Leaving Home

Once again, I’m on my way
Once again I’m leaving
And it breaks my heart
That my new friends, and acquaintances
Will be my old friends
And text will be how we speak.

Once again, I'm leaving home
Once again I have to cut myself off
It pains me
That things I’ve loved
And people who made me laugh,
And those who laughed at me
And those I loved in my heart,
I'm leaving them...

Once again, I have to learn new things,
Once again, I have to get used to new people
And if my will breaks this time
I’ll never find home
I have found homes, and families
But once again I’m leaving
And it hurts, it hurts, like the first time,
Like my 17th year
For certain, I was leaving.

Once again I have to park my things
Once I again I have to say good bye
And I don’t want to, really
I want to stay,
I want to establish permanence
Not have to leave again.

(pic;www.kaponetwo.com)

Aloe Vera,Bob Marley and 3 pieces of fruit

So today was the funniest day I’ve lived this year I’d like to declare. So many things made me laugh to tears.
Well, as far as I know I could be slowly losing it, going softer in the brain without realizing it ,walking around with a goofy smile like I just did something naughty.
It started when we visited this woman from Myanmar. Me, and a Japanese brother. Between us, we can trade bout 50 Malay words. The woman spoke Malay and Burmese, not a word in English. We had a book, translated in Japanese and Chinese. It was hilarious trying to communicate, we even mixed up her name and her son’s. So if she was Mary, we called Her Tony and waved bye to her son Mary.
On the road, we stopped to take a call and I was on the back seat looking outside and I saw a bird hopping about on the grass. Then looking on I see a snake running towards the car. Hahaha.It fell on the road and the bird was following it, poking at it, and back to the grass again, wispy –the snake raised it’s head as if to negotiate but the bird kept poking at it. Wispy was big, long, very big. Scared all of us off our seats.
Okay, he wasn’t he was about 90cms by 1.5, green with a red line from head to toe.,red tongue. And I was the only one screaming and throwing everything about, and my friends telling me-aa nasing, jus a nomo snake.. laughing at me. And as we drove off I couldn’t stop thinking of Mr. Wispy wondering if the small bird got him, did she carry him off or just kept picking at him until the pain was too much and he just lay there being eaten away like a pineapple. But I told myself the mother must have come looking for him and run off the bird and squeezed aloe vera an Wispy’s wounds.
Later we popped into our friend’s house,, he was going to Europe today so he was packing and we just entered. He told us about a story about one cat that was being groomed by a monkey the other day. Near the road The monkey would groom, slap , then kiss the cat, and the cat just lay there unconcerned. Donno how true that is but I had a good laugh just imagining it. Although the population of monkeys and stray cats here could beat the human one in a few years, so I guess the two must have worked out a system that works for them.
I Later went to see my friend and when I got to the bus stop, this man selling fruits handed me a fruit Mangosteen,. It was very sweet, I know the word for sweet and they were very happy to hear me say manisnya. I then took another two and tried to pay but he said no, it’s free, I gave him a look over, about 59, smoker, ,,, harmless, and he didn’t look like the kind. So I said thanks and said I was waiting for my kawan/friend. He told me his name was Doc, and that Obama is a nice man when I said I’m Kenyan.
Going home, I passed by this homeless man who starts to beg during the rush hour, this time he was fully clothed. He said- Bob Marley, hi..
I never heard him say a word before …and somehow I’d assumed he was half blind. I laughed out loud, right there at the bus stop and got several stares.
In the bus. This man started to speak to me, and when I go out, I realized I had told him his money was nice, pointing to his canvas bag. I actually meant to say the color of the bag was nice. He must have thought what a hick.





Running toward(In my language, I’d say ilikuwa inakimbia, it was running towards the car, not gliding )gtt he picture from some place in google, not mine

My System

People tell me they have had an epiphany and I never bothered to ask what they mean since they all seem to think I should know, being the writer I am. I never bothered to check the meaning because I’m sure I never had an epiphany , in my head I assume that when I feel it, it will sound something like that song- bitter sweet symphony by The Verve. And I’d get this re-birth, feeling and from that moment on my life would be transformed.
Anyhow, I had my epiphany the other day and even though I haven’t checked the meaning, I was so sure that was it. I woke up in meditative state, sat up-ok,don’t hold your breath,I’m not about to say something deep-
I felt an understanding of who I am. Just looking at one thing, full time employment, from childhood, I’ve known that my dream was not to report to an office every morning and be told what to do the whole day. Before I just wanted to live in a farm with many animals but that has to wait now. I realized that the reason why I’m no exactly what people expect of me is because I try to play on a pitch I haven’t trained on, and not being confident enough with what I got.
So the few times I’ve taken jobs, after three weeks I just want out, quitting or getting fired either way suits me. Another thing, I hate Mondays. I only begin to function about 3.30 p.m Monday and then it’s already too late to count that as a day. I am active at night, yeah, if I had to study a book on criminal law at 2a.m, I’d pass the bar exam. But give me a 500 article on how to make home made wine at 9 a.m and I will still think red grape wine is made from red plums and straw berries. I realized too that for that reason I have a system only I don’t follow it. Let me watch something in the morning, let me take pictures at noon, leave me to write at 5, I can make an attempt to cook at 9, then sew things at 10, but at midnight, ask me to write about the credit crunch, I’ll get it.

