Politics and Economics (made in Kenya)

The Kenyan political class and its unfortunate victims reached an unspoken deal some time back. The politicians decided, unilaterally, that ordinary Kenyans should wait around to cheer their next round of partisan mudslinging. Nowadays, watching news requires steely resolve. Prime Time is a circus where the clownish political leaders wear businesslike frowns and might as well juggle live grenades. The best juggler goes home with a 2012. 

 

As for “victims of post election violence,” such populist verbiage is frowned upon in the lofty halls of power. Post election violence has since been abbreviated to PEV, and its victims are neither to be seen nor heard while their resettlement funds are frittered away. The events of 2007-2008 have been left in the bin of history. Unlike Rwanda, which continues to maintain memorials to its 1994 genocide, Kenyan Politics is busy forgetting all evidence of such a thing as post election pevwhatever. Abracadabra! it will never happen again! On the public’s podiums, politicians, fresh from waving from the sunroofs of their SUVs at roadside-lining unemployed poor Kenyans, rally ‘their people’ to their political alliances. Far away from the delirious masses, in the camps of the displaced, victims shrug and sigh. They might take to the streets every now and then, banners aloft and all, but somebody’s poys will fire tearkas to tisperse the tisturpance. Resettlement? Our leaders believe that the displaced should return to their land, the same places they lived with their neighbors before 07-08 or PEV, whichever applies. The same neighbors had turned against them, evicting those they couldn’t catch to kill with crude weapons. Armed police nearby didn’t exactly help at the time. Now the IDPs are instructed to return to their former hoods (now it’s all good. Somehow.) Therefore, escapees should return to the same farms that had earlier on turned out to be death traps. In this understanding, any plans to resettle IDPs elsewhere (other than amidst the same now nameless “tribal warriors” who tried to kill them) have met vocal resistance. 

Is this too morbid to be real? Too far removed from reality? Idle speculative musing? Thriller fiction? Paranoia? Perhaps other pressing issues are more deserving of our time. Heaven knows Kenyans are so engrossed in the day to day struggle to survive that it’s hard enough just seeing to our own sustenance, let alone championing lost causes. International events outside our borders have us at the point where all prices of all things have been jacked up, and values of our currency are outlandish. Somehow, no one is to blame for anything. The economy is going to the dogs, yet no one above the consumer level is going to the dogs along with the economy. Should said consumer perchance want for someone to blame, faceless phantasmagoria proudly step forward to claim responsibility: “inflation pressure,” “international oil prices,” “foreign exchange rate.” It’s all so economic and unfortunate, what can be done, really? The complex quagmire is so difficult that the rules of Economics no longer fully apply, like before. The law of supply and demand has failed to restore price sanity. The Invisible Hand is off on its own ventures, or maybe it died of shock from the sudden simultaneous appearance of multiple faceless international economic phenomena. 

Meanwhile, in the struggle to extract flavor from this unpalatable combination of politics and economics called “life in the 21st century’s third world”, Kenyans are also continually bombarded on all sides by Hype. It’s everywhere. Every second inch of public space is an advertiser’s space. We can’t see the trees for the billboards. Are there even any trees left, hasn’t the urban jungle’s concrete tentacles consumed all the greenery there is to see in all directions? Speaking of which, real estate is a real hit, driving a massive construction boom, which is good for everybody. Ignore that everybody knows the cold reality of mortgage financing in Kenya today. Ignore the To Let signs in suburbs once considered hot. At microeconomic level, all manner of advertisements promise glee, ecstasy, joy, thrill. Everywhere we turn, showbiz personalities are hired to declare, “Just consume this here product and see if it doesn’t transform your life!” 

