The Spotted Black Panther

Not to be rude but seriously?

You really are the first to spot this Black Panther since the world began?

Wait, is Lupita and her team aware?

Do you mean just you? How about the rest of us?

So you mean the Warden in this beautiful conservancy is actually blind?

Wait, How about Kenya Wildlife Service?

Forgive my nagging spirit really but I find it absurd that you claim to be the only individual with the perfect eyesight who ever lived for the last 100years.

I guess the rest of us need to be in an ophthalmological ward.

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Oooh, your camera had a better view than ours?

I don’t have much to say about your camera but I sure have something about our cameras,

Ours don’t just capture images, they capture moments,

Because capturing genuine moments is much better than accidental capturing.

Alright, you win_ I believe you.

So now, my friend Wanyonyi has this plump brown eyed chicken with rugged feathers,

He tells me spotting is a skill that he totally lacks.

How about you come over and spot this particular chicken for us.

Hey, we also have this white giraffe in Garissa that needs spotting; yeah and it’s not albinism,

Frankly speaking, we have quite a number of stuff that need spotting.

Get back to me on Wanyonyi’s request as soon as you can.

Yours sincerely,

Kenyan.

We are all dying

We are all dying 

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‘We are all in the process of dying’. I know it’s a cliché statement but it’s actually serious!

Yes, some of us have gone way ahead of us, but eventually with a little extension to the timelines all of us will run out of time!

The truth is, most people live with blinders on and they are so caught up on the little things that distract them from what really matters and when all that stuff is washed away, their lives open-up clean and they see what really counts: the people that we love!

Life can be a chaotic firecracker atimes,

And those creepy flashes of simply wanting to hang up the boots occur to all of us; only that some of us intend to leave notes explaining why we had to if that makes it better.

I hope and pray that you eventually realize just how little of time you actually have!

It’s like standing on the edge of an abyss; you could look down and let it suck you in or look up and rise above it.

The decision to be positive is not one that disregards or belittles the triggers of sadness that exist in this world, but rather a conscious choice to focus on the good and make the most out of every moment.

And while I am gone, I want people to often remember me and giggle.

Yours happily left handed,

Mwende

While I am waiting

While I am waiting

Today as I sit here waiting for an answer to a prayer I have constantly made for the last three years, I shiver as my wild mind craft forms of the many options I have to choose from.

Because the way I see it, I have waited for way too long and it’s time to start moving,

All this while the wind around my ankles has been moving freely across dried leaves and for once I wish I had its cognisance. One that is spontaneous, powerful and unbound.

I am anxious.

The weaver birds around here are incredible and similarly resentful.

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They sing with synchronized pitches and tones for a whole hour while sharing a fraction of warmth with each other. They seem happy and I seem agitated. I guess that’s what waiting does. It gives one time to examine the ordinary and ask questions of things they simply take for granted.

I am waiting.

You see for me, whether I’m waiting for a friend to show up or for hope to return in moments of despair; the feeling is equally unsettling.

As writers will tell you, ‘expectation postponed is making the heart sick’; worse still if such expectations are unguaranteed.

In either of these the anxiety is gruelling.

It’s like a grain of sand in between the front-teeth; no pain but sufficient discomfort to keep things irritable. And the more one keeps digging it out, the more unsettling it becomes. In fact, it’s just but a matter of time before pain thrives.

Such is waiting.

Plus God took it a notch higher; I know He requires me to wait patiently in confidence and I am tempted to wonder why.

Why He seems to be silent when I desperately need Him to speak, but then I am prompted of His steadfast love and mercy,

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For He knows the number of hair on my head,

He declares the end from the beginning,

He knows that I don’t need it now; that’s why I don’t have it yet and so I wait.

Yes I will wait.

I will wait for Him even when I doubt Him,

I will wait because I know He will soon be here; but even if He doesn’t show up I will still wait.

Because even when in humanly wisdom He is way too late, He is still on time.

Mwende

Our Women

Our Women

It’s Women’s international day.

The 8^th day of March 2018; a day that exists to celebrate women worldwide, the achievements as well as highlighting gender issues that face women and by extension the entire population.  

It’s one of those days that trailers make rounds in media platforms with each year carrying with it a new hashtag.

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Today, there's a vibrant call to act towards achieving gender parity. It’s a call to motivate communities, governments and the entire world to think, act and be gender inclusive.

Then the story can be different for Cherono in Pokot County, Kenya who wrestles with realities of the forbidden cut. With blood stained hands of the perpetrator still eager to yet again sharpen their cruel knives. It’s a day she remembers with such uncertainty and resentment for a scar that has now become part of her as caused by her fellow humans. A deed that has costed her two of her new-borns.

