Week 8 ( Mar 25 - 29)

This week, we had a guest presentation from Dr. Ochieng' K'Olewe- a Kenyan storyteller. I really enjoyed this presentation because the stories were new stories to me and they were relevant to the information that he was trying to teach to the class. This put in perspective for me, just how convenient storytelling could be for parents and village elders who are trying to convey a particular message to young children and even young adults. I don't feel as though I would see any type of connection between the hardships I have faced in my life and the fairy tales that I was exposed to as a youth; However, I can imagine had I grown up in a community, such as the one Dr. K'Olewe, that I would have made a lot less error because I would have more applicable stories to refer to. 

I feel like an important factor of what makes Kenyan storytelling so unique is the fact that every time the story is told, the storyteller claims ownership and can tweak the story to fit the message THEY want to send. Second most important factor would have to be the fact that the events, characters and implicit messages are constantly being modernized so the same story can be made relevant to people of  all ages and in different time periods. Aside from these two factors, Kenyan stories are also different from the other stories that we've read about because they also don't necessarily have a set structure to them (whereas the fairy tales we've read in class include certain motifs and functions) and these stories would be a lot harder to classify.