Thursday, June 18, 2009

Conversation with Vendor



I was buying veggies from a vendor yesterday and we had this conversation.
 
Me: Prices are going up every day what's up
 
Vendor: That is why we are not getting married
 
Me:ooh, why is that?
 
Vendor: Now, the last time i bought maize flour it was Fifty shillings, how much is it now, you might know yourself.
 
Honestly i don't do shopping
When i don't know something, i just smile
 
Vendor: Wacha mtu akae kwao na mimi nikae kwetu, tuonane Sunday and then we can pretend to be married
 
Vendor: Can you imagine the way life is hard, what if i have to take a child to school, the cheapest is 3k, Si nitakufa?
 
Me: You can't die, you just pray to God to provide
 
Vendor: If God was among us, i could go direct to him...you know but now i don't even know where He is
 
At that point i laughed, paid and left.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

ANYTHING I KNOW

 

I learnt it when I was 18 years old.

 


Friendships, gossips, betrayals, hip sisters, group mentality....

Her name was Elsie. Tall, slender, big eyes.  She was the first gal friend I made when my dad shoved me to KTTC for a CPA course. He did everything; filled the paper work, looked for a school, paid for it and all that stuff. All I needed was to report. Which I did. It was a boarding college. My dad figured if I stayed idle I would start all those funny behaviours that teenagers pick when they are idle. So I am in these huge college with men and all that stuff and a library. So, these group of girls let’s call them hip sisters and I became inseparable. We ate, queued, went to class, washed together. We we we… gossiped. Ultimately, cracks began to show. Elsie was my best friend in the group and so we gossiped about the others, made fun of their dressing, shared family histories and problems, and I helped her overcome the fear of men because she had been sexually abused as a child. Our friendship is one I will probably never have. We went to Gikomba , drank the first beer, raved at the college dances, had our first boyfriend.

Then, hell broke loose. I don’t know what it is about gals. They started dishing dirt on who said what and how it was said..so eventually everything broke! Of all, I was closest, she is the only one who knew what I thought or even said, the fact that it was out HURT me, really much. She decided we could not be friends. At that time I could not understand what was happen. Then it all started to fit in. I was devastated. Everyone was shouting at each other, I had no friends anymore. I was devastated.

Your best friend walks in when all walk out

To say I was devastated is to understand it, these gals were my life in college. Then J happened. The first day J and I met she dissed me about my leather jacket. So I didn’t like her at all. One day she met me crying; she was worried. We talked and talked about it all. She was  my crying shoulder. Then she introduced me to the library.  Because I had been so obsessed with the gal power troop, I barely noticed there was a libraryL. I don’t know how I would have passed my exams, if it were not for J. So I began to study, even Financial Accounting became easy. We became friends. She is still a good friend of mine till today though time and seasons have waned our friendship, I could say she saw me through the worst of times. Few can do that.

It was not the end of friendships that devastated me, it was the lies and the betrayals. For this lesson I will be forever be grateful. I don’t do gal gangs.

Boys, bars, beer….

His name was D, a Giriama boy. He had/still has the greatest sense of humor. We met at a place me and J were having a rendezvous. It was near my home, I had always heard of it but my father could never let me go there. So I didn’t. Then there was freedom. I could hang out go back to the hostel and my poor dad (who by the way had forked out a fortune to let me board)  would never know. So we danced, we partied, laughed and then he broke my heart. Yes. Terribly. It took me 3 years to get out of this one. I got sick. My friend J could do nothing to help me with this one. You know when young love strikes, it strikes hard. But at the end, I was scarred but stronger. I did not date anyone for 3 years.  I learnt when you are hurt, it is better to move on. Hope is a dangerous thing.  Then I met with vodka, threw up and all that AND grew up. I can’t tell the last time I threw up after drinking, I know my brands and stick to them. I don’t envy chics who misbehave after drinking too much/the wrong drinks…

H is for Heartbreak

Yup. Thing with innocent unadulterated love(?) is that when it hurts, IT HURTS.