nilichoandika

Sometimes in life you eat sweet potatoes

February 11th, 2016

It’s good to be back home in the city by the lakeside! Kisumu is beautiful and full of surprises but I still get that small town girl feeling whenever I return.

The hairdresser under the tree is still there. She comes and spreads her mat on the ground, positions her bench and waits for clients who need their hair braided. The shopkeeper is also there and he opens and closes his shop as he pleases. Then, there is the barber who always listens to Kiss 100- so I am treated to replays of songs! And who can forget the cobbler who comes to work wearing white linen pants and goes back home without a smear or dirt, polish or glue on his pants! (Goals, I tell you!)

However, I have been unwell since I came home. Mom insists that it is Malaria and my doctor confirms it with a dosage of nasty medicine that I am supposed to swallow within a period of eight hours!

So, with the heat and the medicine I have been doing nothing much aside from reading and staying away from the kitchen but something happened that made me get up and drag my feet to this computer, some bit of gossip if you please.

Mom bought sweet potatoes.

You see, these big sweet potatoes that when cooked they are all white and powdery!

I love sweet potatoes.

We were having sweet potatoes with tea at four yesterday evening when suddenly the piece I had in my mouth seemed to be working against me. I felt my eyes bulge out and nothing made sense or eased the pain, not even the gulps of ginger tea I was taking- and for a split second it felt like that piece of sweet potato would be the death of me!

Mom just sat there laughing! They were laughing so hard that tears filled their eyes and they couldn’t stop. When I composed myself, and glared at mom, she said “Jawuoro!”

Now, allow me to welcome you into my native language-Dholuo. See, there are certain words that can be used to tease or jest or simply insult someone but they have never really been meant as such. Take that word up there! Jawuoro…it’s just, aargh!

I was dying (or it felt like it) and mom chose that precise moment to call me a “Glutton!”

Now, isn’t that sending a dagger to my Luo heart? That piece of sweet potato was stuck like it was a fat cat sitting in my spot reluctant to move. Have you ever tried to move a fat cat off your seat or better yet, have you ever tried pushing a donkey from behind? Ghai!

And I couldn’t help but remember that you have not valued your life until you are choked by two kinds of food: sweet potatoes and pumpkins a.k.a ‘budho”
When patience is taken for uncertainty.

February 1st, 2016

I thought about this post today. Waking up at six and thinking about the words as I did laundry, had breakfast, left the house, finished reading a book. When I turned on the radio or pretended to move, I thought about this post.

You are very patient, aki if I were you?

If you were me, and that’s impossible because there’s none like me and there never will be, but let me indulge your fantasy for a minute. If you were me then what?
Sometimes the sheer boldness of people astounds me. It’s like walking right into incoming traffic or better yet walking in front of an Umoinner, ROG, or those Rongai matatus where exhausts and loud music are nothing if they don’t scare the life out of you!

There’s this book, Last Train from Liguria by Christine Dwyer Hickey that has me going round in circles, digging up ghosts from my past. It’s a story centered around Bella, a woman in her thirties who leaves Ireland to serve as a tutor to a young boy named Alec ( Allesandro) in Italy. Fascism, a war, love and betrayal fill the story that is told from as early as 1924, 1933 all through to 1995. It is the ability of the characters to retain their individuality that stuck with me. It’s like in reading all 392 pages of the story,I never really knew the characters, like they slipped through my fingers and I cannot find them.

So, what? Why would that intrigue me? Well, patience grasshopper, it is an art that I have tried to master and also appreciate and it nagged me so much that I had to call my mentor to seek some closure. Why couldn’t I create characters like that?
His first question was why would you want to create such characters?
I said power. Every character wants something and even those who appear not to, cease to be bystanders at some point in the story.
He laughed. I heard him laugh as though it was a joke, but I was frustrated. When I am frustrated I cry and God knows why tears flow out of these eyes when all I want is to toss stuff and leave everything around me in ashes, but he laughed and then asked me to talk to him about the book. When I ran out of credit, he called back and listened.

So do you see why its bugging me? I asked hoping to have his understanding.
He simply asked, have you read your books? Especially Water, have you read it?
I said yes. He cleared his throat and said I mean really read it, like you were the reader and not the writer editing her work.
I said I haven’t. I could not, not really.
He said, Read it and then call me.

So now, I have to read my own book and suddenly I wonder what I will find in there. Typos, definitely. I know there has to be at least one typo, but what else? Will I love it or hate it and why should I read the second book in the series and not the first?

He said, well, people think that it is the first step that makes all the difference but it’s the second step that actually does because it determines whether you’ll go back to where you were or proceed with your journey.
Earth: Book 4 in the Currents Series

January 29th, 2016

“The sun shines but it does not burn itself. It is like the rain for it has someone to fall and rise for. The sun rises and falls for the moon, whom do you rise and fall for My King?”
—-Ulioko.

