A Boy Hunter : The raging madness of Puberty!

His name was Nate, and I was barely a teenager!
This is the  scandalous tale of  a shy little girl caught up in the evil,brain draining madness caused by the emotional turmoil triggered by an overdrive in production of growth hormones that tends to drive everyone else to the edge of insanity,leaving them hanging by the thread.
Simply,call it Adolescence.
Now, back to Nate.
I have always been a late bloomer, well, more like the ugly duckling who grew up to be the beautiful swan.
Being in a boarding school was never easy.
I remember back then,while most of my age mates had this  hormone thing raging inside of them like a volcano, erupting into pimples,boobs and booty and every other evil thing that comes with it,
I was mostly inherently stuck with a dormant volcano inside of me, cutting a boyish figure: the baby faced-flat chested,no hint of boobs type,and a little behind supple from an overload of baby fat.
Unlike my peers, all the letter writing, winking, and the secret,daring groping maze that was the characteristic of most night preps passed me with no much ado.
I wasn't jealous as most of you would have been.
It did not  even bother me that I was not a part of this club of the crazy frenzy sorrounding me.
Well, until that day,when girls started fighing.
Fighting for and about Nate.
Something inside me snapped.
Suddenly, I was high on adrenaline, trapped in limbo;an excruciating mix of dare and danger!

He was tall,dark and handsome,and a prefect too.
He was quite the eyesore or rather the eye candy for any girl reeking of puberty,the cause of numerous catfights among the beauties in our class.
I, on the other hand, was the shy little girl,who looked like a boy.
I almost got too comfortable knowing that I would always watch him as he winked at the other girls,smile at them and even let them 'hijack' the long queues for food during meal times,or never make those agonizingly chaotic lines just to get a jerican of water for my bath.
I knew he was out of my league,but, I also knew I had to get him for me.

He became my prey, my Person of Intrest.
 I became the hunter,stalking,waching,waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Days and days were spend dreaming,calculating, and formulating the perfect pick up line....
Then it just happened.
That night,for some reason I was last to leave the class after a boring night prep,and he just appeared at the door,like vision....nah...he was in every way the epitome of a boy breaking into manhood.....
My brain didn't even think.
No flowery language, no blushing, no stuttering,nothing.
Just one sentence ,straight to the point.
" Nate, I want you to be my Boyfriend".....
Bang!
Silence....
He just stood there, spellbound,....no, more like shell-shocked. He didn't say a word, and as I made my exit, I was pretty sure I had scared the hell out of the guy.
Weeks later,with no word from him, I decided to confront him again and ask for an answer. This time,I caught up with him on his way to the Matron's to take some cough syrup.
All he said was he was still thinking about it.
Aha! The good news of hope.
 That Sunday,I recieved greetings ,send through my cousin,from my Boyfriend!
Bingo!
Oh, how I must have sang,and smiled happily through church that day......
I couldn't wait for the next meal time, just so I could 'jump' the line.
Long story short,
My Madness got me the boy,
And we lived happily  ever after.........nah...
More like I got numerous death stares from girls....
Boys started noticing me,
I got lotsa water for my bath,
Never found my name in any of those lists of Wrong-doers we all so dreaded,....
And,The Boy was mine.....
Oopsie, did I just say that again?

As for whether we gropped,or wrote each other those illicit love letters....
Thats CLASSIFIED.
Just keep Guessing!

The End.

Christened The Nairobi Style: The Memoir of a Sewage Waddler.

 Six O'clock in the  PM , Saturday,  the 5th.
Its Easter Weekend, and I am in Nairobi, the City in the sun, My city.
It seems like the perfect  April evening.
The city street lights illuminate the sky, casting a seemingly warm glow over the city's skyline.
The sky darkens,casting a gloomy vibe against the storeys that congest the city center.
It's going to rain. I panic.
I am not prepared to deal with the mayhem that becomes of this lively city once the first raindrop touches ground.
Throngs of people scurry, to various bus stops tyring to beat the oncoming onslaught and get home.
Then without a warning,the skies open!
Chaos follows.
The atmosphere is buzzing.
Engines revv, buses hoot. A dark blue cloud of smoke from bus exhausts envelopes the city. Conductors call out,at the top of thei voices to anyone who cares to listen to the chaos thats the aura of the late evening.
People rush,helter skelter, to find shelter outside the shops lining the streets.

Amidst the heavy splutter of the rain,a somewhat synchronized symphony of Umbrella and shower Cap vendors shouting,no, singing  their lungs out  fill the side streets, each one of them hoping to take advantage of the situation and make some quick bucks.
Beautiful Nairobi girls with their fake wigs and cheap weaves fly from all corners each trying to find a safe spot to hide from the rain,some managing barely to cover their faces,caked with makeup thats already smudging, forming small rivulets down their cheeks and on to the flimsy chiffon blouses.

