Galileo Galilei is arguably the scientist who shaped most of our knowledge and understanding of the moon today. He used the telescope to observe the moon, & then drew it, using his knowledge in perspective & chiaroscuro (a drawing method that contrasts light & shadows to give 2-D drawings a 3-D vibe), as he had attended Disegno Art School in Florence before becoming a famous astronomer.

Now, interestingly, just 4 months before he drew the moon, another scientist, Thomas Harriot in the UK, had done the same thing- observed the moon using a telescope & drew it, but Thomas’ work isn’t popular. Why? He lacked training in perspective & chiaroscuro, thus his drawings of the moon were smooth. Galileo’s drawings, with perspective, showed that the moon was actually ruggedy, with mountains, craters, & shadows, just like the earth – that it wasn’t as pristine as everyone thought it was (cos Aristotle taught it, & the reigning Catholic Church pushed it).

Galileo was brilliant, and he challenged the world’s views of such a core thing- because Aristotle + church doctrine had it that the earth was the stationary centre of the universe, and that the moon was ethereal and perfectly smooth.
The church was brutal then- Galileo was warned to stop teaching that the earth moves and that the moon is ruggedy.
Galileo was stubborn – he kept teaching and published a book, ‘Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems’ in 1632, mocking the insane beliefs around the moon+earth, and they said he was ridiculing the Pope. So he was tried (heresy), forced to recant his findings, and was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life (a lenient sentence from the Inquisition those days cos they’d burn heretics at the stake, but a sentence all the same).

Is (new) knowledge always good?
Is perspective that important?
Was Galileo the most brilliant polymath?
Was the church insane and rigid?
We can answer those questions in our heads.

There’s a popular line that goes, ‘Discovery is not recovery.’ You can discover you have a damaged tooth, but knowing it is damaged is not the same as healing it. Healing is going to the dentist to fill it, or extract it. And I think that applies to all kinds of healing.

It’s easy to say, ‘I have anger issues.’ Because you have evidence for it.

I have a damaged tooth. Because the pain woke you at 2am.

I have a terrible fear of commitment. Because of how you fled from your last four relationships when things were going well.

I have low self-esteem. Because you don’t think you deserve good things.

You have enough evidence to know that something is going on. And perhaps you want to go deeper to discover why, and then get the help you need, if you need it.

For most emotional stuff, I find, journaling helps. Answering important questions truthfully helps us discover where we actually are.

And this is one of the things I love about the questions God asks in Scripture.

Not because God doesn’t know the answers, but because sometimes we need to hear ourselves answer.

At the pool of Bethesda, Jesus asks the man who had been unable to walk for 38 years, “Do you want to get well?”

Like, of course I do, sir. 😂

But the question invites him to confront his own resignation and articulate what he actually wants.

Jesus asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Again, the need seems obvious. I need to see.

But Bartimaeus has to name it.

In the garden, God asks Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” and “Who told you that you were naked?” Not because He needed directions or information, but because He was inviting them to acknowledge what had changed.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah flees from Jezebel and hides in a cave. God asks him twice, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

A question about his location, yes, but also an invitation to articulate his fear, frustration and exhaustion before God prepares him to move forward.

Then there is Moses:

“What is that in your hand?”

And Ezekiel:

“Can these dry bones live?”

Again and again, questions become part of the process of revelation, restoration and movement.

And perhaps that is partly what journaling gives us.

Questions.

Questions God asks us. Questions we ask ourselves.

Do I actually like this job?

Is this man really good for me?

Is the black couch better than the blue one?

Should I eat noodles or rice and beans tonight?

Am I afraid of commitment, or am I deeply hurt by my parents’ divorce?

Do I have anger issues towards my friends, or am I still angry about the abuse I endured ten years ago, and now letting it out on people?

Sometimes the question is where the work begins.

That’s why people go to talk therapy with professionals. That’s why we write in journals. We are given space to be asked, to discover, to understand, and hopefully, to move towards recovery.

Discover, then recover.

That’s why I’m grateful for the trust you’ve placed in these little journaling guides. We’re not the Divine, so we certainly can’t heal you. 😂

But we can give you questions.

And perhaps one of them will help you find your way towards something you didn’t know you needed to see.

Thanks for hopping on the journaling-guide bandwagon.

If you haven’t yet, do. And once you’re done, tell us what you thought. We’re already thinking about next year’s designs.

Yours,
Me.

njokikangethe.com

South Africa is one of my favourite countries on earth. I went there for my birthday in June, and I came back with an even softer spot for the place than I had before. I loved the people. I met kind men and women, had lovely conversations, wandered around, ate good food, and generally had the sort of trip that makes you think, ‘Yes, I could live here for a little while.’

So when I started reading about the bodies of women being found in Ekurhuleni, I felt sick. Nine women have been found dead in the area since July, and although police have not established whether the cases are connected, the similarities have understandably frightened people. Four of the women have been identified so far, including 32-year-old Itumeleng Kekana, whose body was found after she had been missing for 17 days. Another victim, Elizabeth Moselakgomo, disappeared while out for a run. And that last bit really got me.

Running.

Something so ordinary. Something people do because they want to be healthy, clear their heads, enjoy the morning air, listen to music, perhaps think about absolutely nothing for thirty minutes.