So I’ll try respond to the epiphany not try to do things I cannot do like one dollar articles. Just , stitch bags, learn to make movies and write articles of self- grandiose.






(pics credit to-it.coe.uga.edu and another one I can't rem)

AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrh!

Your sister graduated? Send my condolences.
Well, I have been learning Malay, it is part of my survival strategy. It hasn’t been going all well since I have been learning for all sources, from the Indonesia workers who clean our Condo, from the Vietnamese guy who always takes the bus the same time as me, from Chinese and Indian Malays, and from a Kamus Bestari I bought and sometimes online. So the pronunciations don’t necessarily agree.
I haven’t tried to tell anyone congratulations because the word for that is similar to the word for condolences, that is tahniah and takziah and I can’t tell the difference.
After almost a year, or like mama says(almost more than a year) I’m finally falling into a pace I can cope with.
A few days ago I bought some shampoo. My friend said anything with Tea-tree in it wouldn’t make my hair fall out. So I went did a round in all the beauty shops and I got it. Shokubutsu, a Japanese wash . I came home and tried it, then after two days I remembered, my friend had said Tea-tree not green tea, but what to do I already bought it I might as well, and I don’t really mind the smell and since not much hair fell out Shokubutsu is the way forward I should think. I also managed to find some lotion called the fruit of the earth Aloe Vera, and remembered reading on some site that aloe vera is good for African skin, but maybe it might have been olive oil, I’m not sure, anyway I liked nice blue of the lid on the bottle and the smell is tasty somehow.
Shamara said I should use baby oil on my face, and I have used it for a week now, no complains. It seems I might not get melonama after all.
The semester was my worst. Not in terms of the classes and all, most of my classes were interesting - we watched a load of movies or debated. I had trouble with one class though-The Film Class, man that was out of this world. It was to be a fave, at first, and I spent a lot of time reading and reviewing and just getting familiar but when they marked the story board and my movie journals. It came to me, I was not made for this. I tell a good story, but doesn’t mean I know w here to place the camera,,,and that’s why I always liked still pictures, which I still do, it’s just that my camera charger blew, and the camera caught a virus and I have taken the worst pictures in my history of picture taking these last months I don’t even want to look at them. My computer crushed on me, month ago, I lost my home pictures and some of my writings. Clearly, this school year was not a good start, I was distracted, tried to sleep it off, tried to stare it out, sit it out, learnt to eat noodles for supper...….it persisted.

But I can’t keep quiet about the fact that THAT, was the best class ever.
p.s
It was also amazing how everyone assisted everyone when we had to make the story board? In 5 minutes I had a whole cast ready to go with props and site, a director, cameraman and everyone else.

end of an anchor

If you have watched BOLT . You know that part where Bold is hanging Mittens from a fly-over and he says :

‘You just can’t stop lying , can you cat? It’s in the genes. You’re just gross,’ and Mittens replies

‘I know, I’m disgusting, I disgust myself.’

It’s one of my favourite part, I can relate to it. Well, I don’t disgust myself all the time but sometimes I’m concerned. Well, today I rejoined facebook, after deactivating my account coz it was taking too much of time, blah blah, but my camera’s charger blew so I can’t take pictures to post on flickr, and icanhascheezburger.com doesn’t jazz me much me these days , my friends no longer reply to e-mails, yeah, they want to write on my wall… and with school closed, I need an addiction, seriously, otherwise I’ll burn my eyes with the pile of books I have been meaning to read or rot my eyes with animations.

So after canceling a trip with my friends to watch The Transformers, I just couldn’t peel myself off my chair. I have this bag I’m making and it’s the most complicated thing I’ve made in a long time and the thought of taking 3 buses and a monorail to (KL)Kuala Lumpur didn’t sit well with me so I canceled, and my friends called me and expressed sadness for my absence. I went and watched a basketball match but couldn’t concentrate because they were wearing too much red. I was hoping to catch my favourite team which plays like mad squakes. I donno what than means but I mean to say the play so quickly it gives you a rush. They are mostly short and one team wears brown the other blue. It’s a mix of Chinese and one Indian, one African guy. I love that game it goes like an advert for NBA. The Indian guy scores everytime.

