Primitive Travelling

It was on Friday last week when I thought of how I really needed the #OccupyParliamentKE thing to work, all courtesy of Twitter. I thought it should work for better because I just can't stand some things. I betcha, I can’t stand our MPs riding on our backs... but because I ain’t political, I won’t talk politics here.

Last week also, there was the Air Korea thing. Air travels and primitivism. I couldn’t get the linkage actually. But as multi-impressive as they are, dudes and dudettes on Twitter showed those guys just why we are called Kenyans and for good reasons why we make trends from clumsy issues around us:– First, that we own our land and nobody ain’t gonna take us for granted; second, we own our minds – assertive enough to speak out too much; third, we own our social media – it is our daily game anyway; then fourth, we own our words.

It was tastily bad, I may say... and couldn't stand the Koreans calling us primitive. Pardon. Let the Lord forgive me. But primitive is a strong word. Just imagine. Koreans, those guys over there, were saying that we Kenyans, with all our swag and intelligence, with all our love for God and political madness, are PRIMITIVE. Ouch! That was ridiculously out of range I guess...

So on that Friday, while filled with so much to think about both regionally and nationally, I took a matatu and was travelling to (please don't ask me where) some remote place on this side of the world. Picturesquely, an a-may-zin change of lifestyle, but realistically, a bad experience. You know how town life can choke you of the good pleasures of nature, huh? I was trying to definitely define change of environment, lest I grew fat and intoxicated... hehe.

City (or town) life can be suffocating with its series after series of routine life: home, work, home; home, work, church; bread, rice, chapoz, yoghurt, tea; life somehow becomes very very dumb as it goes round and predictably comes round. Reaaally. Somebody told me that a town-dweller is like a house without a chimney – always burning and producing heat, but never cooling off. That he/she is a catastrophe in the hiding – chaos can strike them into imbalance or they can strike chaos into shambles. With that in mind, I just needed some bit of cooling off. Yeah, just for some hours... Just a lil’ bit. But again you see, Kenyans are ridiculous if you have to share a matatu with them even if you are seeking for a time off out there...

While in that matatu I realized I just can't stand (OK, I try to) the weirdness of some clusters of people in a public vehicle. Here are some people I met and they made my travelling really primitive:

Passenger No. 1 - A mama next to me (on my left hand side to be precise) who was perennially shifting, restlessly kicking elbows into my tiny ribs and my almost empty stomach all the time. Thank you Lord for giving me the guts to tolerate her. She was anyway, between the age of my mom and my granny at home and deserved some home-bound respect. She was calling out for matchboxes via the window on my right, then pens, then she gave out this 100 shilling note wrapped in a handkerchief... and there was no change, and the vehicle was already taking off. So she screamed for her change. Right into my ears. Dude! I thought I was taking some rest from all the noise I’m used to? Gheee! OK she got it. But more weird was the way she kept looking through her bag. I never perceived nini alikuwa anatafuta yenye haipatikani haraka hivyo! Women na bags!!!

Passenger No. 2 - A lady on my right with two kids who were behaving like small buffaloes on edge. They wanted to see everything and do everything. They were jumping all over, yelling, smiling, sitting standing... I don’t know if it was the excitement ya kuenda ushaago or a reaction ya kukataa kwenda ushaago...?!!

Passenger No. 3 – Some lady (or was it a girl?) behind me singing choir-ish songs. Why on earth would you want to form an orchestra in a public vehicle without others’ permission? OMG! I ignored her somehow. I never looked back there to scan who she really was... Dude! This was getting a bit tougher than I expected!

The Conductor – The dude di'e'nt want to give us our change. He kept postponing saying “Nitakupatia!” He thought I’d forget my money. Know I don’t. I am Kenyan and I. DON'T. FORGET. ABOUT. MONEY. Period.

After the noisy and crazy ride I was onto a motorbike. The crazy Kenyan opportunist looked at me as if I'm from facilitating the London Olympics and charged me my head and my toes plus my empty stomach. I felt bad. OMG! O Grace, what would I do without Grace? These guys were treating me this badly, yet Koreans are busy calling me primitive. Eiiiiiiiiish! Oh Grace...

Return journey:

At least I had a full stomach. But there was a kid called Ocampo who terrorised me all the way. I fear the kids or children of today/of nowadays (a direct translation of 'naogopa watoto wa siku hizi) - they are damn wise and really freaky. I was not allowed the intellectual privileges they are endowed with today... You can only imagine what this chatterbox called Ocampo was doing to my ears. Oscillations and bandwidths. The kid was more noisy than two of me joined together...

