Mary mother of Hope...

My friend Mary, she is the only one that calls me Sesilia. And she is right, I have never understood why I'm called Sissilia when there is a letter e as clear as a rain drop right there.

When Mary was coming up with her marriage vows, she had to include a Sesilia allegiance clause for her husband. It went like this.

'I, Gilbert take thee Mary as my wife, and also take Sesilia your single friend as my first born daughter/ small sister or whatever it is she is,  we shall figure it as we go along but I promise she is always welcome in our home.'

And they have stayed true to that promise. Mary and Gilbert's house is my second home. I know if  I called at 10 pm and said 'I'm coming', they would both get out of bed and come to wait for me at the bus stop.

Mary has a couch. And a flowered pillow. They are mine. That is the couch I go and stretch out when the world is dark and scary and I am let alone to only lift my head to drink tea, or acknowledge the entrance of another family member.

It's on this couch that I have told some confused feelings and received some straight up telling off.
Mary will stop rolling the chapati and point at me with the Rollin pin.
'SESILIA, you think a privilege makes a man? Eh? You think a good man is defined by his station? Ebu remove that from your brain. A privilege can be stripped off in a day '
Or that time I had this man at work trying to buy me a lot of good coffee.
And I told her he is really a good man.
Mary, pointing at me with that Rolling pin again said.

'How can you even think about it! I know being single can be hard but that one thing he is missing is the most important thing!'

Mary is one of those friends who picked me out of the crowd and pulled me to her side.
She has always put me by her side.

I appreciate her for how whenever I go to her house, it's like nothing else is important. I am the important focus for the day even when her husband comes, tired from work.

He will just go and sort his bath water and food and if there is no food he will cook it and feed the daughter and will not try to interrupt our discussions with his wife.

When my married friends go into the kitchen and leave me in the sitting room with the husband I want to pull my hair out because - me I didn't come to visit this dude- unless it's Moose or Allan 😅 those I can just pick up a book and ignore them.

When I am about to leave he will call Mary and give her some money and tell her to pack some shopping from their shop.

'Gilbert said I give you this for busfare.'
She will say and if I resist she will say.
'Us we are two, you you are alone, ebu take it.'

Mary bought me that skirt, she said it would be perfect coz I'm taller.

 Another friend bought me the top. They go well together.

He said, as we were walking along a street with some vendors.
'Ciss, wait,' Then he asked the vendor to bring down the top.

I was telling him some tale so I didn't realise he was getting it for me.
'Put this on,
Perfect,
How much?'

He paid and we continued walking.

I told him I felt like a cartoon character, the sharp collar. He asked which cartoon? I said the one with a blue evil guy with a hood sense of style. I meant Mega Mind.  When I got home  and looked in the mirror it was a perfect fit.

I love people who buy me clothes. Saves me a lot of trouble please continue.

So Mary is one of my favourite people.

Her family is my family.
When I texted her that my mother had died she came within an hour.

Then her husband called.
And their tiny daughter Hope asked to speak to me.
'Cecilia Poole,, ' she said.

Mary has a very developed sense of humour. I think she is then one person who can keep me laughing for a whole afternoon. You wouldn't think it looking at her sitting submissively between her husband and child on a Sunday, but you know that quote that says humour is not derived out of joy but of sorrow?

She is able to describe bleak situations in such a funny way you feel bad but you are laughing so you laugh and say pole at the same time.

That's the best way to approach hard times I think.

She also went through a series of frogs before meeting Gilbert and no matter how many times I hear the stories, which she will tell me as a warning, whenever I mention I might have met someone but I'm not sure, which is twice a year,  they are still pretty hilarious and I just hope I never meet one of her former beaus because I  will burst out laughing.

Her story about growing up in Ukambani then coming to try eke out a life in Nairobi is just as funny and should be recorded and read over and over on some evenings.

At this point I am wondering do I gravitate more to people who have had two or three life times squeezed into one?
I possibly do, theirs is much more to see.
Their daughter loves me more than I deserve. When Mary's love runs out, times when I have taken her for granted and she decides she can do without me as well. Hope will call me to ask when she can visit and give the parents no rest until a date is arranged.
She is such a cool kid. She can dance some moves I am yet to understand which part of the body has a joint which can twist in that manner.
They named her Clean Hope.
Not uncertain Hope.
This is the real deal.

I think the reason I have been okay with not having kids of my own especially at this crucial age is because of the ones I am allowed to have access to as an aunt. Hope, Amani, Nevin, Sophia. Nevin is a kid in my flat, he calls me mama Happy and because of him the other kids now want to rush into my house when I come in and a mother will be like.

