“Kamau.” Tall, his tawny complexion highlighted the scarification along the right side of his body. The etchings painted with circuitry that poets could use as AI code.

“Kamau what?”

“Just Kamau.”

Jaha inspected him closer. She cupped and slowly stroked her bare chin. “Kamau, you don’t look familiar to me. And I know all the regular poets around here.”

“I’m down from the Belts. Hitting some of the local spots, touring the scene”—he glanced at the other man, not even a full stare, but it was enough to reignite the fire of his anger—“when this—”

“Hold on. Before we go there, he has a name, too.” Jaha turned to the other man. “Who might you be?”

Short, the man’s skin ran to a deep sepia, and his body still clung to its baby fat. His haptic shirt decorated in kente patterns, he was obviously a kinaesthetic artist, someone who turned sound into a felt experience. He glared at Kamau. “Obi.”

“Yes, Obi Abara. Baby, I’ve known your momma since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. Why don’t you start, and then I want to hear from Kamau.”

“I was just—” Obi waved his arms halfway into some serious theatrical gesturing when Jaha cut him off.

“Aw, nah, baby. That’s not how we do. We in the library square of the Dreaming City. The Dreaming City. A place we dreamt into being requiring the sacrifice of generations. Here, we create.”

When Jaha turned one hundred, she asked Xola if they could stage an elder celebration, with a food festival ushered in by the pouring of libations. She specifically wanted an Ugenini lens for the activities. People arrived and, as the libations flowed, began to share their stories of her. Something she neither expected nor asked for. Stories recalling her heroism during the Lunar Ukombozi War, since many forgot her role as a general because she never spoke of it. Stories of resistance, resilience, remembrance. The experience moved her, shifted a weight she didn’t know she had, and inspired her pursuit of education.

The sharing of stories became a founding principle of Muungano. The basis of using jelis as a policing force. Stories empowered people, becoming gifts created and given to one another. A revolution in thought in how we celebrated one another, all because Jaha didn’t want to organize her own birthday party.

“I’ll give each of you three objects to use in telling your story. Obi, like I said, you go first.” Jaha stepped from between Kamau and Obi and took in her surroundings for inspiration. She ticked them off on her fingers as she said them. “The sun, moon, and stars.”

Obi backed up. At first, we thought he was intimidated by the idea. Instead, he shifted into his creative space, ready to conceive and pour out a piece.