Shiku Njathi (née Ngigi)

Published 6th March 2016

Pray

It’s Sunday. You know me. I love me some Sunday. Today was different though. It was Founders’ Day at AHS. The 90th anniversary. Coincidentally, it was school birthday at AGHS. But as they say, there’s no such thing as coincidence. School birthday was supposed to be last Sunday, but it was pushed to today for some reason. So I cheated on my alma mater and spent the day at across, mostly because my brother is in form four. Back when we lived at across, Founders’ Day was a modest ceremony. We all fit in the chapel, it took just two hours or so and we ate nice little baked stuff from the kitchen in the lawn behind the chapel. Kimori and I loved these times! Nowadays, the service takes the whole day, in the sun or if you’re early, the tents, and there are no sweet little snacks at the end! Just kawaida food. Childhood memories are just the best!

Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing. I’m writing because of something the preacher said.

Faith

Published 5th March 2016

Could You Live Without Your Phone?

I was eventually going to run on near empty if I wrote everyday. Hehe. Anyway, it’s 11.21 pm and I’ll beat the deadline.

If you’ve been here a while, you must remember my many posts about my Samsung phones. Well, I can tell you now, without mincing my words, that I’ll never buy a Samsung phone again, for myself. I added that part because I just bought one for my dad. He insisted he only trusts Samsung, now that he doesn’t have his beloved Nokia choice. Oh well. At least I got to be offered a drink at that Samsung shop near Lifestyle. Lol.

MarCommsTech

Phone Samsung

Published 4th March 2016

Chop! Chop!

Depending on whether you live in a cave or not, this may or may not come as a shock. It started as a bluff. Everyday I’d wake up and joke about it. I’d comb my hair different just to see what people would say. During the combing, half my hair would fall to the floor of my bedroom. It was just sad. A visit to the salon would make me feel stupid. Nothing would change despite leaving money behind with the hairdresser. The pixie cut lost its form. A colleague asked me if I go to the salon at all because it looked bad. And that was the end of me and that pixie, in my head. Everyone thought I didn’t care about my hair. That was bad. I stopped going to the salon. I would wash am treat my hair myself at home, contemplating my next move.

Ideas

Hair Hair care Women

Published 3rd March 2016

Confused in Love

This is a story about a girl. A girl who was in love. A girl who was in love but didn’t know it. A girl named Clara.

You know what, let’s not beat about the bush. I know Clara. She told me this story herself. I didn’t know what to think or to advise her, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Love

Published 2nd March 2016

Tight Times

Don’t you just love the feeling when you get home and loosen all your clothes and feel free to be you? You know, get rid of that annoying bra that you only notice is tight at 7 pm? That pair of pants that gets real tight at the tummy when you sit in your swivel chair after lunch? That pair of shoes you bought this weekend that only became tight when you walked out of the shop? I know you know what I’m talking about, girls. I don’t know about the boys in the building and whether they ever wear things they can’t wait to get out of, but hey, who knows, right? Maybe they will tell us.

Ideas

Clothing Women Work

Published 1st March 2016

Mad

Sometimes I get mad. Real mad. Super mad. Very angry. Most times, it’s not even the big things that drive me up against the wall. Nah. It’s the little things. When people insist on talking rather than doing. When someone does not do their work and I suffer for it by doing it on their behalf. There are times I get ticked off for a second. Like when my brother opens the tin of jam and leaves it open. Or when he leaves a completely clean kitchen littered after one food adventure. Or when mum keeps calling out my name while I’m on phone. Or when dad misreports something I did to mum. Or when my sister won’t sleep and finds all sorts of reasons to move around the house at 11pm banging doors and visiting the loo ten times. Or when my other brother decides to not do what I say. Yeah, big sister syndrome. I will shout. I will shout louder. I’ll make sure everyone in the house knows I’m mad,including the cats. But I forget I was mad a few minutes later.

Ideas

Published 12th February 2016

Diary of a Single Girl: February

You sigh a lot nowadays, whether in text or physically. You rarely feel anything anymore. You have lived long enough to know some things are not worth wasting your emotions over. Even when you do feel something, you’re human after all, you move on very fast.

You have a crush in the office building. He looks like a sweet chap. But every moment you get, you ignore him, pretend not to see him, unless your eyes lock and you have no choice of pretending not to have seen him. Hi there. He probably has a girlfriend or wife, in all likelihood.

Diary of a Single Girl

Family Love Men Relationships Women

Published 31st January 2016

What’s in a Name?