Then there was a ride in another cab with 50% of the religious women there are discussing relationships. They were complaining that men instead of calling them their wives, are calling them 'housekeepers!' Ati ni kuwakosea heshima kusema, “Huyu ndiye ninayeishi na yeye.”  I told you women have got beef. Moreso, elderly women. *Giggling* Except my mom... hehe. They were saying that they needed to teach us young fellas on manners, etiquette and public address of spouses or significant others... you know where that one ended...

Did I really get what I needed? Yeah, somehow. But who cares, huh?

End of journey. Back to busy-ness and stuff...

Morris.

Of Love and Falling in Love

Maybe you should not read this post, or perhaps, you really should because I’m writing it both for myself and for anyone in a relationship or for those aspiring to get into one… It is going to be a really long one, I promise…

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Emotions are like a fuel that is extraordinarily unquenchable. I am one of those guys who believe that emotions are real and they DO exist. I believe that emotions are part of life. That they are as common as hearts in mankind. I believe that an emotion, though as weak as a leaf in the strong winds, should be guarded just as firmly as one will guard a treasure. I believe that an emotion is a stupid (but very wise) thing that always seeks to control mankind; and it may if allowed to… I believe that you need some of it (or them) for a life to be complete. I also believe that you can’t fully pretend to be lacking an emotion – even one or two. You may lack one, but you will absolutely have the other…

Yeah, emotions are two-faced.

Emotions make life either colorful or colorless, bearable or unbearable. They are the main facilitators of the artwork that is mortal and/or physical life, I think. They are cunning and beautiful, scanty and dutiful, real and unreal at most, they are rich and poor – all depending on the handiwork of the artist (who is the person subjected to them).

Then in our daily walks, we stumble upon this one emotion called love. An emotion which has all sorts of extreme artwork on people’s lives (and hearts). I always wonder who invented it. Love. Yeah, I always look at it and wonder. Sincerely asking, who invented this thing that all mankind runs after? Who thought it out and placed it in peoples’ hearts? I think God did. God did. I know He did. God knew that maybe this should be the fuel that joins mankind together by a fire that is unquenchable. He knew that only such a thing (Greeks love to define it in many forms, but I am dealing with the kawaida one here – the eros and/or storge one maybe with a lil bit of agape). Aristotle (that great Greek philosopher) defines love as ‘one soul in two bodies’… Something incomprehensible. Something immortally indescribable. Something beyond imagination. Something too big, yet too tiny… A feeling of madness without control… stupidity even… Love.

Everybody is in need of it. Those in denial die privately longing for it. I bet you also want it. Need it. Imagine it. Just imagine. You even crave it maybe… I can’t deny the reality of it. I believe in its existence. Love is a paradox of a kind. It is a masterpiece and the king of all emotions - it paints and forges; it moulds and distorts, it builds and destroys all kinds of people. No-one is too strong for love. (OK. I don’t know if that is true.)

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And then there is falling in love: an emotion I define as ‘a commotion of emotions to give lots of space to one emotion (love) towards one person, and with increased madness…’ Those who know these things say that falling in love is that season in life when only one person seems to make lots of sense to the other and only one emotion speaks for the heart: love. In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that love is not food that ‘yo momma gives to ya.’ It ain’t. So don’t expect to receive it like food or a good…

From Hallmark, you find out that, “Love Comes Softly”. 

Surely, love comes softly… And love should not be an obsession either. Love should just come softly. Love should just be let to be. It should not be forced or imposed, or incited or pulled around (as displayed in the many soap operas people love to watch) but should be allowed to come, grow and mature softly. It is one thing that should be given time to mature. People may "fall in love" on first sight but they also should know that when challenges come, their love, if it was meaningful and true, should grow to overcome them…

