Even Angels Fall

Its 2.30 am. Once again I am awake. Once again, I hate it. I made new year resolutions about this. Sat myself down one evening and told myself how much we were going to start spending more time with sleep. We shook on it. Me and I.

Insanity is…Except, this is not a choice. I am not doing this over and over again expecting different results. Wait. I am. I come to bed daily expecting to fall asleep. Given that this is a function that my body has to perform, I can hardly be expected to expect anything else, now can I? But those are not different results. They are the same results. So it might not be insanity after all.

Chances are that this post will not make sense. But then again, you do  not come here for the immense intellect I disperse.

I watch the sun rise, take the journey with it through the day and bid it farewell. It winks at me, just before it completely abandons East Africa for the US. I always think. There goes the sun. It got its visa. It doesn't have to go through cavity searches at airports. No one asked it if it intends to come back. Or how many dependents it has. It just ups, across, downs and goes. What if it never comes back? What if it finds a better life there? I look forward to its return. Well, not that anxiously. I like it when its around but hate that it comes to remind me that I have not slept a wink since it left and it expects me to just get up and be jolly along with it.

It was a very hot day today. Today I saw my very pregnant friend.  Her belly looked alien. And she kept scratching it. I asked,  Are you itchy or is it the baby. She said go away.  I kept staring. At her her distended belly. It was beautiful and ugly at the same time. Beautiful in the way it filled her out, making her look so ripe. Ugly in the way it just sat there. Like a huge boulder in the middle of the road when you are in a hurry. An obstruction. I did not tell her this. She would not understand. She would have thought the sun was getting to me.

I interacted with a street boy afterwards. Street young man actually. He was at the park watching my movie. I asked him what scene stood out to him. He told me the one where the little boy dies. I asked him why.  He said because he had no one to look out for him. But he knows that he is now happy, now free. The little boy he is talking about was a street boy who gets killed in the post election violence. I wondered if that boys death stood out for him because of the age of the boy, or because he identified with him. I joke around with him more. Asks him to say something for the camera. He asks if its going to be on TV. I say no. It's not entirely true. Neither is it a complete lie. I am not going to put him on national Tv. But he might end up on our online channels. I ask him what he is holding. He tells me its his ID.  To me, and to the rest of the world, it's a bottle half full of cobblers glue. I ask him to let me try it. He gives me a look. One that a parent would give his son if he ask to try a spliff. I understand not all parents would find that shocking. I am talking about a parent like the one in whose house I grew up in. The one I have never seen alcohol pass through his lips, or even a whiff of cigarette smoke. I insist. I try to take it. He kind of relinquishes his hold on it. My workmates, all of them who work for me scream my name. I don't know what they think. Actually, I know. I was going to try it. Was I? I don't know. I don't think so. I wanted to see if the young man would part with his ID. I know I wouldn't part with mine to a complete stranger with cameras and natural hair that has not seen a comb in months. Come to think of it. His hair looks like mine. Yet mine is artistic, a statement about my personality, my daring to be different and stand out. His? His is a street-boy who doesn't bother with grooming.  Reminds me of the stupid movie by whatshisface. The one where there is a line of clothing called Derelict. And the inspiration is are the homeless and street-dwellers. they are tattered, worn, dirt, smelly. Filthy is a word that comes close too. Yet when put on the runway, they are the shit, pun very intended.  I say goodbye to him.

I have a bed, a very big warm comfortable bed. Yet that has not guaranteed me sleep. I am sure that park we were at was his bedroom. I bet he is fast asleep. I bet he is dreaming of paradise. Cue in Paradise by Coldplay. I have wanted to sneak in that song somewhere in a blog post  since I heard it.

In the night, a stormy night
She close her eyes
In the night, a stormy night
Away she flies
And dream of para…paradise

It is not a stormy night. My eyes are not closed. I have flown nowhere. I love that song

I am fascinated by people's behaviors, what drives them to act a certain way, why they make one decision as opposed to the other...you get the drift. I like watching people, I like talking to them. I also have an annoying habit. The 'why' stage never really ended with me. It just got magnified to 'what does that mean?' I love meanings. That tells you I kill the heck out of a beautiful moment by wanting him to define the poem he is reading me, or explain what the bracelet he just got me meant. Puzzles annoy me, especially when they take too long to solve. I want to know everything. And I mean, everything.

Back to people.

