My Hair

I am my father’s daughter for sure because I took his brown and kinky hair. The only other person in our family with this kind of hair is Moses, my nephew. His hair has always been a subject of concern. One person even said to my sister, “Thank goodness, he’s a boy. What poor quality hair he has! I can’t imagine a girl with such hair.”

As soon as my Mom saw my nephew’s hair, she went down memory lane. “This is Mudamuli’s hair. I used to put olive oil in it to be able to comb it easily. The thing with Olive oil is that it doesn’t have a nice smell,” she said to my sister. I was shocked to hear this from my sister because Mom has never admitted that to me of course. No one ever told me to my face that I had such poor quality hair until my A-level when a friend said to me, “But Mudamuli. Your hair doesn’t grow. It’s real poor quality kaweke.” By then I thought she had ‘nugu’ about my hair not growing because whenever I hot combed my hair, it would be long. Then people would say, “The way your hair coils itself, one can think it doesn’t grow.”

Before I decided to perm my hair 13 years ago, my hair would coil itself and look like dots of brown steel wool. I remember my sister saying to my Dad one day “Daddy! You haven’t combed your hair!” And he laughed because he had. Our hair (Daddy’s and mine) always looked liked it had not been combed however much we combed it.

After 13 years of straight perm, my once thick and kinky hair is thinning out and breaking. At this rate, I am thinking of growing dreadlocks.

Flu is to Blame for this here post

It is my birthday today. I am old! Yikes!

I am alone in the office with a very bad flu.

My sister was the first person to call me this morning to wish me a happy birthday followed by Cruise and my ex-boyfriend. The only present I got was from Cruise. It was a nice card and a piece of glass with a flower inside. Then I chucked him over something to do with facebook and his complicated status.

I am not going to do anything special today.

The last time I felt like it was my birthday was when I turned twelve. That was the last time I ever had a real birthday party. After my twelfth birthday, I always treated this day like any other because when I was still in school it often found people on ‘stavey’. When I started working, my birthday found people broke.

Thank you Normzo, Jny, LBMugema, and Therisingpage for my birthday greetings on twitter.

Looking Back

Maybe a few years from now I will look back to this time and say,Cruise came to my life at my lowest moment. He came to me when I was hurt. Not by the fact that my job was insecure or that I was low in finances. What hurt me was the fact that I wanted nothing to do with my idols and they like any idol did not give a damn about it. After all, they did not ask me to be their fan. They had too many fans to be bothered about one like me. They were going places, you see.

I no longer had free access to internet so I had to resort to blogging from my phone. Most of my favorite radio presenters were in different shows which I found boring. Boss B was about to leave our work place. Now that I had been made a part time worker, I needed to find a new job but I had no idea how I was going to find one with my diploma in Secretarial Science.

Each time I looked in the mirror, I saw age creeping on me. I was a few days from reaching that age above which it is said to be dangerous to give birth yet I had no children of my own.

Cruise came to my life when I was no longer a youth. He found me when I was in a crisis but not as big as the one he was in. His status was what facebook would call 'it's complicated.' '

When Cruise came to my life, I woke up. I began living my life to the full. Without him.

Wadudu ni Hatari and other Songs

I remember this advert song that used to play on VOK. (Cavalier, do you remember it?)

Hii ni nyumba yako
Wewe na jamii yako
Usikaribishe wadudu kuishi na wewe
Wadudu ni hatari
Wadudu ni wachafu Waue mara moja
Doom, doom, doom!
Dawa doom!

Then at lunch time it would be 'kuleni mayai, pia maharagwe. Hivi ndivyo vyakula bora vya kujenga mwili.'

As we prepared to go to school in the morning we had:

'...jiepushe na uvivu tujenge taifa. Mwanangu, kumekucha amka wende shule. Elimu ndiyo msingi wa maendeleo.'

The School

Today I finally got round to reading 'Memories of Budo.' It's my Mom who made me read it because of its hilarious stories. It's like entering a secret chat room full of people you know and getting to know their secrets. Names of bullies and teachers who loved to cane at Kings College Budo are mentioned. Secrets of some Headmasters, teachers, prefects and students are revealed. I have only 2 pages remaining to finish the magazine but I could not put it down the whole day. What makes it interesting is that most of the people in this chat room are respectable members of society. Some are our board of directors, others are my first boss' friends and others I've known through my aunt, Budonian brother and church. Where else can one find such intrigue? In the blogsphere? Maybe. Maybe not.

Descendants of Nimrod?

Just came across strange information about a sub tribe of the Luhya called the Kabras that live in Malava. It is interesting to know that that their name 'Kabras' comes from ‘Avalasi’, which refers to the warriors or Mighty Hunters they once were. As to the claim that they are descendants of Nangwiro associated with the Biblical Nimrod, I am flabbergasted.

Somehow, in my mind I cannot reconcile a tribe in Kenya that was originally Banyala (different from the ones in Kayunga) with a Mesopotamian monarch. I cannot reconcile the Kabras with a mighty ruler and nation builder who founded many cities, including the great Babel or Babylon. I cannot. Even if you tell me he was cursed for ordering the construction of the Tower of Babel.

In other news, my Mom says she heard a story told in Western Kenya about the Buganda Prince who became ruler of the Wanga Kingdom. Now I may have mixed up a few things about the story she heard but this is what I remember her telling me.

“It is said that when the Prince arrived in Western Kenya, some lady noticed that whenever it was time for him to bathe, he would hide himself from the others. Later on, she discovered the reason why the Prince did this. He had the mark of a snake on his body, which he was trying to conceal. After her discovery, the woman went and told her father who said, ‘That is the mark of royalty. Wherever this boy may have come from, he must be from a royal family.’ Thus, the boy was made king over the Wanga.”

Interekcho

I go away from the blogsphere for a few weeks and when I return, I have to make do with a small screen on my phone then I find hundreds of new blogs with only intellectual stuff. Not that it's bad but eh nga I miss my regular visits to the old ones. After the riots, where did they go?