A RANDOM WALK

Pounding pavements in a bid to be an avid exerciser, I have decided to sometimes work my feet to walk lonely paths where I only encounter vehicular motion. I am a rapid rambler with short majestic steps. My brisk pace makes me look like a speed walker who appears to be floating while pacing. I wish I would have a way of making my walking genes addictive as opposed to getting psyched at the spur of the moment. Well, I am a feckless walker, born without a sense of direction. I hate it though, but at the end of the day not all who wander are lost.

Sometimes I spell my coordinates, but most times, I let my mind piece up the whole jigsaw that is the map of where I want to end up. The best part is that my sense of direction is intact. What I know is that I have a goal; to sweat out the lethargy that characterizes my sedentary lifestyle as a worker who rarely has time for socializing. Walking hence is a respite, a chance to process the problems and struggles I go through in sometimes gloomy days that I hide in my introverted life. The out life has a sanguine feel, I am melancholic.

Truth be told, I am in this carefree time of my life where things have reached a stalemate. I am not pushing harder like I should. There should obviously be things that I should have sealed tight like a can but I have not, ‘yaani, nilikuwa nimekafunga tene’. Who cares, it’s a feeling I have learnt to grow comfortable with. Which should not be the case. To kill these mediocrity thoughts, I meander from the slums to the leafy suburbs like a river winding its way across grassy plains, down rocky waterfalls and occasionally collecting debris that line the watercourse. I love this crisp wintry weather with its sedating air, you can walk as far as your legs can carry you given that you rarely feel drained and parched. The fluffy cumulus clouds shield you from the devastating heat of the menacing sun which hides in its private room.

I started walking way back in campus, at night, to burn off the heavy meal that I rarely took for supper. I just wanted to go off and explore the bowels of our raucous Nairobi City. At such a time, I would not be harassed by hundreds of people who dot the busy streets during the day with nothing particular in their minds. Walking at night when peddlers had spread their wares with generic and cut-rate products probably from China was by and large imbuing. I loved the eeriness of the night as I passed lonely streets, some darkened while others glowing you feel like you are walking in broad daylight. Obviously, dark spots did send a chill down my spine and I felt my typical bravery being pricked. To date nighttime roving remains a facet that springs up occasionally when I go out to sip ale as a mechanism to remain sober.

These days, I walk during the day, I reserve the night for work and sleep. As I did trek on my way to the city’s exurb, I saw this lady who trudged along the pavements in a sedate pace. My mind focused on the gentle footsteps that seemed to echo throughout the desolate street. She had a random gait, and she was in walking gear pounding her feet with experience. Her steps revealed her feet was used to the shoes she was wearing which were gel cushioned to absorb shocks and the reflexive details of the rising terrain. She was probably the kind who does not want to crank her muscles through a rigorous exercise like running. She walked in front of me for a while before I overtook her leaving her dawdling not to be seen again from her sight.

I love the surge of endorphins that feels my body with a feel-good rush each time I walk where I presume I cannot meet someone twice. I have a sharp memory and there are instances where I have noticed individuals especially those with distinct features or clothing in different stretches of where I have been to. Not that meeting a stranger a second time is perilous, but it’s odd and tells a lot about you when you are wandering on the streets looking for something spectacular to write home about. The question that I ask is whether those guys I met also recognize that they saw me roaming the streets. Is it a coincidence that we met twice? This normally prompts me to take the next available action that comes into mind, take the next matatu back to the digs and think about nothing and to format delete the trails of the day and the individuals I met.

While walking, there was this time I was pacing on a grassy side path that was also characterized by intermittent mud after a heavy downpour. I never realized that the treads of my shoes had worn out while feeling like a real nigga walking on the lonely path. While jumping over an insignificant stream that had been eroded at the banks by water, I almost slipped but the impact of the slide fell on my shoes that escaped with mud all over after slightly sinking on the wet banks. I started feeling panicky because crossing to the hilly side almost made me feel like a drowning man clutching on a straw. After the near scary and embarrassing experience, my step picked up speed as did my pounding heart. But that incident had clearly sabotaged my confident gait. If I had fallen how could I explain the soiled clothes in an already dry environment? Luckily, nothing ruined an already good day.

