Love Dilemma

I know it's not the best thing to do but I know it suits the time now. She might think its a travesty to the love she feels but it could not be further from the truth. At the moment and in the foreseeable future, it just doesn't make sense that we get together. Because I, normal on the outside, cannot seem to find peace and tranquillity within, what with my demons constantly driving me down the cursed avenues of their nefarious existence. What with my pockets empty as a ghost town. I will make her happy but at the right time. The love is true, the fantasies valid. The time, unfortunately, is a fault. Such is the dilemma of living. How does such a good thing come and claim its rightful place at such a wrong time? Or could it be that it's not the best thing for me or for her? But let it be known that there is none other that makes me feel so warm and fuzzy, and tender and loved. But I just don't know what to do. Let it go or move in and try to build it with her? And will she wholeheartedly embrace my inglorious toils and crippling flaws? Thing is, I don't want to drag her into the fetters that restrain me in perpetual squalor, into the horrible, sinful chambers of my troubled existence. She is just too good to stoop this low. Her beauty too profound to waste away in my blind wanders. And I, too careworn, terribly wasted and dogged with much to worry about to make her happy. And I know she is doing the proper act by moving on. Hopefully, I will find my own love when the time is right. But if life were at my behest, the right time would be now and the love of my life would be her.

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY DEAR SOFAPAKA

Dear Sofapaka,

Receive greetings from me from the discomfort of my anguish. It is my heartfelt wish that you are all doing fine, even though it is evident that you aren't. But that's besides the point. I am here to pour out my sentiments on the rapid deteroriation of your being and whether there is anything to be done to stop you from careering into the singeing abyss you are plunging into without any brakes. This is a sentimental letter so forgive me if I'm spot on on the emotions but way off the mark in facts, though to be honest, I believe I have most facts spot on as well. Anyway to back to my sentiments-

In the year 2009, being a novice in this field called football, I found myself looking for a place to call home (basically a team to support). I must admit that trying to find acquaintance in this circle of football fandom is a difficult affair owing to football's outrageous popularity. Sure you attach yourself to whatever team is winning at the moment, but after falling knee-deep into the fanatical murks like the rest, you begin to nurture passion and love and admiration and adoration and all that you thought you knew and loved is replaced by what you actually know and love. That year, I began following the then Kenya Premier League-K.P.L (now Sportpesa Premier League) and was immediately pulled towards AFC Leopards, owing to the influence of those around me and my ethnicity (funny how this thing is pulled into everything, huh). However, after exploring and carving my own path, I figured that aside from appreciating the rich history of AFC Leopards, I harboured no exalting reservations for the team. So I embarked on a solo journey of allignment and that's when I saw you. Your raw freshness, your unblemished reputation, your capturing presence caught my eye and enchanted my heart as a fetching lady from heavens would. You had just stepped into the league, yet there you were, causing all sorts of havoc and chaos and fracas. You rattled establishment and mocked status and class. You mocked history and wrote your own. You beat the best and became the best. Throughout the 2009 campaign, you impressed me with your sleek, flowing brand of football, which I must admit is candy to my eye no matter what any other random earth dweller says. I didn't know how, but coming to the close of the season, as you wrote your name in the KPL title winners books, I was charmed. My heart had thawed. I had at last found a place I could attach myself to and hold on for the long run. Sofapaka became my family and I vowed to follow them. Who wouldn't melt at this classic tale of an underdog rising above their limitation?

