The Kenyan - Compared With Other Beings

Kenyans are a peculiar species of human beings worth talking bout. There are many things that distinguish Kenyans from any other race on earth. Mind you, there are different races in Kenya but they all have the same characteristics. I will discuss a few of those:

The first thing that makes them different from other people of the world is their pride. Kenyans are so proud, prouder than your people, reader, if you are not a Kenyan. If you ever happened to visit any Kenyan blog, you'll see what I am talking about. Their pride starts with their country all the way down to the basest things. Kenyans love their country and if it wasn't for a bunch of monkeys that find their way to Parliament every election, Kenyans have loyalty, pride, love for that country of theirs. If it wasn't for their politicians, you know their characteristics, Kenyans would live in harmony more than any other people do. Every Kenyan who uses the internet does egosurfing, for himself and for his country. It is not uncommon in Kenya to enter a cybercafe and find about ten or more people with their screens full of something Kenyan. You'll find them with goosebumps because of the amazing facts they are reading about Kenya. Never start an argument concerning comparison of countries with a Kenyan. No matter how far from the facts, he always manages to bring his point about how Kenya is doing good compared to others. They get so irrational at times to compare their country with others that are miles and miles ahead. But that's the Kenyan way.

Another thing is Kenyans are disrespectful. Unlike their humble neighbours the Tanzanians, Kenyans generally are not friendly, are not respectful. If a Kenyan enters his favourite restaurant, he had better be served because of his impatience. You would not wish to be a waiter in a Restaurant in Kenya. You will be abused if you take one second more than the Kenyan thinks you should. In Kampala, Uganda, the waiters there are the most peculiar species of Ugandans you will meet. They take their time and you have to constantly remind them that you need to be served. Due to their good upbringing or something of that nature, they always serve according to the order that you entered that place, and they are good at observing. You will be so unlucky to enter a place of eating and expect that since you are in a hurry she will understand you. She won't. If that happens in Kenya, there will be chaos. All who have not been served will start complaining and hurling insults at once and even advise you to get more waiters. That is the Kenyan. He is always in a hurry, and you can tell where that has led them since independence. That country has no major minerals – no iron, gold diamonds, oil, nothing. But Kenyans are always among the top in terms of innovations and trade in Africa. The Kenyan economy is very strong, for a country with no oil, that relies on agriculture and is hit by droughts almost every year.

Kenyans are a hard-working people. I have lived in Kampala and in Nairobi and to tell the truth, the differences are crystal clear. I know you are supposed to set goals way ahead of you but this is not a goal I’m setting, but a comparison I’m making. The average Kampalan wakes up at nine a.m., goes for katogo which he uses an hour to eat and by the time he is ready to work he is feeling dizzy because of the sun and how much he has eaten. Every Kampalan eats katogo, which, lest I should forget to say, is a mixture of anything edible, but mostly cassava, beans, matoke, and at times eggplant.

A Nairobian, on the other hand, wakes up at five a.m., takes a shower despite the cold of Nairobi, prepares for the job, takes tea and a toast as breakfast (very light), and goes to his job. The next meal is usually taken at lunch. If you are observational, you will have observed that at nine, when the average Kampalan is preparing to go and eat katogo, the average Nairobian is sitting hungry at his place of work; not sitting as in doing nothing, but sitting at his place of work working though hungry. This means that Kenyans are generally a hungry people. You will also have noticed that the Kampalan does not take a shower, or a bath, or whatever he needs to take. The average one stinks, and this is not an insult to the Kampalan but the sun is hotter there and they still do not shower.

Another peculiarity of the Kenyans is how they love to move houses at night. May be it's because of how they steal too – almost every Kenyan you meet may rob you. So they move house at night, all of them, the rich probably to hide from thieves who might follow them up to a thousand miles if they discover something valuable; the poor to may be hide their poverty. The middle class have not managed to bring a change to the Kenyan house moving rules. And many of them move at no specific times, but rather as soon as it gets dark enough to move.

I could write all day about Kenyans. However, the last thing I'll say is how they greet using adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, etc. In other words, they have never mastered the art of greeting. When you meet a Kenyan and he says: OTHERWISE? You had better tell him how you have been because like I said before, they are impatient, rude, and are actually greeting you when they say that.