I stumbled across Outliers. I have become so lazy in reading I want it read to me. Enter Audiobooks, Outliers being the first one on the list. One of the few books I can say has shifted the way I think, the way I look at life. He explores various situations that we take for granted, that we think are by chance, fate...Like how Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc came to be the masters of what they do. They have been called geniuses even. All we know is the Bill Gates quit Harvard to set up Microsoft. The backstory, what everyone forgets, is he started interacting with computers at 13, was programming for organizations at 15. Malcom Gladwell speculates that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice in any field to be really good at it. By the time he was quitting Havard, Gates had more than 10,000 hours in computer programming.

Gates grew up in Seattle to well-to-do parents and was enrolled in an elite, private high school, Lakeside. Lakeside just happened to have a Mother’s Club that raised $3000 dollars to start a computer club in 1968, which didn’t even exist at major universities at that time. Most computer programming used an unfathomably laborious technique known as a computer-card system. Gates’ high school relied instead on an advanced time-sharing system that greatly facilitated his ability to program efficiently and effortlessly. When the money ran out for his computer club, a mother of one of the Lakeside boys just happened to need a programmer at a computer company called C-Cubed, which turned into another opportunity to work at ISI then TRW. He happened to be within walking distance of the University of Washington, which allowed him to work on computers between 3 and 6 am. Now none of all that would be that remarkable today. But that was 1968 when computers really did not exist and computer programming opportunities were nil. Gladwell argues that the software billionaires of today all came of age at a very narrow window in time with a narrow timeframe of 1953-55 birthdates: Bill Gates 1955, Paul Allen 1953, Steve Ballmer 1956, Steve Jobs 1955, Eric Schmidt 1955, Bill Joy 1954 (btw a great story of Bill Joy, the founder of the Internet and UNIX code in the book), etc. For people in computer world, sometime in the mid 70's was the best time to be a young man / woman. The first person computer was invented around then. If you were over 30, you were too old. You probably had a fmaily and worked for IBM and thought those huge mainframes would last forever. If you were under 20,  You did not have disposable income to spend on an experimental piece of technology. You were still in high school. Perfect age to be? Between 21-25. Precisely what Gates, Jobs and Joy were at that time.

Back to people.

In one Chapter, Malcolm talk about effects of what he calls “The Culture of Honor.” He discusses why the famous American feuds like Howard-Turner (read more here) and Hatfield-McCoy (read more here) standoffs were steeped in a culture that traced back several centuries on a different soil. Gladwell argues that these intense clan battles that centered around familial honor originated in the idea of the herdsman living on the hinterland. The farmer, by contrast, who must work in a team to cultivate arable land, would not risk alienating those around him. The herdsman, on the other hand, living on the rocky highlands must defend his sheep and cattle from the encroachment of strangers and thereby defines a certain code of honor that makes his battles per force openly querulous and staunchly virile. Gladwell discovered that these individuals acted in such a fashion from a legacy that predated their arrival in the heartland of America. Coming from the lawless borderlands of the United Kingdom, these “Scotch-Irish” engaged in feuds and fights because they were classic herdsmen as found in the Basque region of Spain, Sicily, and parts of Greece. Their behavior had been imprinted through generations of predecessors before them. He does not mention this, but in my mind, I thought. Doesn't that explain Maasai, the Pokots and Sabaots... Somalis?

Maybe its a coincidence, how accurate Gladwell's observations are, but for me, who loves explanations, I have a few answers, less questions. I have been hurt by friends, and they chose to do it all at once. Separately though. I have been asking them why. None seem to be giving me an answer that heals the pain, returns the trust I had for them. In Gladwell's fashion, I have started going through my friendship with these people, the basis on how we started, the history of who they were before we met, in hopes of getting answers. I haven't gotten any yet. Still watching

Back to people.

...is the time. It has been on of those days that your body questions your intentions towards its well-being and your brain goes along with you just because it has limited options. And as they both slowly start to shut down, you fight a battle that you eventually win, and somehow, you're still not happy with the outcome. You are driving around at 3am because you absolutely had to have that meeting that you have been putting off and now it doesn't matter what time of day it is, it had to be done.

You have not eaten, every fiber in your body is exhausted and sleep is playing peekaboo with your eyes. You just want to get home. You are Mbagathi Road, looking at the friend who agreed to drive with you this late because you were worried about being a lone woman driving around in the middle of the night, and you are feeling guilty that your meeting ran too late and now he is going to get only 4 hours of sleep because of you. You apologize for taking longer than promised, he mumbles a halfhearted 'ok' and you shrink deeper into your seat and hate yourself more. You understand how tired he is too.

