Unbwogable From Gidi Gidi Maji Maji’s 2002 single, ‘Who Can Bwogo Me’ Definition: [someone] who cannot be scared. It was 2002, and we were unbwogable. Half of our fathers were in Sierra Leone on United Nations peacekeeping missions, and the other half were stomping around our houses swearing that President Moi’s leaving would bring us all peace. It was also the year we learned our … Continue reading It Was 2002 and We Were Unbwogable
Boniface Kariuki, the man who was shot in the head by a cop in Nairobi’s CBD is in critical condition at Kenyatta National Hospital. We’re all hoping he pulls through, but even within that, the knowledge that his life has been altered irrevocably. I don’t know that anything qualifies as justice in a situation like this. The best we can do, is the upending of … Continue reading Refuse despair, because my guys, hope is a discipline.
I fell off a moving bicycle last week. I hurt myself quite badly. I use “quite badly” here only as a figure of speech and not as an assessment of my injuries. In truth, I haven’t thought it necessary to develop a concrete opinion about the severity of my injuries. In the seconds after I fell down, I worried that I had hurt my head … Continue reading I think I’m bad at being alive.
When I read this at the beginning of last year I thought, that’s a tad dramatic, no? Like sure, It would suck if I couldn’t write but I’d adapt. I’d find some other creative outlet, I’d find a different way to live a fulfilled life. I certainly wouldn’t die. So my life was like, “bet?” and I didn’t write for about seven months after and yes, I didn’t die but I didn’t want to be alive either. Continue reading I’m struggling with my writing; I’m struggling with life.
I’m having a hard day. I realise it’s kind of dramatic to say that forty two minutes after I woke up but I am. So maybe the more accurate thing to say is the hardness of the last few days have spilled into today, congealing while I slept. There’s a part of me that is hesitant to say that because maybe if I declare today … Continue reading I’m having a hard day.
Mariame Kaba says that hope is a discipline. That it isn’t necessarily about feeling optimistic but it’s about the commitment to do whatever you can on any given day in service of a better future. So hope is like love in that way: we often think of it as a feeling but it’s more of a choice, a commitment you make every single day. Continue reading Taking stock 2022.
Fiction Andy wavers between the Citi Hoppa and KBS bus; which one should he board? It is 10pm on a cold Thursday night and Kencom is relatively empty. Behind him, a homeless man is laying out cardboard, settling in for the night. Andy considers giving him his jacket but changes his mind, thinking, everybody’s got problems. I don’t have a job and he’s homeless. The … Continue reading Nairobae
I had a world stopping moment yesterday. It didn’t hit me at the time because I thought of it as a bump at worst but it’s fifteen hours later and I’m feeling stranded—like I’ve arrived to the part of myself that’s always known there’s no way out. You know how they say that if you put a frog in hot water it will jump out … Continue reading Maybe this too, is a thing of beauty.
The day before I started radiation and chemotherapy, we sat on my aunt’s dining room table trying to figure out how to make the coming seven weeks as bearable as possible. It was a warm day towards the end of April and I mostly sat in silence, feeling like I couldn’t possibly contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. I think part of it was that … Continue reading I need you guys’ help.
But I also know that I’m trying. That in the last few years, when I’ve felt angry, I haven’t rushed to bury it. That I’ve sat with it. That I’ve let it teach me, that I’ve let it make me furious enough to choose myself. And maybe I’ll always be the kind of person that quietly rages at big unflinching things—at gods who don’t see me and men who aren’t scared of me. But maybe the point the point is to stop raging at myself. Continue reading A meditation on anger.
Clarie's Ramblings 