The Kind of Wife I'd Like

What happens when men start earning a little money? I will tell you. As soon as a few dollars, pesos, shillings start flowing into a man's pocket constantly, he stupidly thinks of somebody on whom to spend that money. He becomes charitable or some kind of philanthropist. This is not a philanthropist in the sense of having pity, mercy and all that for the poor, but a philanthropist to the female species. Of course nowadays that has changed. I have nothing against gay people but I wonder and I can tell you that I only stop at that. So, a man starts thinking that the money he is earning is too much for a man alone, and he starts saying that if God wanted man to spend his time, money etc. alone He would have created him alone.

Now, I am no exception to the above. I hate that fact, but there is one thing that is making me happy. The fact that I seem not to get the kind of girl I want. I am not mean. I believe I am quite a philanthropist, with the little that comes my way, and money is not even the question. There are many things, shall we call them hurdles? that my wife has to overcome. I wish to let this out so I do not get the wrong woman for a wife. Marriage is a long thing; a serious one takes an average of 35 years if anyone does not die along the way. I would not like to spend two years with the wrong person.

The kind of wife I need should not fart, or to be politically correct, should not break wind, anyhow. Should she see a reason to defy this rule then I have to be miles away from home. There is nothing as annoying as a farting woman. All the beautiful women you know out there, just imagine how it is like when they fart. The new royalty Kate, if she farts I think she loses all her beauty. Imagine Cassie doing that. Imagine the look on the face of Mariah when she takes a ****. Any beautiful woman that farts makes a man imagine where those gases are from and the man starts degrading her all at once. He starts saying, she isn't that cute after all. You know what, I feel the same thing.

The woman I want should be careful how she uses the bathroom. I do not need a wife who visits the bathroom about all the time, and when she does, she should make sure I do not know because imagine your wife doing the ****. It is quite disgusting. I shall also not be tempted to use the bathroom after her because nothing kills a lady's appeal than the smell of her ****.

The woman I want shall also not give me that look they give as if you have just said 'our neighbour's wife is getting cute' when all you said was, 'honey, I’m home'.

My Wife's Turned Devil

When both my parents were murdered that December night and me being the only child, I was scared to death. There were just two shots through the living room window from a silencer about a hundred metres away. Whatever the cause for their murder I did not know, and I haven't to this day. We were fairly rich, if there is such a class, but no money was demanded or suddenly lost from their bank accounts. After their cremation I asked my ex-girlfriend to come stay with me and she did and we got along quite well, except that we are no longer two but three; the third being a little boy who looks something like his mother and a lot like his father.

Lately though, Annet has become quite a burden, an addition to Junior. She has suddenly started having a craving for things we should have done in our youths, things that just do not go with me. These are some of the things that made us break up the first time. In addition, she has become quite a devil in all senses of the word and I am starting to get scared. About a week ago I went to the bathroom at around midnight and on returning I almost screamed because just as I opened the door to get back into the room, she was standing a few feet from it, her eyes a cat's exact and with a smile the devil himself would buy at an auction. As I stood glued midstroke at the doorway and she still looking at me in a way that would scare away any Old Testament prophet, Junior who could barely walk, woke up from the cot, stretched like any adult would and literally walked to his mother's side. This was too much and I am not a coward but I have reason to believe that I fainted because I remember nothing else after that, except waking up early in the morning and wondering what dream I had had.

I cannot help asking myself who else my wife could be and I’m sure I need answers quite soon. I have also noticed a diction change in her. Her choice of words is just not what I have known of her and she will talk of cults when the subject at hand does not. She mentions blood quite often and I am beginning to fear for my neck lest it becomes the source for it. I have tried lying on the bed and pretending to be asleep and when she is breathing the hardest I turn only to look at her wide eyes open. I have tried talking to her but I still do not know what to start with, now that Junior crawls at day and walks at night, like a mini-man.

I have heard that such things do not end without somebody losing their lives and I am worried. The way she looks at me whenever she is holding a kitchen knife is worrying and I need help soon. Please help me!!!

The Lady Not Taken

I have a certain fondness for Robert Frost and especially his "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". It has influenced me a lot, this poem (The Road Not Taken), and Frost has done so a lot in my life. I want to be like Frost. How do you like the parody?

Two ladies I met at the club Yellow Wood,

Too bad I could not take 'em home both

And remain one man, long I stood

And looked at one much as I could

Till I felt hard in the 'undergrowth'.