PS: There are free apps online to monitor the amount of brisk walking an individual does and provide tips on how to incorporate more into the daily routine.

Hasta La Vista Baby.

[Picture Source: Google Images]

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AMERICAN ROULETTE

Old habits die hard. They are like a permanent flu that some guys genetically inherited and in some cases, the casket serves as the portent anticlimax to the kooky wont. Clearly, I don’t know the thin line that demarcates that boundary between addiction and a flaky habit. Yet, when a habit gets out of hand, especially the covert ones, like a tot, you need guidance until that point in life when you can walk on your own. 

And gambling is one such habit that never ceases among those who develop it when young because it may regurgitate at any given point in time when you especially thought you are done with it. Well, at the end of the day, life itself is a gamble. The decisions we make and the repercussions, whether good or bad can only be likened to gambling only that we do not need to necessarily lose money when we engage in whatever action that comes into mind.

Take smoking for instance, we have been told a thousand and one times that cancer sticks are just that, cancer sticks. Medical research corroborates the same. In light of the situation, I think being a cancer stick salesperson could have been a very lucrative job, but because stringent policies have come to radically deal a big blow to the sector, the unrivaled sales from the product have plummeted in contrast to those of mainstream ale makers which fall under the same category of sin stocks. Had this not been the case, tobacco farming would have been booming and sin stock investing in the same product spiraling to unprecedented levels because cigarettes have an inelastic demand and are recession-proof. That’s economics one’o’one.

Men, I hate the evocative scent that permeates after smoking cheap to mid-range cigarettes.  The smell sticks like strong incense and it takes days for it to completely fade away which in an anathema. I wonder how partners married to smokers feel given that they must tolerate the stench that emanates from both the clothes and breathe. Yet they must cope with the noxious smell if the partner is an addict and cannot do without a midrange scented cancer stick in a day.

That said, my bedding are still laced with the redolent smell when a smoker who spent the night playing PS3 lay on it for about two hours after getting spent during the day after voting as he could no longer stay astir. The worst thing is that the scent became part and parcel of my blankets. It’s more than a week ever since the bugger slept on my bed and the struggle that I have gone through to sleep on it is not worthy a description. It’s bad, it’s synonymous to sleeping with a tramp or wearing a damp cloth and you have no option. 

Yet the culprit looked unfrazzled as if he was subtly inhaling flower-scented deodorant or he was perhaps suffering from parosmia.  And every day, I thought the inimical smoke odor would die a natural death. Sadly, it kept on decreasing at an increasing rate. That is the reason why I have hanged my blankets outside after the smell escalated, to fix the problem given that they needed the proverbial airing. I hope this will be a lasting solution because the smell was so deep into the fabric I felt like it was chocking.

American roulette. This reminds me of the first time I went to a posh casino to hawk bank products. Never mind that the policy of the institution was strict against gambling and any form of association.

I have been playing American Roulette but at an academic level. That is, Roulette mathematics and the results were awesome until I was expected to find an odd number standard deviation. It was so mind boggling I spent two days researching on what I already knew. When I got it, I felt like running nude in the estate screaming, “Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!” like the legendary Greek mathematician and Physicist Archimedes. Then I realized there was no discovery I had made and I coiled like a millipede that has sensed danger ahead.   

An American Roulette has 38 divisions; 18 of the numbers are red, 18 are black and two are green. As a player, the main objective, which any player pursuits, is to predict, which numbered pocket the roulette ball is going to settle into. A ‘sure bet’ in roulette is tantamount to picking one of the main colors, either black or red. You either win or lose an equal amount of money when you have placed such a bet. And the expected value irrespective of the type of the bet you place is a constant -0.0526 for every dollar. The expected value is the weighted average of how much you can win or lose.

