Your mother!

Image:courtesy.
I always say that I want to be rich, so that I can help others. I want to live a life of service, in one way or another. Sometimes though, I just want to be rich enough to afford dental. Other times, I just want enough to treat myself out. So ummh, yeah! Priorities tend to change depending on the day but the end goal is still the same.

Remember when the legendary scholar, art connoisseur, lyricist, philosopher and Shakespeare’s understudy Bruno Mars first of his name, wrote “I wanna be a billionaire, so freakin’ bad. Buy all of the things I’ve never had..” He wrote that part for me. I might be in my poor and miserable era at the moment but one day, I’ll be able to walk into a supermarket and not hyperventilate at the price’s… Or you know, afford rent!

Ha!

Anyway, I really wish I could show you just how breathtaking my villages’ night sky is. With just one glance, your depression will be shouting ‘aloha‘ from out of space. Is this false advertising? Definitely! But this is not a safe place for mentally stable people so…just go with it. Most nights, I find myself outside gazing upon the moon and the stars.

FYI, I don’t know who needs to hear this but the perfect date would be me plus you under the moonlight trying to find the constellations. Not that I know any…I’m just saying.

The moon makes me dream. It gives me hope. Every time I look at it, I know that wherever I go I’ll always carry a piece of home with me. Sometimes I wish that it could tell tales. Imagine all that it has seen and heard; The beginning of time, evolution of man, imagine all the lovers who have sworn undying affection under its shining light millennia after Millennia, all the dreamers of old and now who whisper their dreams to it…

As you can see, I have a tendency to over think things. Still, the thought that the same moon I gaze upon on most nights, is the same one someone as far away as the Himalayas is also probably looking up at, is….endearing? Bewildering? Entrancing? Idk. I’m still trying to find the perfect word to describe it.

Moving on…

Unemployment has left me with a lot of free time to think about my life and so to numb out the pain, I’ve turned to overstimulating my brain with Filipino soap operas from the Early 2000s and cooking/ mukbang videos on YouTube. That echotin love team is fueling my life force right now. I thank them for their service. Also, watching people stuff their faces in with enough food to feed two households in my village, should not be that addictive.

The problem with me is ( just kidding, bar a few mental issues I’m literaly perfect) I convinced myself at a very young age that I was destined for great things. I don’t care what past me has gone through or what present me is going through, future me will be unstoppable. I want to be everything and nothing. I want to dance and eat ice cream in the rain. I want to write books and poems . I want to sing and dance. I want to be a CEO but I also want to be a stay at home mom. I want to be a trophy wife. I want to be famous and I also want to live like a hermit. I want to fall in love. I want to be a teacher. I want to be a philanthropist. I want to be a model. I want to do it all!

And that’s on being delusional besties!welcome to class 101 on my Psyche.

When I was a kid, apart from wanting to be a doctor and pilot –at the same time- I also wanted to become a journalist. Its not that I felt particularly called to that field but because of how mesmerised I was by the newscasters. They were the embodiment of everything younger me wanted to be like when she grew up; Eloquent, brilliant, well dressed and beautiful. Before you ask, I am still waiting to grow up.

Alexa, play I have a dream by westlife.

We all have exceptional women that we look up to. Women who’s influence is felt far and wide, women who walk into rooms and change things, women who inspire generations, women who women like no women have ever womened before! Here, we had one of those. We had Wangari Maathai. Miss girl stared patriarchy, dictatorship and sexism In the face and said deuces! A leader, a Nobel peace price winner, a writer, a mother,an environmental activist, an icon. She was everything!

Do you know that the then president decided to build skyscrapers in the only park in the city? The dictator that he was, I doubt he ever expected a woman to defy him. She mobilized other women and they moved into the park and refused to give way for the demolitions. For days they didn’t eat or drink. And when the cops were eventually ordered to beat them into submission, they removed their cloths and dared them to see their mothers nakedness.

Titties out for the revolution!

I tried demonstrating once and honestly, running away from the cops and tear gas was the most gruelling exercise my bones have gotten since the summer of ’99 when I was born and I swore to never do that again. Still, if I hope to be even a fraction of the women she was, I need to get off my ass… Expeditiously.

I am inspired by the generations of women that have come before me. The sacrifices that they made and the dreams they deferred just so we could realize our own. Just so we had a chance to do what they couldn’t. I think about how my paternal grandmother came from such impoverished conditioned that she never went to school and had to be married off young. I think about how my maternal grandmother had to sell second hand cloths for years at their local market to support her family. I think about how my mom would carry me and go to look for odd jobs in peoples farms. I think about myself and how achieving my dreams is for them too.

When I look at it, its a very long and exhausting line of hardship that I am determined to break. I want to be the change that I wish I could see in the world.

