Types of Mistresses in Nairobi

Those who have read Birthday Breakup and Other Stories think of the opening story, Martha, as a good one.

And I was thinking about the story and where it came from.

As writers, one of our unique gifts is the ability of our memories to compartmentalize some anecdotes, stories, phrases, words, and ideas, that we think can be assets in our writing down the line. I see this with almost everyone, but writers can remember very specific things, to see that X-factor in any ordinary story, and work this into their own stories.

The seed for the story Martha was planted in my mind more than ten years ago while having newsroom gossip. Journalists, owing to their access to information about VIPs usually have the best gossip. We were bantering about some big shot when my then-boss told us of something that had happened to him and his mistress a few years back. The story wasn’t even about Martha, but the foolishness ya wanaume.

But for me, that woman who became Martha intrigued me. I was young and didn’t quite understand the sponsor and m-baba culture and how it works.

However, over the years, I would interact with more women who live like Martha. And I came to group them into threes.

Category A, is usually very brilliant, even in school, and extremely very resourceful to the m-baba. Like they have beauty and brains. So, when they sleep their way to the top, there is an element of merit, in two ways. One, they are academically qualified or competent in their field, so their sleeping merely catalyzes their rise to the top. On their own, they would still do it, but why not use their femininity where it matters.

Thus, these women get appointments, and promotions, and move like bosses in town. Also, it takes a lot of competence to extract resources from a mature man. I have seen younger women throw shade at +35 men. And I understand their frustration with these men. These men have been in the streets long enough to know where to put their money and what value they get back. So, category A women know the right knobs to touch, to get that apartment, to get that job, that promotion, or heck, even that billion-dollar tender.

Category B, are those who miscalculate. They are bright enough, but they either overestimate their place in the man’s life, or underestimate the man’s intelligence, and they work themselves into a bad situation. There used to be one of the fiercest, morbidly radical feminists on Twitter a while back. She played both sides. Feminist where it served her interest, and feminine, where it worked. One day, she got involved with some government bigshot, got a kid for him, and tried to wrestle the man from his wife, failed, took him to court for child support and such, and the man played rough, then akajua hajui.

Happens a lot. A girl gets pregnant for some big shot, thinking that she has secured a future, and then the big shot runs. The girl is left wondering how could she have miscalculated.

Category C, are those who assume that they will always be young and hot. Don’t invest in their education, their financial literacy, and anything that can secure them a future. They are either lazy or illiterate. Thus, they spend their youthful days in yachts, holidaying with the who is who, traveling the world, then when replaced with younger women, they fall off the radar. Whereas, some can still get some beta to marry them, and settle down, or other orbiters who want to have them around, they still pine for the good old days, and miscalculate so badly, overlooking the boring betas, who can be an alternative.

Martha was a mix of categories A and B.

Playing the league of a mistress to the big shot is like these men in wash-wash. Some transition into politics or property, clean their man like an Italian godfather who wants to go clean. Some get addicted to the high life of the fast lane and forget that they won’t last there long enough before the law catches with them, or they get shot in turf wars, or the taps they draw money from dry up. Or their political benefactor is kicked out.

Some try to invest, with varied success.

But like the wash-wash types, the ability to read the room and exit when you can, or cash in at the earliest helps a lot.

The bad thing about in your late 30s and 40s, you will know all these characters, and see them make their mistakes in real time, and whether they will self-correct or not, doesn’t matter.

You can’t hate the game.

The world will always have its Marthas.

And rich men come in three shades.

The cold, calculating ones, Machiavelli who follow that dark triad. Few women can pin this one down, and they would need the Delilah type of cunningness to squeeze anything from them. The cold-calculating rich folk are the type that repossesses their gifts and assets from the women once the women go rogue. And if she tries to play dirty, the man will pull a proper stinker on her. Killing is an option.

Then, there are the wise, empathetic ones, who will invest in a woman they love properly. Wiser women usually know how to keep this one. Either they marry them, or accept their position as mistress, and don’t cause him any trouble. However, most women dating at the top, prefer the wildness of the rich, wild type. And soon discard the wise and empathetic boyfriends. Unfortunately, empathetic men tend to be the least forgiving once you cross them.

And then, there are rich and foolish men, who even mortgage their empires away. Know these guys who lose their entire wealth to a second, wilder wife, who runs the kids and first wife out of town?

Anyway, what is your experience with these things?

BOOK REVIEW: ButWhat If We Were Wrong

Book Review

What If We Were Wrong

Book Review

Every so often, as a reader and a writer, you come across a writer whose work is so breathtakingly relatable that you are genuinely scared that there is someone out there who thinks like you, sees life through the same lens as you and you will be agreeing with almost everything they write. Sometimes, there are authors who are contrarian, but you like the brilliance of their thoughts, like Nassim Taleb.

One writer I have always admired (and I am sure fans of longreads all do) is Chuck Klosterman. That man can write about njahi and he will make you love the damn thing.

Besides, his journalism, I have collected his books and they have been lying on my shelf for some years, and recently I decided to read his 2016 treatise, “But What If We’re Wrong?”

The premise of the book is basically simple: what if everything we know and believe in presently could be wrong in the future. The book is an assessment of the history of humanity and how beliefs change over time.

His first big question is what if 500 years from now, we will discover we are wrong about the force of gravity? After all, Aristotle who was once the know-it-all was wrong about gravity, until Isaac Newton changed the game. One time, the church believed that the sun revolved around the earth until scientists in the 15th century proved otherwise and Galileo Galilei was jailed was publishing his thoughts on the same, and only recently did the church pardon him posthumously.

Of course, by the time science and mathematics arrive at a conclusion a lot of research that is provable and verifiable has been done. And maybe not much in the scientific realm will change, but Klosterman does a good job in speculating what theories we currently hold that could be rendered obsolete or obliterated by future scientists, after all, aren’t scientists always outdoing and undoing each other?

One theory that Klosterman holds that I have always held since I was young is how we interpret history. History, unlike science, is not static. Someone who is a hero today can turn out to be a villain in 50 years. If someone who was an R. Kelly fan died in 2008 for instance were to rise from the dead, he will be shocked that R. Kelly is now incarcerated and will most certainly die in jail.

