25

It is a few minutes to midnight as I write this. I am in a suite at THE Vic Hotel, Kisumu writing an article on the controversial issue of providing condoms for kids for my space in the Rural Reporters. You just have to notice the definite article THE. THE VIC Hotel. THE sun. The moon. The White House. It’s like there can only be one Vic Hotel.  Like god saw that Kisumu was void and without form and dropped THE VIC hotel from the sky.

Actually, it deserves the THE. It has those rooms that Villa Rossa would charge you two million for a night. It has an immaculately well decorated living room complete with a humongous TV and a fridge. Meanwhile the bathroom is bigger than Lord Rungu’s palace in Kahawa. It even has a safe. Someone tell THE Vic that I have no desire to torture my mind with yet another password just to keep some phones, apple devices and Nikkon Cameras. It’s not like THE Jumuia is closing shop anytime soon. 

Apart from furiously typing away to beat my self-imposed deadline, am having my late supper consisting of coffee and coffee cake. I know it’s an abomination to come to THE Kisumu City and eat anything other than fish, but I know the god of Ramogi will understand. 

As one hand is caressing the keyboard, the other hand is inserting a huge chunk of cake without looking and of course without missing. Wait, what did they say about men not being able to multitask? 

Then she texts. It’s a long post, but beautiful and flowing. She wishes me a happy birthday and all those good things. It's a few hours early but I'll take it. Knowing Adebe, she just wanted to stand out. Perhaps to remind me how I was supposed to behave five days ago on her birthday. (Btw I haven't forgotten about your birthday present. Shipping apparently takes time)

I remember my mum called me earlier. She didn’t call to sing me THE happy birthday song. She called to remind me about some project I said we would start together. You know how sometimes you want to be a model son and so you promise heavens only to forget your vows when you meet the Njeris of Nairobi; yellow yellow perfect Kikuyu ladies with voices of angels and perfectly trimmed red lips that make you more than willing to give them the pins to all your ATM cards.

Even back then my mum wasn’t that good at cramming dates. We had to remind her that the following day was our birthday. She will then spring into action. A typical birthday consisted of choosing your favorite meal and she would cook it for you and ply you with food until the sufuria got empty or until you started asking for antacids. My ideal birthday food was rabuon and dengu njugu. These are sweet potatoes served with crashed groundnut stew. Exotic, right? Trust me, it was.

So am turning 25. One wise man on my timeline (is it strange that am beginning a new year by quoting guys from Facebook?) once said that a man is allowed to celebrate three birthdays. The day he turns eighteen, the day he turns twenty one and the day he turns twenty five. Eighteen is for the obvious reasons of attaining the threshold for ‘bigness’ and getting your identity cards. Isn’t it funny how we look forward to a document that our forefathers went to war so as not to have? Or is the Kipande Systems that led to the Agiriama, Mau Mau and the Maji Maji rebellions different?

Twenty one is the age you attain maturity. When you cool down from all the sagging and aping America hip-hop stars. Twenty one is the age you stop showing you are a big person and start acting as a big person. 

I can’t really come up with a reason why 25 is significant, but I feel it is. I feel this is my year. It’s the year I tell the world, hey, look here, ‘AM HERE’ 

So I was named Robert Ouko after THE great Dr. Robert Ouko. You remember him, don’t you? The former foreign affairs minister who shot himself (from a distance), peppered acid on himself, died and proceeded to hide his body on Got Alila as one government report would want us to believe. Am reminded that his father’s name was Seda, just as my father’s name is Aseda. I’m told that I was born the day he died on the fourth of March 1990. In the Luo culture, a child is named after the dead so as to continue the legacy of THE man. Mine was to be like Dr Ouko. Even though several people calling in on radio refer to me as daktari, am not a daktari yet. Not that I ever correct them when they bestow such grand tittles upon me. After all who doesn’t want their egos massaged once in a while?

I hope from wherever his mutilated body is, he’s smiling, shaking his head and gloating to Mboya and Jaramogi,

“Not a bad choice for a namesake. Not bad at all”

I know I am not there yet. I’m not even close. But At 25, I feel am on the right path. That am on the driver’s seat. That God is for me and thus nobody can be against me.

Over the past two and half decades, I’ve met pretty interesting people, just I have met pretty common faces. I’ve fallen in love, just as I have had my silly heart broken, just as I have done the breaking sometimes. I’ve met people like .Nera, who have mentored me and opened doors only an uncle would open; brothers made by sweat and blood at the arena, friends drawn closer by a common hatred born for authority. I've met people who challenge me just like I have met friends who remind me that life is sometimes no that serious.

I've been blessed with great family. With a dad who'd rather not buy a new shirt but paid your fees; With big sisters and brother, who are role models in very different ways.

But the greatest influence has been her. Nobody has ever caned me the way she did when I couldn’t master the food chart or even the simple multiplication before I got to nursery school or for being number two. You would think she would be happy. She taught us never to settle for second place. To always want more. To aim highest. 

So happy birthday to myself, may I never be the master of no skill.