It Breaks at The Doorstep

The piercing bars of sunlight snuck into this tiny room through random gaps on the mud wall and the wooden window as the birds sang with exuberance outside.

On one side of the room was a bed that creaked each time a muscle was twitched. It was a small bed, yet two figures were squeezed on its narrow platform and seemed unbothered. A tiny drawer next to the bed held a pale blue ashtray filled with orange cigarette butts and grey ash. An empty bottle of liquor stood next to it and in the air, was the sharp stench of stale tobacco and cheap liquor, this terrible smell stealing every bit of freshness from the morning.

One of the two figures on the bed stirred and pulled away the blanket. She sat up, her face pallid. Her eyes were sickly and ponderous, tears glittering in them. Then she rose slowly, the bed squeaking with each of her movements. The man sleeping next to her grunted and snuggled himself a little tighter.

She jumped over him, crawled to the other side of the bed and pulled open the window, letting the glorious sparkle of the morning light up the room. She squinted as the sun streamed into the room like it owned the place. She adjusted the black faded petticoat that hang loosely on her thin body.

Their three children were squeezed on the floor, huddled on a lean, beaten mattress that had long surrendered, gobbled up by a thick duvet, which had a big hole close to the bottom.

The tall one, sleeping closer to the door kept curling himself further to accommodate his feet in the warmth of the cover. Next to him was his younger sister and then an infant, who started and coughed before breaking into a sharp shrill.

The mother, evoked by the unseating shriek of her precious but embattled bundle, sighed as if she had grown weary of hearing that cry. She reached over and picked it up. The other two sat up, rubbing their eyes languidly as each yawned to the bright sunlight. The eldest one was about fourteen or fifteen while the other was nine.

“Mum why is Janita crying?” The nine-year old girl asked, not really sure if she too should break down if it turned out that hunger was what disturbed the little one. The mother seemed not to have heard her.

The man was last to wake up. As if compelled by his nightmares than his own volition, he sat up with a start. He was wrinkled, but not due to old age. He had yet to clock forty but looked well past fifty.

He had been battered by life and thus, the skin folded on his face like a sack of balls on a hot day. He yawned noisily as he panned the room. All eyes were on him, red and dreadful, sick and mottled with anger, disgust, apathy. Even little Janita had paused her noisome shrieks and was desperately trying to reach for his nape.

“So what are your plans for today, Friday?” His wife asked, her eyes now full of anger. He half turned to her.

“What do you mean?” He asked ignorantly. He did not meet her eyes nor the children’s. He did not want to see the expectations, the desperation, the contempt in them. So instead, he looked down at his feet, almost in shame.

“Where are we headed?” His wife snapped, “What are we to do with things getting worse each day?”

There was anger and frustration in her voice. But more importantly, there was pain, a deep-seated agony from hopelessness.

He turned his eyes to the window, to the vast blueness of a vacant sky outside, to the empty chambers of heaven, up to the callous gods looking down at his misery and choking with laughter. Sweet heavens were now like the liquor bottle next to him, magnificently full of nothing.

“I will do something about it-”

“When? When, Friday?” His wife gave a teary interjection, “After we have all been kicked out of this shack? Do you think we even have it in us to stay in this sun without feeling sick?”

“I will take care of everything.” He repeated himself, for what else was there to say? He had run out of vocabulary just as he had run out of money and opportunities.

“You keep saying that!”

“Just give me time!” He snapped at her, his temple webbing with veins, throbbing rhythmically to the rampant throb of his solemn heart.

Then he immediately felt bad about it. He was the cause of this trouble they were going through. They were as faultless as he was guilty.

“I can’t promise anything,” He said in a contrite tone, “You of all people should know that. I’m doing my best.”

“We could have avoided all this if only you had let me go out and work too –”

“You sit here and take care of the children.” He said firmly. “If I leave then you leave, who will watch the children?”

“Jeremy here is old enough –”

“We cannot leave these children alone. You talk as if you don’t know these slums.”

“I always would have found someone to care for the children –”

“I said I want you to stay home and care for the children. Yaishe.” He muttered as he reached under the bed.

The wife shook her head and sniffled as tears began falling down her sad eyes. She rocked back and forth, trying to keep the young one from crying.

“I don’t know if I want to stay here any longer with you.” She said suddenly.

That startled him. He sat stoically as the seconds passed, each pounding home the meaning, the impact of that statement. He felt his heart combust into a flame, not of fury, but one of frustrations, a culmination of the trouble that had been brewing.

“You are not leaving me.” He said, his teeth clenched, his voice firm, his mind pleading for her to reason with him.

But the wife shook her head as her face wrinkled in pain and sorrow. Tear dribbled freely from her eyes. Down on the mattress, the nine-year-old too began silently sobbing, while Jeremi, the oldest one, sat up, staring pensively ahead.

“I am short of options, Friday.” His wife said, “If you will not let me find a job, then I’d rather leave you and find another way to fend for myself and my children.”

He looked away, still avoiding everybody’s eyes. He reached for his clothes, which he had folded up into a makeshift pillow and put them on as his children looked away. Then he moved along and sat on the edge of the bed and put on the yawning shoes he had pulled from under the bed.

Then he motioned for his son to fold the mattress to afford room for him to maneuver through. He stretched and pulled open the door open, letting in more of those pleasantly warm rays of sunshine. Perhaps these rays signified something good was in the offing. He skipped out without as much as a glance back. In the house, an awkward silence remained.

“I want the two of you to wash all your dirty clothes.” Mother said as Jeremy and his younger sister moved to action.

***

He skipped carelessly over the sewage flowing in between the shanties, passing women who were bent over washing clothes.

He then came upon a dirt road and turned to the left towards the market, restrained deeply in his thoughts. A few days had turned to months, which turned to years that eventually turned to a decade. Time moved fast. Or was he moving rather slow for time? He jerked as a fellow stepped on his toes, bringing back to the present.

How fair it would be if lady luck smiled, nay, laughed down at his balding head, hair thinning not from age but from stress and the many ailments that came with living in apathy and poverty. But lady luck was not smiling at his head. The sun was scorching his shining scapel, perhaps responsible for the delicious smell of something good cooking – his thoughts.

He didn’t look up, not at the groceries, not at the kiosks that yawned from the tire of their equally battered owners and not at the supermarkets that often lacked the courtesy to sell something fresh for once. His stomach made frequent complaints of hunger, drawing a groan, possibly a scowl of murderous intent, from him.

As he passed a two-storey building, something smashed against his head and began trickling down his temples and forehead. Someone had dumped dirty water on him. He didn’t bother to look up. For what? He didn’t want to see that middle finger aimed at him. He just wiped it away as diplomatically as he could with the back hem of his shirt and went on wading through his thoughts.

He touched the little hair that still clung onto his miserable cranium. Too bad he had not combed his hair. Maybe the thoughts would have been kinder if his hair was neater. Trouble, misery. And the sweet scent of something frying. Chapatis tossed into the air. He neared the den. The woman watched him approach.

“Ya ngapi mzee?” She asked, flipping the round flour dough she was rolling.

