Bodaboda; Merchants of Death.

I recently had to ride a motorbike at the crack of dawn. A bodaboda to be exact. For those without an iota of what a bodaboda is, think of bicycle taxi and motorbike taxi. Got it? Back to my story. Here was I in the frigid bone freezing and teeth clattering weather of Kericho seated astride on a merchant of death. These bodas are literal merchants of death in our part of Africa.
The time was 6 in the morning. I had to attend a work related meeting in a far away town and I hadn’t been called nor invited till like 8 p.m. talk of African way of things. My hosts had booked me a classy hotel for the night but since I wasn’t aware, it was vacant! What a waste of money!!!

With my bones feeling like they had no synovial fluid, I ducked behind the young bodaboda man as he wrung the accelerator till it was close to warping. No sooner had he engaged the third gear than the cold Kericho air began sapping all the warmth off my blood. This is not to mention that I was clad in a heavy jacket fit for the coldest of the American blizzards. In an effort to duck from the cold wind, I was suffocated by the young man’s body odour. I swear he must have slept in a pigsty for he smelled of an amalgamation of sweat, alcohol and something to do with cheap feminine perfume. In an effort to avoid choking I raised my head and was immediately stung by the cold rushing air. The cold air made my eyes tear with the tears streaming in a straight line towards my ears not to mention that I wear spectacles. Wait! The young man or boy had neither a helmet nor any headgear and his nose was wrung up in an effort to make him see beyond the yellow light of his bike’s lamp.

No sooner had we touched tarmac than all hell came after us…loose. Within a hundred metres we were eating tarmac faster than a Dreamliner jet ready for the sky. Thing is that this wasn’t a dream. My early morning nightmare. The motorbike’s 100cc engine was howling in the mist blanketed hills while my bottom wriggled and vibrated faster than a humming bird’s wings. It was akin to holding on to a less lethal pneumatic drill and the vibrations and gyrations were as a result of wobbly wheels.
As we approached intersections on the road, I waited for him to at least slow down but all he did was to lean right with our toes barely scrapping the tarmac. I asked him to slow down but all he did was mutter an inaudible ‘Mhmmm’! Pig!
He overtook tractors and any other slow vehicle on the wrong side!! Any side was fine for him as long as we passed them.

By now, my fingers were ice cold from gripping the torn seat and I could hardly feel my feet. Let’s just say I was a mix of being petrified and freezing. Whenever he braked, he left skid marks on the potholed tarmac. A tea laden lorry missed us by a hair’s breath. Yesu Kristo! I saw my life flash past…me dying without a hardcopy… leaving this world without kid. I saw my black skin being scrubbed off the black tar road by black county council workers in black boots. Woi! I that lady somewhere missing a husband…My dreams and life all dashed…literally.

No sooner had I placed my feet on solid ground than the tear stained young man zoomed off in search off another passenger to terrify with his backfiring, wobbly and dented bike.
I forgot to ask him why he wanted to kill me.

I wonder if he is alive as you read this.

Hip to hip in a matatu.

Here was I.  Torn between bliss and torment. To my left, a pretty cute lady and to my right, a buxomly, sweaty old mama. My being was tortured by the conflicting sensation. Good and shame/anger. For your information, I was there sandwiched in a matatu by two ladies of two different centuries. One a 19^th century lady, another a 21^st century mortal. As a young man, the mere thought of a pretty lady sitting by you in a public service vehicle is pure niceness. On the other half, sitting next to a sweaty old village mama with a handkerchief for a money purse and a polythene bag for a handbag is every young man’s nightmare. Unless the old person is a relative. Otherwise…
Well, the journey was unbearable. Much as I would have loved to enjoy the heavenly scent of the young lass as it wafted all around the vehicle, I could not still my jittery nerves, fighting to create a one metre wide gap in between me and old mama.

This is because there is something so wrong about a young man seated in close gross proximity with a lady old enough to be my grandmother’s last born sister. In this case, even an arm touching or brushing by her bosom is beyond sacrilege. What? At least, that is what it is from this part of the world. Africa. As I pushed away as far as possible from the old mama’s contact, I saw the young lady on my left move away from me into the walls of the matatu.  I’m no mind reader but I could read her mind telling her that I was one of ‘those’ guys. The gropers…
I was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. I swear I saw even the street urchins look at me in scorn, full of disapproval. I lifted my right arm to avoid any contact with the old mama and in so doing, I ended up leaning towards the heavenly perfumed lass in result. It made her think that I was trying to cuddle her in a matatu! All this while, the old mama was lost in her world eating ground nuts. As she shelled them, the husks fell on my once ironed trouser and my once neat shirt. I wanted to alight but on this route, public service vehicles’ plying this route come few and far between.

