TRIBUTE TO A FALLEN COMRADE AND SOLDIER-2.

I know its been six months,since that last letter.At least,from where i sit.I don't know what calendar you use over there,or if you use any at all.If a place is half as good as The Holy Book says it is,a calendar would be of no use to anyone.No one is awaiting their payday,having already received all their dues,no one is looking forward to that presidential pardon,because all are free and no one is waiting eagerly for that divorce hearing date,for all are married to Christ over there,the perfect one,the giver of all.So a calendar would be of no use to anyone.But down here,its what we look at every morning,because we keep hoping for a better day.There's always something we are looking forward to,and that's probably why we are never really satisfied with what we have.

When you were here,you kept making fun of 'political party hoppers',and specifically of that perennial defector from Juja,Stephen Ndichu,who back then had joined more parties in one year than all that had been formed since independence.He was never satisfied,wherever he went.Each time he lost,he would cry foul.He lived in so much denial that it almost cost him his sanity.In the end,he got so fed up,he quit politics for good and started his own church,a common trend with most political rejects,including one from my own area,who also doubled up as one of the system's most trusted assassins.I guess the name of the church must be "Church Of Christ Against Election Rigging Ministries",like Christ has anything to do with his own political failures.

Divided To The Core.

The bullets have not stopped flying around.Only the reasons for the same, have changed.Whereby we demonstrated over corrupt practices and injustice,today a section of the population will do the same because their tribal chief is out of favor with other communities of the country.On the opposing side, charged laymen will cheer their deluded,war-mongering legislator because when he sings war songs,in their drunken and ignorant stupor,they stupidly imagine he's defending their tribe.They are totally blind to the fact that even the little they have,will be all gone if the leader gets to have his way.That whom they should be shunning in totality,they cheer and celebrate,because their forefathers 'okeyed' it, in a snuff-sniffing meeting held by the edge of a forest,which they imagine is actually their tribal property because of its name.That's how low we have sunk,how divided we have become.The imaginary divide between people from 'The mountain region 'and 'The lake region',rather than thin,what with the enlightenment of the population,has instead, become more pronounced.The former feel more entitled to national resources,almost more superior.The latter feel they've been short-changed by the 'mountain-led' system,over the years and their time at the helm is long  overdue
But that wouldn't surprise you, because you were here when the perpetrator and chief architect of the biggest financial scam since independence,turned from villain to foe, to role model,complete with his own church in the leafy suburbs of Westlands.(Yeah,you are right..he of Asian descent,who for decades has ran rings around the country's judicial process with glee).

The art of stone throwing has been defiled.Its either people have lost their ability to take proper aim,or they don't know who the real target is.Because these days,they destroy all property around them,save for any establishment they imagine belongs to one of their own.Activism has lost meaning.It has been replaced by out and out rioting,with destruction in mind.Activists of yesteryear,who openly rejected bribery and impunity in its entirety, have now taken political sides.Even that prolific writer,who wrote about the naked king,and the perils of a leader who chooses to surround himself with stalwarts and loyalists,as opposed to thinkers and critics,has since taken sides.I guess he can barely remember why he wrote about the mountain eagle's re-birth process,a painful real-life process that happens up in the mountains,that he used then,to encourage resilience in the political arena,specifically for the then budding pluralists proponents.You will have trouble believing that he's actually singing the song of the same system he criticized and now his name is coming up in one major embarrassing scandal,that even the devil would have been too ashamed to touch.Back then,he would have exposed the scandal,shamed the thugs.Today,he's not only in the scandal itself,he's also the culprit's biggest defender.How a man can intellectually degenerate so fast in less than a decade,i don't know.But it has happened right before our very eyes,and scholars(specifically writers) who based their studies on him,now have to grope in the literary dark,directionless.