He gestured for two. She turned and began scrounging for a nylon bag. He responded swiftly, lifting several with blinding agility, dipping them into his back pocket as he melded into the crowd of the slum dwellers. Behind, the woman let out a cry. He ducked into an alley. In these parts, alleys always led somewhere and he knew he was unlikely to come undone by a dead end so he disappeared down that way.

***

But things wouldn’t always be like this. Previously the bad days had always been followed by the good and he hoped this would be same. But the bad days this time had overstayed their welcome. Never before had he been on the brink of eviction as it was this time. Never before had he been on the brink of starvation as he was this time.

God curse that useless President and his love for those suits that look like those worn by that North Korean leader.

Memories jumped back to the good old days. How infectious was a smile when there was plenty; plenty to eat, plenty to excrete, plenty to waste too?

Their shadows would dance on the walls as they hunched over the tiny candle light on the tiny table and brought the mountain of food to its knees. Actually they ate even its knees as the shadows danced, the candle being the shadow choreographer. And a joke was shared too, and if it wasn’t, even a belch was hilarious, a fart was a rib cracker.

Then came days like these, days that just stumbled in and plonked themselves in the room like they belonged there. Days of empty pockets, empty stomachs, empty promises. And good memories would wander away too, so also empty memories. Good times were forgotten, and he would quickly be reminded of them. He took out the bundle of chapatis he had taken unceremoniously. He counted them. Six.

He took two and shoved the rest back into the pockets of his black, ill-fitting trousers that sagged unceremoniously from his thinning waste. Grumpily, he stuffed the chapatis into his mouth as he came up to a narrow street that had a few shops but still plenty of people.

A tarmacked road passed through here. A few feet away, children had converted the road into a playfield, kicking about a football with abandoned bliss.

He spat as he walked up a stream. He was now nearing the highway, where a market thrived.

He slowly ambled up to the market. The traders called at him; Sukuma wiki mkubwa, nyanya freshi. He swallowed the last of his chapatis as he moved in between the throbbing bodies.

The smell of rotting vegetables filled the air as he maneuvered his way between the bodies of people stopping to buy the vegetables.

The then came up to the edge of the road where the vehicles sped past and looked on. Dead at the centre of the road, a black shadow appeared, almost human but not quite. It lifted a hand and beckoned.

Friday closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. Perhaps this was the time that he needed to end it. The good times were never coming. His life was never going to change for the better. He would never get that good job he wanted. So, why bother continuing existing in this mortal coil of misery?

He opened his eyes again. The shadow still beckoned with slow, graceful motions. It danced daintily in the road. Maybe he could find the joy to dance like that in death. He smiled and nodded to the black shadow.

He walked much closer to the curb and waited. The road was less busy, but a bus was speeding towards him. A strike from the bus would be instant, he thought, inching closer to the road.

The bus roared closer. He could hear the sweet turbo spool of its engine as it neared. It wasn’t moving particularly fast, but the mass of its large body would do damage at that speed.

He inched closer. The bus got closer. He closed his eyes and imagined a better world. Then, he made a step forward.

A hand gripped him firmly from the back and pulled him back.

He opened his eyes just as the bus flew past him, leaving behind a very strong wake that almost threw him off-balance. It was moving fast and that speed would have put him out of his misery in an instant. So, who was this idiot that had stopped him?

“Oh my God, that bus almost crushed you! Are you okay?” A woman’s voice said.

He turned. A woman was staring at him with some concern. Then, her eyes widened, partly in shock, partly in recognition.

“Faraday?” She called.

He was stunned. Who was this woman that knew his name as it was supposed to be? Faraday and not the Friday bullshit his wife often spewed out.

She was gorgeous, he noticed, her brown eyes intense and piercing. Those eyes flickered as she broke into a smile. Faraday squinted and winced. He bit his tongue as he ransacked through his fusty, festering memories, trying to dig a familiar face to match the woman. And she didn’t spare his slaving with a failing memory.

“Remember me?” She asked, looking at Faraday up and down, seeming to ignore his trouble recollecting her. He hemmed and hawed. Then he scowled as if he had ingested aloe vera juice and looked at her suspiciously. Then he knit his brows and skewed his lips. Flashes of recall. Um...uhh...dammit...she is who she is. Maam are you here to give me a job or not? I don’t know you.

“I’m sorry, I will if you remind me.” He said, keenly studying her to mark out any familiarity. A former employer perhaps.

“It’s Lucy,” she snapped, giggling in excitement, “Lucy Ndeti. We were in the same class in Sky Rise Academy.”

The wind paused. The trees went awkwardly silent. He felt as if he had been rudely hit in the head by a rod. His jaws dropped as his heart took a deep breather. His eyes, blurring with tears and widened with paralyzing marvel, lingered on her as the familiarity finally struck home.

Of course it had to be Lucy. He could see it now.

“L...Lucy?” He stuttered, his lips still moving even after he had stammered out that name.

“Yes.” She smiled more broadly. “Unanikumbuka sasa?”

Suddenly, his memory flew into top gear, and the evocative frames came in a deluge. A blissful, nostalgic childhood reminisce.

The teary evenings in the staffroom for noise making. The awkward, gritty, grounding competition in English and Kiswahili lessons. The strange attraction and the mocking of the whole class when that dripping, uncomfortably wet kiss landed on her unsuspecting cheeks. Then the tears that came after and the embarrassment that followed. And then, the turn around a few years later to becoming closer friends.

And she still held onto that quiet comeliness of her formative years. The beauty still stood, only more mature now. The beatific, large eyes that captivated and never let go, that once made his pre-teen heart flutter and his lips stutter and his emotions gush and his blood rush, oh those comely eyes, they still were there, now more familiar to him than they had been previously.

“Wow, you look like you don’t belong here.” Faraday said with an embarrassed smile.

“I am here for fresh veggies,” she said, pointing to the bag she was carrying filled with fresh veggies. “You don’t look so good.”

Faraday felt a lump on his throat, which then brought tears into his eyes. He curled his toes, hunched his shoulders and cringed as his whole face sank in shame. He looked down.

“Why are you getting vegetables from here, though?” Faraday asked, “Shouldn’t you be getting them from a supermarket at the mall of something?”

“I live around here and this is where I get my fresh veggies from.” She said, “Want to come with me? For a cup of tea perhaps? You look like you could use a cuppa.”

Her voice was mellow and now that he had refreshed his memory, she was too familiar to forget. She had changed little still. Only more grown. And rich, or at least, not struggling for a meal like he was.

What a nasty sense of humor life had. A close friend, or former close friend, living just a few meters from where he lived, drowning in money as he sank deep in misery.

“Okay, Lucy,” he mumbled as he fidgeted and trembled violently, “But I have to admit I am embarrassed.”

“It’s okay.” She said sweetly as she led the way.

***

As she opened the gate to her apartment block, Faraday could feel the wealth in the air. It came from the calming trees which lined the streets, or was it from the large iron gate which creaked sweetly to let him in. Or did it come from the majestic cars parked outside, or the beautiful apartment with pink façade.

They took an elevator to the third floor, where she let him in on a beautiful, spacious room that looked something straight out of a real estate magazine.

“Please take a seat, Farah. I hope it’s okay to call you that.” Lucy said with a smile.

