Hopeless
I stand at the doorway and look at the children hurrying off to school. I envy them. I wish I could go to school. Am stuck at home looking after my ailing mother. Besides, there is no money for school uniform or those other fees they ask for in school. My brother gush has gone already, trekking to town to go sell some groundnuts.
My name is Kamau and I am 8 years old. I am a skinny short boy. Chocolate brown in complexion and curly hair. There is nothing special about me. Nothing that would set me apart from any other boy you’d see on the streets. Oh, did I mention I have HIV!
I can see you’re shocked. You didn’t think a young boy like me would have it. I do. We only found out after dad died of AIDS. Mum got sick and went to be tested. She was also advised to have us tested. Njuguna was found to be negative. The rest of us were found to be positive.
Apparently, children of a HIV positive mother can be born without HIV. But it can be passed through breast milk or during childbirth if there is contact of the mother’s blood to the infant. Because my mum did not know she had HIV when my sister and I were born she was unable to prevent us from getting HIV by not breastfeeding.
I am not sick. Well, at least not right now. Sometimes I get sick. Especially when it is flu season. I get really sick because my immunity to fight disease is really low. At the health centre, some caring donors have given out nutritional supplements for children. I take this to boost my immunity. I am not on ARV’s though my sister Njeri was taking some before she died.
I miss her. Njeri. She was so full of life. She loved to play and laugh. Even when she got sick she would joke and laugh. She died two months ago. Her body had become too weak and when she got pneumonia her body could not fight it. One minute she was sick and the next she was gone.
I am scared. I know I am healthy but if Njeri could die just like that after an infection so could I. mum is dying. I know. I stay home to take care of her. She has given up on life. It’s like when Njeri died, mum’ spirit to live died and was buried with my sister.
I go in to check on her. “Mum, mum. Please take some fruits.” I try to persuade her as I seat by her bedside. She was once very beautiful, my mum. She had the most beautiful smile. She used to be fat, round but now she is a skeleton. She does not want to eat and it hard to make her eat. But she has to eat in order to take the drugs she is given at the health centre.
I force her to eat something then I give her medicine. Then I go get my books and go over what Njuguna taught me this morning. Usually we wake at 4 o’clock. That’s the time mum is to take her first dose of medicine. Njuguna makes tea and washed the house and I wash the clothes. We alternate duties on different weeks.
After that Njuguna roasts groundnuts. At around 5 O’clock to 8 O’clock we study. Njuguna does not want me to lose out because we can’t go to school. Since he learnt for three more years then me he teaches me what he learnt. We do maths, geography, english and a few other things. Sometimes the kerosene lamp makes our eyes sting but there is nothing we can do about that.
After that Njuguna goes off to the city. I used to teach Njeri’s her ABC’s when Njuguna was gone. Then we would colour pictures and play games. I look over at Njeri’s stool. I find it so hard to accept she is gone. That I will never see her and play with her again.
Looking around I look for something to do. There is nothing much to do in the house apart from take care of mum. We do not have a TV or radio. Actually, we barely have anything. After dad died we had to sell almost everything to get money for food and rent. Our house is bare. All there is are one bed. The one mum used to sleep in with Njeri. There is a mattress on the floor that I share with Njuguna. Then there is the jiko, a small table, one chair and three stools for us.
I wish sometimes that gush would let me go with him. I used to go with him you know. That was until something happened to some of our friends. Our friends Martin and Otieno used to sell groundnuts with us. One day, a man came with a car and offered them a lift. He asked them where they were going. He offered them a lift because he was going in the same direction.
Martin and Otieno were never seen alive again. They were found five days later. Their bodies dumped in the river. I heard whispers that bad things had been done to them but I didn’t know what. The man was never caught. But after that Njuguna decided it was not safe for me to keep selling. Njeri was also very sick at the time so I went to help out with looking after her because mum was still working at the market.
I spend the day daydreaming about how good it used to be. Checking up on mum as the day progresses. I have to give her medicine on time as the doctor instructed. I also have to try and turn her as she gets sores when she stays in one spot for two long. She already has them even though we try to prevent them. Ugly white sores that remove pus and blood. I have to keep cleaning them and applying a salt solution. We are supposed to use disinfectants like dettol but we aint got no money for that.
Its 5 O’ clock. Time for me to make way to the other side of the slum to go to the market. There I look for fruits and vegetables that are going bad that are going to be thrown away. Most times you have to buy even these from the market women. But they are my mum’s friends. They understand how it is. How things are at home. So they keep some just for me. I don’t have to buy. But I have to clean up for them their spots. Make sure there is no rubbish. Help them repack the produce.
Once in a while we get fresh fruit. We have a friend. Her name is Carol. I sometimes find her at the market. She gives me some fruits and vegetables sometimes. She used to be our neighbour but her parents died in a car accident. There was no one to look after her. Another lady whom people fear called Mama Salma took her in. I don’t know what she does but she seems to have a lot of money. Carol is usually dressed well. Better then when her parents were alive.
There is something different about Carol nowadays. I can’t put my finger on it. She is different. She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. I don’t think she is happy. I don’t understand why and she seems to have everything. Good clothes and she is taken to the salon frequently.
I guess am too young. I don’t understand that there are some things that an eight year old boy would not understand. That the world is a much crueller place then I thought. That some times the things you are forced to do to get money are very bad things.
Today Carol is not at the market so I go home with what I have. I pick some unga ya kupimwa at the kiosk near home. Gush will pay when he comes home. Today the pickings are not some good. I didn’t get any sukuma’s. They are being sold at a premium because there is no supply. I have a rotting cabbage, some over ripe bananas and some half rotten mangoes. I guess this will have to do.
