Category: Commentary

Bubbles

Even silence is a language that takes years of learning to master.   Have you ever watched as tea goes from a small simmer to a boil? The bubbles start at the edge of the sufuria. At first they are few. But the heat continues to excite the atoms impressing them to do more. Do you think the first bubbles…

You are here

But even though they try to forget, to hide your pain behind layers of unbecoming; remember that you are here. Remember that you are here. Gukira recently asked about being present; about the demands to be present active and alive. To be aware in the moment and notice that there is now. I’ve been wondering about what we mean by…

Kairos (An Echo)

“I hear this whispers getting louder in the streets of the inner city.” – Tarrus Riley, Whispers Whispers continue to carry significance. A little speech here a little speech there. Conversations, I am reminded, are more like poetry than prose. Words leave little clues that tell you where minds have been. As if somehow there was a tree on the…

Postcards on Dictatorship

The problem, I have come to realise, is that some bodies just refuse to be passive. You ascribe certain narratives. These narratives are meant to fully inform all decision. It is all the information they need. The problem continues to be that some bodies ask “but what about that other stuff?” Refuse: verb Indicate or show that one is not…

Taking Up Space

Bibi mgani huyo *3 (which wife is that) Anataka nipike chai (who wants me to make tea) Sufuria nimenunua (I’ve bought the pan) Kichungi nimenunua (I’ve bought the sieve) Ketepa nimenunua (I’ve bought ketepa) Anataka nipike chai (yet she wants me to make tea) The patriarchy actively teaches/recruits/persuades. This is something that we know to be true. The song above…

Give this Essay a Fighting Chance

Here, where the smell of charred flesh dances in the wind and lingers before ascending into forgotten dreams.   Here where fists of men meet fists of men and women and children are marked as battlefields.   Here where ideologies are nothing but reasons to die. No, excuses to kill.   Here where gutters have seen so much deoxygenated blood…

Are you Safe Now?

Silence is a form of poisonous knowledge. A paper I’m reading quotes Veena Das on this. It comes at a time when I’m thinking about the current state of the Somali people in Kenya. I’m thinking about the stories we’ve heard and seen. And, more particularly, I’m thinking, and frustrated over the large scale silence the dehumanisation has received. Even…

When We Fail

“Are you gay?” The question is spat out with a venom that I can’t dare imagine. The “no” finds its way out of my mouth way too quickly. My mind has accounted for the dynamic of this fully male testosterone filled environment faster than my leftist self could stage defiance. Even my net clause “and even if I was all…

Unique – Just Like Everybody Else

I’ve been watching a lot of aspirational poverty porn NGO type videos recently. It’s funny how these things work by giving people in the village westerly aspirations. For example, being a pilot, or a doctor. As if to say, they are human too, because they want to be like “us.” Let us give them a stamp of authority and accept…