“It’s no problem,” Faraday said, sitting down on the couch adjacent to the door. “Wow, this is nice.”

The room looked beautiful with it’s white walls, maroon curtains which hang majestically on the large windows that let in much of the sunlight.

“So tea or juice?” She asked, smiling benevolently at him.

He asked for water, hoping she would read into his shyness and see that he was dying for something to eat. He actually was screaming ugali and beef stew. Speaking of food, he reached for his pockets. The three chapatis had gone cold now and he wondered what to do with them if he left here full.

“I will make you something small to eat too.” Lucy said as she walked into the kitchen.

His balls retreated further into his crotch. Sweet old Lucy. Still the same with that beautiful heart some fifteen or so years later. Oh, how some people never change. How beauty, sometimes, never fades.

“You look sick, Faraday.” Lucy opined as she emerged a few minutes later with a plate of steaming rice and meat stew.

At the sight of the food, his stomach groaned and the hunger coursed in jubilant palpitations. He cleared his throat as he prepared to speak. He received the plate, muttered thank you and dug in. She put a jug and a glass of juice on the tiny table next to him.

“What happened Farah? You had a great future.” She asked again.

Faraday shifted his eyes uneasily before finally deciding to look at her, though timidly, as of a dog looking at its master after a moment of mischief.

“Lucy,” Faraday gasped, fighting back the tears welling in his eyes as the torture of regret took over him. “Lucy, I... I... I don’t know.”

He paused and studied her. Was she really interested in knowing what he went through? Or was she just being polite? He looked down at the scaly, dry skin of the hand holding the spoon.

“I mean, after my father and mother died, I –”

“Oh my, you lost both parents?” Lucy exclaimed. Faraday nodded. Lucy’s face went glum, her eyes full of sorrow as she looked at him.

“Farah, I am so sorry.” She said. It was more of a whisper, as tears welled up in her eyes too.

Faraday choked on his tears, putting the food down.

“I couldn’t afford to get into university and so I decided to take up a job to see if I could save up enough for college…” his voice tapered off once again as those tragic memories flowed back, those memories he had been trying his best to shove to the back of his mind.

“It was supposed to be temporary, that job, but before I knew it, here I am, almost a decade later. I don’t know how it happened. It’s almost as though I slept one night and woke up today, older and still in the same place.”

Lucy’s eyes continued to water, in sorrow of what had become of her once great friend. She whispered I’m sorry once again, but her voice was chocking so it was barely audible.

“But enough of my troubles,” Faraday said, “I see you are doing quite well.”

“I am doing well,” she affirmed. “I guess for me things just went right at the right time. I went into engineering but soon after uni, I couldn’t land a job. So I leased land back home and tried out rabbit farming. Now, here I am.”

Faraday felt mocked. The pride in her voice plundered that much regret into him. She was bragging. But yet she wasn’t. She was just relishing how her life had panned out. she made it all seem so easy.

He looked around the walls. Photos of the family hang on almost all four of them. They featured prominently Lucy, a man and two teenage children, a boy and a girl.

“That’s your family?” He asked, pointing to one of the photos that had the four of them soaked in the white sands of the beach. Lucy looked up and a smile spread on her lips.

“Yes.” She said. Then she turned to him.

“You are not eating Faraday.” She observed. Faraday sighed. He took a spoonful of the food and stuffed it in his mouth. It was delicious, sumptuous but why could he barely enjoy it? He shook his head.

“I just can’t believe it.” He dribbled as tears finally trickled down his cheeks. “I’m a failure Lucy, a failure!”

“Faraday you are not –”

“Don’t try to make me feel better Lucy.” He cried as he looked at her, “I know what I am.”

Wrapped on her wonderful face was concern, her eyes were bleeding with sympathy, her lips trembling with emotion. But there was also a certain undercurrent of confusion in the way she looked at him. She still was in disbelief that this beaten, scrawny man barely holding it together was the same classmate who had been so bright it had been blinding.

“I’m at that point, Lucy,” He said as he wiped away tears from his swollen eyes, “At that point in life when you have lost the fear of certain things. If you have failed repeatedly, you just stop fearing failure and death. You stop hoping for something better. If anything, death becomes something you look forward to.” His voice broke off as he cried his heart out.

Lucy looked down at him. She took the plate from his agitating hands and took him in a hug.

“I’m sorry about all you have gone through, Farah,” she comforted, “But while misery takes you to some dark places, what you do from there is your choice.” She let him be and looked into his eyes.

“You are like a brother to me, Farah, and I hate seeing you in this situation. Say, do you want any help?”

Faraday nodded.

“What kind of help?”

“An opportunity.” Faraday said without thought. Yes. It was all he needed. “I just want an opportunity for my children to finish school and not end up like me. I don’t want my sins to be visited upon them. They deserve better.”

As he spoke, she sat next to him, paying keen attention to him such that even the dog’s incessant barking couldn’t call her away. The more he went on, the lighter he felt. It was almost as if shackles were being freed from him.

They went on and dug out their past, rekindling those sweet memories of childhood. He spoke endlessly and she gave him all her ears. She also gave him comfort. She was happy, he could tell and he found himself flustered when she assured him with a smile.

Her life had just turned out so incredible that he began to feel jealousy rankle at the basement of his emotional chambers. But it soon gave way to admiration and pride. Pride in her. He was proud that she had done so incredibly well despite being offered nothing but the raw deal during her formative years. He was proud of her. Her energy and effervescence wasn’t because she was bragging. Rather it was born of contentment, happiness in having accomplished what she set out to do. Self-actualization.

Their childhood, their cries, laughter and a little superficial reminisce of that love that never got to be. Divergent was what would best describe their life paths. Engrossed in the power of nostalgia, both were rudely interrupted by the sound of an imam calling the Muslim faithful for evening prayers at a nearby mosque. It was quarter to seven and the sun had already wrapped, darkness engulfing what remained of daylight. The day has flown by, just as Faraday’s life had.

Faraday sighed and got up.

“I have to go, Lucy,” He said, scratching his scalp, looking lost. He fought within himself for a time, but then figured that failing to ask for help would be falling into the same old behavior of letting opportunities pass him by.

“I’m afraid I have nothing to feed my family, Lucy.”

It was about time that he resigned to what he was now - a beggar.

“Do you have your C.V with you?” Lucy asked suddenly.

“Yes,” Faraday nodded, “but I’m afraid it can’t amount to much as I haven’t updated it in years.”

There was disappointment palpable in Lucy's face as she now looked at him rather disapprovingly.

“Faraday, you can’t keep doing this to yourself and your family.” She said, her voice lilting in discontentment. “You can’t just give up on life like that.”

Faraday shook his head somberly but did not offer a response. Lucy picked her phone from her the table next to where she was seated.

“Give me your number and I will see how to help you.”

“My phone has been acting up for a few days now. I left it at home.” Faraday said. “I can give you my wife’s number.”

“Okay then.” Lucy said, getting to her feet. “And your wife what does she do?”

“Oh she takes care of the children.” Faraday said. “Though she has also been doing some odd jobs here and there.”

“Okay,” Lucy nodded, “Does she want something to do? I could use some help in this house.”