I enter the house to start cooking. I feel hopeless about our situation but I guess there is nothing I can do about it. I don’t think anything will change in the near future. I don’t want to think about mum dying because I don’t know what will happen to us then.
We do the best we can, I and Njuguna with the cards life has dealt us.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
invisible
My name is Njuguna, gush for my close friends. I know you don’t really see me, am there but its like am invisible. Am the boy who sells you groundnuts on Uhuru highway. Am the short boy with slightly curly hair, a face with pimples and one missing main tooth. I guess you still cant see me. I guess no one does, am just another boy on the streets selling groundnuts.
i sell groundnuts made at home. I wish I could say that my mum makes them but its not her. mum is sick, very sick. She has something people call the mdudu or HIV. In her case I hear the health worker who comes sometimes refer to it as full blown AIDS. I don’t know what that means but I think it means mum is going to die just like dad.
Dad was a truck driver. He used to make a lot of money transporting goods from one area to another. We never used to see most of the money though. Apparently he had a girl in every town and he was well known in all the bars. By the time he would get home most of the money made on the trips would be gone.
Dad started getting sick about 4 years ago. He would complain about his chest and how he was in pain. He went to the hospital and was told he had pneumonia. He was given drugs and for a while he was better. Then he started getting worse. He went to hospital again and was told he had TB. He was also tested for HIV and was found to be positive. This mum found out later. He did not tell mum that he was very sick.
Soon dad could not work. So he came to stay at home. He would always disturb mum to give him money for changaa and mum gave him. I could not understand how mum would give him money yet he never used to give her much money.
By the time dad died 2 years ago he had gotten very very sick and thin. He was coughing blood. Frankly I was scared to go near him. There was this sickening strench on him. Its like he was rotting from inside.
When we went for the funeral they said he died of TB. But someone stepped up and said Dad had AIDS. Mum was so shocked she fainted. After that Mum was never the same old sweet mum that we used to know.
Mum used to sell peas and carrots at the market. In essence she is the one who brought us up. That’s me, my brother Kamau and my sister Njeri. But nerd is dead now. She died two months ago. Apparently she was born with the HIV virus. Mum didn’t know it at the time. It seems her body was too weak to fight the virus. She was 5 years old only.
When Njeri died I think mum gave up the fight for her life. She had been getting sick but she was on medication. They say they are called ARV’s or something. She had been doing well her health was getting better. She had been really sick after she found out about dad but she got better. After all she was the bread winner and she had children to take care of.
When she had not been working we used to be given some food by the neighbours. It wasn’t much but at least we had something to eat. But after awhile the neighbours started grumbling. They had their own children to feed and there was no money to go around.
So mum got off her sick bed and went to hospital to get treatment. It was hard surviving. The thing that hurt the most was walking down the mud corridor to the mud house that we used to live in. my siblings and I would hear the other children laughing and when they would spot us they would scream and run away. I don’t know who told them that you could catch HIV just by being near someone you thought had it.
I used to cry sometimes in the bed that I shared with my siblings. I know I am a boy and am not supposed to cry. But sometimes you have to cry. Cry for your lost childhood and innocence. Cry because you know nothing will ever be the same again. Those children crying in horror at seeing us, that used to be us. Doing the same when we heard someone’s parent had died of AIDS.
“Njugu, njugu. Ten bob” I hold my groundnuts that are wrapped in paper that was waste paper for some bank. You can actually see someone’s account sometimes. I wonder how some of this people have so much money and we have none. Life is so unfair.
“Kijana, why are you not in school?” a motorist with children at the back asks me.
I don’t know what to tell them. I have heard this questions so many times. “Go tell you mum to take you to school.” “School now is free. You should stop selling groundnuts and go to school.”
I sometimes look at this people and think, “Do you think I don’t want to go to school. I want to seat and learn. I want to do math and English. I want to play football with the other children. But where is the money? We don’t even have enough money to buy enough food. Where will the money to buy uniforms come from? I don’t even have good shoes. If we had had money Njeri would not have died. We did not have enough money to buy good food. That’s why she died. No good nutrition.”
In the end I don’t answer. I just say “njugu, njugu. Ten bob”
These people they presume to judge me according to what’s right or wrong to them. But do they understand that some of us have no voice, no money to make things happen. They drive in their air conditioner cars and some in the matatus'. All they worry about is where they are going to drink or taking their children out for a meal of chips and chicken.
Ah chicken. I can’t even remember the last time I tasted chicken. It was years ago. That is now a luxury. We can’t afford it so we can’t eat it. Our menu is the same day in day out. Ugali and sukuma and on alternative days it is githeri. Oh for a taste of chicken or even some meat.
Sometimes on my way walking back home I pass restaurants. I look inside and see people eating with gusto. I wish it was me. But it is not to be.
Every day I wake up at 4. I have to give mum her first dose of medicine for the day. Then I make black tea. We can’t afford anything else. My brother goes to the markets every day when it is closing to ask for rotting or spoilt produce. That’s what we eat in the morning. Decaying mangoes, squashed or over ripe bananas.
After that I prepare the charcoal jiko and roast groundnuts in a pan. While they cool, I wash the house and my brother washes the clothes. Because mum is very sick she tends to spoil the sheets so we have to wash a pair every day. The sheets are now frayed but there is no money for more. I don’t know what we will do when these ones get torn.
After that I take the groundnuts and wrap them. I then put them in a paper bag and start the 2 hour trek to Uhuru highway. Nowadays the competition is very stiff. When I started we weren’t too many. I had to drop out of school to help mum with getting money. I started doing this business one year ago. Mum then was ok and she used to make the groundnuts for me. I think her groundnuts were better then mine.
