Divine creativity equals unusual me

I wrote this a couple of months ago. It actually happened late last year. Do enjoy :-)

I should have trusted the instinct that made me pause next to my desk and look at the two other pair of shoes I had under my desk. As the events unfolded, that would be the thought repeatedly running in my mind mocking me. I was running late for my cell group meeting. My colleague laughed out loud at the preposterous idea-according to him anyway- that I could be involved in anything other than dancing in a night club. I believe to this day he thinks it was a over for some date. As if! He wouldn’t be the first one to pigeon-hole me and be surprised that I did not fit the one narrow minded label he had for me. I decided to walk down Haile Sellasie road then cut across the park to reach the CBD. I was hosting the group hence my mind was very much occupied as I briskly walked thinking up what I needed to do when I reached home and perhaps it’s what led to my hitting a pavement with my sandal ; Lo! And behold it cut in such a way I could not drag it. I cursed so loudly the Ice-cream man gaped at me wondering why the nicely dressed lady was spouting such profanity or so I would assume. I was in a quandary as I desperately needed to get home before my guest as I had a very bad habit of keeping my guests waiting whenever I hosted events a habit I had sworn I would break. Traffic had already begun to pick up so even if I called a cab it would take forever to get to where I was plus the location was not one where public transport used frequently and it was a bad time of the month hence I doubt I could afford it. My father, from a young age, used to say that I’m a survivor before I could even spell the word or even know what it means. When he explained what it meant I was rather chuffed and all. In my late twenties I no longer like that word but on this particular day that quality served me well. I decided that I would have to walk across this park with one foot barefoot! It did not even take me long to make this decision since I’m a very decisive person. I carried the offensive sandal on one hand and trudged on with whatever minuscule dignity I had left. It was the one day I really wished I was wearing one of my stunners but alas fate is cruel like that. As expected I attracted a lot of attention…perhaps if I had a pair of jeans and a t-shirt I would have been less of a spectacle. Scratch that people like staring whether you wear sackcloth or strut around in your birthday suit. They will always stare. I got catcalls from some lazy bums in the park and through it all I smiled for I knew how ridiculous I looked. If you know Uhuru park, you must know the pathways are rather dusty soon it was too much I decided to ask a vendor to help me with a plastic paper bag tied it around my foot like a shoe and walked on. That girl laughed so hard looking at what I was doing and it was not a mean laugh since I joined her in the laughter but rather one filled with mirth. I decided I could choose to be so mortified and solve nothing or bear with the situation knowing it would only last a short while and the upside would be an entertaining tale for my friends who think my life is a comedy. So there I was in my office-wear, one foot in a sandal and the other in a paper bag shoe; quite the fashionista! Let us just say soon I had a crowd of people following me. The crowd was laughing and signaling to the rest who were unlucky not to have spotted the walking clown. The irony was that none of this had disturbed me till a group of guys near a vendor told me they have an extra pair of slippers and could give it to me if I promised to return them the next day. Again I ignored my instincts and turned to them to eagerly receive these slippers while assuring them I would drop them in the morning. Only to see them laughing their heads off till one fell from the stone he was sitting on. I smiled but that hurt and it confirmed my cynical view that no one really wants to help you but either harm you or humiliate you in the streets of Nairobi hence do not give them a single second. Luckily I was not far from the CBD hence I hobbled away to the nearest BATA shop to buy whatever cheap open shoe I could afford. I still made it home in time to receive my guests and actually forgot about the incident till the weekend when I met my friends and was regaling them with that tale. As expected they almost died of laughter saying how they wouldn’t have walked barefoot nor made a paper bag shoe but like I asked them, I will pose the same question to you; what would you have done in my shoes (pun intended)?

I wrote this like four months ago at the 'request'(read bullying) of my friend who keeps saying my life is like her own drama show...

It’s no great secret that I was a tomboy while young and perhaps some of my bizarre tendencies in adulthood can be attributed to the antics I got up to while in my Huckleberry Finn phase. Over new year’s I was with one of my oldest friends and she said that she likes the fact that even after my parents moved to Suburbia it did not change who I was. I always say that I have lived in all sorts of places and so none of it gets to me. Home for me is where you are safe in every aspect of that word and not necessarily the most expensively decorated mansion but rather where comfort and those you hold dear reside in harmony. I once lived in a place most would refer to a slum but to me it was home. It’s where from childhood I forged some of the most sincere relationships I will ever have in my life. We lived in a four storey flat. Most families lived in one or two roomed houses and I saw some of the most content and well adjusted families than I have ever seen in the suburbs. In fact until I changed schools to join a private school I didn’t know my home was something to be ashamed of or something that others could use as a basis to judge me less worthy than them but that is a story for another day.

