The MetaVerse Mùkùrinù
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Creating Africa’s Digital Future from the grassroots
Who is a Mùkùrinù?
When the missionaries brought the Good News Bible to Kenya, a section of would-be Believers asked themselves the question — Mùkùri nù? Who is the Redeemer? Is it these missionaries?
In short, the would-be Believers took in the Good Word, but refused to be associated with the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, the Presbyterians, or any of the churches missionaries brought to the African Continent.
The Akùrinù made their own church and refused anything the outsiders brought. They accepted the message but refused the messager.
The Akùrinù are a close-knit society. They hardly marry outside their religion. For years, I wooed a Mùkùrinù girl. But I was not Mùkùrinù, and stood no chance with her. Plus, I am a very short man, and she was model height with a neck like that of a Savannah giraffe. She was a beautiful, God-fearing woman, with all the traits my grandmother Kamotho had wanted me to pursue. But grandma never told me to put on a Kìremba, (a religious headdress worn by the Akùrinù, which makes a Mùkùrinù man/woman easy to recognize).
When we, the Africa VR Campus and Center, decided to work with young people in our VR/AR/XR Outreach, we didn’t imagine we would have Akùrinù children among us.
Back in March, 2023, we had offered a VR Outreach Day in the outskirts of Nairobi. A Mùkùrinù mother saw us teaching tech to young girls and she asked us if we could allow her Mùkùrinù daughter to join us. To me, it came as a surprise. Akùrinù people don’t even accept cash from non-akùrinùs.
How then will we educate her? How will she wear the VR headset on her head, which must always be dressed with her kìremba (religious headdress)? The headdress is the number one religious adornment by any Akùrinù, for men and women. It is highly revered.
Wanjirù, her native name, wore such a headdress. We looped the VR headset over and around, and there she was — the first MetaVerse Mùkùrinù girl!
She was excited. But there was a lot she didn’t know because of the way Akurinu are isolated. She didn’t know what emails are, or how to browse a website on a laptop. On top of that was the accelerated VR teaching all our students receive.
When Wanjirù went back to her local church on Sunday, she told her friends about her MetaVerse escapades. They couldn’t imagine it. Some of them thought it might not be a good idea.
We will stay in close touch and help as much as we can. It will not always be easy but our belief will always be that, “VR is for everyone.”
The variety that we all bring to the MetaVerse — older women and men, children and teenagers, Muslims, Catholics and Akùrinùs — is what we see as the beauty of social VR.
The first Metaverse Mùkùrinù girl will be joining our group of eight young women, which includes Zainabu, a Muslim girl. This might be a first in Kenya — Akurinù girl interacting with a Muslim girl. We are so excited that our VR outreach is bringing about this beautiful mix of people from all shades of life and belief. We are ecstatic to be breaking through the stereotypes of social class and religious and cultural demarcations.
This group of girls is already the first in Africa to host social VR events in the MetaVerse. Next, they will be competing with young women across the world in an international business challenge, held in ENGAGEXR.
We are proud to tell the story of The MetaVerse Mùkùrinù girl, so far. We hope that it is just getting started. We hope that her story of personal growth can fit into her special world and make the rest of us richer by sharing it.
We have been touching young people and staying in touch with them for years now because we are here. We are in Nairobi. We are not someone else’s idea of what Kenya needs.
We see the same colonization taking shape in digital development. Where African children are expected to compete with peers working tablets right out of the womb. Where tech giants build data centers in our cities to sell everything about us to other tech giants to use against us.
One MetaVerse Mùkùrinù girl might not seem like much against Google and Meta and the rest of them. But when we open our arms and come together, no power can resist us. Social VR helps us do it, helps us be in one place where we can feel how much we have in common.
We are doing well, but so is Google, so we need all the help you can give us.
You want to get to know us first? It’s easy to do. Our ‘Tales from Africa’ event runs every Thursday on ENGAGEXR. You can join us in a headset OR ON MOBILE. In other words, anyone can join us.
Would you like to meet Wanjiru? She’ll be around.
She will learn from us and we will learn from her too, from the unique world she lives in. You can too.
My names are Paul Simon Kariuki wa Mwithiga Wayaki wa Hinga. I am the Founder of the Africa VR Campus and Center.
I am from Nairobi, Kenya where i live with my wife and children. I lead charities, organizes weddings and funerals and help keep my community clean.
I am leading Africa into the Metaverse in order to benefit Africans, educate Africans, create economic opportunities for Africans, and see African values embedded in the digital future.
I am also a Space Cowboy and plan to leave the Earth at some point and return.
