The Archetype of Misfits

When I am not writing, I am reading. I look for personal blogs and take peeks into the souls of the writers. Believe you me (my high school math teacher was addicted to this phrase) words reflect souls. You’ll read about Magunga’s visit to the massage parlour and in the end you’ll be like, “Filthy, filthy man! God help him!” On another occasion, say waiting in the Cooperative Bank queue at TRM which is painfully slow, you’ll read about Biko’s view on the askari at the airport queue calling out numbers;

“Sigisti one, sigisti two, sigisti three…” - a true Kisii.

And you forget about the stalling queue. You find the world to be a humorous place. Each read is like stepping out on a different body. And I can tell you some are dark, some desolate, some plain, some scary but the best are the weird. Why? Because normal is boring.

I also hate writing when I am tired because then I write like Njoki Chege – hardly-a-point-in-sight kinda posts. 

You see how after a few Jameson’s a guy will pee in the fridge and wonder why the toilet has so much light coming from it? Well, that echoes my push-back with penning down thoughts with a shifty mind. And memory. It is hard to settle on a single line of thought. Every thought becomes a blurred story line. Like the blurred line between a fridge and a toilet to a drunk mind. That’s when I’d rather read what akina Luseka are writing about fancy hotels and resorts. 

Perhaps I am in love with reading. I’ve been flirting with her far too long that I forget to write regularly. That’s why my ardent reader Siloma will once-over into this blog and find cobwebs dangling over pieces that were authored months ago. I bet he sneers with disbelief before resorting to come poke me from wherever it is I got take my mucene after reading (Normally at Biko’s blog). Sorry Siloma, I have been such a disappointment. 

But I always write. In my dreams, in class, at work, over those nightly rides from town going home, over coffee dates and pizza dates and pretty much anything else I do. Oh and those lazy morning showers. Shower writing sessions are actually the best, second from pooping sessions of course. Under the steamy water, it’s always calm; just the right amount of calm to get ideas flowing with every string of water bouncing off my head. I get to write stories of life. Of how I want to be about something – like author more ‘bangi sio mboga memes’ and maybe plant a tree somewhere in Nkubu in the spirit of keeping global warming down. I also write about how I am going to make this Kuyu neighbor who plays loud Taarab music disappear. Like they do in the movies.

“Mwambiee, awache kujizuzuaaa….para parara rampa” (You have to play this in your head with a Taarab swing)

I think if I hear this line one more time I’ll pass out. 

If you’re my Kuyu neighbor – the one who pretends to be from sijui Migadini by playing loud Taarab please stop. You suck and I PS I have hears your accent and it definitely whispers I-grew-up-in-Gatundu. Anyone can hear that ka- whisper in between you Swahili weng.

Point is, I write much. Only that those pieces remain tucked away in my head. In there, are great grandfathers of stories, stories that are still children and their grand-kids all crammed into one corner. Let me loop you in on how it goes down.

I’ll wake up at 5 am on Saturday morning. Sleep deficient but too hungry to keep going. I’ll take ten minutes to debate whether fixing breakfast at this time is even humanly possible. Then under the influence of persistent hunger I’ll fix a bachelor’s deluxe morning meal – eggs and tea. It will take around 15 minutes to eat – from my bedroom. Then I’ll try to sleep again but because of the sugar rush I’ll simply be staring into a dark space. Inevitably I will create a story, a kick-ass introduction, a moral somewhere in there and plenty of humor and I will promise myself to write it down on a word document. “Wapi!” It all ends at the bed. The bed of untold stories.

That aside, I want to ask, how are you fitting in the rhymes of life? And I am asking because lately I have been feeling like we are in a big dancefloor with DJ Life bringing the house down and that everyone one else practiced the dance moves but me. Why you ask? Well because all I want is to make ‘bangi sio mboga memes’ when everyone outchea is trying too hard to own a Ferrari and make me own one. Okay, perhaps I could use a Ferrari 458 Italia, 597 horsepower, 4.5L V8 engine with a dual-clutch transmission, 14:1 compression ratio, interiors that have an ego and a Formula 1 inspired suspension system, but I also want to make memes because my happiness comes from weird places. Places like seeing a goat given birth in a farm rather than riding a roller-coaster. 

Not that I hate roller-coasters but the on the happiness list there is memes, then running away from wild animals (I know the thrill), then that ka-feeling I get when using a cotton earbud (when the earbud hits your soul its orgasmic), then there’s food (I’m thinking this should go up the list), then the goat birthing on the rough slopes of Kerio Valley and now maybe roller-coasters. 

