Not Yet Mother's Day

I found this picture today and I have to say its an accurate expression of what Mother's Day was for me this year. I got a chance to open my Facebook and saw all those warm wishes to mums and all i could think of is...baaah! I am now going to start a conspiracy theory which is not at all fair to the Diasporas but after yesterday, I truly believe that Mother's Day is celebrated 'there', not here. 

Why therefore would i wake up at the crack of dawn, thanks to little Kayla with her baby alarm clock (which is really her pulling my hair, then pinching my nose and scratching my eyes and cheeks in an effort to get my attention); struggle to get her back asleep (15 minutes later) and then snuggle back to bed and get back to sleep (10 minutes afterwards, annoying how you lose sleep the minute you wake up right?) only to have my older daughter Aliana cruise into the bedroom, turn the lights on and begin her speech on why she should be allowed to go and play with Nichole our neighbor (yes, at 7am) and yet its Mother's day, the day when mommas are all meant to sleep through the morning, get breakfast in bed and not lift a finger for the rest of the day? Its a western concept I tells ya!

In this continent of Africa, and precisely, Kenya, Mother's Day is an illusion, hell, I did not even know that such a day is celebrated until my days in campus. I never ever saw my Dad give my mum flowers to appreciate her on this day and it often feels like an out of body experience to call mum and wish her 'happy mothers day', birthdays i can call but this? Could it be our upbringing, where we learn not to share feelings and emotions?

Anyway,so there I was at 7am, wondering whether i'd ever had that dreamy "Mother's Day" that I see on TV or was it, just like TV, an illusion. Even for those who have the opportunity, would you really, really let go of the reigns for just one day? I keep threatening hubby that I will take a month off from the house but when i really think about it, can i really? I like the idea of mother's day,only as long as its done my way and more often than not, it doesn't because for all the good intentions, you still find yourself reaching for the table cloth to wipe a mess, rushing to change the stockings that obviously don't match withe dress and silently cursing when you end up being given flowers when you tried hinting to go to that new restaurant in Lavington. 

So i look at this picture again, wondering, when will it be Mother's Day for me? But then, when is it ever Mothers Day for us? When they are infants, you worry about them dying in their sleep, at 4 months you wonder when they will sit up, at 6 months you are worried about their weaning, at 1 years your biting your nails wondering if they will start walking already! By two years you are dreading tantrums...then theres puberty and the raging teens, then your worried if she will get a good high school and campus, then you worry about her getting a job and a good man to marry her...woi! it never ends. Its not yet mother's day, but we can cherish those moments in a day when you exhale and live to fight another day.

A Little 'Real Housewives" is Good for You

I have to say, I am a "Real Housewives" fan. Its just because they are funny these women, real funny. Not being invited to an event is enough to get them committed to rehab to deal with depression and other such things. It's so crazy to me that having a certain kind of house or car can bring so much friction.

I am done with a very crazy course and thought that the best way to treat myself was to watch the housewives of Atlanta again...they really have drama! But as i watched i realised that they  have some personality that us women should adopt, yes, i said it, they are crazy, but they also have a lot to teach us.

Nene Leakes' bubbly personality: I like the way she is fun and her catch phrases: bloop, 'i am rich', fabulous...i mean, she can go crazy when she is mad but she is fun to hang around with. We each need a little of the fun Nene in our lives.

Kim's High Self Esteem: not a day will go by without hearing Kim say "DAMN im beautiful, or im so dam gorgeous, or my boobs are great". And face it, is Kim really that hot?? How many of us can actually say we are proud of our bodies or how we look. This video should add a little perspective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE

Sheree's Can't Bully Me Side: and now one of my favourite phrases is: "Don't let the cute face fool ya...DON'T". A lot of us take a lot of krap from people because they know we will not fight back. That is how you get taken advantage of and abused. While im not advocating for going into shouting matches like Sheree does, i think its important for us to realize when someone is taking a stab at us and take a stand.

Phaedra's 'Southern Belle' Manners: sometimes you will be faced with some choices, to act like a lady or go ghetto on someone. Well, some occassions call for acting the lady and I think she did that very well when Kenya was flirting with her husband. I also like how she always comes with gifts for her friends, its so 'good manners' like. But this is dependent on whether you have cash and the intention.

Kandi the Boss: ok, her side biashara is a little on the weird but i have to say, i like her knack for business. Even the book of proverbs praises the woman who adds the sheep and goats to the pen! I also like the fact that the money does not get into her head. Sometimes we need to remember to stay steady even when the money rolls in and maintain the right values with the kids, not let them sit back thinking they will inherit all your stuff.