Of course, consumerism is a bummer at casual glance – lasting happiness clearly does not derive from the consumption of brands. But adverts hammer the lie consistently, and pass it off as harmless exaggeration. Do we not eventually internalize the lie? Friends, you would be surprised to know how much research goes into “shaping consumer behavior.” Products promise beauty and happiness, sparkle and fun, sophistication and sex appeal. Happiness. Consider the recent spate of locally produced TV dramas, so-called comedies et al which really are, if you can discern their thrust, politically correct morality plays. Alarming in their oversimplification of pertinent issues, stupefying in their intellectual vacuity, these programs are interrupted only by advertisements that promise heaven, love, peace of mind, etc in a newly launched, ergonomically designed, see-through packet. Endure all this frenetic marketing and survive the news, which ought to be called “olds” in the case of Kenyan politics, except when one-offs like the New Constitution happen, and charges are confirmed in lands afar. 

Honestly, between Kenyan politics, international economics and mass media, I don’t know what I’m saying until I fit it all in one big picture. Then I might as well become a full-time alarmist and a part-time doomsayer with a small Armageddon Consultancy on the side.

The Enemy Within

In the perfect serenity of singlehood, I enjoyed the leisure of too much time to look back and reflect upon my failed relationships, flings, flirts, crushes, mutual attractions and "Other/Miscellaneous" (unidentifiable mushy feelings). Yes, even those ones fail. After thorough analysis it finally sunk into my thick skull that I kept falling for the same personality type every time. Nearly all the people I have ever spent too many days pining after are Queens of a sort. Their psychological profile is any mother-in-law's headache: dramatic, self-absorbed, spoilt to the (hard) core and verbally very forward. Manipulative and devious also. I could only impede this unconscious tendency of mine by aborting HMS Cupid altogether for a while, until I knew what I needed as opposed to what I wanted and often got. This freedom released a lot of time for religious nomadism.

In those days, my religious adventure had brought me to reading the Bhagavad Gita. I had only recently turned my back to the theology of Rastafarianism (lesson learnt: Reggae rocks!), before which I had been a book-carrying Atheist (lesson learnt: er... pass), prior to which I had been a lukewarm Christian. How I found myself immersed in the Gita I cannot explain here now. Nevertheless, it is a philosophical masterpiece in terms of conceptualizing spiritual things.

We join this narration at the point where I was reading Gita the third time, alone in my room, one otherwise lifeless evening. I even gave my favorite Al Jazeera channel a rare break that night so I could concentrate. Someone knocked on my door just as I was embarking on a chapter about "the divine versus the demoniac nature". When I peeped at the window, behold, Ailis at the door!

Panic attack! My heartbeat pounded even inside my skull. I'd known she was coming, but it had been many months since I'd last seen her. Here she was, long after I'd cured myself of withdrawal symptoms from no longer having her close by as her contagious laughter and chatter livened up the place nearly every evening. I had learnt to live without her stories and fresh-out-the-oven updates. I could now make do with the second rate rumor mill which everyone else had to rely on. I didn't need her back as badly as before if at all, and that was a point I was committed to proving.

Ailis and I nervously exchanged the usual opening remarks and perfunctory greetings. Things went well those first few seconds. Small talk set out smoothly, but only until I claimed to have missed her. She wasn't convinced. Her keen eyes fixed me a penetrating glare.

"You have a funny way of showing it! No texts, no calls, nothing."

Something about the unbroken eye contact caused a transition to happen within me. A staring contest began. She was unrelenting. I remembered thinking she was a mind reader the first day I met her and looked into her intense eyes. Now I thought she was simply stunning.

I commented on her dazzling looks, and I meant every word of it. She smiled - but her eyes never left mine. A strangely familiar sense of being pulled in took over me. Suddenly I was losing myself in her eyes. Only briefly. I dutifully remembered that I had made short-to-mid-term vows of singlehood and celibacy; or, at the very least, I was supposed to have had it with Queen types in my life.

Ailis said, "Don't change the topic. What happened to us?"

Easy. "We broke up."

Meanwhile, the fate of the universe depended on the outcome of this our staring contest. She glared. I eliminated the last traces of a smile. Here was serious business.

"That's cold," she protested. "Can we talk about it?"

I launched into a presentation, citing the calamitous statistics of long distance relationships, their dim success rates being of special significance. I needed not finish. Her inner eyes saw straight through my gibberish and discerned my excuses for what they were.