As is common in every community with adults and children, there will be one or two adults who will be the bane of the kids who in their play irritate the hell out of these adults. In our hood there was one particular woman and being young we knew her as so and so’s mother. Let’s call her Mama Naleka or Naleka’s mum. To us this woman was an Amazon and a scary one at that for she would just start talking (screaming it seemed to us) and we would all scatter even if she was two blocks away. Naleka often received pitying looks from the rest of us as we knew she had to go home at night and face what seemed to us a monster of a mother. This woman liked to scold us for no particular reason and it being the nineties she was also known to slap and pinch anyone’s child for whatever infraction she imagined without the threat of the police being involved as would be the case if this woman attempted to pull such a stunt in this day and age. On one occasion we were playing with water on the fourth floor of the flat unaware that Naleka’s mum had somehow washed her mattress and hung it out. It should come as no surprise that Naleka used to wet her bed even at the old age of nine years but who are we to judge? So we kept throwing buckets of water at each other in all direction and as you can imagine the mattress kept getting soaked and soaked. In all the noise we did not hear the woman climbing the stairs and starting to slap all and sundry. Most of the boys were quick on their feet hence escaped except D’Mosh as we used to call him and Kama who got such resounding slaps that I in my fear tried to crawl in between this woman’s legs to reach the staircase to escape. Stupid Move! She grabbed me and twisted my ear sore till I thought I would lose it in her hand...in all these I do not know who was screaming louder; me in my pain or her in her rage! I somehow managed to escape. Of course it meant we had to stay away till it was almost dark to get back to our homes meaning another set of punishment from our parents due to coming home late and dirty as we had not showered . To add insult to injury this had happened just before lunch hence we were so hungry as the only money we had between us was five shillings which we bought chili mangoes and trust me for nine , ten and eleven year olds that is not sufficient food. We met later and decided we should do something to this woman who had caused us such pain. This was during the August holidays. Earlier, during the April holidays while playing hide and seek Nyambura and I had hid on the stairway corner since the bulb was spoilt and in the process had unwittingly scared one woman who went screaming so much she almost broke her leg. Of course we found it so funny as we ran away. This is what we planned for Naleka’s mum who was friend’s with Alex’s mum on first floor and for all who lived in the flat knew that every evening they would meet to gossip as is common for housewives. So D’mosh who was like the ringleader of our group and the oldest at eleven suggested he would go to some nearby pond and catch a frog which we would use to further scare Naleka’s mum.
So on the day Domi and Nana were chosen to be the executors while I would be at the gate to be a look out while Kama would be on the first floor balcony to see if Alex’s mum was around. The rest would wait in the playground near our flat. Domi was chosen to hold the frog in a paper bag as none of the girls would hold it and he was small enough to hide while nana held a feather to be used on the victim’s leg to further scare her. To fully get a clear picture the corner stairway was completely dark as no one could be bothered to replace the bulbs in shared areas and the landlord could not be bothered and as is the case in Kenyan Landlord-tenant relationship the scale is more often than not tilted heavily to the landlord’s side with no real recourse for the tenant. Back to the planned attack, Naleka’s mum climbed the stairway as was her habit only to start screaming and running at such a speed that made a joke of her size. She was literally crying and screaming ‘Uchawi! Uchawi!” which translated means witchcraft. We all had to run off to the playground for we knew if that crazy woman found us we would be dead meat. Of course we were laughing so hard at the sight of this fearsome woman crying like a baby. So after some time we went up to find out what was happening upstairs as others had come out of their houses to see what was causing such a commotion. To find this woman in the middle of a crowd on the corridors saying how her mother from upcountry had visited not too long ago and had said someone did not wish her well and had gone to the witchdoctors to cast a spell. The mother believed it was her co-wife Naleka’s mum stepmother. The way she was telling it you would definitely think it was fact. I had to run behind someone to giggle while covering my mouth. She then went on to ask why a frog would jump on her foot in a flat if not sent by evil spirits. Needless to say the nightly visits to gossip became rare. It did not stop the woman from tormenting us but each time she would do so…we would recall her screams while running off and it would even the scales.
The amazing thing none of us ever thought of bullying her child as sometimes happens if the parent is a bully. I figure everyone figured she was unlucky enough. My father usually says that be careful as you punish the eldest child for to hurt you he will wait and beat up the youngest child since he is not able to beat you back. Well the kids from my hood found a way to get back to Mama Naleka directly if not undercover