The first piece by Klosterman I read was in the New York Times, and he was speculating about who will go down as the greatest rock and roll musician. The piece is part of the book. And on the basis that Chuck Berry’s song, Johnny B Goode was included as the eleventh track of disc 1, in the Voyager Golden Record that traveled into deep space in the late 1970s, out of our solar system, Klosterman said, Chuck Berry will be the greatest rockstar who ever lived.

Klosterman argues that Rock as a genre died by the early 1970s and despite the few rockstars who still do rock music, the utility of rock was gone by the time the Vietnam War was done, and the Beatles broke up. And in a sweeping jibe, he says nobody listens to rock after graduating from college, except maybe if your name is Tony Ontita.

A few months ago, I angered rumba aficionados, when I said in 2060, Koffi Olomide will be considered the greatest African music of the previous 100 years. The basis of my argument was that starting in 2058, African countries will be celebrating 100 years of independence from various colonies, and out of necessity, those living by then will ask themselves, who was (would be) the greatest African musician of all time. The obvious answer would be Franco Luambo Luanzo Makiadi. No contest. However, a few may opt for Tabu Ley, Fela Kuti, Youssu N’dour, and maybe, Miriam Makeba, or Burna Boy. But my argument came down to Franco versus Koffi. Franco was a superb guitarist, composer, and arranger, and vocally he is not ranked anywhere, though his hoarse, authoritative tenor is recognizable, Tabuley is a greater vocalist. With over 1000 songs composed and a career spanning almost four decades, he lasted as long as Koffi has lasted. Vocally, Koffi is not the most gifted, and in many of his songs, he is mostly chanting what pure rumba fans may find gibberish.

However, Koffi will beat Franco on a number of things. Franco’s music did evolve over the years, but he remained rooted in rumba. Even when the Congolese music shifted to the fast, eclectic Soukous beat, Franco who died seven years since Soukous happened, still stuck with the slower versions of rumba. It is of course a generational thing. Koffi started in the late 1970s with Papa Wemba’s Viva La Musica outfit, and by the late 1980s when he went independent, forming his Quartier Latin International. Koffi always went against the grain. At the peak of Soukous, he slowed the beat and invented Tcha Tcho. He ruled in the 1990s, and even when Ndombolo came, he never changed a bit. In the 2000s, he reinvented himself, introducing himself to younger generations with hits such as SKOL. In the 2010s, he started doing collaborations with younger artists to the distaste of older fans who thought he was watering his brand. And in the last two years, he went back to his older version that could sing, and is presently doing slow rumba, what you can call rumba RnB. In effect, he has touched all generations born from the 1950s to the kids born today. I know kids who know Koffi’s music of the last five years but don’t know or wouldn’t like Koffi’s first album that is forgettable.

On account of these, plus the fact that he was more all-round as a singer, dancer, choreographer, and ever-changing, he may be the artist with a more lasting impact.

Basically, that is how Klosterman would argue if he was to write about it. Also, Klosterman is keen to remind us that the present popularity of an artist doesn’t translate to longevity. Shakespeare probably was not the best playwright of his generation. William Thackeray was a better novelist, but it is Dickens who is remembered from that generation. And some books that are spurned by critics today end up being great classics in the future, for instance, The Great Gatsby.

Of course, future generations have the benefit of hindsight that living in the present robs us. And we are not supposed to use today’s standards to assess the past. The book essentially is about how memory works. How do we remember things? How does histography work?

The book examines the stuff we think is popular today but will not be as popular in the future. Boxing was such a big sport in the 20th century. But nowadays it lives on the fringes. Is it possible that something like American football will be dead? That is what Malcolm Gladwell suggested at a gig that Klosterman attended. However, Klosterman avers that the sport may not entirely die, but may go on to live on the fringes like boxing. The basis of American football dying isn’t any different from that of boxing, because both games are dangerous.

I wondered too; would soccer too lose its appeal? Indeed, among proper football fans, modern football obsessed with numbers and not talent, is not interesting. Jeremy Clarkson writing in his column a few years back said that football looks all the same, it could be robots playing. He said the league has become so competitive, so artificial that winning a game comes down to Steven Gerald slipping. If you watched the Everton-Arsenal game where Everton won by a single kick from the corner, you catch the drift.

Klosterman asks, could robots replace humans in sports? Possible considering how popular video games have become and how FIFA games have become super realistic and they get better every day.

One day, maybe even stadiums will be gone, and if it is real players, they will play inside halls, and people will watch only on screen.

The book also speculates if the venerable American constitution is what makes it vulnerable and may lead to the eventual collapse of the American empire. In the same way, we believe in our constitution that we copied from America, could our new constitution become the biggest threat to our existence? Probable and that was the wisdom of Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila in trying to change it. And isn’t ironic that Ruto who opposed the constitution is now the biggest defender?

Anyway, in Kenya, if we look back, whom do you so consider the best and worst president. Many will choose Kibaki as the best and Moi as the worst. But an objective reading of history will be far kinder to Moi.

It is a good book for speculative thinking and one that if you like intellectual discussions will power your muse. Also, Klosterman’s humour, wit, and prose are highly readable and entertaining.

Thanks. See you soon for another review.

NB: I am still hawking my books, reach out to me. I also make personal deliveries, where possible and necessary.

