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.

Impact-Site-Verification: 4a1d6822-379f-4ffe-9c8a-3c9682f143ba

I have become dishonest – lying to you, my reader is what I’ve been doing the last couple of months. I want to give you what I had promised (two blogs per month), but I’m seemingly somewhat incapacitated. I’m sorry. (Insert Pastor Ng’ang’a’s voice: I’m very sorry, aah, hata nasema sorry ya nini na si mimi nimekata hii internet? How can I say sorry? I’m not sorry… Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuDbx3gS7vs&t=4s )

Hey hey! I hope you’ve been fine. I have been well, and excited, and busy, and sleepy, and grateful, and cold, and happy, and most importantly, I have been alive. We’ll do a proper catch-up session in the new year, yeah? I just caught myself in a really good mood and decided to blog, a short and sweet one – ten things on my mind, not in the order of importance:

1. How is today 18th December? I swear, it was 3rd January just four days ago! I love that time is flying, but I also, equally, don’t. I’ll soon turn 84, damn it.
2. Cheese is unnecessary. I don’t understand people’s obsession with it. Thembi and I went to the supermarket yesterday and she got excited about the different varieties, took different packs of cheddar cheese and almost bought some cheese sticks snacks. Milk is okay. Yoghurt is awesome. Ice cream is heaven. Cheese is disgusting, bitter and smelly. In my (not humble) opinion, it’s better on pizza, not the sticky kind – a crispy layer, as thin as your hair strand – as thin as my father’s patience.

3. Men are nice. Whoever said they’re animals should be sentenced for life without parole. Truly, I love how men (who like you) can actually bring you joy, or flowers. Have you ever received a bouquet of flowers? Yes? I’ll feel jealous only if they were yellow.

4. What can I do next year to actively give back to society? How can I put my skills/talents to good use? I don’t want to annoy God by hiding my light under a bushel. I feel like I’ve been doing that a lot.

5.Why didn’t I invest in candles sooner? Burning candles in my house has been oh, so therapeutic! They make me feel like I’m on top of my game.

6. Manchester United can be embarrassing. They’ll be playing against Liverpool today and I’m not sure how they’ll want to kill their fans – a 7- Nil loss, or a 3 – Nil loss? There’s one way to find out. I have their jersey. If they lose again, I’ll burn it.

7. Am I one of the two people on God’s green earth who add ketchup to potato crisps? Do you? Do you think it’s gross? If you answered yes, consider yourself, as a matter of fact, blocked.

8. My parent is growing old. I hate to admit it, but it scares me to think that they’ve already lived most of their life. My old man’s beard is grey now. I pray he lives long – 107.25 years.

9. Sauti Sol broke my heart. I am actually mad at them for deciding to split. Which is you favourite Sauti Sol song? Mine is an oldie titled ‘Awinja’.

10. I wonder why you read my blogs and fail to subscribe. Are you a bad person? No? I thought so. Subscriiiibeee. RustyFingers will blow up in 2024 and you’ll be proud to be a subscriber, I promise.

Now, tell me one or two things on your mind – have you found a one-off solution to climate change, or a cure for cancer, or are you thinking about why you can’t sleep without socks on, or why you’re always losing your scrunchies? I’m here for it all. Talk to me.

Later, alligator. Thanks for stopping by!

Starting to blog on a lovely Friday afternoon, as I drink ACV water cos Dr. Google says it helps to manage blood sugar. Google has a lot of opinions, just like I do.

Do you want to know why my fingers are sore? Of course you do. It’s why you clicked on the link, yeah? Thanks for caring! My aunt made me slice vegetables, and I’m not talking about ‘spinach and kales za twenty bob…’ I am talking about kales and spinach worth about KSh. 300, not bought from a nearby greengrocer, but from a farmer – a generous one. Do you know what that means? It means they were many, and because they were fresh, straight from the farm, they were dirtier than your roof. Dirtier than earth even. Today is Friday, and we’re Adventists, which means today is Preparation Day and in most homes, it means cooking chapati or githeri (what’s the English word for this? It’s corn mixed with beans.) I prefer chapati, yay! Aunty cooked some.

1532 hours (East Africa Time) on 19/09/2023 – Njoki opens her WordPress account to blog, after three long years! The last blog she wrote was a stock-take of the things she was enjoying in 2020: https://rustyfingers33.home.blog/2020/11/15/i-am-here-now/ , and at the time her nephew was barely three months old. He’s three now and is the reason she didn’t start writing at 1300 hours – he wants to either cuddle or destroy her laptop by hitting it with a ball and trying to remove the keys with his cute, fat, greasy hands. There’s no in-between. Njoki has missed blogging, so she’s back at it, to do it consistently, or so she hopes.

