Are We Hopeless? By Polycarp Chege

It’s 12 mid night, I am struggling to keep awake watching ‘Hotel Rwanda’. One thing is clear in my mind, it’s the simple truth that all humans must face.
In the midst of the Rwandan genocide, all expectations were that the UN would deploy more peace keeping troops. However, the UN reduced the number of their troops. Western nations followed suit, and withdrew their citizens. It didn’t help matters having an African son, Kofi Annan, as the Under Secretary General of Peace Keeping Missions at the UN.
Romeo Dallaire, the sympathetic UN commander in Rwanda requested for more troops but his request was denied. After the genocide; Romeo believed he could have saved more lives had the reinforcements arrived. As he concluded his report, he laid the blame on Kofi Annan for failing to recognize the severity of the situation.
In his defense Kofi Annan claimed key nations were unwilling to contribute peace keeping forces, especially in Africa, after the catastrophic failure of UN mission in Somalia 2 years earlier. His hands were tied.
This brings me to our situation here in Kenya, over the years we’ve been conditioned to believe in the“it’s our turn to eat” mantra. We’ve waited for elections to get our “man” to the top hoping that since we share the same village, clan or tribe our needs will be fulfilled. Time and time again, we have come to realize that a man is just a mere mortal, inwardly selfish and fundamentally deceptive.
Democracy has long been hailed as a solution to man’s problems. However, it has failed. Unemployment, hunger, diseases and all calamities that befall our human nature are here to stay. As we enter another electioneering year, we will hear endless promises of jobs, better life, justice and fairness. We will be urged to hate that clan or community because they don’t support our “man”. As if that’s not enough, we will be required to stick to our tribal cocoons because once our “man” gets to power, he will open paradise for us and he will make manna fall from heaven.
However, our problems are too great for a man to solve.
All humans eventually realize its useless to rely on a man.
Therefore, I urge you;
Hope in thy God. Those leaders might not know you but He does and cares for your well-being. He does not make promises He can’t keep neither does He withhold any good from you.

INNERSENSE By Aduwa Otieno

He's seated on a campus bench, waiting for his other half. Like normal human beings, he’s glued on his phone screen. The message, of course, is that he’s not a loser as his attention is being fought for by the phone. 