Watching that Rwandan documentary,of how in ninety days, close to a million humans were butchered,i see an uncanny resemblance to the build-up,back then...the thinly-veiled broadcasts on vernacular radio stations,the tribal meetings that pass for campaign rallies,the deliberate polarization.Its all there for all to see,but we keep walking towards making grisly headlines all the way to mars, with our eyes widely shut.Even professionals have abandoned their intellectual prowess to stand by their 'people'. And now my theory,which you literally mowed,then shot down,is actually beginning to make sense.That the reason we are a million miles behind Singapore and Malaysia is because we hold dear a useless addition-tribe.We have tribe,they don't.And where they do,they've thinned the differences,not glorified them.The only difference a man will see between himself and the next guy is maybe height,which they will make fun of,then get down to business.Here,we still carry identity cards that distinguish you from your brother from the other tribe.And just like that,your difference has been approved and sealed by the system,that has struggled to relinquish the colonial-era kind of divisive tactics.And with the leaders directly benefiting from this kind of community awakening,the hate is bound to go on.And that is the sad  reality that you didn't have to witness,you being in  place where there exists no differences.

Civil Rot.

You did lead a robust civil society,that the world took note of.And through your writing,many more were awakened in far-flung areas of the world.(By the way,The Dalai Lama, leading the Tibetan struggle half a world away in Tibet,admitted to reading and getting some inspiration from some of your works-a monumental endorsement).But that's where the problem is,because now i have to break your heart.The civil society,is no longer the spotless lamb,that you left.Its has been infiltrated by moles and porcupines with fiery darts.It now depends on politicians to thrive and is bankrolled by the system.You,know that's like dining with a rattle-snake,hoping to make the darn thing a friend.It no longer has the moral authority to criticize and pin-point flaws,however glaring and announced they may be.Because one false move,and all their underground deals will be exposed.So they play ball,sing the song.The reasoning here is by so doing,nobody gets hurt,everybody's happy.

But a country spirals to a banana state that same way.Loyalty is only good up to the point where it doesn't blind you nor cloud your judgement.A civil society that dines in State House every week,will feel indebted for the 'meals',and fail to ,say,educate the public on the blatant flouting of the constitution on various state-sanctioned errands.And we don't speak out like you used to,give what you gave,or even have the same zeal and determination.Even when an entire platoon,due to glaring technical military blunders were ran over by terrorists in the lawless Somalia,the civil society only half-heartedly sought for more clarity on the exact number of live lost.To date,the same remains shrouded in secrecy,and understandably so,because the embarrassment in military circles on the region's top military power-house(Or is it) would be most unwelcome.Am afraid this time all i have for you is bad news.But then again,can the world produce cheerful news to one who's already in heaven?. I guess that's like expecting for a sensible speech off the mouth of The Gatundu South Legislator,in his current state of decay-an impossibility.

Wheels Of Justice.

We did compel the painstakingly slow process of justice to move a little faster on the drunk truck driver who smashed onto Mr.Bean,and sent you to heaven before me.Though the company that owns the truck did their best to oil the palms of the judge,fear of the media and the uproar his acquittal would have caused nationwide, carried the day.The son of woman got away with seven years,after which he'll be back on our roads,having hopefully learnt his lesson.Forgiveness is a virtue,i agree,and it wasn't easy doing so.But i've now learnt how to make the best and the most out of everything,even if it means doing so at the expense of this thing called common sense.

I hope to be the one to welcome the guy by the prison gates when he's freed,for my desire wasn't exactly the punishment,but to ensure  admission of guilt and that justice is served.(No amount of punishing is ever going to bring you back,and none is equal to losing you). My point has always been,social status should have no bearing on serving justice,and no one should languish in the gallows because they couldn't facilitate movement of justice.If the legal system clogs up when the weak are lined up on the dock for failing to raise the few hundreds shillings fine for brewing 'chang'aa',then something is tragically wrong with how its being served.Contrary to many a believe,its supposed to free,not imprison,a society.Its supposed to enlighten,not muddle with people's thought process.Correct,not punish and teach new criminal frontiers.Those,as you liked to argue,are the fundamental flaws without which,a country is supposed to know 'it has arrived'.

I,this time,have much less to say,because i suspect with elections drawing closer and closer, i will have to write to you again soon,hopefully from the spot up your favorite hill.Snakes may still terrify me,but am not giving up your spot to them.I'll face them if and when they show up,for a snake can't tell when a man is so scared he's about to pee in his pants.(Even if i have to do it while hanging from a tree branch).