On getting to Nyayo, I first go seat under the flyover. The journey is usually tiring and I need to rest. There are other boys there and we laugh and tell each other jokes. This is how we syke ourselves for the very long day. Sometimes it gets very hot and it rains hard. But we have no where to go. So we have to stay under the bridge or sell even when it rains. Because our sales determine whether our families will eat tonight.
I come up to your window. You’re driving such a nice car. It is beautiful. I wish I could get a ride. I raise my packets to ask whether you want some. You nod and pull down the window slightly.
“leta za twenty, na ulete kubwa.” You tell me.
You take the packets and give me a twenty bob. You don’t even look at my face. You don’t care. I am not your responsibility. I am faceless. Nobody. Invisible.
Raylitpoems 2010
i sell groundnuts made at home. I wish I could say that my mum makes them but its not her. mum is sick, very sick. She has something people call the mdudu or HIV. In her case I hear the health worker who comes sometimes refer to it as full blown AIDS. I don’t know what that means but I think it means mum is going to die just like dad.
Dad was a truck driver. He used to make a lot of money transporting goods from one area to another. We never used to see most of the money though. Apparently he had a girl in every town and he was well known in all the bars. By the time he would get home most of the money made on the trips would be gone.
Dad started getting sick about 4 years ago. He would complain about his chest and how he was in pain. He went to the hospital and was told he had pneumonia. He was given drugs and for a while he was better. Then he started getting worse. He went to hospital again and was told he had TB. He was also tested for HIV and was found to be positive. This mum found out later. He did not tell mum that he was very sick.
Soon dad could not work. So he came to stay at home. He would always disturb mum to give him money for changaa and mum gave him. I could not understand how mum would give him money yet he never used to give her much money.
By the time dad died 2 years ago he had gotten very very sick and thin. He was coughing blood. Frankly I was scared to go near him. There was this sickening strench on him. Its like he was rotting from inside.
When we went for the funeral they said he died of TB. But someone stepped up and said Dad had AIDS. Mum was so shocked she fainted. After that Mum was never the same old sweet mum that we used to know.
Mum used to sell peas and carrots at the market. In essence she is the one who brought us up. That’s me, my brother Kamau and my sister Njeri. But nerd is dead now. She died two months ago. Apparently she was born with the HIV virus. Mum didn’t know it at the time. It seems her body was too weak to fight the virus. She was 5 years old only.
When Njeri died I think mum gave up the fight for her life. She had been getting sick but she was on medication. They say they are called ARV’s or something. She had been doing well her health was getting better. She had been really sick after she found out about dad but she got better. After all she was the bread winner and she had children to take care of.
When she had not been working we used to be given some food by the neighbours. It wasn’t much but at least we had something to eat. But after awhile the neighbours started grumbling. They had their own children to feed and there was no money to go around.
So mum got off her sick bed and went to hospital to get treatment. It was hard surviving. The thing that hurt the most was walking down the mud corridor to the mud house that we used to live in. my siblings and I would hear the other children laughing and when they would spot us they would scream and run away. I don’t know who told them that you could catch HIV just by being near someone you thought had it.
I used to cry sometimes in the bed that I shared with my siblings. I know I am a boy and am not supposed to cry. But sometimes you have to cry. Cry for your lost childhood and innocence. Cry because you know nothing will ever be the same again. Those children crying in horror at seeing us, that used to be us. Doing the same when we heard someone’s parent had died of AIDS.
“Njugu, njugu. Ten bob” I hold my groundnuts that are wrapped in paper that was waste paper for some bank. You can actually see someone’s account sometimes. I wonder how some of this people have so much money and we have none. Life is so unfair.
“Kijana, why are you not in school?” a motorist with children at the back asks me.
I don’t know what to tell them. I have heard this questions so many times. “Go tell you mum to take you to school.” “School now is free. You should stop selling groundnuts and go to school.”
I sometimes look at this people and think, “Do you think I don’t want to go to school. I want to seat and learn. I want to do math and English. I want to play football with the other children. But where is the money? We don’t even have enough money to buy enough food. Where will the money to buy uniforms come from? I don’t even have good shoes. If we had had money Njeri would not have died. We did not have enough money to buy good food. That’s why she died. No good nutrition.”
In the end I don’t answer. I just say “njugu, njugu. Ten bob”
These people they presume to judge me according to what’s right or wrong to them. But do they understand that some of us have no voice, no money to make things happen. They drive in their air conditioner cars and some in the matatus'. All they worry about is where they are going to drink or taking their children out for a meal of chips and chicken.
Ah chicken. I can’t even remember the last time I tasted chicken. It was years ago. That is now a luxury. We can’t afford it so we can’t eat it. Our menu is the same day in day out. Ugali and sukuma and on alternative days it is githeri. Oh for a taste of chicken or even some meat.
Sometimes on my way walking back home I pass restaurants. I look inside and see people eating with gusto. I wish it was me. But it is not to be.
Every day I wake up at 4. I have to give mum her first dose of medicine for the day. Then I make black tea. We can’t afford anything else. My brother goes to the markets every day when it is closing to ask for rotting or spoilt produce. That’s what we eat in the morning. Decaying mangoes, squashed or over ripe bananas.
After that I prepare the charcoal jiko and roast groundnuts in a pan. While they cool, I wash the house and my brother washes the clothes. Because mum is very sick she tends to spoil the sheets so we have to wash a pair every day. The sheets are now frayed but there is no money for more. I don’t know what we will do when these ones get torn.
After that I take the groundnuts and wrap them. I then put them in a paper bag and start the 2 hour trek to Uhuru highway. Nowadays the competition is very stiff. When I started we weren’t too many. I had to drop out of school to help mum with getting money. I started doing this business one year ago. Mum then was ok and she used to make the groundnuts for me. I think her groundnuts were better then mine.
