STORIES FROM MY HEART

Fireplaces and the unforgettable scent of dry Cyprus Laughter and stories of days long gone And Pilau cooked from the olden fireplace outside Are just but some memories I have of Christmas Memories: because last, and the year before You were not there to collect acorns with me and spray paint them in golden hues to place atop the Fireplace, As the warmth of Christmas soaks in With Jim Reeves playing in the backdrop of togetherness I want new memories that I can sing about and sink into The season's slowly coming, but... Not another Christmas without you.

Mid Morning today I read a tweeter update from Bankelele about “ Diaspora’s giving up on Kenya” . I read it, and I felt terrible about about what it means for us as a country. I posted to him a smaller & edited version a response to his blog.. It begins: In the Media, Bad News is great news. I hope you realize this aspect of reporting as you and other Kenyan’s in the Diaspora make decisions about home. It is always a crowd puller to report about 1000 people dying from post poll violence than it when 37 charter flights resume their flights to Kenya. Don't allow yourself to be a victim of Mis-directed reporting, one that doesn’t care about a continent that is still represented by a thin black child holding out his hands to relief food. The grim images on TV are true, so much so that they became a label of what Kenya is about, but that can and will change if someone stops talking and starts acting. That someone is us. Someone who has a platform to inspire Kenyans towards change,...

Photo:courtesy of misingmama.com I would perhaps be the worst person to write a headline like this. What with my broadcast media background and where new media has placed entrepreneurs keen on exploring the possibilities that digitalization comes with. But I am writing from a very personal perspective, about things that mean much to me now, and how much the digital age has erased the little romanticism still lingering on the corners of this earth. I am on one of the corners, the biggest one perhaps and hold so much value to flowers, cards, letters & even postcards, yet I am in the cast in the middle of SMS, email, twitter & Facebook. Is long distance relationship the same as online dating? Online dating is the route through which one finds someone on a social relationship site. Several times, it’s intercontinental, and Communication here is based on in-boxing within the site, and when either Party is comfortable, then they move on to email, then to personal cell numbers & e...

I think It's a Kenyan thing. We like to say sorry about everything. I wonder, because I hear it everyday. Is it the way we are socialized? Does it reflect our personality traits. Are we so attuned to being the first to apologize about everything and anything? "Sorry" here,by the way means a totally different thing from " I am sorry" especially in reference to Partners (spouse or other)...here we harldy say sorry:-). You dont think you say sorry enough? Ask a Non Kenyan, you will be shocked! Sorry subsitutes for everything. You only need to look up the word sorry to relize just how badly we use it. It's not World Sorry Day, and I am not saying sorry today. Even when I should..checking synonyms now... Mad Love, TC

Ma'am, Now you know why Kenyan ladies have a reputation for looking good :-)! Your hair looked lovely too. Welcome to Kenya. (But the traffic jam we got here...another story for another day) I listened to your speech today, intently. You asked Africans to get to the basics of Responsible Governance. But, here, you know there is no such thing as a Responsible Government. You see, Responsibility comes with Maturity, but look here, we only a 45 year old Nation, and still growing. Pardon the Pun, I have been told by my dear friend Vuzi I am the product of over colonization. You say Greed & corruption are the common currency. You know by now about the book “It’s our time to eat”, the people we put in power have 5 years to get rich quick. But comparing this with currency is actually a tad of an over emphasis. Some of us actually work for a living. The Majority of us at least, that majority here means about 95% of the population. Tough talking or not, we have made great strides in pus...