nilichoandika

New month, some new expectations and old fears

September 1st, 2020
Hello September, it feels like I was enjoying the first week of March and then I blinked and you were at my doorstep!

Well, how are you holding up wherever you are? I’d say that this first day of September holds promise, but if there is anything I’ve learned during this COVID-19 pandemic is that you can plan all you want- but the universe still reigns, the only control you have is on your thoughts and how you choose to react to whatever happens. So, I am choosing positivity and let me tell you, it’s working out…slowly.

I read some good books this past month:
- 488 Rules for Life by Kitty Flanagan
- Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey
If there’s a movie I’d love to watch this month, it’s gotta be Love, Guaranteed- and it premieres on Netflix on 3rd September.

On writing: I haven’t written anything for most of the past two weeks and my sleep cycle is suffering more because I am worried about work projects and feeling like I have to do much more to impact the lives of children in terms of accessing quality education. I feel like I need to revise “In The Quiet” and explore the option of printing copies but even that is scaring me out of my wits.

I’ve received some good reviews of Zuri: The Chronicler of Enzi and I keep asking myself , what next? When and how? So, once I work myself to the right headspace, I’ll start the next writing project.
- I carry the fear that we’d be staying at home longer due to this virus and also the fear that I may miss out on getting the facts right for my upcoming project.
- I’m hopeful that I’ll get lots of writing done and ready for publication in the next two months.
- I’m also super hopeful that I’ll stick to my workout regime this week, okay, let’s just try this week and see how it goes!
Until then, I’ll be reading one of my favorite Poets – Billy Chapata‘s upcoming release “Flowers on the Moon”
And so I say

August 25th, 2020

Wake up every morning,

For another dawn is a blessing.

The air in your lungs, the breeze in your hair, the weary of what next,

Is the day’s gift unto you, unwrap it with glee, send a text.

Live, laugh, love, sleep in,

Write that book you’ve always wanted to write.

Sing out loud in the shower,

Drink that bottle of wine you’ve been saving for an occassion.

And so I say, life’s still worth living.

Jawm Ling took this stunning photo! http://www.pexels.com
Updates on Social Distancing, life, writing and everything in between

August 24th, 2020
It’s exactly 159 days, 21 hours and some odd minutes since the Kenyan government called for the need for us to stay away from public gatherings and essentially #stayathome.

In that time I have:
- Published a book: Zuri: The Chronicler of Enzi
- Written a shortie short story/ novella: In the Quiet
- Traveled back to my area of work to see to the construction of 4 classrooms , 2-per community school
- Gained weight
- Started, quit, started, forgot about, started working out.
- Consumed at least 3 cups of tea a day/ some days at least 4 cups of coffee
- Drank more water
- Slept in (and I love sleeping in on Saturdays)
- Signed up for online classes: I just quit the one for African Leadership Institution because with over 1,000 participants and the never ending telegram messages, I missed out on signing in and with 5 error messages- I was done!
- Got accepted into the New Heights Leadership Program: a 3-month online intensive session that merges both Christian Faith and Leading with Integrity in the modern world.
On reading: I just finished reading Honest to Greatness by Peter Kozodoy and he explores how transparency is key to sustaining organizations, companies and our interactions not just with people but also with what we create.

“To get the most out of your people, you must tell them why they matter.”

Status Check: A friend asked me yesterday, on a scale of zero to one hundred, how pissed off are you with the corruption in the Kenyan government? I shot him a look and he simply said “that pissed off?” See, people have been displaced, lost their jobs, their loved ones, our health care workers are at the frontline yet they’re unpaid, without PPE kits and it doesn’t help that the body set in place to regulate all this is busy trading with kits that could save lives. Wouldn’t you lose it if someone was stealing billions meant to ensure your access to health care which you are over taxed for?

On this new WordPress Editor: Yes, I’m learning that free is expensive, because I don’t like it one bit and switching to the Classic Editor means installing it and yes…I’ve got to be on a paid plan to do that. Or maybe I’m just sleepy- who knows, I will look into it when I can, if I hate it…it’s always good to explore options I guess.

I’m looking forward to September! Who knew we’d be this close to ending 2020 when we started out in January?

Have an awesome week. Stay safe. Stay hydrated. Above all choose kindness, we need it.
Revelation

August 18th, 2020

I want to tell you a story.