It is said that we men (the male species) love pretending that we don’t ‘fall in love’. I even had gotten used to believing so in some way. But better said, the truth is that we fear being weak. Men are ‘ego beings’. Ego beings would rather die than confess that they are not in control. (Because love makes you weak and vulnerable somehow.) And men hate that. But women, as I have been told, and as it has always been known (except a few who are emerging in this generation as I have come to know), are very vulnerable to the antics of love. They dream of it. They crave it all the time. They seek for it. They hunt for affection almost everywhere. Ladies (and women in general) are ‘affection’ beings. A woman would rather live with a beast that adores her and kisses her pains off than with a king who says nothing to her. A woman loves hearing things said. Beautiful good-for-nothings. She loves things whispered into her ears in a certain way. Every woman does. They may pretend not to, but that’s how God wired them – Genesis 3:16 (NIV), “…your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you…” So somehow we should never blame a lady for loving soap operas and being a victim of men’s love schemes, because they were wired that way – to seek and long for the one who will fill the gap of love – that longing for a hug, for a kiss, for affection, for stupid words, for security… bla, bla, bla… although as a matter of fact, not all ladies are the same…

The question of whether love exists for all to enjoy, or even that a person can only fall in love with one person at a time (I don’t know if I should say in a lifetime?!) is a tough one to answer. And concerning that, I don’t yet have an answer. But both Biblically and naturally, love does exist; and with that, I can say that you can fall in love so many times. Love has caused many wars and yielded lots of peace too – right from the beginning…

So one may also ask, “What particularly makes one feel that ‘they are in love’?” I don’t really know. But I will give you a glimpse of some truths concerning such a mega question. And it is the reason to why I am writing this post… 

NB: Read more from Boundless Website here – such a great website with great articles by the way…)

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A person’s feeling of love is all in their Love Language. It is revealed when their Love Language is well communicated to them – when it is amplified to their desire and liking… 

OK, I will elaborate that for you… 

A Love Language is a way in which one communicates the emotion of love and/or how one would love it spoken back to them. It is more than words. You see, every person has their Love Language. Not all people speak (or communicate or express) the same Love Language. So I want you to put this out of your mind – that all men can be fooled by body shapes, or nakedness, or lots of good food (as our moms taught ladies earlier); or that all ladies can be fooled by money, or gifts, or stupid words or bumpy six packs... 

The world is changing, and ways of loving are changing too. Everyone is unique in their own way. Diversity reigns more in this generation than ever before. One person loves a combination of different things in another person and vice versa. Whoever will communicate that language well by having rightful proportions of what is being sought for wins the game… That’s why the poor fall in love with the rich, the disabled with the able, the upright with mad people (the drum beats of soaps) as stories upon stories of love games unfold… Spiritual people (like myself) may raise the standards of the game just a bit taller by including more things to do with the other person’s spirituality, commitment to this and that… etc etc.

The main point however is that nobody should seek for a perfect person. 

Pastor Muriithi Wanjau of Mavuno Church, Nairobi says that we should seek to be ‘The One’ rather than looking for ‘The One’. Watch this sermon playlist here: Finders Keepers Series Videos. Perfect-love-matches DO NOT EXIST. They are only in Heaven. Only when in Heaven will you meet REALLLLY perfect people. What we call perfection down here is just a fad. It is a lie.

So, back to the Love Language… a guy (or man/husband in any case) should know and note what tickles his lady (or woman/wife in any case). He should know it. He should understand that she is different from other ladies or women and identify every detail of what really freaks her out and what really makes her tick. By understanding her likes and dislikes (because he is interested in her anyway), then will he be able to reach her fully by communicating in a way that will show her that he adores her… That he loves her. Whenever he will do that which pleases her most and makes her feel loved, he will be scoring very high on her Love Card (some kind of mental score card where one party notes various acts of love or affection). So, if a mad guy or a player or a freak knows a lady’s (or a guy’s) Love Language, it will not be so hard for them to win them over. 

And the same goes for the lady to her man – she will score exorbitantly on his Love Card whenever she does those things (after understanding him) that really make him feel appreciated. This also explains why any lady can turn a man’s heart upside down – just by knowing his Love Language and expressing it. The exchange of these two acts of Communicating the Love Language to one another is what makes people start saying, “I think I’m falling in love…” Yeah, it is that simple. Falling in love is a simple as breathing I guess. It ain't rocket science. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, at anytime and with anyone… It is not that mysterious… Love comes softly, dude/dudette! 

Now you get it, right?