Him: (murmurs indistinctly) Black men can’t be oppressive to black women… They don’t have systems that would foster that… white men do (pauses to reflect) Meh! But they’re intra-racial injustices against women…
Inner Him: Knock knock!
Him: (decides to play along) Erm… who’s there?
Inner Him: It’s the Inner You, dumbass. You created me. Made me a person. I can talk.
Him: That’s not how the joke goes, but… what do you want?
Inner Him: (excitedly) A chat. Is that so much to ask for?
Him: (staring at his phone) Yeah. I’, in the middle of something important.
Inner Him: (a bit angered) What? Reading tweets? Nothing new there. Just basic knowledge repeated ad nauseam with the expectation that somehow they’ll turn profound. Bleugh!
Him: You’re just hating.
Inner Him: No, stating as it is. “Oh, look how woke I am. I can use ‘hetero normative cisgendered bias’ in a sentence!” “Trump is a racist, sexist, ableist bigot that can never be the president!” It’s always a performance.
Him: How do you even know all that?
Inner Him: (sighs) I’m you, one way or another. You created me, and like god and his creations, in your own image.
Him: Okay. First it’s never a performance. These are people who just want to make a difference, and they have social media for that. Second, why the negative energy? Chill, bro.
Inner Him: Make a difference, huh. These are people deeply drawn into the call-out culture. All they do is lash at anyone they deem morally corrupt. They have the 140 character limit for that. Oh, I hear they do something they call threads these days. Anyway, it’s hard to tell if these guys have a genuine political commitment to change things for the better or they’re just being fans.
Him: They had that Congolese singer face the law for assaulting one of his female dancers. Ha! In your face! Explain that away.
Inner Him: (pauses for a while) That’s one way of looking at it.  Or, we could say that the guys who witnessed the actual assault reported the matter. Did the heavy lifting. Your horde of online activists were left to do what they do best – call out. You know, with overly used phrases like “person X is a racist who shouldn’t be in our country”.
Him: (clearly irked) Are you implying calling out people who do bad things isn’t one way of fighting the evils they perpetrate?
Inner Him: Nope. I’m just saying that’s only a step. There are further steps to be made. And stopping at one of them doesn’t help much as much as we’d like to think. One could say that we have Trump as the US president because of such. Liberals spent the better part of the campaigns mocking Trump and his supporters. Time which they would have otherwise spent debunking Trump’s myth about Moslems being terrorists or his immigration rants that would turn into policies. Instead, we had them glued on their phone screens, typing away patronizing sentiments towards Trump supporters. That, as far as it goes, is my theory.
Him: (reaches out for his cigarette pack and a lighter, then lights one) Are you by any chance anti-liberal?
