A Tribal Girl’s Journey through the Seasons of Depression

1. Alcoholic Tings

[My first Sober, if not somber, Christmas]

 

I quit drinking 754 days ago, on the 30th of November, 2013 to be exact. I joined AA 3 months later - It wasn’t a radical decision I made to actually quit drinking, no, rather – I did it because I had no choice due to an emergency under-the-knife operation and having to swallow antibiotics and other drugs for about a month for healing. When the doctor informed me about requiring the procedure about a week before this that November, I looked at him askance, and almost told him to go fuck himself - December without alcohol for an alcoholic?

Dude…

But I restrained myself from insulting him… [I WAS going to be out COLD under him in the very near future…] and told him instead to book the “Theatre” for the 2nd of December instead of the following day, murmuring excuses about I-don’t-know-what, I hobbled out of his clinic and into the nearest bar – nearest to my home that is, for minimum-staggering-distance.

And then the Depression hit.

That’s the thing about Depression and this Tribe of Depressives. You just don’t know when, or how, the Depression is going to take a hold of you. It doesn’t, to steal a line from a fellow Tribes-Girl, ‘..walk up to you looking all dark, tall, handsome and oozing sexy n deliciousness, lean down, nibble my ear, and murmur in a deep throaty tenor, “Hey girl, you’ve got gorgeous tits, can I fuck with you..?”

No. Depression does one of two things. It creeps in slow and slinky like a tide at sea, actually no - it’s more like a giant 7ft tall by 7ft wide garden snail, creeping in and leaving a trail of disgusting mucus behind it, squashing the life out of you, filling your heart and mind and limbs with the cold mucus, slobbering and slathering you in a numb helpless dismay where nothing is right, nothing.

Or, like that day in November, it just comes up to you and hits you on the head with a 100kg sack filled with rotten tomatoes and nasty smelly eggs. And snail slime.

The pain is unbearable. It’s pain in the head, pain in the heart, pain in the limbs. And there’s the weight. Heaviness of the head, heaviness in the heart, heaviness in the limbs. And it doesn’t go easy. Non-tribe people say, ‘…wish it away’. Fuck them… I wish.

So I drank. Alcohol eases the pain, oh yes it does! It makes the heavy numbness leave you and you believe that you CAN-Do-anything including Obama. Most Tribes people of this ‘Depressive Tribe’ are also quiet, shy and retreating, but Drugs & Alcohol give you an awesome sense of bouncing manic confidence, and voila, you’re sooner tap-dancing on tables and you’re the freaking party girl of the night and everyone thinks you’re the gutsy-est person ever. It’s better than Facial Foundation for black-head cover-up, no lie.

A few days later I realized that “this wasn’t going to work” after I had just called my favorite boda-boda-guy*1, and asked him for a home-delivery of a Litre of Whiskey – straight to my 4th Floor Penthouse apartment. In a panic I shot off an email to a gorgeous friend who lived out of Kenya and he promptly informed me he’d come for the entire month of December, to baby-sit me, kind of, after the Operation. I knew he would, where nobody else had even one second to spend on me, so horrid was I, always in and out of depression, moody and unstable, and now this looming procedure to have inner parts of mine removed. But BusomBuddy wanted to spend time in Nairobi as well, so I had a ‘home-nurse’, so to speak..

But before he confirmed, I got worse news. My X who in my mind I called The Devious Devil, [but aren’t they all? X spouses?] … sent me an email demanding that the kids must go over and stay with him for Christmas, brusquely pointing out that he wasn’t about to take NO for an answer. The entire month! 35 – 36 days! And he lives over 1000 kms away, well 917kms to be precise, a 13 hour road trip or an hours flight away, problem being the flight empties bank accounts. I had no heart or energy to argue and my blue funk sank even lower, Depression dug his talons into my spirit and soul ever harder. In retaliation I sent off a quick retort that X should ‘take-them-then’ before the Sunday when I was due to check-in to the hospital. “I’d rather they were away than here when I get home,” I lied, so upset was I. Yes, Tribes people have a habit of shooting themselves in the foot. Always. Depression lies and tells you that you’re good for nothing, that you’re stupid, daft and dense [a contradiction, as Tribe members are highly out-of-this-world-intelligent beings], Depression whispers and convinces us that we’re use-less, bad at everything we touch – the negative Midas touch belongs to us, we’re failures, ugly, a nuisance, too fat or too thin, never perfect at anything, lousy at work, lousy spouses, lousy parents, lousy to parents, disrespectful, not thankful enough and just plain rotten. Circles of depressive thoughts that run through our minds over and over again in horrid leery cycles.

And yet at the bottom of my broken bleeding heart, all I really wanted was my family around me as I recovered, but admitting that meant I was weak-minded and needy, sentiments I detested and loathed with my whole being, so I practically shoooed my kids off, dropping them off at the Silver Springs Hotel Impala Shuttle Stage on a freezing cold forlorn morning, so they could overland to KIA and take the 540flight to Dar-es-Salaam from there, asking them to check if they had their passports once, then twice, then thrice, fretting and making a motherly nuisance over them, then went back to the apartment I called home; and I remember wailing and crying like a baby in the lowest of depths, wandering around the emptiness and echo-ness and hollowness of teenage-less rooms and praying and asking God to not wake me up from the Operating table, so hurt was my heart.

