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.