Life

By December 1916 more than 17,000 British troops were officially diagnosed as suffering from nervous or mental disability (maybe shell-shock or post-traumatic stress disorder these days), despite which the British military authorities continued to charge and convict sufferers with 'cowardice' and 'desertion', and to sentence to death by firing squad many of those found 'guilty'. I believe we have all failed. We have acted in cowardice towards our duty of being the watch towers of the country we love. We have subrogated the leadership we have all yearned for to old 'wazees' who continue to enjoy their sunset years  while we continue to watch and pray, perhaps for the tomorrow that so far has eluded us. Just like the British soldiers, we should face the firing squad. Kenya is a beautiful country, there is no doubt about that. It is a country with a diverse culture that forms a beautiful symphony when you watch people wake up every day to go eke out a l...

I was at a funeral today. It was for somebody I had never met. But at some point I had tears in my eyes. And a lump in my throat. I had heard about him. Good things. Not so good things. Now he was no longer living and I was at his funeral. He was gone. I watched people cry. I watched some laugh. Not at him of course, just laughing with each other. Probably remembering happy things about him. Happy times with him. Or maybe they weren’t even talking about him at all. The weather was perfect for a funeral. Dull, dreary, cold. Just how I like it on a regular anyway. People came trickling in slowly. There was no church service. Everything was done by the graveside. And I was taking pictures. I was there to take photographs. And I wanted to do it in the most sensitive way I could. Without being in peoples faces as they bawled their eyes out, and held each other, and grieved for a friend lost. Without making them feel as though they had to keep themselves composed because there’d be a c...

In the Gospel according to St Mathew, we read how at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus closes by saying, “Whoever hears these words of mine, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man who built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.” My happiness is always in doing what pleases God. Moreover, I am blessed to know that my contentment, which breeds my happiness, is built on another rock, another foundation and that rock is you my friends. Each passing day, whatever you behold and believe in changes the way I reason. Every time I scar my knees and feel weak to soldier on, you give me the support necessary to keep going. With your friendship, I have been able to brave the fierce winds and heavy rains of anxiety, hopelessness and anger. Though each one of us has a different ambition in this world, what we have is a common denominator that we all want to ...

We all come face to face with challenges. At least that is a mark of how human we are. Hard times come wrapped in all manners. It could be that you cannot afford the college fees that will enable you graduate and compete with others in the job market. It could be that the person you love most does not love you back in equal measure and always finds time to cheat on you or just lie to you. It could be that the promotion you have been yearning for years cannot come to fruition just because you are a person of integrity and principled and would rather remain stuck in the same job grade than fulfill the sexual desires of your boss who wants to use your body as a conduit to your promotion. Moreover, It could be that you are struggling to make ends meet and at that on some nights you cannot afford to tuck your children to sleep either because you are trying to finish on some school work or that the children want to keep you awake because they are the ones now pitying the condition you are ...

A word will stay around as long as there is work to do it, said Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. In Kenya, just as in so many African states, ‘tribe’ is still on active duty. As a Kenyan bluntly what tribe he is and he may, briefly ruffle up and take offence. But the outrage dissolves immediately upon contact with daily life. ‘Typical Mukamba, useless with money’, a friend mutters when a newspaper vendor fumbles his change. Another, arriving late at a café, explains: ‘I had to straighten up the car because the askari was giving me a hard time. Best not to mess with these Maasai’. And when another is fined for parking illegally he explains: ‘I begged with the policeman, but he would not let me off. He was a Kalenjin’ Any Kenyan can reel off the tags and stereotypes, which capture the categorization of the country’s society. Hard-nosed and thrusting, the Kikuyu are easily identified by their habit of mixing up their ‘r’s and their ‘l’s, the cause of much hilarity amongst their co...