Well I’m here aren’t I, He didn’t answer that one.

I’d drank like a loony that whole week before the operation, stopping only 2 days before, and knowing it was a ‘semi-stop’ or ‘pause’ for at least 30 days, but also knowing that maybe, if I hit 30 days, I could maybe do 31, then 32. But at the pit of my stomach was the unbearable question lurking like a dark specter in the shadows, how would I manage the PAIN? The Depression? A few months prior to this, at the end of October, I had just completed in it’s entirety a 3 month course on Life Counseling. I was equipped, I had been told, to handle the whole wide world, sober and fresh. And here I was, less than a month after graduation - thrown into this deep end of whole-wide-world, sober.

My Bosom Buddy answered my email when I was already back home after the Op, to say that he would arrive a few days before Christmas, but I was alright, drugged from my brain to my toes in pain medication and nicotine, watching Series day and night, curtains shut, on meals that were boiled and tasteless – post Op foods. Yuk. But so high was I that I got 2 fully SHADED tattoos done in the same afternoon as well as the horrid act of chopping off my 5 year old-gorgeous blond dreadlocks. Just before he arrived, Bosom Buddy reminded me that he couldn’t stand the smell of cigarettes and that in order to be considerate to him, for him to stay with me, I would have to stop smoking.

Fuck.

Desperation.

Well, I could stop for 2 weeks, yes? No? [bobs head Indian style].... the extent of things people of this Tribe do…. so for 3 weeks, I had no smokes, no alcohol. But I was still on those prescription painkillers, and let me tell you, those things give you a high that’s most definitely not legal. Still, somehow, that’s how I spent my first Christmas ever, SOBER. I won’t lie and tell you it was all rosy and gorgeous because it wasn’t. I was half out of my mind most of the time in a stupid depression that I covered with laughter and silliness. And that thing of being without the kids during Christmas? It was painful and heart-wrenching and I cried every single time I took a shower – showers disguise the sound of the soft wails and hiccups, and tears can flow and mingle with the stinging hot shower jets of water, when you can’t quite tell if it’s the shower water or tears on your face, and you can let rip, bang the shower walls with your clenched fists or slap the walls with the palm of your hand and sit in a forlorn wet puddle on the shower floor, naked, wet and dark inside.

They tell you that Alcohol is all about triggers, and avoiding triggers, and knowing your triggers. That’s all true. What I didn’t know was that my trigger was Depression, simple. I am a total Tribes-person. So every time I felt Depression knocking, I’d go running and looking for a happy cure – a good long sweet alcoholic drink, the higher the proof the better - it would numb the pain and horror of Depression. Fortunately, I’d been warned off Fucks – not giving, or receiving Fucks. Now that was one weird convo, but it’s a story and part of Chapter 2, also known as “I’m Leaving, On A Jet Plane, Don’t know When I’ll Be Back Again”- title copied from the song of the same by Peter, Paul and Mary in the year, 1967. Nice Song.

Yap, so since I’d been warned off fucks, I didn’t go down that path, but many do. As a Tribe, we’re prone to get low. Lower than normal people. And a quick solution is – a fuck. If it’s a good one and permanent, excellent. But sadly, due to Tribal temperaments, they are mostly non-permanent, kind of like a flying fuck, always drifting and gliding away silently; try and get that. We’re not like normal people period. So, we get low and we get lower than normal people. And when we go lower than our normal low, we usually panic and look for a pick-me-up. So let’s say normal people go low at -1. Tribes-people and Alcoholics can go as low as -10. Then they look for a drink. Or a high. Or a fuck. Whatever, who gives a fuck… and they’re up there in Cloud9 with everyone else for a time. But then, the high wears off, and where do they land?

Yap. -10.

Everyone else lands on -1.

That’s a huge problem. And you can’t tell by just looking who is Tribe or who is an Alcoholic always, which is why the happiest people commit suicide and you wonder how you couldn’t tell. Well, we can, sometimes, but sometimes we’re also so stuck in level -8 we can’t even help ourselves. Sometimes it’s easier to stay drunk. Sober is hard. Really hard. It’s the strongest that survive, because you get to take a long hard look at yourself and ask those nasty truthful hard-as-a-teenage-girls-tits questions. And those tits – sorry – questions - were up there in my face come January 2013, after BosomBuddy left for places out of Kenya. I waved him off then went home to ponder over how I felt – SOBER. I remember playing Pinks’ SOBER hit over and over again loudly, dancing by myself in a happy-ish manic glee. And I reminisced and decided on how to glue the pieces of my life back together, and in the process discovered that many were missing. Not only missing, but the question loomed, did I really want them back? And learning about circles and moods and that the trick is to know that Depression will always come calling [it’s a Tribe thing, remember that] and the aim is to make the repeat of time-circles bigger, the low-depths shallower, and the times in depression shorter.