"I missed you too. Look, we can work something out. Let's not self destruct for the sake of it," she interrupted. "You always listen to me, you know me in and out... Plus I guess I was wrong about you and GalPal and I'm kinda sorry about that."

Her eyes now bore that earnest look that proclaims unmitigated honesty and willingness to try one's best. You know the look. Tender emotions stirred inside my chest. My eyes moistened imperceptibly. A single unchecked impulse would have seen me initiating a pressing of our faces against each other, whether preceded by or intermingled with a similar 'soul mate connection affirmation' speech.

Unfortunately I was thinking with my ego. That ego switch had been triggered as soon as she said let's not self destruct for the sake of it. She was right and I knew exactly what she meant, but How Dare She Say That?

Her stare was unceasing, expectant, brave. Our undeclared contest was still on and the stakes were high. Now was as good a time as any to come forward and lend my voice to how I felt used earlier on as a result of the casual manner of our break up. Except that male pride does not admit realities like "feeling used." Ego is unfeeling, unthinking and unreasoning like that. No room for vulnerabilities can be allowed.

"Thank you for that insight," I said opaquely while nodding. Ailis glowered at me, but the look in her eyes was broken resolve. Defeat. I stared back calmly. Inside, ego was celebrating a victory whose benefits even I couldn't see.

"You know what, never mind," said Ailis, turning away, so that I won the staring contest. She left. I didn't stop her. Or see her again.

Later, when the implications of my actions sunk into my thick skull, I wrestled my pillow in a series of fits, alone and unhappy, feeling foolish too, and angry at myself besides. I couldn't even read the Gita anymore - the first sentence upon my return was a body blow: "Pseudo-religiosity, pretentious pride, conceitful arrogance, anger, harshness and ignorance arise in one born of the demoniac nature..." A mirror couldn't have portrayed my selfish ego better.

A late night text from Ailis lightened the mood somewhat, even if it hurt to read and understand.

Some relationships are better than average.
Others are better than everything else.
Ours was better to stay without!

"Ouch! Aha!" I mused vainly, "It may be a diss, but at least she's communicating! There's hope for us yet!"

Little did I know, as I lay in the dark, that sleep was far, far off, many days' journey beyond the horizon.

Genetically Modified thinking

Sometimes I catch myself saying a lot of nothing for the sake of remaining relevant. This post may well be one of those times.

As I was flipping through nearly outdated newspapers one day, a title about genetically modified foods in Kenya arrested my attention. You would never have guessed from reading the article that there was any controversy about GM foods. Another article in another place had Hilary Clinton herself giving KARI a good report grade on its work - a veritable thumbs up in the midst of a speech about many other things. A picture of some people looking at plants enclosed in warehouses was captioned "Dr. Jill Biden {etc etc}." GM tourism must be a high foreign exchange earner these days judging from its VIP clientele. Yet another article elsewhere celebrated the green light given to GM foods and listed the various interest groups which rallied behind the cause. Government, scientists and their scientific institutes, plus a few opinion voices on the street lending popular appeal to the cause. The article's jubilant writer fell just short of celebrating the end of famine in Kenya forever and ever. Shortly after, Wikileaks was very forthcoming about some diplomatic efforts undertaken by US officials to see that GM foods were legalized and supported and thus not frozen at Kenya's borders by our famously incorruptible customs officials. Nearly a month prior to this, in a full page column which also trashed a host of his public statements, Honorable John Mututho (of Alcohol Laws fame) was dismissed as an alarmist and exaggerator-par-excellence when he sounded the alarm bell by suspecting too loudly and without any evidence that GM foods were already in Kenya prior to anyone's being asked about it. It all looked to me like the usual circus that the conjugation of Kenyan politics and Kenyan journalism can make of anything. Suddenly, in a rare moment of literacy, I read, amidst the names of "stakeholders" who had pushed for GM, the name Monsanto. Suddenly it all fell into place.

Only connect, and much comes to light.