Reading Donna Tart’s Goldfinch is more exciting for me than spending a night in crowded places with younglings smoking their lungs out and wiggling their behinds into the darkness of night. That’s too tiring for me. I am also a believer in sobriety because I know only broken people need intoxication to have fun. And these things are the opium of the masses. 

But the good thing is that I am not the only one, there are others. Other who do wacky and wild-like things that make them inimitable and different. There’s the hopeless romantics that still believe in love and the fairy tales starring cupid. I have a friend that thinks love is a myth just because one guy shredded her delicate heart into pieces (poor soul!). But then I know more that find their strength in rhyming heartbeats. Men that listen to rhythms and blues all day and cry (that I’ve exaggerated) when she won’t text back, and women that will go down on their knee if that brings him home. I know such people. A tribe that sees your person first before they get enticed by your dollar.

There’s also the terminally weird fellas that have no pleasure in well-cut suits and polished shoes. Men that spend half their lives in the salon plaiting women’s hair – akina Tony Airo. They know all the shampoos – like by name not the “it was written shampoo on it” vibe that guys use when shopping for hair shampoo. And they can name hairstyles other than the infamous matuta. Men that are different. Then the weird women that wear aprons and climb on poles. Electricity poles. Fixing your lights as you rest your feet on that Italian coffee table that Naomi Mutua, a carpenter and plumber, made. And those in chic concodis in mathrees. A while back I came across one manning those rugged Githurai buses. She had a spooky hairstyle, a fanny pack, a faded Calvin Klein jean trousers and an attitude from here to Meru. When she was hanging off the door – both feet in the air – I could see the disapproving looks from men.  Looks screaming, 

“Wewe. Shindwe. Hio ni kazi ya wanaume!”   "Na sasa akianguka?" One guy quipped.

She stood ahead of the pack – a different one.

The outcast school kids that are constantly reminded they you have to be cool (perhaps buy the led-lit shoes) to be let in on the circle. Who wears those anyway? It’s like being a baby all over again on that you’re a baby that has a beard. Only Octoppizo pulls those off without a fuss. Ok, can we can also include all people who one led-lit shoes in the weird list? I feel they are different. Their happiness sure comes from a weirdly baby-ish place. Then there are also those with manic fixations over little pleasures in life. Like my church gang that find happiness in lollipops and jawbreakers. There’s those IT guys that make awkward conversations because their language is better with computers. And those peeps that believe they are star-crossed because they are jobless and money seems too elusive to them. Holding on to ideas and refusing to give in even as vultures circle around awaiting their last shred of hope to fade. 

These are the misfits. The weird ones. But weird changes things. Those crazy fellas that think they can change the world are the ones that do change the world. So here is to all the round pegs in square holes, the outrageously ambitious and those attracted to broken things. To those who curve their own archetypes. 

These are the true archetypes of misfits.

Faces of the City

One of those hella long days that suck the soul out of you. I am leaning on a family bank ATM door somewhere along Tom Mboya Street. No one goes in or out of the ATM for a while and so I don’t have to move. There’s too much activity around. Concodis shouting themselves hoarse, hawkers sprawling everywhere, young exuberant Nairobians trotting home from work or school or wherever they spent their day, beggars making the best of the rush hour traffic. I notice all these, but I also don’t. 

I was waiting for Mathree, two came and went but I never boarded because I loathe pushing and grabbing just to secure a seat – too much work. I also don’t want to queue because Kenyans voted and agreed queues suck bigtime. If you wait long enough the crowd always recedes before it builds up again and that’s how you secure a seat without breaking a sweat.  

I momentarily became oblivious as my mind wandered off to Shangri-La sorta places. Then I slowly fell into the realisation that I was staring at a particular face. It was a young woman in what I’d imagine was her mid-twenties. She was standing to my left, sturdily putting her weight against a power pole behind her. I should have been staring at her for an embarrassing amount of time. I didn’t care though – it was unintentional. I feigned a smile just to brush off the awkwardness. It was another one of those make-up faces. Now, was she offended? Was she amused? Hard to figure out as her face remained emotionless. She didn’t look away; she kept staring back as if she were studying the contours on my face, or communicating a secret NASA message by blinking occasionally, or almost the I-know-you stare, it got uncomfortable. I wanted to look away, or to tell her to stop. I also wanted to touch her face with my fingertips; to see how deep the make-up ran. I wanted to rub her eyebrows off and see if they’d come off. I wanted many things.

