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  • Let me

    August 15th, 2016

    You.

    Oh, how I wish you knew,

    The anger inside that you brew,

    Will eat at you.

    Piece by piece.

    You.

    Oh, how I wish you saw,

    The love that ought to thaw,

    Will set you free.

    Piece by piece.

    You,

    Oh I wish I had the words, the rhyme, the pace, the beauty,

    To simply remind you that You are beautiful,

    You are true and you are with me now,

    So let your heart thaw, and set aside your anger,

    Because in two days time,

    You shall see me no more,

    But these words will haunt you down that path you trod.

  • 9/40

    August 13th, 2016

    Jeremy smiled to himself more than any guy I had ever met. The view was not amusing neither the music nor the company. He smiled as he sipped his coffee, answered a call or stared out the window at the busy road beside the cafe. When I looked at the time by the screen on my phone, I nearly lost it. He remained seated and shrugged his shoulders as though a few dark skies were nothing but bliss to him.

    “Hey, I better get going,” I said.

    “Sure, where do you live? I could drop you off. Is it within town or out of it?”

    “Out of town actually, I live in Lolwe,but I am sure I can get a mat now.”

    “I live in Kenya Re so it seems we are neighbors which is great,I will drop you off and then make my way home. Do you like it there?”

    “Yes, I actually do. It’s a small cosy place and I have my own gate which makes it easier to access without running into the people from the main house.”

    “Why did you choose Lolwe?”

    “I like it there.”

    “Why did you stay in PR?”

    “I think you are doing this just to unsettle me, but I will still insist that I love it. It was not the course I had in mind but I realized I could do it.”

    “You could be great at investigation or law, anything that involves little or no talking, but you’d laugh it off now.”

    “I still do a bit of that because I have to get to know you and your organization first before introducing you to the people I work for so that’s investigating if not checking you out.”

    “I will enjoy working with you, and I can’t wait to see how you handle yourself out there.”

    “I am not sure if you are complementing or mocking me Jeremy all I know is that we had better leave so I can get to the house and rest.”

  • My dream of you

    August 13th, 2016

    Permanence is what we all want when we can love and can be loved; change is what we want when we cannot.

    My Dream of You, Nuala O’Faolain

    Picture courtesy of WeHeartIt.

  • A Beautiful Soul

    August 10th, 2016

    I drift in between numbness and bliss. The past two weeks have taken a toll on me, but they do not worry me as much as the next few seconds and days will. I had to take a break from writing to bear my grief. I thought all I had to do was cry and then it will be gone. You know like cutting onions, if they make you cry so much, you can stop before you shut your eyes and cut your finger. I was wrong and it is still with me. I lost my grandmother, a woman like no other whose will to go on after losing her husband saw her raise ten children, and behold thirty five grandchildren and twelve great grand children.

    To many she was Monica, but to us she was NyarGiNandi. A woman who wore white, styled up in sunkissed hats and had the strength of ten men. She always talked about love and lived for this. Love your family and when you work give it your all. As a woman know your limits and go beyond them, tame your tongue and forge ahead. A woman should never stay down for as long as you can give praise, raise your voice to God and He will surely come through. She had those wise moments after midnight sitting on her chair, her radio beside her, her eyes slightly closed and her voicebox humming a hymn. She never missed a church service. God knows, I have missed plenty, but she prayed and prayed even when she was taking her last breath she was full of praise.

    But, there is a certain kind of grief that defies grammar. It comes to me when I close my eyes. It came to me this morning when I scrolled through my contacts list and saw her number. Would she pick when I called ? I had to try, but even then I had two options, to call via Airtel or Safaricom. She wouldn’t answer, God knows she would were she alive, God knows she would laugh upon hearing my voice and ask me if I was eating well enough. She would then ask how my Mom was and tell me to love and take good care of her, then she would sign off by telling me God loves me. God knows. I’m not so sure how He knows, but it’s what I’m clutching onto at the moment.

    So, I sit on one of the steps leading to my Mother’s house and wonder, just how special I must have been to have a beautiful soul for a grandmother. If she was mean I would not have missed her. In fact I would have spared her no thoughts or words, but she was love. She was class. Who else could only use the best body lotion for her skin? Who else got specialized sunglasses? Who else could love such a big diverse family?

    I am taking time to find the words and with each breath give praise for having had the honor of being her granddaughter. 

    A beautiful gem, the most rare of souls. Love.

  • When plans change

    August 5th, 2016

    It’s easy to plan. Everyone makes plans.