Yesterday I was to meet some of my friends for a swim and half an hour before leaving the house I changed my mind, yeah, the bus thing again. I hate the buses, it should take me 20 minutes but it takes me 3 hours t get to Puchong. I got a room in Puchong last week but before I couldn’t move in the owner’s daughter decided she wasn’t in favour and I was so bombed I slept until 8 a.m, East African time. My fault, Cyberia is land's end.

So I will try to be more systematic, and learn to appreciate things like facebook and sociality, and maybe my insomnia will reduce.

Nothing Said

It’ s true we don’t see each other any more.
It’s obvious I’m out of site.
But don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel?
Will you deny the pulsations of your heart when;
My name’s mentioned, when someone wears my perfume-
Don’t you call me ‘ my friend’ to your friends?

It’s understandable, I left without much ado,
It’s true I paid Lewinsky more attention
We laughed and shook hands for long.
Didn’t you see my body language?
My shoulder turned towards you,
I played with a curl behind my ear.
When you see Lewinsky. Don’t you remember me?
Do you fix a smile when someone mentions me?

It’s no secret I am awkward and unfiltered.
Feigning confidence a little girl’s ways , a little girl’s manner;
Spilling drink on my shirt and calling
A Chair ,a share, well,
Didn’t you smile politely every time?
Did you perhaps wish I was refined or did you secretly like my raw quirks?
Do you wish I may not change?

It’s true I have a past, yeah, so much history
Would you be hesitant to explore
Or should it recede and be ignored so that,
We might make our own?
Did it hold you back?
Would you rather start on fresh fields?
Do the stories you hear make sense?
Do you wish to ask me? Talk to me?
What is it you searched in my eyes.

It’s true I don’t hide it anymore.
Do you wonder what’s my prob?
Do you wish I’d slow down?
Do you know how it all started out?
When we became aware of each other?
Are there memories engraved within you like in me?
Are there cherished moments I’ve overlooked?
Like when our hands touched and our eyes,,,,, we looked away.

But I have never felt such a staring.
Do you wonder if that’s all?



1>(No, I’m not writing love poems again. This one is dated 28th October 2009. Guess it must have had something to do with me leaving my old surroundings. But I assure you this is not about my cat-pushkin alias kinyau alias pusspuss alias we alias(can’t rem the Spanish name mother calls her)
2>(I’ve used this pic coz It has the most views on flickr, kinda sets the mood if anyone is interested in what I have to say.)

Ngahika Ndeenda

I knew all my friends would get married before me, except one, but she recently told me she thinks she might have met –the one- so anytime I should be hearing wedding bells, and out of the crowd, I’ll be the last woman standing.

My other friend is getting married in November, and I feel terrible that I might not attend the wedding. See, we talked about it long and wide,, I was going to be a maid, and we would not wear all those fake silk lilac dresses, we would go full kitenge all the way to the evening party. I imagined taking pictures in her wedding, maybe packing her bags for the honey moon. I couldn’t sleep when she sent the text, I thought in all directions; should I get a job, do the Nigerian connection, marry some rich dude quick so that he can buy me a flight to attend the wedding. , then I thought maybe I should do a refresher course for my sewing skills and design and stitch her wedding gown, send it as a surprise. Then I thought maybe I should just keep saving(yeah yeah) and maybe by November I might be able to send her a cheque for her cake if not a one night stay at a hotel for the honey moon, then I narrowed it down to knock off earings at Petaling street.

It’s funny, So far, my age mates have kids in upper primary, most of them are married, but I keep running if I could call it that, telling myself I still can’t cook chapatti and Iron shirt corners so, why even look at a guy. Today, my other friend really entertained me. She has met – the one-

‘Man! You should meet him. When I met him, I tell you Cecilia, I bowed.’

‘And when he passed by and checked me out I tell you Cecilia, he bowed, believe me’

Ok, I was laughing too much before I got her point. So she explained. The guy stands out in a crowd, he is respectable, he knows how to dress properly, and he carries himself around like he owns the place.’ I tell you Cecilia, if you don’t respect the guy you marry, that’s trouble and if you don’t click’{showing me , if you don’t click right away…aa ..there’s nothing there}

Lew; yet another friend, his last single friend married last December, and two of his close friends are raising 3 month olds. He told me the other day he’s going out of his mind, and I joked maybe we should just marry each other, since our crowd paired out and we are the two left standing, though it would be like marrying a cousin.

So I’ve been thinking that maybe I should bring my age limit down a bit, from the number that the bowing friend says- ati what age Cecilia, who’ll look at you ?’

But I was thinking about it seriously again my friend-told me the other day-You know, you loose 5000 brain cells each day when you reach twenty. And I thought,well, multiply that by 12 years and see, when I 'm 32, there will be no point in marrying another fool.

(not sure how many thousands,All numbers sound the same to me so, she might have meant 10,000 or a hundred)

(the title is adopted from Ngugi wa Thiongo's title- in Kikuyu and English- I will marry when I want-)