That Freaky Friendly Feeling

Over more than a decade, I forged a firm friendship with her. We called each other best friends, yet there was little practical evidence (besides the statement of the fact) to support that claim. No long hours on phone, no random home visits, nor any of the things people do to spend time together; no, not even skydiving. I must admit a bit of a social handicap. But there were many letters to and fro, and texts without number.

In the spirit of openness, The Ex learnt from me that my Best Friend was a lady. This was in the days before she became “The Ex”. She audibly suspected that something was fishy about a ‘so-called best friend’ of the opposite gender, resulting in high drama one time; “too many messages,” or something insecure like that, followed by half a breakup. Luckily or not, the Ex has never had occasion to meet the Best Friend and have words - or more.

I think it is possible (and wholesome) for a dude to have a close and trusted lady friend who is not a girlfriend, but I can’t back that recommendation conclusively without indulging hypocrisy. Because one day I fell for the Best Friend.

Things like these are not supposed to happen! That’s why you go the extra mile to forestall such crises. You learn the meaning and applications of the word “platonic” long before your age group catches on to its existence. You become deaf to the body language of attraction, even becoming unconscious of your own reflexive come-ons, because this is your Best Friend in the whole wide world! And so you just can’t spoil the good friendly thing you’ve got! and so nothing funny was allowed to happen.

While allowing nothing funny to happen, a lot of space emerged between us, and time marched on. We met ever more rarely and chatted ever more briefly. Suddenly, it behooved me one day to inform her that we were no longer Best Friends in real world terms. We had drifted too far apart to claim the honors. According to my (jealous) calculations, I had become more marginal in her life than anyone who met her in class every day. Best friend my foot. Fortunately, it was a short and painless conversation: she shared my disagreeable views – so she said. Fine. We shrugged and moved on to mutual neglect.

Losing a best friend is a mental transition above anything else. Nothing really changes besides the lenses through which you look at the situation. Perhaps a little crankiness for the first few days. Inevitably, the Best Friend and I forgot that we were no longer best friends. We reverted to telling everyone about our opposite-gender best friend, even if we did not talk to one another as much as we talked about one another. But one day, we outgrew all this foolishness (I don’t remember who it was that initiated contact), and decided to catch up with a visit. My place.

The natural tendency for platonic friends to overdo reconciliation was our undoing. And we were alone all by ourselves and close together. Somebody spell trouble. It certainly occurred to me – I had already fallen for the Best Friend as soon as we met, at the instant of reunion. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. That day my brain forsook all the platonic things therein and all understandings thereof. (It had been a long absence.)Yet, somehow, I kept my head and maintained my bearings. The visit had no incidents, really. I barely fled temptation only because I ceaselessly exhorted myself, in many fervent 'asides', to behave in a manner befitting a platonic friend.

Afterwards, I started thinking twice about the far-fetched silly-sounding concept called platonic. One or both parties must regularly asphyxiate the natural tendency to fall for the other. And spend their time hiding the fact that they already fell for the friend they weren't supposed to fall for. Third party observers see right through these self-delusions, but their insights are always rebutted with lies as blatant as "It's not like that." One easily tells the platonic best friend a million things one could never breathe a word of to one's romantic partner. Sorta confuses up the ratings: who's supposed to be the special one?

The worst part? The romantic partners of both platonic friends must depend on the shaky trust that funny feelings towards the friend will be stifled, without fail, EVERY TIME they materialize.

Wanna bet?

Coast Tripping

Everything there is to be said about Mombasa can be found online readily - all the hype about white sandy beaches, delicacies and fun. By now, Ministry of Tourism and its associates must have employed enough translators to do that job “in line with Vision 2030 objectives”. Of relevance: the swimming team visited Mombasa once again because we (swimming team members) got it in our heads that we could presume to compete with Kenya team members at the same level. The Dunford brothers, et al. Of course, some of us had the capacity for it, and others knew they stood only to embarrass themselves if they tried, but either way, this was immaterial in the decision whether or not to go to Mombasa. Homo sapiens = Thinking man.