Inner Him: Yes, and so should you. You label yourself anarchist, after all. Not that I’m against liberal values.  Far from that. In fact, most of values overlap. We both think oppression is a bad thing. The difference, however, is that libs just happen to rant about it. My ilk, on the other hand, are doing something about it. We plan and stage insurrections. We fight all power structures that put us in chains. We fight capitalism. We fight the state. Libs make exceptions. They don’t fight capitalism because, after all, most of them fall under the middle class threshold. Fighting capitalism would mean taking something from them. Libs don’t want to be a part of any insurrection. And if they are, all they do is vilifying those who choose non-pacifist tactics. Look at their passionate hatred towards the Black bloc. In other words, they put themselves on a pedestal.
Him: Wow! Impressive. Proudhon would have been proud of you.
Inner Him: I’m more of a Kropotkin guy. Proudhon, other than his criticism of private property, was by and large a douche. Guy was sexist. He fought systems of oppression but couldn’t patriarchy.
Him: Okay. Enough of the politics already. I’m waiting for my significant other and I just want to be in the mood when they arrive.
Inner Him: (clears throat) Do you love him?
Him: (acting surprised) What? Of course I do.
Inner Him: (long pause)
Him: What? Okay. A bit ambivalent about that. They are transgender. I’ve never dated one. So, it’s basically trial-and-error kinda thing. Wait, is referring to them as “they” even correct? I mean, they’ve never fully identified with genderqueer. And they switched from woman to man…
Inner Him: You said you loved them. How can you not know such an important detail about them? HE really doesn’t care about pronouns. Oh, he’s never had se—
Him: (abruptly cuts Inner Him) All right. Now that’s you swimming in territorial waters. Let’s not get there.
Inner Him (locks eyes with Him) You’re scared of his silicon dick. Hahaha! What happened to your liberal values on sex? You know, about gender being a non-issue. About there being sheds of grey when it comes to gender and sexuality. See, that’s the problem. You hold views, mostly good, but you can’t live them. Ian loves you, but you don’t really, owing to the fact that he has a silicon dick, and his suggestions about you being the bottom. You’re straight, but you want to identify with the non-straight. Now, you’re facing dissonance of sorts. All you have Ian do is spend the better part of your being proving that he’s worthy of your love. Obviously, fake love.
Him: (clearly provoked) I’m not facing an identity crisis, if that’s what you’re implying. You say something else and I’ll fuck you up! Inner Him: (laughs) Will you? Full disclosure, I’m only an extension of you. Your creation. You say you like Mr. Robot, although you think it ripped off Fight Club. I’m like Mr. Robot to Elliot. You might want to think about how it would look like if you beat the shit outta me.
Him: You’re not even real. Shut up! Inner Him: No. You shut up. I’m your gauge. Your guardian. I made it my responsibility to always bring you back to normal whenever you go off the rails. That’s exactly what I’m doing right now. You’re wasting someone else’s time, yours too. You don’t love him, he’s just one of your experiments. The truth is bound to come up, eventually. But there’s a chance. Break up. Save him.
Him: (plugs in earphone) I’m not listening to you. Not anymore.
Inner Him: (unplugs Him’s earphone) Damn it, Him! You have to listen. You –
Ian: (walks in on ‘them’, holding two Cuppa coffee) Hey! What’s up? Introspection or what? You seem to be talking to yourself.
Him: Honey, we’re breaking up.
Ian: (smiling) Okay. Oh, wait. What?!

