I never got their names. This past weekend, I sat opposite three people who were waiting to be picked up after a conference on disability and rehabilitation. They were all blind, some with a double handicap. The small guy in a wheelchair with a blind cane towering above him had just won a major award…
Some 20 years ago, I was in the cast of Samuel Beckett’s one-acts, directed by a visiting French company, Theatre du Shaman. The thing is, we struggled to see the humor the director insisted was in Beckett. We just couldn’t see it. How on earth could the doom-and-gloom of Beckett’s absurd theatre be funny? We…
“Well, shall I say congratulations!” Dr. Clemmons chimed, still peering into the screen. Shanni shot straight up into a sitting position from the table, her belly still gooey with the gel. “Careful now. Look for yourself. This right here on the screen is the image of your twins” “Twins?!?” this time she almost fell off…
Previously – Part I: For a Bowl of Porridge It is forty-seven minutes after nine in the late dawn of Chicago. Mumbi sits by Starbucks sipping a cappuccino and sings her song of Zion. She sings the memory of her home and all that she left behind. She sings the promises she made to herself…
And so has Lenana Olesakaja wrestled with his God, sprained many an hamstring, lost many a match, and still he goes back to the same battleground of a mind in turmoil. He has begged and waited for an explanation to God’s silence over the myriad mind-boggling injustices within and around him. He has demanded to…
I made a promise this morning. I told my husband that I’ll meet him for a big special lunch today. It’s Valentine’s day. It’s a day off teaching for me, thanks to yesterday’s snow storm. He goes out to clear the snow, but my car is buried too deep. He has to leave for work….
Sunny Savannah is behind us. The month of December 2013 must now stay content with becoming a memory, a welcome escape from America’s winter. But not for too long. We land in Detroit, and as we prepare to board our final hour-long flight, it starts snowing, slowly, then a steady fury. We board. The plane…
I’m home, taking a walk around Jombo village in Mwatate, Taita. It is Jamhuri Day, Kenya’s 50th Independence Day. I encounter a sudden piece of paradise, children blissfully playing soccer on a dry riverbed, completely oblivious to all that hullabaloo about Kenya@50. No celebratory bells have tolled for them. The land is a gentle green,…
A response to Bikozulu’s “A Letter to Kenyans Abroad” http://bikozulu.co.ke/a-letter-to-kenyans-abroad/ For a long time I’ve fought the itch to respond to blogs, tweets, status updates and newspaper articles from Kenyans at home that bash Kenyans abroad for their accents and attitudes. I had decided it’s too trivial. Until today when “A Letter to Kenyans Abroad” arrived…
Sight Savers was about two miles from where we lived in Nairobi. One could walk down hill for about an hour along the stretch of Mbagathi Way, or take a matatu from Kenyatta Market. When I sauntered into this organization and asked for a job from out of the blues, I had zero expectations because…