PS: And remember, people can only weaponize your fears if you give them the power to do so.

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It Hurts to be a woman.

I spend the holidays alternating between shouting ‘Jesus, what a life‘ and commenting ‘I’m so happy for you‘ to all the posts of people my age who were getting married and/or having babies. Most days, I still can’t comprehend that I’m in the same age bracket with people who are already starting their own families. AT.ALL.

I always joke that getting married at this my small, bouncing, baby girl age, of 23 is akin to child marriage. I always find myself wondering how the hell they’re doing it. There are levels to life that some of us are yet to unlock. I’m convinced that for me to fall in love, the stars have to align, the universe be in agreement, and the love of my life must break down my door like a thief because I never leave my house unless I really really have to.

He must also come with a certificate of good conduct, a letter from his church pastor, and a letter of recommendation from his previous relationship stamped by Jesus. I refuse to just let anybody experience me. Maybe that’s the problem? Or maybe its just my very poor interpersonal skills? Maybe my soulmate Was a thief and he got arrested and that’s why he’s not breaking down any doors? Food for thought!

If I may, how did you know your person was the one? Explain it to me in detail. I want to live vicariously through you.

And can I just say that I am in awe of girls my age who are having babies? Go you, superwoman! For me, the biggest and most effective contraceptive, is hearing some of those childbirth stories. As young girls, we are conditioned to believe that pregnancy and childbirth are these magical, empowering and otherworldly experiences that we must all aim for. We are told that the Earlier the better, before our eggs become useless.

Some of the stories that women have to tell about their experiences are horrifying. There is a girl on tik tok who keeps a list and she updates it religiously. Its gritty, painful, and terrifying. Did you know that your vagina can tear and then they have to stitch it back together? We are not taught things like this. I wish girls were taught the bare biology of it all, without sugarcoating it.

Every beautiful, excruciating, little detail.

I wonder how my ancestors did it with zero pain medication and a prayer to the gods. Speaking of pain meds, I used to think that an epidural was a nice, little ‘can barely feel it’ shot to the arm or something. The more I read about women reproductive health, the more I’m astounded at how barbaric most of these procedures are. Have you seen how they perform a pap smear? Good lord!

The biological capabilities of a woman are… Mesmerizing. We literally grow humans from scratch! Tell me why we aren’t the eighth wonder of the world? Women carry civilization and humanity as we know it on their backs, yet most life threatening reproductive health issues are still up for contention. I hate the fact that old, crusty men get to decide what a woman’s body can handle or not.

And the church says, peg the patriarchy!!

On the news last night, it was reported that a 55 year old man, was sentenced to life for marrying a 9 year old. I don’t think I can emphasize this enough; A 55 YEARS OLD MAN, MARRIED A NINE YEARS OLD GIRL AND THE COMMUNITY WAS OKAY WITH IT! The only reason he got arrested, was because the girl –now 12– developed complications while giving birth and had to be rushed to the hospital, where the doctors called the cops. He says he ‘married’ her because its part of their culture and I really hope they give him a nice welcome in jail… For cultures same.

What’s infuriating is that this isn’t the 1st nor last case like this, we see on the news. Most of them never get reported and those poor children are condemned to a life of abuse, all in the name of marriage. Stories like this make me realise how privileged I am to come from a community that accepted the waves of change. Few years back, it could have been me too.

Some communities still believe that when a woman gets her period- which starts from as early as 9– she is old enough to get married and have kids. Most of them get sold off to rich old men, when they’re barely old enough to cross the road on their own. A nine year old should be in school, playing with her age mates, not pregnant and taking care of a man old enough to be her grandfather.

She should be allowed to be a child. To be innocent.

The fact that in this day and age we still get stories like this, is maddening. As a society, we keep failing this little girls. Their lives are irreversibly altered in ways that they are too young to understand. The worst part is that, no amount of social awareness, government interference, door to door medical campaigns etc seem to spark a sense of knowledge that the world has evolved and change is imminent.

They’re so deeply ingrained into these inhumane cultural practices, that they don’t even realize the type of irreparable damage they’re causing to the children. The fact that criminalizing early child marriages and female genital mutilation is still not a deterrence, it begs the question, ‘what more shall it take?’ An act of God?

Why uphold a culture that only hurts its own people?

And that’s why I say, being a woman hurts.

Tears and Nat Geo.

Image: courtesy

Suppressed memories are so interesting. You could go through life not giving a fuck, living it up, being unstoppable, then suddenly a national geographic video of penguins frolicking in the snow somewhere in the north pole, triggers you so much you can’t stop crying.