So I went into a nice-ish mood, a good one, playing Naughts + Crosses with my life and coming up winning most of the time. I read many a book and prayed a lot too – to a distant GOD whom I knew loved me though I felt he was far-far away in a Peter Pan World, somewhere beyond the Third star and Jupiter and sometimes throwing Angel dust my way.

What a far cry from my former ‘religious days’ when I was a devout Church leader.

But my psyche had been severely eroded by a DMV relationship and it’s mishandling by probably well meaning but uneducated church members who would say I wasn’t ‘holy’ enough is why I got beat and depressed. Actually, in 20 years, I didn’t meet a single Tribe member. I remember once on a sunny lazy afternoon, with bees buzzing in and out of open windows of her cottage, confessing to a fellow woman church leader, reclining in her home on a deep burnt orange luxurious sofa, sipping sweet cups of Masala Tea and snacking on triangular pieces of crust-less bread slathered with real butter, ‘Honey, I need a psychiatrist or some such person to talk to, I need to look for a ‘detox’ or ‘rehab’, I feel like I’m going mental…..” and she looked at me and laughed for the longest time, while slapping in amusement, her meaty thigh with the flat palm of her hand, a dull thick sound, and gasping, ‘YOU? A REHAB? DEPRESSED? ALCOHOLIC…? NEVER. Go take a looong drive to Naivasha or to the Rift Valley, clear your head.. you’re fine….”, as she wiped the laughter tears off her eyes with her sleeve.

I also remember, once-upon-a-time in my university-hood, when I had locked myself up in my bedroom at my parents home for about a week, depressed, morose and not getting or feeling any better, I looked for and approached my mother [who never had patience for what she called my moods]… but in desperation I asked her please, could I pleeeeease see a psychiatrist or psychoanalyst? And the answer was a resounding NO. “You’re the luckiest girl in the whole world, you’re just plain SPOILT by your father..” and she fastened her lips together in a prim unyielding pucker that reminded me of prunes, and that was the end of the matter. Well I kind of carried that forward like a math equation, right into my church going-Bible-thumping Youth-Leader days when I believed that my moodiness and low-lows could be cured by ‘Positioning the Engine of Smile” in front of my thoughts and plastering said smile on my face. Add a bucketful of shitty violence in a 20 year marriage, and it’s a wonder I didn’t kill myself via alcohol.

So there I was, praying to an unseen god and looking for answers in the books and notes I’d made the previous year while this studying the phenomenon called “Life Counseling” and really sorting my bits out, I mean like …REALLY. I was happy. Content. Serene. Sober. Cigarette Free too! I was giving lectures and standing on podiums in front of hundreds of women proclaiming the goodness of ? that I had stopped drinking, smoking and all fuckery… and looking absolutely amazing to boot!

My son had began to fall in love with me again, I could see it in his eyes, that look that he’d give me when I walked into the apartment to see if I was sober. He’d come up to me, reaching my chin, and hug me, as well as unobtrusively sniffing at me and my clothes to see if I was ‘drunk’… but months passed, and nope, I didn’t touch the dreaded drink and his love grew and wound itself round me like pieces of gossamer thread, very there, but oh, so fragile!

And January and February came and went and there we were, at the end of March, and one cold morning I picked up my vibrating phone without caring to look at the caller.

As Tribes people we know how to avoid certain calls. Either you put a different ring tone, or if not, you look at the screen for a long couple of seconds before you decide to put it back down, face down. Face down stops the incessant ringing tone, thank the gods for that invention!, but yes, we avoid certain people with a merciless manic glee, knowing that if you pick that call, you will pay with hellfire. Well, that cold morning, I was still under-cover-of-blankets in my darling warm bed, feeling all gorgeous and sexy, warm and oh so sweet. So I stretched out lazily, gently pressed the green button on the smart phone screen and said Hello in a sultry tone, eyes still half closed. The voice froze my mind. Instant brain freeze. And I couldn’t hang up, or be quiet, or pretend that I hadn’t heard. Fear galloped through my veins, followed swiftly by a staggering desire for an alcoholic drink to stop the fear, to stand up to the fear, to get courage to stand up to the fear, to stop the numbness, the seeping cold that had somehow kept away from me for so long. This thing about Triggers is that they’re exactly that, Triggers. No warning, it’s like KABAOW! And you’re a stinking putrid diarrhoea mess.

I think I wandered about in the apartment for a bit, worried sick that I would give in to this desperate need for a drink, but I soon gave up and called the same boda-boda guy, who was so shocked at my request for a home-alcohol delivery, he actually hesitated. I heard it clearly in his soft gasp. I also asked him to come with a 12 pack carton of cigarettes. Immediately after that I called a person who I knew was a strong member of AA. And wailed like a baby. Gone was my confidence, gone was my self control, gone was my total understanding, gone was my graceful delightful spiritual self, gone were the days of calm, here was Fear with a big letter F, staring at me with a rock hard unyielding face and I was petrified. How could I face this particular fear – face to face – sober?

