Goodness we need to teach the men in this country how to prioritize. I watched a couple a few weeks back coming from a parking lot in the city. Remember that Parking in Nairobi cots a bundle, only the first hour is free in most places. This fact will be important at the end of the story.

It is also very important for me to point out that this couple is under the age of 23. Probably a college guy with mom’s car taking his girlfriend out to lunch on the Thursday right before Easter so he has absolutely no fuel costs.

I was walking behind this couple on the street behind World Business Centre-the blue building on Tom Mboya St next to Bata opposite Latema Rd. So anyway, this only struck me when they got inside the Kenchic that is at the end of that road connecting Tom Mboya Street with Moi Avenue. I am not a stalker first of all I don’t follow random people around town just because… I was just led into a train of thought by the activities of this couple for the five or so minutes I was walking behind them.

I probably need to begin with the fact that, as my best friend likes to put it, I am a high class girl living in the wrong side of town. I would rather be at the Teaspot paying Ksh. 100 for my fries when I can only spend Ksh. 100 on my lunch than go to a Kenchic and have fries and a chicken sausage which will cost me the same Ksh 100. And I happen to have internal reviews of the places I would like to be caught in and the ones I would not like to be heaved in if I fainted right outside and the only reason I am inside the joint is because I am unconscious. Read the rest of this entry →

Easter weekend is the longest holiday weekend of the year. It is four straight days of absolute freedom from work or school and whatever tight schedules you usually have to put up with. If you are like me and don’t mix work and play, it could also be the annual cause for a holiday budget just so you don’t have to spend it alone on the sofa with popcorn and at least eight DVDs of movies and TV series you haven’t seen.

Four straight days of absolutely no plan is a nightmare. No Ifs Buts or maybes about it. If you start it off on the wrong foot, you’ll spend the whole four days stuck in the same plan. Just the mere thought of it is murderous.

Take this for example, if you start out with a serious binge on Thursday evening, you will be stuck with half your budget or less and a hang over to keep you grounded the whole weekend. Talk about a holiday mishap.

If you happen to have a boyfriend, you have the option of scaring the sh*t out of the guy and moving into his house uninvited for the whole four days. The best part is if you are really dating a Kenyan guy you won’t really need a change of clothes. He’ll find you his cleanest tee from the pile on the floor and you might end up wearing it for the whole four days if you’re not careful. But woo and behold, for you with a boyfriend at arms length that probably won’t matter. But having just the toothbrush you bought on your way there is a scary thought. No roll on so I will stink of sweat even if I shower three times a day. None of my lotion and I will probably feel guilty about using his as generously as I use mine. Thank heavens I don’t wear any make up but for you who even wears a little blush and powder, imagine how terribly ugly you will feel the whole four days. Nightmares!! Read the rest of this entry →

It has often been said that women are helpless, that we can’t even fix our own light bulbs. That would ordinarily be insulting but wait till I put it into perspective. It might not be such a bad thing after all.

The average guy finds it very easy to pick a fight over anything even someone stepping on their shoes, and mind you so am I especially if I am not sober. The distinction can be found in the fact that if it is between a guy and a girl, that it was a guy that stepped on the girl and she went ahead to bitch about it before the fight ensued, then the guy will most likely walk away from this weird scenario and never remember it in his life.

I on the other hand will remember the day I bitched at a fully grown man and called him all manner of names and he just walked away. Isn’t that nice? For all intents and purposes I won that, and I will probably do the same thing every time that happens from then on, woe unto you men.

See what I mean about being helpless yet? If you haven’t, pay attention, here it comes. The guy walked away because in his big or maybe small brain (if the fact that women have larger brains than men is anything to go by) he thought that you probably didn’t know what you were saying when you said that you would beat him to a pulp. I mean really even I know for a fact that you cannot beat up a fully grown human person into a pulp, you would need a machine that crushes bones into powder to actually do that, but I digress. What I am on about is that the guy walked away simply because in his mind you can’t even put up a fist right let alone know how hard you need to thrust to throw in a proper punch.

