21 years ago I was caught up in a riot. Not as a perpetrator but as a pint sized teacher running for her life. I worked at Nairobi Technical College stuck in an existence I hadn’t envisioned for myself. I had wanted to become a musician but when I applied…
You know what’s worse than the day your mother dies? The day after your mother dies.
No one broke the news to me. There were no messengers in scrubs to say, “We did all we could.” Some disease infiltrated her body then completely swallowed her up, refusing to spit her…
I was late for my meeting with her which was a bummer, because I prefer to pick out sitting spots for my interviews. She kept time. Most medics do.
That morning, the sky was cloaked in gloom. It had rained the night before so the ground felt like sponge beneath…
When I was done with my last interview at Maparasha, I was drained. Physically from the trip, emotionally from the tales.
The things I saw and heard hit me with the force of an air bag, changing me. This was not the kind of thing you picked and dropped. …
I once slept in between two countries. Because of a boy.
See, I was in my fourth year of Medical School and had travelled to Rwanda for a conference. At that time I was dating a lad who worked in Bungoma — a large county situated in Western Kenya —…
“Why did you choose to become a doctor?”
That’s a question I used to run away from; because I had a rehearsed speech about helping people, loving women, making a difference and what not. Big words with broad meaning.
With time it started to sound like an old poem. Something…
I had forgotten how hard it is to talk to teenagers. They are closed tombs. One after another I interviewed them, but more and more it felt like squeezing juice from a berry.
It was only after the first three encounters that I realized I was doing this all wrong.
…
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you will probably want to know is how I ended up there. How they all did. And why, they are still there.
It started with a phone call. It always does anyway.
“Mrs O, your promotion has come through.”
…
“You are always sick,” someone said to me recently. As if all I do in my free time is walk into laboratories to snack on viruses and think, ‘Oh wow that illness would look good on me, I’ll have some of that. And please garnish each serving with a dollop…
Jacky was a last born child and the daughter of a Politician. A recipe for showbiz. Rather than be a charmer or manipulator, she immersed herself in books and got lost in the world of ‘The Famous 5’ or ‘Sweet Valley High.’ Then, she would recreate that world through writing…
