The autograph book in high school
required a friend to write a few things in own handwriting. I have the book
that classmates wrote in before leaving high school and it seems I may not do
the same to my campus mates for I think they are least of friends and I would
not think of it as a waste of time. I want to forget them quickly and conserve
a few for the sake of belonging. The best moment I used to write in a friend’s
book was cycling or reading and the best place; beside the river bank.Then a
signature. Things have changed.
What people love does vary.
Keeping constant to likes is another phenomenon. The food you think you like
today may not be the same favourite in future. I am sure that the kind of
thoughts exhibit a person has now may be different after some time. Authors
have always had this sentence; I intended to write a different book… I wonder
which kind of book Barack Obama could have written beside Dreams From My Father. It follows that when I write a post, what I
include at that very microsecond may not be as the one that I could have done a
while later or an hour ago. Sometimes it is amazing how our minds function and
basing even on this article what you may have expected is not what you will
read; it is not about all I had thought of anyway! We have a reason to marvel.
What was extreme in good or bad
may become rationalized and take a just position. I am the one who thought about
keeping along with my first girlfriend till a colourful marriage. It severally
failed till it failed cha ukwela.
Once I am close to the one I admired interests down and dilute the attraction.
Presently I do not think about a colourful vows exchange. Maybe I will.
If you were given chance to map
out your day to include what to do in different times, what would you include
and exclude? If you keep a diary, or rather a planned guy you will do with a
normal routine. What about if it is an ambush? You went to a weeklong vacation
up to Nyeri for a church seminar and asked to operate by the rules. Every
minute is planned. This is my answer; I will make sure I have stolen some time
for my leisure. It is not a military camp, is it?
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| Reading and writing is what Ufahamu Diaries advocate for as positive and productive leisure. |
I love silence. Silence? Yes. I
like it when the wind can be heard shuffling and the breathing nose can sense
the speed of air in. I like a moment when it no longer is. For instance, if I
went to a place of many people, and they gradually left, I will want to be last
to leave, to reminisce a moment when it is not how it was. I lately walk on
roads or bus stops and gasp at the emptiness of the place. After a moment, the
ghosts will be up, noise in men’s heads and violence in their hearts. Children
will run on roads in fear to be knocked. The zebra crossings will be ignored
and the environment will be hell-like. The crickets will not be heard.Then I
would want to pack and head to a forest. If monkeys make noise, it is either
they are in play or moving. It disturbs not the peace of a butterfly.
Working in the busy town is a
dilemma to such a personality. People of my kind are those who know Nairobi as
a noisy and inhabitable place. The noise is not just from the sounds but the look
of environment. A tall building can be noise for it scares height phobic men. A
dirty nylon-full road, muddy in rain and dusty in sun can only sustain an
ignorant mind-not a sensitive one. It is not because the Githurai bound buses
have devilish tunes for music; it is because they cannot afford to keep it at a
controlled volume to excuse thought or avoid music as Kenya Bus company
operating on Argwing’sKodhek road. Planning to leave Eastland’s Nairobi is not
an option to the poor of sense and choice- not money. Dandora and Kayole are
inhumane zones. But we still live, don’t we?
Looking at a construction site, I
think of leaving the area before the building becomes operational. Most of the
upcoming buildings are commercial and are not aimed at adding value to the
community. Good housing adds value, why do I think otherwise? I am looking at
the thin roads beside the building where traffic is unavoidable and the sewers
untouched. If the buildings attract business and settling, more cars will use
the road and more cisterns will be flashed. The increased carbon IV oxide by
the increased bad engines will lead to something known. The sewers will
increase in their bursting. A pessimist will think of a rainy day when sewers
will be clogged and traffic stalled everywhere. It will take a year to remove
the silt and another year to clear the jam. We will have perished on the roads
to mark another mega religious record.
Keeping a daily diary and reading
are the best sit-in moments as hikes take best active leisure . I wish I had a
bike. Indoors favourite music does to the soul what gods may take credit for. It uplifts it. Then I will continue doing an activity for long before boredom knocks.
And today as I took a leisure
walk in break from office monotony- not that I work as serious as a manager- I
decided to travel the paths less travelled by people. It is in such paths that
people are robbed in the day light but till when will we continue to live in
fear? i can be robbed anywhere in Nairobi anyway.
Take me away from Nairobi. To
your rural side for a visit. Show me the bushes and the rivers. Explain a brief
history of your people. Do not be afraid to take me to caves and pass me by the
shrines. Offer a few precautions and let me have my time. I will construct a
path and follow it. I will diverge to pass in people’s compounds and farms.
They will find me in the middle of the trees looking up to the twisted
branches. If I meet a sugarcane seller on the road, well and good, I will take
one as a walking stick and also a beverage. It may not be done till I see the
setting sun in a desert and start feeling the cold to send me back to the
house. Then I will remember I was among a group in an important meeting. I have
ideas to contribute. Fresh ones.
The clean road passed by Pacific
Hotel. Clean because of its tarmac colour. Dust has not known the way and
unroadworthy vehicles never passed on it. The fences are shaggy as I like.
Clean fences are good for the compounds and roads but not for my paths. My
paths should be of curving trees and shrubs where eyes come into contact with
chameleons and legs evade safari ants. The colour of oxygen is smelt from the
size of giant oxalic leaves. I am tempted to pluck them for the sake of the
stomach. This is what we used to do when we went to uproot cassavas and pluck
the green stalks from the rainbowed stems. The plucking used to be enjoyable.
Do you know how easy cassava stalks get out of their stalks?
With a refreshed mind, as new
idea is born. I feel like settling down quickly once in office and write about
a certain interesting topic. There are no words to write the real feelings in
the diary. A summary will do. Then it will be followed by a few day’s works and
errors, messing and constructing. It is the mind’s fault in its thinking that
there are better feelings than these to explore. In the next piece, I will
include the vanities. As for today, I had my favourite moment- walking in and
on solitude paths.
But the solitudeness won't be the best moment if at large I operated in no group. I cherish company. Positive company.
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