nilichoandika

My trip to Limuru

April 29th, 2015

I traveled on Monday from Kisumu (that’s where I live and work) to Limuru.
I boarded a bus and it took us eight hours to get there because it is the rainy season here, and Limuru is one of the coldest towns that is prone to fogs.

It was hard for the driver to maneuver due to the fog, and after hitting a few bumps he decided to pull over and wait for a while before continuing.

I spent two days at Brackenhurst in Limuru. It is an excellent conference center with awesome facilities and service, and I loved the serenity.
It’s the place you can write, study or just unwind without pressure from the outside world.
I took some pictures of the places I loved.
Nerea

April 26th, 2015

SautiSol is one of my favorite bands.
They teamed up with Amos and Josh to produce this beautiful song called Nerea, and it has caused some controversy, and let’s face it, in a society where people have forgotten how to speak up, the truth is frowned upon before it is welcomed.

Here’s my take on it: The song is a man’s call to a woman named Nerea, pleading with her not to abort their unborn child.

So, why are tongues wagging?

Six beautiful men (yes, I find them beautiful, and we can agree that beauty lies in the eyes of this beholder), sing about abortion.
Abortion, and the decision to do it or not is believed to be a woman’s thing, but I beg to differ.

My reasons are both subjective and objective.
It takes both the man and woman to conceive a baby.
And secondly, I have three friends who are raising their children on their own after their boyfriends bailed out on them, and all three were on the brink of aborting their babies because the men they thought they loved wanted them to do it, but they didn’t because someone convinced them otherwise.
Nerea is a beautiful song because reproductive health is not just a woman’so concern but also a man’s concern. Kenya has had so much focus on contraceptives, maternal health and prevention of STIs and AIDS, but not so much on health pregnancy and counseling especially for women who find themselves seriously looking forward to abortion to retain their lovers.

And what I love most about this song is how simple it is: the man is pleading for he knows that though the pregnancy is unexpected, the child is a gift that is full of life and could grow to be an influential person in the society. However, this is also not the case for some women because I understand that in some health cases like serious ectopic pregnancy and even rape, women find themselves undergoing abortion.

But, this song is not about whether you are pro or anti abortion, it is about a man’s concern and it is where most women go wrong. For a long time, and I heard this on radio when a presenter said, “it’s a woman’s thing” and this should change and SautiSol have launched this video at a crucial time.

This is a call for inclusion, and it means that whether it is the husband or lover, they too need to understand abortion and not just their desire for a way out, and the way I see it, there is nothing wrong with one man pleading with his love to keep their baby and that he would help her through her pregnancy no matter how tough times are.
Free book to read today.

April 23rd, 2015
Please tell me that you love reading free ebooks, do you?

Well, there’s a book I wrote three years ago- and I was just learning the ropes on online publishing and making my way along search engines and cover image creation. It’s been three years and I am still learning because technology changes every second and there are more platforms for publishing today than there were in 2012.

I recently got hooked on Medium, and I love reading the articles there.

The book that I wrote is called “Take this Message to Rayo,” and the cover image looks something like this:

It’s a story about a young girl named Mima who finds herself on the streets after her mother passes away and her father bails out on them- leaving her under the care of her brother. I had such a clear understanding of life on the streets because I was doing my community service at such a time- so, hence the inspiration for the story.

I would like you to read it.
Here’s why:
1. It is free today and tomorrow.
2. You will need kindle or an eReader which you can easily download as an app on your phone or computer- just for the two days 🙂
3. It is a short story, 56 pages only! That’s around twelve pages short of a newspaper!
4. It is a story told from the viewpoint of a twelve year old.
5. And once you are done, you can leave a much needed review- if you will be too tired to type a few words, then simply click on as many or little stars as you can to rate the book.
The book is available on this link —> get it, free
Thought of the day

April 21st, 2015

Sometimes people get so much courage as long as they have their hands on a keyboard.
Do not write, type, share or like what you would consider hurtful had it been you who was the topic of discussion.
I’m reading

April 19th, 2015
Writing backwards.

April 17th, 2015

It was not my intention to be awake at 3am.

It was also not my intention to sit on the cold cemented floor and think of the perfect story to write, but it all happened, and now, I am here thinking of what to do with myself.

My friend always tells me not to be fooled by rocking chairs. They move back and forth but they never leave the spot they are in. I know about being a rocking chair, isn’t that the same as procrastinating?

It so happened that y 4am I had written three chapters of a story that could not stop bugging me in my sleep. I went back to bed at 5am, and lazily stepped out of it at 7:16am to make chapatis for breakfast.

I committed a crime, and maybe my literary sins are catching up with me- but have you ever read something you wrote and asked yourself, “what was I thinking?”

It’s been three hours and I feel as though I am back to square one- and the three chapters that I wrote while half asleep or half awake do not seem to make sense to me.
Thomas Jefferson on The Dangers of Reading Fiction

April 15th, 2015

I love free books.

Yes, and since I stopped visiting the library, I decided that I would download the kindle app and subscribe to Freebooksy.

They email me links to deals of the day on Amazon and I get to read some great books either for free or at half the price- and is it not odd how most of the free books on amazon are romance?

So, there I was reading a story about some Sheikh and this girl who had left her husband at the altar for cheating on her when my mom walked into the living room with a new book on the Works of Thomas Jefferson.

I reached out for it and there it was “The Dangers of reading Fiction.”