'Acha kusumbua auntie! '
And the kid will be like ' si ni rafiki yangu.' As she continues to remove her shoes so she can run in to jump up and down on my bed.
I guess it amuses them that my kitchen and by living room and bedroom are all and the same thing. It's an adventure.


That is the story of Mary. We met in 2007, I hope to try and be a worthwhile friend in the days to come.

Finding God: The Sunday my Uncle went to Church.

He didn't go willingly. He was drugged in kicking and screaming by  two women.
The two most important women in his life, his mother and his wife.

A child had been born unto him,  A male child, and he needed a baptism of water before he was old enough to  learn how to sin for himself.

So my uncle had gone for a shave on the Saturday.
He wore a conservative jacket
And his Sportsman baseball cap sat tightly on his scalp.
A man reminded him to stash it into his pocket before entering the church.

That morning after Sunday school, I hang around  to see if he would really come.
When the adult trio, wife, husband, mother and infant entered the church gate I hid. I didn't want to be sent home.

He went through it.
Standing in front of the church and asking them to accept him as a member.
The infant got his baptism
And uncle got back to his Sunday routine.
That is: milk the cows, feed the cows, take a nap, milk the cows, feed the cows, then go to the local pub for a beer.

The routine hasn't changed for the last 25 years and he is an extremely happy man. He would be happier if people didn't complain so much about the two new nyama choma and beer joints recently opened.
Njogu-inī and Mbogo-inī
What is a man supposed to do in the evening after spending a day with cows?
A man needs his beer, his politics and his roast.
Or a man needs his whiskey,  his religion and his roast
And another might need his coffee, his music and his woman

This Chic: The Pursuit of Happyness

I'm happy, mostly.
I decided I shall not look for sorrow and sadness when I have the option to be positive and cheerful.

Sorrow will find you without assistance. So don't look for it

Pursue happiness.
You will find it.
Even in a messy and wrecked world there are bits of good to sustain us until the next thing to stagger us.

I have found happiness in looking fo r and celebrating the bits of positive vibe I see in people.
 Like my neighbour's singing. She has a beautiful voice, I should teach her my favourite songs then I can just listen to her across the wall.

I have found peace in accepting myself. The rough parts and the glittering parts.

I have found freedom, in expressing how I feel whenever, and for a few people who actually get me and my spacy way of defining this thing called life.

Most of all I am happy with myself for then choices I consciously make each day.

I have learned to recognize a good thing and to grasp onto it with both of my hands.

I have become aware of the people I want in my life. Sometimes it's me doing all the work but,
forget the independent self satisfying phrase - don't chase people you are worth more than that-

It's a lie.
Sometimes you have to chase people.
Because sometimes you need them more than they need you but in the end it's for you.

I am happy to have learned this now.

May I live many more days
To chase more people
To love  and care deeply even when it just me doing the loving and caring, to do my best to get out of my own castle and help others build theirs.

Because Jesus said it right.
There is more happiness in giving than in receiving.
May I have more time, more affection, more laughter and more heart to share with my fellow humans.
I am still a queen.
Perfectly imperfect
You can call me Virginia.

#queens
#positivity
#natural Hair
#Nairobi
#writersofinstagram
#sketches
#Africa
#truelovemagazine
#info
#inspiration

Personality Profile : Portrait of a Meditative African gentleman

This is my friend Muscle man.

He is the true definition of a meditative gentleman of average age.
You never really know what he is thinking so you just pick up a stick and prod him a little to get a reaction then run away.

Muscle Man is kind and generous and everybody's sweetheart.

He is the person who will hire a car and ask you 'Hey do you need to go see your Mum? I'm sending a driver to take you.'

When he laughs, it's careless and thorough.
I like his laugh.
When he dances, his body takes flight.

He has a fiddler's fingers, though he lifts metal all day.

But he is not all mushy and rose petals when serious matters arise.
You will stand at attention when he clears his throat.

Muscleman lives his life the way he has planned it. It doesn't matter what you think, that's your problem.

Several times in my eventful life my brain has shut down and Muscle Man has taken one look at me and seen: Gaka Kairītu nīgatukanīre.

(this woman is mixed up.)
And he did the thinking for me.

When my heart didn't know what to feel
He felt for me.

I'm grateful for friends who are really family.

Grieving : "I will go down mourning to my grave"

Kwani you are still mourning your mother?

That's the question.

I'd like to ask how long shoukd I mourn my mother? 10 days? A month? 6 months? A year?

I also want to say come back and ask me that question when your mother does but that would be rude and unfeeling and I have felt dreadful enough recently to wish it on anyone.

But each time someone asks me if i'm still grieving I really want to walk away.

Before I get out my guns and tell them to have a little imagination.

Truth is, you need a little imagination of you haven't experienced death.