Well it turned out I didn’t have to. The AA member dropped everything she was doing and came to set up camp at my home, and she refused to leave. She allowed me the cigarettes, but gave the unopened Litre bottle of Whiskey that I’d been staring at on the kitchen counter top with a quiet frantic desperation - back to the boda-boda guy as a free gift. She sat with me, held me, spoke to me, and told me not to allow myself to be overcome with fear, cooked me food, covered me up in a blanket to stop my fear shakes. And I began to understand that I had to let go of past hurts and not sink in the miry clay pit of depression, or if I did, to know that there was a way out of this concentric circles of endless consuming Depression – and that I could get out of it, and away from the Alcohol. And that I needed to talk to others like me. Like me? I asked my friend who said I needed to go for an AA meeting, disbelief and the neediness and desire of the numbing pleasure of alcohol ruling my tongue for the taste; yes, she replied, like you. And the next morning, early, she called for a Taxi Cab, and took me to my first ever AA meeting where I said, with tears running down my face;

Hello, My name is Nyakio, and I’m an Alcoholic.

The Beginning.

*1 boda-boda-guy – motorbike rider, who can be hired at a fee to deliver home shopping; mostly for fast transport in urban areas, or out of way places where public transport is not accessible.

 

 

 

Nyakio, for the XpenSieve Report© December 2015

 

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.]

Let's TALK About SEX........ Again.

Let’s talk about sex baby, let’s talk about you, and me…

But we stopped talking about sex a long time ago…

It is a dirty subject and like with all matters dirty, we tend to sweep them under a beautiful carpet and leave them down there, hidden and unseen - but whenever we shift, or step too hard on the carpet, the dirty rotten stuff under said carpet is begins to ooze out and stink the air.

FACT: There's a culture in Kenya that advocates for a strange and nasty silence about all matters sex or sexual.

As a growing girl, if I had ANY questions they were mostly silenced with a loud SHHHHHHHhhhhhh and a harsh reminder that , ' …….. good girls don't talk about such things……',and I was left feeling unhealthy and wrong, because as a teen with raging hormones, I FELT stuff and I wasn’t taught how to respond to all these feelings, do you give in to the physical feelings, or do you ignore them?  I was left utterly confused.

My vagina and a male penis were both ‘susus’. But, periods were a ‘curse’, so any reference to pain was responded with, ‘….but it’s a curse, you’re an eve, chin up!’   ----à me: *&^%^$£@. God does hate me.

How many girls have you heard crying out loud, ‘ I wish I was a boy!?’

As growing girls, we discussed all these sex matters amongst ourselves but at some point it automatically divided us into two distinct groups – the BAD girls discussed sex and all sexual matters, the GOOD GIRLS didn’t discuss sex AT ALL.

NOTE. If you discussed sex, you were a sinner and not a Christian.

This made no sense to me. At all.  Because how does the discussion of a subject that makes us so uniquely human automatically throw one out of a religious group?

Sigh…

HENCE, I am known as belligerent and a far-right liberal winger who defies rules.

But, whether you choose to agree or not, the following are facts:-

FACT:  We unconsciously believe that any woman who likes sex, or talks about wanting it, is WRONG. If a woman talks about wanting sex, liking the sexual act, or is desirous of sex, or horny, then SHE is automatically ---à loose, a slut, a tease, a whore or 'hoe' [as they call them in the US of A]. She's automatically thrown out of the "Warm Women’s Club" and rejected as a 'nice lady’. Immediately. Pap! Horrors, may a woman say she's horny, and for some strange reason in the eyes of all other woman, she has fallen from the grace of god, is a sinner, has sinful needs, and is an alien. She's also alienated, prayed for, told to look into herself, that she has problems, should see a psychiatrist, laid hands on, a KESHA is held on her behalf if she has money that the church needs; she's told what she needs to eat, what to drink, which vitamins to go on, which foods to stop eating, which exercises to start.... everything apart from what she needs....which is a simple “fucksercize”. Well maybe not so simple. Maybe a long satisfying fuck.

Will she get it?

Most probably not.

A man can be horny and it's alright. A man can say, 'wah, a week is too long without sex..', and he's immediately King of the Heap, with a Fan club and a cheering squad - all expecting him to find a fuck that week if he isn't in a relationship - wait - even IF he's in a relationship. The admired man is a playboy, popular, and known to pop in and out of vaginas, left right and center at least once a week. When this man who is at the King of the Heap gets married, he continues his game doesn't he? And quickly gets furious - highly indignant and murderous when he learns to his shock and despair, that his girls club will not be tolerated by his new WIFE. [the good girl who doesn’t talk about sex]

Guys, have you been told this by your wife: “I will NOT TOLERATE this type of behaviour in my house…”. After which you’re shamed and insulted in front of children.

Or wives, has your husband shamed you for having a higher libido than him?

Let’s talk about sex 2.

FACT: The advice that Kenyan women receive when they admit to being horny is infuriating, irritating and often, deeply hurtful and very harmful.  It leaves her feeling dirty, sick, ill and rejected. When all she felt before was simply horny, now she has a whole other basketful of rejected feelings. THIS MEANS, that every time she feels horny, she will associate horniness with: yes, that’s right: dirtyness, feelings of being sick and ill and rejection.