Photo courtesy of WV

This also embraces raising awareness and acting for the sake of young women in the outskirts of Lake Victoria. A young mother has to be carried on a wheelbarrow to a nearby clinic when her labour pains recon. Residents here have been having problems accessing healthcare services for too long with Akinyi bearing the burden of such conditions. She pushes with all her might optimistic that the fragile life she now holds will survive the harsh life realities into becoming the president someday. She wonders why life has to be this difficult. But just like everyone else, she’s got to toughen up in order to survive.

CWW, Kenya  Celebrates IWD 2018

celebrating IWD 2018 with colleagues

Pressing for progress to Margie needs to be now than later. A 20 years old mother in the rural southern Kenya who bears on her skull a yawning hovel caused by a jerrican that rests on her head every single day for the last 12 years. She carries the same jerrican today while balancing a baby on her hip. She’s had to trek for more than ten kilometres to make it this far. She says she hasn’t known any other way for her and her household. Ultimately she hopes that her physical strain will be lifted off her shoulders some day when water access comes near to her then her health can improve.

Truth is something has been done.

But much more needs to be done now!

#Pressing for Progress.

Mwende

Campus days

Campus Days
I remember my campus days with uttermost humor for obvious reasons.
First because it was the only time in my entire life that I didn’t need to report back to anyone.
Secondly because once a semester was over, that was it including whatever else that revolved around it. I simply didn’t have to worry about being slammed with exam questions from previous encounters.
Plus I also learnt cool slogans like destiny is personal. I would once in a while shove a few of those to tease-off villagers during short-breaks.

One of those retreats at freedom base

To my fellow countrymen back in the village, being in campus meant prestige irrespective of whether one was hawking goodies or studying. By just being ‘in campus’ I had made it to their list of the elite.
I was indeed privileged.

Those T-shirts are fleek

And so I joined my fellow scholars to train in whatever it was that would finally pronounce me a refined journalist because dad and mum believed I could do it. I later changed to my career choice (story for another day).

I remember village women and the headman warning me of boys and naughty cliques and for these two I was a good student. I evaded them like a plague. But also because every time a boy winked at me, I thought of my mother and any plans thereof would be thwarted immediately.

I coincidentally joined one of the fellowship groups and I stuck there.
Our only goal being to serve and we sure did just like our name _ service team,
For the four years’ period I served the Lord, made lifetime friends and enjoyed blissful elements of the sunburned desert with frequent views of wildlife.
I particularly enjoyed cleaning the benches during Sunday services, articulately placing hymn books and of course serving water to the preacher of the day.
One had to have polished skills over time to serve the preacher. We would confidently hold the bottle’s waistline and prudently peel off the nylon-seal in the quietness of the congregation. We would then place back the bottle on a stool strategically positioned and that became our ritual.

At Eldoret. Courtesy of Brian Mwangi

Looking back, most of the impactful friendships I enjoy today thrived in campus.
But I’m particularly amazed by how much our lives were diversified. Each had unique aptitudes and that made us stouter because there is strength in diversity.

There were those who interceded and for them fasting wasn’t such a big deal. If I made it through the day without my defiant legs leading me to the dining hall, I surely had something to celebrate.
There were those who eloquently spoke and emceed profoundly. I remember toping the shrab-meter list and occasionally Mo’ followed closely.
There were those who set up the instruments and regulated the mics during worship sessions and services; and they did an incredible job.

After sunday service

Secret Santas were the finest.
Just knowing that someone was praying for me secretly rejuvenated my commitment,
When the time came to finally reveal our Santas, my soul thrived.
I loved the gifting sessions, the cakes, the t-shirts and sharing a meal after the service.

But above all these, we laughed, loved, served and bonded.
And that’s the whole kernel of life.

Mwende

CALMED

CALMED

I think I will be a splendid grannie.

Often times I envisage sitting on that simple couch close enough to the fire-place savouring into the warmth. I imagine that I will probably be laughing at my younger self and the miniature decisions that gave me sleepless nights.

I often sit here and chat with my future old-self on what the future seems like because frankly speaking, none of us can describe with certainty the days to come.

I envision my sun-tanned skin struggling to glow with my wobbly hands fighting to garner enough strength to play around with my grandchildren. I imagine my similarly old hubby (call him husband) with patterned wrinkles on his brow expressive of the incredible journey we will have endured.

I think eye-lines are beautiful. Mine would probably tell of the laughter, affection and certainly of the scars of wounds that once existed.  I think my litheness and articulate speech will portray a pot of Godly wisdom accumulated over the years oozing effortlessly to the young ones (somebody say AmenJ).

