a poem

Thank You

I spoke with an old pal yesterday. He said I inspired him to write after he saw my collection of handwritten books, that was in ’06 I think, so he has been writing and he wanted to know, what to do with the volumes? I told him I have mine locked up in a box, for which I misplaced the key.

I had texted him to ask-was he alright? We are very alike so I haven’t been too worried that we haven’t communicated in a while. I tend to take a break from communication sometimes, and from friends and family, then while I’m getting on with life thinking all is alright, someone shows up at my door wanting to know- Is something wrong?

So my Pal, he’s the one who suggested I get on blogger since I had trouble posting on my webpage.

When he called, I thought it was one of my editors asking why I haven’t sent a story I had opened my mouth to say I had but can’t get round it, so I was pensive, until he laughed.

I guess it’s because of the ease at which me and this old friend can talk. After a year, 3, we just continue from where we left, no pressure, no questions, or judgment on the other’s choice of life.

-So you decided to become a fish trader in Lake Victoria? Fine, what have you written lately?

Whenever I feel unsure or unsettled about my writing, on instinct I end up tracing Ken and if we meet up for a chat, I end up getting any pilled up energy and writing. He taught me that writing, being an art should be taken seriously, we were looking at the art displayed at the Hilton Art shop one evening . “ We are all artists, when humans don’t discover their artistic side, they turn to the basic art of creating.”

Onetime, as I was writing my 2^nd novel, I caught malaria and was struggling to write between sick spells. Ken came over, we chat over kahawa no.1( Rough coffee that needs extensive boiling to taste like coffee). I felt better after, and finished my novel.

So this week when I called Ken, we chat and I finally managed to write two stories from my last trip, which is a relief.

.....just get on a bus

after high school I was still a rioting teenager suffering the effects of a troubled mind. I cut ,my long hair but it grew back in offense like kei apple that has been burned to the ground.. I had trouble maintaining curly hair which I wanted to have but I only went about looking like a Somali shepherd boy or like a male Ethiopian athlete like Tlotlego likes to put it.

There was this period I didn't have shampoo, or conditioner  and was washing my hair with course bar soap and using coconut oil( you don't smell it after a while)haha.
I mentioned to someone I knew in college that I needed to wash my hair but wasn't really eager. Would you believe it he said- come over I'll wash it for you-so sweet. It wasn't a trap either, his sisters laughed, I think his brother thought it was tacky.

I was thinking about this when meditating abut Nyeri men. Not a single gentle man exists among them. My aunt explained this fact to me."They love money, are contemptuous and useless, they think property is what makes a man."
Earlier, I only thought they had an ego, but now, as I make my calculations, I could  count the gentle men I've met in this region in our hand. One of them was this  young man who came  up to me after high school and asked- are you alright? With real interest,like he would take what was bothering me and give it a good thump. I had just  realised we weren't as rich as I had always assumed, and I was moving away from my family.
Perhaps it's the Hero factor.

Another thought, very people around here(Nyeri) marry. They have girlfriends, with three children, 3 years down the line; if they make it that far and that could be the third wife- ah.

So anyway. This morning I was walking fast to reach town quick, I got a lift from a friendly shop owner on a motorbike! ( I told him I was recently married nearby),  I was so excited, it was my first and  I  had a 10 o'clock interview but I had been listening to stories by my friend's father, he's the old man I was talking about, he told me his dog- Popi, sleeps the kind of sleep a drunkard sleeps and I laughed like a mad person, he said laughing is good, but he stopped laughing a lot when he realised laughing too much is also stupidity, he also told his  wife that he will die soon, and they'll meet on the other side of the valley. I found that very funny, he has been sick and is faintly worried about not being able to do the things he used to do as a young person, like just, getting on a bus and heading to Arusha.

 I think I'm just gonna stay in Meru

Animal Tolerance

He was  holding a small brown lamb which made a perfect picture of a shepherd boy. I asked if I could hold the lamb, I've never held one for than  three seconds
He handed it to me, said it was docile because the mother had rejected it after giving birth two twins.
"It chose the white one, so we feed cow milk to this one."

Soon after, I saw the  boy  grab the  mother's  right  hind leg.
"Come and suckle, he called to the lamb, who understood the urgency or the times for  he came quick and suckled with all his might.
"Let me catch another one for you, the boy said to the  lamb. And he fell another mother sheep. " You, come over stop wasting time," said the boy to the lamb. The lamb run.

One old man  said to be the other day- I  only have 1,300 days left to live. I laughed. He is a funny man, he said no one should kill wasps, because wasps eat spiders.
"No one will ever die from a single wasp sting, but a bite from a spider will kill you instantly."
So he won't chase away the wasps  sheltering under his latrine, because they have a purpose, even though they sting him several times a weak.
"You know in China, they use bee stings to for stroke therapy, so I have a feeling, the wasps might be useful  to the nerves."