This is Africa and public transport isn’t for those running late for appointments and also not a place for those trying to travel and arrive in style. Unless you have what some call ‘My car’. In this particular matatu, we were tightly packed like tomatoes in a crate, ready for a market in a faraway town. We were like tightly packed like cows meant for slaughter atop a Kampala bound lorry. (You ought to see the said cows transported for slaughter. Very inhumane.)  Tight, crammed, packed. We were hip to hip and the lass’s hip bone dug into my thigh. Men! Talk of campus figure or is it malnutrition. On my right, the old mama was plump and in result making my right leg go numb…I could feel gangrene eat up my toes…

I whipped out my smartphone and deftly scrolled through it with my left hand and guess what? The lass on my left whipped out the latest Windows phone…Wait! This is deep in the village and sighting a smart phone of that nature is akin to picking a dollar in a busy town…Rare is the word. As she scrolled through her phone, I knew that she was no villager…Like me. Her well manicured nails said it all. I resorted to peering at her phone with a deft sideways look. She was on Twirra. Mh! I could bet that she was the only person on this side of the earth’s surface on Twitter.
As the matatu tossed up and down on the potholed road, I came to hate the zero distance between the beauty and the old mama. My now numb legs would not let me sit better.

As I stepped out of the van, my left side smelled of roses and lavender…Whatever that is. My right side was an amalgamation of sweat, ground nuts and something in between, thanks to zero distance.

Mind your Grammar.

Grammar /ˈgramər/ a : the study of the classes of words, their inflections, and their functions and relations in the sentence (merriam-webster.com) b : The study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences (the free dictionary.com). 

While working at the office, I’ve come to realize that there are far worse things that could happen among colleagues than getting stabbed in the back…like getting stabbed in the ear!  So far, my eardrums have suffered severe scarring from grammatical misfires (which unfortunately have now been widely accepted in parts around here as friendly fire). I can recall numerous instances when this colleague of mine would answer the phone with a question, you are who? A direct translation from Swahili, Wewe ni nani? Whatever happened to, ‘who am I speaking to? It happens every single time… You are who?

Again, I’ve also observed that the word ‘lend’ is fast going into extinction. Co-workers have often come up to me to ask for an item of mine and they’d make requests like, ‘Please borrow me your pen.’ Or, ‘Help me your pen’. Like really?? We need to establish who is who here: You, the borrower, want to borrow while I, the lender, may or may not want to lend to you. Therefore the borrower could say, ‘Could you lend me your pen’ or ‘Could I borrow your pen?’ I think that sounds far more appealing to the ears, don’t you? Even more disturbing is the remark I asking a question…Kwani. Case in sentence, Kwani where is my pen? Who is this Kwani? Kwani you don’t know? Kwani!?

Some people have taken their lazy linguistics too far. I could be standing by the door and then I hear a ‘Skyuz,’ that being Excuse. When I turned to look at the seemingly rude staff member (with him thinking that he must have been rude) he then said, ‘Please, excuse.’  Excuse who for God’s sake??? Couldn’t he just say ‘Please excuse me.’ like the educated human being he’s supposed to be? If you think that’s baffling then what about the catchphrase used when someone is surprised, HAIYA. If you haven’t guessed it already, this expression was generated from Swahili.

Sometimes I find myself about to utter some of these blunders because my ears and brain are constantly subjected to them – a classic case of ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’. But I refuse to give in. It’s not enough that you know what that person is trying to say but if we don’t start to correct them then these verbal blunders become the norm and will be passed from one generation to the next. If you have any common grammatical errors you’re bombarded with often then please share or compare.
Haiya! Kwani?

The Five Love Languages.

Well, I think it’s time to compile some information on Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages. As I spend time in my own world, lost to my thoughts, I seem to always stumble upon threads where love birds are trying to pin down traits as something that they would call signs or rather, languages of love. In many of these circumstances, I feel like relationship questions can better be addressed by understanding the Five Love Languages.