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I’m actually convinced that sometimes (and those times are many), generations will literally wish to pull away the mask of age around my feeble frame just to get a glimpse of the girl that I once was over the years.

Then I will tell them, ‘you don’t have to because if you can pay attention, then you’ll see her because she still lives’.

But then this creepy thought keeps stealing my wow imaginings every time. In a world that measures self-worth on basis of luxuries and fame rather than the content of our character, I dread the generations to come.

Will that young damsel that I will bring forth understand that beauty and life are inseparable?

Will that lad comprehend the place of love, virtue and guarding his appetites however loud they echo?

Will he intrinsically seek to guard his neighbour’s girl in light of bullies; or will he foolishly join in?

I still wonder.

But then hope yields more power and I realize that even then, remnants will surely thrive just like in times of Noah.

Wait a minute! The times of Noah are already here!

Do we have remnants?

Mwende

JOURNEY INTO THY SELF

JOURNEY INTO THY SELF

Afew years ago, I flourished within a company of sassy-striking school girls with their energy clearly out of this world.

We had just moved into the dining hall that was shortly converted into a dance floor and the music in there was soothing_ well until it sooner turned into factually noise.

We moved from chatting to singing to slow-dancing to screaming for no good reason at all.

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I remember searching for my friend through the crowd that moved like a multi-headed beast that only shared one brain. The dance floor was fully filled with everyone showcasing their best moves. For a moment I felt a sincere touch of togetherness and in another I felt like we were just a bunch of filthy noisemakers and immediately my mind shifted. I just wanted to go home but then I stayed.

‘Hey, is all that your hair?’ a smooth exquisite voice proceeded just above my left shoulder close enough to smell the drenched face.

I was not ready for any meaningful conversation. I was tired. The kind that needs a good night's sleep.

But then I still responded.  ‘Yes’ I said with an inviting twinkle and as they say, the rest is history.

Looking back, I’m glad I met Lisa.

Because that very chat was a reflection of a slave set free for life.

Of one who lived free tangibly yet one with a bound mind that had to be continually reminded that it’s free indeed.

Yet one who purposefully chooses to walk free each single day.

What she didn’t know is that wearing my natural hair that day was the easiest thing I have had to do overtime in comparison to the striking long journey taken back to myself.

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You see, the world is effusively crowded with what beauty seems like.

The “kind of beauty” that gets us crowded and running in pursuit of the elusive not realizing that BEAUTY begins within.

I have had to constantly DRAW BACK INTO SELF and JUST LOVE ME.

Because you got to love yourself deeply to give love back.

‘Your hair is like a crown’, she said calmly and smiled in awe and I couldn’t stop sobbing.

‘And you are beautiful and you got to see it FIRST before anyone else does’, I mumbled while still balancing tears.

That day, at the corner of a veranda outside the dance hall, I realized that sometimes we all need someone to tap on our spines and trigger the vigour we so desperately need to LOVE OURSELVES DEEPER.

Then something felt good to my soul to this day.

Mwende  

Leave No One Behind

Leave No One Behind

When love that proceeded from the depths of their loins and belly was no longer there, the love of power arose in Kaole and he no longer hung on his wife’s gentle words or surrender himself to her caresses. His concern was now being with his mac and the comfy brown-leather seat that propagated his newly found life of working night and day to pay the bills; which later turned his back against the woman who held his spine.

Unknown rage that he couldn’t suppress began to hype as the two drifted farther apart. At first there was guilt and an attempt to stop but soon he gave way, realizing how much he enjoyed shouting and walloping his knuckles into her skin. With every hit he felt a cold zing of delight, a buzz he couldn’t get any other way.

A perfect marriage from outside it seemed yet Lisa hid purple ribs and "florets" that budded on her thighs; she hid them like a precious marble yet she oozed out pain with each strained breathe. Their home was a cage for her body and her body reciprocated the “favour”.

Over the years, Lisa laid on her matrimonial cradle listening to the songs and sounds of fury, anger and fight; and vehemently enjoyed every bit of it hoping that one day a tiny breach would pave way for her freedom.

‘C’mon’, open the door!’ Kaole’s brother pushed himself through into the hospital door handing over a withered piece of skin to the doctors.

“That’s what’s left of my brother’s manhood”, he irritably told the doctors as he gave-out a numb piece of scrotum to them; One that he hurriedly picked up in a pool of blood where his brother’s body laid.

His skin was peeled off from the vital organs, blood oozing from his belly.  Although he seemed peaceful, you could see that tissues were torn and his blood slowly turned into a thick-turbid brown with its power to ooze dying out. Their urgings culminated into a horrific ordeal whose pangs will stick around forever_ his blood was squarely on her hands; she killed him.

