emotions

This week. I’ve had the same amount of highs and lows. They ended up canceling each other so I don’t feel much difference. You know when you experience exhilarating moments then have to cope with deepest of the deepest ones. And in your mind songs  like- away from the sun,3 doors and six feet from the edge, Creed. And you try to force good thoughts by Colby Cailat but it doesn’t stick, you actually donno the lyrics? Yep.

First my internet connection decided to siphon every single cent  that went into the modem. I was quite angry, I even changed to a different network which I’m  yet to understand the workings but everyone has been telling me Orange is great. It might be, but their internet  customer  care isn’t  that great.

I got a cheque for some work I slaved for last month. For two weeks I thought that money had drunk  the water(I wouldn’t receive it). The contact I wrote it for died before the project was finished.  When someone dies with your debt, you are not so sure whether to pursue it or first send condolences.

Then I had the worst pms that had me cursing Adam and Eve, the cold weather and the lack of menstrual  Panadol around here, the pink ones, yeah.

But I had another high, connecting with a long lost loved one. 

Then when I thought all was going great I got the big idea to cook hard maize githeri. I bought a can of maize, a can of charcoal and set it to boil around 5pm. Lets just  say it was not even ready the following morning. I’ve been feeding on  that for the rest of the week for various reasons. It tasted better today.

It’s exciting to be away for two weeks, I’m going away for two weeks. Perhaps when I’m back I’ll be more balanced. I’m worried about leaving Mooze and Kajuju.  Especially Mooze, he’s  become quite dependent on me.  Typical mama’s boy.

I should have let the week end but I had to open my mouth and tell someone I now a place she could find work. This woman I buy oranges from needs someone to help her with cooking chapatti, githeri, bhajia. So I asked can I bring someone. Yes yes, please. She forgot to mention the person has to be hearing!

I felt the disappointment deep in me, as my deaf friend tried to smile knowing  very well she had  been turned down coz shez deaf. The feeling I had was a similar to one time I really needed a job and was asking about. My classmate Kim said they needed waiting staff at the café she worked.

I didn’t pursue it, but she told me again that her boss was waiting for me. We agreed a date and I went in to ask for Mr. Mumbo Jambo. Why was I looking for him? He wanted to know.

 I’m here for the job?

I said stting down. It was clear I wouldn’t get it. Kim forgot to mention I was black.

So Mr. MJ tells me a long story about the many people on the list for consideration. You’re Kenyan, my wife is from Uganda.  And how he was going to AFRICA next month.

Could you bring me a pack of tea when you get back? I asked with a smile that had a different shape behind.

It happened enough times that when our good natured student counselor mentioned jobs available for students, we simply clicked a tab to update our status.

Discrimination is a sad issue.

So I’m kinda mad, for my neighbor playing loud music too on a Sunday evening. Teenagers!

snatches

September

I’m glad July is over. I didn’t buy any books, it wasn’t very easy not to peep at all the titles in the streets…. I bought other important things  like food and a sweater that hangs like a mosquito net.

I don’t like August as much but it passes so quickly and before you know it it’s plum blossom and the world feels right again as  the September sun shifts on shades of pink and white, and the millions of stars on cloudless nights reminds you that there’s a higher being, and a creative one too.

In 2010, I witnessed  a rare experience. I had been passively watching the sky, the twinkling  stars, some still some on long journeys. Some a bright orange, others a cool purple. The plough, the only set of stars I know, on one side. Then one evening I looked and,,, the plough was on a different location. The entire sky  had shifted. You always hear about scientists telling about the sky and stars and other planets, but from down here, it’s hard to get it, how massive and expansive the universe is I guess at that moment I realized how small I am compared to the major things.

 This month I haven’t had music at all, after waving my hard drive bye bye, I lost motivation to listen  to music from CDs, coz it hangs, and I hate that. But I got  some Jazz- Dave Coz- the other day in my  flash disk and it was just wonderful. Then I was unearthing my CDs and realize I have two missing CDs and I can’t trace them- Sade and Vic Chou. And I passed by a music shop that had a big sign saying- We put your tracks into your flash as you wait- It’s one of those dusty faded music shops. You will find Hugh Masekela and Stevie Wonder in there. But it’s also one of those places headed for closure so they have eager sales men in navy blue aprons who want to know what you want to BUY the minute you sniff in. I want a  place where once you walk in you find cool music playing and you can listen to your select CD on headphones, at your own pleasure- why have they  got to wear navy blue Aprons?

