How to Use the Word ‘Toxic’ for Personal Therapy
‘Toxic’ is the current adjective of choice. It will instantly silence annoying people and relegate anyone and anything you disapprove of into irrelevance. (continue reading)
If You See My Mother, Please Show Her This Picture
So please show mama this picture for me, and tell her it says thank you. For birthing me, for sacrificing her whole life for all eleven of us, for believing in me, and for releasing me to go off with a boy she hardly trusted, to foreign lands with foreign ways and people who are not our own. Tell her it’s not scary here, that white people are just people, albeit with a significant deficit in melanocytes. (continue reading)
A Moment Inside Coronavirus Grief: Guilt, Courage, and Hope
His statement conjures a feeling of transiency, intangibleness, and the helplessness that commandeers your existence as you watch the one who nurtured you, who would be comforting you now, go up in smoke. Momentarily, their shared desolation connects them, easing her aloneness without abating her feelings of guilt. (continue reading)
This Valentine’s, Let Your Love Stop
The motion pictures invited people out into the open to view all the traumas occupying rent-free suites in their minds. Thespians demonstrated our traumas on screen. Opening up their imaginary lives, they thrust us into real parts of ours we had suppressed or dismissed. (continue reading)
Sorry hate, your target is not vulnerable
And as though my heart a sponge
Soak it in his hate
And crowd out room for love
Of myself, and him too (continue reading)
Five Lessons for America From Kenya’s 2007/2008 Graphic Post-Election Violence
Expecting that violence will soon override the country and a sale of 2 million guns in July alone, some Americans fear for their safety after 2020 elections(continue reading)
I’m helping My Kids Celebrate Their Anxieties Away
If you were a child with plans, and life stopped without warning, how would you adjust to living in continuous transition, to not seeing friends or family, to the ‘end of life’? (continue reading)
Donald Trump might have won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize
President Trump received three nominations for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, but according to Tybring-Gjedde, the very man who nominated him, Trump was never going to win, because of his mouth, and morality. (continue reading)
What Is The Coronavirus ‘Liminal Phase’?
With systems the that supported many lifestyles decimated by Covid-19, your life goals may have changed, moved, or disappeared altogether. Inability to plan your future may leave you restless, feeling as (continue reading)
To get more rested, create your own ‘darkness’. Part one
Deep rest died in the city, where we are either too tired or too restless about out of reach realities or new . (continue reading)
Do Not, Offend me
To not offend me
Predict who I am
Anticipate my idiosyncrasies
Uphold my point of view
Celebrate my person-hood … (continue reading)
Of Life, Love and Grief: Remembering my Father.
My father saved me from being thrown away at birth, and I am so grateful to be alive! Today, I honour my father. If it were not for him, I would still be digging up sweet potatoes in the village. … (continue reading)
Face and Body Butter: My Ultimate All-rounder.
A friend has been hounding me for this recipe since I introduced her to the delights, convenience and luxury of this butter. Have you ever slathered something on your face that felt like comfort, like an embrace? Well, this is it! … (continue reading)
She is fearful, she is courageous. And she wants to be known.
I close my eyes, but sleep will not come. There are voices in my head. Her voices. Vibrant, sad, urgent, passionate. She wants to be heard. Her hair is sometimes covered, sometimes blue, sometimes curly, sometimes straight, sometimes in braids. … (continue reading)
AS AN AFRICAN CHILD I GREW UP ROMANTICISING AMERICA, AND NOW I AM IN MOURNING
The green card. That was everyone’s dream and scoring one was like winning the lottery, but better. Growing up in rural Kenya 2 ½ hours drive outside Nairobi, we spoke of America in reverent tones. America was generous. She was kind. She sent plenty of USAID in corn oil and dried yellow corn to keep … (continue reading)
Has the anger found you yet?
A great deal of anger is wisping about. It’s on the clouds and on the cables. And in the open sky. It’s even in the sunshine. Now blazing, now blinding, now too far away to ignite our smouldering resilience or thaw our frosty common sense … (continue reading)
How an analogy of trees can explain ethnicity, race and people of colour to children
“The one with a burnt face! I’m talking to the girl with a burnt face.” Quipped a child pointing at me in a busload of teachers and school children during my early days in a new school as a teacher … (continue reading)
Air-hugs? Yeah, you gave a few today
“Air huuuug!” said a friend walking gleefully towards my 5-year-old at the start of social distancing rules. “No!” he said emphatically. “The government said no hugs because … (continue reading)
And on this day, at this moment, you became a mother
Ever knocked to be admitted into ‘Motherhood County’? Admission is messy. It’s risky. It’s contentious and vulnerable. It is beautiful! … (continue reading)
To reduce homeschooling stress for both parent and child, encourage self-efficacy
Homeschooling anxiety? While the real homeschoolers did their research, charted a pathway, bought learning material, and embarked on a journey, most of us have been catapulted into it by a force so sudden … (continue reading)
A view from two hills
Villagers around a water-hole sunk into a dried-out river bed A villager in the city, I was born and raised at the foot of Kutha Hill, right where the stony creek and the river meet. The rocky river- bank oozes grey powdery salt, a lot like dried-out tears for the cattle to lick. This salt … (continue reading)
Something To Give 