Friday, 2 May 2014

The Nairobi Woman



There is something about the Nairobi woman that just sets her apart from any other female homo sapiens sapiensa out there. The typical Nairobi woman is calculating and callous. She is fake. Yes I said it. You can stone me later. The only thing that’s probably true in her is the black and white photo in her national ID. You don’t believe me? Look at her face. It’s covered in so much makeup that it’s difficult to identify the original colour. Now that we are talking about colour she uses beauty creams enough to turn Lupita into the colour of Beyonce.

Her lips are like a cat which dipped her mouth in a pool of blood. In her mind they are appetizing and luscious; moistened and inviting. Kissing her would perhaps be more catastrophic than just drinking chemical infested water from Nairobi River.

She shaves her eyebrows only to make a mark with a pencil where they were. The good thing with her shaving obsession is that the right places are clean too. Supreme Leader Aladeen Motherfucker of Wadiya will tell you hairy armpits isn’t man’s best friend.

Her nails are long and well kept; probably covered in a distinctive red or pink nail polish. Of course they are not natural nails; these are nails that can be got in the beauty shops of downtown Globe roundabout. She has piercings probably on the lower lip, the ears and on the umbilical cord and lower lip for the more audacious ones. She has enough earrings of varying shapes and colours that can last her a lifetime even if earring companies decided to close shop. The Nairobi woman spots wigs and weaves of all arrays. They don’t like calling them so. They prefer referring to those things they put on their head as natural Brazilian hair or some other fancy names.

The Nairobi woman has an accent; A deep black American accent. It doesn’t matter whether she’s from Ukambani or from Nyeri and the closest to America she’s ever got is by wearing a Boston Red Sox Jersey she picked after a half day of haggling in Gikomba. Her favorite words are ‘you know’, ‘cmon’, ‘as in like’,’ for real men’ etc. She has that flirty look that can make a devoted man of the clock not think twice about trashing the vows he took. Don’t get me started on her Linda Okello. Wait, you don’t know what Linda Okello is? Siwaambii. Nyinyi sasa naona tumeanza kuzoeana. as I was saying there’s nothing real about those behinds that grace our streets. I hear you can buy asses in Nairobi. I’m imagining how you tell the shop attendant,

“We nifungie rasa mbili biggi,usiniekee zile xa china leo”

And then you proceed to bargain……ai yawa….ma tek

The last time this woman tasted a home cooked meal is when she visited shags. Did I mention she doesn’t know how to cook? I think I’m exaggerating a little. She knows how to cook tea and boiled eggs and probably rice using a rice cooker. Anyway cooking is overrated. I mean why would someone eat chai chipo mwitu at home when there are dozens of men scavenging her like a piece of gold. Men who have the means to take her to the Hiltons and the Nevadas of Nairobi for a bite of chicken, fish and chips? For the less endowed men there’s of course terrific Tuesdays to look forward to put a strong cause for thy love.

She spots a slight bump on her tummy. Word on the street is that they are called ghorofa. They are not pregnant. Just a small prize they have to pay for their nutrition habits.

The Nairobi woman guzzles Vodka the same way Boka swigs his tea. You will be forgiven for mistaking her as a native Russian. She will not surprisingly mention the Jamesons and the Cirrocs of the world when you are with her but trust me whenever she’s alone she partakes of the stronger stuff. Stuff like Bluemoon. Dry. Soda is for sissies.

Her favourite music is soft rock and cool soul. That’s what she says. I hear it’s supposed to give her some aura of trendiness. If you have a chance to look at her memory card Seventy percent of the songs are riddims and reggae. I’m not obviously saying there’s anything wrong with these two genres of music.

All Nairobi women have boyfriends. Their boyfriends either left for Canada for further studies or to South Africa for some job thing. Third date later and whispering sweet nothings to your ear you’ll be wondering what happened to their loves. Don’t kid yourself Alejandro. It’s not your lines that are that strong. She’s just playing the game.

Her favorite sport is rugby and she follows the weekend actions everywhere in this country. This weekend she is in Masaku, next weekend she’ll be in Nakuru and yet just last weekend she was in Kisumu for the Dala Sevens. That’s just a façade. She doesn’t follow the game because she’s passionate about sports. She doesn’t cheer because of the awesomeness of the handoff or the penalty or the side step or the try, the game is about the after party. And doesn’t the Nairobi woman know how to have a good time! Their stunts would actually put to shame the great sin cities of soddom and Gomorrrah. You would actually wonder if they have parents. Hey, I’m not judging. I may actually be worse.

arent they adorable?