To help you just a little bit, here are some general love language actions from both men and women (and I will only address those shared by the unmarried). Wait until I’m married to post the rest… (hehehe!);

About the guys

1. They love food (hehe… this should be true, I think)
2. They love their ego to be boosted with a few, “You are the guy”, or “You can do it” or “I am confident in you”, or “You make me feel secure”, or “You did that well”, or “Thank you” kind-of words – always spoken in tone that shows they are from your heart. And he should not be reminding you to say them – Eiiiiiiish!
3. They love to be in control. Say it, show them that they are in control – never try to directly rule over a man – give him his space. Men love space.
4. Support him – identify what he loves doing and support him if you can. Ask him about how’s doing at work, about ministry, about mum and dad and his family (hajakuoa bado lakini it is good enough) – show some concern and care laaady! And with some action too… Empty words are just empty words – that’s what they really are… empty words…
5. Don’t be a nag. All guys in the world hate nagging. We hate being pestered for the same thing over and over again as if we didn’t hear it in the beginning – ndo huwa tunahepa na ku-disappear. If he said he will do something, give him time, ask him later and leave it to him. A secret – all men have a ‘to do list’ of priority things to be done – yours is just somewhere on that list, and it may not be for today gal…
6. Guys are not angels or prophets to read ladies’ minds. In fact, ladies are so bad at that. We all are really bad at guessing. B e straight forward, We all hate to many details somehow so speak before we lose concentration…
7. Respect him.
8. Listen to him. Understand him… just know your guy… Eiiiiiish!

About the ladies

1. They eat words (although some really love food)… So guys, give them enough words to feed on. Spill over words of love and adoration. I mean, you saved guys really need to improve your vocabulary to meet the lady world before they all disappear into the world of the unsaved…
2. All ladies love humor. One joke in a while won’t harm. Enda utafute hata za Churchill Live!  Lakini si bora ziwe jokes, huh? Hehe… Achana na sura ya kazi all the time mtu nguaz!
3. Most of them love gifts. I have not met many who don’t. So stop being stingy and become a lil bit philanthropic for the sake of it… any gift will do I guess. Learn if she loves it expensive or just any… Take her out if it is her thing…
4. Tell them you love them. Gheee! This one is a bit tough *Hiding* Please don’t kill me guys… but they love hearing it from your lips..
5. Appreciate her, congratulate her, be kind to her… this list of things is endless oh dude! Just learn that she loves being treated with respect and tenderness… like a dove
6. Allow her to be right sometimes. Most ladies just love being right… hehe! Someone told me that sometimes it is over nothing really – it is just a spell they have…
7. Include her in your decision making. Don’t be this dictator who commands everything and hides everything… Gheee!
8. Text her, call her in the course of the day. Tell her good night. Those acts that make you feel wimpy are the very ones that will score you so much on her Love Card…

Please after reading this, and after all is said and done, don’t call me an expert in relationship matters or some kind-of perfect guy. Ooooooops! Nope. I wish you knew how messed up I am! But remember that as I am inspired to write, I am also learning… So, I say, go fall in love (or go better your relationship) because someone out there understands just how you love things to be expressed or communicated to you! 

Sincerely,

Morris.

Fathers’ Day Special

To my old chap, my dad, to all dads... and to God as the best father I’ve ever had...

Two songs I do dedicate to you:

1. Joel Engle’s ‘The Father I Never Had’ – to all of us who have never seen or had an experience with our mortal dads and;
2. Phillips, Craig and Dean’s ‘I Want to be Just Like You’ – to all of us who seek to emulate God as our eternal Father...

Dude! There are times I wonder what kind of father I will be. I always wonder like that because I realize that I’m growing old really fast. Just the other day I was 18. OK, let me start like this: just the other day, I was a baby. A baby. I should not imagine me being a baby. Dude! I should not. My dad used to call me with another name I may never tell you so soon. But I remember it anyway. I also remember how he used to call it out. I grew up riding horses (take that for being made old before your time). Sadly (or gladly also) I remember how he used to spank me to instil discipline in this messed up boy. And speaking of being messed up, boy I was. I was a real mess. From age 7 I already had known how to jump out of windows to escape punishment at school. I was a serial thief, a liar, a stone-thrower – all at the age of 7 – 10.