“Uh, when you call her, maybe you can ask her,” he said, “but I think she will be okay with the arrangement.”

Lucy nodded. She asked him to sit for a while as she skipped away. She came back with a plastic bag containing maize flour and a packet of rice. She handed it to Faraday, who, overwhelmed with gratitude, stuttered and stammered endless thank yous. She smiled and walked him to the door, where she reached for his hand and squeezed a few notes into his rough palms. Once more, Faraday was elated this time to the point of breaking down.

“Take care, Farah,” she said sweetly, “And remember you don’t have to remain as you are. I’ll call your wife tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Faraday said, “and thank you once more, Lucy.”

With that, he turned and rushed out into the cold embrace of the darkness. He walked on the dappled street under the yellow street lights. Same old Lucy. Same old Lucy. She had been a friend and she still was as she had always been - humble, tender, caring. Oh and that reminded him. He opened the palms of his hands and counted the money.

Four thousand shillings! He let that sink in for a moment. Four thousand! God bless you Lucy. From grass to grace. Perhaps there was reason to live after all. Lucy had given him reason to live.

***

Darkness had fully enveloped the land when he found himself trudging through the littered streets of his sorry neighbourhood. Many had closed shop, with a few wrapping it up. Silence was beginning to bear the night.

A lone streetlight, which had been installed four years back as a campaign tool for the area MP, dispersed the yellow floodlight far into the slum, but only stray lights streamed the street where Faraday walked. He came up to a group of women shaded in the darkness, their thighs glittering in the weak light. The night gals were out in their glory and they tried to call at Faraday. Tempting.

He branched from the main street down a dark alley, which was a short-cut to getting home. With no light to guide him, he squelched and splashed into the sewers but again, he didn't care. The iron sheets of the houses rattled from the woofers blasting as people welcomed the night. He walked with his eyes over the shoulder.

This alley was bad, with volent robberies a norm, but he felt safe because the night was still young. He dipped his hands into his pocket and thrust the four thousand shillings in them. then, he remembered those chapatis, now dried and breaking. He threw them away.

Then he reached for the four thousand shillings in his pockets and once again pulled them out, stull in disbelief.

He walked past three men who grunted greetings to him. In front of him, another man walked towards him. Then, the man slipped just in front of Faraday –

A heavy blow at the back of his head sent him face first into the black sewer waters. Before he could recover, his whole body exploded in pain as punches and kicks and the strike of a rod rained on his defenseless self.

He opened his mouth to scream but a vicious stamp on his face arrested it as his jaws broke, a few teeth falling off too. The knocks on his side broke his ribs and there was no reprieve as he was bludgeoned for almost forever.

When they were done, he was a mess, blood seeping through his cloths, making them cling to his body. He was violently ransacked. His pockets were turned inside out, where they found a few coins and a note which he had written a few days ago.

“Fala,” One of the thugs said as he kicked Faraday repeatedly on his head, “How are you walking around with nothing?”

“Check the socks,” Another said.

Faraday, unable to move much as his body drowned in a sea of pain, felt them take out his shoes and socks. Nothing.

“Check in his underwear. These days they hide their money there too.” One of the robber said again.

“Wewe, I am not putting my hands on another man’s crotch.” Another said.

There was some push and pull. Faraday tried to move, but the pain would not allow him to move. Then, he felt it. One of the men opened his zipper and began groping around his nether regions, up to this anus.

“Hakuna kitu.” He said as they all proceeded to violently stamp him again. Then all was still.

“Fala. You are full of nothing. Next time have something for us to steal.” He heard a distant voice say before the multiple feet faded.

An alarming silence hang over him now. He coughed as blood choked him, vomiting thick spats of it. In waste, he lay as blood pooled below him, seeping into the murk. His eyes, blurred with tears and blood, looked up to the clear sky. The stars sparkled with an allure he had yet to witness, scintillating in magnificence as if a beckon for him to join their adornment.

They seemed to be calling and he was eager to respond. They were full of endless promises, granting him endless possibilities but if only he could touch them. He stretched the terribly shaking hand with such dogged determination than he had lived by. Then he touched them as the sky blasted into a bright white light.

A dead smile broke on his dead face. In his right hand, clasped tightly and protectively in his closed palm, was the four thousand shillings. 

Young-ish and Hopeless

The Precarious State of being a young person in Kenya today

The embodiment of a hopeless generation

A few weeks ago, in my usual Twitter scrolling habits, I came across a video that had been shared by media personality Anita Nderu, on her Twitter handle. In it, was a female host, out on the streets, asking a young man who looked no older than twenty-five, on what his plans were for the future (My recall for the actual question is hazy, but it was in that line I believe). The man pursed his lips, then after a while, shook his head and in one poignant statement, summed up the state of being a young person in Kenya. Again, his exact words desert me, for reasons I will outline presently, but I remember feeling this lump form in my throat and bring tears to my eyes as he expressly stated that he had no plans for the future.

In him, I saw me, but at that point, I was comfortable. I had just started a new freelance writing job and was high on adrenaline, so while the man’s hopelessness struck a nerve in me, it didn’t stay with me for long.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, I sit for-lone in my shack, and suddenly, the video came back to me with a vengeance. I can’t still recall the words, but the bleak hopelessness of the man, his shaken voice, his stutters as the host tried to get him to 'see the brighter side’, the sombre shaking of his head, his lack of desire to commit to future long-term plans, all thundered into my head like a speeding truck ramming into a brick wall.

See, I have gone weeks without pay in the new job, against an agreement of weekly compensation and I am currently staring at an abyss. When the video replays in my mind as I tug and pull with the boss for my pay, I don’t see the young man. I see myself. Beaten, left for dead, not by physical violence, although that is always on stand-by, but from the mental anguish that comes with being young in a country that punishes you for being and for dreaming, and uses your demography as a real-life SEO word - to make money for the old aristocracy.

Where it all started

When I moved into Nairobi from Eldoret sometime in 2011 with my family, I was hopeful that life would finally get better after half a year in anguish in Eldoret. After all, Nairobi was the place I had grown up in, and life had been good during my sixteen years here.

I grew up in satellite, with my three sisters, later to be joined by our last born brother who came around 2007, when we were much older. We grew up privileged. My father often ensured that he and mum took great care of us. He was emotionally distant, but he more than tried to make it up in meeting our every financial need. During his time at work, not once did we ever have to be sent home for school fees. He often paid fees on time, so much so that in every school we went, he was well-loved by the school principals, and if by any chance we had a balance, we would not be sent home, and he would clear it as soon as possible. We never knew trouble. In fact, during the '90s, when the SAPs were in full effect and affecting homes countrywide, our house seemed to defy the prevalent structure. It was during the '90s and early '00s that my father’s life grew, from a carpenter along Ngong Road, which was in no way a bad job, to us moving thrice or four times during that period, each house getting bigger, better and more self-contained than the other.

2002 was the year we moved to our last house in Nairobi, a three-bedroom space that went for sh. 7500 per month. My fondest memories yet! It was here that I grew to love writing, taking characters from stories that I read and then making them my own but giving them different adventures. Life was good. This period was when my dad’s life peaked after a defiant ascendancy in the 90s.