Man, Check your privilege. By Aduwa Otieno

I will tell you a short story:
It’s almost 10PM.  My female friend and I are leaving Pawa254. We are from an art event, busy discussing how person X is a terrible poet and why we think person Y’s politics on gender is just bullshit. It’s just the two of us when we arrive at the junction that connects Valley Road and Upper State House Road. My friend, let’s call her Wangari, has to walk to town to catch a jav home, I, on the other hand, only has to walk to Mamlaka. Normally I’d just walk up Nyerere Road, then branch at the intersection with Mamlaka Road. But I’m in the company of a woman. , and that Serena stretch doesn’t look safe, at least for her. So, we trek all the way down Valley Road, connect with Kenyatta Avenue till we get to Odeon, where she gets a jav home.
You probably don’t get where I’m getting with this. Or, you just don’t see the moral of the story, especially if a man. You are not entirely to be blamed for not recognizing the gist of the story. You’ve been raised in a society that normalizes privileges to men at the expense of women. I’ll break it down for you.
Wangari, just by being female, is more likely to be a prey to sexual predators and other assaults perpetrated by men. I walk her to Khoja because, unlike me, she has to worry about her safety. She has to worry about the possibility of rape and being mugged, among other aggressions. I don’t worry about anything while walking back to Mamlaka. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen to me, as a man? Get mugged? But I don’t have valuables with me. And worth noting is that I’m relatively able-bodied. That means I’m less likely to be raped or assaulted than Wangari. And this comes as advantage by the virtue of my being male (and being able-bodied). That, friend, is male privilege. And it’s no rocket science how it marginalizes women.
Male privilege can be defined as unearned advantage men have over women just for being male. Obviously, male privilege is a creation of patriarchy. ALL men, believe me, are beneficiaries of it. Many men and even the marginalized fail to recognize this because it is deeply entrenched in our cultures, spaces and even religion. Its pervasive nature makes it hard for someone to view it as a gender issue. There are countless examples of male privileges that happen before our eyes, and we raise not a finger.
Before I began writing this, I was scrolling through my Twitter feeds. One tweet captured my attention. It was about a Saudi woman who, after reporting that she was a victim of rape, gets accused of extra-marital sex instead. It never felt real until I clicked on the link and read all through. The sexual aggressor, obviously male, was nowhere in the picture. To understand how male privilege is at work here, you need to look at the cultural and religious aspects of a country like Saudi Arabia. For a start, Saudi is deeply Islamic. Religion, as you probably know, codifies morality into absolutes that in most cases just aim to serve men. Pick up your holy writ. Look up the gender of those who happen to pass down the laws to the lay people.
In the case of the Saudi woman, the injustices perpetrated on her can thus be safely said to be religiously sanctioned. She lives in a sphere where consensual sexual is a non-issue when a man wants to bust a nut. She lives in a society where the law (codified by men) are harsher on women who have extra-marital affairs than male sexual aggressors. She lives in a culture that doesn’t even want her to drive a car. She lives in a country where writers of my kind get jailed or killed for merely stating this. Than a man could get away with rape just shows how male privilege is normalized in the Islamic world.
Here’s another instance: Male X, driven by the need to physically resemble Channing Tatum, decides to hit the gym. Female Y wants a Teyana Taylor body too. (She’s been watching Kanye West’s Fade video on repeat) They both meet at the same gym. In the process of lifting up heavy things and putting them down, it gets unbearable hot. Male X, without giving it any thought, takes off his T-shirt (size s, by the way. Yet he has a big upper body). Female Y, though, can’t bring herself to doing the same. Given the years of cultivation of the male perception that her nipples are for sexual arousal, she can’t possibly be like Male X without inviting the male gaze and other sexual micro-aggressions like sexual slurs. She’ll likely be called a slut. She could get slapped by some law with fancy words like ‘indecent exposure’. And the worst that could happen is sexual assault. Non-consensual sexual acts. Nobody has anything agains Male X taking off his shirt, but everyone will have everything against Female Y if she does the same. That’s male privilege.
This painfully reminds me of the incidence with Embassava touts. Men, of course. They undressed (read: sexually assaulted) a woman because apparently, how a woman dresses tells about what she wants to be done unto her. This is a case that captures the male privilege to authority. They feel like their authority should be extended to women. The walk around with a moral whip, lashing at any woman they deem morally wrong. Still on male privilege to authority, I’d argue that’s why we have mostly men in positions of power. How many women do you see in positions of authority? They were many back when Africa still valued its women. Back when Victorian ideals about women hadn’t been imposed on us. When Mekatilili Wa Menza were figures even men revered.
Male privilege also manifests itself in the academic sphere. Here’s your homework – use Google or your library to know why there are few female scientists and scholars. Tally up their numbers and then contrast with their male counterparts'. Also, look up the experiences these women go through while in the academic field.
Male privilege, just like other privileges, serves to marginalize a group of persons. Usually the minority. For instance, there’s straight privilege. Here, LGBT guys receive the short end of the stick. Imagine how hard it is, if not possible, for a gay couple to receive a marriage certificate when compared to hetero couple. Imagine how problematic it is for a genderqueer person to walk into a public washroom only to find that there’s only the gender binary, male and female signs on the doors.
Acknowledging that you, as a man, is a beneficiary of male privilege shouldn’t be seen as an admission of guilt. It should be an acknowledgement that women are victims to a system that lends you the upper hand. With that insight, you can work towards purging the structures that allow for such privileges.  There are many things you could do to balance the scales. For example, if your female colleague at work, who works just as much as you (maybe even more), gets paid less than you, raise a voice of concern as a start. Boycott if unheard. In other words, always check your privilege.
Beloved women, pick up your arms. It’s your fight. Be at the battle forefront. Fight to your last breath. That way your daughters won’t be put to chains by the society of men. If you don’t see a glimmer of hope in that, who will?