How would you feel if your only son is as messy as I was at an early age? It would only tell you that he will be the worst son a father can ever have. It is to indicate that you are a failing father. So to make his mark on my life, the old chap really used to work on my body. And I deserved it, I guess. I deserved it because being a lad and you don’t sleep at home for 2 days, you make technical appearances only to steal and potea again, you have several cases people have reported of you here and there was just bad. Weird. I was this lad who would steal and go out to gamble (that should have been when I was 12), watch a few movies, buy stuff... and just disappear from home. Breathe. Breathe again. Good.
Let me paint for you the picture of how it really is (and really was) having my dad around... Here we go...
Dude! My early life was spent running away from my dad. I didn’t like meeting him one-on-one. Nope. I think I really never liked him that much then as compared to my soft-spoken mum. The guy was a tyrant. A real one for sure. If he spotted me in the night after my escapades, I would face the music sung by his special mshipi that was entirely customized for my dorsal to anterior parts. I would cry. But in vain. Not even my mom would sooth the wrath of that old guy... And the drama went on and on, and on...

So my growing up distancing myself from him somehow worried him. I could see it in his eyes when I was in high school (and then I had grown into an innocent wreck... into a guy who talked less and operated under the MYOB code.) It scared him somehow. I think he feared that he was losing me. He feared that he may never reach me anymore. I was too demanding and a lil bit overlaid. Being the only son somehow spoils you... But he never allowed me to get spoilt. Thank you dad, because if you had, I would really be spoilt today. Thank you because in my adolescent days you allowed me to ‘mind my own business’ but under control. You allowed me to do my thing but not beyond boundaries. You talked to me somehow. And I answered back because of the ka-feeling of growing up. You knew that that is how boys behave when they want to informally tell you that their voices have changed from soprano-ish to tenor-bass-ish. You knew that I no longer wished to be told everything to be done. You allowed me to make decisions on my own, knowing that they will shape where I went. I am thankful that to today you allow me that freedom...

To make you understand a few things, my dad hana bro. Na mimi pia sina bro. I am like his bro kind-of. We are brothers kind-of. This dude is the tightest dude I’ve ever met. I am always wondering if I will ever be like my dad. He has shown me courage in many ways. He has shown me that you don’t beat up a lady (or a woman in any case) to make her see sense in what you are saying. He has taught me that you don’t prove points by yelling at people. The more the old chap has grown old, the calmer he has become. Of course there were days he used to make lots of noise. And I think it was rightfully so. He then had 5 naughty daughters and one filthy son – if it were you, what would you do, huh? I guess you would prove points by showing them you (and not them) are the man of the house. You would show them in words and in action. Man!

And about him and my mother, and for as long as I’ve known him, he has never laid a hand on her in the name of beating her. He has never insulted her. He has allowed her to sit him down and straighten a few things (because that always happens with marriage I suppose) but he has not allowed himself f to be controlled by his anger. When angry at her, as I would see, he would match out and chill off; only to return later and ask for food and after that – it’s bed time baby! BTW, I was telling one of my friends that until the day I was living with them a few years ago, he still called her ‘darling’ to our hearing – not in privacy but to the openness of our ears! Dude! Breathe again...

My dad has taught me that women should be loved (I know he loves my mom) and that the only way to be right sometimes is by allowing yourself to become wrong. He has allowed himself to be vulnerable (I think I took part of that to myself) by talking about his early days when he was my age – of how he acquired a Muslim name and it stuck, and of how and when he got married to my mom – how poor but favoured he was to marry a woman from... I won’t say that... hehe!). We talk a lot. He is not the kind of, ‘you are still a kid and have so much to learn’, but one of, ‘Yeah you are a kid, but you must learn how to grow up until you are my age’. He is over sixty you know... 

I love my dad. Yeah I do. People say we look alike... OK, that’s a story for another day... He is a courageous man. Even to today, when all of us are out here making life happen, he still is not the lazy fellow who waits to be fed – he takes care of his family still...

Concluding my chit chat, there is a movie I admire (one addressed by DJ Johni Celeb in his post ‘Man – An Endangered Species’) – Courageous. It is a movie I would like every man to watch. It is a good movie. I wonder if we, the men of today, shall rise up and become courageous for our God, our girlfriends, our fiancées, for our wives, for our children. I wonder if we will love them as Christ loves the Church. I wonder if men of this generation will be courageous at all. I wonder if this Fathers’ Day will remind us more of the great Father we have – our God. Such a Father who gave His only Son for us thus showing us the deepest love ever known. I only wonder. But I also hope that men will take their positions and rule, and guide, and show the way that this generation should go... I hope that God will be the very picture of a father we wanna be... Only Him is the best picture...

Morris.

Darkness – MYOB!

Darkness – MYOB!