Except now women in the area are being told to be extra careful and avoid walking or running alone in some places. And women are understandably saying, ‘But what else are we supposed to do?’ Women already think about where they walk, what time they leave, who they are with, what they wear, which route they take, whether their phone is charged, whether there are people around. At some point, the question has to move from “What can women do differently?” to ‘Why are women being attacked in the first place?’

One of the women I met in South Africa is called Itumeleng. It is a beautiful name, meaning ‘to be happy’ in Tswana and related Pedi usage. So when I read the name Itumeleng among the women whose bodies had been found, I stopped for a moment.

There was a woman I had met, somewhere in this beautiful country I had just visited, carrying the name to be happy. And somewhere else in the same country, another woman carrying that same name had been killed. It made everything feel terribly close.

I have thought a lot about South Africa’s history because of this. Not as an excuse for what is happening now, because history does not absolve anybody of responsibility for violence. A man who hurts a woman is responsible for hurting that woman. Period. But I do think we sometimes have to understand how societies arrive at particular places.

South Africa was subjected to colonialism and then an extraordinarily brutal system of racial segregation and apartheid. One of the particularly destructive features was the migrant labour system, through which Black men were recruited, coerced or economically compelled to leave their families and work in mines and cities, often living in single-sex compounds and hostels far from home. The system deliberately separated men from women, husbands from wives, fathers from children, and rural communities from urban economic life. Scholars have described its consequences for family life as deeply destructive.

Imagine what that does to a family over generations.

A husband is away for months. A wife is raising children largely on her own. Children grow up without their fathers being physically present for much of their childhood. Men return home having lived difficult lives in dangerous, exploitative environments, sometimes carrying their own anger, loneliness and trauma. And then everybody is expected to simply resume family life as though nothing happened.

It doesn’t work like that.

And alcohol became entangled in this history too. Municipal beer halls became part of the system of controlling and profiting from Black urban populations, while the migrant labour environment was also associated with heavy drinking and other social problems. The history is complicated, and alcohol certainly wasn’t invented by apartheid, but the state and mining economy created systems around it that had consequences for families and communities. (South African History Online)

I keep coming back to the family because the family is such a basic unit of society. Break enough families, and eventually you have a society carrying the cracks. And South Africa has carried some enormous cracks.

There are generations of people who inherited poverty, displacement, racial classification, humiliation and exclusion. There are people who grew up being told, explicitly or otherwise, that they were less worthy because of the colour of their skin, their language, their neighbourhood or their economic position. There are people who have had to work twice as hard to prove that they belong in rooms that were designed to exclude them.

That kind of history gets into people.

It gets into how you see yourself. How you see other people. How you understand power. How you respond when you feel powerless.

None of this means that a traumatised person must become violent. Absolutely not. Most people who experience terrible things do not become violent. And plenty of people who have never experienced them become violent anyway. But surely we can acknowledge that a society does not go through centuries of dispossession, racial engineering, family separation and economic inequality and simply wake up one morning emotionally untouched.

Maybe what South Africa needs, among many other things, is some form of collective therapy. Not the cute kind where we buy candles and say, ‘I am choosing peace’ on Instagram. I mean serious work. Work that asks what happened to our families. What happened to our men. What happened to our boys. What happened to our women. What did apartheid leave in our bodies and our institutions? What did we inherit without knowing we inherited it? What are we passing to our children because nobody ever helped us deal with it?

And then, of course, there is the present. Because history can explain some things. It cannot excuse them. The women of Ekurhuleni should have been able to run. They should have been able to walk home. They should have been able to go to work, meet friends, buy groceries, fall in love, have children, change careers, wear silly shoes, complain about their bosses, eat amagwinya, take selfies, get annoyed at their neighbours and grow old.

They should have had ordinary lives.

And now families are sitting with the extraordinary pain of looking for daughters and sisters and mothers and friends who are not coming home.

I don’t know what exactly happened to each of these women, and neither does the public yet. The police are still investigating, and they have not confirmed that the nine cases are connected. What we do know is that women are frightened, communities are angry, and South Africa is once again having to confront the terrible reality of violence against women.

So today, I am thinking about South Africa. About the beautiful country I visited in June. About the lovely people I met there. About Itumeleng, the woman whose name means happiness, and the other Itumeleng whose life was cut short.

And I’m praying for the families who are grieving, for the women who are afraid, for the men who are trying to become better men in a society that has handed them generations of complicated things to unlearn. For the children who deserve to grow up without inheriting everybody else’s pain.

And for South Africa itself.

May this beautiful, complicated country heal.

May its women be safe.

May its men find healthier ways to carry their pain.

May families become places of safety again.

And may God bring healing to the places that have been hurting for generations.

South Africa, I really do love you, and I hope you get to be gentle again.

It’s a sunny Monday afternoon. I’m on my balcony, enjoying the sun because heliotherapy is a thing, and the sun is the one thing I have to force myself to enjoy especially during this season when sadness is sitting on my chest. In fact, it’s sitting on my whole body, molesting me. Today’s the 20th day of July, exactly 6 days since I learnt of my friend’s painful demise. Evans, the lover of all things cars, died in a grisly motor accident, in Siaya. Evans died on some ‘random’ road in Siaya, when he’d navigated the craziest highways in Mombasa, Nairobi, Nakuru, etc., and I’m not saying that it’d have made more sense for him to die on the crazy Thika Superhighway with all the Neo-Kenya buses and rowdy motorcyclists, but surely?? A road in Siaya? That makes me mad.