The wailing dog has since gone silent,and i find myself wondering why. Maybe it mourns you,maybe it too,had enough and went to dog's heaven.I don't know.But i'll let you know all about our favorite hill,your paths uphill and down hill(Why did you have to make two paths,to and from the same destination?),your 'desert spot' and your rocks.It still remains my treasured writing spot,where i get to really talk myself dry to my keyboard.

Your beliefs still influence us mightily and no one could have shown that better than your Mum,when she donated all 'proceeds' from your accident to charity,to the utter disbelief of the financial 'crocodiles and the hyenas'. You hated the 'i miss you' phrase and other hypocritical statements that are used by a materialistic world to 'smoke the cash out',so am not going to say it.Just rest knowing that we would be far more energized and focused with you around.And united against all the ills you fought so hard against.Watch over us,send us your help when stuck-we'll know its you.May the fire keep burning,in the life that i am in,and in the one that you are  in,for someday,they will meet and transform to one.

Once again pal,R.I.P. SHALOM.

Why Skinny MEN are Living A Disadvantage.

This club, to which i belong, is made up of men whose ribs you can count, no matter how many pieces of clothing they wear. We steer off the weighing machine, the way you steer off speeding trucks. Because we believe it's an invention specifically made to discredit us. See, we have eaten raw animal fat, drank molten lava, eaten the hind quarters of some fat pig, yet our bones keep protruding from the front neck area. And our backsides look like the entire area has been carefully carved out. Not many of you have any idea what we go through in silence. And when you speed past us, and we are blown off to the ditch, we calmly pretend its the slippery road. But knowing its the resultant wind.

We don't come out during windy days. Because of the comedy that is sure to follow us all day long. So we opt to stay indoors till the winds subside, thereby increasing our survival chances by a million. So after years of suffering in silence, today i will speak on behalf of all skinny men, worth their salt, because the constitution actually protects us, as much as it protects you. If you're driving along and you come across a skinny man being driven backwards by the wind, don't just go popping open your next beer can and laugh. Hapana. That's selfish. Go out of your way and help that club member get to their destination safely. I mean, if you can pull a stalled car whose owner you don't know,  how much easier would it be to pull us along. 

Ask all the Biblical men of faith, and you'll see they reaped blessings from blessing us. Plus, when you make fun of us, we lose more weight,... when there's really none to be lost.

The Hell That Is Dating

No woman wants to walk around with a skinny guy. This, in all honesty, is not only unfair, its outright cruel. I want to emphasize here, that just because a man is skinny, it does not mean he is skinny everywhere. Collective condemnation will get this world nowhere. If Michelle had dismissed the then utterly skinny Barrack, the way you ladies dismiss us today, who would have rescued the American gay population? Those who laugh at a lady because she's dating a man who looks like an inverted pole, make the assumption that the man is as useless as he looks. Please understand that looks can be deceiving, and no matter how malnourished a man may look, he deserves as much chance as the biceped one. Or the one with a bulging chest, like one of those pill-popping wrestlers.

Most ladies will take one look at us, survey us fro head to toe, frown, then click. Then she turns and leaves, making you feel like the Preying Mantis (I pity this insect-the male one), that's about to have his head chopped off and eaten by the one person you were trying to impress. 

It gets worse if your wallet is as skinny as you are. In this case, nothing short of a miracle would ensure continuity of your genes in this world. Yours will be a life of perennial starvation, and am not talking about food here. We suffer untold misery in this department. We are dismissed the moment a well-built man with half a brain shows up. Anger has been welling up inside us over the years over this blatant discrimination, and the moment Corona is done with its assault on humans, it will be our turn on stage. Because even when you manage to make a girl see beyond your bones, and she has to introduce you to your potential mother-in-law, that always turns out to be the worst day of your life. The mum will keep asking for the Guest, while you stand right in front of her. And when the girl points to your direction, the Mum will let out a scream instead of 'karibu'. A scream when all you want, is to get married. Disappointing because if this chance passes you by, you are done for and you know it.

Many times i have seen a girl i fancy and have tried to puff myself up like a puff-adder, by breathing in hard and pulling my arms outward slightly like a body builder, inflating myself . But am not a frog and i can't keep this look for good because its not real. The moment i breath out, the girl has already started looking for other options because staring at her, is this carefully arranged array of bones held together by thinning black skin, that looks like black polythene. Just like that, i am judged and dismissed as 'bure kabisa'. 