It’s been a wonderful journey in writing this series. What started as an idea grew into not one but three books and this morning I stared at myself in the mirror and asked why couldn’t you just write one book?
The truth is I couldn’t. Each book depicts a phase in Prince Ustawi’s life and to have it all in that book would be to overload the reader. There are books that do that to you. I did not want that.

Secondly, I had to grow in my writing and to space them out in four books was my way of achieving that.

As I take my time with Earth, I also pick up on where I lean on as a Writer and its a process that has me going back to the first book, Fire, to see how it all adds up. Every character wants something. In The Currents Series it all started with a vision and as we come to a conclusion did it come to pass or not and how have the people of Leo changed? What can we learn from them? What about monarchy and democracy and betrayal? Where does a ruler draw the line between truth and treason? How does he rule?

There is also a focus on marketing and book distribution. I was to draft a plan and email it to my Mentor, but so far I have nothing and before he calls me up to ask about it, I will sit down and come up with a working draft.

Until then, it’s more writing and editing until the book’s ready.
An audience of sorts.

January 27th, 2016

Our love is a story for an audience.

It was the little things that made me stop and wonder like whether you could find the perfect person in a book, underneath a coffee mug, when you toss and turn a chapati or even when you listen to a love song at 4am. I have done worse, trust me.

So, I’ll drink some water and tell you all about my journey to and away from love. I believe that a sip of cold bottled water is my remedy. I would have had Scotch, or Whisky and twirl it around like Alejandro or Don Juan- or that guy who just got kicked out by his wife at the bar but I’ve never had a drink. I do not know the burning sensation or pleasure of cool alcoholic drink, so I’ll stick to what I know best like water.

My journey to love started when I was young. Growing up there was always the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

There were always the answers like: Doctor, Nurse, Lawyer, Surgeon, Neurosurgeon (thanks to Think Big by Ben Carson), Pilot, Air Hostess, Teacher.

Then there was the game “cha-nyumba” where you’d act like a family and everyone had roles. There would be the Father, Mother and kids. I loved this game because I was always the kid and could get presents like a clay version of a bike, or doll with hands that stuck to her sides.

This grew when I started watching Disney Fairy tales and watching programs and reading books. I was introduced to Shakespeare and Margaret Ogolla as a child, and their way with words brought out some hope- a belief in love being eternal. I still believe that love is eternal.

However, when I say that our love is a story for an audience, I am projecting a girl’s view on love in the bus today. She was asked by her friend, “how are things with you guys?” She paused and then replied, “I don’t know anymore, he’s nice and sweet sometimes when we are with other people and sometimes I never even hear from him, yaani, I don’t even know.”

I thought, “would you listen to that?” I pulled out the book I was reading and got down to it because there was this conversation in my head that brought back memories of someone I thought I loved. It’s been years and to have someone express a feeling that was a deal breaker for that relationship took me back to a place I never wanted to revisit. It was the absence and non-existent communication that made me end things. I felt like a car that was bought and left to sit in the garage because the owner didn’t have any use for it- and for a while I was angry. For two hours before sitting my exam I was angry and I remember my room mate telling me to call his number and say hello because chances are he was having a rough time at school too. I called and found the same response, his room mate saying he was unavailable and I remember sitting back in bed and asking myself “Did you really love him? Like did you really see a future with him?” And then the answers starting coming in: he drank too much, he laughed a lot even at things that were non-existent, he was intimidated by me,he was barely there. I was not hurt by him but more by me. I had held on thinking things would be okay, and that hurt me and so a year after going my way, I wrote a novella about it. (Yes, I Swifted him- and you can read it here)

To say that I was shunned from love by that incident would be a lie, rather it made me seek out love more and I met great people, places and books over the years. I found out so much more about communication and desire and trust in different times and occasion.

There is a lot to love and it starts with oneself. It’s like blossoming from the inside out. It takes time, understanding and experiences to get you there.

I have since discovered my love for writing romance.

But back to that girl in the bus, though I had promised myself that I’d stop following people’s conversations in buses, I hope that she does find what she’s looking for and if it is love that the only audience that ever attests to the script of that love is her before it hits the biog screens.
Literature in a hurry

January 26th, 2016

Have you ever tried to swallow hot porridge?
It’s a futile attempt at controlling temperature that results in a swollen tongue, scorched throat, and tears, bucketloads of tears. How do I know? I was young and foolish, that’s how.
I bought a copy of my first newspaper of the year this past Saturday. I didn’t want much from it except a page or two on Literature that’s featured in the Daily Nation Saturday paper. It did not disappoint. The title Literature is under siege, but literary intellectuals are silent. I remember looking at that article and spreading the paper on my sister’s blue carpet as I walked into her kitchen to fix my second cup of coffee. I walked around the house as the kettle went to work for that coffee I needed desperate to read Godwin’s article.
I had decided that this year I would invest in matching my lingerie. I mean there are reasons for and against that but I thought why not? But, aside from a wardrobe upgrade I have been speaking out more about writing and the need for content that speaks to an audience, not in a way that they hear, but a way that they internalize the message.
I read somewhere that:

Journalism is literature in a hurry

I remember going through Godwin’s article thinking of how many people did take up Literature at the University and why they went for it. See, I think I would have taken it up but I have always had that Psychology cloud hanging above my head with a lightning bolt ready to strike lest I deviate from my course.