Speaking of, Nat Geo documentaries are a guilty pleasure. There is something about watching mother nature and wild animals in their natural habitat that’s just calming… In a disturbing, I’ll-never-go-camping-at-night sort of way. Hear me out;

Have you ever been traumatized by a Nat Geo documentary? Because I have! Imagine this, I’m watching an episode about the African Savannah. Its a gorgeous, breathtaking place and the camera person must have had their house rent, child support, mortgage overdue bills and an assassination threat in case of failure, because they put their entire life force into getting the perfect shot.

Wakanda forever!

They’re serving drone shots of elegant gazelles traipsing through the African grasslands, close up shots of the wind wafting the king of the wilds facial hair… Its so good I can practically smell it. You want to know what the Savannah smells like? Baby go and watch Nat Geo. And that’s not all. Those amazing shots are accompanied by upbeat traditional African music. Now I begin to feel it, I begin to get shivers, I begin to feel like an extra in the lion king. Like I am one with the wild. One with the spirits of the ancestors.

Gradually, the music pipes down and I hear the voice of a man. And not just any voice. Oh no! A raspy, deep, musical, give-me-all-your-attention type of voice. The type of voice that could sell to me air and I would gladly ignore that one ancestral voice that always demands I bargain. I would ignore it and spent every last cent and even throw in a kidney for freebies just for them to keep talking. Now… Now they’ve got me exactly where they want me. I’m calm, relaxed and the ambience has lulled me into a false send of security… just like your narcissistic ex-.

And when you least expect it, the lurking lion that looks like it just got a spa treatment, suddenly sprints and pounces on an unsuspecting gazelle (that you’d somehow planned out theirs entire lives in your head.) Traumatized I tell you! Why would you do this to me. You got me invested in their lives only to have me watch them die painfully two seconds later?

Paiiiinnnnn! And if you say, “oh well, if you wanted a happy ever after go watch Disney,” bitch fuck you! Did you not see what they did to Mufasa?

The camera man –who at this point I’m convinced is a sadist– practically crawls under the animals to get that perfect shot of the gazelle choking to death from the giant bite the lion has of its neck. Sir, I did not sign up for a horror show.

But you know what? Even though I know how its going to go every time, I’m still going to watch it.. As far as superpowers go, that ability to suppress memories comes In handy. And I know that the jungle is survival for the fittest, I know. It still doesn’t make It easier to watch.

If there is a time my blood pressure hits the roof, its when I’m forced to stand in front of people (bless you if you do that shit voluntarily) or when I’m watching Nat Geo. I’ll be watching the Wildbeast migration at the Masai Mara –obvs on my TV because I’m only worth a packet of gum and last nights left overs– knowing damn well, that not all of the animals are going to make it across the river. Still, that won’t stop me from rooting for them. They’re in search of a Better life, I respect that.

They’ll have me at the edge of my seat hyperventilating, twitching and swearing at those tourists who somehow always end up obscuring the shot, to ‘move their butts‘ so that I can see whether that one zebra that got away from the heard and decided to strike out on its own makes it. They never make it!

Sometimes though, you’ll find a wholesome documentary will less blood and gore, and more ‘aww‘ moments. Like the ones about people who domesticate elephants. My brain refuses to comprehend how that is even possible. How do you make an elephant your bitch, respectfully of course. I want one of those people who train them to shout at me. I feel that that would cure my anxiety and get me out of my depressive mood. If they can get an elephant to ‘go fetch’ then they can help me get my life in order.

Also, the ones about the deep sea have me so bewildered! Some of those things don’t even look like fish. Sometimes when I see them, I have to take a moment to wonder what was the thought process when God was creating them.. To be fair, I think so too about my face most mornings so, ha! Can you imagine that they’ve only explored like less than half % of the oceans? What are they going to find next? A mermaid maybe? What if Ariel and her besties are chilling with sponge Bob eating ‘omena‘ and sea weeds, and the only reason we haven’t found them yet, is because we haven’t explored those parts.

I’m a smart girl who moonlights as a dumb bitch sometimes.

Speaking of explorers, whenever I hear that name I’m taken back to my social studies class, when we learned about how Arabs and white men came to explore the continent and liked what they saw a little too much, they ended up taking everything from our spices to our grandma’s.

Oh well..

PS: Happy new year!

Tis’ the season.

Merry Christmas to you, dear reader!

Since this is a season of giving and I already gave up on 2022 a long time ago, does that count as giving? I’m sorry, the English in my head is refusing to English.

Do you know what got me through this year? God, a lot of prayers and those tarot readers of tik tok who fed into my delusion that I am that bitch! Praise Jesus. I am leaving 2022 broke, crippled with anxiety, a big forehead and completely detached from life. Every second of this year was me questioning myself on whether I should be on medication or high. Or both. Aren’t they the same though?