We were largely the same lot that, a year past, had undertaken a previous coast trip in the name of representing our university’s sports fraternity at swimming competitions. In all truth, the real climax was nocturnally hitting the club scene, getting smashed and enjoying associated varieties of fun. This necessitated the sleeping away of hangovers during time originally intended for swimming competitively in the heats. (One does not swim a heat when one suspects that pool chlorine is not the best ingredient to add to the alcoholic cocktail that one’s blood has become.)

Having long vowed never to consume alcohol again, I could not tag along with the rest of the crew to their ungodly-hour club-hopping initiatives. So, Saturday night found me alone weathering a cool strong gust on the beach. (Audience heckler: “Get a life!”) The next day, my more venturesome teammates discovered with dismay that Sunday nights in Mombasa ordinarily make for lifeless raves. Therefore, Sunday night, we all gravitated to a popular public beach to while the time away with drinking games and other revelry. A sea breeze fanned our exertions.

The way I recall it, after the initial bursts of energy surrendered to the influence of strong spirits, there was a collective knockout session. A literal human heap piled high upon the sandy shore. Those of us who remained conscious – no, I can’t speak for everyone. But me, I fixed my gaze upon teammate Ciku’s comely countenance, and shortly approached her.

Alas! Things from the past will always bite your ass when you least expect them to. A year past, in a similar environment, the motto seemed to be “What happens in Mombasa stays in Mombasa.” I convinced myself that things had gone swimmingly the first time round, and so an attempt to rerun that particular episode with Ciku would be welcome.

So I charged forward to the attack on the double.

I was not a mistake Ciku was going to make twice. She hated me, she said, even though feelings were not supposed to be engaged; the basic principle being “what happens in Mombasa stays in Mombasa.” It became obvious that feelings could only be denied, not ignored. And then it was time to make peace.

I learnt something upon the windswept beach as Ciku and I squared: Karma exists. Ignorance or insensitivity to Karma does not efface its consequences.

Besides that, earnest heartfelt forgiveness is a sea breeze on the beach: awesome.

The Suspect has Escaped on Foot

What exactly does someone do with a rejection? Subsequent attempts to get in her good book are propelled by the added urgent need to save face after misfiring the first time round. One feels compelled to correct the grievous wrong, and quite soon, success or failure becomes a matter of pride. There are even some who “aim higher” in a vain attempt to turn the tables, trying to make her regret spurning their advances. The rejection in itself might otherwise have been a non-event, but thanks to pride, its implications resonate in ways that make the whole thing bigger than itself. I trust you hear me correctly.

Because your middle name is schadenfreude, dear reader, you are thinking “Get on with it already; spill! Tell us who rejected you and how you cried boohoo!” But this ain’t “truth or dare”. I’ll find a way to beat about the bush without revealing that I actually drew her a picture before I ever talked to her! Oops! I bet you’ll never find out that I spotted her just once and started drawing that picture immediately. What can I say? I liked her smile.

No, I’m not mad, nor tuned in to space alien wavelengths. But I was definitely younger way back then.

There was a time when pictures of the Ex were arrayed in my room. They constituted a small art gallery. I gave a few of them to her, and she liked them very much. Someone say “get out of jail free card.”But those were happier times, and The Ex was probably more art-loving than her intended replacement.

But the intended replacement didn’t share my expressed belief that she was the intended replacement. (In a future post, I will recount other instances of how people think I’m always joking or pulling pranks.) I can acutely remember standing solitary at the window after the rejection. Staring after her receding figure, somehow, the one phrase that came to my wine-unbalanced tongue was “The suspect has escaped on foot… The zasbect…”

I’ll save you a ton of reading and just say, here and now, that subsequent efforts to apprehend the suspect yielded no returns. But we became awkward friends.

Singling the blues away

“To fall in love is to fall indeed!” I have already come across plenty of practical preliminary evidence to support this position. However, youthful ideals have a way of sustaining dangerous inclinations towards love, even after we have read the witty proverbs which underline our experiences. This is why you will read this and write it off as a bit of foolishness on the part of a disgruntled probably-recently-dumped dude. Your funeral.