A lot of things are making me mad. I’m angry. I’m sad. I’m afraid. I’m very afraid. Of so many things.

Now, chronologically, I can’t narrate how I’ve been processing his death since I heard the words ‘Aaah, huyo tulizika…’, but I’ll write about something I noticed yesterday. For the first time, I went on a walk and didn’t break down upon seeing any black TX. Evans had a black TX, and since his demise, I’ve been seeing 84 black TX cars every two minutes. In fact, just now, I’ve lifted my head from the screen and seen a black TX. Are there black TX cars everywhere, for the love of all that is holy??

Yesterday, I took more than five minutes, mustering the courage to cross the road, overthinking everything, when really, I’ve always been a sober and responsible ‘road-crosser’. You know how it goes, ‘Look right, look left, look right again, and if the road is clear, you cross!’ Sharp! I have been crossing roads alone for years. My sister finished her KCPE when I was in Class 2, in the year 2005, and cos we’d go to school together, for a while after she joined high school, my mum would escort me from the house, ensure I’ve crossed Ngong Road, then go back to prepare for work. I’d then board the trusty Citi Hoppa or KBS from Dagoretti Corner to Riruta Satellite, where my school was. That went on for about a year. From 2007, I’d cross the busy Ngong Road solo. Confidence? Experience? Whatevs. Yesterday, I found myself overthinking everything; that car is far, but is it far enough? Looks like the driver is speeding. That motorcyclist could be drunk. This lane is clear, but what if that car veers off the road and hits me?…

Evans was the best driver I’ve ever known, and he loooooved cars, so the fact that he died in a head-on collision makes me believe that truly, anything is possible on the road. I know it’s called an ‘accident’ for a reason, but it doesn’t make me less mad. He never drank alcohol, and I’m not saying that people who drive drunk should be the ones to die. He never over-sped. And he wasn’t even driving at night. It was 5 pm. He could see the road and other cars and pedestrians. He had just had a lovely afternoon, and was driving home to see his mother; the mother he adored. That makes me sad.

Also, I’ve buried all the loved ones I’ve ever lost; my mum and Aluoch, but I didn’t bury Evans because I found out late, on his birthday, cos we’d mostly talk once in a month. Burying is good closure, cos the cognitive dissonance is reduced, like, ‘Yeah, I didn’t want to, but I saw their beautiful face in that casket, so for sure, they’re gone…’, but Evans? He was very alive when I last saw him, and when we had our 3-hour monthly call in May, we laughed so hard that we couldn’t breathe, and he said, ‘Njoki yawa. I’ve never talked to anyone for 3 hours kwa simu. Our conversations are so fluid…’ and I was like ‘It’s the Njoki effect’ and we kept talking as I teased him about something, and he laughed again, and it was midnight. He had to sleep cos he had work the next day. We last talked on 24th May 2026. We first met on 25th May 2021. The last time he wanted to buy me lunch was on 26th May 2023, but I declined cos of a few reasons. Then I went to school, came back, and we maintained the ‘no meeting’ rule- which I later came to learn, was useless. Useful with the information I had at the time. Useless with the information I have now, which he had the whole time, which is another thing that makes me mad. I know this last part is cryptic, but it’ll stay like that for now.

My WordPress will be my grief entry, because I’ve cried ‘enough’ in my journal, so much that ink, from the pages I’ve shed tears and snot on, has bled to the opposing pages, and my journal just looks funny. I also tried talking to ChatGPT about my feelings and I realized it may be unhealthy, cos it gives lots of feedback, only based on the information I’ve given it. And of course, I have friends and family to talk to, but I can’t talk to them at 3 am., when I’m tossing and turning in bed, or even at 2:18 pm when I have more questions than mere thoughts, because I’ll burden them endlessly and they wouldn’t have the answers. I don’t have the answers either, and that’s okay, so keeping this entry here is purely an outlet. Writing is how I process things, make peace with things, accept things…

Right now, I’m eating pineapple slices that I’ve irrigated with cayenne pepper and salt. Pineapple is what I bought during yesterday’s walk, after waiting to cross the road for several minutes. The pineapple is bland, like the world is without Evans. The cayenne and salt have added flavour to the pineapple. I don’t know what I need to make an Evansless world more flavourful.

And I know it will get better with time. I’m not new to grief, but this one feels awfully difficult and strange. But at least today I’ve eaten, and the food has stayed in my system; the cortisol in my body has reduced thanks to the crying and journaling. I trust my body to adjust to this reality. And I trust God to heal me because eh, hapana!

Hapana just.

Rest well, my friend. Forever in my heart:-)

Thursday
For the first time since I learnt of Evans’ demise, I went outside, and found that the atmosphere felt gloomy, the art pieces looked just okay, and all the cars looked dangerous. An Evansless world feels less bleak, especially because I slept at almost 3 am last night, talking about Evans.

