Beauty is in the heart

I will not write about people’s looks and physicality which I believe they have no power to change but to only work with what God gave them on creation day. However, forgive me as I write about the additions we employ – because I totally believe we have control over them.

If you lived in the good olden days, you probably miss them with deep nostalgia. Those times were awesome and honest – what you saw is what you got.

Well, if you are to alter anything on your body in the quest of looking better than God created you, please be sure that it’s going to be on point. Now, I get bothered and really much when a lady decides to mow a whole handful of eye brow and re-draws something that ends up looking like a poorly drawn sperm cell. Do you have an idea what angels are reporting about you as you are doing all these? You will see when we all get home and God asks that you first restore default settings before He even debates your other sins. Even in our court systems altering of documents is highly punishable by the law, so imagine how much more it is penalized when you meet with Emmanuel’s father.

Please do the eyebrow beautifully so that even as I look at the creativity I am awed by how great your hands can be useful. Do not leave your eyebrow giving an impression that you are eternally surprised by drawing that long and unending arc like the SGR.

Nose piercing sometimes looks really good (on some people). Just be sure the piece you are going to plant on that nose is quality because it stands out a lot. When you just plant there anything, we will not know whether it’s for beauty or identification purposes.

Men get really aroused by boobs. So it has been the pursuit of every lady to have them really pronounced which is why someone is making money on padded bras (magic bra). Well, I will equally love the outcome of using such bras but please let’s be realistic. If you are gonna enhance those twins, do it to reasonable levels because when the bra is opened by a brother the boob will roll back to its original size and refuse to participate in your lies. How am I going to make peace with my eyes? This is fraud! The view must have probably influenced the decision making process of my innocent heart. If you don’t have them big, don’t be worried. That is not the only thing we look at – some few of us still look at the heart – invest more in your heart, make it clean and pure and you will have a way.

At one point as a woman you will just find more body coming and before you realize that cute waist is playing elusive games like a mirage. Somehow you imagine the cosset (my friend calls it ‘mabati’) will sort you. I am now telling you from a man’s point of view, we have no problem with your mass, in fact, we actually have a problem with the cosset! You know life is already difficult especially in this sub-Saharan country called Kenya, why then would you impose more suffering of arresting yourself in a cosset the whole day? Angels that would be guarding other children of God elsewhere are deployed around you on fulltime and overtime basis just to make sure that cosset thing doesn’t grind you into a pulp. The African woman is who she is for who she is and not what she is– big or small she still rocks! So, flaunt that body if you have it and catwalk finely if you don’t have.

Mmmmh. Now, someone invented the high-heeled shoes. Sometimes I see ladies walk around with humility that is only brought with wearing high-heeled shoes – others literary tip-toe like praying mantis and I ask myself, why go through all these self-inflicted pain? You need to re-check your list of friends – true friends should tell you, ai, ah ah, high-heels are not for you. There is scores of women that look beautiful and graceful in flat shoes and they still manage to break a couple of necks here and there while walking around. I think the greatest accessory you can add on yourself to look more beautiful is confidence.

Lest I go to bed on a hungry stomach tonight or be forced to sleep on the couch, let me leave women alone and say something about men. Men, the moment you walk around with your ‘utensils’ clutched into a fist for everyone to see, something should tell you that trouser is very tight. Please find something fitting and appealing to others. It’s not metro sexual anymore to suffocate your utensils just like that in the name of fashion. And again I guess your ‘utensils’ must remain a mystery until some daughter of Eve decides to find out for themselves. She is the one who will tell whether you are small or big – you don’t have to display for public scrutiny. Maybe that’s why you are still single and ever searching…

Alenga Torosterdt.

TRUTH BE TOLD: NAIROBI GIRLS REMAIN THE HOTTEST

It is official that Nairobi girls are a real turn on - the next hottest thing after Indian spices. Whether she comes in her God-given hair or some Brazilian or Indian makeshift hair, trust me, she can gerrit! They are geniuses too – you see that stuff they do with profile pictures on social media and you are left wondering how the hell they manage to show ass and face in the same picture? Those are Kenyan girls for you. Dark and light skinned; skinny and big – but I have a problem with the latter as the Bible says, ‘Narrow is the way that leads to heaven.’

