Random Thoughts of a Girl in Nairobi

   I admit that I was late to the Trevor Noah comedy train. Years ago, when everyone I knew was ranting and raving about him I held back because I wasn’t all that into stand-up comedy and I was trying to resist peer pressure. Honestly, It’s the little things in life. But, when I eventually decided to give him a chance, man I was hooked. The man is HILARIOUS! And when he announced he was writing a book, I was all-in!    You know the hashtag #GrowingUpAfrican ? This book comprises every single meme posted about it; and then some. In a single chapter I’d go from uncontrollable laughter when he described ‘African-mom’ dynamics to cringing when he talked about the realities of growing-up during apartheid. One of the things I’m unlearning as an African millennial ( Yes, I’m not ashamed of the fact that I was born after the internet was invented ) is the history we were taught in school. I read books like ‘Mine boy’ and I crammed the facts but there was a kin...

   I have been learning this recently. It’s so easy to look at the finished product of a process and not appreciate what it took to get there. To forget the cost. To assume that it was easy. In our Christian walk we often ask God to ‘mould’ us in His image. We pray for growth and strength and change. But we don’t always think about what that entails. Being moulded means being broken down into the most basic form and then being remade in the image of the artist. The substance is pounded and squeezed and pressed and contorted in new ways until it bends to the will of the moulder. It’s all fun and games until you realize that you’re the clay. And life is squeezing you and crushing you in so many directions and you look up at heaven and ask God if He forgot your agreement. You say that He’s taking too long to give you the things you asked for yet you also asked to be more patient.    And in the moment, you can’t see where things are going and what the fin...

   It’s officially 7 months post-graduation. The gifts and congratulations have stopped rolling in. Not that that was the focus of my attention. Man, I was just glad to be done with med school. Now I get to annoy my friends by wistfully saying things like, “When I was in campus…” or “when I was a student…”  As if that was a million years ago.  That heady euphoria is long-gone and replaced by a different kind of euphoria. I’ve been working and doing actual doctor things for the past 6 weeks and it’s surreal at times. It’s also really exciting. There are aspects of internship that I was prepared for and others that I heavily underestimated. Some things I just did not see coming. It’s been a learning curve though and the good thing is that I work somewhere where everybody is willing to teach. So I’ll highlight some of the things I’ve learned and experienced so far: 1.        You become someone’s boss. It is day 1 and you...

   I know that I'm opening a can of worms. No. Worms are too benign. Floodgates. I am opening the floodgates of a  very volatile conversation. It's something I've been thinking about for a while even before I watched my friends argue about it on Facebook a few weeks ago. At the time I just felt that I didn't have the energy to dive into it.  But I now feel that I have sufficiently collected my thoughts. Also, I've been busy.     Sexism and rape culture is a reality that can no longer be ignored. My earliest memory of being cat-called was when I was 15 years old.  I don't remember exactly where I was or who did it.  All I remember is feeling unsafe and disgusted. And in the subsequent times that it happened over the years,  I wondered if it was my fault. It happened whether I was wearing a dress or my oldest and baggiest jeans and an over-sized t shirt.  It's a thing that I and other women have somehow developed an unspoken rule f...

   I hope that as you read this you won't judge me too harshly for waiting until my mid-twenties to read this book. Truth be told, I also feel I should have read it earlier, but I was busy reading other things during my teens *cough* Harry potter *cough*. I also suffer from having a very large back-log of books I've been meaning to read. My wallet's current situation doesn't help either. Reading is an expensive hobby but we love it all the same.    This book took a bit of patience at the start and I kept on getting distracted, but when the story picked-up boy did it go! The main protagonist is named 'Jane Eyre' (surprise!) and the book is about her life. Her growing-up in basically an abusive household, going on to boarding school and eventually finding work as a governess (read 'private tutor'). This is where she meets Mr. Rochester who I spent at least 5 chapters trying to figure out if I should root for or not. Was he tall dark and handsome? Yes,...

   I feel cheated by our education system. I have a problem with several aspects but I especially have a problem when it comes to the teaching of history. I feel like there are major parts that were skimmed over. Sure, they covered all the major bases about how Kenya was colonized and there were segregated schools for the different races. But it never talked about how Nairobi was basically partitioned into areas where the settlers lived, where the Asian community lived and where the Africans lived. We were taught about how colonialism was a good thing for us Africans and that they British might have overstepped their bounds a bit by mistreating Africans thus leading to the need for the Mau Mau rebellion. Maybe it was inappropriate to explain torture and human-rights violations to 12-year olds. But they glossed over the fact that thousands of Africans died due to outbreaks of diseases that had never been experienced in the continent before. That means that we had no immun...

   This meme is a running joke between me and my friends. Or my friends and I. We occasionally post on social media about how we have successfully 'adulted' for the day. ' Adulting ' being the act of successfully doing something grown- up that you've never done before.Keyword being: successfully. And I know that there is a section of baby-boomers that's sick of this millennial habit of constantly documenting our supposed triumphs for the whole world to see, but I'm pretty sure they'd be doing the same thing if they'd this technology at their disposal in their hey-day. Heck! who I am I kidding?! They did do the same thing.. through phone calls, letters and postcards.    But back to the meme. Being an adult is hard work.. the first time around anyway. I had an experience last year when I accompanied 3 teenage girls to the hospital. Reason being we were at camp and I was a counsellor and they had some injuries that needed to be looked at by a docto...