Christopher Hitchens on the Rwandan Genocide

Christopher Hitchens in his volcanic and charged memoir Hitch-22 talks of a time when he met a Rwandese genocide survivor. He writes;

“I once spoke to someone who had survived the genocide in Rwanda, and she said to me that there was nobody left on the face of the earth, either a friend or relative, ‘who knew who she was’. No one who remembered her girlhood and her early mischief and family lore; no sibling or boon companion who could tease her about that first romance; no lover or pal with whom to reminisce. All her birthdays, exam results, illness, friendships, and kinships-gone. She went on living but with a ‘tabula rasa’ as her diary and calendar and notebook. I think of this every time I hear of the callow ambition to “make a new start” or to be “born again”: Do those who talk this way truly wish for the slate to be wiped? Genocide means not just mass killing, to the level of extermination, but mass obliteration to the verge of extinction. Do you wish to have more reflection on what it is to have been made the object of a “clean” sweep? Try Vladimir Nabokov’s microcosmic miniature story “Signs and Symbols,” which is about angst and misery in general but also succeeds in placing it in what might be termed a starkly individual perspective…”

He was writing this in relation to his trip to Poland where he was trying to trace his roots from the maternal side. Hitchens learnt rather too late in life that his mother was Jewish. Her mother committed suicide in a ritualistic pact (something that may have contributed to Hitchens’ atheism). He had never mentioned this to him. And the maternal grandmother waited until later in life before she could let out the secret. Since the 1800s and the first part of 1900, the Jewish were targeted a lot anywhere in Europe; this culminated in the World War 2 holocaust. So, immigrant Jewish who settled in ‘safer’ countries preferred keeping the Jewish identity as private as possible. Before the holocaust, the Jewish had been expelled from Russia, and Eastern Europe in general and Hitchens was trying to establish why most Jewish kept to themselves when they settled in the West.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is 23 years since Africa’s worst genocide, took place in Rwanda. W can debate about the South Sudan and Darfur wars were as terrible. But what made the Rwandan genocide potent was the record time it took to annihilate hundreds of thousands of people. That fateful April and the successive 100 days, over 800,000 people were hacked to death. Nations watched as the orgy went on and by the time they were intervening it was too late and a country was permanently scarred.

Being born is an accident of fate. Someone is born a prince, someone is born a genius, someone is born beautiful, some are born average, some are born without a sense of humour (what tragedy!), some are born poor, rich you name it. The bigger tragedy is the geographical locale where you end up. Some are lucky (save for the extreme winters) to be born in rich Scandinavian countries that are largely peaceful (they have had a fair share of their bloody history). But some are born in Iraq, South Sudan, Eastern Congo, Afghanistan, Mexico, and other hellholes.

Imagine being a Tutsi, or a moderate Hutu in Rwanda around March 1994. Maybe you are 21, fired up with the whole world at your feet literally. You have your family, you congregate around the table for supper, eating matoke and vegetables, storying and what have you. Maybe you were a strapping young man dating the beauty across the ridge. Everything is going on fine (except that everything was going south, from as early as 1990, the tensions were palpable, the war inevitable.).

Then come April came, the presidential jet is downed and with it, a president is killed starting the killing spree that will rock the continent and the world.

But the war was a culmination of long-time historical injustices that could be traced to the arrival of the colonialists and even before. We can’t delve into the history, but think for a moment what it feels like to be on the receiving end of such barbaric, primordial brutality when you have nothing to do with the circumstances that occasioned the war.

Think of the women burnt in a church in Eldoret during the 2007 post-election violence because Kibaki had stolen an election in Nairobi. Of the man who was cut into pieces in Naivasha just because he was dark and happened to come from Nyanza. Of the people killed in Kericho tea plantations. Think of being a Jew during World War 2. And other people who have died in wars that had nothing to do with them.

We take life for granted, but you never know when you can be on the receiving end of something barbaric, and torturous experience because of someone’s blind hatred and greed.

To be born is such a terrific, yet terrifying accident. More so if you are a firstborn. You never know how many times your mother may have aborted, or the amount of sperm your father may have wasted, for you to be the lucky person to live. To survive the diseases that our ancestors survived, weather calamities and all, to survive infant mortality, your mother surviving when she delivered you, to raise you, is something we take for granted. We think that being 7 billion people on earth makes your unique arrival and continued survival a joke, but it is not. Even worse, you don’t know when and how you will die. Some have the fortune to live to old age and die peacefully. Some are not as lucky; disease, wasting disease that is, accidents, wars, drunk driving, cheating on their spouse (especially in the military), and such eliminate them before they hit their prime.

Here is a paragraph from Richard Dawkins’s “Unweaving the Rainbow as quoted in Hitchens’s book;

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of the Sahara. Certainly, those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, and scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds, it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

So, here is to a reflective week. Think of the circumstances you live in and how fortunate you are to be alive, to enjoy the music, the fresh air, the great food, the great family, good sex, and every privilege life accords to you.

You will never be completely free and happy as to enjoy everything (diseases, being broke, petty people and all, have a way of getting in the way) but enjoy life. We are only assured of this lived experience, if so briefly, so take as little pain as possible and reap the maximum pleasure you can.

Happy week lads and lasses.

Why Some Businesses Stand Forever and Why Some Die Within a Year

I have always wondered what makes one business live forever and some shut down as soon as they open. There is that hardware in the small town that you grew up in that has never shut its doors since 1984 when it first opened. That eatery still serves the best kienyeji soup since 1994. That bar that has passed through three generations, that people still frequent, despite the old seats, stinky urinals, and staff with a ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude.

It is a known fact that more than 90 percent of businesses don’t see their first anniversary, and the other 9 percent rarely make it to the third year. Less than 0.5 percent make it to the fifth year, and only about 0.5 percent see the fifth year and last longer than that.

There is death because of natural attrition, being edged out by larger competition, or the death of the brains behind the business. Also, there is the failure to respond to disruption in good time.

If five similar businesses open up in a 50-yard stretch, you can be sure three of them will be gone within a year, the remaining two will battle it out for some time, before one quitting or opting to play second-fiddle to the other.

At the outset of covid, there was a flurry of business opened purely out of understandable panic. Car boot sales of mitumba, eggs, and what have you lined up in middle-class neighbourhoods. What was most admirable about it all was that it is women who were determined to keep their families going with an extra income. Whereas for most it is part-time, there were those who entertained the idea of long-term transitioning to business from office work. There are those who quit along the way because they were not cut for it. And there are those who quit because they lacked the basic competence and discipline of running a business. Yet, there are others that have stood firm and even grown. I know two grocery stores in my hood that started like that and are now the main source of income for the ladies who run them. I know a simple bar that started from a car wash and now is home to a unique community that prefers it as their local, despite a good and decent bar barely 20 yards away.