Porsha aka dumb dumb: ok, this is the one housewive you should NOT be. Ladies, you need to be smart...yes, even if your rich or have married rich, you need to have some brains about you because one day the money may all go away and your left without a dime. And also, most men what a gal they can hold a conversation with. At that point you will need more than your pretty face to survive. 265 days a year? Really Porsha! Also, make your own legacy, not ride on that of your grandfather or whoever else in your family made a name in history.

Just a thought.

BAKS IN MY LIFE

I happen to traverse the Statehouse/ Kilimani area these days as i go to work and aside from the change in scenery which is more greenery and cleaner air, there are the posh cars aka fuel guzzlers.

Now do not get me wrong...u want to drive a big car with your name as its licence plate...jibonde! I only seem to get this knot on my stomache when the vehicle in question has the infamous GK plate coz in my heart im like "there goes my tax money".  In this kenya where leadership counts for little, its extremely disturbing when all i can count for my tax money is this fuel guzzler whizzing by.

But what even irks me more is when they happen to be several: i call them the entourage. I know since al shabaab dropped their greenades around, Kenya is not secure as it should be but really...must the entourage pull those theatrics of running us off the road like they are an ambulance? In a hurry? Really? to do what? steal more cash from kenyans? oh yah! bas, pave way.

Last week I had the rare encounter to be inconvinienced by none other than Baks himself (and entourage). Baks for those who are not familiar with kenyan lingo is the other name we call our president Kibaki. So we are approaching State house gate A (thats the middle/main gate) when we are stopped by a cop as he leans on his radio to listen out. Ahead are another 3 groups of traffic cops stationed in strategic places of either sides of the road, GSU's and plain clothes not forgetting the big police kahuna who wears the brown khaki unform. No wonder nairobi becomes gridlocked when Baks pita's; all the cops are here waiting for him to safely enter gate A so the rest of us just jipanga.

So i chill and then i decide to zima the car seeing as its going to be another 15 minutes before the entourage enter the haloed gates. Then this cop comes towards me and signals with his car that i turn on the car. So I do, then he is like now signalling frantically i turn off the car which i do. Then he walks to my window and is like: "I am sorry madam, was your car off when i asked you turn it on?" I am like yes. "Im sorry, keep it off", he says and moves ahead to tell the drivers of the other cars to zima their cars. He was so good mannered i could not be mad but i wanted to know how does my car being on affect Baks grand entry into State House? I will never know.

15 minutes later Baks and entourage whizz by. All those mercedes benz' fueled by my tax money grrr. There  is nothing so ceremonial but i wanted to see if Baks was sleeping in the back of the limo...did not get a glimpse. So they got in. Shows over. So i turn on my motogari to get ready to start moving. Mr policeman with the radio on his ear motiones his hand in the signature kenyan cop "stop" sign. "Huh!" si baks amepita? What else is there to do? I can hear hooting behind me. I feel them but Mr policeman's hand remains up high. Whats the hold up? Susan my workmate tells me jokingly that it must be coz the gate is open and we must wait for it to close. Shock of shocks its the gate we are waiting for to close!

WE BOTH BURST OUT LAUGHING! Seriously?!

Ok, what am i going to do, cruise into the gate at breakneck speed, past the armed GSU fellas without being hit with one bullet and past the entire entourage to get to Baks and hurt him? Really!!!

Wah! i have never died of laughter like that.

Ok, perhaps security intelligence can explain this to me the layman coz i did not get it. All in all,i continued with my journey into another traffic jam, also caused by Baks and safely got home an hour later. Thanks Baks.

SATURDAY SPORTS

Last weekend I found myself in very unfamiliar territory. Actually we would never have crossed paths had i not agreed to pick up my nephew from that place but interestingly it was a light-bulb moment.
So i took my daughter along (for the ride) to pick my nephew from a basketball court. I do not know why but i actually thought that it would be empty save for my nephew and his older cousin who brought him along for his training. Was i wrong.
Its like 10am on a saturday morning and all the courts are packed...they is even a game im seeing for little boys around the age of 8/9 shooting hoops. I was like 'whaaaaat!' I felt like i had walked into another alternate planet where people sacrifice their sleep to come and play basketball...i have heard of ligi dogo but basketball?? There were women too!
To me it felt like one of those "Gladys, which hole have you been living in all your life!" moments. I just assumed that nothing much goes on on saturday sportswise unless theres a soccer match at nyayo or city stadium or a marathon(or should i say charity related run?)...and lets not forget the rugby which is also not so frequent (but im not a guru on these matters). Yet, here are all these people...and their fans..at 10am in a bball court.
Here is the even more interesting part, each team has its full uniform and coach...and the matches are all so organized. The crowd is not the stone-throwing type so you can actually sit down and watch without fearing your car will disappear or a side mirror will go. I was pleasantly suprised!!
Lesson: if you have kids or know of kids who need to let some steam off or develop a sport, there really are so many options out there. Our problem is that we never go out of our way to find out. This kamovement is right under our noses and we dont even notice. I even heard that ballerina classes are taught somewhere in this Nairobi! I hope i will never say that "i dont know what i will do to keep aliana busy on a saturday." The options are a google serarch away.