I will do a little excursion into these daughters of Eve of Kenyan descent.
There is this category I call:

Destiny crashers
This type will wake up and dress to distract. She puts on a bra that collects the mammary gadgets into one awesome pack then out of sheer wickedness she will put her legs apart and push them a little backwards and then with her palms she will hold the base of her boobs and give them a soft push up. At this point they are peeping out of the bra with a bewitching cleavage that tells one is on the left and the other on the right otherwise the whole lot is facing forward like her chin and pointing like the Russian 2K11 Krug missile launcher ready for action. The result is scandalous. Whether you are filled with the Holy Ghost, you live in Eastlands with several churches near your house, your father is a bishop or you are straight from the confession box, you are suffering from cholera, you will look – and that is where problems will start. 

You left home a focused man ready to build the nation in the simplest way you always do, now see, at the sight of these weapons of mass detraction, you are all confused – tell me your destiny hasn’t been crashed? With your ‘whatever’ now so stiff that it can hang clothes.

If you follow beyond ‘eating with eyes’ and perhaps craft a working relationship with the daughter of Eve and that day you have always visualized comes to pass, sometimes you will meet another shock of your life. Some of these weapons of mass detraction may be packaged so well in these wonder bras and what sleeps inside maybe the real opposite of what you see. The time you flip open the bra with one hand (a skill we have perfected as men) you will be surprised as the entire mass of a pair of boobs with low self-esteem fall helplessly on the owner’s chest and lie there reminiscing the years they have lived like an old Mzungu lying on the beach in Mombasa.How now do you make peace with your eyes? Sometimes I think to get them all pointed and turgid, they actually role them up with their thumb and index finger and then clip them with a cloth-peg before they can arrest the innocent boob in a padded bra – what an injustice! The good thing is at this moment our mind as men is usually set on things that matter – so you will just go ahead anyway.

The other category is:

The CSR type
These ones from the word – they have something to give back to the community. The ones who have a sitting allowance that looks like a tipper pouring construction material. You look at them once and your life doesn’t remain the same! Whether what you are looking at is theirs straight from the creation workshop or is the work of silicon – who cares? This type will help you improve your eyesight because every time they pass by you can’t help but recognize the ass-quake and just look – looking is not bad; looking is free. These ones remind you of the story of creation, ‘…and the earth was without form, and the spirit hovered upon the face of the deep.’ Now you know why Jesus called Peter three times during the last supper: Maybe such was passing by.

Alenga Torosterdt

POLITE NOTICE: KENYA WILL CLOSE DOWN FOR RENOVATIONS SOON

Sometime in August I was busy watching the Olympics games; most of the time asking myself why some of the games are even games in the first place. Well, I am not here to spoil for others knowing very well there are children being fed or taken to school with the proceeds. I was sort of distracted by something that I have taken long to comment about. And this very thing drew my mind back to recounts that I guess millennials reading this may not be able to comprehend or relate.

The year is 1990. I was around 7 years old then. On a typical afternoon you have just left school – those days we would leave school at 12 mid-day for good. We were so bright to want a whole day in school because we fed on our mothers’ milk and so we reasoned like humans and not cow milk for the opposite like is today, and again, remember we sang more than we read. Lunch was always something found within the homestead, say: boiled plantains, boiled arrow roots, boiled sweet potatoes or boiled cassava – everything was boiled which is why today I don’t want someone to bother me with those stories of avoid beef and fatty foods – my childhood carried along enough boiled food to last a life time. If conditions were very favorable you would have strong tea to go with the food – but this wasn’t a guarantee – and being children you would probably get half a cup and dare you complain!

After lunch, automatically you would start playing – just like a reflex. These were good old days – days when you would be around two years, you are playing and somehow something tells you to go and breastfeed, you would just listen to that thing and run to your mum, she would just understand that boob belongs to you and your dad and pull out one for you as she continued to pick vegetables and when you were done you would just leave it like that and run back to play and no one asked you.