Neighbours called in the police who arrested Kaole’s wife because, if it happens to women, it can happen to men too; my worry being, will justice prevail?

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The corpse was rushed to the morgue as mourners flocked into their home you’d think they were heaped together, waiting for that one call.

Such is domestic violence; it’s lethal!

This is a familiar story for many who’ve endured the gruelling pain and trauma of Gender Based Violence (GBV) whether domestic violence, sexual violence such as rape, sexual assault or harassment, harmful practices such as FGM, child and force marriages, psychological violence or even economic violence among many more; and the fact that many of these have been normalized and perpetuated through structural inequalities makes it more arduous.

With the International campaign to challenge violence against women and girls already underway, posters and billboards are taking rounds in various media podiums with high profile cases wallowing on newspapers’ headlines on strategies towards overcoming GBV. #16 days of fight against Gender Based Violence.  

While gender-based violence cases are way too high for women compared to men, a considerable number of such cases for men occur with many ending up unreported and they too need help.

In fact, GBV has been coined to refer to women problems which clarifies why most platforms that exist to address GBV issues are naturally inclined to resolving such matters from a woman’s viewpoint. For decades, women have been found on the frontline in fight against the demon yet we still find ourselves in the same predicament many eras later.

This is not to demean the fight on violence against women and girls at all which is extremely huge and should be out-rightly condemned and perpetrators persecuted but even further, to bring on board both genders towards creating collective and lasting solutions and therefore, both men and women have a role to play.

But even better, prevention is better than cure!

 

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The question is; are you aware, willing and determined to rightfully play your role?

Surrounded by four black walls, there was nothing else to do for Lisa but to stare at them. To blindly look at the ballast that was chipping off with time. Anything to pass time was meaningful for her, slowly going mad, theorizing absurd meanings from the wall's blank stare. 

“I am finally free from the blows even though I'm caged” she sighed. She will be there for a long time!

#beyond 16 days of fight against Gender Based Violence

Mwende

UNMASK IT

UNMASK IT

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October is here and women worldwide (and friends of women) are unearthing the pink goodies and ribbons that mark breast cancer awareness month across the world. Stand up to be counted!

If today you walked into a hospital for a check-up only to be diagnosed with cancer (of any kind) how would you react to such outcomes?

‘God forbid!’ you say and I absolutely concur. It’s frightening and definitely a dark world that we all are hesitant to venture into.

But then our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that Matter- Martin Luther King Jr.

Let’s turn up the volume…

Five years ago…

Here is a story of a woman whose perfect imperfections have made her who she is today,

A woman who undoubtedly comprehends that the very rug that you stand on today can be pulled off your feet with absolutely no warning,

A woman who strives to pursue her dreams no matter what life throws at her_ because she still believes in them,

As we sat together today in the comfort of her home, I couldn’t imagine how our conversation would turn out to be. I couldn’t comprehend how stout of a person she was to still afford a smile even after all the trauma. “I still remember that day like it was yesterday 5 years ago_ the day that doctors confirmed that I had breast cancer” she calmly said with a mild smile (one that felt grateful and humbling).

Her company feeling reassuring_ it felt pleasing in every way!

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Her emotions were easily hidden on her jovial face. Yet her pain was evident in the tuck of her pretty brow and the down-curve of her lips. Her eyes showed the depths of her soul. They were built, firm and brave; a reflection of a deep pool of restless gold, an ocean of hopeless anguish, a blow that kept knocking her down only to watch her rise up and knock her back again. But above all, I saw an emerging glow of optimism and conviction of better things to come.

‘My world crumbled before my eyes; I watched as every single bit of it melted away and I hated it ’_she continued with a gush of such ache flashing on her temple anyone could literally touch it. Yet her passion to live turned her eyes into orbs of the brightest fire, and in them I read clearly that she would wrestle to the very last gasp for her life. She couldn’t let this malady rip off her free spirit. She hung on it with passion and that passion made her beautiful.

‘Today I live to tell a story of victory’, she affirmed, her skin lighting up with humour and assurance.  Even though the dawn was still some miles away, I could sense a spark of hope; a ray of sunshine yet to come and I loved it.

‘Be informed, do self-examination. Don’t be afraid_ the importance of cancer being detected in its early stage determines the treatment and the success thereof. Be positive but above all, never give up_ we can’t give up now’, she tells me with such confidence and tenderness of a mother. I snuggled in for a goodbye hug in her warm embrace having learnt that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

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Reflecting…

I write to celebrate her for the courage to soldier on; and to women making it through every step of the way_ a step at a time.

And to many more heroines who succumbed to the disease; they still remain warriors because every day lived was victory won!

Early detection of breast cancer saves lives!

Self- Examination is Key!

Be informed and inform others!

Mwende