I’ve been eager for the Olympics to start. I like to watch the gymnastics. And Ice skating. But the opening ceremony put me off kabisa. I had set my alarm to wake up and watch but I slept not many minutes later.

 I guess every other will always be compared to the Beijing one.

 And now that the games  have started, I realize I ‘ll end up youtubing them maybe next year Jan.

Positioning.

You can tell by the way he holds a cauliflower head that a mole has eaten from beneath. Also how fast he  can gather  a bunch of spinach with just the right turn of his finger. He is passionate about farming.

He’s a boy I went to Business college with. He was very involved in growing things  then, and it’s no surprise he has never picked up his certificates from the school. So when I nudged an invitation to see what he’s been up to, I got my camera and set off to Kĩng’eero(that’s the real name of the place) Coming from Kieni where if you decide  to plant cabbage you plant  2 acres of it.

 I was really impressed  by what he has done with his one acre. He has everything. Cucumbers, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, brinjals, tomatoes, cabbage, green peppers, and  everything else  that goes by the  name of veggie for the  Kenyan market. At the market they call him kijana wa kila kitu-  young man with everything. He grows and drives his produce to the market, by 6a.m he is back from selling, with bulging pockets.

-Sometimes I feel like I’ve stolen from them- he laughs. He can make a very quick meal with the produce too. Everytime I spend time with a serious farmer, I feel sorry for all those families living in squeezed rooms in Soweto, earning ksh.8,000 while their father’s land overgrows with Mexican marigolds and datura thorn apple.

On my  way bank I passed by a bank to  ask about opening an account.   Figure if I saved a hundred bob every month, in a few years I will have a bit of cash to take a holiday somewhere sunny.

As I filled the form I asked for the terms and  conditions form  to read  through  before I  signed. She took sometime to find it.  Later  she asked me how come I asked for that- No one has ever asked for that. I said how I like to be sure about things. Then she asked what I do and I said I write. We had a nice  chat that went on close to two hours. She was really interested in me writing about Chinese cabbage growers and Japanese spare parts.

-How did you decide to become  a writer?

 Probably coz my uncle is such a story teller and I love reading.

-I wish I knew  what makes  me tick

But you are doing great in customer care

-Maybe, but all I can talk about is my customers. You are doing what you love

 You have a salary at the end of the month.

We laughed, at both ourselves I left at about some minutes to 7.

 I  was very interested in hearing about her acting when she was in school. Turns out she goes to FCC to watch plays and feels very alive while there. 

-So how  come you are in banking.

 I donno, I just found myself here.

 I laughed  when she told me what course she did in college, basically  something that sounded right to the general population.

254

Ignorance is a terrible thing, and I got caught out in this. So there is  this song by Rihanna, Ludacris and some rappers. It’s called – this party don’t stop- I’ve been hearing  it on radio since  last year but didn’t pay much  attention. So the other day  at my friend’s house  I asked for some music. I’ve decided to listen to Neo Soul, Lovers’ rock(love Reggae ), and Kenyan music for the next part of the year. After getting the Glen lewises, Norah Jones and Vivian Greens, he puts on a video and you can imagine my shock that that Rihanna song is actually by CAMP MULLA. I was blown away. These beautifu beautifu  (no typo)Kenyan kids making great music, and here I’m thinking I knew all about Kenyan music! I stand corrected, I felt like one of those people who after hearing a couple of Cold Play, Nickle back and Daughtry songs won’t stop telling you how great rock is and how you must listen to clocks by cold play and photograph by Nickle back and you’re thinking, no, I want Owl City, Ben Jelen and Bo Bice.