Courtship as we know it is a bummer. The thrill of the hunt is in the chase. Thus, as soon as the prey is cornered and savored there better be another hunt or else, no more thrill. Ask any veteran bachelor. With courtship, they will tell you, ultimately the effort is the only real reward. A bird once in hand loses the all-important luster it had while it was singing unclaimed in the bush. Such is human psychology. But there’s got to be another way. Escape the hunt-catch-hunt cycle; be single.

Do I mean you readers should leave your painstakingly acquired mates? Wrong question! Am I advocating for the end of family values? No, actually the government should intervene to preserve marriages and families and all that. Which foreign embassy has poured money at me to subvert national cohesion? Depends on how you define embassy! Kidding! I am just suggesting that if we were all single there would never be a Mpango Wa Kando - at least technically speaking. Promote world peace. Entrench global stability. Go single.

And what of loneliness? I say join a social networking website already. Follow self-absorbed celebrities on Twitter. Accumulate stalkers on Facebook, and stoke their interest with periodic photo uploads, while indiscriminately revealing all your pertinent bio data. You see, real romantic relationships are too serious to go about having them. Too much relationships takes a toll on your life! Relationships which intend to engage the services of true love are so serious that participants must fully intend to go all the way before they even start. Anything less, and my pastor calls out selfishness, fraud and theft. Avoid relationships that implicate you among evildoers. Go single.

The scourge of passion shall ever be with us, and unfortunately so. That is why the failsafe prescriptions spelt out here are doomed to fall on deaf ears. Yet do I persist.

Listen! Feelings have a way of hiding, sneaking up on our cool rational minds from behind and clobbering them unconscious, so as to institute a liberal regime. The junta of mutinous Feelings then proceeds to misgovern all the Faculties while popping champagne, to devastating effect – a big self-congratulatory flood of hormones swamps the victim’s itineraries with bureaucratic romantic dates. Such dire circumstances force the heart to take up the job of thinking, lest all reason be lost to the insidiousness of adrenalin-laced testosterone/estrogen. Thus, errors in the pumping of blood tend to occur in the environment of love. Erratic palpitations coincide with the instant of love at first sight. The heart is so one-minded that it cannot multitask thinking thoughts and pumping blood without churning out poor results in both processes. (Just like a man can't multitask.) If this has never occurred to you, then you must have long acclimatized to soap operas.

Certain researchers I am too busy to fabricate right now discovered that being in love is addictive. Do you want to be considered an addict? They scientifically proved that any given individual is more prone to succumb to spontaneous death when their romantic relationship ends – same way a crack addict mercifully dies eventually - but only after a pathetic manifestation of various withdrawal symptoms, including tears, shivering, wailing, moodiness and incoherence. You don’t want to go there. Go single.

Going single is the hardest and most unnatural undertaking you will ever attempt. Still, try it. Your heart is for pumping blood – so it better stay focused. Bear this in mind and keep a keen eye on those feelings. Rule them with an iron fist. Herein lies safety and national security.

Pearl

Radical hairstyles are the preserve of the few. I learnt this soon after sporting dreadlocks early one semester. Prior acquaintances could not even identify me at first, and then they mostly claimed that the so-called antiestablishment hairstyle was unsuitable for conformist types - such as me. (Me, a conformist? Yet, prior, there had happened to be wild shaggy clumps of nappy hair all over my scalp.) Quiet guy that I am, that revolutionary social-misfit hairstyle may have been the loudest public statement I had ever made yet. I loved it.

As for my personal life, Pearl was that acquaintance I last saw when she was a little girl and I was a little boy. A rather quiet Friend on Facebook… I sent her a probing message. She replied. Enough inbox exchanges later, it was time to exchange numbers. Conversation was mostly on phone in late hours of the night. Yes, hours. Enter sentimentality. Days passed when Pearl occupied all my thoughts. One day, I met Pearl - a hard-sought privilege - briefly, over lunch and ice cream. We then embarked on an exclusive relationship. Call it rushed if you dare.

