KENYA'S COPS.

Today morning, at about 8.00 am, when everyone was on their way to work, I was on my way to scout for a job; another day of tracking through projects online, and writing proposals for the ones I felt I felt I was right for. It happened such that I was brooding about the changes that seem to have taken place in this country in the last three months, when I was stopped by a lady officer, who had somehow noticed that the left corner lamp of my car was missing.

'Hili Gari halina taa. Taa likowapi?' She asked in Swahili. This translates into, 'This car has no light. Where's the light?' When you're stopped by a police officer in any part of Kenya, you should know that you're probably going to end up leaving the scene with a lighter pocket, or wallet, as the case may be.

'Taa imeibiwa, mama. Ilichukuliwa huku posta.' I said. 'The light has been stolen, Mam, it was taken at the post office.' There was some kind of irony in that, I thought. To have been stolen at a post office, and maybe posted somewhere. Or perhaps it was taken by some fellow who had the same model. Since you don't find spare parts for these things in Mombasa. Maybe his was stolen as well. It could be a chain link of robberies. In Kenya, who knew?

'Na licensi ikowapi?' She asked. 'Nimeisahau nyumbani. Pole, tafadhali.' I answered. This made her case a bit stronger, in that now the extortion would begin. She had asked for my license and I effectively told her that I had left it at home. Her next words, therefore, were no surprise to one who has become jaded by the system. 'Sasa tufanye nini?' Which means, Now what are we to do?

Well, I couldn't rightly answer that without putting my foot in my mouth. So I waited for her to make the next comment. Just then, her phone started ringing, and she removed it from her pocket to reply. Well, well, what did we have here? It was one of the latest Nokia models, and not affordable on her salary, I surmised. After finishing the call, she looked and me and asked, 'Niandike?' Which stands for, 'Shall I write?' One should realize that this is a double-edged sword.

If you go ahead and say yes, she'll probably write you a ticket, which takes a journey to the judge's chambers and a moderate fine, with all the hassles along the way. On the other hand, if you say no, chances are she'll ask for some money, as a sort of unspoken understanding. Then comes the discreet fold of the big note, and the casual passing over of it, and then you're free to go.

In this case, I had no money on me, so a ticket was infinitely better. So I told her, 'Sawa. Andika tu, mama.' OK, Mam, Go ahead and write. She licked the tip of her pen, in a threatening gesture, and then said, 'Nenda.' Go. I was lucky that she couldn't be bothered to write out the ticket. Or I'd be in court now.

Which is a long start to an otherwise short day.

ONCE A MURPH, ALWAYS A MURPH!

Did I mention that I was a Murph? Well, what happened this weekend merely seems to enhance the fact that I am, in fact, a Murph. As in, I’m a person who is the living, breathing true-to-life proof that Murphy’s Law persists. Since my sister was in a wedding, I volunteered to baby-sit her daughter Alishba, in the process giving up my social life for three days. Three whole days, each of which was exactly twenty four hours; seventy two hours which were more than enough to make me take a firm stand in what I now call the Motherhood is the Toughest Job in the World Cause.

How was I ever so ignorant as to think that taking care of babies is a breeze? How did one small baby manage to create in me an exhaustion that is on par with jetlag? And after the whole weekend, I’ve come to the conclusion that Like Aunt, Like Daughter. She seems to be a Murph too. Which I a pity. This world surely doesn’t need more of us.

Alishba is ten months old. She’s a fast crawler, and her favorite place is her mother’s kitchen, where she can sit on the cool floor and watch her mother cook. She’s pretty loud, and loves shouting out at moments where silence should be observed. She beats up her brother if he even deigns to sit in her chair, and claps in glee when anyone takes her for a car ride. She is, by nature, a cuddler, and sleeps holding the edge of her soft blanket. Having an agile set of fingers, she manages to spot every piece of lint and makes quick work of eating it. In other words, she is exactly as babies ought to be. So what makes her a Murph?

She tried to stand on the bed, using a pillow for support, which decided to slide down to the floor, when she was at her most precarious position, taking her along with it. She bruised her ribs slightly, and is rightly scared of being left alone now. Proof part two. To celebrate a birthday, the cake was placed on the table she was sitting on. Before it could be cut, she accidentally put her foot in it.

I took her along to the wedding reception on Sunday night, to return her to her mother. After I was dressed in my wedding finery, I took her out for a walk, which is when she decided to pee on me. And then she sat in the car, all excited about going out, but it refused to start. At the reception, when the master of ceremonies was giving a speech introducing the bride and groom, she set up a series of loud, excited shouts, causing a lot of people to turn around and stare. She stared back.

Then she turned around, put her hands in my hair, and pulled it open. When I scold her, she smiles like she understands everything I say, and then does it again. She enjoys getting attention, and is like all Murphs; good at getting into messy situations accidentally. Just like her aunt.