Then you look up at the road ahead, and you see a man staggering in the middle of the road. You think, great, a stupid drunk who's probably get a run over and die tonight. You feel your heart shrink just a little bit, and shiver at the thought as two cars speed past you and swerve as they near him. They drive on, do not even slow down. As your headlights hit his face, you notice that he looks hurt. You gasp, and your humane side kicks in. Without thinking, you tell your friend to slow down. He looks at you, looks at the man and you can see that he thinks this is not a good idea. You know why. And your cautious side steps in. It could be a set up. He could be a decoy. Thugs could be laying in wait for a stupid driver like you to stop and pounce. 'Are you sure?' your friend asks you. You can hear in his voice that he is not asking you, he is asking himself. ' By now we have driven past him. ' Turn around, Bry.' You tell him. You see his jaw clench. You know he wants to help, but he is being reasonable. He is assessing the situation, probably calculating the risks and planning on the escape if its  a set up. Mbagathi Rd is a one way road. He swings the car on to the next exit and drives back. He then turns the car back to the left side. " We should drive slowly, not completely stop. I'll talk to him, you look around.' You tell him. Your voice is shaking, you are shaking. You are scared shitless.

Bry slows down and you see him scanning all sides for suspicious activity. The guy is on your  side - the passenger side. He starts to walk towards the car. His face comes into focus. Your breath gets caught in your throat. You stifle a cough. He looks like a walking cadaver that's been sitting for days. His face is swollen, so much so, you cannot tell how he looks like normally. Where his left eye once sat is a thin slit. He looks like someone removed his skull and wrapped a basketball around his  facial skin. His mouth, which no longer like a human mouth, is bleeding profusely.

You look over at Bry. He is looking at the man too. You can read his mind. We have to help him. 'Where do we take him,' Bry asks. Without thinking, you say 'Masaba'. It's now  called Nairobi Women's Hospital at Adams. Now, you have a love-hate friendship history with that hospital. Every now and then, you are in so much pain you need to go to the ER for an IV drip of painkillers as the oral ones wont work and you need very high dosages. One of those times, your boyfriend took you there. You found a doctor who  thought that you writhing in pain, keeling over and almost sitting on the floor was not an emergency enough, you had to wait for him to check an athlete foot infection first and wait your turn. After all he was a foot doctor and he's all they had. Long story short, but you ended up driving to Nairobi Hospital 20 minutes later, you in more pain, boyfriend so angry than you have ever seen him, after giving the foot doctor and earful.

You have also brought another stranger here. He was beaten up as you watched. And as everyone ignored his cries and watched as he bled, you put him in your car and drove him to this hospital. They treated him, asked for no money after you explained that you are a stranger who wanted to help. That story is told here 

I digress.

Bry is driving like the wind, you am trying to get information from the man. He can barely talk. Of course. You pick up from his muffled speech that he is a traveling salesman who sells toothpaste. Ironic. I think he has lost all his teeth from the attack. Could have been funny in an alternate universe. He lives in a place called Mukuru kwa Mjenga. You know that slum, you have been there once. You cannot, however, figure out where he was attacked at. You want to know more, but you can tell that its taking all the strength he has left to speak. He says he was attacked between 7-8pm. It's 3 am. Where has he been. You tell Bry that you think he must have been unconscious and he just came to. The man is now thanking us. Telling us how no one would stop to help him, sending blessings our way.

The smell. You cannot quite place it. You think its the smell of death. Angry death. Angry that it has lost its prey. You and Bry speculate. There is definitely alcohol in the stench. Maybe a No.2. Both of you cannot put your finger on it. It's a haunting smell. You roll down the windows. But its too cold, especially for him. You have the sleeves of your sweater around your face and mouth. It kid of helps, but not really. Bry has to drive and focus on the road. He does not show if the stench is affecting him. You know it is. He is not even wrinkling his nose. He is looking ahead, stoically. But he is man, you understand.

You arrive at Nairobi Women's at Adams. You walk out with him as Bry parks the car. The reception is empty, save for the 4 night-guards huddled at the seats watching TV. The receptionist gets up and horror registers on her face. You are not sure if its the sight of the man or the huge drops of blood dripping on the pristine white floor tiles that has her in shock. You explain the much you got from the man to her. She calls a nurse who stands at a safe distance. You ask what the procedure is. They ask you if you are prepared to foot his bill. You have KES 3,500 in your wallet. You tell them you are willing to give them that. They tell you it might not be enough to do all the tests. The much they can do is give him first aid and release him. 'At this hour?' Bry asks. ' Well, we cannot admit him. Who is going to pay?'. Bry and you look at each other. You cannot possibly leave him here to get 'first aid' then be sent out in the cold, back to the cruel night all by himself.  You have to take him to a government hospital. You think of how ridiculous all this is. You wonder how much it would set the hospital back for treating this man. You look around at the sickeningly white floor tiles, and wonder if treating this man means that the hospital will have to replace those white tiles with an earthen floor, what with how poor they will be for attending to a patient who has no money. Maybe they have to give up the TV that 4 night guards are watching. Why are there 4 night guards anyway, when there are 4 more at the gate, you wonder. They give him  some gauze and he sticks it in his mouth.