Fast forward to 2008 when I was in form two — the economic recession. I wasn’t well aware of what it was and why it mattered, but I have read a little on it, and link it to my father losing his job later that year in a mass retrenchment that dumped out a huge part of the workforce, most of them low-calibre workers - drivers, clerks and messengers (my father worked as one of these three. We never got to know).

Because it was becoming rather expensive to live in Nairobi without a steady income, my father moved us to Eldoret in early 2009. I was then a student at Chavakali High. When we would break for the holidays, mum said, I would travel to Eldoret, not Nairobi. It felt odd, leaving the place I once knew as home, but I soon grew to love Eldoret with its simplicity, its delicate balance of urbane bustle with rural ambience, a small town with a big heart and space for everyone.

After my form four in 2010, I came home to further bad news. Dad’s pick-up business, which he had delved into sometime in 2009, was not doing well, and he had gone for months without paying house rent. He then moved to Nairobi, which he saw of as more strategic, but it only got worse from there. For the first time in our lives, sleeping hungry became a real possibility. The breakfast of tea and bread slathered with Blue band and some omelette started to dry up. It started with the eggs leaving the table. Then Blue band was bought sparingly and soon, and it went off the table completely. Then, the tea with milk gave way to strungi, and bread gave way to mandazi. Lunch wasn’t assured either.

A month or so after I completed secondary school, I hung out with a cousin of mine who had just opened an eatery and managed to secure a job at the small kibanda. I earned fifty shillings a day, just enough for vegetables, with the other expenses were upon dad’s sporadic, often insufficient income. Mum became depressed, having to take care of us, and this forced my elder sister, then enrolled at a college in the town, to find a hustle to supplement whatever we came up with.

Then, soon after results were out, in February 2011, my excellent performance caught the eyes of our neighbour, a good friend of mum. She hooked me up with a friend of hers, who was a teacher at a nearby school and soon after, I landed my first job - an untrained teacher, with a monthly salary of sh. 2500. Meanwhile, my father stayed in the city and often went for months without coming back home. It would also be during this time that the stories that he had a second family began to swirl, a story that is still silently spoken of today. He promised that I would enrol in the university in the September intake. It was never to happen.. the whole of 2011, we never paid rent, which then meant that we had to give away our possessions whenever the agents came. They were rather kind, the agents, taking only two items - a stereo system and an old desktop throughout the seven or eight months we went without paying. It got worse, so bad that mum could barely afford to crack a smile. She got in contact with her sister, herself a casual labourer here in Nairobi, who then sent us fare some time in September, asking us to join her and she would help us find dad, who hadn’t been home for pretty much the whole of 2011.

A cold reconnection

When we landed back into the city, I was a starry boy once more, looking up to joining the university. My sister began looking for jobs in the newspapers, attending interviews here and there. Then, a cousin of ours called her, and my sister went to live with her in City Cabanas. That was some time in November. Towards Christmas, I also got another invitation, from mum’s aunt, to go live with her.

Two months later, another cousin of ours, who lived with the aunt, found me a job at Diamond Plaza, and finally, I could earn better. The year was in 2012. It wasn’t much, but I had little responsibility, so it was sufficient. My sister, meanwhile, had also found something to do. My other younger sibling was away in boarding school at Lugulu while the younger one enrolled in a school around Kangemi, where my aunt and mum lived. The last born boy, then only four, stayed with mum too. A once closely-knit family was now scattered all over Kenya like confetti in the wind.

Later that year, after much prodding, dad took mum in and the two, along with my two younger siblings went on to live in Racecourse, then later satellite, then Racecourse again. Mid 2012, mum’s aunt died, which then meant that we could no longer keep living in the house she had lived in, so at the end of 2012, we moved, my cousin and I, to Thiong’ o.At that point, I had lost all hope of enrolling in college and had decided to put myself wholly into the kibarua and see what came of it. I kept writing, as I found everything else without meaning.

A degree of Hope

But dad had other ideas. He sold the pick-up he had and used part of the money to enrol me to Technical University of Kenya in September 2013 for a degree in Journalism. The rest, he used to move mum and my younger siblings to Soi, and then began the construction of a house in his land.

Being in university restored my hope a better life, and for the whole semester, I attended all classes without fail - all of them. I studied and tried to make the best use of the library, but that I had also to take care of the job was not a delicate act. With my wages sliced in half because I was working part-time, I could barely survive under the increasingly expensive life in Nairobi. But I remained hopeful, so hopeful in the fact that in my second semester, I went back to writing. The year was 2014, and it remains the most prolific year in my writing yet. I wrote three novel manuscripts back to back, along with a few stories and articles, which I sent to the school magazine and even the dailies (don’t judge. I was naive), hoping for a breakthrough.

I acquired my first smartphone that year and began typing my first novel manuscript in it. I was excited and hopeful. Also, I was losing contact with my family, and it would take months before I spoke to any of them.

 Due to that tightly-packed schedule- class to work then to class again than to work - I failed to create the essential contacts that university life offers. Even while in class, I was always worried and would rush straight for the job once class was over, just so that I could clock the hours. Sometimes, I would not attend classes and would instead, walk from Kangemi to Parklands and clock in earlier than usual, just for that extra fifty shillings for lunch. As such, I never stayed for the lectures and career symposia.

Around this time, dad started going broke again, and my tuition fees went unpaid. I couldn’t sit for the exams. Because I hadn’t applied for Helb, another costly error, I, along with other students in similar circumstances, would devise ingenious ways to go about it, which worked sometimes and failed at different times. I didn’t care. I wanted to do as many exams as I possibly could, to get away from the life I was living as soon as possible.

An internship - the beginning of a strange run

Then, sometime in 2016, during our internship programme, one of our lecturers hooked us up with a friend of his who ran an online newspaper. Let’s call this friend Joel. Finally, I saw a chance to make an impression. It would take precious hours off my work time, but I chose to see 'the bigger picture’, an attitude that, while useful, would haunt me in terrible ways.

Here, my writing skills stood out. As did my work ethic, something that I have learnt is essential. The hours of practice in the preceding years paid off, and I made an impression. Joel spoke highly of me, and in turn, I put in more effort. I would churn out close to three or four articles in a day, several pages in content. I saw a breakthrough. At the end of my internship, Joel asked me to stay for longer and write. I was elated. I would finally start earning from something I loved! Or would I?  

In the first month, he gave me three thousand shillings. Added to my wages from the other job, I got some good money. But that would be the only time Joel would pay me. He talked to me of my writing, and how it would open doors for me once the website grew. He asked me not to think of money, and instead look at the opportunities he offered me, at the bigger picture, at how he was helping me grow. I was a green shoot, so I took it all in like a holy sermon. I would gain experience, and exposure, I thought, and maybe from there, the more prominent media houses would pluck me. But I would also begin to see Joel’s penchant for using interns to build his work.

It wasn’t until early 2017 that I woke up to the ruse. It dawned on me with the rising of the new year that I was working two jobs and getting paid in only one. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. So, I began skipping going to Joel’s website office and instead went to Parklands. The pay was guaranteed as long as I showed up, even if all I did was scroll absent-mindedly on Instagram. It wasn’t how I wanted to spend my days, but if that was what paid, and not my writing, then so be it. I wrote for myself late in the night and early mornings, hopeful that it would pay off sooner.