Then looked the other, just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because she was classy toes to her hair;

Though as for the wear

Had made them look about the same.

And both that evening equally smiled

Lips Jesus himself would not ignore.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how ladies are crazy,

And doubting if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

That two ladies I had met, and I

I took the one less 'traveled' by,

And that is why I'm still negative.

Am I a Disappointment?

When I was born, twenty and some odd years ago, I did not know what was waiting for me in this world, and I am so mad at that because had I known I would have told the doc to return me. I am not cynical but things I have faced in this life are just so hard for a single man, or woman, to face. In fact, I have lived a life you could write books on. Many times I have written about my past and I see no point of repeating. I will write current affairs.

If you ever asked any African kid what they want to be in future, they will tell you that they want to be a pilot. Since Africans did not invent the 'iron bird' many of their kids wish they would just 'drive' them. Ask any African kid what they want to be: 'I wanna be a pilot', they will tell you. I, being in that clutter of African kids who think that because our forefathers did not invent the plane then we must fly it, am a disappointed man today. Twenty some odd years and still I have not found that plane for me to ride in. Four months ago, when my dream was still riding high in my head, I decided to check out a certain flying school in Nairobi. Of all the things they told me, all I remember was something to do with hours because they charge you according to the number of hours you defy gravity and a price tantamount to suicide. In other words, they told me that I needed around Ksh 1000000 to learn how you defy gravity and keep an iron bird in the air. I guess I was dazed for I remember them asking me what else they could help me with but when I arrived home I had a secret conversation with myself and I remember promising myself that that dream of ever flying should get out of my rather big head. I remember I also told myself that if God wanted man to fly he would have given him wings. It was very much absurd because as a kid, I always heard that pilots get paid so much. Now, if I had a million shillings in my pocket, I would consider myself so rich as not to want to get paid. I wonder a million times for every shilling in that million if anybody attends flying schools.

That I had done four months ago, while still doing my bachelors degree with education (B.Ed) English and Literature. I still wanted to be a pilot, you see? My B.Ed. is done and I have started doing what every graduate never wishes to do: hunting for jobs. I never went to the best universities. If you know something about fate – you can never run away from yours. Mama has high hopes in me getting a job; and not just any but a well paying one. I wish I could explain to her the saying that a university degree is not always an open sesame to a good job. As a matter of fact, in Africa, a university degree only gives you respect in your village. As for the job, you have to look for it, with or without the paper.

I hate to be so much of a disappointment but it seems I cannot help it. Today I went to my former high school, or rather to my high school and Mama expected me to come with a letter saying: 'Job available for you' or something but that is not what happened. I met the principal at the gate leaving and he looked at me as cold as he used to and then turned, without any interest in me whatsoever. I should have waved or smiled or slowed him down but remembering I was never his favourite I just did not. I proceeded to the staffroom, a place where in those days was as forbidden as that fruit of Eden, or even the Forbidden City of China. Many teachers smiled at me, those who remembered me, and I felt welcome. My English and Literature teacher looked so old that I barely recognised her, but she was still warm hearted. My physics teacher was still as crazy as he used to be, not crazy as in mad, but as in being funny. My chemistry teacher was just as calm as she was, only this time she was teaching math, as she told me. All in all I was welcome. They asked me where I was, like is the custom of all teachers to mind how their former students are doing. They were happy I had done college but when I mentioned the college, though they said nothing about it, they were a little disappointed. My college, which I am so proud of for making me who I am, or rather unleashing the dragon in me, is young and Africans are among the most conservative human beings in the world. They believe in Oxford, Harvard, U o Nairobi, Makerere. They believe that for you to really boast of having achieved a step in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you had to do it in a certain way, the accepted way. My teachers were not really disappointed to a large extent but that is a thing I would never let Mama know: that I would miss a job because I never went to that established college. They say that experience is the best teacher and I will let it do the teaching. I am not cynical, I know I will get a way out but right now, I will continue to hunt for that job. Can you help me out?

The Beautiful Ngong Hills

 A group of seven,

Magnificently stand at seven,

These inspired Karen Blixen.

With their face towards the city,

They smile and give a backdrop to the city.

Legend goes that back back in the days of yore,

A giant set foot at the plains and tripped,

And when he fell his fists left the prints in their shape.