SHADED VIEWS

My mum is a big character. She comes in all shapes and sizes...most of the time she's complaining about something but when it comes to bringing it down and knocking some sense into someones life...she is always dead on!
This is a belated mothers day wish to my mum...she has her negative sides but lately I have seen a lot of wisdom in the stuff she is saying. The latest is how i should be the boss of my house. (thats another story). But yesterday, I was at her home and just like mum does, she had gone all out with the chapatis, pilau, stew and fruit platter. As it is custom on a sunday afternoon, there were visitors and i had to cook a lot of tea which coz of my teabag ways was quite the challenge since I was having problems measuring the number of cups of milk, (since she gets her milk delivered to her straight from the cow), water and amount of tealeaves to make the tea.
It was at this time that more visitors came, it was a lady and her two kids. Mum came into the kitchen and asked me to warm the food for them. Now warming food is not a problem, warming food without the help of a microwave is. My mums microwave had died on the Friday so here i was trying my best to use the science i used to use as a child (before microwaves came to kenya) to warm this food, nevertheless i succeeded. Mum came into the kitchen and said she would serve the food and leave me to continue with the tea. As she was serving, I noticed that she had put a mountain of servings on each plate, I did not mind it for the mum but for the kids, i thought she had placed too high hopes on them finishing even  a quarter of what she served so naturally i pointed it out.
The next thing i know, my mum has pulled me aside and talking to me softly, she says "stop shouting, the food is enough, they can eat it." At this point im of "huh". So she goes on to explain about how the family is not so well off, the kids have food to eat but its not enough so they are often hungry. "when you see me doing this Mueni, its because I know they might not even have dinner tonight," mum said.
That just got me of at another level! I had never in my wildest dreams ever thought of that possibility. You see, where my mum lives is relatively for well off people so naturally i assume that her neighbors are all well to do people. I was like heeeeeh!
Then i asked myself, are there such people in my neighborhood? People that need help but are doing so much to hide the fact because of where they live or a reputation they are afraid to loose? Then i thought, can i live up to be like mum, always helping people with whatever she can? Doing what she can to easen a burden that she sees around her? have insight into peoples troubles?
Lesson learnt.

MAZE

I’m driving down this road… I know where I need to get to but its feels like am in a maze… you know hose fun mazes you’d do as a kid and how much fun you’d have going round in circles just to find a dead end and having to retrace your steps so you end up back at square one…

Mine is a different kind of maze...infact when I think of it, I remember the game snakes and ladders. You can see the end of the game, where you need to get to but there’s the snakes and the ladders.

The ladders are what help you get there faster...they are there to boost you up...give you a little hand when you’re drowning. I have seen ladders in the shape of friends and loved ones who have sent me a thoughtful sms or email…you know, the kind that just speak to you when you are at your weakest point. I have seen ladders of all shapes and sizes and some have come from the most unexpected of places... it’s like when you’re  wondering who you are to think you can get that job and the guy who brings lunch to the office is telling me in the lift to not lose hope, the faith that enabled me see the advertisement and apply for the job is the same faith that will enable you to get that job…just keep praying. I’m talking about people coming from nowhere and asking you about your talents…random encounters that provide a link to something bigger. I’m talking about opening your bible and reading Psalms 91 when you are thinking “nobody can get me out of this darkness…I’m so screwed.”

Then I’m looking at the snakes…you know those people and things that are there to stop you from getting home. You know that little voice in your head that’s telling you, “you can’t make it, who do you think you are to think you can get that promotion, you suck, you make mistakes and that’s how you will always be”…its that thing that brings you to your knees and completely breaks you down so you find it hard to get up and keep moving…that thing that makes you shift focus so instead of moving forward your always doing two steps back..

I have learnt that in the game of life...there’s gonna be snakes and there’s gonna be ladders… it’s how you choose to deal with the hand that your dealt with…good and evil are at work in our world and just like in the movies..evil is working to ensure that good does not triumph…but if you trust in God, it does not matter how long you’re in the maze...you’ll make it out and get your prize.

Imagine God is the game-master, He knows every aspect of the maze…He can see that when you take the right, you will meet the snake and the right will lead you towards the ladder. Challenges as I have come to learn are here to grow our faith…we would all like to have it easy and sometimes ask God to just lead us in the path of the maze with the least resistance and the fastest means to get to the prize…and it is not wrong to ask…but how would you learn to face the snakes in the next level of the game? If God is the game-master, it means He sees and knows how the game works, and if He allows you to meet a snake, it’s because He is shaping something in your life…building a character that will be useful in the next level of the game.