For five hours last night, Eric and I talked about Evans, cried, prayed, cried again, shared a few screenshots of our chats with him – him showing me what Evans would tell him about me, me showing him what Evans would tell me about what I meant to him, and what Eric was to him. It was soooo clarifying and healing, and was good closure.
Eric literally said, ’I knew you’d have questions and I’m ready to answer all of them, and I know you’ll think that I’m lying because I loved Evans, but don’t worry because I have receipts- most things he said about you are here in our chat, from when you met in May 2021. Some things he told me in-person. Others are here, and I’ll show you, although I didn’t want to cos I’ll be filling you in on some of his fears, insecurities, anxieties, & the deep love he had for you. What he showed you was only a bit…’

If Evans & I were completely honest, reckless & less risk-averse, today, I’d have been a 28-year-old widow with 2 or 3 children, fighting for property with his 17 siblings.

I have cried, wailed, screamed, had a running stomach, prayed, and wondered about Evans. I have also journaled about him, and gotten clarity and peace, and now I’d probably be able to say who exactly he was to me, or what we were to each other.
Before when anyone would ask, I wouldn’t know what to say – ‘friend’ wasn’t quite it, ‘boyfriend’ wasn’t it either, ‘just someone I used to see for nine months between May 2021 and February 2022’ would have been inaccurate too…

So let me tell you a bit about Evans as well as I remember experiencing him. To tell you everything, I’d need 84 days, 50 litres of tea, and dozens of handkerchiefs.

Evans and Njoki
I met Evans when I was 22, just a month shy of 23. Evans had a beautiful spirit, a vibe I was awfully drawn to, and he liked me so much, that I liked him more for liking me like that. We met in a professional setting – I was finishing my degree, and he was finishing his annual financial audit, as he was the Chief Financial Officer of a multinational company. When I met him, he chatted with me a bit, asked for my number which I gave gladly, and I didn’t need to be told that he was significantly older than me – I mean, I could tell cos he held such a position, he had started balding slightly, and he wore Bugatti shoes. 20-year-olds cannot afford Bugatti shoes.

So that evening, in typical Njoki fashion, I updated my sister, Peggy, Kimetto, and Jay: ‘Guys, I met this really cool dude. He asked for my number and wants to take me out for coffee on 1st June! He’s definitely older and is likely married, although he didn’t have a ring on, but I’m curious about him. What do y’all think?’

Friend 1:

As you’d expect, my committee members had different opinions. This was 31st May. I had told Evans I’d confirm on 1st June in the morning, cos I wanted to meet him, but wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, cos he ‘looked married’.

Friend 3:

Now, my friends aside, and back to Evans and I. I woke up on 1st June and decided, ‘If I perish, I perish.’
So we agreed to meet at the venue at 3 pm. I got there at 3:05 pm, found him sitting pretty, wearing an expensive-looking leather jacket, and cologne that smelled like power and mercy.
Of course, although I was 22 and likely naive, I was wise enough not to enter his car, and to meet him in an open space so that there’d be witnesses if he tried to kill me, and I shared my location with my people.

It was supposed to be a 1-hour coffee date, but no, Evans and I, we had insane chemistry, so we ended up staying at the restaurant until 9:30 pm, and had to leave because they needed to close the space, and that’s when I knew I was in danger. I liked him. A lot.
And we learnt a lot about each other, including the fact that he was twice my age.
So, my storytelling is now limited to what I found out about him chronologically- mixing them up (what I learnt at the start, during, and end) is complex but doable, so I’ll do that some other time.

Evans and I liked each other, and like a foolish, trusting girl, walked with him to the parking lot to enter his car, before which he was like ‘Let’s go to this store and get you some goodies’, and I was like ‘Hell no. I’m not one of those girls you lure with money and gifts. I’m good.’, and he was like, ‘I’m not trying to lure you – just appreciating you for agreeing to spend time with me…’ I didn’t accept money or the offer to shop, but allowed him to drive me home.

So I got home, reflected, and like a typical self-judging Adventist girl, I was like ‘I can’t allow myself to like a 45-year-old man regardless of how good they are/sound. That was a fun date, but I’ll never see him again.’, but the Luo man? The Luo man had game, and I liked him a lot, so when he called later that night to inform me that he’d gotten home, he asked when we’d be meeting next, and we set a date, and we met again, and again, we talked for hours! Between date 1 & date 2, we’d have lengthy 2-hour calls, sometimes 3-hour calls… We were ungovernable.

What’s worse? I was getting to know another guy, my age mate, who liked me a lot, and I liked him too. Let’s call him Njoroge. With these long calls I was having with Evans, & planning dates, I started to feel like I was cheating, but I convinced myself that I was not, because at the time, I was a virgin – sexually untouched by any man, dating like Ellen White – meeting only outside. So in my head, I was just only talking to both Evans and Njoroge.

This story is longer than I expected it to be, lol, so let me try to summarize the best way I know how. I’ll blog about the whole thing, alongside my Mzansi blog that I haven’t started working on yet:-O

Now, communication with Njoroge started dwindling cos all my attention was directed towards Evans. He was fascinating (of course he was, cos he was older, more experienced, well-travelled, etc.)
So my birthday came. Evans wanted to take me out for dinner, & Njoroge had talked to my friends & planned a surprise birthday party for me, so I ditched Evans, & spent my birthday with Njoroge & my friends. It was mad fun, but after the party when my friends were sleeping in the other room in the Airbnb, & Njoroge and I were talking and cuddling, I was like ‘I wish it was Evans asking me these questions’ and that’s when I knew I was treading on dangerous ground.
Now, one virtue I’ve always upheld is honesty – so I told Njoroge that I met a guy called Evans, that we had met twice, that I liked him, as a friend😏.

