Happy birthday my dear friend!!

Zacky Ley….

One beautiful March morning

My regular pursuit for a story

There you were

In your morning brightness

Your contagious cheer caught on

Like a bad disease

The light moments

Deep moments

Shared trials and triumphs

Tears and laughter

All these condiments

you have made more meaningful

Your positivity lightens the dampest of days

Your resilience gives me drive

Your kindness and love for people

Makes me realize, the world is not such a messed

Up place afterall

Your easy laughter

You crooning the oldies you love so passionately

..off tune….makes me laugh

You are one of a kind

And I wish you the best birthday ever!!!!

Beautiful Memories

He was a giant of a man with the most penetrating eyes I ever saw. His look seemed to say “I know what you are on about.” His eyes didn’t daunt me, afterall I spent short spans of time with him and this meant he did not get to see through me. This of course I began to think about when I was of age…before he would just be my grandfather, old, towering over everyone, the occasional endearment of calling me ‘my wife’ and seeming to dot on me amongst my siblings, letting me play with his walking stick and generally enjoying the camaraderie  when he occasionally came to visit.

When I went to visit him and my grandmother and was not too grown up to mind his company he would walk me down to the village shopping centre. We usually made our first stop at a tea place (it didn’t matter that we had already enjoyed very rich tea from my grandmother’s kettle). We took some more, and in glasses (why did they serve tea in glasses, something I always wondered but never verbalized). Of course I didn’t care for tea, that was a grown up drink, I thought. I sat there, mesmerized by the very different and interesting characteristics of my grandfather’s village mates. Their tone of speech, their friendly and very elaborate handshakes, their continued gazing at me (they had never seen a skinnier lass), that’s what I thought since my grandfather constantly admonished me for ‘not eating.’ He would prod me to finish my tea…I took a sip.

Our next stop would be another food place – to fatten the skinny girl. I would sit and wait, wondering, asking him all sorts of odd questions that were sometimes brushed off with a chuckle. Sometimes he would just look at me intently, like he was studying me. He was a thinking man I guess, so this was not strange to me. Next thing I knew there was a mound of roasted meat on our table and the prodding to eat began yet again.  I would get tired after a few bites and he would start with the admonishing “eat or you shall forever remain skinny, do you eat?”….I tried to pick a few more pieces, the admonitions going on, I ignored them. He carried on without me. I was awed by his insatiable appetite for meat. He loved it so much that if in his next life he comes back as a lion it wouldn’t be a misplaced reincarnation. I watched as he wiped the surface clean of any hint of meat.

My very odd memories of my grandfather, he has checked out at an advanced age of 90-something years of age (he wasn’t sure either). Memories are varied….different, fond, not too fond, but this are the best I remember him by. I guess it’s because I was still innocent, wide eyed to the world…other memories may be muddied with maturity and knowledge and therefore not as beautiful. We remember people with the beautiful memories, the smiling memories, the walking down the spidery village road to the meat place….best memories.

You power.......

This past week, an amazing realization came to me. That it is only when you do not know yourself very well that anyone can cause you emotional hurt. When you know who you are and what you are made of, what you are worth, what amazing potential you have, what power God Almighty breathed into you when he formed you, nobody can cause you emotional breakdown. When you know what pedestal your feet are grounded on, no negative proclamation can move you. Negative proclamations are only a manifestation of their source’s turmoil and should not corrode those that hear them. When you know that the universe works in tandem with your wishes, that you only need to speak and believe and work towards that that you believe you are, then nothing can falter you. That however towering a superiority complex may be before you, with a strong, grounded, well nurtured inner power, excellent self knowledge and a flow of goodness and kindness that should be every human beings endeavour, then nothing, absolutely nothing, should break you down.