All in all, the fact that we are helpless saves us from a million beat downs by the time that we die. Read the rest of this entry →

“My baby he don’t talk sweet,
He aint got much to say,
But he loves me loves me, loves me, loves me,
I know that he loves me anyway,
And maybe he don’t dress fine,
But I don’t really mind,
‘Cause every time he pulls me near
I just want to cheer.

Let’s hear it for the boy,
Let’s give the boy a hand,
Let’s hear it for my baby,
You know you gotta understand”

Deniece Wiliams- Let’s Hear it For the Boy Columbia Records (1984)

I write this for all the good men in THIS COUNTRY. There have been quite a few in my life but as always the good boys never finish first . They never even got more than a thank you. I write this for all of you that go unnoticed. The man that opens a door for his lady and always lets her walk in front of him not because he is checking her out, but because he wants to have her in his view at all times for his piece of mind.

My source of inspiration this week is a blog post I read FOR SHE WHO COUNTS. Click here to read the post.

And so I begin

The stereotype Kenyan man we all know is the one that swears he has a right to at least one stable woman in his life and an occasional side dish just to keep things interesting. He thinks that it is his duty to save the gorgeous poor girl from the office from her life and get sexual favors in return (yes we know that that whole knight in shinning armour skit is a play to get laid). And worse still he thinks that his woman is only supposed to have him while he goes on to cannodle with everything in a skirt that sways past his eyes. Read the rest of this entry →

The first time I ever wrote an article I wanted to earn money from it. I thought I was so good. I wanted to send it to someone and get hired on the spot I was 18, I think, so pardon my naiveté. I wanted to be a feature writer in the Saturday magazine like Oyunga Pala. (As much as most people think he’s a chauvinist pig, he reeks pure genius in my books. You know how hard it is to have a steady column for around ten years on the same topic every Saturday and have something new every time?)

It has come to my recent attention though that all my dreams have drastically changed. I no longer want to be a lawyer in a power suit, in front of a judge making my submissions. I no longer want to become the next Oyunga Pala! Now I just want to want to be happy!! I want the easiest route out of this existence. No hassles for me! I am way too tired of this rat race even before I get into it.

The new dream is to work in the NGO world especially because of dress down Friday! (I know that’s stupid but you have no idea how much I miss my jeans and I have only been dressing formally for a week) I can’t do that if I end up being the court going sort of lawyer. I don’t want power suits to be part of my wardrobe except for those one time interviews. I want to be simple and stylish. Suits are way too much work!

I remember at one time I had sworn that I would never be an unpaid volunteer. I would always demand allowances or throw my hands at the opportunity and search for a more generous employer. Like we say in Kiswahili- Kaa Nayo!. That was then!! The dream has been altered severely since then. I am as I write this an unpaid intern. Read the rest of this entry →

Am reading for exams this week and I can tell you one thing, it’s not half bad. This semester I am taking this unit called Women in The Legal Process. I took it because it sounded easy not that am a feminist or anything but I sure am glad I did now. It is really interesting.

The most interesting part however as it turns out is for me was on sexual violence. Maybe am a little weird for liking the discourse but it speaks to me. It really all makes sense now.

Violence against women comes in many forms: physical, verbal and psychological. We have all seen it in our lives and we probably all experience it everyday without even knowing it sometimes. Thanks to the articles I have been forced to read for the exam I have come to understand myself as a woman in ways I probably wouldn’t have. Take this one example for instance; I found an excerpt that speaks of perceived attractiveness as a form of inequality just as much as rape and battery are. Isn’t that just sad? That because we all want to look like a certain kind of woman and we go through thick and thin to achieve that look we are just as bad as someone who has been raped. That was truly eye opening for me. Read the rest of this entry →

Confession time, my late mother-God rest her soul-told us this a few years ago when I had my son, that none of all five of us ever had a bath until we were at least three years old. Imagine!! None of us! I can just imagine the amount of dirt I had on me, and the dirt on grind that ended up in that ‘karai’ at the end of that first time.

