The waiter at Wine Bar just made my evening; I was meeting a friend of mine at the bar when the waiter comes to take my order. I’ve seen him before (the waiter) and he has even served me many a times. he just has never told me a joke like this one-or was it just a comment?

I ask him for a cold Redds and what does he say? “Baridi kama roho ya mzungu?” Translated: “Cold like a white man’s heart?” . I am taken a back-suprised. I think that I probably heard it all wrong, but he says it again.

I laugh- hard. It is funny, in a really bad racist way but I find myself  laughing my heart out.

He laughs with me, then goes to fetch my cold Redds, leaving my friend staring at me and wondering Wassup?

When I explain what just happened, he’s like, “There’s nothing funny about that!”

The waiter comes back and I ask him, “What’s the difference between a ‘Mzungus’ and a black man’s heart?”

He takes my hand and places it on the left side of his masculine chest. I feel his heartbeat. This is exaggerated, I think.

He just thrusted his chest out to make it seem like it was really thumping.

Of course I laugh even harder and this pisses off my friend. I try to explain the joke further but he just doesn’t get it.

The same waiter comes back  a few minutes later to ask why I wasn’t using my glass. I say that I like to drink straight from my can. He replies, “Ama labda unaona utavunja?” (Or do you think you might break it?)

“Actually, you are right. If I was holding it right now, I think I would end up doing just that.”

I laugh even more because I’m thinking, this waiter can already tell that I’m high-this might have been my first beer here but it isn’t the only one I have had all day.

If  I were a hotel/pub owner, I think I’d hire a guy with this extra skill; one capable of telling a good joke.

Get the customers coming back for more.

33 years later, JM Kariuki’s daughter’s journal in a book

It wasn’t until I met Rosemary Kariuki Machua (JM Kariuki’s daughter) at the US Ambassador’s residence during a reception celebrating International Women’s Day that I thought about getting this book.

She was standing there dressed in a shimmering green outfit , animatedly talking to another equally well-dressed woman who I later came to learn was Sue Muraya, a brilliant fashion designer who said she had actually designed that very outfit that got Rosemary standing out from the crowd. I approached them and asked if i could take a photo of them -i later used it in a magazine. I was truly amazed at how well they responded but it wasn’t until i went ahead to jot down their names for the caption that she said her name and occupation-Author. knew there and then that this was the daughter who just recently launched a book.

Now, I had already received lots of messages about the book and the launch but I do not know why I never went out to get it. We exchanged contacts and I got the book the very next day.

I have been reading it in bits and pieces and you know what, I could easily read it again because some of the things she talks about are almost unbelievable especially towards the end.

One particular quote rings reasonable to me, that “My purpose is to share my story so that others may gain the courage to speak out theirs”, Rosemary says on page 108.

A couple of the people I discussed the book with did not understand why the book was centered on her-Rosemary, but I totally do. This is her journey, her search for understanding. See, here is a daughter who for years and years struggled to come to terms with who her father really was and why he had to die the way he did. Here is a daughter (and family) who feel betrayed by their own Kenya.

This story is more or less a journal and trail of experiences she has gone through since childhood. It brings us face to face with the situation of J.M. Karikuki’s unresoved murder, makes us question the injustices we have seen in the country over the years. Rosemary’s search is actually our nation’s search and who better to lead us through it than his own flesh and blood, his own daughter.

There is so much to learn about JM that newspapers or magazines wouldn’t have ever brought out-like small glimpses into who he was as a father and philanthropist-a human being. And yes, a couple of surprises about his relationship with Kenyatta, Kenya’s first President ; how boldly Rosemary admits, “The nature of the relationship between Kenyatta and my father was such that there was no way his cronies would have assassinated him without Kenyatta’s knowledge. I believe that Kenyatta was involved in the plot to some extent.”

I shed a couple of tears especially when she recalls the circumstances surrounding his death and thereafter when the family was having difficulties and there was no one (of his so called friends and family) to help because they thought (so did I) that JM was a millionaire.

Her story reminds us of what happened to JM and the fact that ‘History unresolved cannot be shelved’. Not that I have forgotten him. Hell NO! My family and I went in search of Ole Tunda and the site where his body was found all the way in Ngong Hills.

I just hope that the book serves its purpose:

a) To ensure justice prevails for JM and family (and the nation at large), though 33 years later, ‘m not sure how that will work.

b) This one has clearly been stated by Rosemary herself,“To share my story so that others may gain the courage to speak out theirs.”

This one I will attest to; This story has made me realize that one persons’ story could actually be an entire nation’s story. My passion to tell my story has also increased 5 ,or 10 fold, I think….

