I was socialised Gikuyu.
Growing up in the Kiambu of the eighties, all I ever wanted to be was a blinged out Gikuyu.
I wanted the Datsun twero, the ‘Godfather’ hat, the cowboy boots.
And when I heard that there was a Gikuyu, with a big bar in America called Kilimanjaro, I didn’t pause to marvel, just upgraded my dream. Me, two Friesians and a goat. Behind a picket fence in Dallas.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Chips Isiyo Funga
For Bruno Schultz my private Pole: a lesson in translation; anticipating progress in your work.
***
Well it is bye to strangers who might come back our way as admirers in the made up ‘bravura’ of our revolution. Those are what ifs… The demons we didn’t kill- destined to come back and haunt Nairobi. Unless we turn them into Goddesses on the eve of the writing of Nairobi Histories.
Goddess, meet Nairobi Nyap Technician. Comrade NyapTech, Insatiable Goddess. Go forth, Nairobi, and fornicate.
Trust me, you are free to sow vulcanised oats.
“Sixteen rounds,” Nyaptech Nairumours sms’d, “and the Malaya kips wantnG so… Nayo!!!”
Hapa ni Nairobi.
***
Well it is bye to strangers who might come back our way as admirers in the made up ‘bravura’ of our revolution. Those are what ifs… The demons we didn’t kill- destined to come back and haunt Nairobi. Unless we turn them into Goddesses on the eve of the writing of Nairobi Histories.
Goddess, meet Nairobi Nyap Technician. Comrade NyapTech, Insatiable Goddess. Go forth, Nairobi, and fornicate.
Trust me, you are free to sow vulcanised oats.
“Sixteen rounds,” Nyaptech Nairumours sms’d, “and the Malaya kips wantnG so… Nayo!!!”
Hapa ni Nairobi.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Writing My Nairobi
I learnt to tell stories in a world where there was no theory. I knew no Feminism; I was just a boy telling the stories of the life and the living in the idiom of my world. I knew no historical materialism; class struggles, just that there were things we didn’t have- things we wanted- and that Moi and Kenyatta had stolen them.
***
There is a Nairobi where Dinda, my mtaa Pharmacist, refers to women (and cars, phones, stereos) as Malaya.
Malaya, (n.); (Pl.) Malayas
Translation:
ENG: virgin (kamalaya). Girl. Woman. The way a man or a woman who has sex with men, women and mzungu pets for a living describes him/herself. A kept man. A man who has been tested and proven a sex machine.
NGO SPEAK: GirlChild™
KIS: bikira. Mwana dada. Jogoo (Nyap-Teknisheni)
***
***
There is a Nairobi where Dinda, my mtaa Pharmacist, refers to women (and cars, phones, stereos) as Malaya.
Malaya, (n.); (Pl.) Malayas
Translation:
ENG: virgin (kamalaya). Girl. Woman. The way a man or a woman who has sex with men, women and mzungu pets for a living describes him/herself. A kept man. A man who has been tested and proven a sex machine.
NGO SPEAK: GirlChild™
KIS: bikira. Mwana dada. Jogoo (Nyap-Teknisheni)
***
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)