Kariuki Michael

    Shaggy hair that looked like ropes used in an old garage to pull vehicles,dirty and oily,torn trousers with a banana fibre which served as a belt or when he tried,a rope he stole from his mother's favourite goat Maara,a slipper and a shoe on either foot and a patched t-shirt was Kabutu's best look. His face was somewhere between that of a person who used to be brown and handsome but years of suffering and eating from the bins had transformed and eroded the beauty greatly but still,women would be heard commenting "Kabutu was very handsome before  he....". On many days, a skunk and a male goat would have sat down to take notes on how to smell like hell from Kabutu.   When he was born a horde of Kikuyu women came to celebrate his birth in what is commonly know as 'gucuugia mwana' and his mother had lots to do during that ceremony trying to hide the child's beautiful face lest some envious woman sees him and casts a spell...

  ' Out of Africa ' by Karen Blixen is a novel written by a Danish author and settler;Blixen,while she is in kenya and still runs her 6000 acres of land at the foot of Ngong hills,in present day Karen estate. In the farm she grows coffee on about six hundred acres of land upon which the natives work for one hundred and eighty days per year and earn twelve shillings in a month.Before reading the text,i had somewhat an established prejudice and misconception about what the book talks about (themes)and Blixen's relation with the natives.  I had been told by a critic that,Blixen paints a picture in the novel where there exists a hierarchy of beings starting with God at the pinnacle of this hierarchy,Whites come in second,other races such as the Somalis and Coastal Arabs third,animals and nature fourth and the natives are at the bottom of the barrel. This criticism is however dismantled when i read the text with a critics eye, detached from the text and immersed in the authors w...

'Go to school' they said, 'a good life awaits' Numerals and alphabets since year four Till we could recite them off our heads And still we got nothing to show for it Secondary was even harder with bullying We trudged though and mastered equations We balanced 'em with our lives unbalancing And still we got nothing to show for it ''You will have all the freedom in Campus'' We got it in larger quantities than expected Qualified we to graduate with distinctions And we still got nothing to show for it 'Be creative and start a business' they tell me The registrar of businesses awaits his share I am struggling to feed myself forget his 'tea' And we still got nothing to show for it I am now happily employed i convince self Awaiting my salary administered in lil doses Two thousands,three,and 'next week' a times And we still got nothing to show for it Enough is Enough! I set the certs on fire It would have been better if i never schoole...

 When the sun goes down, it is an indication that the day has ended,and therefore people should rest. In the Big City Under the Sun and its Outskirts however,dusk,for some,is a start of their day,or should we call it night? Kibra as it is commonly know by the elites who have chewed big books from prestigious universities within and without, and Kibera for those whom gods did not favour much in the world academia,is the place she was born 12 years ago. Her birth contrasts greatly from those of the elites and the haves because,when the mothers wait in awe to welcome their kids,hers waited in agony and bitterness and to add to the miseries sorounding her birth,her mother was ferried to the hospital in a cart pushed by men,her wailing and cursing from labour pain undeterred the neighbours in the shanty settlement. Her youth was marred by great contrivances of problems which she knew not how to settle and was one she would not yearn for,nor wish any of her offsprings  to imitate. W...

 Having wound my life in campus,i felt that it was great to highlight some of the most common and uncommon scenarios that happen in these god forsaken institutions of higher learning where love is cheap than a bread and at the same time costly as one's life. To survive there,you have to learn to wear different cloaks at the same time. You have to be religious and a party freak. You have to read and relax. You have to follow the masses and be a loner. You have to choose your drug and let it kill you. As a naive first year student from a tiny village in the sloppy lands bordering Mount Kenya,i was admitted in one of the biggest and prestigious(in quotes) universities in Kenya in 2014 to take a course that i liked not and as fate would have it,after so much swearing that i would change the course as soon as i set foot in the institution,the gods had decided that i had to be a teacher and a teacher i would be. A village cockerel does not crow in town so the old adage goes. As soon as i...

  I was tempted  to stand outside myself To question and applaud mine whole life I was sad for the chances fallen o'er cliff I was unhappy with all i did with strife For everything was like a pretty paradox; In scourge there was a chance of healing Much questioning opened a Pandora's box In losing i was gaining,in loving i was hating Like a sieve life residued what i needed not Friends and foes lost and gained I in equity All good and bad ways boiled in the same pot Proud that i was weak and sho'ed no frailty Fearing to be judged by saintly sinners Who're  worse than cold blood murderers. Ecstacy is a greek word ekstasis,which means stand outside (one)self.

 She is the beauty of the mountains She is the thunders of the rainstorms She is the rashes of the cold months She is the warm sun of the hot seasons She is a woman with strength of a man She is a little girl who cries o'er lil things She is a being with different emotions She is as insecure as all other females She is the voice of reason in nothingness She is the pillar of prayer in hopelessness She is the spirit of forefathers in stillnness She is the voice which talks in utter silence She in absentia evokes melancholic emotions She in presence burries fears and longings She in dreams appears as pretty apparition She in reality submits as a beloved human She is the worst and at once good She is the beloved and the loathed She is the respected and despised She is none and everything praised