The Nairobi woman sees no need for sustainable family planning or even condom use. Why bother when the E Pills are readily available in chemists and have no VAT imposed? In any case she knows some doctor in Kawangware should push come to shove.

She walks in packs just like a bunch of lioness going to hunt. In this group there’s usually the most outspoken one. She’s the one who acts as the spokesperson. She knows everything unimportant going on around the Metropolis from the Oktoberfest, to the coolest gigs. One would think she’s in the entertainment industry. Wait, I forgot she is. This queen makes it difficult for anybody to actually express their deep attraction for a member of her crew without her express permission. It’s unspoken who the boss is but it’s loud and clear. Just look for the one who’s trying too much.

In the animal kingdom when a hunting pack gets a prey they share the meal. The case is true with these hunting packs. Oh yes, you are the prey, they are the hunters. Let’s not confuse roles here. When you dating a lady in a pack you are the group’s property. She’ll probably invite you in the name of meeting her friends but they always be there even ten dates later. Judging you, studying you and making sure you are the right one for their girl. And what better way to prove you are worthy than to quench their insatiable appetite for the bitter stuff. Thank God for Mshwari Loans otherwise watu wangechonga viazi for these ratchets. By the way do people still chonga viazi in this modern technology?

Her fashion sense is just so heightened. It doesn’t matter whether it is drizzling or the heavens have opened up and it’s raining cats and dogs. This woman would always be in a short skirt, a hot pant or one of those shorts that even hockey girls would not wear to a match. And trust me they can be sexy when they want to. Have you seen Jedi in one? Trust me you need to. If she’s in a dress then there’s a very high probability that it is a bareback and the tailor ran out of materials. To them pneumonia or those acute respiratory infections due to cold are just figments of imagination by their haters.

You would be forgiven to think there is a county uniform. Nearly everybody is in animal print dress or trouser and matching sunglasses never mind its July and the sun is somewhere in Soweto. She’s usually in high heels even though it’s obvious she’s struggling to locomote.

She has those huge handbags that have everything from clothes enough for a weekend, from an extra pair of shoes, to scarves, sanitary towels, beauty tools, and extra weaves just in case…loaves of bread and anything you’ll need to survive. Did you think they are called ntalala wapi for no reason? You never know when you’ll be back home and it is naturally wise to carry all you’ll need.

She wears g strings/ thongs for pants on those days that she’s feeling a little religious. The other days she just lets her goods get the desired fresh air. Wearing mother’s union inner wears is very archaic and so 19th century. The only thing allowed from this century is Chelsea football club. 

The Nairobi woman has haters. This are people who in her mind hate her guts and jealous of her to the core. These are wannabes who according to her would not hesitate for a second to switch places with her. You know how it is when you are successful and suddenly haters wanna bring you down? What doesn’t occur to her is that nobody in their right mind envies her. The right word would be pity.

Her name maybe Yvone Achieng or Lucy Wainaina but that remains just on those birth certificates and the church register in some church in kaburengo, the village of Alfayo. The Nairobi woman doesn’t have those mediocre names. She’s either Effersons Justice, Blacksnow Alice, Sweetness Angel (I still love u prude) or one of those names that make a brother pause and look at the profile picture. It goes without saying that your MBs would have been spent to better use.

They have a huge social following, these women. Their Facebook statuses are usually in IMAX, JKIA or some of these classy places. They get twenty likes just by sneezing. Men with insatiable appetites are always trying to outdo each other on her wall. She’ll pretend she doesn’t like that attention from time to time but deep down she knows she needs this validation. Her feeling of self worth is fickle and legions of admirer serve to remind her everyday that she’s pretty. Some of these men’s statements certainly gross exaggerations and pure lies. But stretching the truth for affection is what we men were born to do. Especially those of us who don’t drive. When your strongest point is not the fiscal front you need to be quick with your tongue or your hands to compete favorably. Flattery is thus just a natural adaptation necessary for survival of the broke man.

I’m exaggerating as always….Nairobi women are cool, fun loving people and great company.

I’m out.