And the locals named the hills Enkong'u

Which literally means knuckles in Maa.

Now, the white folks found that hard to say

Like they did with all the Kenyan names

And instead of Enkong'u they said -

That, Ngong is what we call it, I say.

Didn't deviate much, now, did they?

Today these hills they still stand,

And beautiful Maasai cows, goats, and sheep

Graze and find their solace there

As they admire the greatest city on earth,

Even they call it the green city in the sun.

Circumcision to Prevent Aids?

Thanks to their governments, East Africans who do not circumcise have started doing so as a way of preventing, or rather reducing the spread of HIV. I am so sceptical about that that I do not think it will work. This is the same as telling them to go ahead and have sex as much as they can since 'researchers' have found that 'circumcised' men are less likely to get it. In Kenya, where almost every Kenyan has undergone the operation (all Kenyan ethnic groups except one do it as is with their culture, and that one has adopted it), Aids has killed millions, if I’m not wrong. Does it therefore mean that you have to get the cut, and use other means as well? Like the ABC? If I have to abstain, I do not really need the cut and the condoms now, do I?

Let us educate our people on the right means of protection. I’m sure infection of those who have had the cut will increase because their thinking is that they are now 'safe'. I would, if I could, recommend the cutting of the whole thing as the only thing that will reduce, maybe kill, Aids forever. So, when we have a newborn baby boy, take him for the real cut; when you arrive there just say: “cut it all off”.

Isn't Life so Full of Ironies?

I have just finished my degree course in Education (English Language and Literature), or rather I am in the very last process, and I am so pissed with life. I am in what we call School Practice and during one of the meditations I usually have after a boring lunch, I noticed a mechanic trying to repair a generator. A colleague of mine remarked that the 'engineer' was making a lot of noise since he was trying his generator at school. I asked if that was really the engineer and he asked me whether it was the mechanical engineer. I am not a know-it-all but one thing I was certain is that he was nothing close to an engineer. To me, a mechanical engineer would not be dressed in overalls as were with this fellow, some old goggles, and all of him. We started discussing and later on he saw that the man he was mistaking for an engineer was nothing but a mechanic (in Africa that is the person who does the petty jobs of trying to repair a broken car, motorbike, and other mechanical stuff). We moved on to seeing that people with the most degrees are the ones who do less work (there are exceptions here though, like the medical field). What amazed us, yes, amazed, maybe dismayed us, was the fact that people strive to study so hard to do so less. It is quite ironic that I would get a Ph D. in engineering and not get a job repairing engines, if that is what they do. On the contrary, rather, I get a nice office in the corner where I have to sit all day doing a lot of nothing, maybe just giving orders, directions. Education, if you look at it in this sense, becomes quite a useless thing. That guy who climbs very long poles while repairing or constructing a bridge is not the guy with a Ph D. He is just a regular guy. What is more is that the guy who swings in his office chair all day gets the most money while that guy who risks his life all day climbing unclimbable poles gets the least (pay, benefits . . .).

It has got me thinking that if I really have to do well in my life: sit in an office all day, give orders and get bored all day, and get the most money, I really have to spend more on my education. The only thing that stops me from that is the background I come from. This leaves me with no option but to get chalk dust all day, since my profession does not allow the climbing of trees and poles.

This, however, should not make you think that I am a lazy person who wishes to get a Ph D. so he can sit all day in an office doing nothing. It beats my understanding that those who know so much do not utilise their knowledge and should therefore not be trained in anything of the sort. I also wish that those who were practical should get the more money, and vice versa. This will lead people to work harder, and to stop killing their backs all day in the office seat.

There is also a ting that has made me question life too, although I have expected no answer from any one. It is the amount some employers are willing to pay teachers in Uganda , where I am currently doing finishing my degree. In fact, Kenyan house-girls (commonly called maids in that country) are paid the equivalent of what many teachers in Uganda are paid. Ain't life a bitch? Instead of being a teacher in a private school in Uganda, I’d rather cross the border to become a maid in Kenya. Teachers do more or less the same work as house-girls, and especially in many private schools in Uganda. You literally have to beg these assholes dressed as students to attend your lessons, or pay attention when you are teaching. This is not a reference to any school in particular but a good number of private one have the same characteristics.