Honestly, I’m amazed at how my skin care routine of soap, tears and a big dose of not giving a fuck did wonders for my skin. I looked in the mirror this morning and my melanin was glowing! Depression who?

Anyway, I love how other people do Christmas. Y’all really spend thousands on decoration’s, put up Christmas trees everywhere and give people gifts for simply existing? I love how you spirit the shit out of the Christmas spirit. Go you! Not gonna lie, I want to experience this type of Christmas before I kick it, okay lord?

As far as Christmas traditions go, its usually very tame over here. In my village, nobody cares about Christmas decorations. As for the tree, that ones for the rich people we see on TV. I still remember the first time I came face to face with a Christmas tree. We had gone to visit a family friend once when I was a kid, and they had one with decorations and everything! I think about that moment a lot. I was so used to seeing such ehm…privileges on tv, and for some reason my young brain couldn’t fathom that there are people who can actually afford Christmas like that.

Poverty, thunder fire you!

Christmas here is mostly just a normal boring day, because my people don’t know how to people like other people people on Christmas. Family get togethers are usually the major event. Truth be told, I am not a fun of those. Imagine a reality show about the haves and the have nots, with a side dish of only the strong to survive. Karl and Charles never miss.

I miss how Christmas felt when I was younger. We used to look upon it with wonder and excitement. We used to talk about the cloths that we would wear, those with relatives in the city would brag about all the places they would visit and us in the village would brag about all the chapati’s we would eat.

Image: courtesy
Side note: here’s a shrek meme because I love shrek memes!

Chapati’s were like the holy grail back then. You could tell how well off a family Was depending on the consistency with which they cooked the treasured food. This was a meal for special occasions. Through out the year, our mothers would contribute money in their chama’s (I think they’re called merry-go-rounds in English?) and in December, they’d use the money to buy bundles of unga (flour). Back then, when we saw the women coming from chama’s carrying sacks of unga on their backs, we knew Christmas Was here.

Forget Santa, they were the real MVP!

And Christmas couldn’t be Christmas without new cloths. Let me tell you one thing about African parents: They are economical as fuck! When they bought cloths, they always factored in a five year growth spurt, just in case. Ask any African person how many times they heard the ” you’ll grow into it” line. As a Matter of fact don’t, you might just trigger some unhealed wounds.

In most of my childhood photos –which Will never see the light of day- I am drowning in my cloths. See, I was mostly raised on hand me downs from older cousins, but when my mom would buy us cloths she made sure that they were at least two sizes too big. And I wonder why at this my big age I still dress like someone who should be an extra in a zombie apocalypse movie.

Dear Santa, I believe I was promised a glow up. Its long overdue!

Also, and this is easily the most memorable part, we had only one camera man in our village. I’m not kidding. He was a local celebrity that one, and his wait list was a mile long. Those were the times when only two people in the entire village had phones… And by that I mean those huge, cousins of rocks, ground breakers, Nokia weapons of mass destruction disguised as phones.

Because of how on demand he was, the man was so hard to find. And you had to wait an eternity to get your pictures back. On Christmas day, we would all flock his studio to get our pictures taken. He had that colored curtain looking thingy, a chair and stuffed animal set up going on. He was also the only barber in the entire village.

Good lord has it been a heck of a journey.

PS: Did y’all really believe in Santa as kids?

Teach me your ways.

Image:courtesy.

There needs to be a support group for people who can’t dance. You know, like AA meetings but for people with no rhythm? See, I can’t carry a beat to save my life. I am as flexible as a stack of twigs, and my knees have never been the same since I tried to bend over to a konshens’ song in highschool.

That highschool dancehall riddim phase put a lot of knees out of commission.

Someone needs to teach me how to whine my waist. Here’s why; lately I’ve taken up listening to kompa music and an Important prerequisite is a waistline like wataaaaa! Clearly whoever made the rules didn’t consider people like yours truly, whose waist is stiffer than the climb up Mt Everest.

When I grow up, I want a waist like one of those Congolese uncles. Cheiii! Listen, if you haven’t seen them yet, run like someone is pursuing you with your tax papers, run like your favorite shoes just went on sale, run to the white mans Internet and see Gods favorite children circulate, undulate and circumvent their waists like the fountain of youth is hidden in their loins.

And when you pray tonight, pray for a Congolese uncles waistline!

Anyway, apart from trying –and failing– to train my stiff waist, I also enjoy watching property shows In my free time. You know them? Those where they redecorate, or advertise houses that are for sell, or even those guys on YouTube who build houses from dirt In the wilderness. I love it especially when its about houses that I know damn well I wouldn’t even afford a piece of cutlery in.