25 things I wish to do before I turn 25

It always seems so ambitious to have a list of the things that you want to do before you become ancient. It is a marvel of our youth that we subject ourselves to big dreams, and when they don't materialize, we tend to blame ourselves, never imagining that maybe we set goals that are just too high for the average youth. nonetheless, we do it. I do not mean to sound extremely uninspiring, I just speak the truth.

Nonetheless, here’s my list of things I want to do before I’m 25. Some may be weird, I know, but if you can’t be weird, that you can’t be telling the truth! At least, that’s my philosophy. So here it is:

1) Ride a Motorbike

2) Go bungee-jumping over Victoria falls

3) Eat a triple fudge banana split all on my own

4) Get a pet

5) Google up 3000 different subjects

6) Do a photography course

7) Perform in a drama

8) Write a book on life in college

9) Go camping in the wild

10) Tour Europe

11) Read A Tale of Two Cities

12) Eat Camel Meat

13) Watch Gone with the Wind

14) Drive an SUV

15) Get a job

16) Learn German

17) Volunteer at an orphanage

18) Experience the feel of a snake on my shoulders

19) Go white-water rafting

20) Stay in a seven star hotel

21) Get another piercing

22) Fight for a good cause

23) Complete my MBA

24) Get published in Reader’s Digest

25) Run a half-marathon

I’M OFF TO CATCH THAT MUSE!

Tomorrow, I’m going to Malindi. I’ll laze around, have a nice time by the beach and swim in the sea. My muse will act up, and when I get back, I’ll have plenty of interesting stuff to write up on. In fact, I’ll probably have to take a paper napkin with me, in case it’s the big one. You know, the BIG ONE. Like a book. Like Harry Potter. Only, instead of the small, noisy café with the small baby, I’ll be out by myself in the open, with the sound of the waves in my ears and the feel of the soft, silver sand between my toes. Great incentive to be lazy, but greater incentive to feel inspired by all this bounty. When the doors to the mind open, I’ll be there, with my pen in my hand, and the paper napkin on the sand.

On the other hand, maybe my muse will decide to play cat and mouse, the way it often does at night. I’ll be thinking of a great idea for a story, but when I pick up the pen, the story’s gone; vanished on wings of silvery moonlight. Once lost, it hardly ever comes back. But when it does, I’m in the shower. In these dire straits where the want of a pen is mightier than the need to feel clean, I opt, of course, for the pen. This has led to some encounters I’d rather not write about; suffice it to say; slipping on wet tiles is a pretty good start. My muse laughs.

When in adverse conditions, the muse wakes up and decides to lend a helping hand, as is proved by J. K. Rowling. Unfortunately for most writers, in cases of hardship, the muse decides to abandon them all together. They must then make their living without it. And so something called the Writers Block is born. To get rid of it, one must persuade their muse to return; bribe it, threaten it, grab it; but return it must.

And others just try to get it back by loving it. Hence this trip to Malindi. Enter the sea and the surf. Wish me luck.

OF CHATS, FLIGHTS AND HUMID AIRPORTS

In the entire span of my short life, I have missed five flights, two international ones included. Maybe there’s an art to it, I wouldn’t know. It seems remarkably easy, after the first time you do it. And sometimes, it’s just the first flight that matters, and all the connecting ones are lost too. Sometimes, you land in different cities, and sometimes, your luggage gets left in Nairobi, three connecting flights away. In that case, it never helps to make a fuss; you might just as well go on to your final destination, and include the lost luggage in your nightly prayers. In time, it shall make its way to where it was supposed to be in the first place, and if you’re lucky, it’ll only be slightly wet. If you’ve had the foresight to pack it up with plastic paper to avoid moistness, odds are that you won’t be missing your flight in the first place.

If you have a habit of chatting all the time, as I do, you have to be more careful. Once, I began chatting with a colleague, and the next thing I know, two hours had gone by. Check-in time was over. We rushed over to the check-in counter, but there was no one there, apart from one lady who was shutting the gate. She stared sympathetically, but it was obvious from the shrug of her shoulders that she wouldn’t help out. If this ever happens to you, you know its time for a drastic gesture. A soft sob and a few crocodile tears never go amiss. If you’re a guy, do not attempt this tactic, which will earn you a look that ensures you shall never again repeat this slur against ‘man’kind. You won’t come anywhere near the boarding gate either.

Jumping the security queue can never make you popular, but shutting out the insults directed at you can be done by placing the palms over the ears. When in this scenario, ensure that you are not holding any spare pieces of cabin luggage, which may smack into the eyes, and cause them to water. Of course, this makes one look like they’re sick or drunk, and so one has to endure a closer inspection from the security guards. Chatting can also be counter-productive in that someone may take off with your luggage and check it in as their own, and airport rules, unfortunately, do not allow civilians into their cargo holds to look for lost, or as is the case, stolen, pieces of luggage.