During these games, hide and seek, tapo and many others, there would be that ka-girl who knew bad manners before all of you would even know other uses of your dudus. She would be obviously your first cousin or just any other cousin. While you are innocently hiding she would come where you are hiding and out of some wickedness that starts budding in females at such a young age, she would lift her little dress and show you her small panty with flowers all over and lace finishing on the waistline punctuated by a small heart with an arrow running through. Seeing this, first you would be confused and want to raise alarm but somehow there is something in a man however young they are that tells them, ‘you can handle the pressure’. So you just keep quiet and try to concentrate on hiding better. She will not stop. She will move close to you and something inside your little heart will ask you to move too – you will listen to this thing and move. The moment you are holding each other so close that there is nothing between you; not even air, the other kids will burst you guys!

You know that anxiety you feel when you see the sign of alco-blow on Lang’ata road, you feel the same, words fail you, your feeble hands tremble with your little fingers stretched out like branches on leafless trees, and your small prick down there immediately responds to the law of gravity and hangs loose like pods of ripe minji. You want to explain but what will you explain? The other kids are all laughing with tiny faces and huge eyes. Others dressed in loosely fitting t-shirts twice or thrice their size, coupling both as top and pants, some with huge navels sticking out of their torn clothes, others with 123 and ABCD written on their dry legs with a stick, others with red ink from a stolen biro as cutex on their little nails, others with their lips purple from bougainvillea flowers they just used as lipstick. They are all clicking their fingers and threatening to report you.

Usually, they would ask the ka-small girl ‘to give them’ also then they won’t say the two of you. She would agree. Each of them would have a turn and the other small girls would join. It would be a moment of silence and action. You would really look like you are making love but surely there was nothing serious until mum bursts you.

Back to paragraph one.

Whatever surprised me in August, as I was saying, is the court ruling that sex between cousins is now legal in this country. Finally, I got the reason why Hell’s Gate out of all the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is found in Kenya. But somehow, if you passed through the experiences above, take heart son, your sins have been forgiven, in fact the law says you should be doing the same today without anyone bothering you. Now, Jesus, be real, if you are actually not coming soon as you said 2000 years ago, show us the way, the zealous ones like me can come instead of waiting longer or we just meet somewhere on the way. The court ruling is just a theatrical excursion into the decadence of human dealings – don’t ask me what I mean, I also don’t even know. 

My final plea to the government is that we close down this country for renovations first.

Meanwhile, if Donald Trump looses the election in the US, he can come and vie here with Shebesh or Margaret Wanjiru oh sorry Bishop Margaret as his running mate – they will win by 7am and ‘make Kenya great again!’

The Curse of living on ground floor

There is a group of individuals the government should recognize alongside MauMau veterans and slot them either for compensation or tax exemption.  These are individuals that are or have ever lived on the ground floor of a flat in this city.

There are things that happen to you in this city when you live on ground floor – things that are beyond your control and you just look and say, “Ya Mungu ni mengi, ya kuku ndio mayai.” 

You can imagine those days you are tired and just thinking about things that confuse you more like the significance of the standard gauge railway to your individual income levels, things like whether Raila is too old to run for presidency, things like was it too early for Southern Sudan to separate from the larger Sudan, What does Africa stand to gain or lose with a Trump or Hillary presidency, then from nowhere you just hear someone shouting, “Maaaare, mare, mare, mare” and then some house-help a floor up is sent to call in the guy over the balcony.

When the guy comes in, the barter trade happens outside your door and for some reason the Mare Mare guy never talks in a low tone. You will find yourself listening into their stories and how the guy is even trying to ‘put into his box’ someone’s mboch or wife and that silly laughter the victims give as they try to brush the vibes away. During this session your hunger pangs are sort of aroused and you just decide to walk lazily into the kitchen to prepare something.

Maybe you were listening to some music and you decide to increase the volume so that you can still listen and sing along while cooking. That is the time the guy who sharpens knives decides to show up and sets his monocycle right in front of your door. All the neighbors from the other floors come down in numbers to have their knives sharpened as they catch up with their friends. They make noise as if to tell you there is need to go upstairs next time you are looking for a house.

You finally manage to make your food and bring it on the table. You say your silent prayer or even assume you prayed while cooking and fill your plate right away. The time you lift the first spoon or handful, you hear a slight knock on the door – you ignore the knock. Somehow the other person persists to knock one more time and you decide to take them serious, so you stand half-heartedly and pace lazily towards the door. All the time, the doors on ground floor are rusty and hard to open (I don’t know why). You finally open the door to meet some lady with about three kids the youngest of them on her back.

