays on a DVD. So I put on the subtitles, I have the accompanying text and I go through them one after the other. Where some people would listen to music I listen to Hamlet and Macbeth.  

What has fatherhood brought out in you?

Being a dad or mum is one of the most difficult responsibilities that one can throw at a human being. Because you are supplying to the other. I would never go to the dads’ conference and give a thing about ideal parenting. What I would say, which is a historical truth, is that I have put tremendous energy so that they are the focus of my life.

I have been lucky to have my kids get free education in the private schools I taught in. I now moderate because they are in tertiary education abroad and it costs a lot of money and I keep on working until they finish. So my kids give me something to do, to focus.

If you don’t mind me asking… what’s that scar on the crown of your head?

It’s a car accident. Many years ago. Near death kind of thing. When doing these plays the makeup guys spend three hours getting rid of it before I go on set. If you watch The Constant Gardener you can’t see the scar.

Did that change you, that near death experience?

Nah, the story hasn’t changed. I told you to be scared is not part of the list of major worries for me.