During my first year at the university I met a young Congolese woman. I would meet her in class, and in some cases sit next to her, but other than the occasional hallo, I never got to talk to her much. She spent a lot of her time alone and seemed to be in her on world. On one occasion, the two of us were paired for an assignment. At that time I knew very little about the war in Congo. As we were discussing our assignment one day, I asked her whether the war had affected her family. I … Continue reading A Kenyan’s plea for Somali refugees

I remember an incident after I had just finished high school, I received a random call requesting me to participate as a respondent in an opinion poll. The researcher asked whether I thought Kenya was going in the right direction, to which I responded a big yes. She asked whether I thought the economy would improve, and I responded with another big yes. Of course a few years later, I was to be proved wrong, and when I remember the opinion poll incident, I laugh at my naïve optimism. You see, I had just finished high school, and I was … Continue reading WE HAVE EYES BUT CANNOT SEE

On November 7th 2014, a woman was violently stripped naked in Nairobi, by Embassava matatu touts.  The touts aimed to ‘teach her a lesson’ for ‘tempting them’ by ‘indecently exposing her body’. They took matters in their own hands, punishing the woman for the ‘crime’ of ‘subjecting society to immorality’. While these men justify their chauvinistic actions in the name of protecting society from immorality, the same matatus subject their commuters, young and old, to blaring obscenities, in some cases with videos of semi-naked women in the name of music. On most mornings, many of these matatus will be tuned … Continue reading My Body; My Clothes; My Choice #MydressMyChoice