“Hapa ni kwa mama Bryo?” She asks.

You realize even in the spirit of Nyumba kumi initiative you know not of any Mama Bryo. Somehow you try to think.

“Alizaa mtoto juzi” she adds to aid your memory.

Still you can’t you decipher a Mama Bryo. You often leave this place before sunrise and are back long after sunset.

You decide to forward her to the next house to try her luck.

As she leaves you walk back to your food and half way, you hear another knock on the door. You go back to open and this time it’s the caretaker. He tells you the pump is not able to pump water to the guys on other floors so they will come down to draw water from the tap next to your door – some more noise is coming.

Then he adds that the guys who collect garbage have missed to pass by so probably it will have to wait till the next week’s collection day – meaning all the garbage from all the other floors will remain on ground floor for a week!  Why won’t you wish for Jesus’ second coming at this point?

You don’t even answer him except a mechanical nod of your head in agreement. At this point you feel like telling God politely, "Hey, we need to talk."

Your food is now cold but you must eat.

You finish eating your food and decide to stand outside to be ‘beaten by the wind’ a little. While you are standing outside your door, there is a happy kid on some floor up. The parents have bought him soda and he is playing with it on the balcony. Somehow I think it’s the work of the devil or something, he decides to tort a little soda on your promotional t-shirt from the company you work for. Something inside you asks you to look up and your face meets a happy creature with about two teeth missing on his upper gum, smiling at you and then ducks into their house after you visualize a threat to them.

So you decide to just get your clothes off from the line and get back inside. Another shock hits you when you realize those clothes you paid Mama wa nguo to wash have been discolored multiple times by some neighbors on the floors up there who also shared your co-curricular intentions of having their clothes washed on the same day.

Before you can register your anger properly and even beat yourself for choosing to stay on ground floor, some mboch up there is cleaning and now just doing her final touches with the balcony. You just notice some tea-colored water gushing out of that ka-drainage pipe peeping above your door like a security camera and spurting on the concrete floor depositing on the ground some remains of sukuma wiki, rice grains, burnt out match sticks, buttons and other things that you can’t even identify. You just jump over your slippers at the door that have already fallen victim to this instant flood.

You enter your house and switch on the TV and there is poor signal – then you realize that your Gotv antennae must have been messed up by the neighbor’s kids playing on the top most floor. You decide to go and sleep so that maybe Jesus will visit you and whisper to you in a still voice while in your trance, the reason why you are going through this predicament and which sins particularly you need to repent and change your ways so that you can receive his blessings both in the country side and in the city, according to his word…

Alenga Torosterdt.

LOVE ISN’T FOR BROKE GUYS

You see, nothing speaks louder than nature does. In this city nature has spoken and loudly for that matter, that love is not for the broke guys here. Even if you feel like you really love some daughter of Eve and after confirming your bank balance, Mpesa balance and mattress account balance, you find nothing to write home about, please put your ambitions on hold and take some time to look for money first – after which everything you wish will be possible.

It’s not that our girls are bad or money-minded or whatever but that is just the way it is! That’s just the system. It started way back in the Garden of Eden. When Adam had nothing to offer his brand new babe, Eve, the latter was offered something: a simple fruit by a snake. A snake? And you are there crying oh a sponsor has snatched your girl – you should even be grateful she has entertained a fellow human. It could have been an inkalimeva that chips-fungad her.

If you think this stuff is not part of our punishment as men, see, you will spend your 200 Masaa ya SMS subscription chatting your girl the entire day making sure she is okay and then she will receive only one Mpesa SMS from her sponsor and that will be the game changer – that will determine who gets to 'kamatia chini' that night. Meanwhile, you will wait for your whatsapp ticks on your chat to turn blue that evening until the cows come back home – they will turn blue on day three: don’t worry, nature is teaching you patience and you are not alone – even Arsenal fans are still waiting for a trophy  and our primary school kids are still waiting for laptops.