You leave.

You arrive Kenyatta Hospital. It looks dead. You have no idea where casualty is. You walk around the corridors looking for any sign of life. You find a Pediatric Section. The nurses are dozing off. You ask for Casualty. They ask you how you got in. You say you drove to the parking. They tell you, well, that's where casualty is. You tell them you walked straight from the parking to them. They tell you to keep walking and turn right at the end of the corridor. You ask one of them to show you. He says' Just keep walking, turn right, keep walking, you will see it.' They are looking at the man like a leper. You wonder why they are not offering to put him on the wheelchair one of them is seated in and wheel him to casualty, instead of making him walk around. You decide its better to keep walking as you don't trust yourself not to say something you will regret.

Bry catches up with you. Yo give him the directions. You walk for a minute down the endless corridor. You feel like you are leading this man to slaughter. You fee like you work for some gulag. This man trusts you. He is following you unquestioningly. You know you are not going to get him the help he needs. Ye, you keep walking. Bry says he will run ahead to look for the casualty. He feels like we are walking in slow motion and its painful to watch the man trudge along, every step carefully calculated for minimum pain. Up ahead, Bry finds the casualty. You walk in. It looks, smells like abandonment. People on the floor, on unattended stretchers, on benches, heads bandaged, legs plastered, eyes sewn shut. If feels like you just walked into a morgue and the bodies suddenly got life. They stare, you stare back. You are the first to look away. You are ashamed, guilty even. For being healthy. You hear voices in your head ask you ' What have you done that is so good to give your the right to be walking around healthy? Are you so much better than them? To look at these people with pity. They do not need your pity.'

Bry finds someone and asks for the procedure. The man has to be registered. A bored looking woman tells you to wait for someone to register him. 10 minutes later, the same woman comes into the little cubicle and starts barking questions at the man. She is asking for his name. He can barely move his mouth now. Its slowly sealing itself shut. You remember he has a driving license and you give it to the lady. She ignores it, tells you to let him speak. His name is Johannes, you tell her.  She ignores you, continues to grill him. Short of telling him to spell it, she finally jots it down. 'what happened to you? Where were you coming from? Why were you walking around at 8pm?' On and on she goes. She is admonishing him. A grown man, in pain, who has just lost all the money he made that day, all his merchandise...being treated like a child. You can't take it anymore. You walk out of the room, the same time your tears finally flow. You can still hear her shouting at him. Sure, he smells of alcohol, but please, treat him first! You can't stop crying. Bry comes over and comforts you. 'Why does it have to be so?' You ask him. 'Because that is what life is' He says something to that effect.

The woman has finished barking. Gives Bry the form and tells him to take it 'over there' 'Over there', the bored looking man who has his faced wrapped up as if he is going for a ski trip takes the form. He looks it over and gives writes a number on it. 'Go pay over there' he points. The lady sends you back. 'That number has already been allocated. Tell him to give you another number.'  You tell him so. ' How come? That is not possible. How come?' Under your breath, you mutter. ' Magic?'  He writes down another number. You go back to the cashier. You pay. KES 250. That's all it takes here.  We take back the form to the ski-trip guy. By now, you wonder if patients have to do this back and forth trip before they can finally get treatment. By the time he is done registering himself, both his eyes and mouth would have long shut,' you think.

The ski guy asks us to spell the guys name. Bry hands him the driving license. He asks us questions about the man. We answer as much as we can. Then he asks for Bry's name. He gives it. His mobile phone number? You interject. 'What for?' 'I am not talking to you', Ski guy says. You are tired, your patience, the little you possess has run out. You are running on autopilot. And the autopilot is not programmed for niceties.  So Bry repeats the question. Ski guy says just in case of anything. You say we do not want to be contacted. He says you are responsible for him because you brought him there. You say you are not going to give your contacts. You do not want to take any responsibility. He gets cross. You say, you have done your duty, you brought him to hospital, you have been trying to get him treated for 3 hours and now you are going home. Bry hesitates. You grab his hand and pull him out of the hospital. This is too much, you tell him. Ski guy gets up and follows you. You joke about him calling the nightguards to restrain you. For what? For helping a stranger. You walk to the car. No one stops you. Bry says he is disappointed that no one stoped you. He really wanted that confrontation. He wanted an outlet.