So Njoroge and I agreed that we’d focus on each other, and cos Njoro was slightly older than me, he told me that Evans was here only for the long game – he just wants to sleep with me, that that’s only what older men want from younger girls. Sex before marriage was taboo for me, and I’m generally firm, so I was like ‘No, I already told him we can only just be friends and he respects my stance…’
So we had a back-and-forth, and I promised to stop seeing Evans, but after I left the Airbnb, I called Evans to tell him about the party, and we talked for two hours, and planned our next meeting.
Needless to say, after 3 secret meetings with Evans, I confessed to Njoroge, and we broke up. He didn’t want us to and I found that surprising, but today isn’t about Njoroge.
So Evans and I kept talking- for hours on-end on phone, for hours at restaurants, for hours when driving and doing Car-aoke, him playing classics from the 90s, me playing more modern songs.
We liked each other a lot.
I completely forgot about Njoroge.

Evans was obsessed with cars, so this was one of our many dates – a car show in Karen.
I’m not a car nerd, but it was just nice to see him in his element – asking about akrapovic systems, taking pictures of engines, etc., and I’d just take random pictures of him cos he was like a little boy in a candy store. We were ungovernable, and I knew it was bad bad cos we kept hugging, and holding hands… that’s how I get when I like a man, so over time, what started as ‘we’re just friends’ became ‘these are two people who are obsessed with each other and it may not be healthy.’

So a few months in, after a lovely date, after talking and laughing a lot, we looked at each other, our eyes communicated ‘I’m so grateful for you and I enjoy you thoroughly’, and we kissed. We kissed passionately, and I couldn’t believe it.
Our conversations didn’t end, and so, we started feeling jealous- he’d feel bad when I’d miss his call, I’d feel bad whenever he’d receive a call from a woman, he’d ask about my movements… obsession!

At this point, I was 23, still a virgin on the straight and narrow, but kissing a man twice my age, and the guilt was finishing me, for three reasons:

1. I was kissing an older man.
2. I, Njoki Kangethe, started feeling sexually curious, and I thought he’d be my good first, but it didn’t sound ideal in my head, yet I wanted him still. We had also started talking about ‘What is this and where are we headed?’, and he’d tell me that he wants me to bear a son for him. He’d be like, ‘Would you bear a son for me? I’ll make you my wife, and our son will be as smart as you and I’ll take him to good schools…’ and I’d be like ‘Hell no!’, for many reasons, including that I was young, only 23, fresh out of uni. How could I have a baby with a man twice my age?
3. I’d tell him ‘Hell no!’, but the truth is that I actually wanted it – my brain and body wanted it. I liked him. He felt good. He had hobbies. He had a business. He was a CFO at a multinational. He adored me. But I convinced myself that I didn’t want it.

I thought I was done crying, but here I am sobbing, damn it. Let’s finish this quick cos my writing is my healing

So, I’d be like ‘Remember we agreed to be just friends’, and he’d be like ‘Yes, aren’t we? I’ve been seeing you for months, and I’ve never been inappropriate. We first kissed organically. When I’m talking to you for 3 hours daily, and spending time with you, it’s cos I’m drawn to your vibe and intellect and warmth. You treat me like a person – not as a ‘boss’ or ‘mkubwa’ and your kindness towards me isn’t because you get anything from me because you never accept money or gifts. I’ve not had that in a long time. People like me mostly for what I can do for them. You, Njoki, just see me, and you even send me, and you make me feel normal and wanted just for who I am. And of course, you’re hot and sexy, so I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want to sleep with you, but that’s not why I’m here…’
Sweet words. Staunch Adventist. I wanted him, but couldn’t allow myself to have him,so I started drifting.

Drifting because I was catching serious feelings and was sending 7-minute long voice notes, which he’d listen to, call, and say ‘Our thing could be less complicated…’ So I felt like he was invalidating my experience.

So, after a back-and-forth for a while, we agreed to never meet physically, and to talk once every month or once every two months to catch up.
We last saw each other in 2022, but for the past four years, we kept our promise – checking in on each other.
I’d update him about important stuff, he’d send me pictures of his fun days golfing, or climbing mountains, and would call me whenever he was very happy, or very sad about something, like when his brother died.
I told him when I got the scholarship for my MSc, and he helped me choose my thesis, and I supported him morally as he started learning to play guitar, and when he launched his business- selling car parts for German machines.
He loved German machines – owned a sexy BMW and a TX for work and ‘errands za Canter’ as he loved to call them.

I don’t want to dwell on his demise and how I found out and how I wept cos I might not sleep last night, so let’s focus on his life, and us.
He knew about my family, I knew about his, and the one person he always talked about? Eric, his cousin – the guy I talked to last night.
Eric and I would talk a lot when hanging with Evans, cos they were always hanging out – Evans would drive me home, then hang out with Eric. Basically Evans was at work, at the gym, at the golf course, or hanging out with me, or Eric.
Eric liked me because Evans did, so yesterday, I got to understand how Evans saw me through the eyes of his best friend.