So it is 10:30 in the night and I’m here with pen and paper writing this post wondering if the lights will be on for me to continue with my life of enjoying free things...

Today. No, it was yesterday’s night. I had this blank piece of paper before me. I had a pen in hand. Some wondering thoughts of where I should really begin at. I had a small fear. A fear of using pen and paper to write stuff after such a long, long time. I'm using pen and paper because I hate waking up to a dead phone battery. Or a dead machine...

You see, as much as we may love writing (I'm always excited about writing and I don't know why), it is quite complicated. Your thoughts may grasp a thought-line. A small one even. And you may tingle with excitement at what you’re gonna write... Most of the time you have it all figured out... like some plain that runs into a mountain, then into a sea, into the deeps of nowhere... something like that; but sometimes you are just holding onto nothing really – just a petty theme or a punch-line sort-of a thing... So for your information, I’m mostly scared to use pen and paper while writing. I used to love it, but I have no opportunity of doing thus today... not yesterday. That chance just evades me... until yesterday.

Anyways, this paper before me was (or is it ‘is’?) used paper. You know that paper you once used to print a document with and the document went wrong? Those that you preserve for ‘another day’ even if the other side of them looks weird just because you are so much into being Wangari Maathai’s faithful little brother? Yeah, those ones. I always have them stacked somewhere for some rough work, which really never comes that easily because I always happen to note down small, small things on my phone...

But let me stop there with the ‘hogwash’ talk... It is boring you, right?

I am supposed to talk about darkness, right?

Jana had been a cool day. Thursdays are always cool to me. And had wasted the whole day away doing nothing really... OK, I did help somewhere... but that was just ‘nothing’... And knowing that I am nocturnal, I knew that I was gonna recover all those wasted hours by working right into the night... Or so I thought.

My days always go something like: 1. Get from shughulis, 2. Dungilia  ‘passport’ – lol if you know what that means, 3. Then TV, from around 7.00 p.m., music, TV, movies, music, TV, movies... you know what that means..., 4. Work (what kind of work do people carry over to the house, huh?), 5. Supper, then 6. Back to TV, movies, music, TV, movies...

So I was kind-a prepared to cook the crumble and kick it rolling down the lane of commonness as routine depicts. I was high spirited you know. Thursdays always place me in such moods. No clothing to wash. No ironing of clothes. No nothing. The nights are always like that blank sheet of paper. Cool. Really cool. And waiting for my command. Which I always DO give with pleasure. But at 7.30 p.m., dude, power just went off! Electricity stopped its tour to  my house at I don’t know where. It just kwamaad. Somewhere. Gheee!
That is where it all begins. My Thursday night was predictably going to be a whacky one. The all pie-and-bliss day was gonna be turned into a dark arena without theatrics to gaze at. Dude, that was baaad! Imagine  I had to tolerate the wailing of dogs outside, the smell of air, dark air, the screaming of mosquitoes (ziko kwangu nyingi)... You can imagine how you can feel when you had wasted the whole day in order to use the night and all of a sudden, stima kwisha! Darkness has its owners (and don’t spiritualize this because that's just how I want it to be - I'm just talking about darkness ya kaawaa. Eiiiiiiiiish!). So I was sitting there thinking that those were the normal jokes electricity plays on us on this side of the world. (No pun on that. I appreciate that I’m African. I should be African. I love being African...). 2, 3 hours and there still was no power and it was then that I held pen and paper and I was writing this...

When darkness happens, things do happen. Darkness is always silent (at least where I stay) . So my immediate neighbour (a pedlar – I have another meaning for this noun, and it is the one I’m using now) came in, opened the door, and hesitated a lil’ bit then entered and his house just went blank. OK, I guess the ‘no power lifestyle’ also bores him...

So I went to Twirra a lil bit just to cool off the steam brought by the all-of-a-sudden darkeness. You know why I love twitter? Twirra is intuitive. Intuitive stuff always amazes me. Many stupid things DO amuse me. Like when I eat PK and my mouth smell does not change. I wonder why?  But Twirra is just so a-may-zin... You see, on Twirra there are no photo albums of people going places (we'd rather use Pinterest or s'm'e like Instragram - hata kama ilinunuliwa na Facebook)... Twirra impresses me a lot more than Facebook because on Facebook you meet packets of people (mostly) and not real people. And I have not said that I hate Facebook!. Please bear with me... The diffrence is, on Twirra there no common stories of 'oooh I'm feeling like this or somebody did that', no 'likes', no comments... Here, you mind your own business and keep it at that. And I love that. I love places where people mind their own business. I have it in short form (those things they call acronyms?) – MYOB! Minding your own business is cool. I then discovered that my phone may go off anytime, so I went outside. I heard my other neighbour sweeping. Sweeping, yeah. Sweeping in darkness. How and what do people sweep in darkness? I wonder. Why should they sweep at night anyway? There is tomorrow – a whole 12 hours of a glaring day to sweep, so why sweep in the dark? Morris, MYOB! OK.

