Love and Betrayal

I am furious.  Underneath these realities I am hurt.  I can’t believe how started I am by the whole conversation.  Distancing myself, I am taking a real look at my frame of mind and where these feelings are coming from, but it wasn't until I was chatting over a glass of virgin mojito with my sister Ado at News Café Sarit that I had a real breakthrough.  She’s asking why it bothers me so much, asking me what word I would use to describe that darling affair, and flying out of my mouth is a word that has been hiding in the dark corners of my subconscious mind.  The word is betrayal.

“Betrayal,” I repeat in a murmur – like in a thought yet very tangible, palpable and sentimental – in a shout I say, "I feel Otile is totally betrayed!"  Fact is, Otile had been betrayed before and a second round is going to push him right over the cliff.  

We made it ma!

Eighteen years! Exactly eighteen years as of today, is how long it has been. A journey through a dense mix of valleys of doubt and mounds of hope. And we’ve made it ma! All of us ma!

Jasper is a serial land owner ma. Not one parcel, not two parcels ma. Your first son has distributed investments in Machakos, Homabay, Kajiado and the little parcel dad left us. Some of these belongs to us all, shared rights, but most are his own. Legitimately earned through drips of thin precious sweat. Thin because a lean man (never above 48kgs) never drips in sweat unless he has pushed all his muscles to the edge and precious because he never had to. But for us ma. All of us ma.

Oh, and there is someone else ma. Lorah’s smalling. If the dead see you may have seen her, but let me introduce you better. Sharleen is a bubbly girl, always smiling and a supper charmer. We, Lorah and I, named her after you, Angeline. With the hope that she would mirror what you were but no, she is your opposite. Not so strict, ever sunny and a sinful joker who will always find something to distract you about. Sharleen didn’t even take your dark complexion, but every time she steps on my toe or forces Roberger to buy her a lollipop which she ends up giving other kids, I see you ma.

Eighteen years and we still miss you like you just left the other day. They say it’s easy forgetting the dead than the lost, but to us it’s all the same. Lost or dead, we still can’t tell the difference. A few months after your demise, we thought you’d return. As children, we never understood clearly what death, literal death, meant. When the food was not as warm as yours, we wished you’d return. Hope!

It was tougher when your replacements started auditioning, best performers in front of the judges, dad and grandma, and arrant bullies at role plays. Your precious kids’ heads banged against the walls on gloomy days and play hours turned to hard labour shifts. What turned to be the source of our strength and strong will today!  Your once moody Roberger and the still angelic Ishaura can narrate more.

And we’ve made it ma. I have my office and a name tag at the door, “Nixon Gargan,” Lorah is working, Roberger is in the University, and Ishaura is sitting her form four exams this year. Haven’t we made it ma?

Eighteenth Anniversary! - September 2, 1998, 1902hrs. 

Just a write up

Stealth silence, quietness … zero noise. At a place of tranquility with no sudden movements or flashing lights. There I find my cool. While you go for punching bags filled with hard sand, bruising your soft skin and hurting your muscles I go to my room and hid in the comfort of my soft and cozy bed. When you are tired and panting after throwing unrewarded blows and punches, I am gaining my cool taking my yoga trained breath … iiinn - out, iiinn - out. Deep, controlled and necessary breath which recycles life in my organism for a healthy living.

I do not understand anger. I do not know what rage is. I am human and I am a master of my feelings. Trees get swayed in fast wind, flowers blossom at the balance of fertility of the pot’s soil and surrounding weather. I am human. I am my dominant and I choose when to turn right or left. I choose to detest you, when to like you and how to quit without ever getting lured to gaze back. 

Is it short memory? Am I a retard with no feelings or am I just stronger than most. When you pulled my hair yesterday I felt pain, physical pain. You know the kind a high school teacher would waste a whole two hours’ lesson explaining; tendons, nerve system and how pain information is relayed to the brain. You felt proud and had to share your win with friends and scams. It was painful then, now it is not. 

Today you brood in your little corner afraid to face the supposed bald headed me. Your yesterday’s win is now your shame and guilt. You claim anger and as you throw your fiddle bones to stock dead sand compacted in a rough bag, here I am taking my cereals at the warmth of my protectorate, cloud nine.

The Hilarious ‘Bakora’

Rarely can pain be described as hilarious. As a child sometimes Angeline, my mother, would whip me on the back, two hard ones which always came as a surprise. You can imagine the reaction; first I go low, take a hard kick to dive forward into dash at top speed. After a few steps I always took a quick look at my tormentor, a look that would inform how far I would run and if I would keep accelerating on or do the zigzag hare-kind of a run which she would not keep up with.

This was painful, terribly painful, but still someone looking from a distance would find it hilarious. By then, I would think of them as mean red necks, irreligious and wished them a fourth cross for a painful crucifixion. Ha! Ha! Ha! Today I saw a senior political figure get caned and it was hilarious. Two quick ones, just like my mothers, on the back! Ha! Ha! Ha! And from Baba’s reaction I can only imagine how painful it must have been.

Autobiographical faith statement

Nixon Gargan Mbajah

+254 726-508-709

My name is Nixon Gargan Mbajah, Kenyan by birth and aged 26. I was baptized and confirmed in Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK), Arch Dioceses. My sponsors for baptism were Mr. and Mrs. Obare.

I believe in Martin Luther’s teachings and in Luther’s Small Catechism. My Christian faith is rooted on salvation by faith and grace alone. I believe that my salvation was made possible 100% by the work of Jesus Christ. I believe that I am saved by God's mercy and forgiveness and not by my works of righteousness to atone for my past or even by a personal action of deciding to follow Jesus. 

I believe that God created the universe and everything in it and that man disobeyed God's will and purposes through sin and in my rebellious and sinful condition I stand helpless and hopeless under God’s judgment.