It takes a lot to say some things when the hand that feeds you is the same one that slaps you. You weigh it against your moral true north, you realize you have fewer years ahead of you than behind you, and you no longer have the luxury of accommodating strategic fear. For a crutch,…
I’m here to tell you something, you people who go to crusades of prophets what-not in Kenya. Like the dude with the ungroomed beard who was recently in Nakuru. Here’s the thing: After they are done with their stage performance of “miracles”, they must return the props back to the disabled owners, with payment to…
We sat in that cafe, catching up on new thoughts and theories I might have discovered. My presentation was due the next morning and I was giving it a test run with my boss, a retired Captain with a voracious appetite for philosophy and painting. He said- You know, I’ll tell you about this one…
In high school, if you pursued the arts path you had a choice between Geography and History. Those of us who went with Geography got the benefit of some pretty memorable field trips. One was a visit to a marine park somewhere in north coast, Mombasa. I forget the name. We got on a boat…
I’ve never been in a war situation. Never woken to the sound of bombs and wailing of mothers and the wretched rage of men left with absolutely nothing to show for all the years they spent raising families. I only remember waking up to the sound of birds and the vastness of blue skies, the…
Part I: Mama gathers up her handbag and says- We are going to jumuiya. So I hold onto her skirts and skip along. I am 5 all over again and graying on my head. We arrive at a neighbor’s home, the one to whom we owe this visit. She has been unwell, and we are…
Tailor 1- Towards the end of 2023, I was the women with the bag of clothes for mending being rejected by all the village tailors. They were too busy with Christmas outfit orders. I got miffed with the last fundi. That’s the one whose shop boasted an array of the most beautifully and elaborately tailored…
On a normal day in Lebanon in 1967, a young Kenyan man was attending Prof. David Gordon’s History class at the American University of Beirut. You blink I blink, boom, the class came to an end with Prof. Gordon’s mouth half open on an unfinished sentence. All the students were being ushered out of the…
The gate to his castle reads “Garden of Hope”. Here, Simon Lekita rules. His level of knowledge and confidence stretches out across the acres of the lush farm he tends to. A rich variety of no less than twenty types of vegetables, herbs, fruit trees and farm animals thrive under his master-gardener skills. Without an…
There’s a saying in Swahili: Ukitaka cha mvunguni sharti uiname – “If you want what’s under the bed you must bend down”. It stuck in my head because I told Preston this and he thought it was funny. The remote control had fallen through the headboard and I wasn’t about to crunch my spine to…
