I have stared at this white space for a minute now.

A lot can go through your mind when you have a lot to do. And when several new things are happening in your life.

Like when you get into a flight and find familiar food, because it’s KQ and you’re at home in the air. And you can now be easy on them for always delaying flights.

When you land and people clap, because you left the scorching Nairobi sun (which is actually not scorching for a lot of non-Kenyans) and descended into the currently thunderstorm-y Joburg.

ET302. Peace and rest. 🙏

And when you get out and finally understand why they call us the rest of Africa.

As I enter my 30th year, a few somethings from 2018:

You may start the year with all the resolutions in the world (even when you’ve never been a resolutions kind of person), but the year may shock you in both good and bad ways by giving you its own resolutions for you. How you embrace those surprises is up to you.

You will say no so many times that, when you finally say yes, you’ll learn that the saying no helped your saying yes get easier.

Sometimes. No, who am I kidding. A lot of times, your boss will drive you crazy. You will want to quit 1000 times. But a lot of times, you’re probably at fault too. Because you want to think people read minds, even  when you know they don’t. And you want other people to change, and not you. And you will hang on to past hurt to no real gain. Then you’ll get all the wiser and realize, no matter how much someone else wants to help you, if you don’t want to help yourself, you might as well shut it and drown in your pool of self-pity. Which will lead you nowhere. So, better alternative, get up and show what you got. Because no-one else is going to do that for you.

It’s good to have a list. I mean, it implies you’re organized and whatnot. But when the rubber hits the road, a list is just a list. You may have missed things on your list and you may have not thought about adding columns that qualify the items in the list. Why is it so important for you to find someone who has that particular thing? Why does he have to have it now and not later? Life is not a shopping spree.

Living alone is pure joy. I know I’d preached against this here for years. In fact, my first night alone, I walked up the stairs to ask my then annoying neighbour to turn down her volume. Also, I can’t stay with a cat for now. That notwithstanding, there are many things I would not have experienced without moving out. Needless to say, it’s great segue into marriage. I think. Don’t quote me.

You can have stronger bonds with friends separated through time and space than those a stone’s throw away from you. Not everyone will get it. Hang on to those friends. The proverbs still stand, you know, “Fimbo la mbali haliui nyoka” etc, but today, that fimbo is still complimented by one miles away through technology and love.

Dance! Break free from shyness. It’s so liberating. Trust me.

Be patient with that hair. Including the white ones. You’ll be surprised at how fast dead cells can crown your head.

Experiment. Try. It really does not hurt. Red Fenty lipstick can actually look good on you. Eventually. I think. Unless everyone has been lying. Lol.

This post was supposed to go up last year, on 29th. But I kept pushing it, like I did all my posts. Not anymore. I just restarted it from here. Because I realized the more you stop doing things you love, you kill a part of you slowly. I’m learning this from slowly picking up my reading. From Becoming.

You will find him.

He will make you happy. You will make him happy too. Iron will sharpen iron.

You will ask yourself which finger the ring goes on the night it happens. A question you’ve never even asked yourself your entire life.

You will learn wedding dress types and names. And realize how hard it is to find that one you’ve been pinning all over Pinterest. But you know in your heart you will find it.

You are realizing how much it takes to do all that it takes to fulfil your people’s dreams for you, because you know it’s not just about you. But you’ll do it. Because that’s what first-borns do.

You just broke the news the way you were not supposed to. Lol.

Let’s assume nothing just happened and move on. You will question a lot of things about why you do what you do, as you always have. You’re still looking for the answers. There’s got to be more to life.

Like being there for others. Reaching out and dialling a number you should have dialled months ago and finding out how that girlfriend is. Just listening to someone, or hugging that child who has stealing tendencies because they don’t know better.

You will fight. You will make up. You will break your own rules. You will feel guilty. You will get up and keep moving.

You will join the Netflix zeitgeist and stream on bundles for months until Safaricom finally comes your way with home fibre and a free Sunday newspaper. You will watch too many things and forget half of them.

You will learn to be more spontaneous and sometimes live for the moment. See the world. The world right outside your doorstep or a little beyond.

You will reconsider going back to WhatsApp.

You will start learning a new language. Something you never thought you’d ever do. Especially French, of all languages. A challenge is beautiful.

You will watch people blossom around you. And your heart will swell with joy, because you get to be a part of that journey with them. And blossom alongside them. And attend all them happy occasions.

Days will fly. It’s crazy. You’re growing old. And it’s exciting.

Your playlists will change. Because songs that you could never relate to now make complete sense.

You will learn to give without expecting anything in return. Because that’s what giving really is, anyway.

You will get your rhythm back. And you will learn to accept that not everything is black and white.

Je t’aime.

After getting lost in Madrid, I came back to my comfort zone for a week then headed out the next Saturday to Marseille. I was very anxious about this trip to France because it was going to be loooooong. When I say long, I mean very long. Why? Because cheap is expensive. As a newbie, I am not an expert at looking at the best flights with the shortest layovers, neither was my friend. Plus we let these flight booking sites trick us with their cookies. So much so that we later discovered that people who booked different flights months after, all got even cheaper rates and better flights. SMH. So it’s not even a matter of cheapness, it’s inexperience.