***

When I walk into a restaurant, I can tell which waiter is new and would last, which waiter has lasted more than a year at the establishment, and which new waiter will not last more than a month. It is always on their face.

There are waiters who smile your way and take your order diligently, and if there is a problem, such as delays in the kitchen, they will communicate to you as an adult in a way that you will understand. However, restaurants are toxic spaces, and the coordination between counters, and the kitchen all the way to the customer can be a tad overwhelming. Often, we see waiters throwing tantrums, waiters showing some really awful attitude, especially when dealing with impatient customers, and in an alcoholic environment, their nerves can be frayed too much.

But I have learnt about what marketing is from waiters and sole proprietors of restaurants that last forever.

There are four things that can make any business stand the test of time.

1.     A Genuine Desire to Meet a Certain Need of the Customer

It is one thing to be profit-driven and set up a business. It can do well. But it is a whole new game if deep down in your heart you are committed to meeting the genuine desire and needs of your customer. If you are a restaurateur, you want to dedicate yourself to a certain specialty that people will know you for. Hence people know where to find the best Swahili dishes, the best Somali dishes, the best fish, etc. The whole notion of plugs stems from the people dedicated to meeting the needs of their clients. And people can pay accordingly if satisfied with what you offer. I have seen men in suits who pocket top dollar sit at a kibanda to devour kienyeji chicken mercilessly.

2.    Attitude of the owner and workers s/he employs

Everyone would like to start a business and succeed. But few have the right attitude. Most people think you can be laissez-faire as long as you have the money to throw at the business. Every business needs discipline, and a hands-on approach because your employees rarely share the same vision as you. Many businesses have been wrecked by irresponsible employees who couldn’t care less. Thus if you want to own a business you have to go in with the right attitude, and accord your employees dignity but demand loyalty and discipline from them. Never ever have feelings towards those who have a lackadaisical attitude to be on your premises. Develop a positive and humane attitude and cultivate it in your workers. Help them grow, and they help you grow your business.

3.  Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is a by-product of your attitude and by far the most important thing any businessman can possess. I have seen sullen female shopkeepers mtaani, but people are always drawn to the next shop of the smiling lady. For me, waiters and waitresses serve the best lesson on enthusiasm. At the end of the night, there is a waiter or waitress who chalks up tips like nonsense. And there are those who rarely get any. The difference always stems from how enthusiastic one is. Not in a transactional, fake-smiles way. It has to come from within. It has to be natural. Kenyans sometimes have transactional enthusiasm, but those who are genuine, and mean it, win more business than the transactional type. People can smell fakeness from a mile.

4.   Consistency and Discipline

Some businesses start well, but due to poor culture can’t keep up with standards. You have been to a good establishment with dirty toilets, food prepared badly, or a supermarket that doesn’t stock favorite stuff regularly. Nothing frustrates a repeat client more than inconsistent goods or services. Consistency and discipline are a whole package to the product or service that you serve.

There are more reasons why some businesses stand out from the rest, but these are the most basic ones that each would be businessman or woman should have.

7 Signs That You Have Healed From a Heartbreak

No one is immune from a heartbreak. We all get served a good one. And there is one heartbreak that sends us back to factory settings. One that completely vaccinates us from any future heartbreak. It is the heartbreak that shatters all illusions we may have been born with about love and romance.

Heartbreaks makes us bitter, cynical and sometimes lifeless, literally. They always sound like the end of the world. Because sometimes we get too attached to people and when they leave, we feel rudderless. Time stands still.

But as they say, time heals and a year or two later from the time you were dumped, you look back and wonder what you were losing sleep over. Suddenly, all that is in the past and you are ready to move on.

How do you know you are ready to move on?

1. Your appetite is back

One of the most nefarious and horrible things about being dumped and being heartbroken is that you lose appetite not just for food, but for pretty much everything you love in life. This can go on for extended periods of time. Losing weight is not uncommon for those who get served proper character development.

When heartbroken, all foods taste like boiled mattress. The very thought of food nauseates you. Before long, the signs begin to manifest themselves; dry lips, emaciated, loss of interest in the things that you liked.

Where you liked reading, it becomes such a chore. Where you liked swimming, it stops to make meaning. Where you liked hobbies like jogging, playing indoors games, you become so numb, and the hobbies become awful distractions that you’d rather not indulge in.

But when you heal, your appetite sneaks back. Suddenly, you can gobble that steak like no man or woman’s business. You can down the entire cake dessert. You enjoy your wine or whisky. Food now makes sense. Some people recover their appetite and go overboard and even add some weight.

Suddenly, you regain your old interests. You are skin-dipping, you are jogging, you are reading your books.

Your skin reinvigorates itself. And you gain your mojo and vitality and people around you will notice it.

2. You get your sleep back

There are different types of insomnia. But the worst type is the heartbreak-related insomnia. Man. You can’t sleep. Your mind plays sick “what ifs?

You think of the wasted time, the wasted opportunities. The couldas, shouldas, wouldas, oughtas. The worst thing that can happen is to be on the receiving end of a heartbreak. Your tormentor moves on pretty much and you are stuck in sleepless nights, playing Linkin Park’s Numb and other bad love songs.

The worst thing about heartbreak-related insomnia is that you have nothing to do. You can’t read, watch, so you stay in bed: helpless. And Lord! How slow time moves when you are insomniac from a recent heartbreak!

The insomnia is fed by the fear of never ever going to get the boy or the girl you wanted. Because the one and the only has gone. The scary thing is that you meant nothing to the people who just conveniently dumped you. The realization that you are dispensable can grow on you like a horrible skin rash. What keeps you awake is you examining your worth.

However, with time, you get your sleep back. Partly because, there is nothing you can do. And partly because you realise, there is nothing you can do, and you have to take it on the chin and hope for a better future. Also, as the ex recedes to the recesses of our memories, we get new experiences that slowly replaces them, and life goes on.