Or when the kitchen itself probably costs more than both my kidneys combined and appendix thrown in as a freebie. State of the art kitchens will have me on the edge of my seat. And no, its not because I’m that good of a cook. Its just, kitchen…. Food, food…. Kitchen. You get me? Probably not!

Yes, give me that expensive oven that I’ll probably need a mathematics degree to know how to operate, that huge ass fridge that looks like a house, even the tap water and that thing rich people use to wash dishes. Give me!! Show me a kitchen that calls me poor in 100 brand names and screams, ‘you can’t relate.’

You should see me shouting at the screen how, “those curtains are so ugly they are a crime against humanity,”or ” whoever did that flooring needs an exorcism” and ” did they offer a virgin sacrifice to get permits to build that hideous piece of architecture they call a house“!! As you can see, I talk a big talk for someone who can barely afford the will to live on most days.

Here in the village, we don’t really have a budding real estate. Most of the houses look the same –because we recycle the same 3.5 builders – . They pay zero appreciation for design and instead operate on a ‘as long as you have a place to sleep’ attitude.

I thought we all built our houses using stone bricks until I saw someone punch a hole through a wall. Here, we only see that on American TV. Try that In an African house and they’ll be collecting your finger bones one by one for the next 12 business days.

We have embraced modernity. I still remember when someone built the very first storeyed house in our area. Well, not the first first but the most talked about during that time. It was one summer, a few years back, when word broke out in the village that our resident elon musk, was building a storeyed house and not only that, it would come with a well where we could fetch clean drinking water.

Bless his heart, he was the first person to afford us such a privilege. On second thought, maybe that’s why his house was so popular. Its actually a very pretty house. It has become a land mark in our area. We literally call it the white house..Because they colored it in white… Very original!

PS: Hello and merry Christmas.

The Double D’s.

Image:courtesy
In my next life, I want to be one of those who post pictures like this accompanied with captions like, ‘catch flights not feelings’ and its variations. I beg! I’ve already got the feelings part down so maybe its time we upgrade? Jesus? Santa? Ancestors? Hello?

Its about that time of year where fake friends get cut off only to be reinstated back to their positions by January, those new year- new me resolutions start flying around and those who saved enough or are just stupidly wealthy catch flights and not feelings to whichever part of the globe they want.

Join me in prayer as we manifest catching flights!

Anyway me, myself and I will always choose the sweet embrace of denial and delusion any day. I call them the double D’s. You should try it sometime. At least dissociating from everyday life doesn’t make you feel like an interloper. See me, I be(lie)ve that I am a rich person in a poor persons body! Denial and delusion people!

I am rich in spirit or whatever Jesus said!

A while back when I was still a poor, struggling, student I got a summer job. Side note; I’m no longer a student but I’ve got the poor and struggling part down to a T. That’s not important though. I used to teach English at a certain primary school. It was one of those private schools that always crop up near shopping centres, with a population of about 50 students -and that’s me being generous- teachers that never get paid and usually close down within two years.

The problem Wasn’t that we never got paid…okay, that was a big problem. I was the youngest there and the other teachers had family’s already. I used to wonder how they managed with no salary. It most definitely couldn’t be that nonexistent paycheck that they survived on. The other problem was that there were only three classes. Most of the students had to share a classroom.

I used to have a group of students from class 4 and 5, all in the same class. It was a very messy situation but we made do. The classes were clustered together, the desks weren’t enough for all of them, and they didn’t have textbooks. Still, they were always eager to learn. The students in that school came from poor families so they really had no choice but to persevere through the struggle. Everybody from the teachers, to the students, to the woman that used to cook ngumu’s next door, was struggling.

I loved those kids, man. They reminded me of my time in primary school. To some extend, my primary school was the same as theirs. I attended a school were every opening day, we would cut thorny branches from trees and drag them to school, to use them for the fence. See, during holidays animals would somehow use our fence as a chew toy, or thieves would break in to steal the only wall clock in the entire school. Hence the additional security of thorny branches!

Aaah! I have seen things oooh!

Are you among those who used to get dropped and picked from school? Did your school have a bus? Lucky bitches. Do you know how many kilometres we had to walk to and fro every single day? And the teachers weren’t any less merciful. Arriving to school late used to get us beaten like a dog with no owner.

A bad day went like this; You over sleep and wake up late, somehow the kerosene for the lamp got depleted the previous night so now you have to learn how to see in the dark like an owl, you stab your toe, knock down sufurias to the chagrin of your mother, realize that your cloths are inside out and then eventually make it to school only to find the teacher on duty at the gate taking out his anger issues on other students.

Those were the moments I wished I could drop kick education goodbye.