Nature is speaking to us Nairobi men; to look for money more than we look for girls and the rest will be added unto us. Look, sometime back Uhuru Park used to be just a garden like any other. Young lovers flocked the place and spent the best of their time just staring into each other’s eyes and weaving up poignant memories that would torment them many nights to come. Today, Uhuru Park is full of kiosks and hawkers selling snacks and drinks. Nature is trying to say even hang out places are no longer free, somehow you must spend.

That day you buy flowers and don’t reason why you are spending on things that will wither before noon, that day you will call a cab to take someone’s daughter home and call another for yourself, that time you will order without looking at the menu while interceding that it should turn out she is vegetarian, that time you will comfortably pay for some Brazillian horse’s hair to cover your girl’s own hair and don’t complain because she isn’t either, that time you will call her and she comes with a crusade in the name of friends and you only smile and say to your heart, ‘peace be still’, that time you will be at a club and when the bill comes around the figure looks like an Mpesa paybill number but still you can swipe your card and say, ‘we only live once’, son, that day know that you are already living in the promised land – you are free to love. 

If this time hasn’t reached and is still elusive like mirage, verily, verily I say unto you, please when you see girls, behave! Kindly pocket and walk away whistling Daddy Owen’s song, ‘Yote ni vanity….‘

Alenga Torosterdt.

#WeAreOne: SPONSORS' LIVES MATTER

The other day I was driving to the village. So, I decided to pull aside into some restaurant in Naivasha to have a snack in the name of pizza, which some people gladly call food. My eyes hovered around and easily rested on some fine girl, seated alone with a couple of high-end phones before her. She was sipping some juice. 

My heart never skipped a bit like it used to do in my primary school compositions – this time round it stopped completely! She was fine to the bone. I concluded that those people that died before simply seeing her were actually in an unnecessary hurry to return to their maker. 

This beautiful lass made me almost agree with Jehovah witness guys that heaven is actually here on earth. I saw some nice hips, lips and fingertips that could even heal the sick. Maybe for pro—bono purposes, she stood and walked all the way from the side extension of the restaurant, across the main restaurant and into some car; she picked something and then was back to her seat. All this while I had sufficiently ‘eaten with my eyes’; this is the time you pity Chinese people for sure.

By the time she got back we were just finishing talking about her with my pals and as soon as she rested her generous sitting allowance on the plastic chair, set her bewitching dashboard for public scrutiny with two excited boobs scrambling for the rays of the sun way above her collar and only converging to birth a deep and sexy cleavage, a heavy built nigga came around with food. The man looked like money, smelt money and made us look like some lost boys arriving from fishing in the village river – with no fish. 

The man was of age – the kind that God could have used to lead the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. He looked like he probably had a wife whose hair had begun graying like the guy’s beard. The guy had a bald shave on his head – they do it to conceal the stubborn white hair. He probably had children older than this girl and perhaps I was actually age-fit for the girl but that’s a story for another day- At least by now I know where my rib has been long lost. This man evidently had a vibrant relationship with money; they knew each other and money had found safety in his hands. Probably with my earnings I need to live and die about seventy times to get somewhere close to him. Anyway, Mungu mwenye alimpa ndiye alininyima.

This guy was probably a sponsor. And this is my story for today. I pay due cognizance to the pains and perils of sponsors, their feelings and determination. I stand with sponsors. It is not their fault. Money just arrived late and somehow it still wants to be used. Honestly, there is nothing bad in a man’s life like money arriving too late in life – it guides your fragile bones where your heart dreads. It literary turns you into Jesus and you can feed multitudes when that campus girl arrives at Dusit in the company of Carol, Kate, Pesh, Kish, Tish, Mish, Shish and all the other ishs she could gather. Sponsors grew up in bad times; at the time girls dressed like they were going for a night vigil daily, today our girls dress like they are going to take a shower in town – what do you want Mr. Sponsor to do? 

You know life is just interesting: when you are young you have energy and time but you don’t have money, when you are in middle age you have energy and money but you don’t have time, when you are old you have money and time but no energy – and then God says he will still judge us and throw some into everlasting fire, yaayee, God, haven’t we suffered enough already?

It is a high time we officially recognize Sponsors as a tribe in Kenya – a minority tribe, a special interest group at that. Let’s work closely with them for cohesion purposes, let’s seek partnerships with them to be able to attain our collective goals as members of the infamous Mafisi Sacco – Sponsors are here to stay whether you like their faces (which are often not good) or not.