Consequently, I inadvertently bumped into a research that was carried out in the US on the correlation between gambling and smoking and there is no evidence to authenticate the fact that most gamblers are smokers. The scenario depicts an almost equal number in comparison to the general population with a slighter margin on gamblers who smoke. The casino I went to did not have so many smokers. In fact, the Indian guy we sat next to who had gone to gamble was taking tea. And it goes without doubt that majority of gamblers in in Kenya are Indians (me opine). Why? You need money and to be living beyond the mere tenets of being able to pay bills. You also need to have a fall back plan which is to come from a well-to-do family or having a reliable cash cow that you can milk to sustain the addictive behaviour that is gambling.

Is there a correlation between gambling and smoking? I strongly believe there is. While the research I was relying on for analysis was carried out ages ago, probably more than a decade, the reality is that so much has changed post that period. I cannot fail to factor in the fact that awareness levels among the public has increased. More people have gone to school and the media has played a vital role in spreading the message far and wide.

****

A former primary school pal who I met while training to be a clerk is now a weed addict and he smokes sticks with abandon. Apparently, we were also in the same campus but doing different courses having different tastes and preferences and during different time periods. He intimated how a couple of times he forfeited using public transport just to use the bucks to sustain his thirst to get stoned. I wish I saw him walking, making his way into Kibera to finally be in Langata were he resides. I told him he was hooked on substance but like the perennial addict he denied the allegation though seceding when I pressed further. What he confessed was he will never move to the ghetto because, “Unawezaenda hio mtaa ukute uko na mamorio wenye wanakugeuka ukitoka nao rave juu wanasaka na hivyo ndio wanakuruka vitu zikienda mbaya.”

Then we started reminiscing the good old days. The times we were considered bookworms and chops, now we were both together hustling as clerks. What an embarrassment it would be having worked hard in both primary and secondary school only to find yourself jobless looking for whatever they might throw to you to make money. Damn, it can never be that serious, right? He is yet to finish school and reminds me of an uncle who dropped out of campus to be a watchman because as he intimated, he did the course he did to please his peeps. He never did what he liked and that was the reason why he never felt like completing what he started.

So, at the end of the day life is like a roulette, you spin the wheel hoping that things will go in a certain way only for them to give you the complement of what you had staked on in terms of probability. Even clairvoyants and psychics predict the natural course of life and fail miserably. That is well depicted when the Financial Times noted that, “The clairvoyant society of London will not meet Tuesday because of unforeseen circumstances.”

Hasta La Vista Baby.

[Picture Source: Google Images].

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SOMETIMES AUGUST SUCKS

About two decades ago when I was still a toddler, there were a certain breed of white birds that flew a in  flock forming a triangular pattern just high enough in the sky. I don’t know their botanical or plebeian names though, and rarely notice them these day. Well, there was something special about them. As tots, they assured us of felicity. Whereas the bliss would come late, you also got an instantaneous reward from them.  The immediate reward was in form of your finger nails getting white spots which was a sign of glad tidings if you followed them with your fingers pointing towards the  sky. Never mind that as children we were quite oblivious and the next time we spotted the birds, we would go amok following the birds requesting them to polish our nails with white spots so that they could look beautiful. 

As time passed by, I soon realized that I could cheat my way in getting white spots on my nails by using a sharp razor blade to create light cuts on my nails. This, I did carefully by ensuring I created tiny dots speckled across the nail that would look like the ones these birds would give us upon following them. Little did I know that it is a medical condition called Leukonychia, which is totally harmless and probably some of my childhood buddies were suffering from it

Later, I realized that there were people who essentially had them which was kind of strange because as opposed to them I had to hustle in order to get the dazzling white amorphous dots on my nails. Little did I know they came naturally. I think there were those kids who had them genetically and therefore used the opportunity to taunt those of us who hadn’t into believing the birds would give us small, bright white dots on the nails. It was a fuss having them I tell you.

