The Musings of Kajuzi!

I had an interview last week. One of the very few interviews where my head was straight as I prepared for it. Mainly because at the beginning of this year, I asked my dressmaker to make two official suits for me. Just in case. I had a feeling I would need them. Or rather I had planned to need them.And i did. So, there I was, fully prepped, my papers in order, my outfit ready. Only one problem.., shoes.  I have always had a love hate relationship with shoes. I cant stand physical pain at all. And more so on my feet. And somehow shoes and pain went hand in hand in my case. But that is not the only reason why I love hate shoes. The only time I remember diligently wearing shoes was when I was in high school. And that was mainly because for whatever reason, my feet really smelled horrible. (I guess mainly because, I had only a few pair of socks that took forever to dry whenever I washed them, and so was forced to wear wet socks more often than not) Apart from that period, the

I just had to find the dictionary to be sure. And mystery is defined as something that is difficult to  understand or comprehend. Talking of mystery somehow reminds me of a song by Kenny Rogers. I think I first heard this song when I was in high school. At my uncles place in buruburu. I remember thinking, wow! So powerful a message in so little words. And I fell in love with it. It talks something about knowing when to hold on, fold out, walk away or when to run. It has been said that a wise person always holds his cards close to his chest. Arms folded, palms on chest I assume? Recently, my folding resilience was tested. I had to look people in the eye and pretend that nothing was going on. Hide critical information. Participate in forming plans that I knew I would not be executing. And not give a clue away. I had to be mysterious. Well, I think I may have pulled it off. Of course, coupled with me ending up with sweating palms,  smelly armpits, trembling legs, anxiety, an almost

I arrived at the booking office so early. My bus was leaving at 11:00, and 8:00 found me seated waiting. I was restless. Well at about 10:00 one of the bus staff approached to inform me that the 11:00 bus had been cancelled, so she was to fix in one of the early busses. And the available one was the 10:00 bus, almost last seat. I was furious. But accepted nevertheless. What was I to do? And so I boarded the bus. After pushing and heaving with my luggage to the back of the bus, only to find someone already on the seat I was to occupy,  I was almost exploding with anger. I mentally prepared for a fight... and nudged his shoulder. Instead, he looked up, beautifully smiled and asked 'Forty-one?' I looked at his face. A young man,  maybe in his early to mid twenties. Beautiful eyes and lips. Symetrically perfect face and chiselled cheek bones. Handsome. I could not help but smile.., my killer smile, 'Yes' I replied. 'Sorry,  I am leaving. Just a minute' &#

A few months back, a group of friends and I were on a fun weekend in the Kenyan highlands. It was the usual crowd, two couples and one or two singles. I was one half of the couples. Now, my friends and I are a crowd of people that most of the time do not know how to hide things.  We say it as it is, laugh as loud as we can and get mad like hell when we have to. We are honest people, falling somewhere in between civilized humans and drama queens. And in such a crowd, it is very normal once in a while to witness disagreements and various bursts of emotions among ourselves. Not too bad, though, because we always find a way to work them out. And that is exactly what happened. A couple of disagreements here and there. And I thought this was very normal behavior. Until I met this very beautiful couple who were so in sync and agreeable to one another that it was unbelievable. For the week that I was with them, this couple worked side by side without even as much as a question to

So i get to Meru, and all i want is a hot shower and a peaceful dinner. But no.., i had to meet this man. This tall, dark and somewhat good looking,(yeah, if you squint your eyes, he could even be handsome), young man. He drives a KBW and is confident enough to shrub and rain saliva with no apologies while he talks. He is the new breed of younglings cropping up as a result of the devolved systems, a hopeful kind of people that are taking power at the grassroots. If he just sat there and closed his mouth, he could be tolerable, even likeable. But no, he had to go and open it. His mouth. As a true coastarian, I politely answer all his greetings and inquiries...,  ‘Do you like Meru? Have you seen the farms? Where are you from? Etc.’ After realizing that i am from the coast, he smiles cunningly, and moves his chair closer. ‘I hear the coast people are full of witchcraft, a friend of mine married a coastal girl and now can’t leave her no matter what he does’, ‘Y