Anywho, the day came and I got relieved a bit. Etihad Airways is a cool airline with female and male cabin crew that sport very striking lipstick and perfect hair cuts respectively. And it was my first time on such a large plane. I sat next to this American girl who was quite chatty at the beginning, with some braids on her blonde hair. LOL. Total hippie. Plus since we booked these flights via Alitalia originally, I could not book seats in advance so I ended up next to the lavatories. LOL. So you keep hearing that loud vacuum flushing all the time. I can’t seem to remember what I watched during this leg. I think it was The 15:17 to Paris. I had to Google the title now. I was not sleepy yet, the best was yet to come. I got to Abu Dhabi at some minutes to 9. A few minutes into walking into the terminal, I met up with this other Kenyan who had an even longer layover, but we lost each other at the security check.

Abu Dhabi International Airport is a real swanky airport. They have poured a lot of their abundant money into making it the airport of choice for layovers. I was going to spend 6 hours here, so I decided to find the best seats in the terminal of my next flight. If I was sleepy, these would have been very helpful. I was not. Yet. I grabbed something to eat and chat up my people. I am not exactly sure what I did for the rest of the six hours. What I remember is too much a/c and people running across the terminal to their flights. I finally moved down to my gate about an hour to my flight. I was obviously starting to get real tired, so I did not like the next flight much. But hold that thought.

Real nice, right?

Continue reading

It’s been a while since I wrote. I guess I keep saying that. But oh well, here we are again.

Anyway, this post is going to be about Spain. A week ago, I was in Madrid (Or rather, when I started writing this post it was a week ago). And that was fun. Let’s list the fun stuff.

The first thing that hit me when we landed in Madrid (after the air conditioning) was the heat. And then how normal it seemed. I am sorry but I am one of those people who have always thought the West is this amazing place that has another kind of look and feel that is nowhere near Africa. Like maybe it is full of the bright HD computer generated scenery we see on TV. For starters, the air was the same air. And I was still the same person. LOL. Ushamba nayo?

Madrid was haaaat. Super hot. 40 degrees hot when I checked. Our flight there was not my favourite in my short experience flying. EgyptAir. The only thing I really loved from that was the layover in Cairo, not because it was a superb airport or anything but because the view of Cairo from above the amazing. It’s like they live in these many organized box-like estates that look like symmetrical cuboids from above.

When you land in Madrid and get to customs, they don’t even ask many stories. Passport, stamp, welcome. Everything was planned out for us by our lovely colleague when we got there. The driver could speak English. He drove like a Kenyan though, going way faster than the speed limit signs. We got to Santo Domingo at about 5 on Sunday. The apartment was lovely! Definitely straight out of what I see on TV and what I want mine to look like. All I wanted to do was sleep. The last time I had slept was Saturday morning at 8AM. Everyone else went out. Yeah, I am the not-fun one. LOL. So I don’t really have much to say about that day. Oh, apart from the fact that when I woke up to have dinner at around 10pm, the sun was just setting. Continue reading

Someone keeps saying I should do more travel pieces, but I keep fighting it, in the spirit of keeping things under wraps. But something changed this time, and I thought it’s good to talk about travelling in its true unInstagrammable form. It started with missing my flight. You do not want to ever miss your flight, friend. If you are going somewhere in the evening, just make sure you are at JKIA by afternoon, honestly. I fought against my very instinct and ended up leaving way later and then not using the bypass. So once we were stuck in Upper Hill traffic, I knew we were done for and just pretty much gave up.

You will meet drivers who think they know Nairobi shortcuts, those that lead you straight into the bowels of the traffic glut itself claiming there is less traffic in the tiny roads. It is painful. And, I, for one, will never take a bodaboda from CBD to JKIA to beat time. I am not crazy and I love myself too much. To cut the long story short, we ended up at the gate right at the minute it closed. After confusing ourselves for another many minutes and taking the wrong escalators and turns. LOL. Also, I was not laughing that time.

We had to make very quick decisions and pay the penalty for the next flight out at midnight. Through it all, my colleague thought I was in denial. I was so collected – like, this happens to me all the time sister, relax. My dad called and suggested I ask where Miguna had been staying so I can spend the time there as well. SMH. I counted the notes at that customer service desk and it all felt so surreal. The total penalty was more than the original flight cost. But later on my colleague reminded me to count my blessings. It could always be worse. The price of a lesson learnt far outweighs the experience. We might not even have had that money in the first place and could have missed the next flight altogether. I was supposed to be mad at someone for this but I was not. Did I forget to mention the part where I left something in the Uber because of the rush? I had to smile at so many men to go backwards through departures to the starting point to meet the driver at the terminal. This involved leaving my passport behind too and coming back to an immigration guy who wanted to play with my head and freak me out by not giving it back immediately.

Not the perfect start to a travel story, right? Wrong. This is the real deal. Continue reading