AN OPEN LETTER TO ESTHER ARUNGA. While facing the harsh realities of life i have come across you story or your predicament. In fact i do not know how to describe your situation. But at least i know you muster what i am trying to put across. And its sad that part of your intentions are aimed at suing your parents. Rarely do i pause to write about matters that involve individual conscience but will do so for the matter at hand requires all people of good will to air their ideas. As i write, i am not a perfect person. I have my own shortcomings. Perhaps if put on a measure my own misdeeds, they would weigh more than what people perceive about you. But nowhere would one read that i have sued a parent or even a relative. I know you are a member of the finger of God for some reason. Or at least i think. Just as the prophets of the 8th century B.C left their villages and carried their 'Thus saith the lord' beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as apostle Paul left hi...

On Friday morning, John woke up hurriedly and prepared for work. He worked in a busy institution and was expected early at work. His wife worked a distance from where her husband’s office was. As a result of doing things in a hurry, John unknowingly, carried his wife's mobile phone leaving behind his own. After he had gone, his wife Jane noticed the mix-up but it was too late for her to do anything about it. She thought for a while and decided to carry her husband's phone in case he came back for it. On arriving at his place of work John noticed that he had confused his wife's phone for his but decided not to go back for it. He sighed deeply because he knew his wife could access romantic messages sent by his many mistresses. His wife too was disgusted because she had several toy boys. Drama began to unfold when John received an SMS intended for his wife sent by somebody saved as ‘Peter-Taxi’, which read, "Hi sweetie, ope yo monin’ is fine, 4 me am okay just mad! My...

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem for her children. It is a little but lovely book to read called "Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress Toward." What amazes me about this book is what she says at the end ‘Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song, but Live in the along.’ What she tells us, the children of God and universe, is that we have to live for the present. We have to be in the moment. Whatever that happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now!! Nonetheless, Dr Martin Luther King said that not everybody can be famous. It is quite unfortunate that most of us live each day trying to please others, trying to be like others. Do not get me wrong. It is good to be ambitious. But fame is a trip. If you read the rest of what Dr. King says, he reckons that everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service. He acknowledges the fact that you do not have to have a degree to serve. You do not have ...

I tag you in this note as my friend. and you are not just friend for friendship sake; but for the little but important part you played in making a better Murugami in the year 2009. I may not know each of you in person but in the way I know you, there is a part of me you influenced. This list has been prepared in no specific order. What is important is that you are a part of who I can call ‘My best friends-2009 and beyond”. Each one of you is unique and provided me with a different aspect about life. I am happy I have a mosaic of what an ordinary person would ever wish for in friends. I may not group you into any category, nor can I classify you in any way. I never cared which tribe you belong to nor did I care so much about your leanings in politics. I appreciated you all, the profession in which you are in not counting much. All I cared for was a friend I could learn from. And I am so happy for the invaluable lessons. We are now inseparably woven together by a common destiny-to be t...

This note best addresses those born prior to 1986!! We survived being born to mothers who took aspirin and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies on a mattress on the floor not baby cribs covered with bright colored leso. To be put to sleep you were carried on the back tied with a leso and not put on rocking baby cribs or wheeled around on baby cycles till one got dizzy and opted to sleep. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets. When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took climbing walls, trees and posts. As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. The matatus those days were the seven aside type (pick ups) so riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from anywhere; from the river, lake, rainwater that collected in the ndoo; the garden hose, directly from the ...

Every day is always a challenge. There are a lot of expectations each of one of us wants to fulfill. There are a lot of dreams we want to make a reality. Perhaps we do what we do as a result of pressure from other quarters. You want to make more money so that you can be like your friend. You want to be seen with a handsome man or with a beautiful lady just because your best friend managed to pull a surprise! You want to study in some prestigious university not because you believe in the philosophy of that institution but just for the sake of ill advised legacy to your clan. Or perhaps, you have completed your college degree and now you want to push for masters, not because you are objective enough but because you want to scary the neighbors. But when I look at all things we do, I come to realize that this is just the story of life. It is that story of life that makes us who we are. Sometimes we hate not because we want to but because it is human enough to do so. In other words, it is...