It’s closing day and I am next in line to get a taste of my classmate’s ‘Bazooka’. ‘Bazooka’ dominates the tea time snacks market at Karatina D.E.B primary school. It’s more addictive than those Festive Ring cakes that currently have me on a chokehold. This is the early 2000s and Kinder Joy, the weapon fashioned…

I am staring at a blank page, wondering what to write about.  I feel like a drying well. I should be publishing a piece for Day 29 of my writing challenge but I am empty. In fact, I feel like a stranger has been writing all those other days, and I am envious of them.…

Today I got a seven shillings discount from the lady who sells me chicken. It pleased my heart. She said she allowed it because I am not in her black book of stubborn customers. But you know what would have made me happier? If she did it because of my locs.I need a return on…

Múturú was a precious commodity at Karatina D.E.B Primary School. If you got it, you were either lucky, or the cook’s favourite. The cook, Maina, was a slender man who always wore gumboots. Múturú was a large potato, preferably uncut, served in ‘supro’ AKA githeri with a bucket load of soup. ‘Supro’ always had hard…

I always found my grandfather seated by the cow shed early in the morning, contemplating life, I assume. Or perhaps he loved the view of the rolling hills with tea farms. Gaithuri was, still is, a very scenic village next to the Aberdare forest. Maybe it was none of that. Maybe it was just a…

Form 1 West was in the first block, right next to the staff room. It was the very first classroom right after the toilets. This is many years ago and I am yet to start calling them washrooms. The only washing that happened in those rooms was when you were being punished for some adolescent…

It’s around the Covid years and I am seated on grass at a leased farm in Kiserian. The Kajiado sun is hot and harsh, but the wind makes it bearable. Tranquil even. The environment and the place is peaceful, but I am not. I am lamenting to my dear friend, Gakii, about my troubles. My…

Why do I write? I write to stay alive. I write to keep my soul burning. To fan the embers of fire in my soul into a flame that lights up my soul. I write to heal myself. To travel to the deepest corners of myself and exhume that which is buried. I found writing…