I have ordained myself to be holding the record of sleeping the latest in the whole hood. Nobody beats me at that. 1.00 a.m. ain’t cheap. Try it out. It ain’t cheap! I had a dude neighbour of mine who used to sleep at 8.00. Damn! 8.00 p.m.! How can someone sleep at 8.00 p.m.? What is wrong with them? And to make it worse, whenever I went out (just like yesterday) to stretch my legs, the dude was snoring soooo looooudly... I guess yeye ndiye aliniibia usingizi wangu ndo huwa silali mapema... At those times singekuwa hata nimekula and the guy is already exploring slumberland! Again, Morris, MYOB!

And I had thought that stima itanishitua tu na ku-come! Haiku-come! 

So lazily I came back in... to write again... on paper. And it was still dark, motorbikes are all over outside... noises I couldn’t comprehend (I was told you don’t have to know what happens outside in the dark so long as you are safe because most of it crys out, “MYOB!”)... pen in hand, but a-may-zingly, words zikalost... By the way, it is acceptable that we should freely speak, right? Words zililost! Kwa darkness. Mimi ndo huyo na blanketi... mara that that...mpaka leo...

Morris.

I’m Ashamed

I’m ashamed of all the stupidity and carnality that rises up by the day

Of all the filthiness and ruggedness that milks itself from within us

I’m ashamed of all those stupid sayings that people love to hail in the name of wisdom

While their ways are perilous and ashamedly ridiculous

I’m ashamed of false kisses given in the name of love

Of all the pungent smell of lust coined with forgery and masquerading mankindness

I’m ashamed of all the utterances of surety; of false assurance

While everyone knows that doubt is the unchanging daily anthem of such hearts…

I’m ashamed of you and me who never ever unite for a good cause

Of all the words we say to each other in the name of solidarity

I’m ashamed of our pretence, of our rottenness covered with gowns of self-righteousness

While the sun shines to each of us and we still enjoy the freedom of an unpretending God...

I’m ashamed of our philosophical trends

Of our tendency to exalt intellectualism above reason and meaningful piety

I’m ashamed of us because we have stopped to value that we should so much value

Because we all think that somehow we will change how the world goes round and comes round

I’m ashamed of bruises earned in the name of sacrifice

Of sacrifices given to appease mankind and to gain one-day favors

I’m ashamed of praises and the glory of men, that which tastes as bad and smells as weird…

Why do we so much think that we gain anything from all that at all? – I’m ashamed of that also!

I’m ashamed of meekness and fondness, and mildness, and kindness

But I’m also ashamed of greatness, of might and too much strength

I’m ashamed of them both because of their paradoxical interchangeableness

Because you may never know just which one really is present…

I’m ashamed of orthodoxy and servants of the status quo mentality,

Of radicalism and edginess, of change and newness, of aptness and kemptness

I’m ashamed of trades of conventionalism and bails from originality

Because, who told us that change should be our opium no matter what?

I’m ashamed of the politics of gorging out people’s eyes

Of running over the weak and blotting out their names in order to trace importance

I’m ashamed of those running games and games of words

Anyways, who said we have to win and keep winning these games?

I’m ashamed of laws, of petty laws that cry for my submission

I’m ashamed of petty businesses and of coiled interceptions

Of murmurs and murders, of irrational mothers and fathers

I’m ashamed of absent-minded sisters and brothers that hover all over the place

And of chauvinism and fundamentalism, of feudalism and aristocracy…

I’m ashamed of swag, of irrational swag and its worshippers

I’m ashamed of style and of clashes of generational transitions

I’m ashamed of meaningless victories, of triumphs, of anticipations

I’m ashamed of readiness, of anxiety, of expectancy,

I’m ashamed of life and death, of sighs and breaths, of swords and sheaths,

I’m ashamed of so many things I don’t even understand…

Morris.