So, there are,  some good  mainstream music going round. My favourites: Just a Band, Harry Kimani, Kidum, Ken wa Maria, Sauti Sol, John Njagi, That Jazz guy, who plays the guitar and has an unlikely name for an artist, I think he’s Kevin or Mark, I’ll find out. But Kamande wa Kioi disappointed me with his almost inciting song, he should have stuck to his kapusi and belching in church lyrics. Makes me shudder imagining just how bloody the next election might carry on “shiver”

Then there is Liquideep. There are not Kenyan but I want to adopt them, they are South African. I love the beat to their music, they also don’t pimp their video’s much, kinda like –Just a Band- I like that, you get to concentrate on the music. Asa is someone else I’m coming to love, I hear she’s Nigerian, like Sade is but I don’t suppose she records in Nigeria?

 I once sat on a table, and someone bragged about Justin Beiber being his country man, I thought about mentioning Ezekiel Kemboi and Ndereba  and the huge tea estates in Kericho, the white sandy beaches and the delicious avocados, plums and sweet potatoes, then I thought, a no point, let me just have my pork rice in silence, no it was a cheese burger, yes at McDonalds. A place I only went in when I had to, and not alone, after being openly racially discriminated.

I was two weeks sick last month, bad cold with stuffed nose, headache and a cough that would wake up the dead but the great thing is I knew I’d be alright.  It’s just a Winter cold. Not like that time I had dengue fever and didn’t know  what was wrong with me, you could have  boiled arrow roots on my forehead. I thought this was the end, and started wondering, should I be cremated, or sent back in a box and  what would happen to all my picture collection? 

poem

You lived a dream

Floating grappling

For air, always.

Until the day you saw  running blood, 

from you finger

I’m liquid after all. 

                                                                                      Greg, Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Every living thing

--------As the cloud shadows, racing on the wind, flew over me, trailing ribbons and brightness over the endless browns and greens, I felt a rising exhilaration at just being up there on the roof of Yorkshire. It was an empty landscape where no creature stirred and it was silent except for the cry of distant bird, yet, I felt a further surge of excitement in the solitude, a tingling sense of the nearness of all creation.-------

James Herriot was in touch with his world. Last month I read- Vet in a Spin and Every living thing. He was a vet, but he didn’t simply go about with his medical bag oblivious of the world around him. So as I read about helping lambs give birth, or fixing lame dogs, and clearing off rot in horses, I wish I lived earlier, I would have made an effort to reach him.

Chad Kruger is alive and I haven’t emailed him yet, and the’re three letters to Maeve Binchy which I need to send out. Time.

-----‘Have you felt inside her?’

‘Nay, I haven’t had time.’ He turned harassed eyes towards me

We are behind with the milkin’ this morning. We can’t be late for t’milk man.’

I knew what he meant. The drivers who collected the churns for the big dairy companies were a fierce body of men. Probably kind husbands and fathers at normal times but subject to violent outbursts of rage if they were kept waiting even for an instant. I couldn’t blame them, because they had a lot of territory to cover and many farms to visit, but I had seen them when provoked and their anger was frightening to behold----

I can relate to this. My uncle has to get up at bizarre hours just so not to upset the milk man, he sells a litre for 25 Shillings to the society. Half a litre of the same when packed is Ksh 50. So we tell him to take a risk and move to Brookside but, what will happen when Brookside decides to take less he wonders.

------------She was of the farming generation which had come through the tough times before the war and her gaunt, slightly bowed frame and lined face bore testimony to the hard years. It was the kind of face I had seen on so many of the old Yorkshire folk-grim, but kindly.----------

Reading that paragraph lists faces in my mind that would fit that description. Years of hard, tiring work have lined their faces and roughed their palms.

…….Afterwards we walked through the scented silence of the woods,

The pine needles soft under our feet, and he talked, not only about the deer, but about the other wild creatures of the forest and about the plants and flowers which flourished in those secret places. He seemed to know it all and I began to understand the depths of the interest which colored his entire life. He held the key to a magic world.

As we reached the field the sun came out and, looking back, I could see long drifts of bluebells among the dark holes of the trees, and in the glades, where the first ray struck through the branches, the primroses and anemones shone like scattered jewels…….

Yep, that’s James Herriot for you.