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Description

Digital Story from the Bawso Stories Project. In this story, Chosen describes the importance of the petrol lamp in Kenyan families and how it was used, cleaned and shared in her family. This story was inspired by a visit to St Fagans National Museum of History.

English transcript: Another thing that I saw, it was the lamp that brought memories, as we used it when the lights went off. Okay in my country the lights go off, it’s not like here. Any person who is given the lamp to clean is very special in the family, like our grandparents wouldn’t give just anyone the lamp to clean it. It was a precious thing in a house. If you’re given the lamp and you break it, you will end up in a big, big mess. So you should be careful when you’re cleaning the lamp and it was normally cleaned by a gazette, the newspaper, you tear a gazette and you clean the lamp so well, so that it would be clear, and the light will pass through the lamp. Yes, so most of them are cleaned by firstborns or the grandfather or the grandma. It was the first born because the first born is always careful. It will make sense for them to be given punishment because they’re first born.

The only time that I can remember we used it, it was when I was young, but then when we upgraded to the electricity, we gave it to my aunt who was coming from the village. Most of them, they start life where they cannot afford electricity. By the time I was growing up, they had already started to put on lights. They were not used as much as they were used long time. But when I used to go to the village, they were using the lamp.

So when you upgrade to a house that you can pay for electricity, you now give it to someone else. She told me that she needed it at the time and we never needed it because now we have the electricity. But then, it was a problem because when the lights were going off, now we were forced to use the candles. So I used to get so mad because I used to tell my mum, “Why did you give up the lamp? That’s what we were supposed to be using right now, now we are using the candles which doesn’t have a lot of light. They only have a little light.” She kept on telling me that, “She needed it at that time, now it’s just for some time and the lights will be back using the electricity.”

But I really liked it, the lamp. It felt cosy because there’s a difference of when you are using the candle and the lamp. The lamp will produce a lot of light than the candle. And the candle can make a mess because of the wax, so they can make a mess, so I didn’t like wiping the table and finding the wax on the table.

But for the kerosine it’s just simple, it’s just putting the kerosine, lighting it up and all is good, so it was very, very comfortable with it.

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