STORIES FROM MY HEART

Alfred Cherogony Cherutich, is the name of my father, my hero. Not just because he is my father, but because of the Journey he traveled through life. From one of the poorest households in a village called Kiptum, Osen, in Baringo District, he managed to study at Alliance High School, began a quest to open a school in his village, rose to be a curator at the National Museums of Kenya at a pretty young age, where he met my lovely mother and convinced her to marry him. He was a man of many stories, though we didn’t spend much of our formation years together. In 1983 he was involved in a road accident that left him with a Spinal Injury, he couldn’t walk after that and spent 7 years at the Nairobi Spinal Injury Hospital, where we could come once every holiday to visit. We loved it then, coming to Nairobi to see him, and immensely enjoyed being with our cousins who gave us the whole city touch. But we missed him at home, and though we were young, the 5 of us siblings thought and talked about...

It isn't as if the wind cannot speak Sometimes in a whisper Barely grazing the bougainvillea purple on the porch sometimes in a breeze Still the creepers on the front door of our holiday cottage sway to its voice Creepers still can speak, but only to the foliage underneath And this evening, while I sit by the poolside In this warm African sunset The wind howls As the sea comes back home stories, trapped in the crushing waves Swish, swash, on the wearing down corals beneath our love nest white sand on this Watamu shores The soft leaves of the bottle brush graze the back of my neck caressing my barely there tan The birds, they chirp the evening away they too, have stories to tell Memories, some sweet, some hot & raunchy, some...they will never tell And most, I will never know.... my heart longs to hear the tales of the wind from far away lands of the sea, swishing, swaying going and coming back home of the creepers on the front door and the bougainvillea on the porch of the artsy...