Greetings, friends:
This week’s newsletter is continuing the tradition of inviting members of our community to write From The Curator’s Desk, and for this edition I’m glad to hand it over to Cynthia Adongo, our Marketing & Communications Lead at Baraza Media Lab.
Please send your guest writing pitches for this section to chris@barazalab.com if you’re interested in being our guest curator on the newsletter, and you have something of interest to share to our community — a trend you’ve noticed or something you’d like us to think about.
~ Christine
In the beginning, there was a middle and an end.
Earlier this week, I was catching up with a friend who had recently shared she was transitioning to a different path careerwise. It was time, she said, to start something else. She explained that she had given it her all, and despite this being a bittersweet departure, I couldn’t smell an ounce of regret in her sentiments.
Most things, including life itself, are designed around this concept. You’re born, you live and inevitably die. You’re hungry, you eat, then you-know-what. Everything that starts, eventually has to end. It’s almost as cruel as it is necessary. A famous quote (I’m not sure of its origin) says, “The good news is, everything ends. The bad news is, everything ends.”
In my opinion, it’s the middle that matters the most. The in-betweens is what everything hinges on. Somebody, something, pressed the ‘on’ button and as much as I hate this cliche, most of us are just going with the flow! A flow that’s so untamable that sometimes we get lost in the “doing” of it all. We forget that we’re in the middle part, the living part. Anything could end in the blink of an eye, but we are so deep in the wash- rinse- repeat cycle that we just…forget.
We forget that one day, your favourite mama mboga might relocate, and you might have to start looking for another vendor who sells avocados that are just the right amount of ripe. Someday, your sibling might have kids and you might be that side of the family that everybody acknowledges their existence but nobody talks to. That you might get another job and be the new guy at the office. Or one day, “What’s the worst that could happen?” actually happens and you have to figure out everything from scratch. As soon as the new loses its novelty, and everything becomes normal and expected, we stop living and start just existing.
This is a call out even to myself. The end is definitely coming. Someday. It’s not here yet, and I should live like it. So that when it finally shows up, I’m not frantically ticking my boxes wondering ‘what if’. The rest of my life is happening now, but the end should find me all lived out and ready waiting for it at the door. It should find me with my worn-out running shoes finally off my feet, and my new ones in my hands ready for me to hit the ground again, in my new life – whatever that might be.
In the meantime, here’s:
What I’m Reading: I Who Have Not Known Men, by Jaqueline Harpman. This book is eerie and deeply unsettling, right up my alley these days. There is no grand revelation, no comforting closure, and an endless sense of existential dread as a nameless woman wanders the earth searching for answers.
What I’m Watching: The Office for some good old dry cringey humour. My relationship with this show is complicated: equal parts love and discomfort. I can’t explain why I subject myself to so much secondhand embarrassment, but somehow, I keep coming back.
What I’m Listening to: Twende Twende by Eric Wainaina and Oliver Mtukudzi is a classic! Takes me right back to that iconic advert.
My best,
Cynthia Adongo
Marketing and Communications Lead | Baraza Media Lab
Baraza Media Lab Opens New Creative & Media Hub in Mombasa
As Baraza Media Lab enters its fifth year, we’re growing our presence by officially opening the doors to our newest creative and media hub in Mombasa.
This step is grounded in months of listening, research, and conversations with local creatives, cultural workers, and media practitioners. Mombasa has long been home to storytellers, artists, and media professionals, and Baraza is joining ongoing efforts by providing a dedicated, shared space where creatives can regularly connect, collaborate, and build together.
This week, we welcomed the community into this new space. Our Executive Director, Maurice Otieno, spoke to the long-term vision behind expanding to Mombasa, while Cynthia Muthoni, our Head of Operations & Programs, emphasized that this hub has been shaped by, and will be sustained through, the strength and participation of the local community.
Journalists and content creators, and visual artists and filmmakers, this is a space for you to learn, collaborate, and belong. If you’re in Mombasa and working in media or the creative fields, karibuni nyumbani.