'I am hungry' He said She looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. Yet he had been leaning on her leg for an hour now. 'I know' She replied. Angry. She looked around her. And quickly tried to choke down the emotion that was rising in her throat. Only that her quickly seemed like eternity. She could feel the ball of anger, more like a ball of fire, slide down her throat, slowly, as if on a mission to kill her. For a while she could not breath, did not want to breathe. She was suffocating. She closed her eyes.  She knew that if she let herself have the luxury of letting that breath come out of her, then the flood would follow. And she could not cry at this time. Not in front of him. ********* 'Dear Lord,I come before you this night' She started. She opened her eyes. Then closed them again. She could see a star moving around in the darkness. It distracted her. She opened her eyes again. Looked at her hands, clasped in prayer. She tho

“Sometimes the hardest part isn't letting go but rather learning to start over.” So take your time.., And as you wait for that time to come.., try out new things. And let them trigger your rebirth.

"The thing about little sisters, is that They spend so much time wishing they were elder sisters that in the end they're far wiser than the elder ones could ever be.” That's my sister, my not so little bundle of wisdom!  My little sister celebrates her birthday this week. Here is to reminding her, what she has always meant to me. :-)  <3 Growing up, I was the quiet one and she was the loud mouth of the house. My sister was always the life of the party, the charmer, the outgoing one. She was the dancer and the story teller, and whenever she was around, our house was always filled with laughter. She gave life to our days. And she still does. :-) But don’t let her smile fool you. This girl is tough. You know how people tell stories of their brothers or older sisters standing up for them during fights? Well for me, it was my younger sister. For a long time, she fought my battles.   She would always came through for me when those naughty teenage boy

Almost three months ago, my very cool 'cul-de-sac' crew challenged me into becoming a  "Va-va-voom woman" Their words exactly! :-) They went ahead and invented a  sexy experiment mainly to help me up my game. And as you now, I failed the experiment. But i did promise that i would make a major comeback after being given pointers on how to bring my sexy back. To say the least, i was excited to begin my journey. Now, for those who don't know me, I have never really had any kind of fashion sense or style or anything to do with looking good.I am a natural. And at times proud of it! :-) I don't know why or how, but when it comes to matters dressing, saying i suck, is putting it way too mildly! I remember, immediately after high school, i worked in a salon for two years. It is here that i got to experiment with a little bit of beauty stuff; nail polish, fake eyelashes, new hairstyles.., i even got my second and third ear piercing and dyed my hair red d

It has been a while since i jotted something down. Yeah...This has been one of those months. The crazy ones. The ones that eat you up, wholly, wholly, without chewing. And eyes dry, without a blink. The ones where you run up and down chasing people, deadlines, time, money, time...money. Trying to grasp what you seem not to reach. Stretching, straining. And as i sit here, all alone. In quiet stillness, except for the clicking of the keyboard keys. The ocean roaring. The chilly breeze dancing on my face, my arms. The sun disappearing into the next world. Darkness slowly creeping in. I feel a longing, a deep longing.., to fly. To soar up into the sky and stare down at the world. Not a care in the world. I slowly exhale and let all cares leave me. And i am just here. My mind clears. My heart lightens and my eyes brighten. And all i feel, for a moment, is calmness. If i could hold this moment still, exactly as it is.., let all else disappear, and sit, here, staring, into nothing. I

For someone, who works in a women empowerment docket that advocates the unleashing and maximizing of human potential, sometimes i am tempted to think that nature has really short changed us, women. Or so i have been thinking, after one of my women challenged my training and my stand as a Mijikenda role model for young girls! I have been told over and over again that i talk too much! Of course i don't agree...heheheh! Believe me if i could tell you the things that i stop myself from saying, then you would agree that relatively i talk very little. Very very little! That aside. The woman forced me to start thinking. About life. The life of a woman. And the expectations of society. And her dreams. They say, reach for your dreams, go for it. There is nothing you can not do. And they get you all excited. You grow up, go to school, graduate, get a job and a man. You are in your late twenties...the time is ticking and biology waits for no woman. This is your life. You are suppo