The purpose of that story when she told it was to stop me from insisting that I should wash my son everyday when he was a few days old. The plan was, and she even bought coconut oil for that purpose, to wipe him with oil; whichever kind could be found. Ammon was a very quiet lad when he was small, so he would quietly lie still and enjoy the massage mom proceeded to give him. Soon it became a daily ritual right before the little sap went to sleep for the last time of the day.

As is the case with lazy people like myself, I got used to that particular way of doing things. The ‘tush’ would get wet wipes with every diaper change, and the rest of him would be lathered up in cooking coconut oil or olive oil by mom at the end of the day. If we have kept a record of all the times Ammon has had in his life thus far therefore, they would probably not get past 100.

Read the rest of this entry →

I am a cartoon freak. There I said it. I didn’t wait for someone else to say it first. I have been forced to admit it because I was half an hour late leaving the house today because I was watching a commentary on new 3D releases that were made in 2009. Go figure!!!

Anyway, it has recently come to my attention that we don’t all watch cartoons for the same reason. Some people just think they are funny. Some people get life experience from them (like me) and some people just see the colorful pictures (like Ammon-my son by the way).

Back to me then, I really listen to everything that’s said in a cartoon. Really!! I can narrate just about 80% of every word in all the episodes of ‘Dexter’s laboratory’¹. I know who Juniper Lee² is and worse her little brother’s name (see footnote)³. And the one that freaked out the boys, I know Bloo’s⁴ full name. You thought it was just Bloo? Sorry it’s not “Blooregard Q. Kazoo”. If we had this conversation with you before, I checked the spelling. My research skills are dope- thanks to law school.

Because I know Bloo’s full name I have been labeled or rather have now eventually labeled myself a freak- cartoon freak that is. I love them. Utado⁵? Read the rest of this entry →

I took the longest Christmas break this past Christmas. I just packed up a bag of a few pairs of jeans and a couple of my favorite t shirts and left my life.

I didn’t say anything to anyone, well except my siblings. I didn’t say how long I would stay except to my closest friends. I just left.

That is actually why I haven’t written in a long while. I couldn’t. I didn’t have my trust cyber café up the street that I sit at with a packet of yogurt and write.

I had plans all the way up to the end of Christmas but for some reason; they didn’t seem to be what I needed. They required money, they required a designated drive if we all went drinking. They needed me to think, to strategize. Something I was not too willing to do at that time.

So I just left.

I didn’t go some place fun. I didn’t go to some place I would have room service or in the least my favorites French fries, my daily necessity before. I went to my aunt’s. Mama mdogo we say in Swahili. My mother’s sister. One of the last links to my mother we have left.

My son had been staying there for a few months so I was killing two birds with one stone. Read the rest of this entry →

Is it just my imagination or are men in Nairobi are getting less courteous as the days go by.  I have been clicked at by two men in the last one week and I can’t stop getting irritated even by the thought of it. How now!! Imagine, a man clicking at a woman!!  Kwani nani mama kuliko mwingine? Call me when you have been in labor for 18 hours and you can click at me all you like.

And that isn’t even the half of it. We are physically being man handled everyday and we just seem to be taking it all in one stride. I am for women empowerment any day don’t get me wrong, but there are just times when you need to treat a lady like a lady. It just seems however that they are not willing to so here are a few tips to be your own man when the situation calls for it.

Put up a fight
Never go down without a fight! It doesn’t need to be a physical one, just be a wise ass. Talk down at him. Make him seem stupid to your audience. There is nothing as demeaning to a guy as being insulted by a woman in the presence of others. Blame it on the African upbringing, but then again white guys don’t like it either.

In the physical scenario, I can’t even put up a fist how it is supposed to be so I am not saying punch him. There is an alternative: heels- a woman’s best weapon. I love heels to death; they look great even on a shelf let alone on a lovely foot like mine!! But they’re just not meant to sit and look pretty.

Once, some guy was trying to rob my purse in a matatu. He had covered his hand with a newspaper while he rummaged through the contents of my bag. Lucky for him I caught him in the act. Am not all that strong but that day I got a man by his collar and held him still while I took off one of my heels. I put quite a dent in his robber face for all time. I have never been in a fight before in my life. It was so exhilarating!! Read the rest of this entry →