No, it’s not a revelation,

No, it’s not a confession.

It is a conversation,

Something only you and I know about…remember?

Credit goes to: cottonbro/ http://www.pexels.com
Book Review: A Cobra’s Bite Doesn’t Hurt by Anil Nijhawan

August 10th, 2020

The first line of this book reads:

Your Highness Mr Narendra Modi,

The story: Kalu, kidnapped from an orphanage at the age of fourteen and trained to pick pockets, is forced into a gang of thieves in Bangalore. When Babu, their ruthless gang leader, murders his best friend Ramesh, Kalu – fearing for his own life – runs away to Kolkata. While still being pursued by Babu he meets and falls in love with Tanya, a stunning and gifted career girl from an upper middle-class family.

Sir, if you ever come across a cobra unexpectedly, my advice is not to stare directly into its eyes.

Oh, I love the ingenuity of this book!

Who would have thought that it’d be in the form of a letter and not just any letter but one addressed to the Prime Minister of India and from a Street Urchin nonetheless. I love Kalu’s honesty and what hurt me most as I read this was how he took me along those streets in India, the hopes of children, the hurt and betrayal they experience at the hands of adults, the corrupt police and I was even angered by how the depiction of politicians in this book rings true for most of those in my country, Kenya. Same goes for the police!

The mode of storytelling is refreshing, for Kalu uses an old Sanyo recorder to talk to the Prime Minister. He admits that having grown up an orphan, first in an orphanage and then in the streets, he never learned to read or write.

Kalu’s charming, naive, sarcastic, hopeful…nostalgic, a hopeless romantic and sometimes, in reading you cannot help but weep for the children out on the streets of India as he depicts them and the lies and neglect that led them there.

Modiji, my Sanyo voice recorder did not start this morning. I had to hammer it several times to wake it up. Hope it lasts to the end of my story. In Japan, they would have thrown it away by now. But, we Indians don’t discard anything easily; we know how to recycle.

Rating:

Buy a copy at: Amazon

About the author:

Born into a Punjabi family, Anil Nijhawan’s early schooling was in Kolkata, at the infamous (people have contradictory opinions) South Point School. His teacher of English, the charismatic Mr Utpal Dutt, an actor and a scholar of Shakespeare and English literature, instilled in Anil the love of English language at a young age. Anil Nijhawan now lives in the UK with his wife Adarsh and a family of gold fish in the garden pond. His career has embraced working in the computing industry and running his own business.

Visit his site: https://anilnijhawan.com/
Assurance

August 8th, 2020

Before the clock strikes midnight,

Say my name.

Call it when your soul is still,

Yes, say my name.

Say it when it feels like the universe is bent on keeping me away,

Say it, because I’m afraid if you do not,

I will.

Before the clock strikes midnight…say my name.

Call me into a new dawn, an assurance that wherever my soul may be,

It will always smile upon you.

Gaurav Kumar Verma took this photo/ http://www.pexels.com
Hope When Your Heart is Breaking by Ron Hutchcraft

August 7th, 2020

Harvest House Publishers

I had one of those days. The kind where the weight of the world is on your shoulders and nothing seems to make the cloud of sorrow hover farther away from you.

And a colleague at work told me what I often say to her, “look on the bright side…” and I was tempted to bundle her up and throw her in the lake, because there was no bright side, no silver lining, no lesson to be learned…I just wasn’t feeling it and lately it seems like I am spiraling in this web of sorrow, hopelessness and just despair.

So, reading this book felt like my call for help, because taking a walk wasn’t helping, music was making me cry, and I couldn’t eat or sleep.

The author draws lessons learnt from his life. He shares his loss, grief and how he worked his way into living what he shares in this book and honestly, it was so refreshing to find my pain understood by another simply in him sharing his own hurt.

He expresses this connection better;

People may not want to hear your message. But they will listen to your scars.

He explores grief, faith and what it means to hope against all odds. And now, with what’s happening in the world- reading this felt like someone lighting a flashlight in the dark. What still baffles me about his writing and theme- is the power of choice. He constantly shares that there is a thin line between hurt and healing and that’s the power of choice.

At some point while reading this, I came across this question, he asks:

Is a hammer constructive or destructive?

Yes. It depends on what you do with it.