I stand outside a shopping mall,contemplating my exit from this mayhem before me.
I am in my Jeans,Tee ,a coat that can barely keep the cold away, and flats.
No handbag,no purse,nothing.
I am a self-contained kind of girl, and today seems to be the day of reckoning.
As I stand stupified,clutching on to a frozen Chicken liver pack,my mind wanders back to the house,where my unused umbrella lies and suddenly I wish i could reach out and take it.(Where the the heck are Superman,  and The Flash, when a girl needs them?)
Someone pushes me hard.My reverie is cut short as I stagger into the rain battered street.
Experience from my days as an attachee at a local weather station tells me that this rain is not going to stop anytime soon. It dawns on me that I must make a decision, fast, before the streets flood.
I take a step forward and hurtle my being in the street.
Too late,the street is flooded.
Then, and only then,do i realize that I have made the most unwise decision in the history of my existance.
I waddle through the mixture of rain water and Raw sewage that is Nairobi's streets runoff, a shade of gray... no,black.
As  I step, hop and jump over pools and ponds of  dirty water my mind is screaming in disgust.I make a mental note to buy me a pair of gumboots.
Ten minutes of wadding through this bacteria and fungi  ridden water, I realize that there not much I can do to help my situation,other than plead with the Heavens that I do not catch an infection.
Takin a deep breath,I slowly ease into the comfort of having the street to myself.
There is no one stepping on my toes or pushing me around as I walk, so, like a duck,I hold my head high, and sashay through the rain, singing along to Shakira's Hips Dont Lie, now strumming inside my head,with no care in the world,occasionally raising my hand to wipe the water that is constantly running through the cornrows thats my hair,down my face into my clothes.
Funny how this rain makes me feel sexy.
I won't let this rain beat me down, no, I won't.
Endless minutes of hopping through steets and lanes seem to pass. Finally ,I find myself a bus to take me home.
I shrug off my coat,shake off the excess of the rain water soaking it and get in to the bus.
I am so cold and wet ,my brain is almost freezing and the only thing that is keeping me sane is the
cold pack of frozen liver that I can't wait to get home and fry.

The ride home is short,and as I alight from the bus it suddenly occurs to me that I have finally been christened the Nairobi Style,
Swimming through Nairobi sewage.
So,
Today call me,
WN,
 The Sewage Waddler!

My Chronicles-The Girl Trapped in the Mind of a Man

I always say that the worst or maybe the Best thing that ever happened to me was growing up in a Man's world.

All my childhood was spend doing manly or is it boyish things.
From the talk,to the walk, to the play.... every thing.
 Infact, I have NEVER owned a doll in my life, and well, my one and only teddybear was a Breathing human being; a man!

As a pre- teen,while girls my age were busy playing 'Kalongo' and 'Cha Mama na Cha Baba'  I was busy playing football and 'driving' toy cars made out of  Milk packets fitted with 'pekele'  for wheels.

Infact, My Mama never told me, like every girls mother does that boys are bad. How could she?

So,from an early age, I learned to suck it up and act like a man.

Crying was considered a sign of weakness, and my brothers would have a field day taunting me when those drops threatened to flow. 

Over time I have mastered the art of Crying from the inside, and channeling the tears to my nose,always getting  the temporary 'Flu' that comes with it.

Boarding school didn't help either. Actually, it made me become some sort of a hardcore.
 I learned how to 'borrow' stuff like pens and pencils from my classmates desks, and swear that they were mine,without any guilt. Oh and the water!

Fast foward to High school, and I found myself in a girls world.
Oh Boy! From the word go, I was all confused.
Here I was, skinny...
No!
To be candid, I was in that stage thats between skinny and voluptious,where your breasts are still thinking about 'coming out' and your bum is round and full of baby fat.
Fresh from the village, sporting a struggling hairdo; the kind that makes Ox- tails instead of Pony tails ,and my trademark baby face,thrown into a world where girls with flowing hair walked with their heads held high, so sure of themselves, so confident!
For a while, I struggled fitting in,trying as much as I could, to let go of my signature walking style which I had copied from my brother; you know that walk that is the characteristic of every highschool boy, where the soles of your feet never seem to touch the ground,right?