Ours had its highs and lows. Our narrative will skip the juicy bits of the plot, however. This particular blog post (read: not “tabloid column”) is one of those ones that are overly abstract. (For readers who are not inclined towards intangible concepts, the issues covered herein will tend to fly overhead.) That said, I learnt many things.

Emotional distortion of perceptions prohibits effective problem-solving. Something about being in a relationship makes cool-headed rationalism within that particular relationship very hard. Emotion-colored thinking – if at all the brain is engaged – usually escapes rational conclusions. Self-justifying platitudes tend to polarize lovers into combative stances. Unfortunately, lovers can’t usually seem to avoid reverting to self-justifying platitudes during joint flying rages.

Pearl, like many other friends of mine, voiced concerns to the effect that I think too much. (GalPal, someone else I half-liked, earlier claimed that I could think things to death.) A more formally-inclined person would talk of Analysis Paralysis. But thus do I retort: “Analysis Paralysis is just a buzzword.” In my world, that term lies disused under the same scrap heap of impressive yet suspect phrases as “in line with Vision 2030 objectives.” Point is, anyone who tries to get me to think less is surely misleading me. Thinking never hurt as many people as failure to think did. Is there anyone at all for whom a little thought wrought not one spot of benefit? There are worse things than having a hyperdeliberative partner. Like, duh.

So, that love trip bombed.

I know I need to grow up a bit in certain ways before I attempt another relationship (…as if this entire blog has not so far been a testament to my unparalleled unfitness in matters cupid). Meanwhile I have no business trying to be in love. In my idealistic head, a relationship should not feel like a painstakingly contrived musical in which characters `must fit inside certain prefabricated roles while hitting the right notes after cutting their dreadlocks. All of which I did to the best of my ability. Yes, I transitioned from dreadlocks to “Jordan”. What a shine my head became. I hated it.

What happened to individuality?

Uniformly Unique

Half a loaf is better than none. This applies to bread and other edibles. I maintain that as soon you find yourself in half a relationship because you are in it alone (say your partner is making a stereotypical farce of love), it’s time to up and go. You have two options: either jump ship or cast your bread upon the waters – in my case, preferably both.

Readers who think it is time I got over my hangover for Ailis are right, actually. It’s about time I left the past behind. Writing this blog has revealed to me the great obstacle that is my pride. Or else I would never admit that the whole messy thing still burns me even unto the core of my bones. Which I have not admitted. Yet.

To the point: I was refashioning myself in preparation for my big return to the single life. Clearly it takes more than just a nominal change of one’s marital status in the CV. A wardrobe change helps; a revitalization of one’s outward appearance; a makeover. The problem is, I have never been at par with my age mates at any stage of my life in terms of fashion. Admittedly, fashion has never been an overarching goal of my life. I call it “the fastest way to judge a book by its cover.” So, as a matter of principle, wardrobe upgrade was out.

My whole life so far, there have only been two periods when my fashion sense was at par with my age-mates. Most recently, I was in a secondary school whose uniform was quite a sight. Even other high-school-goers disdained that color clashing get-up. It is rumored that the color concept was historically conceived as an anti-camouflage measure. The school at first catered to street urchins who, after being rounded up from diverse streetscapes by the government and deposited at the school, naturally and quite expectedly plotted to run away by creeping back to freedom through the surrounding bush. (Un)fortunately it was an Impossible Mission when the urchin was a brightly colored contrast of red and blue attempting to hide amidst earth tones and greens all around. That is the rumor. In my experience, the uniform had the additional disadvantage of displaying the gangly knot that one’s knees had become - it covered neither them nor the three-inch expanse of flesh immediately above. “Indecent exposure” was ever on the tip of the tongue. Topping it all off was the irony of being required by a legion of prefects, captains and their sidekicks (aka “campaigners”) to complete the ensemble with a tie, socks and a blazer or half-sweater. To each his own. Atrocious! Everyone else called us Caltex.

