I got into a bit of a tiff with three young ticketing officials at the Voi SGR train station. This was over legitimate tickets that needed name-change to indicate the travelers, not the buyer. They said the only solution acceptable by “the system” was to cancel them, get fined for it, and take a 50-50…
Willpower is overrated. I’ve heard about people going cold turkey on bad habits – too much smoking, cracking knuckles, alcohol, gnashing teeth, biting your lip, etc. “Yeah! I woke up one morning and decided enough! And from that day on I never touched another cigarette!” I don’t know about that. I just don’t believe in…
*Warning: Contains some graphic description that may churn the stomach. One day, true story, the toilets in the senior dorm broke. This was in one of the high schools I went to, a school that turned out to be a perfect fit for my personality and mental disposition. The school had no fence and no…
Fattening and Sickening “During the mission period, 3 out of 4 of the coastal Indians perished. They’d lived well free, but as soon as we introduced them to a Christian and community life, they fattened, sickened and died” – a Christian missionary during the Christianization of the Native American peoples, The West (Burns). My mind…
Mohamed. Little boy back in class 4. All of 9 or ten years old. We were in the same class. He was a fast-talking little brat with a filthy mouth and loved to pick on quiet kids who didn’t know how to defend themselves. He would call them names for fun in Swahili. K***mako, macho…
Something happened on August 7th, 1998. There were two terrorist bomb attacks in Kenya and Tanzania by Al-Shabaab against the United States. 213 Kenyans and 11 Tanzanians died over a war that had nothing to do with either country. It was a foreign war brought to African soil. Kenyans had no inkling on the rising…
The disappearance of intellectual wealth in African communities is directly linked to imperial missionary work that killed professions such as storytelling, rainmaking and divination, all of which had seasoned experts, trade secrets and years’ worth of researched knowledge often dressed up in ritual for the consumer. Born-again African Christians stopped telling tall tales about ogres…
One day I was coming home from school, all of ten-and-a-half little me. Then a lone leaf just came dancing its way down from a tree and landed on my shoulder. I did not think anything strange like – this leaf has been sent! But I do clearly remember thinking – a leaf! – in…
Part 1: Triage Two nights before I met Dr. Fuller and Dr. Zhao, the pain had come knocking softly, like a shy relative in the village sent to greet the visiting city cousins. Just a soft harmless pulsation. I waved it off. In a few minutes, the knock grew relentless, rising in intensity until I…
Years ago, another lifetime it seems, I was preparing to drive from Nairobi to Machakos Technical Institute for the Blind when someone requested that I pass by that eternally chaotic country bus station called Machakos “airport” and kindly offer this blind stranger a ride. We both had the same destination, Stranger and I. I said,…