I will never forget the journey, the 4 x 4’s and the camping

By Eudiah Kamonjo

Off the top of my head, some of the happenings I recall (since I didn’t take any notes) and will never forget from the 2009 Rhino Charge event were;

1. My heart racing (both for fear and excitement) as I watched an 80 year old participating Kalasinga topple over with his vehicle and land on the side. Wondering whether his bones would be alright and how I stared in awe as he got back on track and got over the rocks and rough terrain, watching everyone cheering both from disbelief and relief.

2. Ian Duncan, one of Kenya’s most successful rally drivers, passing through the same rocky terrain like he was on tarmacked road to heaven and not some extra rocky terrain. Wondering how he took 3 minutes where others took 10 minutes or one hour. Hearing comments like, “We want our money back, how can it be so easy for him?” Apparently, his car broke down last year, no wonder his vehicle this time, was a machine like no other I saw at the event; the extremely huge wheels provided the ease needed for that kind of terrain.

3. Watching the Adam team in orange t-shirts with the ‘Men First’ slogan and watching them manually try to balance their equally colourful vehicle. At least they made it through as well.

4. The number of people at the event; races, tribes, sex, age, all these did not matter as they got together to just watch this off-road sport. Reminds me of the toy-car games we indulged in when we were younger.

5. Smelling marijuana at the competition point (yet the police kept passing by after every one hour) and watching people at the highest peak getting down and hoping they wouldn’t fall because that water bottle on the left hand looked like it had some brandy or whiskey in it.

6. The breathtaking view on the way to Marigat, the sound of the crickets, the numerous goats and tortoises on the way, the mouth watering ‘nyama choma’ at the Kikopey stop. The excitement of not knowing exactly where the venue was but using maps to find our way.

7. Meeting people I know at the event; Sandra Bomett, Charlie Black, Wairimu Githuka, Tim Kamuzu Banda, Nivi Mukherjee, whose brother was racing and my gym instructor. And others I have only heard of like the Chairman, Magnate Ventures, Bishop of CocaCola and a Nigerian lady named Panna.

8. Drama caused by one lady picked up by one of the guys; she almost got into a fight with some South African because of throwing to the ground an empty plastic bottle.

9. Dancing at the Capital FM tent in the night, like I would never dance in the wild again. And yea, it was even funnier just sitting to watch the young men from the area dancing to Capital Mixes and the ‘mzungus’ ever so interesting dancing.

10. Sitting around the fire at the campsite with these bunch of guys ( I was the only lady) listening to their sex tales- I couldn’t even believe that guys check out each others ‘ sizes in the gents.

11. Waking up to find two guys missing only for them to later turn up and admitting that they got lost and just couldn’t find their way after drinking and dancing. They said they spend the night in someone’s pick-up.

12. Hearing moaning cat-like sounds and tents moving after midnight and everyone telling everyone what they heard in the morning.

13. Waking up to sausages, goat meat and soup, yet knowing that the three day holiday just might translate to an added kilo or two.

14. Meeting Ruto, a six year old boy with interesting eyes. He had come to our campsite on day one. When we got to the Capital tent, he handed over the little money he had for safe-keeping (funny) to one of the guys and went over to the floor, he ended up dancing with every ‘mzungu’ lady on the floor and downing soda after soda. I bet he had the greatest time of his life.

15. I will never forget Kibet, who tended to us the entire time, watching out tent and cleaning up and our driver Peter sharing his experiences of the wild.

It has been a year since I posted anything on this my blog here. Anyway, that one year has taught me (the hard way) what ‘real life’ is really all about. I have even known homelessness of the soul, body and spirit.

I’m hoping i will get back into blogging. To begin with, I’d like to share this piece here by Jessica Powers, a Carmelite nun whose work i seem to be able to relate to (though i am so not close to her lifestyle). This is from her book ‘Poetry as prayer’

There is a homelessness

By Jessica Powers

There is a homelessness, never to be clearly defined

It is more than having no place of one’s own

No bed or chair

It is more than walking in a waste of wind

Or gleaming the crumbs where someone else has dined

Or taking a coin for food or cloth to wear

The loan of things and the denial of things are possible to bear

It is more, more, than homelessness of heart

Of being always a stranger at love’s side

Of creeping up to a door only to start

At a shrill voice and to plunge back to the wide

Dark of one’s own obscurity and hide

It is the homelessness of the soul, in the body sown

It is the loneliness of mystery

Of seeing oneself a leaf, inexplicable and unknown

Cast from an unimaginable tree

Of knowing one’s life to be a brief wind blown

Down a fissure of time in the rock of eternity

The artist weeps to wrench this grief from stone

he pushes his hands through the tangled vines of music

but he cannot set it free

It is the pain of the mystic suddenly thrown

back from the noon of God to the night of his own humanity

It is his grief, it is the grief of all those praying

Infinite words to an infinity

Whom, if they saw, they could not comprehend

Whom they cannot see

WHEN POETRY BECOMES YOUR LIFESTYLE

Thomas Gray once said that ‘Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn’.

