STORIES FROM MY HEART

Some of my better memories include Jazz and Karaoke at the Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi, about 3-4 yrs ago when the Hotel perhaps had the best Jazz players in town. There was salsa as well, though I didn’t do the salsa nights much. More recently though, some journalists were invited for their "Chefs table" a grand event where we got to sample the best of the hotel, we got a tour of the presidential suite and got served in the Kitchen, the experience was beautiful. Karl Hala & Daniel ebo did a pretty good job at it. First Class. But, as they say, the best time to sample a hotel is when you go in as a regular guest. The Intercontinental Hotel failed the test, terribly. We got to the hotel at 9.00pm and within a couple of hours spent at the pool bar, all the stars dropped, (not sure if it's a 3 or 4 star), but I would only give it one star. A colleague had been staying at the hotel this week during a certain conference, and it was his last night in town. The team ...

Flashback: The year is 1998. I have just completed my form four exams and I am pretty excited. I have a wish list, something I had since I was a little child. A guitar, a dance, a song and a poem. My life revolves around these things. I had no big dreams of being a musician or a popular artist; I just wanted to learn how to flirt with the strings. I took up guitar lessons at Church in the evenings, and perfected my singing. I loved every minute it. I didn’t get around to getting a guitar, there were far more pressing proprieties for my parents to attend to, and slowly, that dream drifted away. A couple months later I came to Nairobi; shortly I was acting at the phoenix players, pretty small roles (I don’t consider myself much of an actress though). I played as a Chorus girl in Christmas Musicals and my first single acting role was a French maid in a play that had big names like Joy Mboya, it was directed by James Falkland. And that, ladies and gents was my first brush with the rich and...

After a beautiful Friday night, I woke up at 9.00am (with lots of trouble!) to catch up with AlyKhan Satchu’s Mindspeak monthly event at Westgate. Ushahidi creator, Erik Hersman (who I have followed on twitter and blogosphere for a while; was the man with the Mic and top on my agenda was to know more about Ushahidi, their newest kid on the block ; Ihub, and just the person behind his better known blog name “white African” ( I think Erik ironically is more African than most of us!: will tell you why in a bit) Eric did a great presentation and introduced us to his world, and while we know of all the success stories with the Ushahidi model being taken as far as Haiti; I mostly enjoyed how he openly shared some of the failures they face and how they go around it: He also said something I think most entrepreneurs need to engage in their day to day: Eric follows the 80:20 rule, where 80% of his time is spent on normal work: daily routine) and the other 20 % working on edgy stuff, proj...

Friday is here, and while you speak of milk, honey and scoops of tiramissu I am afraid that the weekend may walk to slow when I have learnt to make my weekdays busy busy enough to forget what tugs at my heart It's not picket fences & giggling voices or painted countryside houses with lillies and poison Ivy It's deep & dark, and many times scary dreams, that I have learnt to tuck away Dreams, of nightly escapades frothy Fridays @ the Brew Bistro and tequila at Havanna barbequed lambchops spiced with love & laughter and stories that are forever etched in my memory I have forgot; and cannot retrace my steps I lost a dream, But I see it coming I feel it coming I know it's coming But I fear Give me just a share of your dreams To trace me back to my dream of yesteryears Maybe then, I will arise and embrace these new dreams, as my heart rises to the beat. Terryanne,

It’s been a while, damn! And consistency hasn’t been my greatest asset lately. I’ve now got a throbbing headache after my (not so much fun) weekend trip to the Coast to cover the landing of the Eassy Cable. It wasn’t as great, and as organized as the SEACOM cable. which I blogged about here. Different strategies work for different people, but after Seacom, lets just say easy was quite the landing, Phogisio says "EASSY wasnt so easy!" Unlike Seacoms' social media savvy launch ( They had a blog, a welldone website, had Live streaming TV from 3 landing sites, and a tweeter team ( only KTN’s Larry Madowo & I were live tweeting the EASSY event for fun) that was the exciting part. It was a well attended event though; Sec General of the ITU Hamadoun Touré, Kenya’s Minister for Info; Hon Samuel Phoghisio, CCK Director General, MTN was well represented; so were other stakeholders within the consortium. The biggest shareholder WIOCC handled the launch. It wasn’t the most ...

Imani is about to turn 4, in a few weeks time , and she does make my day! Everyday! Just the other day I remember getting her out of the hospital clothes as we left the maternity ward 4 days after she was born. Now she even asks me if I know what "nocturnal" means; and if She will grow into a big girl, and if she will be a mommy someday, and when she does, whose mummy will I be? Time flies! She is her second year of Nursery School and just won a prize for being the most creative student in her class for 2009. ( The term before she won " Best Story Teller" ( Don't ask me where she gets that from:-) But it was a beautiful ceremony, with laughter and tears, and lots of pictures, which we will laugh over when she is older. Imani is central to my life, and the more I think about it, the more I realise that almost every move that I make, however quick the decision may be, how I decide it, and when, usually depends on how it will affect/impact her. That includes everyt...

Its been a couple of Intersting days..tres' busy at work, by the time I get home, I can hardly put my thoughts together..hence my hiatus from Grains of Masala. I recently got a couple of comments as well on why I'm posting "work" ie some of my work interviews instead of "Blogging". I suppose though that if it is a journal of my my day to day stuf.( and it is) then I'd like that to share that as well. Last night I met up with an old friend, part of the talk included friends you need, friends you dont need and the sweetness of freedom...But that's a story for another day. Until then; Muchos Gracias!