Eric told me things that made me sob:

1. Evans would talk about me like a little boy excited about a girl. If they weren’t meeting, Evans would send him pictures of us. If they’d be meeting, they’d take an hour to unpack – how I hugged him, how I took random pictures of him and that it made him feel seen, how proud he felt to be with me, openly displaying affection- hugs and all…
2. How Evans kept talking about ‘Njoki alinitengenezea art and craft’, flossing with the letter I wrote him (writing letters is my numero uno way of showing affection), keeping it where he could see it daily in his closet (thought it was hidden, for some reason).
3. Another way I show love is giving you teabags from my collection, so I once carried a few to one date, and gave them to him, to convince him to be a tea-lover (he loooved coffee and had the most expensive coffee machine). I thought he drank them all but no, he kept them on a cute bowl on his microwave, and whenever Peninah would move them, he’d be like ‘Please don’t touch those ones’. Peninah is the lady who’d do his cleaning. This one made me cry so bad cos I gave him the tea in January 2022. I actually thought Eric was lying to make me feel good, but he told me the brands, the packaging… they were there until Evans’ brothers went to collect all his stuff. They even carried the tea.
4. How they had a special name for me. Guess what it is.

So yesterday, Eric opened his chat with Evans, and searched the name ‘Njoki’ to show me what he used to say, mostly in Dholuo, and Eric was like ‘Translation doesn’t even do it justice.’
Eric knew almost everything about me cos Evans would send him pictures like from my MSc and undergrad graduation, like, ‘Jaber Njoki chamo book!’, which is Luo for ‘Beautiful Njoki has ‘eaten’ books!’

Evans: Thinking of forming government here.
Eric: Opisa chukua hii yawa. Ochal nyako ma with a cool spirit.
Evans: You will assess the Brabus.

Cos to Evans, I was the ultimate dream car. He never got to have the car like that.
Eric kept urging him to be fully honest and just ‘form the government’ – cos even after we stopped seeing each other, Evans would be like ‘Hakuna Njoki mwingine huku nje yawa!’

Evans loved my eloquence and kept telling Eric that I speak like Oile and Captain – like a black mzungu.
Evans adored me, more than I ever knew.

And now, he’s just gone.
I could talk about him all night, but I’d rather not, and probably shouldn’t, to protect the sacredness of his experience as a senior guy who loved a 23-year-old girl.
He kept telling me ‘Wewe ulinikataa’ and I’d explain, and he wouldn’t push. If he pushed harder and honestly, I’d have agreed to marry him. Instead, he told Eric the truth- how he didn’t know how to approach my dad, how he was afraid of dying way before me, leaving me with his babies and his greedy siblings, how he was worried that he’d dishonour me by tying me to his life, cos he had already lived his, yet mine had just begun, how he wasn’t sure we’d have the same energy levels – I might want to go out more, have sex more, travel more, and he was almost 50, with a fuller plate, & less energy, how he was worried that I was worried about my reputation as I didn’t like received money- that I was afraid people would say I married him for his money/status.
Our thing required boldness, recklessness, honesty. We lacked those.

So now, he’s 6-ft under, with the beard I liked, the heart I cherished, and the cuddly body that gave the best hugs. And very white teeth.
This is a selfie we took in January 2022, one of our last dates. My braids were maroon, his beard was very black, and we were both filled with fear, excitement, ‘what-if’ questions, hope, and surrender.

In another reality, I’d have been his wife and possibly the mother of his children.
In this reality, I’m an unmarried girl, figuring out career, making travel plans, decorating my home, getting to know someone, working on better communication, remembering Evans, wondering ‘What would we have had, had we been more honest, and less afraid?’

I guess we’ll never know.

I’ve spent the last couple of months studying the Minor Prophets, but today my Bible study took a little detour into Judges. And may I just say, the Bible does not talk enough about Jael.

Church has done a wonderful job introducing us to the ‘good girls’ like Esther who fasted, Ruth who was loyal to Naomi, Mary who never touched a man, and kind Dorcas who made clothes for widows. We know these women, and rightly so. They were remarkable.

But then there are the women who don’t quite fit into our neat Saturday School boxes; women like Jael (and Vashti? Gosh, I love Vashti, but today is not about her).

Her name in Hebrew means ‘wild mountain goat’, which already tells you she wasn’t about to have an ordinary story. If your parents named you Wild Mountain Goat today, HR would probably ask a few questions.

Her story begins in the middle of a national crisis. The Israelites had spent twenty years under the oppression of King Jabin of Canaan, whose commander, Sisera, was basically the military guy you didn’t want to meet. He had nine hundred iron chariots, which, in those days, were almost unfair. Imagine showing up to a fistfight and the other person arrives with tanks.

God raises Deborah, a prophetess and judge, and tells Barak to gather an army because victory has already been decided. Barak, in a move that has always amused me, says he’ll only go if Deborah comes with him. Deborah agrees, but quietly lets him know that although Israel will win, Sisera won’t die by Barak’s hand. God will hand him over to a woman.