On getting to Nyayo, I first go seat under the flyover. The journey is usually tiring and I need to rest. There are other boys there and we laugh and tell each other jokes. This is how we syke ourselves for the very long day. Sometimes it gets very hot and it rains hard. But we have no where to go. So we have to stay under the bridge or sell even when it rains. Because our sales determine whether our families will eat tonight.
I come up to your window. You’re driving such a nice car. It is beautiful. I wish I could get a ride. I raise my packets to ask whether you want some. You nod and pull down the window slightly.
“leta za twenty, na ulete kubwa.” You tell me.
You take the packets and give me a twenty bob. You don’t even look at my face. You don’t care. I am not your responsibility. I am faceless. Nobody. Invisible.
Raylitpoems 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Teenage crush
Teenage years.
Racing hearts.
Sweaty palms.
Shy glances.
The intricate dance of seduction.
Oh to be a teenager naive,
Yet cynical about a man's intention.
Your play on words is like a symphony to my ears,
Music as it were playing on my brainwaves like a Mozart piece.
You got me giddy like a young schoolgirl
Almost got me drawing the map on Africa on the ground
In a blush caused by your sweet melodious words about my beauty.
You must be a very smooth dude,
You have slain me with your sweet words,
Like chocolate your words have gone to my brain
Causing a chemical reaction quite like alcohol.
You might make me go to rehab to get over your intoxicating words.
Yet you are only a teenage crush,
You will be the first of many.
Yet my heart beats like a drum
When you turn that smile on me.
Damn you should sell KPLC rights to that smile,
It can light a thousand bulbs.
Going to bed,
I wonder,
Tomorrow will you hold my hand?
Or will you try something naughty.
I don't know,
Still a gal.
Never been kissed.
Am caught between being good,
Obedient, the gal my mum raised me to be,
Or break the rules with you,
Go crazy, do things I have never done before.
You make me crazy, my teenage crush.
raylitpoems 2010
Racing hearts.
Sweaty palms.
Shy glances.
The intricate dance of seduction.
Oh to be a teenager naive,
Yet cynical about a man's intention.
Your play on words is like a symphony to my ears,
Music as it were playing on my brainwaves like a Mozart piece.
You got me giddy like a young schoolgirl
Almost got me drawing the map on Africa on the ground
In a blush caused by your sweet melodious words about my beauty.
You must be a very smooth dude,
You have slain me with your sweet words,
Like chocolate your words have gone to my brain
Causing a chemical reaction quite like alcohol.
You might make me go to rehab to get over your intoxicating words.
Yet you are only a teenage crush,
You will be the first of many.
Yet my heart beats like a drum
When you turn that smile on me.
Damn you should sell KPLC rights to that smile,
It can light a thousand bulbs.
Going to bed,
I wonder,
Tomorrow will you hold my hand?
Or will you try something naughty.
I don't know,
Still a gal.
Never been kissed.
Am caught between being good,
Obedient, the gal my mum raised me to be,
Or break the rules with you,
Go crazy, do things I have never done before.
You make me crazy, my teenage crush.
raylitpoems 2010
Cross
Slippery slope our relationship. I keep slipping, dont mean to but I do. You should be my first priority yet my eyes and heart seem to wander. I look for excitement, fun and recognition instead of seeking for your love. I am flawed yet you love me. Its a struggle for me to change my ways, to become what you want.You know I have a rebellious spirit. I do love you, I know you know that. I need your grace and love to change. I need your spirit to dwell inside me, to mold my spirit to yours. I want to be able to carry my cross with honour, humility and sincerity. I want to love you with all my heart, mind and body. Always put you first. Because you are my friend, my saviour and God.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Teenage crush
Teenage years.
Racing hearts.
Sweaty palms.
Shy glances.
The intricate dance of seduction.
Oh to be a teenager naive,
Yet cynical about a man's intention.
Your play on words is like a symphony to my ears,
Music as it were playing on my brainwaves like a Mozart piece.
You got me giddy like a young schoolgirl
Almost got me drawing the map on Africa on the ground
In a blush caused by your sweet melodious words about my beauty.
You must be a very smooth dude,
You have slain me with your sweet words,
Like chocolate your words have gone to my brain
Causing a chemical reaction quite like alcohol.
You might make me go to rehab to get over your intoxicating words.
Yet you are only a teenage crush,
You will be the first of many.
Yet my heart beats like a drum
When you turn that smile on me.
Damn you should sell KPLC rights to that smile,
It can light a thousand bulbs.
Going to bed,
I wonder,
Tomorrow will you hold my hand?
Or will you try something naughty.
I don't know,
Still a gal,
Never been kissed.
Am caught between being good,
Obedient, the gal my mum raised me to be,
Or break the rules with you,
Go crazy, do things I have never done before.
You make me crazy, my teenage crush.
Racing hearts.
Sweaty palms.
Shy glances.
The intricate dance of seduction.
Oh to be a teenager naive,
Yet cynical about a man's intention.
Your play on words is like a symphony to my ears,
Music as it were playing on my brainwaves like a Mozart piece.
You got me giddy like a young schoolgirl
Almost got me drawing the map on Africa on the ground
In a blush caused by your sweet melodious words about my beauty.
You must be a very smooth dude,
You have slain me with your sweet words,
Like chocolate your words have gone to my brain
Causing a chemical reaction quite like alcohol.
You might make me go to rehab to get over your intoxicating words.
Yet you are only a teenage crush,
You will be the first of many.
Yet my heart beats like a drum
When you turn that smile on me.