Photo credits to: questionsandtea.wordpress.com
menprivilege.tumblr.com

Let's feminist... Woman up! By Aduwa Otieno

Imagine a world where matriarchy was a thing…
***
I prefer sitting at the back. Be it in a class or just at any other gathering. I take comfort in imagining that no one’s watching. It’s you doing the watching, silently judging.
This one time I’m in class, at my usual spot. Our beloved, PHD-holding, been-to-Nyayo-house lecturer, brings up an argument: women can’t run a family business. To support their case, they tell a story about a friend of theirs who got scammed by the wife. To seal his argument, he mentions something about "women knowing their place”. There was a round of applause. I was still reeling over that when a lady, few seats from this pathetic sexist, raised an objection. She seemed pissed, rightfully so. Even then, she maintained her cool and said something along the lines of “screw gender roles!” Not having a sensible counter to that, the teacher replied with a “read the bible” suggestion.
I imagine even the religious find that problematic. He used religion to justify a system that victimizes women.
Yes, it’s hard to make sense of anything that violates your sensibilities as a woman and a feminist. Our lady, perhaps sensing a likely defeat, gave up. I think walking out would have been a revolutionary act. What would Emma Goldman or Chimamanda Adichie do? Not sure about the latter, but the former, given her political leanings (she was an anarchist), would have thought of “direct action” of sorts. Something between a slap and a full blown assault. [Pauses to reflect on Adichie’s disapproval of Beyoncé’s brand of feminism]
It dawned on me that we’ve been doing it all wrong. We don’t need equality between the sexes, we need female supremacy. That’s why Lucy Ellmann has been making a strong appeal to me lately. Look her up. She identifies as a radical feminist. Oh, and she has that up-in-your-face attitude. In her rom-com novel titled Mimi, she argues for matriarchy. She attacks patriarchy head-on. She imagines most vile things as creations of men. Like war. And yes, she alludes to history to back up her claims. She even goes back to when matriarchy was a thing. Before men took over, then remodeled everything to fit the male worldview. To balance the scales, she makes a rather radical suggestion: men should surrender all their property, including money, to women of their choice. As a start she had her loving husband do that. [Pauses to read a Twitter thread about the classic ‘not all X are…’]
Look around. Why do you think that a lady, even with the glaring fact that high heels are a pain in the ass, is still rocking them? And the wig? The mini-skirt? You guessed right – men want it that way. She’s living in a world that’s unjustly a male set-up. Men hold the view that a woman’s only worth is their physical attractiveness. That’s why you have men, mostly white, overlooking Serena Williams’ achievements because she doesn’t meet their standards of beauty. ‘Oh look! She’s a good tennis player, but that only counts  if she has a pretty face too'. Maybe also layer that with the race issue. Black and beauty aren’t bedfellows, apparently.
Ever asked yourself why that ad just before the news o’clock is that of a pretty woman? We call it exploitation of female sexuality for profit-making purposes. Consumerism pairs up with misogyny and what you get is female sexuality commodified. (By the way, I’d bet an arm that capitalism is a man’s invention. Women, I think, are socialists)
“Sure, some people are attractive. But so what?” That’s Lucy Ellmann in one of her online articles critiquing the obsession with looks. Hollywood, for example, fosters this  kind of obsession. In Hunger Games, Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawrence) is a revolutionary. But, for maximum relatability, they had to make her beautiful. Not just that. In Home Sweet Hell, women are portrayed as manipulative beings and psychopaths. Men, on the other hand, are portrayed as hardworking and only women bring them down. [Pauses to read an article by Laurie Penny – Are You Man Enough for Birth Control?] Sometimes, though, they repackage ideals we cherish as feminists and then sell them back to us. They did a great job with The Suffragette and Carol.
Back to ‘not all men are’. I was under the impression that it’s obvious  this line of argument is bullshit when the problem in question is rather systemic. In the case of  racially motivated police shootings in the US, it never made any sense to counter criticisms of racism with a 'not all (white) cops are bad’. That alone wasn’t enough to discredit the Black Lives Matter movement. Borrow that line of thought when bothered with a tweet about men being trash. Imagine how wrong it is to call a woman sexist. She could hate men of all kinds -- good and bad. But given the lack of structural support (men have patriarchy), she can’t possibly be labeled as sexist. It could be prejudice on a personal level. Even then, that would be a stretch. Can a black person be racist? The answer is an obvious no. But some would still argue otherwise, clothing it in confusing terms like reverse-racism. [Pauses to curse why the front seats at Safaricom Jazz Fest were mostly occupied by whites]
Feministing is something one can do as long as it takes. There’s always so much to talk and rant about (in my case, mostly the latter, seeing that women have been victims for ages now). The take-home point is clear – men are trash (clearly repeated by those ‘woke’ individuals on Twitter ad nauseam). A reversal of things feels necessary. I want my mom as the head of the family. In place of oppressive patriarchy, let’s have loving matriarchy. Oh, and if you find Lucy Ellmann’s proposal okay, surrender your property to women, if a man. If a woman, asking your boyfriend or husband to do that would be a start.
I choose  to identify  as male, by the way.