Since then you have gone from strength to strength, from winning back to back Gotv shield cups, making an unapologetic foray into CAF Champions League preliminaries ( unheard of in Kenyan football recent history).  You beat Egyptian side Zamalek, another history written down as beating Egyptian opponents had become something akin to feeding dogs soap. You were seen, you impressed and you earned the respect you deserved, at just two years old on the big stage. And the consistency thereafter has seen you ranked amongst Kenya's elite football outfits just six years into your premiership status. That's a meteoric rise right there, the kind of stuff only dreams, fantasies and makebelieve are made of. And it is this fast rise that has me worried that perhaps you are running out of steam. Has the pressure of being consistently at the top caught up with you and now wearing you down, dear Sofapaka?  Are you sick of wanting to be the best? If so, why? Certainly I agree that you are not so badly off, but it is your propensity to exceed expectations that has me penning this letter now that you barely even meet them. The cash turbulence rocking your boat is to blame, and I understand that, but dear Sofapaka, we just need to raise our eyes a little higher and see that a cash-strapped Gor Mahia, running on pure passion of their players, technical bench and fans, steamroll and burge into history as if they bought those history books for personal entries. While I wouldn't want to compare your situation to Gor,I believe their never-say-die attitude is worth emulating. We can't let our brokeness define how high we rise because, truth is, the money situation might go on for a while since it is an issue of challenge in the entire sport here at home.  So it's either we bite the bullet or sink into the null of has-beens. Our league is nothing to be proud of moneywise, but you gave us a reason to believe when you didn't have as much as experience, let alone cash, remember? We shouldn't cede that initial spirit to hopelessness. The likes of Demonde Selenge, Bob Mugalia and the evergreen John Barasa, the throbbing epicentre of the class of 2009, should be awarded with a better respect than this. Certainly going down will only insult their efforts. And surely we can't let the ageless, the fine wine, John Barasa, the only remaining member of the historymakers, down as we are now. He is our highest scorer throughout and surely we could repay his dedication and loyalty by making the goals he scores for us count.

Along the way, you have gathered fans and admirers and we hope that you don't let our passion hang in the balance. I never knew in six years I could have loved so, but now, seeing you in such turmoil makes my heart bleed and my bones crackle, it tightens my nerves to the point of splintering and that's how I know I have loved too much. We just have to keep trying. The glory is ours to lose, dear Elly Kalekwa, so it is my greatest hope that we keep it.

From a distraught fan,
The crazy
Chizzi Freshi.

LETTER TO MY DEAR GOVERNMENT

Dear Government,

Ref: CONCERNING OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM

The recent unrest in some of our high schools is a matter of deep concern. For a place considered the epitome of a functional society, the schools have been cast in bad light following these misdeeds by rogue students, actions that throb with regression. For good cause, it set off those alarm bell in us and brought focus to more pressing issues than watching politicians try to outdo each other in this game of 'Who sucks the hardest'.

I choose to decry the curriculum for being too uptight and stuck up on books. I fault it and roast it on a criticism barbeque for its rigidity, I believe it makes students puppets that mimic their teachers. Indeed, our current education system leaves a lot to be desired and a change should be considered.

To clear the air, I in no way agree with Prof Jacob Kaimenyi on the abolition of Mocks just because a few students expressed a dislike towards it,because seriously students, you fear exams that much? Well good for you rogue student, life after school is there to serve you tea and biscuits in bed, worry not. But seriously, exams are a yardstick to measure progress and the  Mocks are a great mock before the punchline and one that creates the perfect vision for K.C.S.E. Instead, how about we change our curriculum while leaving our significant examinations intact. It's the whole system man that piles misery on our young minds. Instead of confidence, excesses in the system build tension. Pressure isn't bad but an overabundance of it is detrimental.

Each morning, on my way to my 'kibarua', I am usually greeted by the sight of six, seven and eight year olds carrying bags bigger than their parent's radios ( and trust me their parents have big ass radios that can win a sumo match). In there are countless books, each with assignments, all that were done the whole of the previous evening. No doubt the teacher's mean well but man, aren't they stretching it to its seams or what. The brain, much like the body it controls, needs a balance of activity to stop it from jolting to a halt. At a tender age, a formidable front of quality education, playtime and good sleep is needed to develop the hardworking, badass citizen we so covet. But no, as early as six, we have young children, barely ten, dragging large sacks of books to school- see them at five in the evening, with tonnes of more homework to be done all evening long. And the unfortunate part- it has been ossified in our minds that feeding children books like its going out of fashion will lead to development of extra-ordinary minds, which, I suppose was the reason behind practical subjects like Art and Craft AND Home Science being kicked out of the system and left to gather dust on the shelve of abandonment. P. E classes are just Math lessons in false identity.  Herein lies the fault in our thoughts. Sure, our children may be able to pour out the 26 letters of the English alphabet at a moment's notice, but can they be able to use these letters to write well? Will the A in Mathematics be the only thing that we think will make them good engineers? Will we have sportspeople?