Damn you should sell KPLC rights to that smile,
It can light a thousand bulbs.
Going to bed,
I wonder,
Tomorrow will you hold my hand?
Or will you try something naughty.
I don't know,
Still a gal,
Never been kissed.
Am caught between being good,
Obedient, the gal my mum raised me to be,
Or break the rules with you,
Go crazy, do things I have never done before.
You make me crazy, my teenage crush.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
love by technology
Baby we need to talk.
Lets meet and get away together.
I wanna see your face.
Am tired of this love by technology.
I email you and you text me.
I write on your wall and you inbox me.
I follow you on twitter and you stalk me on messanger.
I send you pictures by phone then you take them on digital camera and send them.
Then technologies converge and we meet online,
Images by webcam, voice through headphones
And touch through fingers on the keyboard.
Our love is love by remote.
We never meet we just communicate through Bytes of data
through the internet and over the phone.
I want to see your face up close.
Smell our scent and let it drive me crazy.
Hold your hand as we walk hand in hand,
Laugh together in real time,
No downtime required.
I want not to have to wait to see your expression
Because the comp has hung.
Baby lets me and you get away.
Damn i hate talking to voicemail!
Call me back suga so we can arrange a rendervous.
Call me, text me, email me, inbox me.
Just find me.
Lets meet and get away together.
I wanna see your face.
Am tired of this love by technology.
I email you and you text me.
I write on your wall and you inbox me.
I follow you on twitter and you stalk me on messanger.
I send you pictures by phone then you take them on digital camera and send them.
Then technologies converge and we meet online,
Images by webcam, voice through headphones
And touch through fingers on the keyboard.
Our love is love by remote.
We never meet we just communicate through Bytes of data
through the internet and over the phone.
I want to see your face up close.
Smell our scent and let it drive me crazy.
Hold your hand as we walk hand in hand,
Laugh together in real time,
No downtime required.
I want not to have to wait to see your expression
Because the comp has hung.
Baby lets me and you get away.
Damn i hate talking to voicemail!
Call me back suga so we can arrange a rendervous.
Call me, text me, email me, inbox me.
Just find me.
love song: reflections - part 7
Nyokabi sat on her bed and wept. The party for her graduation and homecoming had taken place hours ago. The party had wound up at around 2 o’clock with people going off to various spots to enjoy themselves. But Nyokabi had not felt like celebrating. Her degree seemed to her an empty trophy. She could swing it around yes and show everyone but somehow to her it meant nothing.
The past four years that she had spent in UK doing her degree and pupilage had seemed to have dragged on. She had hated the winter. The place was so bloody cold. She wondered how anyone would survive and thrive in such an environment. She had wanted the sun, its warmth on her face as she woke up and went through her day. The weather had just made more depressing a situation she had not wanted to be.
She had not wanted to go to the UK. She planned to hate it with all her heart and grudgingly do her degree. Eventually though she found that the city had cast a spell on her and she started to love it. There was nothing to go home to. No one knew where Kamau was and she hated her father with all her heart for what he had done.
Nyokabi chatted with her mum every week. On Saturday night she would call her and they would catch up. She had tried to tell her mum about email but her mother just didn’t seem to get the concept so they were forced to write each other letters. She would get so excited to get letters from her mum and sisters. Her dad wrote too but she didn’t care about that. Nyokabi largely ignored him unless she was asking for money for allowance and expenses.
Nyokabi had a social one through a screwed one. She had made friends with a couple of girls and they had become close. But men, she stayed away from them. The experience with Kamau had scarred her. It was partly because she was in love with him and was sorry for ruining his life and also the guilty at what her dad had done ate at her. She did not want to be distracted from her studies by men who were just passing time with her.
She would think, “one day I will go back to Kenya and find Kamau. Maybe there is still a chance for us to be together, to be happy.”
But as the years past Nyokabi gave up on the illusion of love and of finding Kamau. “He probably has a girlfriend or two. He is so handsome and his voice…..” she would think.
By second year she had mellowed at least a bit. Nyokabi started going out with the girls out on the town to have a great time. She did not drink much though. She was scared of what might happen if she set herself loose. Nyokabi had seen what happened to some girls when they got drunk. They would strip their clothes or start singing at the top of their voices. Sometimes they would let a man take them home.
“That life is not for me. I want to get my degree and go home. I don’t want attachments or one night stands.” Nyokabi had not let go of her old fashioned values. She did sometimes though wish she had a boyfriend who loved her and cherished her like some of her friends had.
Nyokabi put all her energy into school. She always ended up in the dean’s list. She was an outstanding student but a D average in social skills.
Some campus guys were fascinated by her. She was very beautiful even by standards outside of Kenya. They kept trying to woo her and were not rebuffed when she said no. they tried again and again. Eventually they got the message that “Nyokabi was not available”
So here was Nyokabi back in Nairobi. She had her degree in law but she had no love. The worst thing was Nyokabi felt lost. She felt like she was caught in a time warp. Things had changed and no one had time for her. Her sisters were close probably because they had not been banished abroad although they went to expensive schools in the city and one was in 1st year at university.
Nyokabi had tried asking her mum about Kamau. Mrs. Mbae had looked at her daughter with a sad look in her eyes and said, “Kamau’s mum no longer speaks to me and no one from the village has told me anything. They all despise us for what your father did. But I heard I don’t know if it is true that Kamau is working as a clerk somewhere in the city.’
Nyokabi’s heart had sunk at that news. Kamau with all his potential was a clerk. She thought Kamau must hate her and curse her every day for that kiss. She had no doubt at all that Kamau was in that situation because of her and her dad.