I am seated on my usual chair in the living room typing this. My brother makes fun of me about this chair. He says it’s like I was cemented here, on the dining table. Anyway, it’s been a quiet weekend. I wanted it that way. I was rather irritable at the end of the workweek. It was a crazy one. I just wanted to shut everything out and move on to February. So far, so good. I remembered to write after reading Murithi Mutiga’s piece today. It’s been a minute since I read him, or anything in the newspaper for that matter. I like how he argues his points. Very legit. He will say something you disagree with and somehow you will just nod your head along. He wonders why there is no street named after Jaramogi in Nairobi. The other piece I read this weekend was pushed to me by B, this week’s piece by Ciku Muiruri. It’s about her name or rather our names. Names. Names. Names.

Ideas

Published 19th January 2016

Diary of a Single Girl: January

Sigh. It’s mid Jan. How did that happen? You struggle to get out of bed today, as always. You remember sleeping without answering all the texts on your phone. One was about an engagement on Facebook. Facebook will never leave you alone, will it? Despite you not logging in for two months. The other was a good night from another friend. You wanted to reply but couldn’t. Not that you had something else to do except read that book that has you glued to its pages and lying in bed in all sorts of awkward positions.

Diary of a Single Girl

Family Friendship Love Relationships Women

Published 30th December 2015

Books I Read in 2015

First of all, allow me to go backwards and start without much ado because I am just itching to express my thoughts on Americanah. I know I said I’d never read it but one Sunday evening I was feeling like I had nothing else to read (which was obviously not true) so I reached out to the book and turned the pages that looked like they had been turned by 20 people before me. Chimamanda got my attention on that first page when she talked about braiding and on the second page, where she mentioned that Ifemelu had a blog. Just because she captured me with this character with a blog, I hang on when she started making it look like women who straighten their hair have a missing part of their africanness than those who braid theirs. I always get pissed off at people who want to make one way of maintaining African hair superior to the other. At this point, I would rather Njoki Chege than Chimamanda. Okay, maybe I have gone too far but you get my point.

Arts

Book Books Ebooks

Behind the Scenes – 2015

Published 28th December 2015

Behind the Scenes – 2015

So I just sat and thought that this would be a cool thing to do every year to take stock on de blog. This will be a great way for…

Ideas

Published 19th December 2015

Driving D-Day

Warning: If you think I break grammar rules, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Sometimes I just exist. Just exist waiting for the next big thing to happen so I can start living again. That’s the reason I have not blogged and it’s mid month of my favourite month. Something must seriously be wrong with Shiku, you must have said to yourself. Wonder no more, because here is the lowdown.

Kenya

Driving God Kenya Women

Published 30th November 2015

Driving Drama

Argh. I’ll be so late for my driving lesson. This Uber driver decided to get lost so I waited over 20 minutes. That never happens. They are always right on time. Anywho, I can’t wait to tell my instructor the weekend drama. Thanks to the Pope, I haven’t been to class since Tuesday. So I got tired of waiting and decided to take matters into my own hands. I am literally that driven.

Kenya

Driving Family

Published 28th November 2015

Rains. Cats. Dogs.

Or maybe I should just say kittens and puppies. It’s been raining cats and dogs at home, literally. For starters, she finally delivered four lovely kittens! Yeah. That weekend I was in Kisii, she decided it was time. It was decided that I was not to be told because I left her. Lol. But my baby sis, Claire, wouldn’t let that happen. So she sneaked away and texted me on dad’s kabambe. Gotta love my fam. I was super excited that Saturday night. So I called Kim, my small big bro. He told me only one kitten was out by the time he found mother cat. Apparently she delivered on Mark’s bed (my small bro). Haha! That made me laugh. I was going to wait till morning to find out how many they were in total.

Kenya

cats dogs Family Home

Published 25th November 2015

Kisses from Kisii

No, I am not in Kisii. I was though and that’s what matters. I just wanted to use that title.

First of all, Kisii is the most beautiful town I have ever approached at night in Kenya. That’s not saying much because I am not the most well-travelled person in the world, but on the other hand it’s saying a lot because I bet half of you haven’t been to Kisii either. 😛 Yeah, I went down that comparison lane.

Anyhuuuuu, I had some nice little preconceptions about Kisii. You know, a little town with lots of people, bananas and humble houses. I have never been more wrong in my entire life. You see, I travelled to Kisii quite late in the day. If you know me, you know I hate travelling, be it by motor or feet, at night. Fortunately or unfortunately, my friends are the complete opposite. So when I asked Lilian, my very good friend who was going to be my super generous host, what time was okay for me to leave Nairobi, she said it was totally okay to leave after my afternoon driving class. I had my doubts but hey, she’s the all-knowing host, no? So I arrived in Kisii town past nine pm. And my, what a sight to behold! You see, unlike most other towns in Kenya, Kisii builds up into hills and hills of settlements. And they are all lit up, as opposed to, say, Eldoret, the town I was used to that is mostly flat all around. So you’re not welcomed by lights jotting the entire view across the road into the town like you are in Kisii. That is what you see as you approach Kisii, right into Kisii School and up into the town and way past Daraja Mbili.

Travel

Author: <span>Shiku Njathi</span>