Most of us grow up learning the language of our parents, which becomes our native tongue which in my case is Kalenjin. Later we may learn additional languages, but usually with much more effort. In the area of love, it’s similar. Your emotional love language and that of your spouse or lover may be as different as Swahili from English – no matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse only understands Swahili, you’ll never understand how to love each other.

Seldom do a husband and wife have the same primary love language. We tend to speak our primary love language and become confused when our spouse doesn't understand what we’re communicating. Once you identify and learn to speak your spouse’s primary love language, you’ll have discovered the key to a long-lasting, loving marriage.
You can discover your own love language by asking yourself these questions:

❤ How do I express love to others?
❤ What do I complain about the most?
❤ What do I request most often?

Speaking in your another person’s love language probably won't be natural for you. After all, we're not talking comfort. We're talking love. Love baby! Love is something we do for someone else.

The Five Love Languages

Words of Affirmation
Actions don’t always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, “I love you,” are important—hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward, heart racing to oblivion, sweaty palms included. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.
These are encouraging words that inspire courage after all, all of us have areas in which we feel insecure. We lack courage, which often hinders us from accomplishing the positive things that we would like to do. That potential may be awaiting encouraging words from you or from him.

Quality Time
in the vernacular of Quality Time, nothing says, “I love you,” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby makes your significant other feel truly special and loved. This includes quality conversation listening with a view to understanding the other person’s desires, fears and thoughts.

Gifts
I must say that this is the ngumu –hard one for me. the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you.

It triggers thoughts of look, he was thinking of me, or, she remembered me. Ehh Banange! (Say it with lots of ‘Ugandanness’) A gift is a symbol of that thought. Gifts come in all sizes, colours and shapes. Some are expensive and others are free. To the individual whose primary love language is receiving gifts, the cost will matter little.

Acts of Service
This is my best! If I could get my shoes polished, dinner cooked, laundry done, the list is endless!  Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an “Acts of Service” person will speak volumes to me. The words “Let me do that for you.” Just does it for me.
People who speak this love language seek to please their partners by serving them; to express their love for them by doing things for them. Actions such as cooking a meal, setting a table and washing the dishes are all acts of service. They require thought, planning, time, effort and energy. If done with a positive spirit, they are indeed expressions of love. I’m not saying become a doormat to your partner and do these things out of guilt or resentment. No person should ever be a doormat. Do these things as a lover.

Physical Touch
Another favourite of mine! Only that I have never done it in actual sense but just imagine…touch…It conjures thoughts of untold Proportions!!!! Again, this language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love.
Holding hands, kissing, hugging and all those forms of PDAs –Public Displays of Affection are lifelines for the person for whom physical touch is the primary love language. With it, they feel secure in their partner’s love. “Love touches” don’t take much time, but they do require a little thought, especially if this isn’t your primary love language or you didn’t grow up in a “touching” family.

LOVE IS...

Love is…

Love is beautiful…
…when you feel you might burst from the happiness that’s ravaged your bones and electrified your insides; all because you’ve fallen for the one who completes the beat of your heart and filled the emptiness of your hand.
Love is lonely…
…when you’ve fallen for the far off one. Yet the distance only strengthens your resolve to love them with all that you possess.
Love is calm…
…as your stubbornness rears and you want nothing more than to fight for what you believe to be right. But instead, you’re quiet and respectful, smiling and breathing peace in to your trembling union.
Love is unsure…
…when you don’t know if you will survive the distance between the two of you.
Love is frightening…
…when you’re fingering the ring in your pocket, unsure of the answer that will slip from her lips. But you bend your wilful knee anyway, ready to take a chance on the mighty calling your heart feels for hers.
Love is  tomorrow…
…when you wake with them on your mind, willing and able to do whatever it may take to bring happiness and fulfilment to your forever love. For without their happiness, your own is left void.
Love is a wrecker…
…when you realize what you are isn’t what’s best for the one you crave. But instead of grasping tight and harbouring them for yourself, you smile the sad smile and release them to find the perfect forever from which you’ve delayed them. And in your hearts of hearts, you know you’ve done that which is right.
 Love is salvation…
…when you’re lost within yourself, depressed and eaten with guilt, but by simply reaching out to the keeper of your human heart, you find forgiveness and redemption in their mercy.
Love is always…
…because you know that without them, you’ll never be complete. Days and years and decades may crash around you, but without them near your side, you will be left empty and without cause.
Love is hopeful…
…because the possibilities are endless and with them, you can conquer it all.