What is fascinating is that there was a time I truly admired those whose parents had bought VCR machines and would walk around the estate with videotapes much to my chagrin because my old man took a while to buy it. I wished he could buy the damn gadget once and for all and put me out of the misery I was going through each time I saw neighbours carrying tapes to go exchange after watching. Nowadays, a movie is just a click away (vindu vichenjanga). As a matter of fact, I did suffer in silence until lady lack smiled on us and my dad bought a coloured tv screen, which he travelled all the way to Nairobi to get since we resided in Eldoret. And it came with the coveted JVC VCR. Now we had the opportunity of flossing just like our neighbours.

Years later, my old man thought that buying a satellite would ease our troubles and he bought one big white satellite that would reduce the hustle of watching a blurry TV with ‘mchele’ on the screen. Unluckily, it was not strategically mounted and a couple of times, it got dislodged which means we would go back to square one because it also required a technician to properly mount it on the direction of the TV waves frequency. The downside of this satellite was the fact that it only displayed clear Bollywood and Chinese channels that were less captivating for a dude on the verge of being a teenager.

Looking back, I feel nostalgic about those good old days. When I would see a hawk in the sky and I would expend the little vit I had trying to step on its shadow because it came with a reward of walking the next few steps and as assurance of getting a KSh. 500 note which was not a petty figure for a kid of my ilk. Thus, when a certain guy who now wastes away in the hood told me that he was handling more than KSh. 20000 in the nineties as a teenager monthly in an international school where the fee now is over a milli and keeping even more for his prodigal classmates, I felt like we were really of humble upbringing.

Alluding to matters monetary, I am still in a bind. I have even lost hope in a financial sense. But that does not mean am out. It’s only that I have taken time to make an impact on myself and am feeling like yes, time is coming when I will be counted as one among equals. Surprisingly, this time is a healer façade has taken too long and I feel kind of purposeless. Who else goes through this times in life and feels he can take the next challenge that comes along the way without bouts of self-doubt.

Which makes me soliloquy asking myself, “ Is it that I am making wrong decisions? How sure am I that am still placing doubtful bets that may fail to reward me with anything other than being frustrated and hoping if wishes were horses I ride on? Or is it that I am going through a process of sensational awareness? Could this be the result of sitting quietly indoors most of the time. Do the decisions I make augur well with that which I should be steadily focusing on? Or are these thoughts corroborating the fact that August sucks sometimes.”

            

To cut the terse monologue short……

I got a temporary job as an election clerk and realized that we have so many people who are unemployed and just like me, they are actively looking for a legit job. Yes, they want a place where they can  get a reliable source of income. They want to experience the liberty that comes with being financially independent which is the best kind of independence that one can achieve.

Unfortunately, I never got to do the job even though I went for the training. Admittedly, I chickened out before verifying where I was posted to because hurried placement of clerks was done at night. That means there was a lot of scramming at night to see where you are posted to work for among those who were eager to have probably found a lifeline in the stipend. The disorganization that our seniors subjected us was more than enough, I resigned and went to sleep on the eve of elections feeling wasted.

Prior to that, I thought that I had qualified for a bigger and better job when I was called to be part of the process after applying for some jobs I had merited in terms of experience and education. I was eventually called to be a clerk which I never applied for. I deliberated on the idea but eventually went because I normally work at night and saw this as another source of income because my current policy is money first.

Sadly, there is this breed of Kenyans who think that when you are given a job, you are more privileged than those who were never shortlisted for the job. You’ll hear them say, “You know you are the few among the many who qualified for this job but got it. So, don’t take this job for granted”. Kwani it’s a favour when in actual case you will go back to your status quo. Bullshit.

