Author/ Ethnographer Somjee reads a draft copy of the second Alama's Walk

 

Author/Ethnographer Sultan Somjee views a draft copy of the second book in the Alama’s Walk series. It is scheduled to be released in October 2022.

Alama’s Walk Healing the Earth is much larger, 150 pages compared to the first 90 page graphic novel. In this book Alama meets many new and interesting characters as he moves from his desert scrubland, to rich farmlands and villages. Along the way Alama hears more peace stories and meets both hospitable villagers and corrupt city officials. 

Alama’s Walk, The Oracle Speaks, the first graphic novel is now being used for training of peace and civic educators in the mitaani (slums) of Kenya.

All graphic novels are adapted from One Who Dreams is Called a Prophet, a book about a lone elder’s walk in pursuit of the last traces of Indigenous knowledge of Utu during conflicts. Utu in Swahili means the quality of being human or simply humanness or humanity. The walk resulted in cultivating conversations on reconciliation in a conflicted country, among diverse cultures, in diverse languages and diverse arts that led to the making of the Community Museums of Peace in eastern Africa. 

Each book has a running meme on Utu as viewed by 10 Indigenous cultures through elders’ memories, the environment, material culture, community stories, rituals and spirituality.