Thoughts and Stuff

Published 15th July 2014

7 Perks of Being a Small Girl

If you have met me, you know I am small. Very small, or rather, small for my age. I did not even know I was small until around high school. For one, my younger brother just shot up overnight. Today, he looks like the first born in the family. Secondly I bumped into my frenemy one afternoon in the green city in the sun. He probably thought I was tall and all because my status updates on Facebook back then probably gave a sense of height. Lofty and high. Ahem. Anyway, he could not shut up about how small I was after that. Since then, 2009, to date, he has never shut up about it. He digs up blog articles on short girls on sites like Thought Catalog or funny pics and drops them on my Facebook wall. And since he has some strange influence among our Facebook circle of friends, he roped other friends in in re-emphasizing my height.

I laugh out loud at the jokes. Initially, back when I was too serious for life, I’d hate the taunting. But we grow up. Even if it is not obvious on the outside. Lol. I love being short. I love it so much, I will tell you why.

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Wednesday Whatnots

Published 9th July 2014

Wednesday Whatnots

Have you ever been so tired you get mad at anyone and anything on your way? So tired you wonder if you are sick? So tired you want to sleep and sleep on till all sleep is gone from your system? We both know that will never happen.

This has been one of those weeks. My level of tiredness is increasing as we advance into the week. It started on Monday. I wake up full of psyche for the bright new day. I will go to work because Saba Saba Day is a ghost from the past. If you are like me you know ghosts are not real. So I walk up Ring Road confident in my belief. The road is strangely calm. I walk into the Office Park compound. The car park is not as full as usual.

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Fast Fade

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Published 1st July 2014

Fast Fade

I did this on the bus. Amidst distracting texts and Google Docs lying to me that I can do this offline. It’s been a week and a half, that last week of June. You know something is up when I don’t blog. All the same, such times are enough to come up with a million posts.

Anyway, one lesson from last week. Fast Fade. You know Slow Fade, right? Casting Crowns nini nini. Ever listened to the actual words to the song? I have.

Faith

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She Fell for the Wingman

Published 22nd June 2014

She Fell for the Wingman

She was minding her own business. The last thing on her mind that Friday was a man. In fact, she just wanted to get to her bedsitter and lock herself in and just wallow in the bliss of aloneness. No one would get in the way of her plans. In fact, she had just bought herself the entire season three of Once Upon a Time, just to binge-watch. The producers of that show must be a couple of geniuses to have thought of bringing fairy tales into a palatable format for grownup girls who were still waiting for Prince Charming. That is all she needed. To watch that palpable chemistry between Hook and Emma and wish she was in Emma’s place. She still had that bad boy syndrome going on. But she kept it under wraps for her own good; and any bad boy out there.

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What of Us with No Fathers?

Published 14th June 2014

What of Us with No Fathers?

By Kariuki Dave

Now that Father’s Day is here, we are all obligated to honour that special old man in our lives whose efforts are least appreciated by the society we have today. Father’s Day is one of the little known international days. That is not my concern for now though. I am more concerned about those of us who were brought up by single mothers. Who do we salute on this day? You see, I belong to this group of people who, for one reason or another, didn’t get to grow up in a household with a father figure. Some of us had fathers who were just there to be seen, not to be heard nor felt, but we are here anyway like the rest and we do have a story to tell about those who took up the challenge and played the father’s role in our upbringing. My grandmother (God bless her soul) happens to be that person to me.

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My Three Parents

Published 13th June 2014

My Three Parents

I have a father who never ever fails me. He is always a phone call away. He toils so hard I can never even dream of ever having half the zeal he has to dig up acres of land and cater for an entire extended family. My father is so lovable, his students never forget him. I know that even from Twitter. I mention him and I will often find an old boy who will speak fondly of him. My father is that guy who lives to make us laugh. He will get mad sometimes which is normal. He gave us some good beating when we were young. He had a special cane for those sessions. I can count the occasions on one hand though.

My father drove us to school, my brother and I, when he could. In a rackety old KUL 509, he would ferry us to school.