There used to be school feeding programs, especially during the dry season. Those were the times when school attendance would be at its highest. That was the only meal most of the students would get to have that day you see. The problem was that these programs were never sustainable and so after a month or so the free food would get finished. Sometimes the school would try to get the parents to contribute but it wasn’t exactly a school for ballers.

They used to serve us isyo. That’s what we call a mixture of boiled maize and beans. It might not seem like much but to us it was better than pizza. FYI, I have no idea what pizza tastes like so I might be biased.

So yeah, food was a problem… And water. The school had a lot of tanks from donations but with no rain, they were perpetually almost always empty. They couldn’t afford to buy water for the kids so we had to learn how to hydrate through prayer and osmosis, or carry water from home.

Still, Look at me now! A freaking graduate. I might be jobless at the moment but lord, have I made that little girl proud. I think about those kids I taught and my former classmates a lot. At the end of it all, I pray that even though our journeys might be difficult, we all make it.

PS: Americans, what is homecoming?

Here comes the bride.

Image:courtesy.
Here’s a joke for you; I decided to go back home after graduation –I didn’t have a choice really- and now I’m paying for it with my mental health. Funny, right?

I’ve already decided that 2023 shall be my year. I mean, this year is practically over and to be honest, it really wasn’t it. I sang ” I want to be tried by fire” one time and someone up there took it seriously. The most I’ve done this year, is to fight for my life. I can’t believe its almost Christmas!

Alexa, play last Christmas by wham!

Now, let’s talk weddings. I have an avid fascination with wedding shows. Its a guilty pleasure. Where’s the venue? What is everyone wearing? How does the bride look? Where did she get her gown from? Is there drama? The food? Show me everything!! I’m a little obsessed.

A while back, I asked my grandmother how she met my grandfather. Back then, weddings were very traditional. For context, her father –who was the sole provider- had been taken by the colonizer to fight in the world war. All they ever heard about him from that day on, was that the ship they were on, had capsized. They never saw him again.

Life was so hard for them. There was no money, and they had no food. My grandma never went to school. How could she, when there was nothing at home. She never learned how to read and write. Of course, education back then –especially for women– wasn’t exactly a necessity. Anyway, She told us that she was exchanged for a sack of beans, just so her siblings wouldn’t starve.

Not so romantic is it!

There was no such thing as consent back then. The parents had the authority to pick out a man for their daughter. Most of them usually ended up with old men as long as they were wealthy. War stories, I tell you! My grandmother was resilient as fuck. She then went on to have 7 children. People back then were procreating like Christ himself had put out an order. Well, I guess he did tell us to multiply.

I’m happy to report that things have changed now. Most girls get education before the wedding bells jingle. Notice that I said most and not all? Yeah!

Also, the idea of courtship back then was a little warped. Here’s how it used to happen. They used to have night dances… Like a rave, but instead of a DJ, its drums…I think. If a man set his eyes on a girl and his ancestors whispered to his loins that she was the one, a plan would be made. A close friend would be chosen to investigate the background and behavior of the girl.

Was she respectful? Hardworking? You know, all those wifely qualities and shit. How about her family? Did they have any history of madness, unexplained sicknesses, witchcraft? How many times did she fart in a day? They went all sherlock Holmes on her life.

If she passed the audition for perfect wife, then the interested suitor would meet the girls parents. Most times the girls was not aware of any negotiations taking place. So during the dance, that’s when most girls got carried away by their new bae’s. Literally. So the dance used to take place in an open area, probably outside. Now, when the night got extremely dark any light source available would be put out. Then the men would tightly hold the woman of their dreams, bundle them like sacks of potatoes, put them on their shoulders and run.

See, some people would call that kidnapping!

Anyways, that’s how girls found themselves married with a surprise wedding under the stars. So romantic! Of course after that, then the traditional wedding took place.

Now, me on the other hand, there are five things that are non negotiable on any wedding of mine. Real or imagined:

1. If I Walk Down That Isle And I Don’T See my man Balling his Eyes Out, I’M Gonna Walk Out And Start Again Because CLEARLY he didn’t see me the first time. Unless he’s blind, my dear, in that moment, he Better act like I’m the best thing to ever happen to him…Because I Am. So yes, I need to see him break down. Anything else other than this Will not sit right with my spirit or my ancestors.

2. There Will Be No Outshining Me on My Big Day. Period. I don’t care if the world is ending or someone’s grandma just had a coronary……WAIT till MY DAY is over to make such announcements. Thank you.

3. No Couples Should Propose At My Wedding. All attention should be on me only, so unless they want me to show up at their wedding and pull a similar stupid stunt, they Better propose in the washrooms where nobody can see them…..or not at all. Yeah, definitely NOT AT ALL.