Then sweet sixteen happened.
This is one age that no one really prepares you for.
 All this feel good vibes that come with it.
Oh my! The emotions.
Everything seemed to happen so fast!
I woke up one day,
Suddenly I was floating..... NO! drowning....
It was like Creation was happening all over again.
I felt the need to wear a bra, and walk around my chest thrust foward,swaying my hips,flaunting what that Deep Slumber in the garden of Eden gave to Adam , a Woman.
Years later,
I am glad I grew up in a man's world,before I got to unravel the beauty of being and feeling like a woman.
I taught me how to think like a man, but act like a girl.
I taught me how to love like a man, and care like woman.
I taught me how to work hard like a man,and pamper myself like a woman.
I taught me how to be loyal to the people and things I hold important like a man does,
I taught me how to be arrogant and sexy at the same time
I taught me how to balance the Man that I was Cultured to be, and the Girl I was born to be.
 So,
Everytime you stop to think, and wonder why you cannot quite get me,
Know this,
I am by default a girl,trapped in the mind of a man.

My TB Story- A Self-Diagnosis gone wrong!

Today is March 24,  The World Tuberculosis Day.
TB is an ongoing epidemic that causes 9 million infections and 1.5 million deaths every year.
I am a TB survivor, and this is my story:

It started as a common cold in early July last year,coincidentally,at the onset of the July cold weather in Nairobi, fondly, or otherwise called the Nairobi Winter!
As usual,like with all other bouts of Flu, I, the Self-made Flu remedy expert got dowm to the business of 'treating' the cold,downing endless glasses of Warm lemon water,laced with honey,garlic and sometimes Cinnamon or Rosemary leaves.
A week of this taditional remedy didnt work, so I got myself to a pharmacy and asked for 'Dawa ya Homa'. A bottle of foul tasting cough syrup in hand and a few throat lozenges later, i managed to supress the cold,but just for a week.
Then the Coughing started.
I would spend my day in perfect health, but as the darkness crept over the City's skyline, so did the Bull dog on the inside of my lungs came alive.
The sheer sight of food would sent me into a coughing frenzy,so bad that I slowly developed a phobia for the kitchen,and plates for the next two weeks.
The once cold nights turned into nights of horror: hot as hell. That coupled with fevers that left me gasping for breath.
To say the least, sometimes I got so scared because I though I was fighting death.
And all this while, after trying all kinds of antibiotics and remedies, I never suspected TB to be the cause of my woes.
By the time I decided to go for TB screening, I had lost more than 25 pounds in three weeks, and I could not walk for a minute without being out of breath.
An X-ray to my lungs and two sputum tests confirmed the worst, I had contracted Pulmonary Tuberculosis.
As I sat in the doctor's office trying to come to terms  with the fact that I was a carrier of a highly infectious disease that could put my family at risk,and that my X-ray showed the lower part of my left lung as a blur, I was in full panic mode.
I was fresh out of Campus, ready to conquer the world: look for a job, or become a Volunteer,Graduate from the University ,become indipendent,save money, and start Graduate school.
But my dreams had to be put on hold.
For the next six months, I was to be under medication, reporting to the Clinic on a weekly basis to replenish my supply of TB drugs.
The Six months of Hell started in August.
Long Sweaty nights, Joint  pains that made me dread visiting the toilet and Cramps from hell!
All this,plus a crazy craving for food with a zero appetite was just the perfect combination.
I would spend my mornings walking around the house like a zombie,literally, trying to get my joints moving because I had this fear if I didn't move as much,I would wake up the following morning and my limbs would refuse to move!

Now, on this march day,
As I mark days 46 Days of being Disease free,
It has not been an easy journey.
I have developed a phobia for people with coughs,
And I am still vulnerable to Reinfection.
Yet,
I am so grateful to be not among the 1.5 million who unlike me,are not so lucky.

So many sacrifices have been made,
So many sleepless nights,
So many people have had to keep worrying ,
So many prayers said,
So many tears shed in the silent of the night when the pain was unbearable.
But with all of that,
I have experienced a Love that I did not know existed,
And learned to bend in the winds of life, with the wind,
Just like a blade of grass.
I have learened to take life one day at a time, and never take granted the gift of being healthy and strong.

Most impotantly, I have learnt an important lesson,
To let go of my Self-Diagnosis,Self-Treating Syndome, and let Professionals do their stuff!

So, the next time Your Cold persists,
Do the wise thing,
Go Get TESTED!

