Thursday, March 31, 2011

TODAY I WAS AFRICAN!



A few weeks ago my friends and I sat in front of a television screen and viewed as a panel of eloquent speakers delved into contemporary African ideas on homosexuality. Being an educated lot, we listened with horror as a Ugandan member of parliament spilt vitriol and bayed for the blood of perpetrators of this ‘heinous crime’. At the end of this all, his argument had been simple. It was unAfrican. And this word stuck. UnAfrican. And thus it got me thinking what does it mean to be African?

So today I figured it out. I have the answer. It didn’t come to me in a dream or in some ultimate moment of enlightenment. Despite that, it was a moment. There was no shaft of light from the heavens and neither was there an inspiring chorus from some choir. It was simple. I changed the channel. That was the moment.

The news had begun with the same old rubbish. Some MP’s proclaiming Uhuru ‘King of the Kikuyu’s’ while Raila’s party flip flopped over the ICC issue for the 56th time. I’d had my fill of it all. This was Africa. This was what it meant to be African. Dread. Hopelessness. That focus on all that is pointless and irrelevant. And I had had enough of it. And I changed the channel. That was the moment.

COPS 'N' ROB US!

The cops are back on the news for all the wrong reasons. It would be funny if it wasn’t totally sad. Cops around the country are going on a rampage shooting their bosses and it’s making headlines everywhere. I don’t know about you but that would freak me out every time I would be up for promotion. The list of every single dude I’d pissed off would run through my mind and then I’d respectfully decline the offer. I’m guessing the extra money would count for very little when you have a bullet lodged in your brain. Pressure cooker doesn’t begin to describe the situation. While in other jobs, your boss is the subject of idle and angry gossip at the water cooler, in the police force, he is the having a heart attack every single time a car has a loud puncture.



Then there is the whole thing about the drug haul recovered from the Coast this past weekend. First, did anyone notice how high that OCPD was when he was answering questions about the stash? His eyes were darting everywhere and his sentences made less sense than normal.

“Yes, we found the ndrugs”

“Yes, a lot of ndrungs.”

“Hehe ngoond ndrugs…”

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

KEEPING UP WITH THE KENYANS

E! is just one of those channels that makes you feel like you are gradually getting dumber every single time you watch it. I can actually feel brain cells sizzle and die each time my remote somehow tricks me into switching channels. It’s true. It’s actually caused a strained relationship between us. I don’t understand why I would wanna know the effects of Justin Beiber’s new haircut or how Natalie Portman’s baby bump is awesome or whether or not Robert Pattinson is faking his humility. The long and short of it is  that I end up wanting to stab myself with something ridiculously blunt.

But then again you don’t have to turn to E! to get the best of entertainment with respect to reality television. On this side of the globe, we call it the news and we have servings all through the day.  The antics of this great nation are plastered on the half hour shows called bulletins where drama meets stupidity and then the two are introduced to craziness. Place it against all those shows on E! and that stuff looks like it was made for kindergarten. Now, Kenyan reality? That’s for the big boys. That would win a Grammy, Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy every single year.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

LETTER TO MY THIRTEEN YEAR OLD SELF!

Dear Brian,

First, quit freaking out. Yes, this is a letter from the future but I can’t explain how. The details might come later. So yeah this is you from the future. Or rather me writing to myself. It’s ten years into the future and if I remember right, you are in class seven and freaking out about the whole puberty thing. Yeah, well the bad news is that ten years later, it’s still pretty much the same. The growth spurt is as good as it gets and then it will all be downhill from there. Point is you’d probably be able to beat me up if we bumped into each other.

No. We don’t have flying cars and mum still calls you ‘Baba’ when she wants to send you on errands. Don’t wince. It might stop in the next 30 years. Moi is no longer the president but no point in celebrating. The country is weirdly worse. Mats are a bit more comfortable and Americans voted in some jang’o dude to become president. No, I’m not kidding. You’ll see. In a lot of ways, the world is the same.

I know you have so many questions to ask but I can’t give you so many answers because you might ruin things. Ten years later, the one friend you are still close to is Ruth. But yeah she might be getting married soon to someone else. Don’t jump! You are happy for her and not in that passive aggressive way.