Written for ‘Tales from Africa’. A weekly event on Thursdays on ENGAGEXR,
By Paul Simon Koiyaki ole Lemotaka Waiyaki wa Hinga Kariuki wa Mwithiga.
(Support our Metaverse Africa events on ENGAGEXR (A VR App that’s usable on PC, Monile and VR Headsets), every Thursday)
Inbox us your email on paulsimonkenya@gmail.com for our newsletter registration or visit our website, https://www.africavr.org
#PaulSimonChronicles
Africa VR Campus and Center,
Fronting VR/XR/AR and emerging technologies since 2016.
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The Africa VR Campus & Center Introduction
4 min read
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May 30, 2022
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This story is written in honor of, and dedicated to my brother and friend, Tom Nickel.
The African VR Centre introduction.
The young maasai boy is standing on a crest of a lowly stump of a hill.
His eyes can see distant higher hills over the landscape of gently rolling plains of the maasai mara.
Letuya has never seen a smartphone. Never seen a computer up close.
He’s looking after his father’s herds of goats.
A 50 strong herd.
Letuya is very excited.
Tomorrow, he will be joining the children of his small village in Kajiado for a very interesting visit,
from a very weird fellow.
This is Letuya’s experience.
The fellow, who calls himself Paul Simon, Koiyaki ole lemotaka, Waiyaki wa Hinga, Kariuki wa Mwithiga, is bringing weird looking things that i and all the other kids or anyone from our village have never seen or even ever heard of.
When the kids have been gathered and collected together.
A white minivan approached.
A bearded short man stepped out and the elder told us that he is Paul Simon, Koiyaki Ole Lemotaka, Waiyaki wa Hinga, Kariuki wa Mwithiga.
We burst out loud laughing, wondering how many names such a short man can have.
He carries a bag that is full of stuff we have never seen.
He calls us one by one, and we wear the things onto our faces.
When it is my turn to go in front, I am a bit scared. He tells me not to be, and to tell him where and what I have ever wished to see.
I tell him I want to see Nairobi, where my uncle went to work.
He puts the strange thing to his face and appears to wave onto something and helps me to put it on my face.
He tells me to close my eyes and then to open them.
I am shocked.
I just can’t believe it. I find myself in a new world.
I stagger a little, he tells me to sit down and look around.
I ask him to remove it, I find that I’m still In my village.
I ask for a glass of water.
He asks whether I would like to see it again. I’m scared to. I tell him to let me think about it.
Others are brave to do it multiple times. Others don’t even want to try.
I do, I really do, I want to see Nairobi again.
Paul Simon says you can see anywhere you’ve wished to see. Or anyone. Or anything.
I asked if I could see Enkai, (God), he said no.
But that I could see Obama, the president of America.
That I could see the highest mountain on earth.
That I could see other earths. Other stars.
How the body works from the inside. Or fly on the back of an eagle.
I feel hazed.
I drink a glass of water,
Then ask if I could see the inside of an airplane.
He says yes,
I miss a heart beat.
He ask me to step forward. I slowly do.
He ask me to sit. I slowly do, and clench my fingers to my mouth.
He ask me to close my eyes, I do.
He puts the thing to my face again, and when I open my eyes,
I’m in a space with many seats, — with people of many different colors who don't even seem to notice that I am there.
There’s a window.
I look out of it. And I realize, that I’m in the skies! Flying!
I’m in a plane, Paul Simon tells me.
My legs feel light.
I need another glass of water.
Paul Simon said the thing is called Oculus.
We feel so bad when he leaves.
I wished I was brave enough to see the burning mountains.
Or the great seas that we’ve heard about.
We chat excitedly for weeks about what each of us saw.
And the elders told us that Waiyaki will come again.
This time, I’ll go to America.
I won’t be afraid.
But it’s true, and we all agree,
that such a short man who can show you these many things, on such strange things, can have a very long name.
But we still burst out loud laughing when we remember all his names.
Some of us still can’t even say them all.
Written for ‘Tales from Africa’. A weekly event on Thursdays on ENGAGEXR,
By Paul Simon Koiyaki ole Lemotaka Waiyaki wa Hinga Kariuki wa Mwithiga.
(Support our Metaverse Africa events on ENGAGEXR (A VR App that’s usable on PC, Monile and VR Headsets), every Thursday)
Inbox us your email on paulsimonkenya@gmail.com for our newsletter registration or visit our website, https://www.africavr.org
#PaulSimonChronicles
This story is written in honor of, and dedicated to my brother and friend, Tom Nickel.
Africa VR Campus and Center,
Fronting VR/XR/AR and emerging technologies since 2016.