Monday, 28 April 2014

Saving our world, Saving our water



People wonder why water conservation
Is such a big conversation
You’ve probably heard that water is life
The scarcity of which causes strife

Everybody requires water
From the builder to the slaughter
Yet it’s a commodity so rare
Leaving communities so bare

While we are busy biting our own quota
We don’t think of the whiting an iota
Yet that’s a debt
To nature we owe

Into the forests we have encroached
Words of caution we have reproached
Our conservation agenda laced with politic
Mixed heavily with tribal and racial rhetoric




Global warming is no myth
It’s no teaser the contribution of many a smith
We may bury our heads that water is renewable
But that doesn’t mean it will be here for ever

It’s me and you to do something
No, Not rocket science, just the simple things
Sealing leaks in our toilets, turning off the water while you lather
Then, only then, will we be truly deserving of our gracious world

Mzee Varaq


Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Nairobi



I know it’s been ‘long’ since I last wrote. Ok….. It’s just been three weeks and friends be like

“Boss, uliacha kuandika?”

In my defense I was writing my final year exams. So I had to prepare myself emotionally, physically, physiologically, chemically and all other …..somethningology not listed.

You know it is at this time that you realize that campus life is finally coming to an end and you have to squeeze the joy up to the last drop in all the good things that made your life. I know perverts are already ahead of me in their thinking. Keep thinking that way. That’s what in poetry we call reading in between the lines.

However if there’s anything that I enjoyed most in my campus life was hockey. My people say ‘gimoro mit karumo .That’s just French for it gets sweetest when it’s about to end. Think of anything that you ever enjoyed that’s no more and you’ll know that what I’m saying is true. I remember when we were kids and my mother was going away on some trips. She would ensure that she cooked nyoyo in nyuol ber enough to last till her return. Nyuol ber are those huge sufurias used to cook ugali in luhya funerals.

The githeri would get monotonous and boring but just as it ended the taste would be juicier.
This season was a great campaign….winning tough league matches in the hostile cities of Kisumu and Mombasa, lifting the Nairobi conference KUSA cup in style among several accolades. That’s why I say it’s sweetest when it’s ending. As I wait to decide my hockey future I am well aware that it won’t get better than this.

A lot has of course happened since we last spoke. Kenyans of Somali origin have been rounded up and faced interrogation methods worse than Guantanamo in their own country. Lilian Muli faced the full ridicule of KOT due to her alleged flirting with Jamaican dancehall sensation Konshens. Kenyatta University coughed us into the job market after four years of being reminded that elimu ni ngumu. I fell in love and got dumped in three weeks!.......That’s a record right. Jicho Pevu fed us crap for two days about election malpractices. One wonders what they wanted the good Kenyan people to do. Take to the streets? There’s one thing that I feel I’m forgetting…..oh the first lady ran and completed the London marathon. That is perhaps the only achievement of the Jubilee government. And talking about Jubilee reminds me Baba has refused to come back from Boston University to address these issues.

But if there’s something that I learnt the most is that I don’t know Nairobi. Yea, I don’t know Nairobi.
You think just because you board your matatus from Accra road and work or go to school on the mezzanine floor of Revlon professional plaza you know Nairobi.

You don’t.

You think just because you can navigate your way from Latema road to Casino Hospital across Kirinyaga Road as you move towards Nyamakima you know Nairobi.

Wait you don’t even know where Casino Hospital is? Don’t worry, you’ll know…..just try catching some funny STIs from drunk sexing some of these Nairobi night nurses who charge you fifty bob in downtown Luthuli. You’ll surely know. That’s not how I came by it of course.

There are two groups of people who know Nairobi. There’s of course the taxi drivers. Those whose hairs are getting white and have been in the profession for some time. They are the people who have witnessed Nairobi. Not just Nairobi the streets but Nairobi the culture. These are the people who have without any attempt at eavesdropping listened to drug lords plan mega operations, listened to philandering husbands tell their wives that they are out of the country as they are being driven into a dingy house of shame somewhere in Umoja. These are the people who have witnessed men and women with insatiable and uncontrollable appetite start and finish their eleven second romping on their back seats.

As a taxi driver you need to know Nairobi.

You need to know how to navigate between the jam filled streets of Nairobi, get to where your client wants and still escape with your side mirrors intact.

The second person who knows Nairobi is Matolo. Sorry, he doesn’t like that name. He prefers to be called by the name of his favorite son, Baba Lithium to show that he’s a big man now. He reminds us every day that unlike us he has responsibilities. Matolo is a great asset to anybody around him.

