Working like a professional

Wow, it’s a few minutes to midnight and I have 500 more words to go on my article. I am way past the deadline but it’s not coming. I have the facts and details and pictures. I even went to the National archives for some inspiration, but it just ruined my mood. All that history upset me somehow. Felt like-gosh- what are we doing with plastic bottles if our  great grand parents could  weave one out of reeds? And you wonder why we got 50,000 Kenyans dead each year from Cancer. The unfriendly staff all talking in their mother tongue put me off too.

Maybe it’s the story I’m on about-growing sukuma wiki in polythene bags to alleviate malnutrition- But it’s not  taking shape for some reason. When I visited the multistory gardening stand at this year’s Agricultural Society of Kenya International Trade fair{Nairobi Show} , it seemed I’d be flowing with words.

 show kids

 Maybe I should bargain with my editor to write about Maasai livestock instead. I stayed with a Maasai lady earlier in the month and learnt quite a bit about the maasai herders.

 "we milk our cows on the move, " she told me

I just downed a  mug of coffee. I feel quite refreshed now. Like the konda(conductor) In the bus today. People took their time to get off, I think it was the music. So he says- haiya changamkeni-

To mean get off. But the real meaning is feel alive. Language.

I hope I can finish this by tomorrow. I would really love a herbal coffee, with Ginseng and  three  non- dairy creamers.

 Actually I  wish I was listening to my book of the moment- grapes of wrath by  Steinbeck. It’s gripped me by the scruffs. Donno what I’m gonna  do with myself when I’m done reading it, listening to it rather. 

daybreak in Namanga

   

Had an interview today,  guy wants a business presentation done, and as I walked through Mữthurwa, my fav mall. I spotted- Diary of a Wimpy kid!-The ugly truth- and in purple, to match the shirt I was wearing. Would you believe it, It was Ksh.30. Last time I checked at the stores. Diary of a Wimpy Kid- Dog days was Ksh.700, cling wrapped, of course.

I’m so happy someone needed to make room in their house for other literature. So I read it through the day, laughing like a nut while queuing at the  NHIF Hall (National Hospital Insurance Fund )

Now I remember why I didn’t get enough sleep last night, someone was beating on their wife- get out from my house you prostitute!- and the entire court had gone out to sympathise, or watch. I just tried to sleep but didn’t get any. Oh, and Saturday night I made the wrong combination of food and was up most of the night when my system couldn’t hold it anymore. Cause of death- misinterpreted recipe.

1.09: time I finished the article

WHAT WE DIDN’T SEE

We didn’t see the seven mountains ahead of us.

We didn’t see how they were always ahead,

Always calling us,

Always reminding us there are more things to be done,

Dreams to be realized,

Joys to be rediscovered,

Promises made before birth to be fulfilled

Beauty to be incarnated

And love embodied.

We didn’t notice how they hinted that nothing is ever finished,

That struggles are  never  truly  concluded,

 that some-times we have to re-dream our lives,

and that life can always be used to create more light.

Al last, I can read a Ben Okri. I’ve always  wistfully read the back cover of his books in bookshops  thinking,

 Oh well, maybe one day ther’l be an earth quake and books will be strewn all over the streets.

Well, that has happened, there are books strewn  all over the streets, selling like bread.

The above excerpt is from the two opening paragraphs from Ben Okris-Songs of Enchantment.

I read the first page in the bus last night and I don’t wanna go ahead. Strange. Yeah, I want to think about it first, knowing I have another horde of chapters yet to be read. : )

You’re fresh, inimitable.

Fine,

Like they pronounce good quality.

Your reflection:

 silver and gold

like loyalty.

strutting confidently with,

an assured sense and

a dash of weird

hey Cowboy

your picture is complete.

My heart is slowly thawing

With every lay of pure sunlight that peeps.

 By silent meditation

And private invitation

To observe and consider the world

I rejoice.

I’m just a tiny wispy

Who sometimes gets lost

When situations overwhelm

I’m just a tiny wispy

Who sometimes gets lost

When situations overwhelm

2008

this moment is complete

Between snaps of

Consciousness

  I  wonder

Again, whether

 This is all a dream

 A really realistic Dream where,

I wake up with the aroma

Of flavours tasted

And the shiver of-

Near feelings confessed

The warmth of a Warm evening ray

Unblocked by the chilly evening wind.

Hey Lilly

Is this real?

 I dreamt we had rice wine together

In tiny budded royal blue porcelain

Embedded in white

The child playing a constant din with that plastic toy

On the dvd machine

The plastic beads inside broke out, like-

A dry pea pod at noon

And skidded down the stairs, settling

Between the bottles of salted eggs

And a midst your heavily accented words

I understood

 You once had dreams too

Now tangled up in others’ dreams

 Your partner,

 Your children

 Your work

Like the sweet potato vines in your back yard

 Growing among the nettles and thin mulberry.

You dreamt, you’d travel across, along and above the great sea that surrounds you.

 To listen to words served on foreign tongues

To sling a camera around your neck and pose

Long long minutes below monuments.

Dark glasses and sunny hats in place

Speaking Portuguese

Like you’ve seen in them lip-synched television programmes

The Kway Teow is cold now, down stairs.

 You wanna put it away fro breakfast

So you lift a tendoned  leg

And instead pull out a book off the shelf of many books.

-get me an African recipe out of that-

I trace a finger on the Suji and Kidney recipe.

The dog smells the page

Licks my face

The child is snoring on the floor

 You pour me another syrup starch syrup.

The house of therapy

To describe the carefree talks we  can have

Me on the single couch

You sitting on the pillow, ripping seams.

The child, an extra.

Therapy here means

The weight I’ve shed

As I speak with truth

Of sometimes ad hock existence

Like me backpacking back then

Lo! The scolding you gave. About putting myself in line for rape-

You are wise Lilly

I am done being a tomboy. I am, well, I have girl friends now.

I’ m a little less dreamy.

It’s hot

We eat agar agar

 Your other girl wakes up to pee

-Already 2pm mummy, when you gonna sleep ah?-

We are tired

But day break represents interruptions

Schedules and responsibilities

The night should last forever

The winking stars

Should never blink

Or fade

Or shy away from day

Coz this moment is complete as it could be.