Now, if I were standing there, I would have immediately assumed she meant herself. Deborah was already leading Israel, after all. Surely she’s the woman.

Except… she wasn’t.

This is where I think the Bible writers were having a little fun.

Because while everybody’s attention is on the battlefield, God is quietly preparing someone else entirely.

Meanwhile, something fascinating is happening that you only fully appreciate when you read Deborah’s victory song in the next chapter. Judges 4 tells us what happened. Judges 5 tells us how Heaven saw it.

Deborah sings that “the stars fought from heaven; from their courses they fought against Sisera.” Then she mentions the River Kishon sweeping the enemy away.

I love that imagery because it suggests the battle wasn’t won by swords alone. Many scholars believe a heavy storm turned the battlefield into mud, rendering Sisera’s famous iron chariots almost useless. Suddenly the very machines that had terrorised Israel for two decades were stuck in the ground, and Sisera, the mighty commander, had to abandon them and run.

I don’t know why, but that makes me smile.

Imagine spending years building the most powerful army around, only for God to say, “Lovely chariots. Shame about the weather.”

Sometimes we think God only works through miracles that look supernatural. A voice from heaven. Fire falling from the sky. But here He simply… made it rain.

The stars fought.

The clouds fought.

The river fought.

Creation itself seemed to understand the assignment.

And then Sisera, exhausted and desperate, stumbled into Jael’s tent.

He asked for water.

She gave him milk.

Which is already funny to me because if I ask for water and someone hands me warm milk, I’m asking follow-up questions.

She covered him with a blanket. He fell asleep, probably believing he’d found the safest place imaginable.

Instead, he’d walked straight into the last chapter of his own story.

Jael picked up a tent peg and a hammer, and with what I can only assume was extraordinary upper-body strength, drove the peg through Sisera’s temple.

The end.

Honestly, the Bible can be unexpectedly dramatic.

What I love most, though, isn’t the tent peg. It’s that God fulfilled Deborah’s prophecy through someone nobody was looking at.

Jael wasn’t leading armies. She wasn’t standing under Deborah’s famous palm tree judging Israel. She wasn’t delivering prophecies. She was simply living her life until history knocked on her front door.

I find that incredibly comforting.

Sometimes we spend so much time wishing we were Deborah that we forget God is perfectly capable of using a Jael.

Maybe your role isn’t to lead the meeting. Maybe it’s to have exactly the right conversation at exactly the right time. Maybe it isn’t to stand on the stage. Maybe it’s to quietly change the ending of someone else’s story.

And maybe that’s what I learnt today.

When God decides to bring about victory, all of heaven cooperates. Stars. Rain. Rivers. Prophets. Housewives with tent pegs. Nothing is random.

Also…

Can we please start talking about the Bible’s bad girls a little more?

They’re absolutely fascinating.

This week has felt like standing in the middle of a very noisy roundabout.

You know those weeks where several unrelated things happen, but somehow your brain puts them in the same emotional basket? Yeah. That.

First, Macron came to Kenya. International relations are so fascinating because one minute it’s handshakes and smiles and ‘strengthening bilateral ties,’ and the next minute you’re thinking about debt, influence, power, uranium, aid, language politics, and wondering whether world leaders ever get tired of wearing suits. Also, side note, French sounds so beautiful until you realise geopolitics is involved. Suddenly ‘bonjour‘ becomes tres economically stressful.

Anyway, somewhere in between all that, Flo shut down. Then Shop New Level, too. Yoh! That one unsettled me so deeply that my friend Peggy and I unpacked it for about an hour. It sat with me heavily particularly because when you’re trying to grow the product side of your business, you look at brands like that almost like older cousins who’ve figured life out a bit before you. You see their stores (and gasp in admiration), the branding, the packaging (Shop New Level was really good at this), the campaigns, the growth (I remember when Nancie Mwai started out as a vlogger and blogger alongside her friends Miss Mandi and Sheila Ndinda, back in my campus days), and your brain quietly files them under: ‘See! It’s possible!!’ A benchmark of sorts.

Then, suddenly, they close. What?? I felt really bad because I know how emotionally taxing it is to build something you’re super-passionate about.

All that said, I really appreciated Nancie Mwai’s honesty about the losses, the theft, the management strain, and the freaking lip oil issue; one ‘mistake’ can cost A LOT. I appreciated the vulnerability of publicly saying, ‘This has been hard…’, because social media has lied to us a little about business. Most people tend to glamourize it, you know? Everyone online is apparently ‘excited to announce’ things. Nobody is ‘devastated to announce…’, or posting: ‘Hey guys, our systems are collapsing…’, and ‘Hi loves, someone stole stock…’ Have you ever seen a ‘Good morning family, I cried in Excel today…’ post? No? Well, me neither.

So when someone is honest about the messiness, it almost feels refreshing. Sad, but refreshing.

And also terrifying, because what do you mean? Even the babes we admire are also stressed? Is the program constant like that?