    It is following through that matters the most. Like that plan to get married and settled by the time you turn thirty. Or that plan to get that girl’s number. How about the plan to change your lifestyle? A weight loss plan, a diet regimen, an investment plan?

    Or how about the plan to get up and do laundry, but right after an episode or season of the Game of  Thrones ?

    Plans can be made and they can change.

    But life can throw you certain curves that numb you so muchso that you cannot recall when you fell off the track and just how far off you’ve gone. Over the years, I have learned to make use of such moments and to write down everything as it happens to me. It has been a great experience and some words have come and gone and built an essence I cannot ignore.

    So, I will take a four day break from writing Forty days in an attempt to come to terms with a curve ball that has been thrown my way. 

    In my grief I have found it daunting to pen a few words, but even so I know that this will take time. I am a planner and love things being organized and neat enough for me to understand. However, I know that time does have its moments and no matter how much they throw you off the track, you should not lose hope. Heal. Understand your need to bear the pain and out of that chisel your strength.

    Four days, until then, be brave, keep writing, keep reading.

  • 9/40

    August 4th, 2016

    He reached for the croissant before him, took a bite and wiped the sugar crumbs beside his lips with the back of his hand. I held out the serviette to him. He shrugged and wiped his mouth with the back of his hands again.

    I returned the serviette to it’s spot which was on a saucer beside his cup of coffee. He smiled and went for his coffee.

    “So, Marjorie, how do you like my life story so far?”

    “Was I supposed to pass any judgement on your life story?”

    “You are something else you know, but it’s okay. I like where this is going, so tell me when did you decide to go into Public Relations?”

    “I did not decide. It was my Dad who did. I wanted to study Sociology but he insisted that I try Public Relations or anything to do with diplomacy because he felt like I had been doing that ever since I could talk. So, I took a course and then advanced it and now it seems to be getting me somewhere.”

    “You are your Father’s daughter right? How many siblings do you have?”

    ” I have two brothers, they all come after me. What about you? How many siblings do you have?”

    “Four now, and I mentioned my mom having six kids, one died leaving five of us, so if I set myself aside we are like four! But, enough about me, so how long have you been here in Kisumu?”

    “Three years on and off. I would love to hear the rest of the story if you don’t mind.”

    “Okay, I will share it with you when we meet but for now I have to ensure you get home in good time. It will be unfair of me to keep you here way into the night, hata kama ni Friday.”

    “Sawa that’s fine by me, but I will hold you to it.”

    “That’s okay, we can finish up and I will see you off if that’s alright with you.”

    “Sure, and listen Jeremy, thanks for giving our organization a chance. I hope our partnership would be a great one.”

    “We’ll see.”

  • 8/40

    August 3rd, 2016

    “You say that I like being in control, but that is exactly what you have been doing since we met,” I said.

    “If that is what you think then let it be. I will not argue with you on it, but I insist that you spend a week with the team of LightKeepers. You will learn more about what we do and it might help you get creative in how to impact the society as an organization.”

    “So, does that mean that you are against cheques?”

    “No, I love cheques. In fact, receiving them is much better than writing them, but what does it say of the one who writes it? Most of the challenges we face need our engagement. I might buy clothes for the homeless or build them houses, but what good would that do in the long term? If I can engage them to understand their weaknesses and strengths, and also to know what their needs are, then I stand a better chance of helping them.”

    “So, you believe that my participation is the kind of thing that is needed to come up with an action plan for my boss?”

    “See, you are smart.”

    “You are still bossy. Why did you start your organization?”

    “Do you need the long version or the edited version?”

    “I need the version you are willing to share now.”

    “Sawa, so, I grew up in a family of six. My Mom was the third wife. If you don’t know what that means, allow me to spell it out for you. It meant that her cries were not heard. It also meant that we were the extra mouths that our father had no time to feed between his ego and athritis. He died when I was ten. My mom and all of her six children were kicked out of the home because she could not forge an alliance with either the first or second wives. We walked for two days to her ancestral home. When we arrived my youngest sister died of hunger and thirst. Three days later, my mother started sweating in her sleep and vomiting. She died of Malaria or as the villagers loved to say ‘tuo marach.’ We also had this disease and as such we ate only after everyone had eaten. My brother left every morning to dig and weed in people’s farms so we could eat. My elder sister cooked and cleaned and never missed a day of school. My Grandfather sold his bulls to pay for our school fees and he would ensure we had enough kerosene to keep our lamps on as we studied into the night.”

    “How is that so far?” he asked, his eyes trained on me, but even as I set my cup back on the table, the words could not come out of my lips.

  • On Writing

    August 3rd, 2016

    Writing turns you into somebody who’s always wrong.