Me, I have experienced it from all directions and it doesn't get easier.

It gets harder.

You get weaker.

You cannot handle funerals.

You avoid people who speak carelessly.

And basically you slowly put one step after the one in front and hope your God hasn't given up on you.

Personality Profile: Maureen Wa Shem

My friend has quit her Chinese Interpreting job to become a farmer.
I asked her so what kind of farming she was doing.

She said "You know, the usual
Spinach and a few kales."

But I met her a few weeks ago and she informed me she has started livestock farming. 
'Oh really? In the village? '
I asked
"No, just in my backyard"

So I thought possibly rabbits or chickens.
Then she showed me a video.

We were standing outside the Buruburu KH. It was the Sign Language Assembly and Maureen had come looking for me, she brought me lunch but didn't find me so she came back again.

This time we found each other.
And talked until it got cold.


My mother loved Maureen.

My grandmother loves Maureen
And everybody else I introduce her to ends up loving her because she is just that. 
A lovable girl
She is those kind of girls who always know how to talk politely to everyone, give advice without crossing lines, cook good food for a family, knows what spoons to use to serve a man, what dress to wear when.
What perfume to buy, what gift to give. She knows how to dance and even how to make liquid soap.

And most of all she knows how to keep a friend because if it was upto me we wouldn't be friends after all the stunts I have pulled over the years. 
Including poisoning her with a carelessly prepared meal, choosing a new friendship over an old one and just being a complete big eared bovine who doesn't know a good thing when it's staring right in her face.

When Maureen came home my Shushu  said:
 'In fact ,she doesn't behave like a Jaluo at all.'

A very high compliment from someone who only has interacted with other tribes through the radio.

And every other time she would ask me.

'Na Kaī kairītu karīa karata gaku kamūjaluo gatūire kū?'

That small luo girl who is your friend,  where is she now?

I told her she got a married

She exclaimed 'Then may God bless her,  even you now it seems you might find a husband too.'

That was a few years back.

Maureen is one of those friends who still kept me as a friend after she got married. 

I really appreciate friends who don't kick me out of their lives after marriage.
It's very hard for a single girl of 30+ to start making new friends.

But  I think the highest praise I have for Maureen is that she would never use information given in private for public use.

I mean:
She may know dirt about you but she won't use it to score points somewhere else.

(I don't collect dirt but dirt seems to find me and settle.)

She is that kind of confidant who doesn't harvest data from you.

And if she comes across it won't  repeat it somewhere  else.

That is class.

Mercedes-Benz kind of class.

I aim to be that kind of human being.

The one that puts over a blanket over another's shame.

The one who doesn't laugh at friend who decides to go out on a date outing with an idiot, just because she is 26 and 'oh God what if no one ever asks me out and then I am 35 and all alone in the world?'

I should have known I would be 35 at some point  but not all alone in the world. I'm not. I'm surrounded.

It turned into a disaster, the outing. The worst disaster you can imagine.

It rained heavily as well.

And all she said: "Don't blame yourself, you seemed to love each other."

And then she cooked the fish we had caught as I tried hard not to cry a lot for trying to fall in love.

Over the years. I have learnt valuable lessons from the slip of a girl.

1. In Kenya it's not simply about working smart, it's about working hard and breaking your back, then perhaps you might have enough to feed yourself.

2. Be nice to people. Be kind. Be polite.

3. Care about people. When her friend was sick, Maureen moved to her friend's house to take care of her friend for a month, while working a demanding job at a tour company.

4. Always dress right.

5. Have fun. No matter how bleak things seem. Go out, have chocolate, date someone, fly to China. Just don't drag yourself down

I'm proud of my girl.

And if you are a fisherman. She can hook you up with bait, bucketfuls of them.

@decathlon are you listening?

Midlife Crisis Ahead: Rip off the band aid my way

Someone, perhaps the most outspoken member of the family will say.
'Reke tucokoe ngatho nīguo tuohorane.'

And when they are done someone will finya kafefte in the palm of another's hand and they promise to see each other soon.
They have set each other free.
When you have to leave a place you have belonged to it takes all the energy you can muster up to make a clean break.   

Strands of the old place are intertwined with the fabric of your core and there is no way to extricate yourself without shredding living flesh.

How do you taken of a band aid?
What is your pain bearing capacity?
Rip off the bandage or slide it out with a bit of tincure?
Either way, When it's time to go.
Let's just give thanks and set each other free.

I am leaving a place I've called home for years now. Not in a huff puff walk out manner but in a well calculated shift that brings advantage to me.

Thankful for the gardens I planted,

My garden this season

thankful for the neighbours who didn't play loud music. Thankful for each phone call, text message, ride, hug, lunch, coffee and escort.