Then Zuckerberg decided the week was not stimulating enough. WHATSAPP ADS??? Excuse me please. Mimi I saw the announcement and just stared into space for a bit. Because WhatsApp was the one app that still felt like a living room. Simple. Quiet. Human. Just vibes and communication. Aunties posting TikTok gospel videos, friends sending voice notes, cousins posting blurry wedding videos on their status, Njoki posting recaps and stories…

Now everybody wants to sell me something. Soon I’ll open WhatsApp to reply ‘Nimefika’ and see:
‘SPONSORED: Buy anti-aging serum now.’ SO RUDE!! And the thing is, I understand it from a business perspective. Ads make money. Meta is a company, not a charity organisation run by monks. But emotionally? I’m tired. Seemingly, everything online is fighting for attention now. Our eyes are constantly being dragged somewhere. Every app is loud. Every app is performing, and every app wants engagement.

Instagram exhausts me, although I find myself scrolling there aimlessly still and watching reels. LinkedIn is a motivational speaking competition. And now WhatsApp has ads. Very soon, my calculator app will soon interrupt me with: ‘Watch this short ad before solving 7 × 8.’

Anyhoo, I’m not complaining, am I? All I’m saying is that perhaps I belong in the Stone Age haha.

Those are this week’s thoughts from headquarters, and now I need to head out for my evening walk before the rain catches up with me (also I’ll walk to the supermarket cos I miss me some Naivas carrot cake goodness! Yum!)

I hope you’re keeping well. May the weekend be MUY BONITO (can you tell I’ve been enjoying my Spanish classes a lot lately? Haha!).

Adios!

Yours,

Njoks:-)

There’s this saying: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Heard it before, right?

I have questions. Because yes, the bird in the hand is there. It is tangible. It is behaving, and it is not making me go outside and gamble my life. It is just sitting there like, “Hi, I am your bird. I belong to you now.” But then, sometimes, in an honest, self-ware way, I look at it and think, ‘Wait, do I even like this bird?’.

Because the bird in the hand is also very good at one thing: keeping you busy. You are holding it, feeding it, adjusting your life around it, occasionally defending it in conversations like, ‘No, it’s actually a very good bird.’ Meanwhile, you are not looking at the bush at all. You are not even thinking about the bush. You are emotionally occupied.

And then there’s the bush.

The bush is chaotic. The bush is uncertain. The bush is where birds may or may not exist, but also… the bush is where possibility lives. And I think that’s the problem, cos sometimes the bird in your hand is not even the best bird. It’s just the first bird that didn’t fly away immediately. Which, if we are honest, is not always a qualification. And the bird could be anything; a job, a friendship, a romantic relationship, whatever’s in the hand.

But here’s the tricky part: letting go feels dramatic. Like, what do you mean I should open my hand and risk becoming birdless in this economy? And yet, staying with the wrong bird also quietly turns you into someone who stops looking up, because you stop noticing other birds, as you defend the one in the hand, and start saying things like, ‘At least it doesn’t bite me that often.’

All that said, no, I don’t have a conclusion. All I know is that sometimes the bird should be kept in the hand, and sometimes, the bird needs to be released to allow one to go into the bush and catch another that’s probably prettier, fatter, and more docile, but it’s not always easy to know what to do, is it?

I hope your Monday is coming along fine. Mine is; I’ve eaten several pomodoros. May the rest of the day and week be great!

Stay well, reader.

Yours, with a bird in the hand,

Njoks.

Things; like me promising myself that I’ll be blogging daily, even if it’s two lines sometimes lol. Things; like me practising to apply eye shadow like a pro using this palette my sister brought me…

Things; like coffee, (yes coffee, not tea), and chicken, and mangoes, and a lot of other things.

Some days, it’s the little things that really carry you through. Today, at 1445 hours, I’m sitting back and thinking about them. Good breakfast; avocado involved, obviously. The scent of coffee lingering in the house (even though tea is my main love, I’ve been drinking more coffee lately, and adding lemon? Surprisingly decent). Chicken marinating in spices, making me look forward to dinner (who am I lying to? Probably late lunch, and then I’ll eat something else for dinner. We’ll see).

A sweet voice note waiting for me like a tiny reward for doing a boring task. And then… mango season, y’all. I’ve been indulging, and honestly, biting into a perfectly ripe mango is just bliss.

Life can be a lot (been feeling its ‘a lot-ness’ a lot), and some days you need grand plans, big wins, and huge victories. Other days, you just need good food, nice smells, juicy mangoes, and just other things.

What thing has made you happy today? Let me know:-)

Yours,

Njoks.

(I wanted to attach a picture of me wearing eyeshadow but I’d probably rather not; kinda still want you to take me seriously haha!)

I cooked today, and used black pepper properly; not the polite dusting at the end. It smelled warm and woody and slightly sharp, the way black pepper does when it hasn’t been sitting open too long. There’s something grounding about that smell. Familiar. Almost serious. So serious that it made me sneeze, as it always does.

Black pepper doesn’t ask to be liked. It doesn’t try to sweeten anything. It just shows up and does its job. Too little and you miss it. Too much and it reminds you very quickly that it exists. And that made me think about how many things in life are like that not dramatic enough to talk about, not soft enough to romanticise. They don’t announce meaning, but later you realise they held everything together; they might make you ‘sneeze’ a little but they’re useful; a habit, a conversation, a quiet decision you made…

I like spices like that. Spices just make sense. Black pepper makes a lot of sense, and I hope your week does too.

Yours lovingly,

Njoks.