The Inbetweeners

As a note, I wrote this as a stream-of-consciousness post. So the structure and the points may be all over the place. To paraphrase The Fresh Prince , "I'm a little confused, but I got the spirit. " So I watched Barbie – bc ofc I did, it's Barbie! Did you think I was going to miss an opportunity to be the most feminine version of myself?! pshaaaaw – And I have mixed feelings. Because I can't tell if Barbie promotes a  brand of feminism is as plastic as the doll that inspired the movie. Or if the film is a direct criticism of that brand of feminism.  Part of me struggles to believe it is the former because it flies in the face of the  very first lesson that Barbie learns; that representations of matriarchial power and female competence and ambition do not automatically translate to the existence of and the embrace of these things by the wider world. And that there are wider forces at play that prevent the vision that Barbie represented from coming to fruition.  B

The Kenyan Government has been cracking down on opposition rhetoric lately. In so doing, bringing the consequences of speech into sharp relief.  Understand, that I am used to being able to say whatever I want, whenever I want, within reason. The idea that I could be targeted for criticising the government, while not unfathomable, is still new to me because that is not the Kenya I grew up in. I grew up in the Kenya that bullied our President off Twitter; the Kenya that satirized the President in political cartoons, op-eds and comedy shows; the Kenya that embraced social media as a way to organise and amplify popular dissent, while allowing some semblance of anonymity. But I suppose this Kenya merely masked another. And I was willing to overlook it because Kenyans on Twitter was an effective funnel for public vitriol and frustration. Bullying a President off Twitter did not stop him from co-opting and, effectively silencing, the opposition. It did not stop him from using the powers of th

In university, when I made it known that I was Kenyan, I always caveated my identity by saying that I was the "one Kenyan who does not run." Outside of my country's reputation, running never aligned with my spirit or idea of fitness. And, as a result, I used to declare that "I would rather be eaten alive than have to run away from danger." Therefore, the fact that I consistently ran for 76 minutes is a fucking marvel. The fact that I ran for a full 10km is a damn delight. And the fact that I chose to do this, and trained for it ... a fucking testament. For the first time, in a long time, I feel proud of myself. It feels as if I have taken a step in the right direction; a step towards the person I can be.  And no, I don't mean a runner (although this, and a half marathon, is on the list). I mean a person with the self-confidence to realise her potential. A woman with the courage to try something new and fully submit herself to the humility of being a beginner

 It's over. Hallelujah, it. is. OVER! I don't know what I'm more impressed by; my own consistency, the ingenuity it took to power this consistency or the lessons I learned throughout the experience.  Chief among them?  Getting out of my own way ; The other way you could put this is learning how to embrace imperfection. I do not like publishing something until I am 100% confident in it. Unfortunately, I am rarely that confident in my work because I recognise that my standards change as I grow into a topic, and become immersed in its complexity. As a result, this makes me hesitant to start something because I know it won't be good enough for me. As I began to write consistently, I adopted a "fuck it" attitude to get me past the hurdle of publication, or the finality of completion. At some point (around Day 17), I learned that it wasn't so much about saying "fuck it" as it was dispensing with the idea of finality. Things are only final when I say th

I often wonder why we pluck flowers we find beautiful. Or why we take shells that captivate us from the beach. Although, in the moment, we don't think of it like this, upon reflection, I've come to realise that both of these actions remove the beautiful thing from its environment and, in the case of the former, it kills it. And yet, we take them anyway.  We are so enthralled by its' beauty, that we would kill it and prevent it from propagating, rather than leave it alone so that it can continue to live. We would rather take it for ourselves than leave it alone to bring joy to others. The more I interrogate this practice, the more I wonder why?  Why are we drawn to possess beautiful things? Or, at the very least, things that are aesthetically pleasing to us, even if they are not so to others. For its' one thing to be drawn to beauty. All of us, are drawn to gorgeous things, people, concepts and personalities. Is the beauty in the possession? Or is the beauty in the thin

Over the weekend, I came across this article in The Daily Nation:  Why small families are bad for Kenya’s economy . And to quote Peter Griffin, it really ground my gears.  In the article, Peter Mburu explains that while Kenya's smaller family units and lower fertility rate may be beneficial for individual families and their needs, it does not serve the needs of the wider economy in the long run. An economy survives on a dynamic and young labour force to drive production and consumption. Without this force, economies, and the societies that power them, begin to struggle. As a result, a number of economists in Kenya are raising alarm bells at Kenya's declining fertility rates. In the last 33 years, the number of children women borne by Kenya has fallen by half; from around 7 to 3. Now, here's the thing. I don't necessarily disagree with Mburu . I merely disagree with the details.  First, small families can be bad for our economy if people are having less than our replacem