The Round Rectangle..........

The body never gets used to pain - so I have learnt (the hard way). With each prick, each needle, each line tissue comes a new pain as though the body has never felt it. The face learns to fake bravery but the brain will almost always betray it. In the last one year ave had my brush with hospitals, and quite some pain. It being the second time am having my health tested in 4 years, am yet to get used to it. I still cry while alone on my hospital bed, I still get scared of falling asleep lest I sleep forever, I still worry over the pain I put my family through and even then I cannot wish a single of it on my worst enemy.  My bestie tells me am stronger each time I overcome a trying situation, and I want to believe it, I really do, I just cannot beat my chest over it. I have my low moments and today is one of them, I shed a tear when the nurse put the third niddle through my skin, as she held the other two bleeding areas. The site of my own blood got to me and it suddenly occured t...

Back in the year 1997, we buried my great-grandmother (this was my first burial to witness). At the burial, since we were a normal village family by the then 'normal' standards financially, the casket was put up on two stools at each end and covered by a handmade cream table cloth with blue flowers. Of course an address system would have been a luxury we could not afford and tents were made by my grandfather by sewing together fertilizer bags at their edges. With that kind of upbringing, some things I did not witness until I left the village for boarding school. Fast forward and I witnessed a different kind of life setting a few years after my great grandmother's burial. First was a friend that got admitted at Nairobi Hospital, and oh my oh my, I was awed, I could not stop staring when I visited. The wards, pathways, cars at the parking, technology, food and even language, everything was shouting; PRESTIGIOUS. I could not help but think how good it was for my friend to b...

The waters i was floating on were clear and calm, my breathing felt heavy, but my mind was lost in tranquility. I wanted to be in that state forever, I imagined God was putting me through practice for heaven. Then I felt a sharp pain in my chest, something or someone was pressing on my chest so hard that I could only breathe in mouth gulps. I was swept off the waters and felt my heavy body lie on some sort of a couch. The pressing was repeated, this time harder than before, followed by a male voice 'Valentine can you hear me?' I responded but I think he dint hear me because I heard him say, 'she isn't responding, let me retry'. He pressed again, and my eyelids parted ways. The light above me was too much, I preferred the sunset scene while at the waters. The man, who was dressed in blue leaned closer to my ear and asked again 'Valentine, can you hear me?' I thought I responded with a yes but I only heard myself murmur and the man responded 'Good, don...

I’m seated on a wooden bench under a makuti shed located at a vantage point deep in the heart of a national reserve watching a herd of elephants grazing peaceful below,oblivious of the chaotic world out there. A fortnight ago I handed in my final year project which marked the end of a 5-year pursuit for my Undergrads. Faced with the biggest dilemma of my life, I traveled down to this remote camping site in south coast to strategize on my next step. The decision I'm about to make is to either take the job offered or turn it down and instead follow my passion which is unconventional. Having interned in more than three different companies in the city where I interacted with the Nairobi middle class citizens on a daily basis, I came to abhor the kind of lives they lead. Nothing scares me like the idea of being sucked into the middle class vortex,lose my zeal for achieving greatness and getting into a comfort zone should I take the job. You have probably heard the news about Kenya be...

So my daughter is off to her grandmother's place for the holidays, and I cannot stick in my house for too long because of the lonileness that has engulfed that house. A normal day when Precious is around starts with one of us waking up before the other, of which if she happens to wake up before me, she pokes my eyes until I start hating my eyelids. She is a calm baby, though very bright, she insists we stick to the schedule of how we do things:- like I cannot make her uji before removing her 'overalls(she uses two without a blanket)', I cannot shower before packing her daycare bag and so on. Precious is only 2 years old but she challenges me everyday, just like her mom, she is always eager to understand this and that so the questions keep on coming. She stays outside the bathroom door until I finish showering, even seems to have captured the time I use to shower and will ask 'mum uko karibu kumaliza?- mum are you almost done?' when am actually almost done. She lov...

I am not sure I can quite relate to most people’s definition of love, but I am certain that for those who have experienced the infamous orgasm, we can agree on its definition. Back in the day, when I was growing up, hooking up with a man meant going to a RESTAURANT for lunch or coffee if you were lucky, then he would take you home and hug you goodbye or give you a peck if you were lucky. For the men, getting a girl to your ‘cubicle’ was hard enough, leave alone convincing her that one shot would not get her pregnant. And actually, if a man got lucky to convince her about that first shot, instead of the second coming easy, the second never came. That was when men valued that one girl who found him special enough to taste the cookie. Fast forward to the digital age where girls actually ask men out, take them to their houses, and then dispose them before dawn after use. Please note the asking out part is for intoxication purposes only not to build some sort of a bond. So I remember ...

As a young girl, the news of my pregnancy hit me hard like Hurricane Katrina. I was disappointed in myself, I could not come to terms with the thought of a bulging tummy, the thought of a crying baby- I loved my sleep too much to think of interruptions. I crept into denial, refused to accept that I was going to be a mother leave alone accepting my readiness for motherhood. I weighed my options, I thought of how I could hide away deliver the young and sell it then resurface back to my 'fun' world, but even then motherhood was slowly creeping into my system and I could not bare to abandon the young in me. I started taking photos, going for belly arts, swimming and other things that made me feel I wasn't slowly losing my life. It was the longest 7 months(I only got to learn of it at 8 weeks) of my life. The course of my life was changing, priorities shifted, decision determiners changed, I practically found a whole new me. At 4 months I met a lady who complimente...