“I am going back to UK. There is nothing for me here. At least there I have friends and I have a purpose. I don’t want to stay here,” she thought as she buried her face in her pillow and tried to get some sleep.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Mr Mbae relaxed in the tent outside his house. He took a sip of his expensive whiskey as his friends chatted all around him. “This was all worth it. My daughter is a graduate of a prestigious university with a law degree.”
Mr Mbae frowned as he thought of how that imbecile boy had almost ruined his daughter’s future. Mr Mbae had no apologies what so ever for what he had done. He felt he had been justified in what he had done. Given a chance he would have done it all over again.
As he looked as his beautiful expensive house in Karen with a view of the Ngong hills he thought, “Look how far I have come. With my brains and sweat I have gotten myself here. Who would imagine a simple poor village boy would get this far.”
Mr Mbae had been born Jon Mbae Mburu. He had been the last born of a family of six children. His father had been a teacher and his mother a stay home mother and farmer. When he was two his father abandoned them and went to the city to look for better fortunes. He had never returned. His mother had been forced to raise him and his siblings out of her earnings from the farm. Before his father left Mbae and the family had not exactly been staving but they had gotten by. When his dad left there was no money.
Eventually to make money maze’s mum started brewing traditional changaa. There were always men, drunk men around their house. Sometimes one of them would become a temporary occupant of his mother’s bed.
Mbae grew up hating his circumstances. “I will get out of here. I promise. One day I will get out of here and I will never look back. I will not be poor like this forever. I will make it no matter what it takes.”
Mbae would go to school in the mornings. Well, when there was no work in the shamba or helping his mum get the ingredients for the changaa. Making changaa wasn’t easy. The police were always coming around for a bribe or sometimes for a drink. Sometimes especially when there was a new boss at the station there would be harsh measures. The police would come and carry away the drums of changaa and his mother to boot. She would end up spending a couple of days in the cell while she negotiated her release.
During those times the family would go hungry. Everyone around them was also poor. They did not have money to feed 8 empty mouths, the two extra being children Mbae’s mum had gotten with different men who had stayed over for a couple of months before moving on.
By the time Mbae was ten all of his siblings had left. His two sisters had gotten pregnant and married the losers who had gotten them that way. Their lives were pretty much what their mother’s had been. Suffering and more suffering. Mbae’s brothers had all gone to the city to look for money and their father. They promised to return and save the family. None did. Its like they left the filthy hut with the fermented smell and the black cockroaches and say au revoir.
So by the age of ten Mbae was the defunct head of the family. Mbae was clever. He found ways to hide mtungi’s of changaa far away from the house where the cops even if they came would never find them. He also found a way to distribute the changaa so as to make maximum profits. He would borrow a bicycle sometimes and cycle with some of the changaa and distribute it. Soon people started sending him to other areas to buy and sell for them things. He would charge them a commission.
By the time Mbae was seventeen he had bought two bicycles of his own. He used them for transporting goods throughout the region and he had expanded his area of operation. He had even made friends with the police. Paying the police a monthly bribe to stay away from the operations. He even distributed changaa at the police station. The changaa he made was very good, he had taken over from his mum who had succumbed to the lure of alcohol and started consuming her own brew.
By the time Mbae was 22 he had one of those Peugeot matatu's to ply people along the route from his home area to other areas. Mbae kept expanding his operations until by the time he was 25 he was very well off.
After that he moved his base of operations to river road. He had stopped dealing in changaa when his mum died when he was 18. But he had learnt lessons from doing that business that he brought to the city. Including how to put the police into his pocket.
Mbae had meet his wife in the city and they got married. He had never told her where he had come from, telling her that he was an orphan who had siblings but they did not talk. He had bought land where his wife’s family came from and that’s where they had settled.
Now as Mr Mbae looked at his house and laughed with his wealthy friends he was content. “Look at me now. I have made it. And I have plans for Nyokabi. She doesn’t know it but she is going to make me an extremely wealthy and influential man.”
The past four years that she had spent in UK doing her degree and pupilage had seemed to have dragged on. She had hated the winter. The place was so bloody cold. She wondered how anyone would survive and thrive in such an environment. She had wanted the sun, its warmth on her face as she woke up and went through her day. The weather had just made more depressing a situation she had not wanted to be.
She had not wanted to go to the UK. She planned to hate it with all her heart and grudgingly do her degree. Eventually though she found that the city had cast a spell on her and she started to love it. There was nothing to go home to. No one knew where Kamau was and she hated her father with all her heart for what he had done.
Nyokabi chatted with her mum every week. On Saturday night she would call her and they would catch up. She had tried to tell her mum about email but her mother just didn’t seem to get the concept so they were forced to write each other letters. She would get so excited to get letters from her mum and sisters. Her dad wrote too but she didn’t care about that. Nyokabi largely ignored him unless she was asking for money for allowance and expenses.
Nyokabi had a social one through a screwed one. She had made friends with a couple of girls and they had become close. But men, she stayed away from them. The experience with Kamau had scarred her. It was partly because she was in love with him and was sorry for ruining his life and also the guilty at what her dad had done ate at her. She did not want to be distracted from her studies by men who were just passing time with her.
She would think, “one day I will go back to Kenya and find Kamau. Maybe there is still a chance for us to be together, to be happy.”
But as the years past Nyokabi gave up on the illusion of love and of finding Kamau. “He probably has a girlfriend or two. He is so handsome and his voice…..” she would think.
By second year she had mellowed at least a bit. Nyokabi started going out with the girls out on the town to have a great time. She did not drink much though. She was scared of what might happen if she set herself loose. Nyokabi had seen what happened to some girls when they got drunk. They would strip their clothes or start singing at the top of their voices. Sometimes they would let a man take them home.