Botched elections; dashed hopes.

Then, in the run-up to the 2017 general elections, sometime towards the end of June, I got a message from Joel. He was working as part of a secretariat to one of the most prominent front runners in the elections, he and wanted writers for the party’s website. We would get paid 500 per article, he said, and payment would be weekly. I was thrilled, and without thought, I took the bait. I calculated that if I did three or four articles per day, I would make my entire months salary in some six to eight days or so. Who wouldn’t want that? So, I spoke to my Parklands bosses, pulling the wool over their eyes with a story on attachment. They allowed me to go in only on Sunday for the whole month of July.

That would be the beginning of my initiation to the frustrating world of freelance. Along with another young chap called David, we worked we assess off the entire first week. I did about twenty articles in the early six days, most of which were published. David did his fair share too. Except, when we met up to receive payments the coming Monday, David and I were handed three thousand shillings and told that the rest would be given to us before the week ended and that all we needed to do was to keep working, selling the agenda of the party. The senior writers, Joel and a few other journalists, one of whom is a frequent contributor at the Star, were called aside. I suspected they got paid their dues. Long story short, by the time July was drawing to a close, David had resorted to sleeping, while I made use of the Wi-Fi to read my favourite websites and write my stuff. I had, at this point, self-published my first novel at Amazon and was frequently checking it, just proud to see it lined up on the virtual Amazon bookshelf. It wasn’t selling, and though I remained hopeful, I was just happy to see it 'out there’.

Our pay day was then moved over to the 7^th of August, a day before the elections. But the usual came up - the accountant hadn’t consented to the checks, the communication adviser (who acted as our supervisor) was not in, money was stuck somewhere. We went to the offices in Westlands, where David and I received another four thousand shillings, and promised the rest after the elections. For a whole month, I had toiled for seven thousand shillings! Some three thousand shillings less than what I was earning in Parklands. Anyway, I won’t say how it went for the party, but in short, we never received the rest. I would also later learn that Joel and the other writers did not emerge unharmed either. Of course, the obvious lesson here is never to trust political parties, but I should also have seen this as a reflection of the freelance world.

Frustrated, I deleted J’s number and decided to stay at Parklands. With graduation slated for December that year, I knew I wouldn’t cut, due to outstanding fee arrears and missed exams, so working at Diamond Plaza was the only way I could keep myself afloat. And with hope fast running low, I couldn’t risk falling into that pit of uncertainty that follows resigning from your job with no better alternative.

Sanctuary

I would then begin working full-time in January 2018, with a much-improved arrangement but had started making more aggressive overtures to established writers, hoping to get them to read my work and offer their criticism, or an opportunity. One of them was Tony Mochama. Through mail, I got in touch with him, and he, in turn, much to my surprise and delight, invited me to the monthly literary discussions at Goethe. It was my dreams come true! But I was so Star struck at the event that I never managed to talk to him, but I made a point of attending them as consistently as possible, meeting many writers and engaging with a lot of other reading nerds. I had found sanctuary.

A flash in the pan of Hope

Fast forward to May 2019. With the Jubilee government waging a full-on war against the economy of Kenya in their second term, the business was low, and shops were closing. We were one of those going to be affected. As I was still coming to terms with the imminent closure of the shop I had toiled in for my early twenties, a text came in. It was from Joel, and he had another job for me. This one, he promised, would be nothing like the 2017 disasterlance, if I may call it that from my end. He made an offer and informed me that the job would be for some four months. The pay wasn’t as much as that from the 2017 gig, which I found more believable, and the fact that it was for a labour organisation made me feel more optimistic. Joel was working on a book for the union to celebrate 20 years. I figured that since I would be jobless in a few months anyway, why not take the better offer and save some and build from there. After all, which organisation would have a hard time paying sh.20,000 per month?

As usual, Joel was on me, trying to take my mind away from money. 'Don’t think much about the money; you’ll gain experience, contacts and confidence for the future’ quoted his text. A little wiser, I agreed with him, but with a 'but'. '…I will very much love to gain the contacts and experiences for future…but they won’t count for much if I starve today. I need money too. Hope I won’t have an experience like the (2017) one.’ was my reply. And throughout the past few months, I never failed to remind him of my need for money.

But this time, things were better, for the first month at least. Two days in, before I had even begun work (I was to help in research), I was given a down payment, first, some three thousand shillings on a Wednesday, then later, on Friday, Joel sent me some six thousand shillings more on my phone. The period was mid-May. Though I was a little bit more cautious, I was sold and began working with usual zeal. I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I was back to being hopeful, and having just self-published my second book the year before, it seemed as though things were finally looking up for me. Towards the end of May, Joel sent me another nine thousand shillings, which I put aside towards the purchase of a laptop. But that would mark the last time I would receive payment on time.

A week into June, I had only received three thousand, which was then followed by another three in the second week. The third week, Joel informed me that the SG had travelled and that for two weeks, I wouldn’t receive my pay. He filled the remaining four thousand shillings a mid-third week. The remaining amount was to be paid on the 29^th of June or thereabout. I was running out of money by the time the 29^th of June came round. With my father still struggling with his finances and mum unable to do much in the village, I shouldered the financial burden with my earnings and with the better income from the new job, I had increased the money I sent back home, on top of meeting my needs as well as commuting, the worst part of living in Nairobi.

The office is along Mombasa road, so, I spent close to two hundred shillings for fare, calculating to a thousand shillings a week. I tried to cut this by walking to Westlands with the early morning footsubishi squad. It wasn’t sustainable, and so, when I left the office on Tuesday 30^th, I informed Joel of my decision not to report to work on Wednesday, and asked for him to at least, get me some three thousand of the money owed to me to offset my rent expenses. I was seeing the similarities with the 2017 incident and did not want a repeat of that. I wasn’t polite in my asking, I admit, but I had intended for it to be provocative to get them to pay me. I was anxious, with rent due and cashed fast running out.

All hell broke loose. Ala! It was rude to ask for my payment to pay rent apparently, and doing that amounted to demeaning Joel. That was not how I had envisioned it would go, but three days later, I was still pestering him for the pay, with each response from him a distraction. He expressed concern for my mental health, and I, in turn, admitted that I was depressed. Years of toiling in this city while being paid barely enough to live comfortably takes a toll on you. Paying me would go a long way in offsetting some of my mental burdens, I informed him, all like the video of the young man came to mind.

My Story; a microcosm

So now, I sit in my shack, with no job and I suddenly relate to the video. Living in Kenya has always felt like riding a bicycle without brakes. Sure, you will still move from point A to B, and when you want to come to a halt, you will use your foot, but it will only take one emergency; one wrong turn, one distracted pedestrian, one absent-minded driver, for disaster to happen. You can live in this city comfortably, but it only takes one terminal illness, one fatal accident, and suddenly, you aren’t comfortable any more. Living in previous administrations in Kenya had always felt like having a noose around your neck, but under the Jubilee government, the knot wasn’t enough, so they added spikes and chains.