4. For Those Coming With Their Little Kids, Please Bring A Sitter Or you’ll Leave Your Babies At The Entrance. I can’t be saying my heartfelt vows to my soon-to-be husband while someone’s child is there crying for milk. That is an enemy of progress and I rebuke it. Hallelujah.

5. Nobody Is Allowed To Wear White. I don’t care if its your underwear, DONT WEAR IT.

That’s all!

PS:what’s your favorite Christmas song and by who?

A name for the books!

Image:courtesy

Our names define us. I mean have you met people called Karen? Or God forbid, chad? No? Me neither and I never Want to!

Parents of nowadays are breaking norms when it comes to naming their children. The most obscure the Better. You think the kardashians are pushing it? 100 years from now, there will be thousands of snows, heavens, deodorants, flowers and butter named grandmas roaming the earth. I won’t be surprised if someone names their child tiktok. Some will probably go as far as naming their child as a pronoun. Hi, my baby is called Them!

I’m scared.

I’ll admit that some of the names I see nowadays are so darn beautiful. Names like Darya or Aella. However, some parents give their kids names sounding vaguely like   threatening sex positions, or names in a fantasy novel written by an author with a Coke addiction and suffering severe withdrawals from human contact. Don’t name your child as if your point of reference was the Kamasutra or game of thrones.

And don’t get me started on those who give their kids exotic names with complicated spellings, but with normal pronunciations. No, I’m not talking about Irish names. Those are understandable. I mean the one who have names spelled like s-@wnhh. They will have you sweating and hyperventilating trying to figure out how to say it in a manner that won’t send your furniture levitating, only for them to tell you that its Sean! Was that so hard to say in the first place!

Where I come from, naming a child ‘well’ is very important. A child’s name defines their family’s history and legacy. There is no such thing as fancy names. I was so used to the generic bible-esque names popular in my village, I got the shock of my life when I joined highschool and encountered people with names I’d never heard of before.

For someone named Esther, you can see why it was a shock to me and my ancestors. You know, for a supposed queen I have yet to exhibit any queenly traits. Besides, queens are supposed to be rich, right? Yeah, they really missed the mark on that one. Or maybe the Wealth gods have been trying to teach me a lesson on humility. I get it, okay?

What’s with the obsession African parents have with bible names? Is it because they hope/want their kids to turn out like their namesakes. This false advertising needs to be investigated. Also, you see these men that have bible names? My sister run, I tell you! In fact, remove your wig, hold your shoes, shout to the skies and then run like the hounds of hell are after your ass. If these people break your heart you’ll be looking for the leftover pieces with a magnifying glass.

Not that I would know, of course!

Anyway, I’m named after my grandmother and not the biblical queen per se. However, I strongly believe I was born to be a queen… Maybe not like good ol’ departed Lizzie. I’m afraid there’s not enough of those positions available for peasants like yours truly. Still, you never know! Fish might start to walk on land, cows might learn how to fly and a future king might just magically appear in my small village, find a glass shoe and fall in love with a pauper!

Call me Cinderella.

Like I said, I’m named after my grandmother… As is every other female cousin of mine. Seriously, there are so many Esther’s in my family if war ever breaks out and they recruit only people named Esther, my family alone can hold down the front lines. Add in our neighbors and you’ve got yourself an army.

Here, its tradition that every firstborn is named after one of the grandparents. That’s why in family gatherings if you call out the name Esther, every head within a mile radius will turn to answer.

PS: what’s your name?

A for Adulting.

Image:courtesy.

The best kind of sleep is the one where you wake up with skid marks on your cheek, drool on the side of your mouth, a titty hanging out and zero recollection of what day its is. If I wake up and I can barely remember my name, my blanket is missing and half of my body is hanging off the side of the bed, then I know that I really slumbered!

And why is it always the five minute naps that slap like this? Especially when you have a lot of shit to do. You close your eyes for five seconds, you end up getting sucked into lala land for ten hours with appointments , a wedding to officiate, a funeral to plan and a marathon to run all due in five minutes.

There’s nothing sweeter than the ‘my life is falling apart’ kind of sleep. Your house might be on fire, but you know what? As long as you get your shut eye in, all will be well. Google says another name for that is depression. I say fuck google!

I hate labels, don’t you?

As a kid, every time I’d get woken up early for school, I’d wish that I could become an adult faster, just so I could sleep. Pssht! And I wonder where it all went wrong. Now as a young, bouncing baby adult, I wish I could go back and smack my younger self. There is no sleep in adulting. It doesn’t matter how tired you get, you close your eyes for two seconds and suddenly it’s blinding lights, karaoke music and a throaty announcers voice screaming; Bills, Bills, Job applications, loans, mortgage payment, wake your ass up!

How dare you sleep when your net worth is a piece of gum!