The publisher states that: Hope When Your Heart Is Breaking is an honest look at both roads, and how your greatest loss can lead to your greatest gain. Author Ron Hutchcraft writes from the deep well of his own devastating loss and grief, and points us to the practical steps that lead to peace and wholeness.
This book is a pathway to hope—a road map through the pain of grief and loss. Be strengthened by a new closeness to others and to God. And make the decisions that lead to comfort, growth, and life.

Truth is, it draws from various texts, stories and instances in the Bible and makes for a comforting read. So, if you’ve lost someone you love, a dream, a part of you, or sometimes you find yourself traveling with a bag of past trauma then, this would be something worth reading.

Loss leads to grief and in grieving we have choices and you too have a choice just like the author says:

The hammer will change you for better or worse. But it’s not the hammer that decides whether hurt or hope wins. We do. By the choices we make.

My take: 4 stars

Am I feeling better? No, I am feeling challenged to do something about this cloud that I can’t shake off and it’s not to look outside of me, but to look inside and to me, right now, that’s way better than anything I had expected when I started reading this book.

I’ll get another cup of tea and continue writing out what’s eating me inside.

Get a copy: here
Love; An Excerpt

August 5th, 2020

My grandmother says that love is like diarrhea, it needs neither an invitation nor privacy. I did not believe her until I met Abubakar and Ishmael.

I did not meet them at once, rather like bouts of diarrhea, they befell me.

We crossed paths and now we seem to be walking together. I know not who is on my right or left but I feel pulled in different directions. I sway like the tree that is blown by the wind, but, my mind, like the roots of a strong tree, is fixed. It is grounded.

Abu a.k.a Abubakar
I was going home after a long day’s week. I walked into the bus station and headed straight to the big, blue and white buses marked “RASASI.”
“St. Mary’s, Langa’ta, na Otiende…forty! Forty!”

The tall guy ushered me in. I took my seat nearest the door because I would alight first.

It felt good to be rid of the sun. The sun that dared to walk amongst us humans- as though we were equals.

He saw me. I saw him. He was dressed in maroon from head to toe. He was the same guy who had been calling out to people to board the bus. He had ushered me in. He was the one whose voice I heard, yet never dared to see his face. I did not have the time. He had small black eyes, sharp pointed ears and dry cracked lips. He smiled at me. I was staring. I smiled, just a little for he must have strained to part his lips. I could give him my lip gloss, but guys don’t do gloss. Besides my grandmother always says not to initiate contact unless it is warranted.

Fire keeps burning whether you touch it or not. You only get burned when you are stupid enough to reach out and touch it. I could feel dry cracked lips eyes on me. I turned to look and he smiled again. I was pleasant and the next thing he did was hand me his phone. His number being sealed, he asked for mine.

I keyed in one of my numbers. What harm could it do sharing my number with dry cracked lips?

He smiled, and then called immediately.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You are beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
I hang up, not because he said I was beautiful- but because he dared tell me what I already knew. Couldn’t he be more clueless? What if he said it softly? It would still make no difference because it was not warranted.

As the bus pulled out of the station, I thought to myself how foolish I had acted. What had caused my actions? Hormones, impulse, time or folly? I could not tell, but now some guy with dry cracked lips named Abubakar had my number.

He said ‘call me Abu,’ and I thought of Abu- the monkey in Aladdin and smiled. I was foolish, but even fools can be redeemed can’t they?

Excerpt from, Love Like Bouts of Diarrhea, published on Smashwords, April 10, 2014.
Confessions of the Soul

August 3rd, 2020

You are a scent.

Sweet, lingering, nostalgic…redemptive.

You are life,

Blooming in the sun, hibernating in winter and sometimes when the world is distracted,

you smile, a little…a reminder of the light within you.

Sometimes, I tell myself that these thoughts would wound me,

You know they do.

So, as my heart yearns for freedom, my soul sings these confessions…like the scent of you that lingers long after you’ve gone.

Rikonavt took this/www.pexels.com
Hello August! (Free sample included)

August 1st, 2020

It’s 1:05AM as I type this and no, I do not suffer from insomnia.

Occasionally maybe, but here’s why I’m up, I’d like to share a sample of my book, In the Quiet, with you for free.

Yes, you don’t have to pay anything, however, your decision to read this, click the link and download a free 3-page sample, is more precious than I could ever explain.

So, forget me…click the link below and enjoy this sneak peek of ‘In the Quiet.’

FREE SAMPLE HERE