Letter to 13 year old me

Dear Matrix,

I know you just hit teenage and some real things are about to start happening in your life. From your homescience class I’m sure you are expecting very broad muscular chest and shoulders by 17, and hairs that sweep the ground before you pass on it. Little fela, it’s a myth. The only real thing that will probably happen is that at some point you start getting these dump dreams with a high likelihood of embarrassing yourself if they come when you are in class, in high school. Speaking of high school, well, you are about to head into a school of mystery, with lots of bad manners to learn. Be a man, and learn to get a grip on your hand. Girls like grips.

Now, Ms Kamau, that Swahili teacher for the other stream that you keep staring indirectly on a mathematical set reflection? Just keep off. In 3 years time she will be dead of AIDS. And sadly, she will take down with her your favorite teacher, Micheni. Sucks huh? Before you start crying, you little creep, realize that this is only the beginning of many questions you will want life to answer you, and it will just stare back at you blankly in response. Man up and face it bravely.

You see that tom-boy seated behind you, that Mercy woman you love to hate? Be very close to her. She is about to blossom into the most unbelievably beautiful thing you ever saw. Ignore her Meru accent, she will outgrow it. In fact, she will sound better than your sorry ass. C’mon, walk up to her now and tell her you like her. Go on. Oh, wait, it’s class time now. But do later.

And then there’s Hannah. That girl you’ve been competing with since 5. I know nothing is better than beating her, but find it in you to let her beat you in CPE. Because if you don’t, later on when you are grown up, she will find you. And she will be out to break up anything and anyone you have a commitment with.

Now that you are in class 8, you will soon realize that being the candidate you are means little, really, because when you get to high school no one gives a crap, I mean, cares what you got in CPE. But then again, you perform poorly and you know mum, I will probably be writing again to you next year…as a candidate again. Utarudia.

And lastly, nihil praeter optimum – a statement you need to know. You’ll use it for the rest of your life. Oh, and somewhere at the back of your head keep those Sunday School lessons coming. They come in handy.

Me

Tagged: Chiira, Wamathai and Jolie Barbra

A Composition – the Kikuyu story

I stood up from bed that morning I drank breakfast very fast. I applied fat on my face and legs. I painted my shoes and I run like paper to school. I took the corner foolishly foolishly at an angle of 90
degrees as if I was carrying a protractor. I just reached when the bell was crying. The teacher saw me and told me that if I would have been late,he would have beaten me trees without mathematics.

Later, the teacher sent me to the butchery to buy him one kilogram of stomachs and one kilogram of much
clothes. He then forgave me with a paper. I also bought stones for the teacher’s radio.

 
The real translation in his Kikuyu mind was:

Muthenya ucio ngiukira kiroko na nginyua chai ihenya. Ngihaka maguta uthiu na maguru. Ngihura iratu rangi and ngithii ihenya ta karatathi. Ngioya kona urimu urimu ta ndakuite compass. Ngikinya oriria ngengere yariraga.
Mwarimu akinjira korwo nindacererwo, angiahura miti itari ithabu.

Mwarimu agicoka akinduma mbucheri gamugurire kiro ya mara, gakuo kaingi. Agicoka akinjohera na karatathi. Ngicoka ngigurira mwarimu mahiga ma radio.

May God deliver Kikuyus!

The beauty of the human mind

The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas.

The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut…. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded. ‘

G. K Chesterton ‘Heretics’ (1905)

Ladies, here’s the man manual

Yesterday, I came across this really exotic article on the Crazy Monday on the standard. A female writer wants a man manual; she laments that Kenyan men just have no clue how to relate with women and as such feels a manual on how to deal with them is of paramount urgency.

In a nutshell, these are the issues that she raised. Men…

1. Don’t listen, never pay attention even when looking at you.
2. Have commitment phobia
3. Are clueless toward the needs of a woman; they never listen
4. Need to lose the boys club
5. Are lazy, the come home from work to sit and laze around
6. Are too addicted to sports (watched and played, I guess)

Here is the manual. I will try to respond to these issues, as a man, as candidly as I can.