New Generation, Who Dis? By Esther Nyabuto

We are the daughters of the women that told us we could be anything, and we heard that we must be everything. That sounds like the most cliché, down the river pon de banks statement a twenty year old girl would say. However, leaving out the macho personality engrossed in the saying, there is some little bit of truth in that saying.  Aha…..the world where we beg women to be themselves and tell the confident women to calm down. Being born in the 90s is one of the most confusing things that could happen to a young adult. More so, being born a girl during that period. Don’t get me wrong, being a guy from that bracket is also hard….kinda. Being born during that period means that you were a link, the umbilical cord of two generations. The latter generation being the matured-at-two-years-old generation and the swiftly drifting “never-gon-grow-up-generation”. Translate all that into the mind of a woman…you can be exactly like your mother…or the woman your mother was scared of.  Of course, every woman wants to be like their mother. Or the one their fathers cheated on their mother with, you know the one that didn’t have kids in their twenties and maintained her strong features and lives in some posh estate in Nairobi. I meant to say that with no disrespect to the women that have stayed behind after being battered, had their ego insulted, dropped their life long passions and dreams to take care of their families and woke up every morning and made sure each member of the family got closer to their dreams. Have you ever wondered if that what your mother is today was what she dreamt of as a little girl…or like any traditional woman in this depraved culture, settled for.  I dream of sitting amidst huge conferences and   having my opinion valued. But then again, I feel my mother dreamt of the same too. You can then crush people’s worlds with one gesture or lean back, like our mothers and take the bait. You can jump high, but not too high, since there’s no man that wants a woman that stands that high. You have to be appealing to the eye, but not too much, they’ll say you seek too much attention. Show some skin….to show how progressive you are….but not too much…least they call you a whore. You can aspire to be a great entrepreneur with the latest brand of everything, but keep in mind at the end, you’ll get the same brand of life. The children born after the 1999 age bracket are wild, vicious. Trust me I’ve seen an 11 year old girl grind a 15 year old boy to an utmost seizure, a twelve year old girl that lost her “virginity” to an eleven year old boy as they played house and that’s just those that are bonkers enough to say it in front of my face.  And the whole time I’m looking at them with partial admiration as I wouldn’t bring myself to do such and disgust over where their mommas are when they grew into such *liberal Misfits*. So really, each morning I wake up, dress and walk into class, I look at the male students of my class with aspiration. Not the one I wish to shake their hands though. Hahaha….naah, but with the one that no matter how high they dream, no matter how far they aspire to build empires …..The chances of them doing so are much greater than I. I might have consoled myself through middle school and high school of being an equal, but in truth….I was always just an equal in thoughts. I mean, I could hide behind the notion of the 21st Century woman in the western world that has it all, a successful career, a loyal husband that cheats at least once every five years and children and grow so distant to my relatives they only see me on Christmas every five years.  But then again, I’ve grown watching my mother, the woman that took me to school every day, cooked my meals every day. Was at home every holiday and whacked the hell out of my behind every time she found me peeing at the bold and the beautiful { what the hell was with that show…did they meet at the African convection of strict parents and ruled out the show as a top secret affair… smh}.   And when the time comes, like my mother, will fold my dreams as a blanket and support the dreams of little ones.

Her highness By Gift Mwachofi

The silence of night. Its tranquil nature an ambience to adore. As the day light comes to an end, as its constituents retire from the hustle and bustle of life, she watches from a distance and takes pride at her accomplishment. She is beautiful. She envelopes the entire surrounding and brings with it a characteristic beauty that is irresistibly attractive.
Her composition: starry nights, bright crescent shaped moon (this specific night), a calm breeze whistling through gently, chirping crickets carefully tucked in withered leaves, naturally lit fire flies landing on withered vegetation, bats, violently creeping out of their caves and landing upside down on projecting branches nibbling on the readily provided fruits, some ferociously attack the lonely cattle left behind whilst the rest obeyed her authority. It is a sight to behold, as the stars twinkle almost simultaneously and in harmony with the cricket chirps. The silhouettes exhibited by the various nature’s components, absolutely admirable. Her beauty is incomprehensive.
She begins as the sun’s rays sink and fade gracefully giving space for her to be in charge. Almost like a shift. She then takes the wheel and has the command of the evening. Her arrival has an effect on almost everyone under her cover, quite inevitable. She takes pride in her agility and even gets more domineering. Satisfied with her ability to unquestionably progress, she then takes comfort in watching how everything unfolds.

