Kind-a Traffic Updates By Karambu Luruti

Written in a May 2017 Facebook post;edited in June 2020

OTC.
The first time I saw this word I was seated in Pangani Girls High School. Form three, 2005.
I am 28,stop trying to calculate my age.
It was courtesy of one Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, in the book Coming to Birth.
I never struggled with English Literature and Fasihi, got A's in both English and Swahili. But this book, this book by Marjorie, I remember struggling with it, falling half asleep for the first few months it was in my face.

Gentlemen listen to me-Girls! Need! Their! Fathers!

She was the apple of her father's eye,quite spoilt and the dictionary definition of a daddy's girl. This was most evident on days he would drop her and her brother at school,obviously late and would proceed to apologize to the school head right in the middle of assembly.
She always knew she was protected and very loved.He never raised a finger on her.

Threatened miscarriages

They kept talking. It was their second born child. You could tell that they were friends. They brought her tea, she drank water instead. He drank her tea. Her heavy breathing continued,she kept talking in between. I could almost feel her pain, almost felt myself contracting as well.

Well Hello

When I first started writing,my first son was my greatest inspiration.Get it?First started...first son.. No?Never mind.

The sun sets in the West.Death is certain.

Death.

Jeff ni mboys wangu sana

The boy is turning 7 years old this month,September.Watching him evolve into this whole person with a vibrant personality has been indeed a beautiful journey.At the risk of sounding cliche,I have still said it.

The woman who vomited on my shoe

I am seated in a mathree one evening,a few months ago.We have to go through Nairobi downtown to exit the CBD. There's a woman seated next to me,she has what looks like an empty gunia on her laps. I assume she works in one of the downtown market places.She isn't clean.Her nails look like a hard day of work.

How do camels mate?

You sit at the ocean front,the breeze so  breezy,ocean waves colliding.

The sun in his shoes-and other short stories

We were walking to church on Sunday and he was dragging his feet on the ground.

Paradisos do have wings.

I just witnessed the most dumb founding yet  remarkable thing. Si you know Paradisos? I'll take a moment to explain to those who were raised in the leafy suburbs.

No use having a big bum if you cannot use it.

It happened on Friday evening.
It was on my bus ride from the CBD headed home. I get into a bus, guess what, no front seats available.