I'm in Form Four. After serving a suspension, I've reported back to Dagoretti High School; my thoroughly displeased dad in tow. In Mr Mburia's office, dad gives me one helluva tongue-lashing, enough to make Old Nick repent and take altar boy duties. Mr Mburia, the headmaster, looks at me in studious silence.
"I'm tired," dad moans. "This boy will never amount to anything in life."
"Don't say that," Mr Mburia interjects. "This mboy is an extremely gifted writer. If he applies himself, this gift will take him places."
A couple of years prior, under the guidance of our English Literature teacher, Ms Gachihi, I was among a few select students from our school whose works were entered in a national writing competition and made it to the finals. So? Mr. Mburia knew, for certain, a different mboy from what my dad knew. He could spot the bubbling genius trapped inside a blob of teen madness.
Destiny has a knack for flashing clues, and dropping subtle hints. You miss them; your dream is deferred. Hit them, and you're good to go.
In the mid-90s, my dad got me a casual job at a newspaper company along Likoni Road. The job involved stuffing pullouts into the main paper as they rolled off the press.
I held it for one night. And quit. The reason being, the job ended around 1am. Then I'd walk home, dodging cops, muggers and feral dogs who, in Eastlands, were identical triplets.
Seven years later, it was at that same newspaper that I bagged my first byline and column.
Sometimes, one's destiny can be within smooching sight, yet, at the same time, so frustratingly far.
Less than a year after I cleared high school, my dad took me to "see" our MP, the late Grace Ogot, also an Assistant Minister for Culture and Social Services. Grace was also a celebrated novelist.
Several years ago, decades too late, I caught the revelation. In that meeting, dad needed only to quote Mr Mburia's words, to pique Grace's interest.
I wasn't an "anything" kid. I was something. Gifted. And that's the kick that would've swung doors open for me and propelled me into my rightful orbit many blue moons ago.
I don't blame pops, though. He did then what he knew how to do.
I believe that, at certain epochs, God uses ordinary men, like Mr Mburia, to speak destiny into other men's lives.
The vessel being used may not know that they occupy the office of a prophet at that brief moment in time. They may even forget about the incident immediately after the pronouncement leaves their mouth. But, unbeknownst to them, it becomes - in the fullness of time - to quote William Shakespeare; "... a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries."
One fine Wednesday, I'll tell all of you about this wordsmith's shallows and miseries.
There's common sense, and there's man sense. Ladies, got any burning man-issues that don't make sense? Shoot.
My husband claims that he doesn't know how to boil bathing water, yet he can cook some mean meat stew and nyama choma. What am I missing?
What you're missing is a history lesson. In prehistoric times, men went hunting and gathering. In these expeditions, they cooked their game, using different recipes.
Darling, please explain to me like a prehistoric person; who thinks about boiling bathing water during hunting and gathering expeditions?