She is pleased with the re-union of her subjects in various households, all because of her doing. The chuckles and giggles, cries and reproof, the tingly noise from the cutlery signifying a sumptuous meal, the moaning (pleasantly) thereafter, from particular rooms; with this she applauds satisfactorily and continues to enjoy the different scenes. Solicitude is the source of her pride.
The vast territory she commands brings forth the characters that help conduct the individual affairs she desires. The shadows that willfully comply offer an endearing camouflage to the shy couple that has been staring awkwardly into each other’s eyes for a while, long and unmoored lawns provide comfortable “motels” for animals that had spotted each other in the light and are now offered a chance to progress with their intentions at their own pleasure, the poor church mouse, by her help can now nibble on the grains in the fields without fear of its life, the seeds that were dutifully buried beneath the surface of the earth can now sprout to the pleasure of the sower.
Quite impressive, she exhales and the trees bow consequently.
However, her dominion is challenged by some very hard headed knuckle heads. The bliss that comes along with her leadership is rudely interrupted. She can do nothing. Helpless.
She is actually the cause of it all.
Ruffians, eagerly waited for her preeminence had been granted the courtesy to conduct abominable acts,
Mosquitoes,
Night-mares,
Evils that come with her reign. It is saddening. She looks forward to her counterpart taking charge. What she meant for good is now fashioned to further horrific events. It is under her own prerogatory. Wailing from one corner of her kingdom, signifying misfortune, subtle laments from a quiet abode aroused by the endless humming of mosquitoes, unbearable screams from a toddler running half asleep and half-awake to her parents for fear of monsters creeping up to her/him in a dream. Young fellows soiling their beds.
She has no amends to these.
She perseveres. Some things are beyond her control. She overlooks the faults and takes pleasure in the good she’s able to accomplish. Her silence is suddenly broken by an irritating and persistent rooster alarm. Its time. She humbly excuses her reign and light finally welcomes the same subjects to her dominion, beautifully and cordially with the gleams of the bright morning star-the Sun.

Her day begins…….