In his article Godwin writes:

It is deeply ironical that the influence of literary and cultural intellectualism has been so roundly trumped by the irrational ideas, whether they are rich quick allure and materialism, or the sectarianism of tribe and religion, in times of information explosion.

He goes on to ask a question that has given me no peace since that Saturday evening :

Is our idea of literature consistent with the current challenges that society faces?

In my previous post Like a time stamp in the heart, I shared three questions that I believe every writer ought to ask themselves and figure out an answer. I went ahead and stated why I write and why I hold dear the ability to put words together in an attempt to create. So, why did his article bother me so much? Why did his view on literature especially in the higher education institutions send me chasing after my own tail?

I don’t know. And no, it’s not denial, it’s the state of uncertainty for the feeling is there but for now what precise reason, I don’t know.
Since then I have read a few good books and bought even more.

There’s more to this but if one thing is true it’s that Literature will never die. It may be under siege as Godwin writes, but that is his view and we are seven billion people and the pen knows those are quite a lot of views.
Shall I consider myself a Literary Intellectual and say that I’m speaking about it, and writing about it? I don’t know…
Like a time stamp in your heart

January 22nd, 2016

My mentor sessions have resumed and I am taking a break from a meeting at work to share this.
Last year was remarkable for me, I published books that people actually read and felt compelled or moved by them so much so that some called me to discuss what the book did to them. I mean, for any writer or Creator to simply have that kind of feedback is a great accomplishment.

And what next?

My mentor asked me what I had in mind this year after publishing the books and he started with three questions that I believe every young writer who is breaking into print needs to ask themselves.

1. Why do you write?
2. What do you expect to achieve out of publishing?
3. How will you go about achieving or realizing 1 and 2?

The Currents Series saw three books released via Amazon Kindle last year. I have not made record sales because I am more into the writing and have done nothing much to market the books or make then available for purchase here in Kenya. It all comes down to shipment costs versus distribution here and I will admit I suck at it.
It’s exactly where I would love to start on this year. If my desire is to be vastly read then I have to vastly distribute my books and that is what I am working on and it does not help that my mentor is into Business Administration. I am taking a crash course in how to market and sell and he’s not giving me a break or allowing me to doubt myself. I am grateful for that.

The three questions all mean something to me because for years I have approached publishers only to hear that am not what they want.
It’s always more like can you write this for us first then we can talk?

For a creative do you know what it’s like to be put in a production line?

I will tell you it kills you inside. You produce to please and you are rewarded with money, but a part of you dies every time you numb your inner voice for cash and fame.

So, I will tackle the first question and it may come off as Romanticism but whichever way you take it, this is where I stand when it comes to writing:

I write books so they live long after I am gone. It would wound me to my core to have a reader pick my book only to forget it after they’ve closed the last page. I write so these words crawl up your spine, delve into your veins and stick on you like a memory too real and alive to be ignored or forgotten. I would not want my stories to fade like magazines, each issue is quickly forgotten the moment it hit the shelves as the next one is being produced. I write to live long after these fingers and this brain are unaware of the music of my soul.
Hakuna Matata

January 21st, 2016

You’d not believe in love at first sight until it rammed into you at a vendor filling your nostrils with a twinge of lime sending you two or three steps back. Trust me, I believe in love and more so in lust and being speechless.

It is 11:45am and I am listening to Fireproof by One Direction in this cyber cafe along Moi Avenue in Nairobi. Chances are you have spotted me: brown braids, brown bag, blue jeans, black ngomas, and a walk like the apocalypse is coming!

I was heading to Cafe Clarion opposite Jeevanjee Gardens for a cup of house coffee, but I had to stop and write this.

Scoot closer…just a little more, okay, listen…I met this guy! Yes, who would have thought, right? Yeah, so listen, I was walking from the bus station when I made a stop at that book vendor right outside Tuskys. You know I cannot resist a good book, or a bookshop or a vendor. So, I was talking to that guy asking if he had any Biographies and he was checking around picking and dropping books like they were not the speck of gold he needed. I was following his hand movements careful not to touch any book because I had to buy just one book. If I touched any but a Biography I wouldn’t have any money left for my coffee. So, he’s looking and I am helping when someone runs into me sending me off my feet and just before I land flat on the books, someone grips my hands jerking me up and I crush into this pile of muscle!

