sunset saga

By Ndugu I envy the people in this city, that have relatives they intentionally see often. Living in this city erects a wedge between kin that is not easy to scale. Your brother lives in Kitengela. It is a general consensus that Kitengela is far from anything and anywhere and anyone. You seriously begin to question the wisdom behind the adage, damu ni nzito kuliko maji. Because as I have heard from time to time, even that maji is far from Kitengela.  Anyway, because of the way the city is set, you bump into your relatives in town. Bump into your relatives. Yes! You take one pensive look at each other and in that mad dash the city delegates to you, you tap them on their shoulders and say, “kuna mtu nakimbiza hapa KICC, wewe tutafutane weekend hivi.”  That's the rub! Nobody in this city speaks with any clarity. “Tutafutane,” could mean anything including, tusitafutane which is its most prominent meaning. The people that tell you nitakutafuta are the masters of euphemism as a too...

Just another  Bikozulu prowess ... He sits at the bar in a pair of shorts in blatant defiance of the cold evening of Nanyuki. He’s in shorts because he’s 25 years old & his very bones are still fire that warms his body. He smokes elegantly & holds his beer by its neck with his long fingers that reminds one of twigs. He talks fast and sleek, his confidence a strong gale.  He recently quit his job as Digital Sales and Marketing Administrator. “My boss was a jackass.” (He didn’t use the word jackass, he used a more colorful word ). “I was the company bitch for two years. I couldn’t take it." Two months ago - with the flourish of Gen-Z - he told his boss to stuff the job in his pipe and smoke it and moved back home to Nanyuki. His household items are still in his house in South B, though, because he might go back. Or he mightn’t. The wind & the moon will decide.  “So what do you do now?” I asked him.  “I hold the key to this town.” He said so confidently I ...

Because it's Friday let's get a dose of Ndugu🥳 By Ndugu Abisai In 2015, I lived on the fourth floor of a certain building in Kariobangi South. We had one bathroom on the floor, which means, at some point in the morning, we would all congregate there with buckets to wait for our turn to shower. There was a couple that used to get in together, then as they showered we would hear, “aki baaabe.” From the woman. Immediately the man would clear his throat then giggle a bit. The standard was two giggles. A very consistent man. That didn't bother us.  The guy that lived closest to the bathroom, never queued with us. He used to wake up, brush his shoes while listening to Don Carlos' Just A Passing Glance. That guy taught me that manifesting works or worked. He just would pass the bathroom glancing at us. Never said a word. A man, his shiny shoes and long face and just a passing glance. He manifested passing the bathroom. A hero in the manifesting realm. My main interest was sho...

There is a kind of urban road race that takes place on the streets of Kanairo every day. It is called getting from here to there. No one follows rules here, or there. People in nganyas are on the wrong lane, people on bicycles with Glovo food deliveries almost knock you down, people with trolleys will push you out of the way, people on nduthis want your head on a platter, people on foot will step on you, and not in the name of love. No one wins. Nobody is on the same side. It is every man for himself, and every woman, too, and every car, and every bike and every trolley. Nairobi is a city that in dreams or donor funded NGOs works beautifully, and in daily life is a brutal gantlet. You can be a resident of Nairobi for years, and yet be an outsider.  Nothing makes you feel more of a you-can-visit-but-not-stay outsider more than the Hilton Hotel—a dilettante that posseses neither the cocky arrogance of the Villa Rosa nor the street-smart shadiness of The Ambasseduer. I have passed by ...

 By Brian Mbanacho " Who is this?" is never a good question to be asked.  Mostly because it's a question only asked when it's clear you are assuming your identity is already known to the other party. Like when you take a girl's number at an event and you even call her so she, too, can have your number, only for her to ask, "Who is this?" when you call her the next day.  Or when the love of your life tells you they need time to work on themselves and so you give them two days because no one needs more time than that to work on themselves, unless they make Chapo-malenge, in which case they should take two weeks. On the third day you WhatsApp her only to be slapped with, "Who is this?"  Kwanza you think it's a joke, so you say, "Surely, it's me!"  "That doesn't say anything. Please introduce yourself properly." "ITS ME!" "And who are you?"  "Your boyfriend." You see her typing but no me...

Nala doesn't want to be rude. So, she (begrudgingly) poses for this photo in the KQ 100, Nairobi to London. Nala isn’t going to London. She’s working. Her job is to make sure you don’t carry any form of narcotics in the plane, not in your luggage and not on your person.  She has been in this grind for a hot minute so she has a nose for it. Nothing gets past Nala. Doesn’t matter if you’ve done yoga for years and worked on your breathing, she will look at you and think, that chic with small darting eyes is nervous and she has drugs in the lining cups of her bra. You could say Nala’s got a dogged determination. She works either of two shifts; the 6pm to 9am or 5am to 2pm during which she works on four flights. She prefers the 5am to 2pm shift because she’s a morning person. And because her concentration is not as long as, say a crocodile, she can only do 30mins before she goes out to the grassy patch on the runways to pee and play with a ball. (We have this in common). She didn’t know...

Happy are they who have their shirts tucked in by the women they live with. Blessed are the gallant soldiers who were promised chapattis, because women rarely promise things they can't deliver. The rest of us can now go and find out how the trade winds cause el ñino. The thing you imagine during your single days is that, when you finally start living together, she will be coming to the mirror as you tuck in your vest dressing up for work in the mornings and playfully poke your arm with her manicured nails and whisper to you, “I will ask Maria to make chapos and beef stew just the way you want.”   You don't know who Maria is, but you believe her because women rarely make promises they can't fulfill. Well, apart from her telling you to give her your number then she will call you— when you are trying to get her to be your woman. That one you will wait. Because she won't. There are gallant lores of gallant soldiers of our gallant gender that have been promised gallant calls...