All this then comes to our teachers, who lace the semblance of quality in  our education system with doubt. Year in, year out, they demand salary increment (not a bad thing). Yet the training institutions responsible for beating them to shape keep churning them out with the same standards of the 80s (Definitely not a good thing). This is despite the fast growth of and in the modern world. Technology, despite being the ubiquitous phenomenon it is, remains a foreign concept to even our freshest of teacher graduates. Sure, it will be costly to train I.T savvy teachers but it would even more costly to let our students keep getting out of hand. So, now we have  poorly paid teachers delivering outdated information to an exhausted child who only knows that the letter A stands for apple and nothing else and that addition between different numbers is unworkable. How will they grow? Our children are programmed for the exams and not prepared for life. Which shouldn't be the case.  Exams should just be part of the process not a destination. Once in high school, combine the pressure to pass with raging teen hormones and you get a cocktail of disaster. And we wonder why we have university students that can't tell apart a strike and a riot. It's the system man! The system.  This limp curriculum has outlived its golden days. It's a walking dead. Lets call in some change. They might or mightn't work but hey we aren't corpses. We are sentient enough to change.

P.S- The criminals who committed these henious acts of arson should face the law. Nothing justifies their extreme misdeeds

P.S.S- I wish to stamp this letter
                URGENT!

Dearly from,
An educated fool,
Chizzi Freshi

A LETTER TO MY DEAR GOVERNMENT

DEAR GOVERNMENT,

It hasn't escaped my attention that a lot of make-up work is going on on our roads (a good thing),neither has it escaped my attention that said make-up takes place in the rush hour of the morning (a very bad thing). And, to add to my list of 'not-escaping-attention stuff', is the fact that these repair works are coinciding with the hyped second coming of Big bro Barry(honestly, I don't know what to make of that).

Now, dear government, there is nothing as refreshing and relieving as seeing that huge crater that once swallowed a Vitz getting kicked on its deep ball by some good repair work. However, I pose - does it have to be in the morning?  I believe most road construction take place in the night, or, you know at a less busy time of day (so basically night). Sure I know you want us to see the good job being done, but guess what? We don't want to see it being done. We just want to be like,"Hey the roads are less jumpy today. I wonder whats wrong with my car?" Then you look out and see the potholes have been replaced by an ugly but effective patch. Trust me, Dear Government, we will give you, and not any silly aliens from pluto, the credits.

Also, do these repair works need to coincide with the coming of His Excellency Barrack Obama?(if I'm wrong on the title please pardon me. I can only be Kenyan). Now, I'm not making any connections(so incase you make any please, remind yourselves its just a bad dream), but did it have to happen now, when he is actually coming?  Does this mean that our roads will go for, oh crap, ages before getting a facelift since we don't know when the next U.S president will come by to say hi. Couldn't this have come at a better time, you know, at a time when the only guests we are expecting are our new born babies?

The traffic caused by these repair works is -*sigh*-draining. There is nothing as ugly as tail lights bumper to bumper and trust me, some cars have really ugly-ass tail lights. No really, and I won't even mention Toyota Platz - oh god, I did mention Toyota Platz didn't I? Anyway, seeing traffic jam start right outside my gate is akeen to coming before going in - it totally kills your psyche man. And don't get me started on overlapping PSV's. Someone needs to take a slipper and spank the drivers of these vehicles to shape. Either that or, you know, have them committed into mental institutions because these people are -forgive my language- fucking insane !

Speaking of PSV's - these matatus man - smh- those things are damn too rickety and uncomfortable. Its like rolling on your backside on a  cardboard, only paying for the mabati and the chance to gasp in horror each time the driver narrowly misses another car or the odd pedestrian, who is not on the right anyway. By the way, speaking of PSV's, have you seen the new Climax Coach? Man, that thing's quite a looker. Travels from here to Kitale. Its dope I tell you.

Anyway, I hope this reaches you on time, my Dear Government before I change my mind and start congragulating you.

Dearly from,
Distressed citizen,
Chizi Freshi