In Kenya right now, I’ve quickly learnt, you can’t be too hopeful, you can’t plan too far ahead, at least not when you are young and just getting a new job, and especially not if you are a freelancer. You can’t dream too much, and you can’t be too happy. You can’t want to be paid your worth, and you can’t want to be paid on time, you certainly can’t want to be paid the agreed amount, and you can’t have a voice. You can’t contradict authority, or else it is equivalent to being rude, and you can’t be seen to be too independent.

It dawns on me that I now occupy the position of the young man in the video. I am now the one answering the question. I am now the one not too invested in the next five years, or five months or five weeks, because, hopefully, Anita Nderu found him and helped restore his hope. Now, I can only hope to see the next minute, perhaps worry about rent for the next few days, but not a few months to come, not a year from now, not for a better life, because even the people that hold the means to make your life just a little bearable, are crushing under their weights, too self-absorbed to see that the system that rewarded them hurt them also, and in turn, they destroy the younger ones too. I have learnt that our struggle is connected, in more ways than one, against an existence that makes you need to beg for your right to live and live well, a system that will only reward you if your fawn over its failings.

Where I stand, many young Kenyans stand, with our hopes taking a beating with each day, wondering where we will be in the next minute. Death appears the only safe recourse, but not all of us are there yet. Some of us have hope, not for ourselves, but those around us. Hopefully, we go out and do, and dream, not for ourselves, but our loved ones, because the current conditions strip our lives of hope. Now, I can’t see myself living life on my father, despite being more educated. I can’t seem myself raising a family as big as ours. I can’t even see myself marrying, a view shared by many other young Kenyans. Entrepreneurship won’t get us out of this mess, because it is not just about unemployment. It’s about a total loss of morale, a state of existential angst that depression is still not explicit enough to describe.

An Ode to My Hood

STAGE TWENTY THREE, THE WAIYAKI WAY

At the Odeon, that’s where it starts. The KMO matatus calling for those heading there;
               Kangemi juu ya daraja thate,
              Kangemi juu ya daraja thate…
Sit through the close to twenty minutes ride and arrive at the crowded fly-over that doubles up as a market place and a conveyor into the inner chambers of Kangemi. First thing you will notice is the red Kangemi Petrol Station. Essentially, it is a petrol station (of course, it says so) but in reality, it is a matatu stage in disguise. Just wait until night fall, when the whole station gets turned into a loading zone, flashing lights and lots of hooting everywhere.
Stretching just beyond this petrol station is the famous Kangemi market. Now be careful how you walk on these grounds. Littered with fruit and vegetable peels, then covered with the water used in washing of these fruits and vegetables which are then displayed out there in the open and gather dust again so that you will wash them again when you get home, the ground is the best place to slip on. Usually, you will hear the mtumba guys howling at the top of their voices as they display their wares on gunias, reducing a wide street into an alley, so on top of trying to keep your balance, you need to be careful not to step on the clothes strewn haphazardly on the place where you are meant to walk. Step on one cloth, you will buy the whole cargo.
Anyway, why did I single out the cloth sellers as the noisiest? Because, usually, those selling vegetables and fruits know that you cannot avoid certain things, and among those certain things are vegetables and fruits. So they will sit back and let the reddish-green beckoning colour of the mangoes, the deep orange colour of the oranges and the vibrant yellowness of the bananas call you to their stalls. And don’t get me started on those selling sukuma wiki and cabbages (makabo). I mean really? For how long can you avoid their stalls? Probably just the first day of the month when the pockets are enthusiastic about making it rain because it’s payday. Mama Mboga just knows it’s your pockets, not the sukuma wiki or cabbage, which will direct you to her stall later on in the month. So, in that case, why bother with this window dressing nonsense? Just scatter the leaves of the damn thing on a gunia and watch them sell out like a brand new flagship Samsung phone. The very enterprising ones will cut them for you. Kuna ya ten bob, twenty bob, thirty bob and so on. Others even add some grated carrots on the cabbages, ‘kuongeza taste’.
In the inner stalls of Kangemi market, you will find all sorts of assorted stalls, all arranged such that you cannot miss any one of them. The streets are narrow so that the shopkeeper can just whisper in your ears as you pass by; Kuna ya soo, soo biri, yoyote unataka brathe, siste, aunty, etc. Here, you will find an electronic stall dealing in those Chinese sub-woofers that often look like a Sony shelf component that hit the shelves before it was fully done. Next to them is a sub-woofer repair shop. And they will swear they do not know each other. ‘Sisi tuko na wakachop huko towni’ they tell you as they pack the system into a paper bag before you even get the chance to bargain. And warranty, you wonder. Six months, he says, handing you a receipt which, incidentally, has the name of the ‘chop’ on it, a little misspelt but still genuine from the look of things. Unbeknownst to you, that speaker has a life span of seven to eight months. Also, you lose the right to complain if anything physically happens to the system, which while built quite well, has some brittle external parts, like a really crappy aerial that need a caress, or knobs that won’t work unless you punch them. Then, there are cloth stalls, where you will find a pair of jeans retailing for 1000 Shs in one place, then a cool five hundred shillings less at another place, all before you bargain. Of course, if you don’t want to walk the squeezed, claustrophobic place, you might as well exercise your jaws and begin a negotiation with the one selling it for 1000. You might end up paying 400 for it.
As you walk, please take care of the open sewer frothing just a slip away from your swede shoes. When you buy a banana, this is where the peel ends up. A mango, same, oranges, ditto. Food left over from the eateries dotting the market? You guessed it. Pouring urine hear is dependent on how many fucks you don’t give but yes, it is totally unpunishable if you do it here. The only thing frowned upon is doing a number two here.
Now, Kangemi is vast, and I mean, like really big. There are places that look like they belong to an urbane neighbourhood like Donholm, then there is the face of it, the ones that look like a glance of an upgrade on Kibera. In fact, in an alternate, I would say that Kangemi is Kibera’s fraternal twin although it is occurring to me as I write this that there is nothing stopping me from declaring it Kibera’s fraternal twin in this universe. So, Kibera’s fraternal twin it is.
There are all sorts of houses in Kangemi; single bedroom ya mabati, single bedroom ya mawe, single bedroom na jikoni, two-bedroom, three bedroom etc. And they are advertised on black boards erected strategically by the feeder roads taking you deep into the mtaa. Just take a short stop to look at them and boom, you have this guy on you like a shadow. Apparently, they are ‘agents’. For a small fee, they will take you to the ploti where the house whose price your pockets desire is located. How much, you ask? How about between two hundred and five hundred. Yes, you cough that much for a house you probably won’t even move in to. Moving houses isn’t cheap but apparently, neither is showing people moving houses houses. So it’s better to go through the torture of house hunting the hard way.
Kangemi has several small mtaas within it. There is Bottom-line, which is the first one just as soon as you walk down from the fly-over and take the turn on your right. Here, you will find a big pub with a Tusker logo on the entrance. It is Bottom-line Pub. That’s where this mtaa gets its name from. The place is littered with butcheries. Indeed, beef and beer are truly an inseparable couple. Wish we humans were more like them in our relationships. A small sewer streams on the side of the road. Unlike the one we encountered earlier though, this one is safely running on some lowered grounds, passing beneath the mama mboga vibandas and the chapati stalls. Oh, did I mention that the chapati business is gold here? You will hardly walk a few feet before you hear the sizzling of the dough on the pan, with the scent floating in the air as the yellow tower of the flat bread rises and is torn down just as immediately. You will notice that, the people selling this chapatis all have their peculiar way of making it. You will find one who makes them very round and tasteless, others raggedy and very salty. Another will make them like biscuit, very tough and dry but then, when dipped into supu ya madondo, it softens into a tasty piece of food, as long as you don’t finish the soup before the chapo, otherwise you will eat the rest of it with water, and while water is healthy and all, you will agree with me it is not the best when you want something to accompany food down the gut after each bite.
Kiumbuini is a football ground here in Kangemi. Located just off the matatu stage after the market, it is home to Kangemi United, Kangemi Sharp Shooters and stray dogs. The footballers are usually young men in their twenties who dream of one day playing in the Kenya Premier League. While most are good, law-abiding citizens, you will encounter a few hardcore muggers. This also includes some of the mechanics there. They have a day hustle and a night hustle. You really don’t want to run into your favourite fundi in his night hustle. Otherwise, all you will here is ‘ako na tenje! Ako na tenje!’ and the next thing you know, your phone is gone and you almost peed yourself.
Sodom is another of Kangemi’s smaller mtaas. This the worst place to stay in Kangemi. First of all, it borders a flight of high-rising apartments where the bourgeoisie look down at the sun all crooked on your rusting iron sheets and wondering just how people live ‘down there’. The sewers from these affluent houses often find their way down to the plots here in Sodom. Second of all, Sodom is a criminally sunken area. When it rains cats, dogs and their grandmothers, be prepared to have your houses flooded. You will find all manner of junk floating in your single room after a heavy downpour. So severe is flooding in Sodom that people living here have decided to…do nothing about it. No seriously, it’s so bad that apathy has set permanent residence here. People have desensitized themselves to it. So why don’t they leave, you ask? Because the houses around here are the cheapest one can find in Kangemi. Plus, it doesn’t rain every day so chances must be taken.
Thirdly, Sodom is overrun with rats. No, I’m not talking about the little cute ones that look like they could do with a hug. I’m talking about the big fat ones that could stand up to a cat. In the night, they come out to play and you will hear them on the rafters, running, squealing and falling on your bed. They will topple the dustbin and eat through the basins and possibly, your soul. These monsters don’t die easy though, so good luck getting rid of them.
Here, the kiosks don’t have Nairobi City County licenses so it is when you are really desperate for a tissue paper that you will find all the shops around closed because ‘kanjo wanatembea huku’. This game of cat and mouse is very common in these places. Maureen, a mama mboga in this area, has lived in Sodom for close to a decade. Her house rarely floods but then, she runs a small kiosk so there is kanjo to worry about. So, she rarely sets out to her kibanda during the day. She ventures out just as the sun is going down and is open into the tens in the p.ms. She is a blessing to the late-coming bachelors, especially considering she is among those who cuts mboga for you.
Sodom borders Waruku but that is in Dagoretti so we won’t talk about it. On your way out of Sodom, you can easily access Waiyaki Way through an alternative route instead of going back to the fly-over. Across the road, is a bar called Gitoka Springs, red in colour. You can take it easy and unwind here though don’t take any chances with your priced possessions. Outside, you will look over at the Tim Wanyonyi Boda boda den, where the motorcyclists like to pass their free time as they discuss politics. When you leave, feel free to just walk over to the stage outside and jump into the nearest matatu to town. If you got time to spare, you could walk up the mtaa beckoning you ahead, leading you back to the fly-over. Here, you won’t encounter anything new save for more women selling fish and many psychedelic M-pesa signboards flickering their annoying green lights at you. Also, for some reason, there are a lot of charcoal dealers here. Maybe we have the next Njenja Karume just toiling away here, unassumingly, as thousands in the bank account grow into millions then into billions, probably. Feel free to sample the mutura beckoning deliciously at you as you try to pass by without looking. ‘Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look’, oh who are you kidding? ‘Nikatie ya mbao. Na hauna kachumbari leo? Ayaya, sawa tu.’
Then you walk across the fly-over, stop and lean on the railings and watch the traffic tide ebb and flow below into the distant, savour the far skyline of Nairobi city in the horizon, bathed in the orange gaze of sunset, before you walk past some more fish basking in the evening dust towards the matatus now beginning to occupy the entry to the petrol station. Oh, before you get on the mat and leave though, just turn to your left, behind that guy selling ‘dawa ya mede na panya’ on a wheelbarrow, there is a Kisii woman selling fresh njugu karanga. They are very tasty when a little warm. If not, just take the ones that have cooled, but they are a hit or miss in that state. Then, get into the mat. Since its evening, you could end up paying probably thate or fote. Safe journey and please, come back because Kangemi is too big to be completed in half a day. Yes, more than two thousand words later, we are still not done with Kangemi.