Sitting by the window in this loud city bus cruising at ungodly speeds along Thika Super Highway, other than say little silent prayers every time I heard an engine rumble signifying more acceleration, I couldn’t help imagine what I would say to her. Not that I wanted to but what would I actually say if my knee-jerk reaction was to make conversation? Hey, can I touch your face? Nice to meet you and your face? I swear I wasn’t staring at your face? Nice face? Is it actually legal to tell someone nice face? Like nice face buddy? I don’t know but sounds like something a face collector would say! But then my chest stiffened with certainty. I had the answer. I knew I wouldn’t ask anything because I am painfully awful with first impressions. I remember the first time I met someone that made my heart happily skip a beat. The context doesn’t matter but whatever I was doing I reversed and stepped right on her about three well-manicured small toes with my then newly-bought Timberland boots (Oh the swag days!). 

“Sorry”, I said. 

“Ouch, ouch, OUCH!”

“Aki pole”, I said again after realising I was still stepping on her despite saying sorry. 

“Nice sandals”, I added for no apparent reason.

“Kwenda uko!” she looked down, “Aki umenitoa nyama”. She exaggerated it of course.

I didn’t say much afterwards because I would be making it worse.

See bad with first impressions.

I am starting to wonder whether I am still writing about faces of the city. Let’s go back to that.

Now, Dames en heren, this write is because I have seen my fair share of incongruous faces in this town. I beg to ask what did make up do to us?

See that chic I was staring at earlier on? Let’s name her Anastacia. Her make-up was terrible.

I wonder where Anastacia thinks her beauty comes from. Does she find it in the little brushes of the kickass red lipstick she uses? In the Bobby Brown skin foundation tube? In her Kabuki eyebrow drawing kit that she bought from Jumia? Will she feel more beautiful if she buys eyelashes and shaves off her natural ones? I don’t think she used eyeliner though. As to whether that made her less beautiful perhaps I should see her use eyeliner. Are they all important to her? Does she really need them?

Before I get crucified, I know make up is a lady’s armour. Figuratively and well just figuratively. 

*Right about this point I realise it’s hard to write about make up. Where thou art Ivy. I should’ve consulted you*. 

Actually I would have wrapped this article there and mouse-dragged it to the incomplete box but hey man, my mom never raised a defeatist!

Anastacia’s face is the millionth face I might be seeing in Nairobi and for the umpteenth time another disappointing female face. Now here is the deal dudettes and niggarettes, if you are going to wear make-up please do it right. I don’t go out of my way to try and find mistakes in people's faces but if you have shaved your brows and drawn Nike ticks above the eye I will definitely see that and frown at it. If your lipstick doesn’t complement your skin tone the way Ovacado does rice then priss leave the poor colours alone. If your eyelashes are okay just let them be, and why do you need fake lashes? Like why in the world? But what do I know about those anyway, I am a dude. And then this foundation thing, well I don’t know much but please don’t paint yourself into different shades. Pink cheeks on black skin? Nope that more like using sauce on chapati, both are awesome but not a good combination.

That is about the much I know about make up but trust me the faces in this city tell it all. You can almost point out who bought their first kit last month with their first salary.

Maybe is should have said something about dudes that pimp their faces and that are not Larry Madowo or Nick Mutuma who spend half their lives staring into cameras with cameramen staring back. Who bewitched you? The narrative of an African male as far as face make-up goes is at least Arimis and at most Vaseline. 

Anywho, have you ever thought that maybe our sparkle finds its way from greater depths than make-up? That our faces are puppets of the pure and authentic springs that lie within us? I want to think that girls shine not because of the alluring gloss on the lips or polished nails or glittering chains but rather because of virtue and strength of character founded on certainty of identity and generous batches of hope that life hands each one of them. 

So next time you stand before the mirror and make up a face for the world, work on the inside first. Work on the lips but find the smile first. Learn to draw the brows but gain sight of your depths first. See the foundation on the outside would mean more if the inner foundation of the girl is rock solid. And the red lipstick is lustrous much but what beats a warm charming heart of someone who knows their way? Nothing.

I bet if y’all did this and men kept their Arimis thing going, our faces would make more sense. Genuine smiles. Intentional stares. Likeable too. 

Likeable faces in the city.