I replay these words right now, then look at my life; everyday, a line or two of poetry MUST flow either through my thoughts or right through my veins to my note pad.

Sometimes, its not such a great feeling. Its like a burning need to release that which needs to be let out even when sometimes it doesn’t even make sense to you until much later. Its like you are a channel to some outside force; a human specifically put here for that purpose.

You try to fight it but the passion keeps coming back forcing itself on/in you even in the middle of the night. What has to be said; has to be said. No matter where you are or what time of day it is.

So how do you make poetry your lifestyle? You simply don’t-its just sort of happens. Its part of your everyday thing.

• You talk about it anytime the need arises; to whoever will listen.

• You surround yourself with poetry-at work, at school, at home. On your walls, on your desktop, stuck on your fridge, all over your shelves;-everywhere.

• The hardest part is when you have a partner who doesn’t have the same passion for poetry that you do.

  You will need to share whatever you have written or read with someone who understands the purpose of poetry-anytime;someone you can have a decent /productive discussion on that one line.

I started writing poetry when i was 11 years old and there is just no way i can live without this art.

A day or two without being in touch with it makes me feel like there is something missing in my life. I feel empty, needy…God, i love poetry!!!

Then there was David Diop’s words, ‘Poetry is the natural language of life, springs forth and renews itself through its contact with reality. It dies in corsets and under orders.’

Poetry is the natural language of life…..

Poetry is the breathe and finer spirit of all knowledge-William Wordsworth.

You can explain everything-including your entire life in a simple, pure piece of poetry.

GOD BLESS POETRY-FOREVER!!!!!!

Running from the source

Of everything fresh and full of light

Loosing the way at every turn

Too proud to take a few steps back

Yet too afraid to take a step forward

Bleeding with cravings of peace

And waterfalls of abundance

Flying with doves

Yet untouched by their divinity

Their compassion

Wallowing in the choice

Of dark curtains of doubt

And non-directions

Doors open then close again

Ramming and flattening my nose

To the ground again

Like a one-day old calf 

Yet to understand the ways of the world

I crave for the cup

I long to drink from the source

But i cannot ask

Lest i break the cup

From shattering voices and

Uncool words  

Don’t part with your illusions

When they are gone

You may still exist

But you have ceased to live

-Mark Twain

My Hottest Poem

By Eudiah Kamonjo

My hottest poem

came to me on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon

at the brink of noon

Unaware, i had invited what i sought not

And amidst computerized walls

And surrounded by guys and chics with

Yellow ties, pink shirts and green minis

I was immersed in the silence of speaking words

With guts and veins i knew not existed

Consumed by the wings in his voice

Swirling in the intensity of his eyes

I began to melt and i spoke

‘You are hot! Hot! Hot!’

Wewe nimsawa, aaaaiaiaaiaah!

The ultimate aphrodisiac

For dangerous ventures that snap and nap

With a hellish kind of zap

Like a mouse trap thats as old

As the clustered stars in your head

Now i am stripped of my time

Yet fulfilled of my need

For a poem thats in touch with its opposite gender

See, my poem is a hot sexy man

yet a hot sexy mama

And he loves it, lives it and shows it to me

Reverberating at the back of my memory

Is the embrace of the night when he

Engaged me in metaphors of pain and pleasure

Stripped of ignorance and

Looking like a cat that had seen

The goddess of everything dark yet true

I lay in fragments of

Similies and verbs and monologues with myself

Speechless and dead to myself

For a moment of two

My hottest poem

Is now causing lyrics of seduction

To osmosize right through my perked mammary glands

To the depths of my being

My eyelids loose focus

Threatening to become IDP’s within myself

Now i lie here

Looking down at this poem

Then looking at myself…

Embalmed, fashionated, bathed

By his exposure escapades

Clad in this oversized t-shirt

And pillowcases with hot sweat and perfumes of

Instinct and Hope

I hope….

MACHUNGU YASIYOZOLEKA

By Eudiah Kamonjo

Rafiki?

Sikuelewa

Nakumbuka yeye kaja hivi

‘Nafaka natumaini

Wacha tuelewe

Utanifanyaje tajiri?’

Basi

Nikamsoro-o-o-o-o-o-ra

Juu chini

Kama kipepeo

Aliyemtamani

Kakaye chizi

Lakini roho ilikuwemo

Imechafuka

Naye akanitupia mikono

Maonyesho haswa

Sasa leo

Nakueleza hivi

Bwana huyu

Anijia

Aniinamia

Mie

Mie

Mie>>>> aliye

Onja na kutema

Kama vile

Maji machungu jangwani

Kaomba

Kaswali

Karamba hata

Yasiyomhusu

Ila siwezi

Siwezi kamwe

Kumsamehe 

Mazuri yamezimia

All religions must be tolerated for every man must get to heaven in his own way

-Epictetus