If you suspect that there could be war then Matolo is your guy. He is a true brother. It doesn’t matter whether you are outgunned and outmanned. I remember sometime last year I lost a hockey stick and to cut a long story short picked some random player who looked like a suspect and of course Matolo was there to argue besides me. Too bad we lost the argument and of course the hockey stick. Not because of limitations of his powers but there was tones of telegraphic, audio and video evidence to sink our case.

Matolo is the kind of guy who doesn’t have to win a war by throwing ammunition. He has that gift of garb that knows when to threaten, when to fake sincerity, when to hold an aggressors head and remind him that he is a circumcised fertile  Bukusu who kneels to no one but God and of course some few hundred kikuyu ladies . But hey that’s not what we are talking about.

I don’t remember the last time Matolo slept in a hotel in our away games. He had some relative in Mombasa…..three actually. He had an aunt in Kisumu, a sister in Eldoret, an ex girlfriend in Nakuru, a mother in law in Nyeri.  He had never been to Meru , Dar Es salaam and Tanga before but he knows the right places for ugali ya mluhya.

For any Luopean locally or internationally our elder sister is Lupita, our father is Baba and of course our hometown is Kisumu city. When the vultures came to town last week I was supposed to be their guide. Informing of places where they could fill their bellies with quality meals at affordable prices. But I realized Matolo knows Kisumu more than I do. Not because he’s been there but because he knows the paths to the poor alleys of the cities of East Africa. And they are all the same. You just look at the direction of dirt and follow it. I’ve never known that at forty bob you can fill your bell in Nyanza Republic’s capital city. Anybody who has been to Lwangn’i beach in Kisumu will tell you that fish is more expensive than a bullet but at three hundred shillings Matolo had his ngege and swallowed it. 

He is your jack of all trades. He has been a truck loader, a hockey coach, a sand harvester, scrap dealer, an online writer, a tour guide, a bonga points dealer, a bus driver, a funeral crier name it. That’s why he knows his stuff. Confirmed rumors have it that he knows Nairobi so much so that at five hundred shillings he knows where to get diapers supply for three weeks for his seven infant sons. He knows where to get fake IDs, where to get vehicles to take you to Westy at night when there is supposed to be a ban on night travel. By the way Westy here does not refer to Westlands.

So last week I was moving my stuff from the hostels of KU to Embakasi. Being the end of the semester and after hosting Boka for such a long time a man’s financial fortunes are allowed to dwindle. The reason I mentioned Boka is because he’s a true Luhya. True Luhyas guzzle tea just as Mercedes guzzle fuel. Tea equals sugar. Sugar equals cash, buzinga you got it!

So we split costs with one Mchill and called a taxi guy. Naturally I had to bring Matolo along the ride. You know how taxi drivers are. They are worse than Duale. They change prices depending on their moods. Matolo would of course be an invaluable asset if that were to happen.

From Doonholm the route I know to Emba is through Outering road and through Fedha. The driver was equally limited in knowledge. To cut a long story short Matolo navigated us across some slums where the roads are just as bad as the rough road to my village with a bridge that threatens to fall into the dirty sewer below. He knows what buildings were there in 2004 and which ones came up recently. He navigated us through places that you never knew existed. Small towns each with their own story. Baraka….Jua kali….Sinai….Village…..


And of course continuously assuring the driver that we almost there.

By the time we finally got back to a tarmac road the reality hit me. I don’t know Nairobi. I’ll probably stay in Nairobi for the next Jubilee and still just know The Mall in Westlands, the KWS Headquarters on Langata Road and the Imbiss, the Nevadas and the City spaces of Nairobi.

Nairobi kumbe ina wenyewe.

Saturday, 5 April 2014

Plight of Gays



Like a twig on a leafy day you shake your bald head
Disapproving eyes as sore as lead
My bliss makes you wanna piss
How do I kiss, miss him; you hiss

A choice for a fellow male
To you is like a choice to ail
You sneer and jeer
Acting so pious yet you are but melons

You are curios; NO, serious, NO, Furious
The thought of his hands; on ma glands
Makes you sick and screaming to kick
You frown; get brown; just looking at the clown

You not sure whether it is the passion or the fashion
You are sure though it is a big shame and we are to blame
A huge puncture on our culture
For the choice of prey, for my soul you’ll pray

Yes I’m gay
Please don’t slay
Or try to sway
Just let us rest without fear of arrest


Mzee_Varaq2014