3. No chance of ever drunk-texting them

Some relationships end with such finality, there is no chance of further communication. But initially, there is denial, and some people stay in touch, forlornly hoping that the party leaving can change their mind. There are those silly texts, memes and shit we share with our exes when the breakup is still afresh.

But over time, we learn the futility of it all and start to love ourselves. One way to know that you have grown and learnt your lessons from the breakup, is when you stop all contact with the ex. Some even block their exes. Well, if it works. Some don’t necessarily block them on phone, but they mentally block them, for good.

The best test, especially for men is that even at one’s most drunk and stupid, you will never text your ex. Even after particularly binge-drinking Gilbeys, which messes up the brain like shit, your brain knows its limit and will never ever mess you up as to text them.

4. You talk and think about the ex less

After the breakup, in the ensuing months, it is not uncommon to talk about nothing but your ex. Your pain, what you did or didn’t do. Your friends and family grow tired of such stories. Often you can’t help yourself.

But once you heal, you will realise that your ex is no longer part of your conversations. They rarely show up in your daily convos, unless mentioned in passing. The beauty about this part is that this is a very organic process. That you slowly forget about them and what they did, breaking your heart, no longer matters.

5. You are ready and willing to move on

You no longer look at love through the lens of the previous heartbreak. When you meet a new person, you are willing to embrace the idea of them loving you. And you can love again. Of course, now, you are alert to any red flag, any nonsense and will sooner walk out of bad deal than stick with someone because of desperation.

You are willing to throw yourself into the dating pool, but now, your eyes are open, your heart will be for pumping blood, and your antennae is well tuned. No more surprises. You can smell BS from very far. You can sense danger from far. Nobody will ever ghost you or take advantage of you.

6. You don’t a damn about your ex’s moves

Some exes are petty. And would love to live their lives on social media, if only to prove a point. They will put their new catches online. Always ‘happy’ and ‘giggly’. They will upload their pictures, their new jobs, their promotions, their businesses. Whereas they may be doing this for themselves, there are those eager to prove a point to you that they can nab themselves a partner, can succeed in business without you, commonly, most do these to make you feel bad about yourself.

Once you have moved on, even if your ex had the grandest wedding, went on to be a president of a country, or became very successful, it doesn’t matter to you.

You may have or not blocked them. Some friends will find a way of sharing the screen shots of your ex’s boss moves, ex’s new catch, ex’s wedding, and all. But you will politely text back, “Good for them”. And you will carry on with your life, unbothered.

You are not necessarily happy for them, or anything, you just don’t care. To you, they are dead or may well be deal.

7. Your moves are not determined by your ex

On the other hand, whatever you do, is not determined by a desire to prove a point to your ex. You are looking for a man or a woman to a prove a point that you still ‘have a market’. You are not looking for a job or a promotion, so that you can make your ex jealous of leaving you for the gem you are.

You don’t look forward to hearing stories of your ex being in a shitty situation so that you can celebrate. There is a petty schadenfreude we all get a kick from hearing that the ones they left us for is treating them badly.

When you move on, your moves in life are determined by your personal goals. Your own mission. Not some silly desire to prove a point to anyone.

Beautiful Accidents: Why your Favourite Classic Never Nearly Made it Out Here.

I watched on Vice a short documentary on the history of the song, “It wasn’t me” by Shaggy and Rikrok.

The most important song of the century nearly never made it out here and would have died, one of those studio songs that never get released. Reason: The top guys at MCA thought the song was crap and the whole Hotshot album was underwhelming and it nearly killed Shaggy with depression. They never even tried to promote the album.

I was a teenager when the song came out and I remember my bro Gisiora Banyarebanyare Inpector bringing the tape and CD home, and boy, did we molest it. The song took over the world and you know the song had become a cultural phenomenal when it gives new words and phrases that we use and become commonplace. Nowadays the song gets played in the early hours of the night as part of the American hip hop/ pop songs, so that fossils like me can leave the club for younger kids to enjoy their youth. Isn’t it funny how we grow old and relegated from fancy clubs to dingy spots to listen to Rumba?

Music composition is one of the unique divine gifts if mankind. Often, a producer plays a beat he has just made and the artist figures out what needs to be done. Shaggy had achieved stardom with his 1995 album Bombastic and was looking to match the success or top it in 2000. Enter a young Rikrok, a young songwriter(he sung the song as an afterthought.) You gotta appreciate Shaggy’s genius. He is the one who said one should hook in a listened with a crazy opening lining. Because as song introductions go, “honey came and caught me red handed banging naked on the bathroom floor,” is on top there among the best. You immediately want to listen to the story. Earlier in 1998, Bill Clinton had told us, “I’d did not have sexual relations with that woman…”. Shaggy picked the line “It wasn’t me” from an Eddie Murphy stand up routine. We all tend to forget that Eddie Murphy was once a great standup comedian.

More to the point. Song is done. Some marketer heard it in the studio by mistake, as it played just randomly as he waited for Shaggy and the producer to come back from lunch. He goes to MCA(the record label) and the big guys there are not interested in this ragga madness.
So album is out and the song is not even included, or got included as an afterthought.

There is zero radio play. Clubs in the American East Coast are not interested and Shaggy tries to perform but it is mostly a few guys, tens of people in the crowd. Not at all interested. Two things happen simultaneously. A radio DJ in Hawaii wants to be the best guy in the game and is looking for new music. He searches the internet and sees a bootlegged copy of the hotshot album and seeing it is Shaggy’s new stuff, he downloads the album(illegal) and plays the song on radio and his phone lines go crazy, as people want to know who the hell did such a fantastic song. Before long the song is a phenomenon in Hawaii and it is getting attention across the States. Meanwhile, Shaggy with minimal help from the record label is moving westwards in America trying to perform and he gets to Nevada, the song has become a cultural phenomenal. And just like that, Shaggy and Sean Paul (who had just released Dirty Rock) are about to sweep the world with ragga pop madness. The song becomes a no.1 across the world, selling 10 million copies, with zero marketing or help from the record label.