A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels and the time lost in that reading which should be instructively employed.

Nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments of fancy and nothing so bedecked comes amiss.

I put down my device as I went through it and thought, “what a buzzkill!”

But, later on when I thought about it- I wondered, “If this man, Thomas Jefferson, were alive today, what would he say about reality tv shows?”
Sometimes

April 13th, 2015

Sometimes you get into a bus, and walk slowly to the back. The people who see you walk past them, think that you want to sit at the back.

They may be right.

Or maybe, just maybe, you find it reassuring to walk all the way to the back. You walk and when you get there, you choose a seat next to the window.

You sit and look out, not because there’s nothing to do, but because you want to think of what you leave behind for what you hope to gain ahead.

Sometimes, you sit in the back- because you need time.

You sit, and wait.
The cost of reading in Kenya

April 11th, 2015
Literacy is the most sought after aspect here in Kenya, and the latest move by the Kenya National Library Services (KNLS) is the brick wall that we did not see coming, and I will tell you why.

Kenya’s need for an improved education system, and access to this human right saw to the establishment of the public library in 1965. There are sixty public national libraries across the country with an estimated number of over seventy five thousand members today.

When it was established, the mandate of KNLS was:

To promote, establish, equip, manage, maintain, and develop libraries in Kenya as a National Library Service.

However as from this April, the rules and regulations governing use and access to these libraries have changed, and this concerns me because I am not only a member, but I have been taking part in school outreach activities to encourage reading among school going children.

I will share two of the new rules that directly affect access and use of the library and they are:
1. Entry is free to the public (before entry was free to members, and anyone who wanted to use the library had to pay a fee of twenty shillings-but they could not borrow books)
2. To borrow or lend a book: adults pay twenty shillings for each book and can check out only two books within a period of 14 days. Children pay five shillings for each book they borrow.
I applaud the library for making the library free for all to access. This means that any Kenyan citizen or resident can walk into a public library and read or spend time doing research there.

However, my main concern is the book loan fee.

Previously, the annual membership fee for adults was: Kshs. 300 for registration, and annual renewal fee of Kshs. 100. This also meant that a member could borrow as often as she/he could after completing the two books they had checked out.

But, I also know the state of public libraries in Kenya. I took these pictures in April last year, of the Kisumu library:

Poor lighting, cramped spaces, dilapidated bookshelves, and insufficient books were some of the reasons why I felt that the library need renovation.

And in January this year, thanks to donations from the American embassy- I found the American corner with shelves of books that I could not have my fill of.

Before I could read half the books on one shelf, I was informed of the new rules and I had to pay Kshs. 40 to borrow two of the books that I wanted to read. When I asked about my annual membership- I was told, “that has been scrapped off.” I have not been to the library since- and sometimes I forget and find myself walking down that street, only to stop and turn like someone who is lost.

This book loan fee is neither economical or cost effective.

For example: If you are a fast reader, it means you can make at least two trips to the library and that would be around Ksh. 80 (this is currently twelve shillings less the american dollar), but if you add the transport costs for each trip- it becomes more than the previous member registration fee.

Times are tough now, and unemployment is not even the only cause for a Kenyan’s worries- when it costs roughly five dollars to secure two meals a day- and this is on a very good day.

On the other hand, it’s good that anyone can walk into a library to read- but what of space?

The libraries are not spacious, even the three floors in the Buru buru branch in Nairobi is not enough for all the members- and you meet people sitting on floors as they read and constantly have to tip toe so as not to step on anyone.

It is not easy to maintain a library. I have my personal library and dusting and always going through my books is a chore- and though this new move is solely for the upkeep and maintenance of public libraries, I am not for it. Readers will have to seek other options, and ebooks are slowly picking up in Kenya too. There is the need for quality literary fiction, and the library has masterpieces of literature that readers who cannot afford this fee will never read.

The way I see it, there should be a membership fee that is solely for borrowing books- because most Kenyans are living from hand to mouth, that whatever they get goes towards their basic needs, and to encourage the same for reading, is to slowly extinguish the reading culture.

Instead, there should be a fee to be paid once- and this can guarantee a member access to at least five books within the 14 day period. It will be more of a long-term investment, and it means that school pupils, university students and newly employed people can borrow books to read at their convenience.

The libraries should incorporate ICT through provision of online journals and employ qualified librarians to assist in the management of the library.

It is often said that you cannot please everyone, but when it comes to these new rules- all it needed was more dialogue and feedback from the members and I believe that this new cost is already costing us strong minds.
Water, Book two in the Currents Series.

April 9th, 2015

I have finished writing and editing Water. This book took most of my time and I had to revise it so many times that I almost gave up on it- but now that it’s done, all I can do is sit back and let people read it.

It begins:

A tree does not know when it will fall. It lives to spare the one who wields the axe from the sun, rain and wind, yet he wakes up one day and swings his axe to cut short the life of the same tree that protected him.
To say that the people of Leo saw it coming would be to call a bat by its eyes.
To say that the same people hoped it would not happen is to point at a cow’s teats and declare it the source of life.
And so it was that the gods chose to strike Leo at dawn. They reached out and plucked the one charm that the two brothers looked upon. The cattle horn was heard thrice followed by five drumbeats and then one last horn.

The High Queen of Leo was dead.

You can read the first chapter for free on this preview page.

To buy the ebook, (the cover looks something like this)

you can click here and read it.