The Hunt: Bloodlines

Chapter 1

Falling

It was in the waning hours of the day that spelt an end to a battle that had raged on for days on end. He staggered up a small hill as the sounds of brutalized men sounded behind his back and looked over the Kingdom of Shigu Siuna. For days, he had led his men against the plucky little villagers of the Tamers in a fierce confrontation against those numerous, unskilled but incredibly spirited warriors and was losing his legions, and indeed himself, to their unyielding endurance. 

His men had been reduced to a handful of soldiers cowering behind rocks and on trees, spears sticking out of them like a malicious growth, arrows tearing through their hearts like love gone sour. It was not a lost battle of course, but it looked no closer to victory, and with the spear burning a hole through his heart and throwing out blood in violent fits and jets, defeat needed not to be the death of those Tamers.

Now, as the sun set, Kemaa stood against a tree and watched the furious red sunset blaze on his Kingdom. His face, streaked with sweat and blood, soiled with the dirt of battle, glowed along with the fire of the setting sun. A sad smile crawled on his dry, pale lips. Defeat shone from his dying eyes. Something then burst from his eyes. Tears. Plenty of them. 

In the fading light of daylight, he saw it. Just as The Hunters had tamed, subdued and conquered others, so would they be conquered. It was a cycle, and their time was coming. The mighty felled others. But when their time came, they would fall too. It was the inevitable truth. Not matter how mighty one was, no community and its structures was immortal.

With that, he closed his eyes and slid down the tree to the ground with a hard thump. Dead.

Black Rose synopsis

In a childhood rife with adversity, I figured that things couldn't possibly get any worse.  Indeed, my teenage years, despite their unique offer of misfortune, were the best years of my life to this day, and I felt that they were a clairvoyance of what I was to expect from life. 

Fast forward to university and life frowned upon me like I had taken away its toy. Caught between conflicting philosophies, disappointing realities, and unfulfilled, and indeed unfulfilling fantasies, I took a pause...or rather,  life forced me to take a pause and recalibrate. I would soon realise that, it was hard - very hard in fact, almost impossible tbh - to pursue one's dream, and that the only guarantee in life is death, because even with taxes, you can evade...

Book cover design concept by Joy Alunga