Stuff my children will never know about:

Disclaimer: I mostly like the current time we’re living in and I appreciate all the modern conveniences around me, but allow me to take you back to the 90s just because I’m feeling nostalgic…

1. pen-pals - Yeah, I bet that even some of you reading this now don't know what those are. Well allow me to educate you. A pen-pal is exactly what the name implies: a friend that you write to. Only that in this case you start off as complete strangers. Still don't get it? This is how it used to work: You go through a newspaper (Usually the Sunday Nation) and when you get to the kids section you'd find these personal ads from kids. They’d have their names, address, hobbies and parts of the world from where they'd like to make friends. So if you were interested, you’d write them a letter then the two of you would start corresponding and if things went well enough, your parents would help you two meet up in person. So while I was in class 2 or something I almost had a pen pal. My mother explained to me how the whole thing worked because I'd seen it in the paper (Yes, I read newspapers at that age; but only the kid sections) and then she told me of a pen-pal she'd had as a kid; a British girl who she almost met (can't remember exactly why they didn’t).So I, with all my childlike exuberance, wrote to this girl (I don't remember her name, but she was from Kakamega).She wrote back and after procrastinating my response for weeks, I chickened-out of the whole thing! But it's the thought that counts right? And now that we have Facebook...Oh well!

2.Tom and Jerry - Sylvester and Tweety, Wacky racers, Scooby Doo, loony toons, animaniacs.I should stop now before I run out of writing space.But you above-20somethings know what I'm talking about. The original funny cartoons. Not the animated seriously-themed movies and the poor remakes of TV classics that kids watch these days :)

Which ones can you name?

3. Cassettes - The picture says it all!

4. Home alone - The kid from this movie was my hero! Booby-trapping his house like that and making the bad guys look like complete idiots! Sigh! Now I have to go watch it again! And while we're on the subject of movies and TV let's not forget Richie Rich, Full house, perfect strangers, The fresh prince of Bel Air...

5.Brikicho, chako chako - I'm going be nice and call these 'Playing house' and 'tag' for those of you who don't speak Swahili. I mean, do kids these days even know what outside looks like? The trend is worrying. Yes, there are ways to have fun that don't include the use of the words: 'laptop',''wifi','xbox','Ps','Psp'...etc! It's true! I witnessed (ilikuwa kama ndrama) he he! And I turned out Normal-ish... :)

6. Brick game and Game boy - While we're on the subject of video games I thought I should just mention these. And who remembers the way those brick games had 99,999 games?! 

7. The Cinderella dress effect - Is just me or are little girls these days just dressing up like mini-adults? Now I have nothing against that especially if the clothes are decent, but there's just this magical feeling that was connected to Cinderella dresses. Especially since some of us had been hearing and watching those fairy tales since before we could walk!

8.Maziwa ya nyayo - So basically if you went to public primary school in Kenya way back when, you'd get free milk from the government every day! I actually have friends who had a of a sort of Chama thing with that milk. Every day they'd collect the milk they’d each gotten and one of them would go home with all of it. The next day someone else would get all the milk! (Now that's kids just being smart!)

9.The touch and feel of a real book - Now that everything these days is being digitized, In like 10 years we'll all be reading eBooks(for those who read anyway) and printed books will cost a fortune. And people like me who actually buy books sometimes, will have their own private collections of items that will become priceless rarities  #just-saying

10. How it feels to be blissfully ignorant - When I was 7/8 years old I didn’t know what drugs were, what alcohol was, what sex was! I don't think kids these days still have those 'where do babies come from?' talks with their parents because they already know. There was a lot less crime and hatred going around and I actually used to play outside after dark because my parents didn’t have to worry about kidnappers!

Feel free to comment and add!

Ciao…