“That life is not for me. I want to get my degree and go home. I don’t want attachments or one night stands.” Nyokabi had not let go of her old fashioned values. She did sometimes though wish she had a boyfriend who loved her and cherished her like some of her friends had.
Nyokabi put all her energy into school. She always ended up in the dean’s list. She was an outstanding student but a D average in social skills.
Some campus guys were fascinated by her. She was very beautiful even by standards outside of Kenya. They kept trying to woo her and were not rebuffed when she said no. they tried again and again. Eventually they got the message that “Nyokabi was not available”
So here was Nyokabi back in Nairobi. She had her degree in law but she had no love. The worst thing was Nyokabi felt lost. She felt like she was caught in a time warp. Things had changed and no one had time for her. Her sisters were close probably because they had not been banished abroad although they went to expensive schools in the city and one was in 1st year at university.
Nyokabi had tried asking her mum about Kamau. Mrs. Mbae had looked at her daughter with a sad look in her eyes and said, “Kamau’s mum no longer speaks to me and no one from the village has told me anything. They all despise us for what your father did. But I heard I don’t know if it is true that Kamau is working as a clerk somewhere in the city.’
Nyokabi’s heart had sunk at that news. Kamau with all his potential was a clerk. She thought Kamau must hate her and curse her every day for that kiss. She had no doubt at all that Kamau was in that situation because of her and her dad.
“I am going back to UK. There is nothing for me here. At least there I have friends and I have a purpose. I don’t want to stay here,” she thought as she buried her face in her pillow and tried to get some sleep.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Mr Mbae relaxed in the tent outside his house. He took a sip of his expensive whiskey as his friends chatted all around him. “This was all worth it. My daughter is a graduate of a prestigious university with a law degree.”
Mr Mbae frowned as he thought of how that imbecile boy had almost ruined his daughter’s future. Mr Mbae had no apologies what so ever for what he had done. He felt he had been justified in what he had done. Given a chance he would have done it all over again.
As he looked as his beautiful expensive house in Karen with a view of the Ngong hills he thought, “Look how far I have come. With my brains and sweat I have gotten myself here. Who would imagine a simple poor village boy would get this far.”
Mr Mbae had been born Jon Mbae Mburu. He had been the last born of a family of six children. His father had been a teacher and his mother a stay home mother and farmer. When he was two his father abandoned them and went to the city to look for better fortunes. He had never returned. His mother had been forced to raise him and his siblings out of her earnings from the farm. Before his father left Mbae and the family had not exactly been staving but they had gotten by. When his dad left there was no money.
Eventually to make money maze’s mum started brewing traditional changaa. There were always men, drunk men around their house. Sometimes one of them would become a temporary occupant of his mother’s bed.
Mbae grew up hating his circumstances. “I will get out of here. I promise. One day I will get out of here and I will never look back. I will not be poor like this forever. I will make it no matter what it takes.”
Mbae would go to school in the mornings. Well, when there was no work in the shamba or helping his mum get the ingredients for the changaa. Making changaa wasn’t easy. The police were always coming around for a bribe or sometimes for a drink. Sometimes especially when there was a new boss at the station there would be harsh measures. The police would come and carry away the drums of changaa and his mother to boot. She would end up spending a couple of days in the cell while she negotiated her release.
During those times the family would go hungry. Everyone around them was also poor. They did not have money to feed 8 empty mouths, the two extra being children Mbae’s mum had gotten with different men who had stayed over for a couple of months before moving on.
By the time Mbae was ten all of his siblings had left. His two sisters had gotten pregnant and married the losers who had gotten them that way. Their lives were pretty much what their mother’s had been. Suffering and more suffering. Mbae’s brothers had all gone to the city to look for money and their father. They promised to return and save the family. None did. Its like they left the filthy hut with the fermented smell and the black cockroaches and say au revoir.
So by the age of ten Mbae was the defunct head of the family. Mbae was clever. He found ways to hide mtungi’s of changaa far away from the house where the cops even if they came would never find them. He also found a way to distribute the changaa so as to make maximum profits. He would borrow a bicycle sometimes and cycle with some of the changaa and distribute it. Soon people started sending him to other areas to buy and sell for them things. He would charge them a commission.
By the time Mbae was seventeen he had bought two bicycles of his own. He used them for transporting goods throughout the region and he had expanded his area of operation. He had even made friends with the police. Paying the police a monthly bribe to stay away from the operations. He even distributed changaa at the police station. The changaa he made was very good, he had taken over from his mum who had succumbed to the lure of alcohol and started consuming her own brew.
By the time Mbae was 22 he had one of those Peugeot matatu's to ply people along the route from his home area to other areas. Mbae kept expanding his operations until by the time he was 25 he was very well off.
After that he moved his base of operations to river road. He had stopped dealing in changaa when his mum died when he was 18. But he had learnt lessons from doing that business that he brought to the city. Including how to put the police into his pocket.
Mbae had meet his wife in the city and they got married. He had never told her where he had come from, telling her that he was an orphan who had siblings but they did not talk. He had bought land where his wife’s family came from and that’s where they had settled.
Now as Mr Mbae looked at his house and laughed with his wealthy friends he was content. “Look at me now. I have made it. And I have plans for Nyokabi. She doesn’t know it but she is going to make me an extremely wealthy and influential man.”
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Heartbreak Hotel
Welcome to the heartbreak hotel. Vacancy for one. I know your hurting.
Your heart is broken, shattered.
The one you loved and claimed to love has broken your trust,
broken that which is most precious.
Shock is evident and you cant even cry.
Because if you open that dam it may never run dry.
In ur mind u can see the pictures of ur life together..
the good times you shared.