I’m telling you it was like running for your life only to have someone shake you out of your nightmare! There was this scent: I know Hugo Boss for Men, I know there’s one with a twinge of lime and just a dash or euphoria, like an arousing of senses you never thought existed in your body. This muscle smelled divine especially at 11am!

So, I step back and think, “You are holding onto some chic’s man!”

I look up and the vendor is grinning like he’s won the SportPesa jackpot and this muscle is smiling and blushing at me.

“I’m sorry, look, someone pushed me and please, it’s my bad. Are you okay?” He asks.

“I’m okay, thanks.”

“Pole, I didn’t mean to, am Anthony.”

I looked at his hand and thought to myself, if I took it, this could spoil the moment or it could leave me with his scent for the rest of the day and so I looked at his hand and took it into mine. It was warm and all I know is I said, “Dora.” He smiled and drew me back to the vendor with his hand still holding mine and said, “Let’s get you out of the way, so no one runs into you again, by the way, you’ve got a beautiful name.” The vendor clears his throat and says, “Msupa, aki sina, but pitia pitia tu, nikiget nitakusort.”

“Sawa, thanks.”

I withdrew my hand from Anthony’s and told him I was walking to get coffee. He did that thing with his lips again, half smiling- half grinning, before saying he’d walk a while with me and so we stepped together in line. I know you think am insane, but if you see that short fat flying cherub called Cupid, tell him he’s gotta ease up on the potion.And then this song by Zikki came to mind( PS: It’s the full video):

So, there we are walking, asking each other questions in our heads not looking at each other and then he stopped and walked back after saying ‘goodbye.’

See, the first thing I did was walk into this cyber and just put it out there, so that cute guy wherever you are…Asante. And about running into me, “well, hakuna matata.”
Outside looking in

January 19th, 2016

It’s good to be back in an area with 3G connection. I say this with much respect for Nairobi because I know it’s upgraded to 4G but all the same, being in a place where the network connection is enough to send a tweet is like fresh air to me.
I realize that now.
So, following my travel diaries, I have been up and about in Elgeyo Marakwet visiting different villages and looking into sustainable health and sanitation practices at the household level.

My first day saw us stop over at Eldoret town where we boarded a vehicle to Kapsowar town. These vehicles were the old matatus with passengers sitting on benches and facing each other as the driver drove like he’d stolen the car. It was dusty and made my back stiff but I appreciated one thing about the touts and passengers: they paid when they got to their destination.

The second shock came when we got to the hotel where we would spend the first two nights. I found the rooms simple and clean plus the shower had hot water which was much needed after that bumpy ride. Seriously, is it just that Kalenjins love speed so much that they not only run like the wind but also drive like it? I couldn’t understand that, even when the room attendant said it with pride that they do their stuff fast.

The shock was the night. Our room was directly above a bar and at midnight I had to listen to two women first over who would go with the man. I stepped out of bed to watch the commotion and never went back to sleep after that which was my second mistake of the day.

View of Kapsowar from Kamok

What I loved most about Elgeyo Marakwet was the hills and valleys and how nice people were despite the fact that I needed a translator most of the time since I do not speak their language.
Out and About

January 13th, 2016

Hello, it’s been a while since I posted something. My time has been spent traveling in Elgeyo Marakwet.

Chebara Dam in Chebiemit Elgeyo Marakwet

A beehive in Kamok Village.

Huts, with red mud walls ☺
Believing in yourself and other stories

January 8th, 2016

I woke up ten minutes to six in the morning today. I knew I had to wake up, not because the lights were on but because it’s my sister’s birthday.
Growing up our birthdays constituted of great birthday cards and the chance to have Mom prepare you a special dish. We never had much and we never had parties. I remember that we stopped receiving Christmas gifts the year our Dad died. I was nine then.
However, Mom never stopped making us delicious meals on our birthdays.
So, there I was mumbling to my sister “Happy birthday” and wishing I was not so broke to get her something good, but all in good time.

So, what has she taught me all these years:
1. Black is not the only color I can wear.
2. T-shirts and jeans are comfortable but a dress, some flats or a skirt can serve to show my curves once in a while and definitely my legs.
3. You can never go wrong with good perfume.
4. Read and work hard for what you want in life. Earn your sweat, don’t wait for a man to treat you right.
5. What does your Mother want? No, tell her am not yet home, I can talk to her later, not now, am beat!
6. You can make chapatis in twenty minutes! Watch and learn.
7. Keep writing.
8. If you are hired to do a job, do a damn good job because you’re replaceable.
9. Google is your friend.
10. Live a little.

If there’s one thing she has showed me is that believing in myself goes a long way in getting things done. So, now am off to read and maybe get some writing done, am leaving for the road this weekend and I know number 8 of her life quotes will come in handy!

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