Shaggy said that 11 people in his crew bought houses from the song and that makes him happy to date. And that album is one of my favourite. Two songs stand out from the album: Leave it to me(best lovemaking song) and Keeping it real(best motivational song, if you going through a hard time). Shaggy is a great song writer. No doubt.

This story rattles me, but also reminds me how accidental life is. Mario Puzo wrote the Godfather as a desperate effort to make money for his young family. Unwittingly he unleashed one of the greatest books that spawned an even greater movie.

And there are so many things that nearly never got out here, or were nearly killed by gatekeepers or came out at the wrong time.

One such story that fascinates me is the history of two books:The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald and Animal Farm by George Orwell.

When Fitzgerald finished his third novel, he now hoped to play in the big league. The book received lukewarm reviews, in 1925 and sold only a few copies. He did write one more novel before dying young(44) considering himself a failure. But during the second world war, his friend, critic Edmund Wilson helped in the reprinting of the book and it was given to young soldiers and became a high school curriculum book, and the book became a phenomenonal success. And what a book! The density and deeply personal pen of Fitzgerald makes him a far greater writer than the mostly dry as steel prose of Ernest Hemingway, his contemporary. If not Wilson, the book may never have become The Great American Novel it is to date.

Animal Farm’s story was tragic as well. Never understood how it became a setbook in Kenya, when Moi was the president when dictators still to date hate the book. Orwell wrote the book during the Second World War as a satire attacking Russia. Russia played a complex role in Second World War and no big publisher on either side of the Atlantic wanted to touch it. It was spurned by poet T.S Eliot, then an editor at a top publishing house, who thought it wasn’t a good time to attack Stalin. This is according to Christopher Hitchens writing on the book’s accidental history. Orwell self-published the book with a small publishing farm and that was it. Nothing much happened. Until some Ukrainian prisoners came across the book, requested Orwell to translate it. And then American soldiers, still in their dalliance with Communist Russia, rounded all copies and handed them to the Red Army to be burnt. When the book was taken to Random House to be published the boss was a communist sympathiser and refused. But a man from a small publisher got the book in a bookshop on Cambridge, UK, and took it to America. Again Edmund Wilson reviewed the book in the New Yorker, and the Book of the Month Club selected it and instantly it became a phenomenon in 1950 just before Orwell died.

The same can be said of the movie Citizen Kane. Constantly ranked as one of the greatest movies. The movie is believed to be a story of William Randolph Hearst, a media mogul who at one point owned nearly all newspapers in America, the first part of the 20th century. Knowing the movie was about him, all his media outlets refused to review it. And for several years, nobody knew about the movie. Until he died, did the movie undergo an unlikely Renaissance.

Same can be said of Harry Potter books.

So, every day, you enjoy your favourite book, movie, song, or work of art, know that it may have died at one stage of production or after it’s release. Or that the owner may not have been interested in it that much. Know that some people thought that it was crap at the time of production and we should thank our stars for the men who open doors, men who trust their instincts and let these things out.

Happy Sunday fam.

About Growth

It is a new month as we start the next half the year.

I want to be positive this month. If I sound like a motivation speaker, it is because I want to be one. Ha ha.

Now, the future is one of the biggest complex mysteries of life. If you are approaching or you are in your mid-30s, or older, chances are, you are not anywhere near where you wanted to be, say seven years ago. And chances are, you could be worse off, or so better off than you ever imagined, though the latter is less likely.

Now.

When I was in university, one of the best things I discovered were the commencement speeches. Man, nothing packs so much wisdom, that college kids so badly need like good commencement speeches. Among the best that still remain fresh and relevant even for an adult like me, include, Mary Schmich’s Wear the Sunscreen, (delivered in her Chicago Tribune column, mistakenly distributed as Kurt Vonnegut or Koffi Annan’s speech to one of the top American universities.) There is the JK Rowling one at Harvard and the famous Steve Job’s premonitory and life-altering speech at Stanford. And comedian Conan O’Brien’s two speeches at Havard (2000) and Dartmouth (2011). Both are hilarious, but there is something he said in the Dartmouth speech that I live by, or with.

“Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One’s dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course.”I am glad that I learnt these words in my mid-20s, and ten years later, they have never been truer.

The dreams I had ten years ago for myself are no longer true or relevant, as I have had to make a lot of adjustments to suit new realities.And I look back. 20 years ago, I was finishing primary school. I recently looked at my pictures on the day we did our KCPE. There I am, a fat kid, with a smile. There is one we took with the four bright boys of that class, one of them sadly departed. I would never know that one of us, will be gone within three years.

But in 2000, if you told me that ten years later, I will be in the heart of the yeasty student politics of the University of Nairobi, that propelled Babu Owino to the SONU chairmanship, launching his chequered political career it would have sounded rather silly and frivolous. And ten years ago, if you told me in 2020, I will be in the strangest place an adult can find him or herself, I would called you a witch, and probably reported you to Central Police Station.

But life happens.

There was a period in the last few years I thought I had stagnated in life. I was still stuck in that misplaced youthful zeal, that I will never grow old. Because, I retained a flat stomach, up to around three years ago, when I started developing a potbelly that is now completely out of hand. My left knee is totally bonkers and I can’t even squat without this excruciating pain that makes me call my mother.

So far, the offending potbelly that I have starved, walked a million miles to fight is my first sign that I am not growing younger. Then there is the heightened awareness that I can’t put five teaspoons of sugar, that we used to put in our cups with David Osiany shocking everyone at the table. And when I eat red meat consecutively for two days as it is the norm every weekend, I see my coffin.

These things never used to bother me. I used to dismiss working out, but every person I meet reminds me that I am overweight and that spells trouble. It is all about growth.But that is physical growth. There is mental and spiritual growth. My focus this morning. People never deliberately mature up. Touch choices in life makes people to grow up.

And reality is a wild ogre. Sometimes he claws you from your fantasies leaving you battered. In the last few years, I have had to make some very tough decisions as a man. Some serious blind leaps of faith, with disastrous consequences. But I discovered in life, you have to act. Sometimes even without clear directions. And whereas some decisions have to be made hastily, sometimes under the foggiest circumstances, you have to act and hope that in the future that everything that didn’t make sense, will be clear as a wiped mirror.