LESSONS FROM MY DAD :My Childhood Memories -#1

Growing up as an only girl is not easy as many of you would think. Especially if your Dad is a Teacher!
I might have thought of myself as the apple of his eye,and that I could get away with alot of mischief,
but not under my dad's watch
See, I have been and still I'm a bully, always getting my brothers  to do as I say, then watch them get roasted all alone.
Being a tomboy helped much, I could do all the mischief a boy could do, well,even better, and use the "I am a girl" card to get away with it.
Surely, who in their right mind would think of me as a Catapult weilding hunter, in the quest for killing or was it hunting down birds,lizards and the occassional squirel that infested a bush(as the wazungus call them) behind the Ploti we used to stay in while i was barely a teenager.
To say the least, this hunts ended up with stones "straying" and cracking a glass window at the Mission Hospital adjacent to the Bush, or better yet, hitting the unsuspecting passersby,going home to the village after a long trip up the dusty road to the market place.
In all this, my brothers,and the other boys from the hood got blamed,and took a couple of beatings while I smiled all the way into my Dad's good books.
Until  the one day I got way  too ahead of myself in this mischief  business and got my behind whooped by my Old man's Famous leather belt.
See, in our routine weekend visit to my grandparents ,we used to take a short -cut through a forest that had numerous bee hives hoisted up on the trees that lined the leafy dirty path we used to walk on.
On that fine Saturday morning,my brain was working overtime and the fact that someone had accidentally spilled maize on their wayto the poshomill got my creatinve juices up and overflowing...
You should have heard me,in a very nice voice ask my brothers to use the maize grains and try hit the hives, and see who got the most hits.
Like always my brothers took the bait,after all they they were born with the Competitive Gene that infests all the male species!
You even should have seen me go to Report their "Game' to my dad, hoping as always they would all get a beating and I would stand there, watching, my insides doing a happy dance!
Well not on this day,....
Long story short,
I got the first taste of My dads prowess in beating the headlights out of a cheeky,bratty girl!
That beating was so good that I never again dreamt of getting my brothers and I in a position that would warrant a trip of that leather belt on our behinds.

Years later, I got to understand this,
That no matter how much My Dad loved me, He would never in the world let me get down that road that brattiness leads to. He would do everything ,to make sure he raised me up, proper and disciplined.
 At the look of things, HE DID GOOD!!!!!!

CROSSroads- The SunSET!!

Pearly, clear, and salty,

The lone teardrop makes its way down the once silky flawless skin,

Now roughened and concocted with pain.
The long ,slow journey ends up on the once luscious, sensual lips, now dry and chapped,parched...
Breath comes slowly as a sigh, 

The heartbeat slows, 

SUDDENLY, 

Eyes droop, eyelids close,

 Arms drop to the side... The Battle is lost!

No more sweet smiles,

The heart cannot dance..
No more warm, comforting embraces..
No heat to rekindle the fire in your soul,

The flame is doused forever,the remaining embers now glowing dimly.
No static to electrify your heart to dance..
No more whispers in the night...
What is left is the stench of death, tears n loneliness.
No memories to hold..

Our lifes are left so meaningless and empty...
If we could learn to live the Moment, and leave the future to its own cares..
Then we would never have regrets... 
BECAUSE
We would do the things we ought to do and say the words we out to say right..

We would learn to Love absolutely,

 Forgive unconditionally,

 Smile more, 

Frown not,

Laugh heartily ,

Cry Never, and Hate not.
To do good,

 Change lives.

 Most Importantly,

Leave Heart prints along our way...
For Our Destiny is One,

No one is going to Be here forever...
We are ever at
Cross-roads..
The SuNseT!!

Dreams, the Mystical madness.

Lying down on the couch,

It is just another hot mid March Afternoon.

 The heat is searing..
The strum of a guitar so far away...I’m drowsy..the ballad keeps replaying in my subconscious...
SUDDENLY, i can't feel the heat ,

I’m held aloof,like i just stepped on a Magic Carpet.. 
Hey! LOOK OUT! , I'm waving my Magic wand... 

Everything is at standstill,

all except for the wind.

I feel light as pollen, graceful like a gazelle,swifter than the Eagle..
Trudging my world is an awesome feeling.

I Got The Midas Touch,

Everything is Gold.

 Don't need light, a string of Pearls will do,  because i am Bedecked in Diamonds...

Fluid motions.......

Grains of sands seemingly immobile in the fluted hour glass.....

Geysers fizzling....
And then ,suddenly a gust of wind......

Then birds shatter the serenity with beautiful tunes, then the drone of a plane flyin too low..

Bang! 

The spell is broken...

 Hey, I’m Falling,....

Wish i had wings...
Then i realise an Eternity has just Passed...
The Storm is breaking..
The heat's rushing In...
SOMEONE GET ME some Ice CreeeaaaaMM..
This is INSANITY.... 

Lets get Loud.. 

DAMN! 

.....WISH  I A Was A fish... 
I'd swim..
To the Ends of the world..lol
Wonder if a Sphere got ends..
 This is Pure........
MADNESS!!!