Nothing prepared you for the bad.
When he didnt call or when he took you for granted.
For when he was too busy for you but not for his friends.
Nothing prepared you for this.
To be alone, to be without him.
Knowing that you cant just pick you phone
Call him or sms him when you've had a bad day
or are excited about something.
Its hard and you are talking it one day at a time
because you dont want to think about tomorrow.
I wanna tel u gal things will get better.
It wont always be like this.
One day you will smile and laugh and mean it.
You are precious,
You are priceless.
You are worth all the love in the world.
One day I hope you will get the man who loves you like that.
A man who cherishes your company and loves your smile.
A man who treats you right.
A man for whom you are the first priority.
A man who loves You so much that he would lay down his life for you like Jesus did.
You are a diva!
You should be treated with love, respect and tender loving care.
In the meantime while you wait,
lean on the comforting arms of Jesus.
"I will be with you always until the end of the age"
Trust in Jesus and he will give you your heart's desire.
A man who loves you like he does.
raylitpoems 2010
Your heart is broken, shattered.
The one you loved and claimed to love has broken your trust,
broken that which is most precious.
Shock is evident and you cant even cry.
Because if you open that dam it may never run dry.
In ur mind u can see the pictures of ur life together..
the good times you shared.
Nothing prepared you for the bad.
When he didnt call or when he took you for granted.
For when he was too busy for you but not for his friends.
Nothing prepared you for this.
To be alone, to be without him.
Knowing that you cant just pick you phone
Call him or sms him when you've had a bad day
or are excited about something.
Its hard and you are talking it one day at a time
because you dont want to think about tomorrow.
I wanna tel u gal things will get better.
It wont always be like this.
One day you will smile and laugh and mean it.
You are precious,
You are priceless.
You are worth all the love in the world.
One day I hope you will get the man who loves you like that.
A man who cherishes your company and loves your smile.
A man who treats you right.
A man for whom you are the first priority.
A man who loves You so much that he would lay down his life for you like Jesus did.
You are a diva!
You should be treated with love, respect and tender loving care.
In the meantime while you wait,
lean on the comforting arms of Jesus.
"I will be with you always until the end of the age"
Trust in Jesus and he will give you your heart's desire.
A man who loves you like he does.
raylitpoems 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Imperfection
I am weak, I know.
I am not the "perfect" woman
Who always knows the right thing to think, say and do.
I speak when i should be silent,
Do things contrary to the way they were ordered,
By culture, religion and family.
I can be lazy, or bitchy or damn right crazy some times.
Despite this, am creative I know,
My mind spins in unexplainable circles.
Sometimes, my ideas are very unconventional,
Too far outside the box.
My spirit is strong though even my heart is weak.
I dream big dreams and when I love, I love.
I work every day to better myself,
Chipping every day at my imperfections.
I know I may look like just a piece of glass to you
But inside am a diamond being cut into shape.
Imperfection chipping into perfection.
Am a masterpiece still being painted on canvas.
God is the artist and I am the paint.
I will impact and be drawn into the landscape
Of my family, my spheres of influence and my country.
The world is a canvas on which I shall be not just a speck of paint
But a whole array of colour.
At the end of my life I know it shall be said,
Look what the master painted!"
So I fight the good fight and run the race,
Because I know my crown awaits me.
Raylitpoems 2010
I am not the "perfect" woman
Who always knows the right thing to think, say and do.
I speak when i should be silent,
Do things contrary to the way they were ordered,
By culture, religion and family.
I can be lazy, or bitchy or damn right crazy some times.
Despite this, am creative I know,
My mind spins in unexplainable circles.
Sometimes, my ideas are very unconventional,
Too far outside the box.
My spirit is strong though even my heart is weak.
I dream big dreams and when I love, I love.
I work every day to better myself,
Chipping every day at my imperfections.
I know I may look like just a piece of glass to you
But inside am a diamond being cut into shape.
Imperfection chipping into perfection.
Am a masterpiece still being painted on canvas.
God is the artist and I am the paint.
I will impact and be drawn into the landscape
Of my family, my spheres of influence and my country.
The world is a canvas on which I shall be not just a speck of paint
But a whole array of colour.
At the end of my life I know it shall be said,
Look what the master painted!"
So I fight the good fight and run the race,
Because I know my crown awaits me.
Raylitpoems 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Love blooms in the desert
Looking for love,
Sometimes feels like looking for water in the desert.
You never seem to find someone
Who can quite quench the thrist in your heart.
You may wonder looking until you get dazed and dehydrated.
Sometimes love is a mirage,
It seems to be real but in the end all it is,
Is your mind playing tricks,
But you want it so bad you can taste it.
Sometimes love burns,
A reaction so bad that you never want to feel its heat again
And the sunscreen of care that you used to protect youself feels so fake.
Love is like a desert rose, beautiful and rare.
Hard to find but when you do you find it was worth the wait.
So arm yourself for the desert,
Hoping to find the oasis of love whose waters refresh the soul
Which feed the heart with springs of Joy.
Sometimes feels like looking for water in the desert.
You never seem to find someone
Who can quite quench the thrist in your heart.
You may wonder looking until you get dazed and dehydrated.
Sometimes love is a mirage,
It seems to be real but in the end all it is,
Is your mind playing tricks,
But you want it so bad you can taste it.
Sometimes love burns,
A reaction so bad that you never want to feel its heat again
And the sunscreen of care that you used to protect youself feels so fake.
Love is like a desert rose, beautiful and rare.
Hard to find but when you do you find it was worth the wait.
So arm yourself for the desert,
Hoping to find the oasis of love whose waters refresh the soul
Which feed the heart with springs of Joy.
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