Thought tide

Koa openly says that if lunch is on the ladies, pilau njeri it shall be. Iker, slightly MIA on the WhatsApp proceedings, seconds him with no apologies: “They” are not good in the kitchen. So Kitengela it is —the chosen catch-up destination. How we agreed to this still puzzles me. I suspect Lulu played mind games, and her counterpart, the moran, quietly agreed. Me? I didn't overthink it. I simply reminisced on our last catch-up in the same region, Koa hosting. Why lie—that choma was top-tier. But again, would I expect less from this Maasai host? Wendo texts that she’s already on Mombasa Road. Alma says she’s leaving from Karatina but promises to join. Please, Iker, pick up the phone already. Yes, Hails accompanied me. In my monkey bag I carried two plastic bags—precautionary, as she gets car sick and pukes like she is on a payroll. She was excited to go anywhere with me—my handbag in a human form. Lulu picks us from Eastmart. We wait a few minutes for Zola, who is trying t...

A matatu ride. A letter from my daughter. A realization about unspoken storms. This is how Hope Club was born—in the quiet spaces where pre-teen girls hide their hearts. But for real—what happened to Kenyan matatu users never opening windows? My goodness. I found myself in a 14-seater with 18 of us packed in. Wah, I don’t know what we’re incubating to hatch into😏? The heat, the discomfort, the sneers when someone dared pick a call... it was comedy and chaos in motion. Anyway, a couple of days earlier, I had received a letter. Not just any letter—but one from my 10-year-old daughter. It was a full complexity of emotion that even adults struggle to unpack. Fear. Insecurity. Protectiveness. Love. It was triggered by what I considered a harmless shift in our normal routine. Nothing dramatic. But to her, it meant everything. She didn’t like it. She even wrote that she felt unloved. That word gripped me like a hand to the throat. I couldn’t wait to get home, to hug her and talk. To as...

A personal tribute to my uncle, mentor, and family pillar — 25 years gone, never forgotten. Let’s go back… mid-90s. Uncle Gakuo. His white pick-up truck. All of us. Our mums. Our huge bags — bigger than some of us. Nduta Gakuo, Cira Gakuo, Shiku Gakuo, Shiku Kariru, Waithera Marua (big), Waithera Marua (small), Wambui Njung’e, Shiku Mworia, Minneh Njoroge… And of course me — the ‘last’ born of the pack. Those registration numbers on the truck — to this day, I hear “709” and I feel nine years old all over again. Boarding school in an Assumption Sisters hostel was no joke. Oh my… Sr. Mbatha. Madaraka Primary School, Thika — top-performing. For My Future I Toil. That was the motto. And indeed, my mother’s brother wanted only the best for us. 25 years on. His candle still burns brightly in my heart. His love for extended family, those lively get-togethers — all gone with him. I often imagine him and Mum, taking tea outside under our avocado tree. Whenever I think of my education, U...