Faith

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The Masculine Protest

Published 9th June 2014

The Masculine Protest

By Mwangi wa Njihia

In the beginning was man. Not the plurality of humankind but the biological man. And the man was an undisputed social head. And the society became patriarchal. And men have dominated the women ever since. That was until some few years ago when women subtly cracked male domination. The women then delivered a full punch through an effort called female emancipation. And with that, women demanded equal status to men. And the ‘masculine’ woman was given life. But the man started losing ‘form’. Things have never been the same since.

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Published 5th June 2014

It’s Composition Time!

You have 40 minutes to write this composition. Go! Cue in the heart palpitating like the tom-tom drums of West Africa. You have to make sure you create a situation where that simile will apply in your composition, right? If you remember those times, you are Kenyan. Congratulations. If you remember that simile, you are definitely a millennial, Generation Y species. Pat yourself on the back. You wrote about being lost in a forest. You wrote about being kidnapped. You wrote about a fire at your neighbour’s. You wrote about the day you would never forget. And that day was always about some cheesy event where you either won something or toured some special place. This is where you went all out, whether in truth or in fiction. There was no Instagram or Facebook to show people. You could only do it in paper and only your teacher could see it.

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Published 3rd June 2014

When an African Dances

By Gertrude Nyenyeshi

From the plains of Timbuktu to the waters of Limpopo. From the city of Ougadougou to the King Mswati III celebrations down South. From the Juju man village in Nigeria to the boys chasing chicken in Kakamega, when an African dances, a true genuine African, everything else must come to a halt. Whether you were pounding fufu or slaughtering a goat or in the middle of a juju ceremony, an African dance will have you stop whatever…and join in.

Any African event will never miss a true African dancer. By African event, I do not mean a formal event where you have to be dressed to impress and behave as if you bought shares from a company named Stay Classy. I also do not mean an event influenced by the West where the music and the dance symbolize nothing of African origin. Neither do I mean an event where there is no music, definitely not that. So how do you recognize an African event? Allow me, friends, to take my sweet time and narrate that to you.

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Published 30th May 2014

As She Views It

By Kizzy B We all want to be married or marry someone who totally understands us, cares and loves us for who we are and not for who we are…

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Published 28th May 2014

When Being Single Was Awesome

You know that bout of unwanted thoughts that invade you from out of the blue? That annoying urge to go far away from everything and just be alone. I have a lot of those. Especially on Monday mornings. I have nothing against Mondays. Actually, I kinda look forward to them. Mondays always breathe a new sense of being into me. Because you never know what will happen that week. You don’t know what weird man will honk at you as you take your routine 15 minute walk up that suburban Westlands road. You have no idea who you will bump into in the bus or on the street. Your employer may come up with a whole new way of doing things. You might even end up writing a post you had no idea you could in here. Your computer could decide this is the week it freezes a gazillion times between 9 and 5. The possibilities are limitless.

Today, I am feeling bad because I am still single. Yes. It happens. All the time. I always wonder how long this will go on. What my chances are of meeting someone while behind the keyboard for 3/4 of my days. The other 1/4 I am asleep of course. The thing about this feeling of desperation today is that it is different. It is different because I am no longer in campus. I am about a year old out here since leaving the great Moi University. That institution was quite something. If you frequent this space (or rather, the old blog) you know how I could go on and on and on about that institution.

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Published 20th May 2014

So You Think You Are Doing Twitter Right?

I subscribe to a lot of superfluous newsletters and blogs, just because I can. If you are like me, you probably do too. Plus Gmail really came through for us…

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Published 15th May 2014

Bad Manners

There are memories I hate to remember. Bad memories. Fortunately or unfortunately, those are the ones I remember. Most of my family members can remember tiny little details from the…

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Published 7th May 2014

How We Moved

The journey to this place began a while back. A while back when someone asked me why I don’t blog seriously. I dilly-dallied. The Kikuyu in me could not wrap…

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Published 1st May 2014

10 Facts and Stories About Periods

Yes, you read right. I am writing about periods today. Actually, I have been meaning to for the longest time now, but for the very reason you don’t talk about…

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