Being an adult is only fun when you have the resources… Like say, a million dollars in your account, a bible, an alcohol addiction or a therapist on speed dial. Pick your poison. Adulting is a scam that should be right up there with people that false advertise perfume. How dare you smell that good and have me twisting my neck like I’m auditioning for a spot in Annabelle, all for nothing! You smell good, you look good. Its not that hard, Michael!

Down with false advertisements, I say!

Now, Job applications. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! In my next life, can I come back as a trust fund baby? Or a nepotism baby? Seriously, where do I fill out. Working on my CV is proving to be a nightmare. Maybe I should resign myself to a life as a farmer. How do graduates do it? How do you apply for a job with zero connections and zero experience?

And try going through the classifieds if you want to give yourself a stroke. So and so looking for a 25 year old with a PhD in star alignment, a masters in animal husbandry and a doctorate in medicine, With 50 years experience in customer service and a personal Letter of recommendation from the queen of England… The dead one.

According to my CV, my only achievement so far is being alive. Praise Jesus! Let’s not even talk about experiences. Google says I should focus on my strengths. Bitch what strengths? I devour fiction like the written word is going extinct, does that count? How did you write your resume after graduate school? I need a tutorial. A step by step guide. A freaking miracle.

Also, idek- working a 9-5 sounds like bondage. Look my people have already been through that, okay! Yeah, that’s probably not a good thing to say for job security purposes. Ignore that. If any future employers ever see this, just look the other way. I’m not always like this.

PS: Mostly, but not always.

Beautiful in white.

sometimes, when I look at the bags under my eyes, I think to myself; listen, they might not be birkins but you know what? A girl’s got to work with what she has. Hallelujah!!

I want to prefix this by saying that I love weddings. I love it even more when I’m invited to be a part of them. I just found out that, apparently there’s such a thing as a professional brides maid! They definitely don’t tell you that on career day. Well, to be fair they also don’t tell you that selling foot pics is a viable career option.

Not that I would know.

Wait… Is there a name for people who sell their feet pics? An identifier of some sorts? Something like feetures? Or fuckers? Feeters maybe? Footers then? Okay, tough crowd. Psychopaths, works too.

I… Excuse me!

When we were kids, being chosen as a flower girl was akin to winning an Oscar. That feeling was a monumental high that would not only improve your status in the eyes of the villagers, but also give you immense clout for the rest of the year. Especially if the wedding was an ‘It wedding’ . That’s how we found out who the beautiful kids in the village were. They were the ones who would always be picked to be ring bearers in almost all the weddings.

Those were local celebrities. It comes without saying that I was a litte jealous. I wanted to be like them. I used to wonder what type of magic you had to possess to be allowed to carry those flowers and the rings. The way I would have Abracadabra’d my ass into the perfect little flower girl, I…. Sigh! Maybe there was a screening process that the rest of us mortals were not aware of.

To be honest though, they definitely made the right choice in not choosing me. See, if I remember my younger self correctly- and I do- I would have broken my neck seven ways to Sunday while walking down the aisle, somehow found a way to swallow the ring, and most probadefinetly shit myself. And the pictures?… Let’s not even go there.

Fun fact, did you know that in the original Stuart little, he was not a rat but a boy who was so ugly that when they tried casting for the adaptation they couldn’t find anyone ugly enough? I could have been a child actor! Pity no one thought to look in my village.

Anyway, an important prerequisite was that they had to have long hair, or hair that was at least braidable. One of the reasons why I probably never met the criteria was because I was bald. Have you seen The Rocks head? Yeah, mine used to look like that.

The primary school I attended demanded we shave every speck of hair on our heads. If the teacher couldn’t see his reflection when they looked down on you, then your barber was slacking. You couldn’t even tell where my forehead ended and hairline started. I blame my primary school teachers for this sunlight reflector I call a forehead!

At least now that I have grown out my hair I can hide the fact that my head is shaped like a guava.

I have been in three weddings. The first Two because my mom was in the planning committee and the last because it was my aunts wedding and all my other cousins were in it. The rest of the time we would watch from the sidelines like common plebeians, wishing we were important enough like those girls gliding down the isle in their brand new dresses and shoes.

The first wedding I was in, the bridal party left without me and I had to walk all the way to the church. Regardless, it wasn’t far, but still! The 2nd one, there was no budget for transport so the bridal party were all bundled into a lorry. Let me tell you, every time we hit a bump, it was hard to avoid ending up with a mass of dress fabric in ones mouth.

The 3rd one I didn’t have any shoes so I had to borrow from a cousin. The problem was, my shoe size rivals that of a male basketball player and so I’m sure I looked like I was trying to learn how to tap dance. Everyday I pray that there is no video evidence.

PS: What’s the worst thing that has happened to you at a wedding?