1. One good Jane indicated that while men have a daily dosage of 3000 words, women have up to 10000 words. This means that at any given day, your average woman will talk thrice as much as her man, and be left with loose change to throw over to the neighbors. This same concept applies to listening. We can only take in 3000 words. Anything after that is blah-blah. Try to summarize, you should be fine.

2. I will be short on this. Try to get your man to the altar as fast as you can or bring babies in every sentence you utter and automatic reverse gear sets in. We do not fear to commit. Only at the right time do we do it. Until then, don’t push it.

3. Clueless? Well, tell you what. If you have a man in your house, try the other thing other than hints. They just don’t work. Do not expect to read something in your every eyeball movement or lifted finger. Just come straight, and we shall bring the milk home and on time.

4. The boys are very important. One, we have the same daily word count. Two, we mostly like to have a cold one. Three, when you kick us out of our own house, to whom do you expect us to go? So, uh-uh, they are not going anywhere, as long as bounds are laid bare.

5. Lazy…listen. When a winner wins, he takes time to enjoy and rest. When a breadwinner wins the daily bread, please let him enjoy it. Oh, plus some tea and remote control. Thank you.

6. We are not addicted to sports, just the right balance. Wait a min, aren’t you the ones complaining about our bulging food bags and sagging triceps. Formula One is a good motivator, soccer even better. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a step, and the journey to fitness begins with watching fit players. And it is all for you, mark you.

Any more questions?

Why I’m an angry Kenyan

I’m not one for news nowadays, especially after I discovered Nairobi can treat you to a lovely walk in the dark in the evenings after all the folks have dashed home after a hard days work.

But this morning I wake up to the news that Kenyan Parliamentarians are planning to increase their salaries, despite earning a whopping 851K (about $11400 – Isn’t this illegal?) a month as at now.

A special tribunal (crap, don’t we have too many of these in Kenya already) was set up to look into the matter after the public went on a rage about a former attempt for MPs to increase their packs, not to mention avoiding getting these taxed at all cost.

The Akiwumi tribunal (an interesting name, don’t you agree?) was setup to see how these humongous salaries could either be trimmed, used to serve the public more, or get taxed. So, they also got fat pays and were commissioned to work.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you their findings, after many months of hard work. The Akiwumi fellows seem to feel MPs do not actually earn enough. Thus there’s need to increase their salaries by 5% every year. This is in addition to incrementing the sitting allowance from 5K to 15K (don’t I wish my employer could pay me for every day I report to work), Medical allowance from 80 to 130K, Vehicle Allowance (notice, not insurance) from 65 to 130K, Sleeping allowance unknown amount. Oh, did I mention that none of these monies are taxable?

Now now, makes me really wonder why this Akiwumi thing was put in place in the first place. I could have done a better job myself at a much less remuneration. But then again, this is Kenya. The excuse for the proposed increments are the rising cost of living. Seems like MPs are the only Kenyans.

Now, out of all the govt employees, is there anyone who gets such a raise on their meager wages annually? Are we still not having running battles between teachers/lecturers/nurses against the govt over pay? Do we not have poor Kenyans experiencing the high cost of living too? What on earth is wrong with our leaders? To make it worse, they are not taxed. In my first job, when I reached a certain level of promotion, my net salary suddenly reduced because the state felt I was earning enough already to give third of the spoils to it. These guys are paying not a dime to the state coffers. Damn.

Listen solemnly fellows (MPs), if you pass this proposal, you may be calling condemnation onto yourselves. It has happened before where the unscrupulous rich have been hacked to death by the oppressed paupers. I shall not be quoted, but be very careful. You may be calling rage upon yourselves.

On a totally different note, what is KWS doing? The rates of poaching have significantly risen and they sit and watch. You being part of the security forces, if you cannot protect 15K animals, how in the bloody hell do we expect you forces to protect the lives of 40 Million Kenyans? Please act up!

Sometimes it is so annoying being a Kenyan! Urrgh!

No malice

My friend’s neighbor’s kids really miss me for some reason. My friend is female. The kids have strange questions for her. And they only know how to ask loudly.

I think I’m in trouble now.