Love is beautiful…

…Get loved!

My rant; I am confused.

Late last year a certain lady told me that she was leaving her boyfriend due to the fact that he was more in love with his brew than he was in love with her. She was visibly frustrated that despite his well paying job, there was one more month at the end of his salary. He wound blow it all in two weekends and then resort to begging and borrowing from his lady. He was later hospitalised for imbibing on some illegal drug and his own family gave him a cold shoulder while he was in his hospital bed. As all these transpired, she super glued by his side but with the intention of chucking him. Well, as you read this, she is expectant with his baby. Never left him and won’t leave him.
Call it love or what, I do not know.

Tell me, is this love? Is it love when a wife leaves her matrimonial bed for another man and her own man turns a blind eye? Is this love when the wife turns alcoholic to the point of staggering home with barely a cloth on her and yet her man never touches any bit of liquor? Is this love when an otherwise sane, collected and composed girl falls in love with the bad boy with less than half her education? Picture this; there is this lady or girl for that matter who dropped out of University of Nairobi in her second year in order to get married to the well known neighbourhood thief, three years her junior and with a class five qualification. Is this love? You tell me. Eeh? Her mother went insane and was inconsolable. I mean, were the words of this young man so enticing and music to her ears? It begs more questions. Did this mean that this young man had juicier words than the well read guys in her class or university for that matter? Or was she a fluke to university? This is a true story. I witnessed it first-hand. Ask me.

Tell me; is this love when a sane man leaves his wife a broken woman in order to find solace in the arms of a woman known to entertain many a man ‘down there’? Is it love?

No wonder love is a hard thing to understand. This is because some are driven into it by many factors while some (me included) are driven away from it by the numerous ‘What Ifs’
Love is a hard nut to crack with a tasty inside or so I am told or witnessed for that matter. Problem is, most of us are yet to identify the nut with the best and tasty content. As youth, we are left to grapple with the heart wrenching task of the slobbery kissing frogs and the elusive Cinderella.
While at it, some begin with a sweet taste only for it to end in tears, ulcers, heartbreaks and heartburns for that matter. Going insane is in there too. Talk of going berserk and many couples and children have lost their lives in cases of love gone sour. It was sweet on the onset, but turned sour as time went on.
At the start of the love, it was all rosy full of gifts and sweet words. Later on the sweet words and gifts became a matter of life and death.

Tell me, who on earth has the blueprint to the right level of love, the right quality and quantity of love, the right degree that love out to burn without scalding or scotching, the right level of the right things that call for the right level of love.
Tell me. What is this phenomenon? Huh?

It is like taking a leap into an abyss..

 

LOVE IS...

Love doesn’t always make you happy. But it makes you better. Sometimes happy but also at times unhappy. Because love knows that its central function in your life is to help you grow. Growth hurts. After all, many people have come up with songs on love. It is that powerful. It could be that feeling in your stomach whenever you see or hear your significant other. Or even the clammy palms. Yeah. Love is want. Love is need.

Love is impossibly imperfect.
Love always pays the bills on time but could forget your anniversary. It gets you frozen yogurt on the way home but forgets and leaves it in the car. May refuse to change the baby’s diaper but will spend hours rocking the baby to sleep. It may not write you poems or give romantic speeches but when you’re sad, it suddenly says that one right thing. It rarely thinks to buy you flowers but always thinks of ways to appreciate you

Love tries.
Love is forgiving. Love lets you get away with a lot. But not all. It grants forgiveness before you ask, but oftentimes makes you say sorry anyways, because it’s good for you to be humble. Love knows it will hurt you or fail you too. Love fails, time and again, but believes every next minute is a new chance to get it right.

Love is forgetful.
It forgets old words, the old hurting words and old wounds. And even when it remembers, it also remembers to stay kind. Love has the worst fight of your life with you and then, right after, shares a cold coffee and even shares a packet of chewing gum.

Love understands your weaknesses.
 It doesn’t mock that you are scared of cockroaches in her kitchen or that you scatter your socks all around. Even if you left your room untidy as if a hurricane swept through it, love understands. It knows you have to drink your tea really, really hot. It will expect you will complain about your burnt tongue later. Love will be patient as you ask for five more minutes that later turn out to be a whole half an hour. It will be quiet when you don’t feel like talking. It will laugh uproariously at your lame jokes during a party to save you from embarrassment.