So she builds up a defence system. Husband touches her, she feels horny and WAH!! KNIVES ARE THROWN!!

‘How dare you touch me? Kwani you think I’m a WHORE?, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? I’m the MOTHER of your CHILDREN!!”

…. I’m leaving that there….

FACT: Boyfriends and husbands are hidden from the horny woman, like she's some banshee who will suddenly attack all boyfriends with an insane manic rabid drive for sex. It's like she's become rabid, slobbering from the mouth and other orifices, hungering for sex from anyone, or anything.

So nasty is society to women, that men, in their pea-brained animal states, rape that particular woman, batter her, beat her, bite her, rip her clothes off, force her legs apart, thrust fingers and hands into her vagina, and rape her, saying, “…..ulisema unataka”.

Excuse me?

I weep.

And worse, WOMEN who look at the abused woman and also say, 'well, she deserved it, she brought it on to herself’.

At which point do we cover this woman with a blanket?

Cover her up and hug her and tell her it's NOT OKAY, that she has been violated and that's a horrid thing.

At which point will we be letting girls talk to us mothers frankly and openly, letting girls tell us how they FEEL in their bodies, without stepping back in horror? Like really, seriously, if you're reading this as a woman, tell me, in 2015, is it really WRONG, can you tell a 16 year old girl that it's a SIN to feel horny? To need a release from hormones that GOD put IN US in the first place? We're all beautifully and wonderfully made, we're not accidents [and the Bible tells me so] so at which point do you have permission to tell any woman that what she is feeling is WRONG?

2. How to isolate FEELING from DEED. Feeling horny does not equate giving in to the FEELING. Can we have discussions where it’s OKAY to feel ANNYOYED OR HUNGRY OR HORNY and to learn what to DO so we don’t feel ANNOYED, or HUNGRY or HORNY to the point of madness?

3. Kenyan women, in not telling their daughters what to expect about SEX, make a nasty mistake. Because the whole continent is way ahead of us, and girls in AFRICA, in UG, in Tz, in Ethopia, in Sudan, Masaai’s, damn, everywhere, are taught by their mothers how to please their husbands in the bed, sexually. But Kenyan girls?

hahahahahahaha.....

…They lag so far behind in this arena that it's beyond annoying, it's just dumb. We spend a lot of time with our spouses, more years with them having sex than not, yet it's one topic we don't pass in, and YES it's a huge cause of :-

RAPE.

Yes. Because Men are sexually stressed, and they're not taught about women, and women are sexually stressed and they're not taught about themselves, and...

we need to begin somewhere, it's getting worse.

LADIES: LET us begin to talk about sex openly, to our mothers, aunties, grandmothers, sisters, girlfriends and DAUGHTERS - ask questions as girls, youth, as young married women, talk about sex and sexual matters because sex matters.

GUYS: Begin to talk about sex openly, ask questions, to fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, dude friends and SONS -  ask as YOUTH, as young married men, talk about sex and sexual matters, because sex matters.

If we don’t we shall become a sick nation that re acts with anger and aggression to our unspoken unhealthy sexual needs. Men rape, and females have NO WHERE to DISCUSS their fears, because there shall be and thee is currently on one to talk to.

Do you know that if you want to talk about anything sexual or sex, you’re provided with a COUNSELOR OR PSYCHIATRIST. Now, what does that imply? Really? tsk

“Oh dear, you want to ask a question about sex, no…. don’t ask your mom, go and see this lady counsellor…, or if you have sex needs, can I advice you to see this pastor so and so…?”

Sex Talk is problematic.

It’s a problem

Sex is a problem?

Does it not mean that if you want to discuss sexuality and sexual matters or learn about sex you must be perverse or something is wrong with you? Is something wrong with you because you’re reading this article? You have a sick mind? Oh, the author does?

We have become a judgemental perverse society that thinks all things sensual are evil, rotten, and NEVER to be spoken about or outside where it happens.

THIS background is what the male abuser and rapist relies upon, uses it and damages young girls with it, because, since girls are not allowed to talk about sex with their mothers, because it's a 'dirty thing', because we cannot, as good girls, talk about 'such dirty things', then it follows that if we do such 'dirty' things, then we belong to the group of 'dirty' people.

FACT: Girls who have been abused CANNOT TALK. They CANNOT. How? For years and years it has been ingrained into their brains that sex=dirty, and anyone who does sex is DIRTY.

I’ll also tell you something else:

FACT: Men who rape women continuously abuse the victim with talk such as,

“…‘you’re dirty’, it’s your fault, you deserve this, who do you think you are, I’ll fuck you because you’re dirty rotten thing, why are you bleeding, you’re a shit, you’re a whore, you cunt, you dirty little fuck, why did you wear that dress, why did you smile at that boy you whore, I hope this hurts you, you deserve this, who do you think you are, you’re nothing…., this is our secret, don’t tell anyone, they will hate you, don’t tell anyone, I love you, you will feel good, it’s sweet but don’t tell anyone, they will be annoyed with YOU, it’s wrong”

Please, re read that in your mother tongue. Please. I’m writing it in English, but, the above WORDS have NEVER been spoken, ever, in English, in KENYA. So, read the above and say it out-loud in your NATIVE TONGUE or SHENG.