    The illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on.


    A view shared on American Pastoral, a novel by Phillip Roth.

  • 8/40

    August 2nd, 2016

    Jeremy was seated by the window. His eyes faced the window overlooking the road. His back was to the coffee house. If he moved an inch to his left he would spot me ascending the stairs wiping the sweat off my brows. He was in the same washed out jeans with a white T-shirt. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet when I approached the table. 

    “Hey, thanks for coming.”

    “We had an agreement and I could not go against it, even though I was heading home too exhausted with this week’s work. Tell me, how have you been and what do you have to say about the proposal I shared this Monday?”

    “Can we get something to drink first and then talk? Or are you always strict about getting business out of the way first?”

    “No, it’s fine.” 

    “Relax, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, it is better to know the people you are dealing with outside the written contracts and office walls. But, I wonder, why did your organization send me three different takes on what we had discussed? Do I get to choose what we can do out of the three or am I allowed to combine the three?”

    “Three proposals,tell me whose proposal stuck with you?”

    “Your proposal did because you met me and shared the idea first but Nicole and some lady called Vivian just sent me a document with lots of numbers.”

    The waiter’s arrival with our drinks gave me time to choke Nicole in my head. 

    Nicole. She was keen on having this done her way,but what was it about this project that had the attention of the HR? Did the boss share the email he sent me with every department? Turning these thoughts in my head added to the grief I had all day. Nicole.

    Nicole. My friend.

    “Ni nini? What are you thinking of like that or are you still bent on getting those earrings at Woolworths?”

    “Ai,no! I think I will get something else some day maybe. I was not even thinking about that.”

    “How bad can it be? Do you have a roof over your head?”

    “Yes.”

    “Do you have food and water and a warm bed to sleep in?”

    “Yes, where are you going with this?”

    “See, you Marjorie, like being in control. You want to know everything and prepare your reaction towards it all. Life is not like that, and I have seen children who have not even touched soap in their life. They eat like vultures and their hands are bent because of all the begging they do, so that’s where I am going with this. Can you take a week off work and see what my day is like? There are other community volunteers who would take you around the homes during their visits so you have an understanding of what LightKeepers are like.”

    “I will see what I can do.”

    “No, you do it, besides I have a feeling that you will like it. But, tell me, did you ever go to Victoria?”

    “Primary? Yes, why?”

    “I knew it the first time we met, but that’s a field story. Now we talk about general stuff like what your favorite color is and your hobbies and things like those. I will email you details of my amendments on Monday.”

    “Are you the sole decision maker in your organization?”

    “I founded it and I make some decisions but not all. And no, mimi si kama wewe, I am not stubborn. Siko serious twenty four seven, binadamu hucheka saa zingine.”

  • Thoughts at Three

    August 2nd, 2016

    It is 3 A.M.

    The sky is charcoal, glistening like the speacks of yellow and orange you see when you light the jiko. I heard that epic things happened at 4 A.M. Constitutions were written, babies made, drunkards sobered up,books were written, calls made and music composed.

    I heard.

    Oh, how I heard how evil prowls at 3 A.M by windows waiting to pounce on wicked children who refused to obey their parents. Sharon,the one from house number sixty three,not that house,the one with a dog that looks like a goat. Yes, that one! The blue house with no steel door. Aha! Now you get it, kwa akina mdomo pere! Yes, she comes home at 3 A.M and sleeps until 6 P.M then leaves at 8 P.M. She never completed her studies, but she returns when I’ve run out of sleep.

    She knocks on her mother’s door just as I step out of my bed and set my eyes on the sky. Why I look at the sky first is a mystery I would not be interested in solving.

    Now that I’m here, isn’t it odd how conversations after 2 A.M go? 

    “Hey, did I wake you up?”

    “No, I couldn’t sleep, what’s up?”

    “I just wanted to say hi, it’s been a minute.” (Pause )

    Side note: It’s past 2 A.M and you called just to say hi? And it’s been a minute? It’s only fifteen seconds, the mobile provider can even confirm that and what’s with did I wake you? Dude! Who is awake past 2A.M? Even the guy we pay to stay awake is snoring at the security office! I just wanted to say hi! Eish!

    “Are you there? You kinda went quiet for a minute.” ( Pause, no actually continue writing and just say you dozed off the next morning!)

    The thing with waking up at three is that the most refreshing ideas come out of nowhere. They are the best company you’ll ever have and trust me, if you don’t jot them down, you’ll forget them and worse off if you do, you’ll wonder which fool took them down come morning.

    So be smart,like me, read some poems by Nikita Gill

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