Sermon of Sorts

Sikio la kupe halisikii dawa.”
How wrong does that sound? Almost as wrong as the story of a certain penis expert at Haga Hospital. Haga Hospital is in Netherlands, by the way. Haga Hospital couldn’t be in Kenya. Definitely not, definitely not. But what if it was? Just hypothetically speaking? What do you think it would be all about? I’m not sure I want to go too much into it but one thing I’m sure of is that most of the patients would be members of the infamous FKF. And I am not talking about the Football Kenya Federation. Yeah baby, you got that right. The Fisi Kenya Federation. And they wouldn’t have trouble paying consultation fees. You would even hear phrases like, “you can keep change” at the reception. And the staff at our mystery hospital would be the most satisfied. The doctors? They would never strike. What about the nurses? They wouldn’t have a lot of work so they would just stay beautiful with their brief white dresses and would sure as hell be the greatest victims of the FKF members. The female nurses, of course. Who gives a shit about male nurses? The specialists that will experience severe symptoms of fatigue and a rare condition of endless work from all the traffic to their offices would probably be ophthalmologists. The Fisis need good eyesight. They will need glasses or an upgrade of the ones they have. They will need contact lenses and eye drops and advice on how to maintain the sharp eagle eyesight. They will need to know the specific species of carrots that gives optimum results. And they will pay like they all get free money as allowances from lame meetings and conferences. Lakini politicians wetu kweli hawapendangi ujinga. Back to our dear Fisi Sacco members; they need to see these haga things and they will do just about anything. Anything for the hagas. So they will pay and Haga hospital will be rich and famous. Haga hospital in Kenya would be the hospital of the century.
Sikio la kupe halisikii dawa. This is a sentence I heard someone say. I was half attentive but I heard it and I was really disturbed. I completed primary school aeons ago and probably I should have forgotten about the methalis we used in our spicy inshas, you know, the niliamka-na-kudamka-asubuhi-na mapema-kabla-ya-jogoo-kuwika-kisha-nikatembea-kwa-mwendo-wa aste-aste-hadi-malighafuni-kukoga kind of inshas. But here’s the problem: I had not forgotten that it was actually supposed to be a methali (that’s Swahili for proverb, divas!) and that it sounded awfully wrong. And now this street preacher was busy telling these evidently tired, obviously bored and without a doubt absent-minded Nairobi people sitting on benches and concrete along Aga Khan Walk about this tick that doesn’t “listen to medicine”. This tick, apparently, is very stubborn and wants to kill this person or cow or whatever that it’s biting and no matter how much pesticide you spray on it, it won’t “hear”. It definitely won’t die. And he preached on and on. I was part of his little congregation, only I was not bored and absent-minded and disinterested. Well, I was earlier but as soon as he dropped that punchline about the interesting tick, all my attention shifted to him. I forgot all about my hunger and my broke ass and I focused on this ignorant man. Linda called me, disguised as some HR in some Nairobi office offering me a job and I was so happy then suddenly felt very depressed again and stupid when she laughed her signature laugh and I knew it was a prank. Man, I had been looking for a job like a crazy woman and you can imagine how that felt. Damn, that crazy bitch Linda! Damn these Airtel lines that people have as sim two! I had planned to be very angry at her but who could be angry with anything when there is an incredibly ignorant man in front of them and they probably don’t know it? A man who is not afraid to display his emptiness to the whole world, especially Nairobi? That takes extreme courage. So I forgave Linda. And kept listening. And as I kept listening, I thought of all these street preachers who obviously are in business. And how they keep denying it. How they keep saying that they are not preaching for the offering, how you don’t have to contribute but if you do, you will be blessed very much because you will be promoting the ministry and God’s work. And then you feel very guilty for not wanting to contribute so you give him half of your savings and sleep hungry. Also because you are very screwed and hopeless in life and would take any risk to experience blessings. I didn’t give anything though. I was damn serious about my broke ass. And right there! The crazy ignorant man said it! He said he wasn’t asking for money because he was doing his thing for the service of God. But why was he, after ten minutes, holding out a ridiculous basket asking these innocently tired and bored people to help build the ministry? Anyway, my brother arrived and we took off. I had been waiting for my amazingly amazing brother for like ten centuries. (Oh yeah, there’s a bunch of men in my life and one of them is my brother Kev. He’s been gone for a long time but he’s back and I think he’s gonna go back again, this time for good. You’ll be seeing a lot of him. He’s so nice in every way. God, doesn’t any of you listen to Abba?!!) We took off faster than our Koitalel brethren. I couldn’t take any more of this ignorance. And Kevin doesn’t take shit any more than I do. In fact he doesn’t take any kind of shit at all. So we went and had some Cappuccino. I think we should have had a swim or something as well. After such an experience, one needs to wash off all the ignorance hanging around lest it seeps into their informed self. You’ve heard of Osmosis and Diffusion, no? The movement of ignorant particles from a region of unbelievably high concentration to a region of incredibly low concentration or no concentration at all in this case. (Boy, aren’t I humble!). That’s diffusion? Right, that’s diffusion.
Challenge: go sit at Kencom, at Tom Mboya’s base (God, don’t I love Tom Mboya?) or even Aga Khan Walk, just directly opposite Uchumi. Sit and wait patiently and with steadfast hope. One empty person will surely show up. You will see wat I am talking about. I think instead of walking around all day making a few miserable dimes from misleading the children of God, it would be more efficient to stroll to a nearby carwash, wash two or three Harriers and earn a decent meal for your family. But these people I am talking about can’t even think like that. Emptiness is real, I tell ya! Be everything else in your life, just don’t be empty. But if just unfortunately, accidentally, too-bad-too-sad- for-you, you happen to be empty, discretion is one of the best attributes anyone could have.