… and you expect the ABUSED girl to REPEAT THIS?? In a LAW COURT?

What the fuck?

Don’t.

FACT: The CRIME of Rape is a vicious act of hatred.

The girl should NEVER be told to defend herself. Ever.

How do we expect a young girl to get 'courage' from some vacuum, and begin to simply 'talk' about it?

THIS is the reason why over 60% of girls who are sexuallyabused by an alcoholic adult run away from home and become drug addicts.

FACT: Women judge other women as well.

There are cases where when girls grow up all lovely and sexy – at about 13, 14, 15 – 17, girls are budding, gorgeous and downright ripe.

And there's a nasty crop of judgmental women who do NOT protect their daughters, right here, in Kenya. They sit and watch their daughters through slit eyes and brains full of jealous gasses. They give no good advice, instead, they curse: instead of ‘honey, dress with something that will cover your thighs but show off your legs, they drop negative language like; ‘you’ll get raped in that’.  When these words become truth, they sneer with statements like, ‘I told you so’, and offer no comfort. Stop it. Stop cursing a younger generation of beautiful Kenyan girls. Please.

And if these girls do get abused by their own fathers or teachers or neighbours or relative, the women protect THEIR ABUSER SPOUSE.  Case at present: the woman in majengo who is looking for a LAWYER for her husband to get out of jail for raping the daughter for 2 years. And said daughter is STILL living with the mother. I hate to think what she’s going through. I don’t know her, but someWOMAN does, someWOMAN is a neighbour, someWOMAN is a sister, SOMEWOMAN knows THIS FAMILY, WHAT are we as women in Kenya Raising??

Let me tell you all something, the moment a husband has sex, inserts his dick, touches your DAUGHTER SEXUALLY, THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT IS BROKEN and all that’s left, ALL THAT IS LEFT,  is the BLOOD BOND BETWEEN YOU ANDYOUR DAUGHTER.

HER HYMEN has been broken Mom. But you shed blood during her birth, honour that. Cover your daughter with that. She came first, through YOUR CERVIX.

Can we as a society adhere to this TRUTH?

FACT: The reason women protect their husbands is because we do not, as women, empower each other. IF YOUR PARTNER touches your SON OR DAUGHTER SEXUALLY, that CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU and spouse is broken IMMEDIATELY, and that is why it hurts a woman when a man abuses her daughter.

FACT: But, we are told BY neighbour, state and religious institution to forgive and forget.

By the way, in Kenya we need to open Paedophile files: It’s good to know our neighbours. And husbands-to-be.

There are cases where when women report sexual abuse cases to the church, that it’s kept in the ‘church’. How now? Seriously?

But this SILENCE is what the RAPIST and ABUSER counts on.

He will abuse your daughter, your cousin, your girlfriend, your sister, over and over again and again and again, knowing he will NEVER be NAMED or SHAMED, imprisoned or stopped. He will grow larger, will become hardened, will feel obligated..

Should I laugh?

RAPE is NASTY, horrid and it’s swept under a carpet, never to be discussed and we’re told to ‘deal with it’ somehow…

AND we expect the abused girl to go to a police station and discuss THIS to some sweaty, overweight, smelly COP who will simply nod then tell her to bring a witness?

We need to talk about sex. Again.

If we empower our children, they will know what is wrong, and what is right. Do not alienate your child, your son, your daughter. Do not tell your son that such things are DIRTY. HE WILL grow up thinking his wife is DIRTY for liking sex. He will hate himself for having and liking sex. He will have sex with a chicken, a goat or a cow.

No way…. : You scream?

Lmao. So, those young men out there reported on the news for bestiality, are they not your sons? Sons of Kenya? Born on this soil? Or whose sons are those? Brother mine, those are your sons. You refused to talk to them and they rape animals and girls and women.

DADS: talk about sex to your sons. Talk about your penises, talk about your horniness, talk about what stimulates and what doesn’t. Talk about masturbation and the myths, talk about SEX, the act, the do’s and don’ts. Don’t be mad, talk to your DUDE friends, ask THEM WHAT to discuss with your son, listen to the OLD MEN, what should you reveal, TALK TALK TALK, TALK TO YOUR SONS. If you don’t, SOMEONE WILL. AND that someone will tell YOUR SON stuff that you do not want your son to believe. And YOUR SON might RAPE  your daughter. Or your DAUGHTER’S friend. SO TALK TO YOUR SON. Tell him about EVERYTHING – because again, if you don’t, WHO WILL? Empower your son. DADS, talk to your wives too.

MOMS: yap, talk to your daughters. Talk about your boobs and your vaginas, talk about masturbation, talk about giving birth, buy or download THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant, TALK TALK TALK. Listen too. You have 2 ears, LISTEN to your daughter if she’s scared, or abused by a TEACHER, OR WORKER or NEIGHBOUR. TALK TALK TALK. TALK to other mothers, discuss Sex, talk to OLD WOMEN, give them space and listen to them, they have WISE WORDS.