Hi. My name is Njoki. I have a 3-year-old nephew with cute, fat hands (now greasy, distracting my work). I have another cute nephew (currently in school, definitely not distracting me). I love to write. If you know me, I bet you know that, don’t you? I write on my journal from time to time and almost daily on my WhatsApp status, and those expire in 24 hours. WordPress is forever, and I hope to make this blog my primary creative outlet moving forward. Yaaay!

Before I started writing this one, I called my ex boyfriend. Do you talk to your exes? No? I had to call him because ‘RustyFingers’ was our passion project. We met many years ago and hit it off immediately, partly because of our shared love for literature, for writing, so when we finally started dating, we decided to run a blog together. The call went something like:

Njoki: Heeey! Did I catch you at a good time? Do you have time for a two-minute quickie conver…

The Ex: (before I could say the word ‘conversation’) Haha! I am never a two-minute man.

Njoki: (Major eye roll) You didn’t let me finish talking, and the word ‘quickie’ means anything that is done rapidly or quickly, not just coitus.

The Ex: Of course, Njoki. We can talk for ten minutes if you like…

Njoki: Can I make ‘RustyFingers’ my thing now?

The Ex: Yes, that’s not a problem. I have a few drafts saved by the way- wrote them about a month ago.

Njoki: Cool, thanks, Ex! Do you remember our Gmail account’s password?

The Ex and Njoki: (both laughing hard, one with a very deep voice) You know I do, and you do too… Hahahaa!!

(We talked a little longer and bid each other goodbye)

That password remains our thing. The blog is now ‘MY THING’, purely. I think after we broke up I found it hard to detach blogging from our relationship as we had it, so I never blogged since we weren’t together anymore. Additionally, procrastination (read ‘laziness’), questioning whether or not my work matters (like, who cares anyway? No one’s life depends on your writing, plus there are other bloggers that talk about what you can talk about so there’s probably no point.), and really, life just getting in the way.

LydiaKM in a recent reel said, ‘Keep creating. Honour that desire to create. You have no idea what your light could do to someone. That special thing you want to let out, please let it out. If you’re bogged down with doubt, remember that your light matters…’ Here’s the link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxVAn6SIhJl/?igshid=MWZjMTM2ODFkZg%3D%3D

Now, because I can, I have decided to get out of my own way, to stop being lazy, to stop being a terrible steward of the gift God has given me and heck, to stop questioning the essence of my work. My light matters, and so does yours. It may not be writing for you, perhaps it’s baking, singing, preaching, teaching dance, web design, name it. What (good) thing have you for a long time wanted to do but keep holding back, for whatever reason? Let this blog be your cue to keep going, or to even just start, and while at it, we can stop selling ourselves short and monetize our skills. A 2kg bag of maize flour goes for KSh. 230, and electricity tokens cost an arm, a leg and the left breast. Not fun!

For now I’ll commit to posting three blogs per month, so this is the first of many.

Thanks for stopping by. If you haven’t subscribed to my blog, I’m judging you. Subscribe noowwww, it matters. Don’t talk to your exes, well, unless you used to run a blog together, lol!

Until next time! Thanks for stopping by.

If there is anything this year that has been so real as to give meaning to a name, it has to be the rusty
fingers of Rusty fingers. Here now to clean the cobwebs and clear the thicket, I want to promise
you, the paradise lost is now found and the not so rusty fingers of Rusty fingers, after a proper soak
in the white vinegar all rust is now wiped out. We genuinely missed you. How do you do? How
really are you?
This is no distraction to avoid a well-deserved apology. Have you heard of sabbaticals? This was
one well deserved and needed, for the revamp of the rusty not so rusty. Another distraction?
What happened?
To admit that there has been lying, procrastination, work-shy, broken-promise, is not pretty a picture
to paint, and being so human and you a beautiful human, extend the grace and forbearance an
allowance to take us by the light and blight. Can we be friends again?
I loved how you smiled, this relationship of ours is not toxic. It serves a purpose. A purpose as that
of every human to another, though not often thought well about, appreciated, and accorded the apt
affections, one cannot be blind to the human resource so rich. People are beautiful and nasty(rusty).
Of the times, close to the end of a year, it is so commonplace to have moments to reflect,
reminisce, be glad, cringe, sigh, cry, plan…(and I will leave a blank for you to add to the list). In
it all choose gratitude. It will transform the torments of memory into silent joy, one that only you
will see the elegance. And if still you find no elegance, bear whatever is becomingly and give up not
hope for this is a divine gift that has seen men through the darkest of nights to the healing rays of
dawn.
Given the gift of the present, unwrap to reveal what you didn’t have. I present you to you. Be kind
to you, relish you, enjoy you, take time to know, build and be you. Now is the best of times to try,
try and try again. Why suddenly the serious not so serious, serious discourse? It is ever to you
reader from our doing life together that we do life. And here, is home to all humans.
We’re here now! We heard the screams and shouts, that deafening call to action, this is us responding.
And more to it a promise not to be broken. The promise- we’re here now!