Lawlessness our new Law

I saw a woman get hit by a bus yesterday evening. I was less than a few metres from her. It shook me so bad I could not react in any way. I stood stock still as people milled past me to take a peep at another victim of our road madness. I prayed that her strength would be greater than the impact of the Kenya Bus, and she would live. The bus had come hurtling down the road so fast, for a second I thought Tom Mboya had turned into some dual-carriage-highway. I asked myself so many questions, knowing no answers would be forthcoming…but still, I did. When will this road madness stop? Who allowed maddening speeds within the City centre? Isn’t there a speed limit? Why have we allowed matatu drivers to take charge of our roads? Why do we stay silent to all this madness? When shall we say enough is enough and observe the law like we should? All of us!!! I only got more agitated flipping these questions through my head. I felt sadness, for the children who would be waiting for their mother, but she would not come home. For the husband whose wife would not be home when he got there. For the woman whose life will most likely never be the same again. I felt sad for a country that is so devoid of law that lawlessness has become our new law. Sadness for a people that are so selfish and full of the ‘me’ syndrome that we walk all over each other without shame. I felt sad for the madness that we have allowed to overwhelm the very core of our humanity. Sad that we speak big dreams and give them big names like ‘2030’ yet we have retrogressed to a level that is not even enviable by our worse off neighbours. And then I wished for anger, full-blown tantrums towards this madness. That we would demand service from the cop who comes to the road to get his morning cut from the matatu crew. That we would not allow him to get into the matatu only to get off a few meters ahead after getting his cursed sadaka. That he would do his job and ensure speed limits were observed. That we would not go silent when our children’s schools are run down, the funds to run them squandered by our thieving ‘leaders.’ That we would not allow the non-service-providing City Council turn the city into their money-minting-mine by harassing all and sundry. That we would do away with the lethargic attitude we carry around with us. That the cries from losing our loved ones on the roads may cease. I wait for when we shall get into a rage that shall see the lawlessness we have let reign come to an end.

of church, snacks, boys and girls

These two kids in their parents laps are having a communion of their own as the rest of the church celebrates holy communion and ignores them. By the way, how come kids don’t celebrate communion? Just wondering…so boy and girl, it’s always a boy and a girl. The girl and her mother are sitting behind the boy and his mother. Girl has a packet of corn puffs; she picks one at a time and cracks it on her tiny teeth. The boy is standing on his mother’s lap, his head on her shoulder, looking back at a girl…who is chewing on corn puffs. He observes the girl for a while; carried away by the look on the girl’s face as she savours the crispy stuff she is stuffing into her tiny mouth. He stretches out his hand in the girl’s direction; she places a snack in his tiny hand. The boy studies it before taking a bite then he sort of feels it on his tongue a hesitant look in his eyes. He takes a bite, then a second…more confident this time…then he quickly pops the final small bit into his mouth. He quickly extends his hand to the girl again. She dutifully passes another piece. The boy’s mum has now noticed the communion going on behind her back. Her brilliance tells her that if she made the boy sit, then she would break the tryst. How wrong, the boy does not and will not sit. He pulls himself ramrod straight and bending him to a sitting position could turn into comedy she would hate to be a part of in church. He stretches out his hand again, another corn puff. This goes on for a while, with the boy’s mum trying everything she can think of to break this up. (There is always a parent trying to break up these sorts of communion). The girl’s mum has been drawn in as well and is sometimes handing the chips herself.

Then lo and behold, the bag runs out of the chips. The boy does not understand this. His face contorts, he gets really agitated and begins a low whine. His mum can smell the showdown about to take place and stealthily leaves the church with boy on shoulder.

Please don’t wonder why I had all the time to follow the goings on between these two beautiful strangers….first, I guess I am just fascinated by boys and girls getting together, even if its just sharing silly corn puffs. Or it could be for the simple reason that messages are passed on so easily by babes that my easily distractible mind was drawn in. Or it could have been the girls pretty red dress and disarming smile that she wore every time she passed on a chip to the boy. Or the boy’s faith in this stranger who was feeding him in church. Or it was for the simple and most basic of reasons….love. Love easily draws! I guess that’s it.