We need to talk about sex. Again.

Don’t sweep the sex talk under the carpet. It will rot and begin to stink vibaya.

Nyakio J. Munyinyi for the XpenSieve Report© 2015

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Headline banner design by NJMunyinyi.]

Put On Your Automatic Crap Detector.

How often have you wished that you could have predicted an outcome in life, 'specially when you end up in some undesirable foul-smelling muddied pools of sewage?  Well, I got news for you! Many of the pools, ponds and waters that you find yourself in could have been avoided, yap, they could have been forecast, just as we do with the weather.

I've told my kids over and over again ..., "if you spill milk, or a drink with milk content in it, wipe it immediately because - if not wiped, in time, it will 1. stain, 2.stink. Full stop. So if you don't want a stinking stain, wipe the milk spill clean." Oh and I also add the popular lesson, 'Don't cry over spilt milk...'

Now:
What I've observed is that many-many of you, yes YOU who are reading this, hahahahahaha- you'll  have an inbuilt tendency to ignore what's in-front of you and argue about trivia.... Aiyeee -  It's irritating that we Kenyans don't get it, we don't get stuff and are soooo obstinate - despite and inspite of being educated, and worse of all; that everyone wants to throw in their two stupid CENTS.....
wait . . . just wait, note, 2 cents worth, not 2 thousand shilling worth of anything, so B T W, why should I listen to you? If you have a million dollar idea, I will listen to it, but 2 CENTS? SMH... >> okay back to discussion - so, worse of all; everyone wants to throw in their two stupid CENTS into a discussion that was NEVER a debate point. It causes havoc everywhere ---> at home, in the work space, in public and most of all, in the political arena. The down side, apart from the annoyance, is that it's so easy to get played.

All I need to do is to get you to spill some milk, tell you to wipe it, then walk away...

*  laughs hysterically *

... and leave you arguing about the W W W W AND H of said spill, which, meanwhile, will stink to high heaven after a few hours. In the meantime, while you argue, I can now go on and do my thing and achieve my objective without interruption . This is how politicians are playing us, and it's laughable because it's working >>> Engineer a problem here, and doctor another problem over there, and while we wanainchi fight over the deets about that spilt milk which begins to raise a stink to high heaven, as we scramble to wipe the old milk to get rid of the stink, as 'committees' are appointed, teams set up to probe, prod and investigate the w w w w and h's of said spilt milks - they [Politicians, bullies, your enemies] - whatever -  move on to more dastardly deeds.

Example 2. You're on the way to meet up with friends and you come across some dog poo, what do you do? Step in to it or walk around it?

Don't be the person who sits down and begins to discuss the deeply annoying facts about how the owner of the dog shudda done this or that, or the colour of said poo, texture and what the damn dog had for it's last meal. And neva eva take that [crap] into your meet with your friends - don't be the party pooper... and if you do, expect a mess. Because, this is what you do constantly, and when everyone disappears because you're carrying shit, smelling shit and talking shit, you complain that life is unfair and that you've been abandoned by both friend and foe. Heck.... aiyee.... if you were my friend and you came in with some smelly poo that doesn't even belong to you, I would take off!!!

Put on your automatic crap detector and use it. It's inbuilt, really... for example:-

You can tell an idiot from far, so what does your ACD say? It says, AVOID Idiot. Do so. Don't argue with your ACD, ask it why it thinks that's an idiot, discuss what level of idiocy the idiot is, how the idiot got to be idiotic, why the idiot deals  idiocy or if it's REALLY true that the idiot is actually an idiot.

Dude, just skip that shit and pass the idiot by.

Don't elect it (political), marry it, befriend it, sleep with it or go in to business with idiot. Like really?

Because when shit hits the fan, you're the one who will have it wet and smeared on your face... and that's another story.

So, for now, put on your automatic crap detector.

We can all smell shit from far, heck, most locals don't need a ladies or gents sign, if you're new at the local and want to use the Loo - most verbal directions are like, 'to the left, then follow your nose....!'  Disgusting, yes, but it means your 'crap detector' aka 'nose' is working.

The internal Automatic Crap Detector for people, places and things is similar.

Get to know what crap people DO <---- Not an 'English' sentence, but, it makes sense. People Crap on themselves. Learn to smell the 50 different shades of crap and avoid them all.

There are common denominators in the males: The bully and the bastard and the idiot. With 'She's' - there's the bully, the bitch and the blond-minded. AVOID ALL. And yes, if she bleaches her hair blond, she becomes a blond, so avoid that blond attitude. You got eyes, you got sense, you got smell and touch. Hello?

Don't argue, debate, re-think, give away your time, give a fuck or even your 2 cents to some Cause, Person or Ideology that will cause a stink in a very near future - don't buy into it, or own it in any way.

And that, dear friends, is how to avoid massive crap pits.

Nyakio J. Munyinyi for the XpenSieve Report© 2015

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Headline banner design by NJMunyinyi.]