 'Picked On By Mr.Picky'.

Some guys have esteem issues. And rather than have them addressed by the appropriate authorities, they will pick a fight with us for absolutely no reason. Especially when they are in female company. Many times we walk into a social place, only to discover that its not so social after all. Because midway through that drink or meal, a well built man will walk over and accuse us of stepping on their huge toes. Or looking at their girl, the way a hyena would look at a piece of meat in the middle of the dry season of The Kalahari. And with that, the meal will have come to an abrupt end. Because the guy will pin us to the wall the way you pin a poster, while lifting us by the collar. But you see, a poster is not only flat, its also lifeless. Now, if you have to lift a human being the way you lift a poster, at least try to remember they are alive. And when they finally release you, to sprawl onto the floor, to the amusement of the lady for whom this show was all about, you can be sure our appetite for the next one week will have disappeared. Please note that our shirt collars, though they may look unusually flappy on our necks, are not handles or hooks on which you attach your dirty body-building paws. 

How do you expect a lady to look our way again, if you perennially have to subject us to this kind of free for all comedy?. How do you expect us to enjoy the free for all air, if every time we walk out, we have to keep walking around people, as opposed to walking past them?.
This treatment has to stop forthwith, because who knows, we may just put on some weight one day and come looking for you. Even though it has took Europe seventeen years of non-stop construction, to complete a 75 Kilometer 'bullet-train' underground tunnel under The Alps mountains (The world's longest), its completion has actually been done a year before the projected time, so do not rule out my weight gain that fast, just because i have been working on it for more than a decade. It may take long in coming, but rule it out at your own risk.

Ignored

Many times we walk into a restaurant and at the entrance the usher goes ahead to ignore us, the way you ignore something you can't see. Once inside,it gets worse. The waiter will choose to serve the bigger guys, totally oblivious of our presence. I am tired of all the waving and the whistling, as i try to catch the waiters attention. Even when he finally spots me, he will study me first, then instruct the trainee to come and serve me, figuring that I'll have a problem footing my bill. And that I'll leave no tip, seeing as i look like I'm the one who could use all the tips I can get.

So i have learnt to to accept trainees as my closest friends wherever i go. At the bank,  the teller will signal the security guard to attend to me, so she can move swiftly to serve the big guy behind me. That's despite having queued for an hour. And if there is pushing and shoving, that's my cue to take a seat. Because pushing and shoving against all these huge men, is like doing so against an unrelenting wall. If you are not Dj Soxxy or Eric Omondi, then please avoid being skinny. Its a tough calling.

Suspects.

Whenever we attend these functions you hold, please stop being ever suspicious of our eating habits. True, a hungry mosquito poses more danger to a sleeping human than one that's so full it can hardly fly. But we are not mosquitoes and if Nyama Choma has run out in the middle of a party, do not always keep looking suspiciously at us. Even our stomachs are kind of skinny so we eat in moderation. We pose no danger to any party and the groom should rest easy when we are spotted by the gate . 

All we are in search of, is someone who will look beyond the bones, beyond the ill-fitting clothes. Someone who'll actually take time to listen to what we have to say before releasing 'Simba', the dog, on us.

I will defend the skinny guy, till the day i put on some weight. When and if i do, i may still carry on with their defense. But i don't want to make any promise i can't keep, so let's just leave it at that . But the world would be a much better place if we went easy on stereotyping. That's what this has been all about. When you judge someone you don't even know, you do them injustice. And that's where i always have a problem with all those religious zealots out there. They will put silly tags on people they don't know, because they feel they are holier, better, more godly. Fine he's a drunk and you are not. But you are not them and you know nothing of where they come from, what they have to deal with or the reason they do what they do. If their creator still sees it fit to keep loving them,who are you to speak ill of them.

Maybe by pinpointing other people's flaws, we feel we have covered ours. Maybe its the need to crucify, as a way of avoiding our own crucification. Maybe when we accuse, we feel we have avoided being accused. I don't know. All i know is, we'd be better off without it.

Have a stereotype free day..!