The point is, at the end of it all, He intends for each of us to win the game and get our prize. This game requires some crazy kind of faith…the kind that believes in the end even though he/she cannot see it or how to get to it. It’s the kind that says … “I don’t know where this is going…but I trust the Game-master to get me there eventually.”

So come on…tell the snakes “Game on!” and trust the Game-master to walk you through it every step of the way.

MATEMBEZI KENYA

So my job sometimes has me travelling a bit...this particular mission saw me going to homabay and kipkelion...im not particularly a big fan of road trips (esp long ones) but push came to shove and there was no way i was getting out of this particular situation so off i went..

on the plus side...we used the narok road which is shweeeeeeee...so pass thru masaaini, kaleoland, kwa wakisii and finally kwa ancestors of obama....aside from the winding hilly roads of kisii, the barabara like i said is ...shweeeeeeeee...until u reach the outskirts of homabay town...do you know the meaning of barabara imeisha? iliisha! right as you get to the outskirts of the town...so im thinking...hmmm...in other towns its the roads in the towns that are good and the ones outside the town that are well, not roads really. On the plus side the fish was great!! fressss!

haya, twende kipkelion...tunarudi vizuri hadi kericho..theres a junction somewhere there with a road heading to kisumu...tunaingia huko...ile part hatukuambiwa ni china wu yi wamekuwa wakifanya construction on a strech of road there...barabara nayo? terrible! and apparently its a shortcut, most of the buses and mololines use that route..wah!

then we finally get to kipkelion...we are here to see a boy named amos...he was kind enough to inform us that he'd gotten another scholarship and so we needed to pick up all the stuff we had bought for him. anaishi place inaitwa 'fort tenan'. to get to fort tenan, u first need to go to muhoroni then branch into kipkelion...wacha tuanze kuuliza wakenya hiyo place ni wapi

"haiitwi fort tenan...ni fatena"...and i think they got it all wrong when they said kaoz "noovaa" means we are not even close to the destination..."fatena ni hapa tu" tulishindwa tukiambiwa...that was 3 hrs ago!

tulifika fatena...pahali masign board ziko hakuna barabara...wah! thankfully we needed not get into the town...just to amos' home. network nayo? coming and going. half an hour later tunaongea na grandpa...hajui kiswahili sana...just kinandi...so cant help us much...headteacher comes to the rescue...we are in business! so where is this amos' home? "u see that hut up there? its over there", the headteacher tells us.

up there is on top of a hill...ok. so now we are hiking up a hill...niko na open shoes...wah! tukikaribia...watu wanatoroka from all directions...ok, wild animal maybe? whats goiing on? and who will save us?

kinandi inakorogwa between headie and grandpa...headie tells us this is the home but grandpa does not want us to come in..he points us to sit on some stones a few meters away...weird...strange even. me im just like, lets get this over with. wheres amos? oh, hes somewhere hearding the cattle...someone is sent to get him. we are told to wait...as i sit i get this whiff of a very strong smell...im thinking to myself maybe ni shags smell...u know the cowshed, fertilizer in the shamba etc smell?

i want to ask but im not sure if it will be taken kindly...ninanyamaza. finally the cats let out of the bag...headie tells us, the villagers thought u were from the DC's office, thats why they ran away? oooh! ok, why would they think that? "coz the grandpa here brews an illegal brew and any authorities are big trouble for him". eureka! thats the smell ive been whiffing! its a changaa den...wah! poor amos, what a way to grow up! we assure him we are not interested in the changaa, just the boy.

amos shows up 20 minutes later and we get our stuff and head out...but before leaving a few guys want us to buy them a drink (and i mean that changaa brewing at the moment). we politely decline, who wants to be responsible for five guys going blind afta drinking that stuff?

as we head out, im thinking about amos, how does he grow up in such a place and manage 370 marks in kcpe? the education is so bad, theres no stima, he's an orphan and his grandpa is brewing some strange booz kwa nyumba. its afta such scenes that i begin to understand why ministry of education would give such boys a chance at national schools...if u can manage such marks in such a dysfunctional society...then u have what it takes to make it in life.

we take the rest of that bad stretch of road until londiani (as we enviously look at the china wu yi's at work) then the driver asks if the chinese are doing damage with the women here as they have been doing with the women at thika road? classic 105 had a topic about a man leaving his wife after she gave birth to a chinese baby.

our next stop is nakuru where we meet a girl from the ogiek community...its mind blowing that this girl could escape the traditions and manage a 380 in kcpe. i want to do more reserch on the ogieks, all i know is that they are meant to be either going extinct or very marginalised.

now im tending to my back which can no more take the stress from the journey...but it was quite the eyeopener.