A Different Kind Of Story Time

I gave my daughter a book to read about women and story-times, and she came back the next morning with tears on her face. She'd stayed up all night - reading. She was wretched, wringing her hands and scolding me, "MOM, you have to tell me your story, please, MOM. Tell me your story until it's in my memory, until it's a part of me, Mom, please..."

 - and I was stunned.

Don't I have keepsakes - scattered throughout the house, and videos, and photo albums, old antique stuff and ... more stuff? She knows those stories...

Am I not a modern mom, with every moment of her life snapped and saved on Instagram, Facebook, and Google Drive?

"No!" she wept,"I want YOU to tell me YOUR stories over and over again, until they're embedded in MY MEMORY as if it's MY story..."

... and slowly, like a savannah sunrise - silent, crisp and clear, breaking dawn approaching far out on the horizon, my mind began to paint colours on the blank canvas of my mind, and I began to envision what my daughter yearned for as she wrung her hands with big fat heavy tears slowly streaming down her face.

She yearns to KNOW, to feel my sun on her face, walk the same dusty roads I trod, barefoot, as a child, reach the same exhilarating heights as I climbed forbidden gnarled Flame Trees during the hot tropical dry seasons, to feel the frigid cold of crystal clear pools, hidden at  the bottom of waterfalls, canopied by vines and creepers, feel the wet rocks under her bare feet, slick and slimy green with moss.
I found out to my utter dismay that I've cheated on my children.

I've collected photographs over the years, snapping away exuberantly on my camera, switching from preserving memories of their childhood from ancient film&negatives and albums to clicking away and storing files on GoogleDrive or iCloud.

I've cut snippets of my childrens baby hair and taped them to books, painted my babies palms with brown brown lipstick and made tiny little- hand prints, saved their kindergarten scribbles - in labelled files, and collected all their feathers,stones, pieces of wood and shells in different labelled shoe boxes... the list goes on... my mother didn't keep her wedding dress for me, and I burnt mine in an abrupt fit of anger when that marriage failed.. but why was I keeping it? Duh, as a keepsake, as a part of history for my sons and daughters.

I was chatting a male friend and he said he hardly has 'stuff'' and was vehement about his belief in his lack of materialism, but my argument wasn't about buying material THINGS for the sake of it, or turning the terrible habit of hording in to a fine art, but rather, keeping collectables for memories sake....

"That's cheating",  he said, "my Memories are in my head..!"

Long ago, memories were handed down in the form of stories.I remember us kids gathering around my bald great grandfather on the earthen floor of his mud hut, me scrunching my nose at the spicy earthy scent that permeated the hut, him sitting on a three legged stool arranging the heavy shawls over one skimpy shoulder, his cane on the floor at his feet, majestic in beauty, earrings galore dangling from his cut,styled and drooping earlobes - we'd ask him if we could 'feel' those beautiful stretched lobes and with our tiny hands we would sit on his lap exploring every inch of his face, poking gently and asking him if it 'hurt', and he'd laugh softly and talk in a sing song accent, sweeter than that of my parents, saying No, it didn't hurt.
In the dark of his hut as the sun set and the earth outside cooled, as we came in from playing outside, he would enthrall us with tales of his youth, of lion hunting and crocodile infested river crossings, until one day, when he was telling the stories I'd know them by heart, I would be the one walking through the tall savannah grasses with other youth, stopping dead in our tracks in silence when we first smelt then felt the change in the air, in the crickets and birds, at the approach of the total predator, the King of Beasts..

I have, I realized, robbed my own children.

I have not sat them down and told them the stories.

They haven't sat, rapt with attention, listening as I told them about my stories, my mothers stories, my fathers and grandfathers stories...

The outcome is a total breakdown, of stories getting lost, and our youth screaming out in the outrage of being robbed.
Instead of giving our children our stories, we read to them about the white's stories and fables, stories of Cinderella waiting for her Prince Charming, and Snow White living with Seven Little Men, and ..
our culture was lost.

I've made an appointment with my daughter, I will sit her down and tell her one simple short story. Then I will tell her another one another day. In the time it takes to go from point A to point B, I will stop being a TwitFace and instead tell my daughter a simple story,  a simple single Memory of myself and my mother, her mother's mother, until, one day, she will weave and interlock all the stories, form her timeline, add her own, then repeat the stories, as her own.

At which point, she will be complete.

I know this may be a hard task to do, but tell your stories. Your very own. Tell the truth as best as you can without embellishment or exaggeration. Tell of the good, and the bad.
Tell of how poor you were, how you would lie awake at night, terrified of rats blowing your toes before they bit. Or tell of carrying buckets twice your size as a child to a flat on the fourth floor during the dry season. Or of crossing the road between South B and South C and encountering Lions...
Tell your story.
Tell your story, instead of picking a bed time story about Hansel and Gretel, just talk. It doesn't matter how old your children are. Just talk... Until the day they tell the story as if it was they themselves who walked that way, bare feet creating a path in an age old forest filled with black-barked indigenous trees, somewhere in Africa...

Nyakio J. Munyinyi for the XpenSieve Report© 2015

[Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to xPenSieve© with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Headline banner design by NJMunyinyi.]