You recline the seat, lean back and close your eyes. You want to stop feeling guilty for relaxing and knowing that you will soon be in your bed. You want to feel the pain the man is feeling. You want to experience the feeling of inadequacy that you saw in him when he had to beg for help.

You really want to.

It's 5 am. Life has to go on.

She harbours secrets. Those that she whispers in the strong winds that are said to make people lose their minds. It's the secrets in the winds I tell you. Those secrets that taunt and tease you. A word here, a word there, never the whole sentence. The winds knows something we don't, and its not sharing. It hints of tales and dreams and hopes. Tales of men, dreams of women, hopes of sailors, mashed up and served over centuries to those who dare venture her streets. Streets narrow and winding, daring you to turn the corner, daring you to look further.  The streets have names, names of people who ones walked them, names of people who called this home. Birds songs blend with the wind whispers. A secret symphony developed from a kinship that only comes from witnessing life and death together for generations. It's a dialogue I have come to love, an orchestra not even the best maestro can arrange, and yet I do not understand it.

Sandwiched between the richness of spices and guns, religion and trade, hot summers and dead cold winters, the town is a mutt of cultures. Warm Mediterranean waters on the right bring stories of a land raped and scarred but still  proud, cold Atlantic waters speaks of vikings and kingdoms and  the awakening of its lands. Their conversation meets here, where the walls bend their ears to listen.

In this ancient walls, I can see faces of tireless travelers etched in. The peeling paint forming the hard lines of their knowing faces frozen in timeless beauty. In my mind I hear the slow strumming and humming... 'we haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine’ And still those voices are calling from far away. I shudder. Those secrets again. A frozen face on the wall scowls as a car drives past. I hear an imaginary cough as the car churns up some dust that quickly mingles with the exhaust. The wind howls even harder, I swear the bird above me just screamt. This time I understand. This is their home. They love the wind that drove them insane, the streets that taunted them, the seas that took their loved ones. They know the town, the town knows them, they fear they will loose it to unfeeling passerbys.


They have withstood the tests of time, the conquest of empire after empire. They have seen men on horses, men on thrones, men in love, men lifeless on its streets, their blood seeping into its core. I breathe in deeper, maybe trying to smell that blood, the one I am sure the winds sings of. A young man walks by, his Latin features strong and dominant. He smiles as his gaze catches mine. For a moment, I resist to return that smile. You see, another secret. I am becoming very suspicious. Of the way the men tease with their gazes, make love with their smiles. Their teasing gazes tell of lovers bliss that still linger in the confines of the walls that the faces of  tireless travelers watch from.

Their smiles reveal allusions love and promises whispered in the dead of the night as the moon shone bright and the ships docked for the night. The gazes and the smiles hint of love not fulfilled, lovers no longer together, bells chiming in the distance as their hearts crumbled and wailed. He casts his eyes downwards, keeps walking. He knows rejection too well. His smile was begging for a connection, telling of a love he lost but still holds. Telling of what he will never replace. He looks back, if only to confirm that I do indeed  hear the secrets of the wind, the songs for the birds, the call of his lover in the distance waves. I do. He smiles again.  If I smile back, a part of me will be forever etched in the walls of this town that holds its own. Another traveler will hear a part of my soul in the wind and wonder what I thought of, what I dreamt of, what I hoped for. If I smile back, my longing will be added to the secrets of Tarifa.

So I smile.

...to tell you that she is Spain-bound tonight.  Then Zanzibar.

I noticed that every time I say I have been busy and 'will tell you all about it' I actually never do. So I am not going to make that promise this time round. However, I will promise to take enough photos to make you jealous for the next 3 months. Since Nate is still in Los Angeles, I am also not going to be posting 'Close your Eyes' lyrics as a goodbye to him.

The past 2 months have seen me raise about KES 170,000 for IDPs in Ndaragwa who were eating cats due to lack of food- something that made their MP so guilty he went there after a long time, complete a TV show pilot whose presentation went really well, get the gifted soulfool to work with me in my company, half of my  Kibera Film School students to work on the set of a feature film for a month and the rest to work on a video for a conference presentation.


So that was the work update. No love life update. Still in love, fight now and then to remind ourselves we still care.

See you next post.