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My Lessons at 30. I turned 30 on January 27, 2022. Isn’t it incredible how time flies? Just the other day, I was twenty-one and a new, clueless mum. Then I was twenty-four, seated in a dimly-lit, poorly finished office, busy flipping Excelling in English Form Two Learners’ Book. Then I was twenty-seven, reading and…
My name is Chelangat Naomi. I prefer that order to Naomi Chelangat without any intellectual explanation whatsoever. Can we agree that when you say, Naomi Chelangat, it’s not me you are talking about? Thanks for understanding. I think it is important for me to mention at this point that that (Chelangat Naomi) is how my…
On Monday of last week, I travelled from Nairobi to Mombasa via a Toyota Noah with five other people; four women and a man. We expected to be in Mombasa by 9:00pm latest, in order to beat the 10:00pm curfew. That was not to be, however, for we got in trouble with the traffic enforcers,…
Along the busy, noisy streets.Of the big bad city!I met a thief –And wait: Before this encounter,I knew thieves,Carried grenades, pistols, machettes.But…Thieves, my child,They carry no weapons. Not tangible weapons –They wear a charming smile.Have boring eyesAre soft spoken And when they write, They write of things unfathomable.They write of death, of tragedy.So seldom do…
I’ve made up my mind,To keep mum no longer,About this rather handsome diamond ring,That hurts my finger. This ring, dear husband,Fit perfect on my finger,When you would come home early,With chocolate boxes and bottles of wine,With fresh roses on Valentine’s Day,Those days, dear husband,When you paid attention,When we melted in each other’s embrace for hours,When…
Today, the 14thday of May, Muslims the world over mark with immense celebration the end of the Holy Month of Ramadan. It’s the first time I get to experience the nearly palpable emotion around this day because, in the main, of all the towns I’ve been to, Mombasa stands out as far as Muslim population…
Linda rose lazily from the bed to adjust the louvers and increased the fan speed to its maximum. It swirled angrily, ruffling a sheaf of papers on a table that sat at the center of the single-roomed house. She reached for them, put them together, and placed a padlock on top to keep them in…
Good day elders! I am reliably informed that thanks to the changes in the school calendar, our boys are going for initiation around this time. For a deep lover of culture, and especially those aspects of culture that are performed, I must admit that circumcision ceremonies are one of my most favorite cultural functions. From…
On the morning of her 25th birthday, Rita was in exceptionally high spirits. Apart from it being her birthday, and her 25th birthday for that matter, she had just been finished with her period without having experienced a single seizure throughout the five days. She hated that time of the month. Since she started…
Cherop nudged the male passenger in front of her and signalled him to open the car window. It was a torrid afternoon. The air outside was dry and still. She had sat in the car for twenty minutes and sweat beads had begun forming on her face. She kept adjusting and readjusting her face mask,…