But ultimately the major reason for not participating in the job was because I remember the prior experience that I had as a clerk. It is a hectic job and though the pay was somehow good for a jobless bugger or a bloke on peanuts, it was wearisome. You work like a carousel and although you love it as a guy in his early twenties, the impact that is after the exercise makes you feel really wasted.

I remember feeling like going to the toilet and kind of being pressed and hoping that the voters would not turn their heat on me, I hurriedly went and peed on an alley between the wooden-walled classroom and the live fence that demarcated the compound. Unlucky for me, in the process of peeing, I also slightly soiled my clothes.  You see, you can be so pressed and jittery that in the process of peeing, you find that the dual sphincters of the anus have relaxed and refused to hold given that we were also on zero diet and it had interfered with my digestive process. So, some little watery stools gain way out of your anus and you end up smelling like a skunk the entire voting exercise. Luckily, you sit next to the window, open it wide to reduce the strong putrid smell that your mates notice but don’t know who is effusing it. Hence, they talked about it in hushed tones.

Another reason why I forfeited work was because I felt did not need the money as much as I needed to vote. It was either going to be the first or second time am voting in a process. Consequently, I wanted to feel the thrill of voting like a newbie. While most people normally feel optimistic. I realized I felt nothing at all. Even though this was my first time voting to change the leadership of the country. But politics has its consequences and being politically engaged has dire consequences to all and sundry.

Albeit some people are feeling victorious, there is a certain lot like yours truly who feel like something is amiss each time we go to elect new leaders. What was a tightly contested race has turned into a one man show which is laughable given that opinion polls had projected something different. As for me, I am a firm believer that you need to get your act right when you are going for any process. And it all boils down to preparation for the herculean task verily. You need to prepare well and be thorough in reducing grey areas failure of which it will backfire on you and you will feel what we all feel when we don’t get that which we want. The resentment is real among some people. I remember a guy saying that an assassin should have been hired to deal with a candidate he hated to calm the high tempers sometimes back. Would it have pacified the already tensed aura or spiked deeper animosity? Well, it would have even been more divisive and lethally  volatile.

To someone like me, politics does not matter a lot. But again, voting is imperative. There is a certain anxiety that normally surrounds the nation after a peaceful voting process and it has to do with the transmission of the presidential results which leaves us divided along our ethnic lines. We are all determined to make our voice heard and that is captured by the mark we place on a ballot. When you think of who you have voted for, you think of the revolutionary dreams and the hard-headed pragmatism you engaged in. You tell yourself, “I don’t want to regret, I want to vote to make things better. There is this surge of hope of a better tomorrow if I vote. Voting hence makes me feel optimistic.”

Normally when we vote, nothing changes in our lives. In some cases, it plummets. It’s not like we vote to better our prospects and bring closer the future we can rely on. A future that my children who are unborn can be proud of when they are sired. One where they can get access to the best healthcare, education and social amenities within their disposal at no premium. But now like always, I will have to continue being optimistic for a better tomorrow. If tomorrow ever comes?

I tell you what though, to remain optimistic amid the hardships of life is quite challenging, I wish I could hope for a better tomorrow and deliver it. Or can I be just forget about the past and be joyful and positive even though I feel like I participated in an already predetermined process? And I was just a rubber stamp to authenticate the validity of the plebiscite. Can this feeling turn out to be a lemonade once I am through with it? Well, we all get worried sometimes and feel like the deck has been stacked against us or in our favour depending on who you think should win an election.

This is the time I wish I was taken to a farm full of manure. And instead of feeling sorry for being put where there is shit, I brighten my face with joy, look at it as a platform of making the most out of it by requesting for a shovel. Then work till I can’t labour no more when sweat ceases to drip over my body because they sudoriferous glands have reached a climax and the pores on my skin have shrunk and closed. I am still zetetic but finding this sunnier side of the street by just being optimistic may remain a hopeful dream.

Hasta la vista baby.

[Picture source: Google Images]

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