Prior to high school, the only other time I was fashionably at par with my age mates, I was rocking napkins! Seriously, as I look in old family albums at photos of my naïve and energetic childhood, I am overwhelmed by the extent and severity of repeated criminal negligence of fashion. It simply never crossed my mind to add value to my own outward appearance.

With such a train-wreck of a past fashion record, it should surprise no one that I opted for a whole other means to refashion my image as a therapeutic post-break-up palliative. I had a frank consultations with a mirror for the first time in months. There I discovered thick clumps of tough hair growing wild and kinky on my scalp. This, at a time when I was discovering that the philosophical tenets of Rastafarianism resonated well with my own ideals...

Need I spell it out, what I did to my hair?

A Game by Any Other Name Sucks Just as Much

I’m back! And I must apologize to my Followers for imposing a forty-day blog-fast upon them. Its objective was unclear anyway. It just seemed like a thing to do. The value of randomness is underrated.

What has been happening during the break? In my naïve mind, based on admittedly tainted observations, I have come to one sweeping generalization - that there are only two modes of thinking. Now don’t get me wrong – there are many things to think about. But we think about them either in terms of their direct relevance to ourselves or in abstract universalist terms.

(I know its time to lay off the coffee when I start hallucinating philosophy.)

So there I was, away on holiday, minding my business and being harmless old me (aka strategically avoiding The Ex). Who should call me but Ailis, asking me to visit her in Malindi. My response: “You broke us up, remember?” She hung up immediately. You must understand: she was on the East Coast, I was on the ”West Coast”; and yet the space between us was still too small for my pride.

Later on, thinking about it, I realized that the whole relationship/fling/whatever thing had really been a series of games. Not the kind of games one enjoys; no. Rather, power plays; the kind that can be played, won or lost in total ignorance of the fact! There is probably much less to it than my fertile imagination is shadowboxing with. And we must bear in mind that my experience in romantic relationships is wanting, which makes me the last person to dare to comment on matters cupid. But I’ll go ahead playing intellectual dice with far-fetched ideas anyway.

It is like this. In relationships, one member may unilaterally decide to set an ‘exam’ for the other party - a little test, in a controlled environment, where the subject’s behavior is tested in the furnace of truth. This beats asking direct probing questions because – hey let’s face it and grow up already – actions speak louder than words. It is hard to ‘misquote’ a thing when you do it. Therefore, the partner who seeks to really know the other sets a practical experiment. Sometimes the candidates spot these practical puzzles from a mile away and ace them or expertly dodge them, sometimes they spot them from a mile away and flunk the quiz intentionally - just for the hilarity of it, ambitiously aspiring to transcendence. Most often a candidate, operating within the bliss of ignorance, actually completes an examination on whose outcome depends the very future of the relationship! Is that enough theoretical background?

The summarized version of all this beating about the bush is that these games madden me! There should be a law! For example, if someone expresses a desire NOT to continue a relationship, as Ailis did earlier on, you’d think a good opportunity had presented itself to demonstrate respect for their wishes and ability to comply – even if things aren’t going your way at all. In my case I immediately agreed - in fact, an instant more, and I would have thrown in a ‘Heil Hitler’ and a matching salute. But by so doing, I failed her test. The correct answer, apparently, would have been to put up a massive fight to reject her so-called wishes to break up. Her puzzle demanded that I, the candidate, demonstrate jealousy, passion, zeal, fire, will, stubbornness and lust in the mold of Lorenzo, Hector, Alejandro, Luiz or whatever the blazes they call male protagonists in Latin American soap operas nowadays. My reaction – a flat “Alright let’s break up.” *yawns & arm stretches* – betrayed failure to grasp course content, low concentration, poor effort, little understanding, limited ability to accurately conceptualize a problem. Naturally, this earned me a failing grade. Yet quite apart from the dire aspect of my score, we can enter a debate about the justice of administering exams to unwitting candidates while making their correct answers so convoluted as to defy common sense. Try me.

Somebody say “Trick Question”. It is a favorite weapon of our womenfolk. Such is life. But that’s a whole other blog.