sunset saga

To the men who became fathers... Art credit: pixelsmerch This Father’s Day I am thinking quite a bit about my father, and the lessons I have gleaned from him. And especially now that I too am thinking about becoming a father. It is time, someone’s daughter told me. I think she fears I may end up finishing all the engineers, climate activists and doctors and just be left with brokers, forex traders, and DJs. Does the world really need more DJs?  We don’t talk much with my father. Not out of spite. It’s just who we are, shy men. I pretend not to be seen. He pretends not to see me. My father is getting old now. He has white hair. When I call him I think that just the other day, he was a young man at the apogee of his youth. Now his hospital visits have become frequent, his runway much shorter, his eyesight failing, which is not such a bad thing when I eventually bring a baddie home he won’t approve. “You don’t see her like I do,” will be my line. I've been considering and worrying abo...

One day, I walked into a roadside Thika hotel and ordered beef-ugali with greens for 180 bob. The plate they served me was a bit strange. It had a tiny piece of ugali and a plate full of beef.  The beef was much larger than the 300 bob worth of beef I usually bought from my local butcher. I started to wonder how the hotel could possibly make a profit , or if they had mistakenly given me someone else's order. Despite my confusion, I was too hungry to care. I leaned closer to the table, pinched a handful of ugali, squeezed it with my palms, picked three pieces of beef, and started eating. I ate to a full stomach.  I then ordered a glass of juice. I was feeling too full to even walk. As I sipped on my juice, resting and giving my stomach pets time to also have a treat of the food in my stomach,  I started scrolling through Facebook.  To my horror, I stumbled upon a news piece about three men who had been arrested in Embu for possessing monkey meat destined for Thika Tow...

  I went to give a small talk about storytelling at Baraza Media Lab on Riverside Drive. Small group of three incubatees. The intrepid @Paushinski (Too Early For Benga) crashed the party and sat at the back, munching on a hotdog. (Who eats hot dogs in 2022?) So I made him earn his chair by having one of the incubates, Marcus Olang, role play an interview with him about losing his father just as he was turning 18. Turned out Marcus also only buried his father three months ago. It was pretty revealing listening to these very big men bleed on the floor.  Later, after the do, as we sat in the common area having beers (I wasn't, but sounds grown up to say that) waiting to see where the winds of Friday evening would blow. Marcus came out dragging his wrecking ball of grief behind him. He looked defeated and spent. Pau instinctively stood up and like he knew just what Marcus needed, hugged him. Like a proper arms-around-each-other hug. And they stood like that, holding each other, an...

This is not why I sleep in women’s houses, but it’s also not not why I don’t. See if heaven had another heaven inside it, the inner sanctum, holy of holies, that would be a woman’s bed. First, they ensure their beds are soft because of all the wickedness they [the women, not the bed] carry. And it’s a King-size bed, because every little girl still dreams of being a queen. The mattress is not the one that can break your back—that’s your boss, and no, not in that way. That mattress is like knowing someone in government—or someone who is known in government. And look, men are told many things when they sleep in a woman’s house: “Oh, the owner, the one who pays rent will catch you.” Mara, “A real man will never sleep in a house he doesn’t pay rent”. Anga, “Oh, what will you even wear in her house?” First, I have fallen asleep in Indimanje matatus when they were overlapping at Outer Ring Road while playing high-decibel Jamaican ragga and you think nodding off at a memory foam mattress with ...

One thing I've constantly wished for and prayed for so much since I began my parenthood journey is the gift of life to be able to raise my human being . Never in my darkest thoughts have I ever imagined leaving my son behind prematurely. He's been my reason to wake up every single day and work off my @$$ so bad. Having a child is like plucking off a piece of you, a whole half of you and throwing it to the world. You must always keep a steady and sobber eye on it lest it get swallowed by this unforgiving world. May we parents have abundant life. May we never leave our angels prematurely and so may our angels never depart before us.  **** They wanted three names when I was registering for my KCPE. I had two; Lucy Wangeci. I said, “Use ‘Jesus’ as the third name - Lucy Wangeci Jesus.” They said, We can’t! I asked, “Why not?” They said, Because it’s Jesus! I said, “But he’s like our father.” Eventually, I picked another name; Irene.  I grew up in an orphanage where I was given tho...

You can always smell a newlywed couple even in supermarkets. Not by their honeymoon glow, not even by their gleaming wedding bands which they brandish like a trophy but by the compromises they make to impress, to show the other that this is more for better than for worse. The gent in front of me for example, just bought an entire sack of sunlight detergent, and he did it all with a smile, even though he can’t tell you what it is for. He removed his card and punched it in probably without calculating the amount of beer and nyama choma he could have bought at Kikopey with that cash. And just when he was putting it back, his brand new wife came hobbling with two packets of chicken. She was short and shapely, with yellow braids and even yellower skin. The type you don’t say no to unless you’re blindfolded. She came to the counter panting. Like she had won a marathon or was back from saving the world from inflation. “We forgot these, weh!” she sighed while putting the chicken on the counter...

He is your Dad, he is sixty and on the board of a few companies. He parks a guzzler outside your home. His phone rings often. When it’s work he shouts into it, other times he looks at it and says, “Who is this disturbing me in the morning?” Later when he’s at The Mirage for his meeting he will call the disturbance and a sweet voice will be on the other end complaining that he never picks her calls and maybe he will Mpesa her twenty thousand bob to shut her up. The sweet voice might be your age mate. Hell! She might be your classmate. She’s stunning. You hit on her but you know she’s out of your league; what with the jewelry, trendy clothes, and the Volkswagen Golf she drives but you still shoot your shot because what is a man without an ego? He has rented her an apartment in Adams, or Yaya. Somewhere people will readily pass for official business. Most are the times she misses morning classes and you sign the attendance on her behalf. Those very mornings that your dad claims he has an ...