African Authors Recognition Awards

 

Nominated for the African Authors Recognition Awards

My book shown here, has been nominated for the above awards to be held in Namibia.

Voting will begin soon, I will share a link as soon as we receive it

 

An Adult's Pyramid of Possessions

 

A Live Dog is Better than a Dead Lion

 Exactly seven years ago yesterday, my mother died.

Today I thought about how many sacrifices she made for me, as only a mother can.

When I was 31 she said to me ' if life is hard just come back home '

I had tried and tried but nothing was corking, and when I did come back home, I continued to work for a dying maagazine that was paying me KES 4000 four times a year. I was applying for jobs but getting no openings.

My mother would buy a small milk- the 20bob one. for me to have some tea in the morning, the rest I would figure it out.

I knew we were both struggling but mehn, nothing was working at all, for  about two years. I was metally frayed, because whenever I walked around and saw people in business I thought, I wish I could start a business. if I passed by a big building, I would think- wow- people actually work here and get paid. I remember one time my mother flipping the covers off my bed and telling me to ' Get up and find work!' 'Naivas is hiring and you are still sleeping.'

How could I even explain to her that I had no confidence left. I didn't even think I could get hired as a super market cashier. I was afraid that the world had chewed and spat me out.

why didnt I finish my degree? Was my constant bug forming an error in my mind. I had forgotten the struggles of several years before when I had been thrown hither and thither in a foreign country when I tried to renew an expiring Visa and was told that an expired visa meant  a five year imprisonment. Life was already rough on the outside, time in incarceration? I would have died. I had already seen what happened to Nigerian Nationals who had missed their visa renewals, or been caught on tourist visas instead of student visas.

 Until a friend asked me to do some interviews and writing for the NGO she was working at. I was earning KES 10,000. So I decided to move out because I was embarassed to be at living in my mother's house at that age, and embarassed that I couldn't even give enough money to cover the bills. How do I explain it?

In my mind, I was like, ah, let me go suffer in private. My earnings got to 13k. My rent was 4k

I was on a beans and veg diet for many many days, but you know what, it was under control. 

I felt like at least I could organise my life, no matter how shredded it looked like.

But all in all, I feel grateful for the role a living parent plays.

Growing Into Adulthood Bills

 Yesterday, it hit me that actually, growing older is a gift. It's the end of the month and as usual the bills are coming in left right and centre and I was getting myself ready to  have the usual argument with my landlord- No I am not going to pay that kind of money for water- what do you think I am manufacutring?Cocacola?-

And I realised that, I no longer feel the panic I often felt when I had to deal with an unreasonable house owner (Those who got some money from their retirment from package and decided to concort a few bedsitters behind their bungalow to collect rent and supervise tenants the same way they supervised their Grad 5s and Grade 6s for the past 31 years)

Until recently, I would get a spike of anger whenever I received a passive aggrresive text from such a house owner but with experience and age now I can give aura for aura and move one swiftly.