When you reach your destination, four days after you’ve left, make sure that you head to the right section for immigration. Some airports tend to be really big, and the bigger the airport, the greater the chance of getting lost. Of course, when in such a scenario, never ask a janitor for directions. They tend to have a rather strange sense of humor. Follow the sound of escalators, for immigration is never on the same level as point of entry. Sometimes, it’s easier to just go with the mass exodus. However, in all such cases, do ensure that the person in front of you is headed to the same place you are. If you’re a guy, you know you won’t ask. It’s in keeping with the ‘I don’t ask for directions’ syndrome that all men seem to be afflicted with. If you have a long neck and can keep your balance on your toes, then you should know it doesn’t hurt anything but your dignity to peek over and peer into someone’s cabin luggage tag. You might get a few stares, but at least you know you’re home safe.

For people like me, airports are wondrous places, where all sorts of people are gathered, most headed to different places. Whenever I enter an airport, I always try to pick someone who looks approachable to converse with, to find out more about where they’re from, for future references. Not because I’m a stalker, but because I might want to visit someday. I learnt that I should pick someone who’s on my flight if I plan on getting on it. The first time I didn’t, my colleague and I ended up waiting in the Emirates queue for our check-in when we were flying via Kenya Airways. Since we were talking, we only noticed that fact thirty minutes before take-off. Running helter-skelter, we trod on quite a few toes to get ourselves at the right place, only to experience the sympathetic lady bit. Final call for the waterworks, and we managed to get on the plane by the skin on our teeth. Of course, the luggage got lost. What did we expect?

Beware of airports that are undergoing renovations. Once I found myself on a runway, with a mass of other people, all staring down the airbus that looked like it wanted to flatten us for fillet. Fortunately for us, the runway was big enough to accommodate both the plane and us. We managed to get to our homes with no other injury apart from the ringing in our ears. It helped; that ringing. I couldn’t hear my family making fun of my accent, which made for a few days of peace.

Renovations in the interior of the airport also tend to ensure that the air conditioning is switched off, so the first time you go to a country with a tropical climate, find out if its airport is being renovated. You might just faint from the heat, and lie there for hours. Heat makes the energetic lethargic, and the lethargic dead. Hence, make certain that when you narrowly miss the experience of being flattened by the air-bus, you have the presence of mind to carry its fan with you.

After all that has happened on my many near misses of flights, one thing I can say with certainty is that it makes for an interesting life. Give it a try, you’ll really experience living.

WHEN THE HEART WINS

Sometimes when you meet a person, you instinctively know that that person will feature in your life henceforth. It’s like a decision taken that cannot be accounted for by personal choices; neither taste, nor religion nor race. It’s more a subconscious understanding between two people. If I were poetic, I’d say that it was a meeting of the auras that surround us, before it becomes a conscious meeting.

When you read The Fountainhead, you come across this scenario, where Howard Roark meets Dominique’s husband for the first time. He comes prepared to hate Gail Wynand for being his lover’s husband, and yet, that first time the two meet; there is no consciousness of anything apart from the feeling that they’ve known each other forever; that perhaps they were part of the same soul in another life. Past relationships cease to exist in that moment, and Dominique becomes just another person in both their lives.

It is an inherent feature of human beings in this world that we tend to believe in stronger feelings, stronger emotions; love falls upon us like a bolt of lightning, hate is felt into the very essence of our cores, happiness is shouted from the roof in a drunken-like state. As a consequence of this aspect of our existence, we forget about the subtle nuances of emotion that are actually the backdrops of one’s existence, and yet have the furthest impact.

Few are the people who understand the feeling of being softly content, pleasantly happy, and quietly morose; these are the people who have the wisdom and experience to understand that a life that is loud is a life that may be more colorful, and yet it is a life that is missing out on the delicate flavors that embrace the imagery of existence.

Hence, the concept of meeting a person and relating to them in a subconscious manner is an idea alien to most; those who undergo such an experience typically do not recognize the significance of such a moment. It is only later as they think on it that it strikes them; mostly because they cannot recall the exact moment of seeing the other person for the first time; this moment hangs in the air, suspended by the silken threads of consciousness. It is the flash of recognition between two hearts; the brain cannot account for it, yet it attempts to do so in a manner that attempts to bring into perspective this meeting.

In today’s world, where air kisses abound and strong hand-shakes rule the day, the first impression made upon a person is not the last. A person’s character tends to be hidden by the facade one fronts in response to the society’s norms. As people meet in society, they tend to hide what they really are in favor of what others expect them to be. A man of simple tastes will find himself eating caviar even though he hates it, just as he puts on an air of affluence peculiar to him. In this world, it is even more important that one listens to the inner voice in him, so that he can know, and understand when he has met a friend of the soul, someone who he cannot remember his first moment with. Thus is made a friend of the soul.