TO BE CONTINUED…

My Rant On Public Display of Affection.

For those in the dark about what PDA is, it is Public Display of Affection. This is when a couple with love and affection swirling and twirling in their heads decide to show all and sundry how they feel about one another. You may as well be aware of the public displays disaffection, disregard for human life like the human butchers we hear around and about. I mean, what father gets a machete and butchers his own kids, flesh and blood in a horror blood bath? 5 kids? Ah! That’s a topic of another day.

I meant to rant about PDA. 

Back to PDA, My ken relays that it is a range of behaviour that runs the extent from holding hands, hugging in public or even kissing. As you are aware, this open form of displaying affection is frowned upon here in Kenya and I guess, also in this wide Africa. Though you might see the occasional person hold the hand of his partner in public or give a brief kiss but hardly will you see two people engage in a kiss-fest in public where the tongues are engaged in fencing and entwined in the romantic bliss of bacteria exchange and let their saliva become one so to say. If and when liberal cases of PDA are witnessed in public you should not be surprised to have people ogling at you and your partner in crime. Who knows, you may even be lynched. No. that may not happen. But you may not survive being berated by a vexed public.

I don’t want to say that PDA is not in our culture because I am sure there are probably traditional forms of PDA. Perhaps when a wife brings food to her husband and kneels down before him and says in front of the visitors, ”My husband food is ready” she is engaging in a time honoured ritual of displaying affection for her man. Perhaps when the husband is given a chieftain's title and the wife is the one who shouts the loudest at the conferment ceremony that might be her own way of displaying affection in public. When a man beats his chest in front of the village and proudly celebrates the birth of his new son or daughter in a naming ceremony with his wife beaming by his side perhaps that is a public display of affection. When his wife dies and the man observes the ritual rites or if the man dies and his wife rolls on the ground as in some cultures and wails loudly perhaps that is a public display of affection. Maybe I am getting ahead of myself. When a young man spies a young lady for the first time when she is fetching water by the stream and he proceeds to escort her in a snail’s pace or even corner her by some thorns under the falling dusk is his form of PDAs. There he will be telling her that if she agreed to be his wife, he will buy her the longest and most colourful shawl she ever saw. Or even have her bank account bulging. After all, who does not love money?

I strongly think that in our African way of things, the men we usually see walking some distance ahead of their wives is as a result of the ingrained school of thought that a real man walked ahead of his wife so as to ensure that the way was safe enough for his queen. He was to look out for hyenas and even the lions that lurked within and without. A real African man never held his wife’s hand or even hugged her let alone a simple peck on the cheek. He had to portray the macho image that he is.

Come to think of it, I have never engaged in any act of PDAs that is if the occasional hug is anything to go by. Perhaps I am still as conservative as my grandfather. Who knows? This is because I never or rarely initiate a hug. Hapana!

Don’t even think of giving me a peck in public and so on. I would probably sweat blood!! This is because when it comes to such, I am still socially awkward somewhat. Come to think about it, the first time I held a girl’s hand in public it was as though electricity was coursing through my veins and I was an insulator that was bound to get burnt due the resistance I was posing to the current she was passing through me. My mouth was desert dry, a heartbeat as fast as a Formula 1 engine and sweaty palms that were enough to wet a table. The first time I kissed a girl in public… Ah! I have never done that! Thank God!

You can’t blame me either. I grew up in a house where my parents weren’t the PDA type to each other anyway and probably not in front of me. I got all the hugs and kisses I needed not to be a psychopath and to be a generally likeable guy. All I saw of them was the hugs they exchanged. Just that. No more. I was in this mindset that hugs were to be shared between husbands and wives. Naïve me.

Pet names like sweetie, pumpkin, honey and the overused sweetheart were as rare as witnessing a donkey being milked. I recently overheard them use the word ‘Dear’ though I have no idea if it qualifies as a pet name. After all, even letters to our bosses begin with Dear…

Anyway I am sure a lot of folks did not grow up with parents who always held hands, kissed all the time and called each other pet names but I bet a lot of folk’s parents have been together for a long time. That must be love. Right? Wrong? After all, divorce rate is on the rise among these folks with this syndrome of PDAs. Wrong? Right?