Glimpse Of Hope

She stared at him,
Eyes squinted,
Lids moving up, down, up, down

Up,
To his self locked dreads
Face frowning fiercely
As she struggled to swallow
Bile and words stuck on her throat.

Down,
To the bands that crowded his hands
Probably hiding tattoos
And scars from brawls
She sneers
Holding her mouth tightly
Pushing sounds and syllables of mistrust
To the back of her mouth
Down her throat
Back into her mind

Eyes squinted
Eyebrows raised
She stares back at eyes
Willing her to smile
Begging for some form of approval

Hoping for a glimpse of hope.

Surveys And Natural Kinks

I think there was something wrong with my lecturer the other day. It seemed like he didn't feel like teaching. Why else would he speak in a dwindling monotone and expect us to listen and write notes? After an hour of suffering i.e straining to listen to my lecturer and write notes, I sort of gave up. I put the lecturer's voice at the back of my mind and started doing what I'd like to call a mini-survey.

I decided to look at people's hair, specifically girls. I wanted to get ideas on what not to do on my hair, me being an anti-mainstream junky. After lots of research and putting together the numbers, I found that  most, if not all, girls in the class had;

a) extremely straight hair, whether natural or relaxed

b) weaves that were extremely straights and uncharacteristically long

c) plaited braids that were extremely straight or close to straight

I also found out that I was part of the statistic. I fall under category a). What I didn't see was a bush of some serious African hair or a girl with short natural hair. This made me a bit sad. Here is a group of students at the university, where diversity is embraced, and we all had pretty much the same thing: straight hair!

Weren't we proud of our God-given natural kinks? Yes, they are hard to maintain. Yes, it is painful to comb what feels like a steel wool clone. Yes, it breaks easily. But why sew hair that looks like Barbie's on your head when you could learn to take care of  and maintain the most versatile type of hair?

I think I'm venting without making a point. What I'm trying to say is that we need to be proud of our natural tresses. We've fed our minds to believe that straight hair like the white folks is the best. What a bunch of hogwash! I'm sure God didn't make a mistake when He made Africans have some seriously kinky hair. And I know that there's a whole natural hair movement going on now in Nairobi but it skipped my school. So I think it's time we embraced our natural hair- it's beautiful, a heck of a lot of work and expensive but worth it.

I miss my natural hair. I might shave off the perm this year.

New Year And Cakes

Hi Guys!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged for such a long time. Apart from sucking at using technology, I've been busy trying to survive university, then when my school decided to close indefinitely, I was busy making my very first black forest cake. Yup! I made a black forest cake from scratch. Yes, it had whipped cream and cherries and it was dark! It was the best first black forest cake ever made! It was so good that my mum made me make the cake for Christmas. Okay, I forced her to buy me things so I could bake a black forest for Christmas. And everyone loved it! (PS My hand is up right now waiting for someone to high five it. As Barnie Stinson would say, Up top!)

Proof for all you doubters!

I didn't know how excited I was about baking until I found out I love cakes and pastries. I mean that I enjoy eating cake. My problem was I was- and still am- too broke most of the times to regularly enjoy a good piece of cake, because cake that is made well is a bit pricey in Nairobi. So I decided about a year or two ago to start baking so that I could feed my hunger for cakes and bakes. My first cake was a marble cake and since that first bake, I haven't stopped whipping things up.

I really do feel like I'm not making a lot of sense so I'll just say one more thing about baking then I'll leave. Baking to me is therapy. I'm not into group activities so I like that baking gives me alone time and I get to think about life and other dumb things I can say on this blog. I like that baking has steps and it can give me the assurance that sometimes structure does work. It makes me confident that at least I am good at one thing. 

The truth is, this post wasn't supposed to be about my cake or my love for baking. But I liked it so I went with the flow. The outcome was about 300 words of gibberish that I hope someone out there will appreciate.

I actually wrote to wish you guys a happy new year. I know, I'm like 3 days late but it's the thought that counts. I hope that you'll spend this year with the people you love and doing what you love, because that's all that matters.

Also as a new year's resolution, I think I'll bake more and maybe by the end of the year you'll be buying my cakes!

A happy new year to all of you. I hope you'll keep reading my blog. Oh, thank you for reading my blog in 2013. I am honoured to have readers on this blog. Happy and blessed 2014!