In case you have been directly wronged by a sponsor, like say, he took your girl; please exercise restraint and remember that vengeance belongs to the Lord. Work hard, make money and when you are grown, rich and affluent, his daughter will be ripe for the game. As for now, Nairobi men, I appeal to you to maintain calm and step aside to pave way for sponsors’ investigations on your girls.

Alenga Torosterdt.

The last letter

No deathly night like this one. Even the crickets in the ground ceased. Earlier in the evening an owl had perched on our makeshift kitchen and hooted all the while; occasionally, my mother would get out and throw a burning splint at it – to scare the owl away with its omen. I was frightened that this was an ominous sign.

My mother pushed open the fragile tin door to our room. We were all strewn on the floor with torn blankets loosely covering our frail bodies against the biting cold.

“Mother” I shouted.

“Quiet son, I am covering you. It’s a cold night. Sleep”. She replied softly.

I rested my head back on my folded arm and placed my other hand right between my legs to keep warm. I watched lazily  as my mother’s form faded in the dark, then I heard her spring bed creek and knew she was in her room already. I loved her. She was our father and mother for three years now since our father left.

I groped in the dark and reached for the tin lamp. We hardly have the lamp lighting long since the price of kerosene went up and lately everyone in our house has learnt to find things even in the dark. I sat up against the mud wall and pushed my hand under the heap of old clothes that was my pillow and fetched out a small sheet of securely wrapped paper. I carefully unwrapped the paper and got two match sticks and a small rod-shaped, slightly hard paper that I had peeled off from the match box lighting end.

I thought my siblings would wake up; but seemingly they had no room in their slumber land to deal with this emerging issue.  They were dead asleep. Asleep like they already were in the Promised Land devouring the goodness of the Lord. They snored, snored like they had swallowed some small generator engines.

I struck the match stick against the small lighting bit and on the third strike it lit.  There was light. I tiptoed to the old arm chair where I kept my school bag. I opened the bag, got out an exercise book and tore a blank page. I opened my geometrical set and picked a short pencil that was kept in line with my counting sticks for our Mathematics lessons in school.

I wanted to write a letter to my father. 

To tell him that we needed him back home. I wanted to apologize on behalf of my mother – in case she did anything wrong to make him leave. I wanted to tell him my mother is beautiful – beautiful than Topista. I wanted him to ask Topista to release the spell she cast on him and let him come home to his children. I wanted to tell him my mother sees groups of other women talking and when she draws near they keep quiet and this spoils her mood. I wanted to tell him mother maybe looking less beautiful now because she bore him five beautiful children and Topista has none so far: that it is our fault and not mother’s. I wanted to tell father that we loved him.

“The big tree has fallen and the little birds have crashed with the nest. What shall I do? Now tears will be my food and sorrow will be my haven forever!” My mother shouted amid tears.

 It was clear enough she was shouting from outside. What could have woken her at this hour of the night? Why was her voice so laden with sorrow? What was she doing outside? My mind was engulfed with a barrage of thoughts, my heart pumped faster and a cold chill went all the way down my spine. My hand grew frail and my eyes hazy. My pencil and paper dropped and my fingers lingered motionless like branches on leafless trees.

“No. This is not true, this is not true my father in heaven. Why Lord? Why?” I could identify Aunt Tabitha’s voice and then I heard more voices and more footsteps and more screams.

I stood still with my loose torn t-shirt hanging precariously on my body like strings of broken litungu.[i] Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and my tears dripped free like the grass grows. I didn’t know why I was crying. Clearly, something was wrong – the air was dense with grief.

I walked out. By now my siblings were lazily coiling out of sleep and rubbing their eyes. The door was wide open. I could see a crowd gathered at our gate – they were weeping and murmuring. I walked towards the gate with some confidence since there was many people around.

I saw him – lying motionless on the dewy grass, cold and pale. My Father who was gone for three years!

I wanted to write him a letter tonight. But time tarried and now I will write no more, for he will read no more.

By Alenga Torosterdt.

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[i] Litungu: This is an 8-stringed lyre made and played by the Luhya community from Western Kenya.

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