Truthfully, I had better be a part-time 'maid' in Kenya and get double the money that some teachers in Uganda get, and it is worth it because you do not have such working conditions as you might experience in some Ugandan schools. As a matter of fact, if you part-timed in two good households, you might earn what some teachers in Uganda earn a whole term. I really feel sorry for teachers in Uganda, and I have reason to, because I know that no teacher in Kenya earns what his counterpart in Uganda earns. And yet Uganda is in the same region as Kenya, same trade blocs, but these are what we have been calling the ironies of life.

The Spot That'll be Your Grave

Whose grave this is I think I know.

His house was near the village mall;

He wouldn't have seen me stopping here

To watch his grave piling up with snow.

My little mind must think it queer

To stop with a grave so near

Between woods and a frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

I give my big head a shake

And wonder if there is a mistake.

That at one time or the other (it's deep)

You'd be looking at the spot that'll be your grave.

The woods aren't lovely, are dark, and deep,

But I think I still have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Final Resting Piece

Shall I compare myself to a Hindu,

For how I want to rest is of the same view?

Family and friends of me,

Please respect my final wish.

This is how I want my journey to be:

Due to my fear of coffins,

You shall drink no coffee

On my final night with thee.

You shall debate on how to bury me,

Or rather do away with me

When I cease of this world to be.

It is written on my will

That cremate my remains you shall.

Mind you I have no wishes

To return to punish the foxes

That my remains

Did not turn into cremains.

Family might gather on those days

To debate whether I’m worth turning into ashes,

And whether it is not against their customs.

But please do not arouse me from the dead

When you show a great big head,

And pile me under a sod.

This is my final plea,

If you've ears let you hea':

This is the way I'd like to rest

It is what I have seen best.

If it did not sound like a jest,

In ashes please let me rest.

How I Want to Go

In this world of wills, where we buy our coffins and even plots to be buried, while still breathing, I do not want to be left out. Whether man has continuously become mean with time I do not know, but one thing is for sure: that the living just do not trust each other. This has reached the point where you have to buy your own coffin, just in case your mean family and friends decide to send you off in a gunny sack originally having dairy meal. Further still, you do not know that after failing to buy you a coffin they may decide to leave you out in the open for the vultures and other scavengers.

Having, perhaps, messed up a little in my life, and being from that background I always claim, I keep having these crazy premonitions that wake me up in the middle of the night. As a matter of fact, as I write this, I have just woken from a dream where I stood, literally, in line waiting for my turn to be roasted and my famous last words, as I remember them, were me begging those who stood nearby – probably for the same thing as I – to send my remains, or cremains, to my mother. It broke my heart, in that dream I had, to imagine her receiving me dead, and it still does, in reality, but that was the part of the dream where I woke up.

It might strike them, scratch that. It must strike them as so freaking odd as being the first family member to be roasted along or against his will. As you know, when you roast in a burning building it is much against your will to be cremated. My family, the extended one, is highly conservative – and all for the wrong reasons, at least according to me. Some years ago, when I had converted to Islam – not in prison – everybody in my family wanted to “talk” to me, and try to talk me out of it, even those who you could despise: those who needed to be talked out of crazy stuff they were doing, a lot crazier than a person converting to Islam. It was like I had committed a crime against the humanity of that family. My family probably thinks that they are the holiest and most conservative, and I already know what they are going to say about my wanting to be roasted as a final send off.

The reason I really opt for cremation is the hatred I have for coffins and the thought of “suffocation” if buried, a thing I have coined a word for: kimyopic phobia. I would not like to go away in a coffin. I would not like to spend eternity in one either. I am pessimistic about life after death and I do not know why, but maybe it is because I am what you would naturally call, without second thought, a lost soul.

My family is most likely to hold a couple of meetings to discuss my unrealistic, they might call it, wish. They'll probably say that it has never happened in their family tree, (and when will it ever happen?) and they would not like to displease the spirits, and that it is against Christian teachings. That is the time when Christianity and traditional beliefs are mixed with no great problem. I’m talking about double standards. That phrase might mean something that happens in law courts to some BBC ears but even in our daily African lives that phrase's meaning will show itself.

All I am trying to say is that when I die, please roast me to the point of no more roastment, that is until I turn into ashes. The choice will be anybody's after that, they may either blow me with the wind and let me roam places I have never been, or keep me in some container at home and make me feel at home.