We all don’t know, where we will be ten years from now. Could be better off. Or worse off. But as a believer, I have to accept, it doesn’t matter where you will be as long as you train your brain to accept the circumstances and work with what life will serve you at that moment.

Ten years from now, you may be rich or poor. You may be sick or in rude good health. Your business may pick or may not pick. You may be employed or jobless. You may be married or divorced. Or married to your third or fourth spouse. And that is life.

I was served a raw deal at a young age. But the most important lesson the raw deal taught me is that to borrow from Ayn Rand, the universe is indifferent. Thus, with all the imperfections, with all the incompleteness, I try to find abundance. In books. In humor. In friends, who always turn up. In food. In travel. And in a drink occasionally.

But a few things that adulthood will teach you is anxiety is a common theme of adulthood. I am yet to meet an adult who is not anxious about something that they are not totally in control. Many a time, the wives of my friends have called me to ask me if I am with their hubby. And since I rarely lie, I always hear their heart cracking as they are worried if their men are safe. We are all worried about finances. About disease (terminal or something troubling like yeast infections). About our parents. About our siblings. Our businesses. The economy. Our jobs. And if an Arsenal fan…

But what I have learnt is that in all our anxieties, the only thing you can do is to be calm. It is true, everything passes. Sometimes, it leaves us shaken and badly bruised. Sometimes it leaves you rock bottom. But to borrow a cliché, rock bottom is usually a good foundation.

Many times over, life will throw you down. Many times over you will bury a loved one. Many times over you will go bankrupt. Many times over, you will be sick or deal with a sick relation. But learn never to take these things personally, even when your misery is as a direct result of another human being, usually a beloved family member. Cheer up. Know that tomorrow, may not be better, but in another year, or two, you will smile and thank God why some things happened.

Your only job is to stay alive. And don’t ever romanticize stress or depression. Battle it out. Find help as soon as you can. Because we are all swimming in the ocean of life, and some are dealing with horrible waves, some floating along, but all of us, have a common destination.

Have a reflective day, won’t you.

Why is the face of Kenyan startups so White?

In the last few years, routinely, there surfaces the list of guys behind most of the startups in Kenya. The lists are usually from Kenyans mourning now White the top leadership of most start-ups are.

It is a useless argument. If a Shane Zvenberg leaves the comfort of Stockholm Suburbia, and comes to Kenya and sets up a start-up that connects job seekers with employers, and she is using her money for that, we can’t blame her. Globalization and all. We can only hope she pays taxes.

Africa will not make it with this victim mentality.

The problem is not the Whiteness of these young millennials. The problem is capital. And total distrust of young people and their ideas. It is made worse by our annoying belief brick & mortar.

I know several people who have millions, billions even that if you approached them and give them the next best idea based on providing an IT based solution to a problem with guaranteed profitability after a few years, they will liiiiiisten and dismiss you as a dreamer.

Yet since 2000 some of the biggest startups have been in media, IT and mostly intangible things.

Another problem is the culture of instant success. If say, a rich man is the Minister of Transport and Uber approach him to set up in Kenya, instead of thinking about starting his Uber, he will either ask for a one-off bribe, or mostly buy so many cars and put in Uber and get his share. He had a chance of getting a 20 percent cut per ride, but he chooses, he would rather get a slice of 10 percent or less. We don’t like the hard work that comes with all these things.

More to the point. Kenya has 15 trillion of stolen government funds stashed safely in tax Haven’s in islands with fancy names. And that is only the cash we know.

Imagine if our billionaire class invested the money back home. We have so many problems to solve and cash on. We are yet to modernise our schools, modernise our transport system, modernise our healthcare system, fix our agriculture, fix housing. You name it.

Imagine if our billionaires were farming wheat and maize instead of us importing. Imagine, with our educated class, we made inroads in Africa, the middle-East and such in order to export our produce? Imagine if we started industrial cities, regionally, and it is our billionaires investing?

Tell you what? They can’t invest because they got their money easily and telling them to build a tanning factory that will make fashionable shoes to sell to the world is too much work. They’d rather live like zombies and die and let their money be eaten by the trustees, not even their children.

That is why we camp in Washington, New York, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Beijing, begging investors to come and invest here and while at it, erect such impossible hurdles for young people to even take a street picture for their personal use.

The good news, there are so many young people making it here in Africa, investing back here and we only hope that one day, Africa can afford leaders with brains.

About Loss

About Loss.

What is Loss to you?

Ever lost something precious or valuable in your life?

In January 2003, I lost my best friend, then in high school, Form 3. His death pierced my teenage heart like a poisoned arrow would.

He was a brilliant kid. Would have grown to be a great debater, contrarian and supremely knowledgeable. But with a pre-existing condition, in one of our deeper conversations, unlikely for children, he told me, he would never live long enough to enjoy life. However, his death barely three weeks into opening school in 2003 made me so sad, and I had to lie(a long with my homsie) to our deputy principal (bless his soul) that he was our cousin to go witness his burial. And seeing him in that coffin was extremely educative of the cruelty of death and loss.

Later that evening in school, I wrote a song, a tribute to him. The song was straight from my heart. Four stanzas, and would have sounded something close to Peter Cetera’s Glory of Love.

Back then, I used to nurse dreams of being a musician, and while my vocal range proved to be scarily annoying, my song writing skills were quite good and I recently checked the book I wrote a dozen R&B songs, and I commended myself. They are actually pretty good and standard.

Back to the song about my departed friend. For the longest time, I moved around with the book that had the lyrics. It was always with me. Stayed with me. From Kisii, to Koru, to Fort Ternan to Kisumu, to Kericho, to Nairobi and everywhere I went. But somewhere down the line I lost the book or the piece of paper with the lyrics. And try as I can other than the opening lines, I can’t remember the song I wrote down.

Of all my big losses of life, discounting the deaths, those lyrics still haunt me. However long it took me, I still believed that one day at the very least I will produce the song. And now that I have means to do so, I can’t replicate the lyrics and it constantly hurts me.