A very early Happy, Birthday shout to me!  I am officially in the late twenties bracket this month, yap late twenties. I know, I know, it feels old, and really grown up. And serious. And it makes my stomach warm and squirmy. And I   don’t know why really, but it scares the hell out of me! And it is on days like today that I really long for my Mum! Because of all things that my mama could do, the best was knowing how to make us feel better. Always! I know today would have been an amazing day, if she were around.   She would have laughed and joked around about how old I am making her look.  Am sure she would have made some impulsive decision to go eat out. Or better yet, she would have asked me to prepare things for her to make me her infamous Biriani,   and we would have had soda! Oh yeah, there had to be plenty of soda. With my Mum, it was never a celebration without soda. Ooh, how I miss that. I am pretty sure she would have danced around to that 'Tobin

The other day, I had the privilege of sitting with my very dear friends to catch up after a very long time. As usual, it was amazing. If laughter adds years to your life, I am very sure that I have added 21 years to mine in just two days! Now, these days, a day is not really over until the topic of marriage finds its way into my conversations! I tell you if I was given a note for every time   the word marriage left my mouth, I would be the richest wife-to-be a dude could ever marry in these parts of Kenya. :-) So we started by updating each other on what's happening in our lives, everyone obviously not that interested in the usual banter about the weather, relocations and jobs that we were giving. However, when the topic on men and marriage came up, you would not move anyone from their seats no matter what. Now, I should tell you that 2014 is officially the year that people my age are going to get married. I can not tell you the number of committee invitations, wedd

I was waiting for the Lupita fever to go down a notch before I posted this. These past few days, I have silently observed the immense love and pride being poured out to Lupita Nyongo before and after she won the most coveted award in the film industry, The Oscar. Bile aside, this girl has made it. Not because of anything else but for the fact that she managed to get even the president of our country, the first lady and all the government's who and who, competing to send congratulatory messages to her. Woe unto them, if they were left out of this praise party. I mean, even our country's longest serving and biggest brands, the runners, have not gotten there yet. The Rudisha's and Kemboi's of Kenya can only dream of such recognition. Come to think of it, I think our brothers could learn a few things from these guys from the lakeside. How they sell a logbook association to the country so much is a amazing, while the real people who have marketed Kenya sinc

The other day I was chatting with a friend during a long bus drive to Mombasa. I love traveling, I always have. Since I discovered the secret to not gushing my intestines out every time I am in a vehicle, I have loved traveling. For as long as I can remember, I have dreaded traveling. I dreaded entering into a vehicle that was moving and was full of people. I always felt like I was suffocating, and then this suffocation would move to nausea, and nausea to a   flowing of all the contents of my intestines onto whatever and whoever was near me, that would leave me wrenching in pain and embarrassment. Mostly embarrassment.   I hated cars to say the least.   But I have come to learn how to deal with this menace. Growing up makes you wiser, after all. You avoid food six hours before the traveling moment Once in the vehicle, distract yourself from the stuffiness and the possibility that you might be dying slowly from suffocation as a result of the other people with

As the year came to a close last December, the whole question of being sexy occupied my time one way or the other! Now, like most girls my age, the age where the attention from men that you want to attract starts to worryingly dwindle, the whole issue of being sexy usually takes on a life of its own. So this past month i have spent quite a considerable amount of time trying to find out from my very able 'Cul-De-sac' , Google, glossy magazines,and other sources not worth mentioning what the being sexy means. You will be surprised the number of articles that have been written about this topic. And the different definitions given to this one word will make your head reel from exhaustion and confusion. So you want to know if you are sexy...here are some made up experiments the 'Cul-de-sac crew' came up with just to clear the confusion!!! Experiment 1 : So you are seated, with your girlfriends, at a car wash, open drive way with food and drinks. Smiling and look