He also said to me, " don't despise frogs for their look, they eat snakes, but in my life I've never heard that someone died from a frog bite."

I have seriously been  thinking of getting a gun. I'd round up all the donkeys on earth and end their misery.

fires

I have a hard time getting a fire going.

Be it wood fires, stove fires, charcoal fires any fire. It’s like Math. My uncle says he has a solution  for it each time he finds me going crazy in a smoke filled kitchen.

“It is simple, tell Nyawira to bring me a goat of fire”

translated, he means to say that according to custom, my mother ought to give him a goat on my behalf, so that I can be able to make fires. Mburi ya mwaki he calls it. I should pursue that idea, not for any superstitious reasons, but to find out if say I got married, would the groom be asked to bring along a goat of fire along with the blankets for my mother, the sodas for the cooking women, the lesos for the aunties and the guard of wine for  the uncles.

 Last month I saw a woman get into a taxi with 2 sheep. She was taking them to her maternal home as dowry since her husband died before he  finished off the dowry price. She is in her early 50’s, surely.

I’m told if I was to get married the groom would be asked for my mother’s dowry too, since  she isn’t married (hahaha. Lolz) sorry. I told cucu, when that time comes, I’ll elope and come back a month later with a marriage certificate from the D.C;s Office.

We are out of firewood most of the days, and we have to use maize stalks, maize cobs and other debris about the house.

Soon we might be using  cowdug. I have a mind to pray for daily firewood. I was going to tell auntie we ought to be saying- give us this day our daily firewood but changed my mind in fear of a lecture against blasphemy.

But seriously we are getting our daily maize meal we might a well expound on our prayers.

Things which facilitate the getting of our daily ugali.

Steady as she goes

Yesterday, I stopped in the middle of the street to laugh. There was this dude singing very loudly, don't stop me from singing, this is not your town. So he looks my way and starts to sing- young girl, why be proud of your two breasts, a dog has eight and it doesn't boast-
I like such characters, maybe because inside me, I sometime am that kind of carefree character, who despite being different, resisting the society's norms, still finds her way, as everyone would were they to live, and not just imitate. Many times I don't quite understand the paths I take though distinct, but relying heavly on instinct like the animals I love, who love me unconditionally, and so far so good.

Last few weeks I've had to look at decisions, weigh them, try to pick out which is the most exciting, fresh,risky. Well, not exactly, but along those lines.

I was staying with my second family for the weekend, a simple, lovely set up. The father of the house loves loud music and everyone goes along with it, the son, just turned 16, in my mind he's stil 13 and a half. He likes to dance and he taught me a few moves. He's in high school so he knows what's in, and we played J Bloogs song- Let's do it again- over and over, late at night, and it didn't bother the sister, who was studying math, or the newest visitor- they always have someone new, everyday- who was reading some magazine half asleep. So we danced, then listened to a classic fm, and sniggered like two school girls.

But in the back of my mind, I have this decision hanging loose like the soot laden strings of old cobwebs in my aunt's kitchen. They become part of the room, that when it rains and they dissolve, you somehow miss them, though you always knew, at the back of your mind, they are not permanent. Perhaps it's the resistance to change. It has been six months and even though I knew they would be over, I resist, despite the warm thought of getting out once again on my own, living a quiet life, reading numerous books and making soup out of this and that every other day, listening to Colbie Caillat, David Tao and Matchbox 20 at the highest volume.
I guess it's the feeling that, these six months will never be repeated. I have to get set up, and as much as I have enjoyed the evening laughs with mama, the late night heart to heart talks with tata, photography sessions with my cousin, he's got quite good at it too, and guessing cucu's mood everyday, it was a season in my lifetime.

I have to leave eventually, and every day of my life I'll remember this stage of my life, like the sign language class I took at the university some years ago, the trip to an Island some few years ago, the saree clad Mumbai ladies with such quick feet the saree seemed to flow. Memories.

paloma kimani waturaco

I wanted to write something exciting, like how this Paloma song is a hit where I live, but I'm yet to decide whether the other Naija version by the same guy is a bigger hit, I would also like to write about the cow theft in my village, how cows disappear at night, only to re-appear as fresh meat in a different county, and every farmer now has to sleep with one eye open like an ogre incase of any new movements. Yeah that's the village news. After pulling water pipes around the farm, honestly, a one man guitar tune is very relaxing. Though the honest truth is I left my farm diaries in the village so I have to use old material, yeah and my computer is acting up.