Everyday.

This morning I reflect on the things we lose in life. Your phone. Your laptop. Your dress. Your sunglasses. Your music collection. Sometimes it is your favourite boxer or panty that you forget in a far away hotel.

Or a valuable friend that you grow apart without noticing to a point they fall off the map.

Loss punctuates life. When I went to States five years ago, I picked the best books in my library. And what a collection that was. It was the best of classics. I remember this African American cop who searched my bag at the JFK airport and wondered why I carried so many books and gave me this condescending lecture that I will write about one day.

When I left the States, I couldn’t carry the books with me because Swiss Air flight I used had like a 2KG weight limit. I left that collection plus some of the best books I bought in New York’s Inama Bookshops and with hopes that maybe I will be able to ship them home or go back for them. Long story short, nothing of the sort happened and I have mourned that loss every day. Kemunto Nyakundi superb Facebook bookshop has nothing on that library I left in States. They were at least 500 books.

How do you deal with a loss. I saw a joke somewhere that a heartbreak can make you wash one leaf of spinach for one hour. There are moments where whiskey can help numb certain pains and losses. Some we leave to time. Time is an inadequate answering machine, but it tries.

Personally, having lost some of the most precious people in my life at a young life, sort of cushions me when dealing with loss, because there can never a bigger loss.
That doesn’t make losing any less painful, though. If anything it can aggravate it with the usual, ‘why me always’. Like when this boda boda guy sped with my phone in Kampala when I went there for a break. Thirty minutes into my arrival, I was phoneless.

But how I deal with loss is to remind myself, in life, everything is fleeting. Whereas somethings are irreplaceable, and some losses more damaging, the realization that it is futile to cry over spilt milk can be cartharthic. Sometimes it is hope. That you will meet your departed friend. Or the abiding faith in their memory. Often it keeps me going.

Also, every day I realise the futility of life. Like the things that trouble us the most, when we scrutinize them further, we realise, they hardly matter.

My most recent loss was 7,000 word manuscript, part of my novel that is due out later in the month. Try as I could to retrieve it, I could not. And you can never rewrite something with the perfection of the original inspired flow.

I was besides myself with grief, but I had to dust up myself and go back and write.

What have you ever lost, that was hard to deal with and how did you come to terms with the loss? Or deal with it…Or how do you deal with loss? Let’s talk.

The Illusion of Freedom

Do you think in this world you are free? I have noticed most people with a university degree have this pervasive and persistent belief that they are free.

Free to choose, free to think, free to do.

The biggest and worst lie in the world is that we are all born free and our only responsibility is to seek happiness and material prosperity. Nearly 99 percent of the people in the world know that happiness is a mirage.

Of course, life offers you pockets of happiness. That affair you have when your husband offends you and you get away with it. Especially when you come back home and find him sitting like a toad in the living room, trying to order you around. It can be the first sip of a devilishly cold, crisp beer on a hot Tuesday afternoon, after receiving some good payment you have been waiting for some time. It can be the shocking beauty and sweetness of ice cream when you have craved it for some time. You know.

But these pockets are always invaded by pockets of sadness.

You knock your small toe against the side of the bed. You lose a sad one. You pay Sh 50 for avocado, only to discover it is rotten, on unripe. A matatu drive knocks your car. Someone adds you to yet, another pointless WhatsApp group. Your neighbour plays bad music and insists on high volume. On any given day, there are petty peeves that drive you over the edge.

You are free to choose how to react to them, but some always overwhelm you, and often you don’t have many choices as you often imagine. Frequently, you have to endure: Traffic, a bad relationship, bad sex, bad food, bad friendships, bad books, bad movies, bad relatives, a boil in the wrong crevice of your body. Or a hangover you knew you were going to have when you bought another round of cheap whiskey to top up the better whisky you were having.

The educated are the most foolish. Being knowledgeable does not translate to any discernible intelligence or wisdom. I know bus drivers who make better choices than a rich woman with a masters. I know a mama mboga who has a more organised life than a university professor.

By education I mean some university degree or Masters, or heck even a PhD and some liberal pretensions. I used to think that education serves to remind us how monotonous and mundane life is or can be. Or remind us that you can’t have it all, but I meet adults with misplaced expectations and a total lack of awareness of their surroundings and circumstances. Women especially. Education serves to enslave them, than it liberates them. Because, firstly, educations limits their choices badly.

So here is a reminder. You are not free. However much you want to be independent, you don’t have the money to support your independence, because independence is money. You can’t be independent if you still live at home. Mum still wants you to wash those dishes, and maybe you can’t leave the lights on until morning as you watch some trashy series. You will find that you are beholden to people who support you in whatever ways.

For men with this illusion, what I have noticed is that they expect everything will go their way. They get shocked that despite driving a top-of-the-range car, some woman will reject him because he is full of it. Or when men he considers beneath him don’t show up for his whiskey.

In a sense we are all trapped. Life is a big trap. There are external and internal traps. You are trapped with that bad spouse and those who say, can’t you walk away, it is not as easy as you think. Just because you did, not everyone has the emotional strength and the resources to do so. Also circumstances differ.

You are trapped with that bad body shape. Maybe you can work out and beat it to shape. But gathering mental resources to work out or resist that juicy goat rib is now a walk in a park.

Everywhere and every day, life reminds you that you are not free. You are not in charge of your fate. Of course, you can be a misanthrope and live as if you want to fulfill all the vices in your head and there those with the capacity to do this. But they are also trapped in their addictions. Of course, you can firmly control your destiny, but you soon realize it comes at such a heavy price.

So, do you give up? No. Being painfully aware of the limited choices you have, is the ultimate freedom to choose what angers you, what works for you and what you can work with.

With that, you can control to what level will your spouse annoy you, to what level can your family interfere with your affairs, to what level can a colleague get on your nerves.

Most people who don’t know how to manage these are the most frustrated in life. Because they think you can dictate life how you want. If there is anything Corona has reminded us, we are beholden to something other. Government, our jobs, spouses, children, responsibilities.