Up Yours, Dear Kenyan Mangina: Go Suck a Real Dick |

“Women always talking ‘bout what men, do, we don’t ever talk about what

women do…at least till now.”

- Ying Yang Twins, NAGGING.

Yuh heard? 

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, you said?


Give. me. a fucking break. I will now pretend you felt the sense to see that as the exclamation - from within your own little hell’s kitchen - which it truly is.


I have been watching you, skunk. Regarding your every move with suspicion, as you waltz from convention to the next, heels held at the ready to poke out the next mansplaining eye you meet.


And you meet them.


Everywhere you look, you see them. You actively seek them out, your funky 3-week soggy sock attitude stinking up every space you crawl into, every hole you skunk through. It’s lonely on your side of the bed, and you take it out on every little wanker with his dick out between his hands.


Because he is OBVIOUSLY creaming for your loins. How could he not be? Look at you and all that you 'guts going on'. Look at him as he sits and gropes and gapes at your *big brain*.


Who the fuck told Kenyan "feminists" that they could sit around and mutually masturbate, in their little regurgitating rooms, fixing their makeup just right, and proclaim a ‘crisis for the mens’ every two bloody cycles menstrual flows seconds?

"I know you're lying coz your lips are moving..."

- Meghan Trainor, Lips Are Movin'

Who, dear little winner with the silenced little weiner, whack-slapped your little brain so far up her ass that you lap up and spit out everything she says up like the little mongrel she has made you?


Who the fuck made cuckolding mainstream?



I went for the Storymoja Hay Festival last year. A mensed up bloody mess of a thing it has become lately, yet perfectly so. It is a representation of a little cosmetic cosmos we like to call a second or third cumming of the liberal Kenya. It lives in small dark "enlightened" crevices it calls *spaces* in Nairobi, arrogantly proclaiming its ignorance whenever a chance presents itself.


Now at this festival, there was perhaps no more indicative a bullshit session of Kenya’s faux liberati scum as the forum dubbed ,“The! Future! of Men!: What is it like to be a man in Kenya today? of Men!: What is it like to be a man in Kenya today?”

Continues here: click at your own fucking peril

The Women who Lay Over Us

Women are not equal to men. In structure, in theory and in practice, men are more equal than women. Sure, love takes its toll equally on all; some more than others. Sure, the sum of this ‘some’ is not entirely made up of women; experience and interaction abound to prove it.

Sure, money should be split equitably between the sexes. Yet many a girl gets what she wants, many a times, based on what she can give ‘back to sender’.

Lay over – a temporary break in a journey; 

usually imposed by scheduling requirements. 

This is where the needs argument usually comes in.

“I have needs to take care of”, says Stoopy, in justifying her multiple streams of income. Streams – you will often find – that she pays for in kind sex, love without benefits, or smiles and pet names. 

Sometimes, just sometimes, streams that are paid for in rape allegations and entrapped alimony.

Watching world wrestling this weekend, the ironies of our hypocrisy – as concerns the stereotypically weaker sex – could not have been clearer were they erected in crystal pillars. It was a tag-team match, one in which two guys chose to beat the brains out of each other’s brawn. We shall call them Egg-face and Egghead.

The guys went at each other. Fought hard, fought smart…or some semblance of it. The rules of a tag team are that a teammate usually does not interfere with the ongoing fight. Egghead’s tag-team partner would thus remain in his corner, until such a point as Egghead tags him in. At that point, Egghead leaves the ring, taking his associate’s position at the corner.

Further, unless Egg-face can get to his partner before Egghead’s partner-in-crime gets to him, then – ideally – ‘new blood’ should continue to pound on him.

This particular match was different. Whereas the tag-team partner is usually another man, this time, on the sidelines stood female reinforcements. Two women wrestlers. We shall call them the sidelined girlfriends, henceforth SGs. Two things quickly emerged:

a)        

There was a special rule for the Eggs’ SGs. If Egghead tags in his SG, then Egg-face has to tag in her counterpart. Because men do not fight women.

b) 

The match was won when Egghead’s SG hit Egg-face below the belt. You know, in the luggage; in ‘the boys’. Egghead then took over, pinning Egg-face to the ground for the 3 count. Game over.

Now let’s recap. A woman cannot be hit by a man, when in the middle of a fight she signed up for; that would be wrong. She is not structured to be hit in a fight, within a ring, by a guy. Her body is her weakness, in this fight.

The same woman can hit a man. She can take him out by going for his weakest point, his weakest weakness. This she can do at a time when she is not supposed to be interfering with the action in the ring. She can then stand by and watch a strong man mop up, and take the credit for her kill. Her body is still her weakness, you see, in this win. Because while she can opportune a hit that cripples a guy momentarily, physique says she might not stand any chance pinning the man down.

Before Westgate took over Kenyan airwaves, two similar women had been consistently portrayed as the shamed queens. Rachel Shebesh, a Member of Parliament who took a gubernatorial smack in her cheek. Caroline Mutoko, a Radio Diva who took an unsanitary senatorial blast in her ear.

Two women who were in a fight with two men. Let me rephrase that.

Two powerful, privileged, obnoxious women, who purport to speak for all Kenyan women, pit their fists – metaphorically speaking – against two powerful, privileged, obnoxious men, who purport to speak for everyone. In a fight whose rules these two women expected to control, having carefully choreographed it to be on the record.

For a second, let’s walk away from the fight I feel coming, as to whether so-or-so deserved – womanly as she was, is – the reaction her transgressing action brought bare. Let’s walk as far as Germany, shall we?

Lay over – To postpone for future action

At the heart of the Holocaust, it has emerged, were women as brutal as Hitler’s men. A mother, who shot fat-nosed Children of the Ark. A nurse, who injected lethal fluid into Jewish campers, turning their blood as cold as her own.

These German women were complicit to the white-washing of Jewish lives from German nationalism. They killed, directly or indirectly. Just as the terrorist who allegedly warned a pregnant lady he clearly liked, that there would soon be a stampede at the Westgate Mall, was her savior.

Yet only a small number of these women, such as Irma Grese – a concentration camp guard – were punished, and fittingly so, for their crimes in Nazi Germany. Like the accountant who helped Pattni, aka Pastor Paul, rob Kenya blind with government sanctioned scams, or the lawyer who fattened his career protecting Nyayo’s corrupt regime, the naming and shaming game did not apply to these women.

Closer home, a young girl took a knife and stabbed her father dead. She had been repeatedly raped by her guardian, and could no longer take it. While the penalty for rape is surely not death, this case was, and is, justifiably a case of self-defense. For one, she could not possibly rape him back; but more so, rape is a twisted power play, one that deprives its victim of choice, not to mention scarring them both physiologically and psychologically.

I do wonder, though, if the tables were reversed, whether a 17-year old who killed his female guardian would be pardoned on a self-defense claim. Whether his plea would be given a slap in the hand without warranting a visit to the doctor’s, at the very least, to help him with the trauma that got him to take another’s life. I wonder if, simply because he were male, the question would not be as to whether there was any immediate danger to his life.

I wonder if, as with the case of Duduzile ‘Dudu’ Manhenga, it matters that life is precious, and unless it is taken justifiably, then it matters not by whom; just how, and perhaps why. Dudu has been called, in disclaiming her culpability in an accidental homicide, both a 'good person' and a 'woman of God.'

While Dudu's case has many complexities that have little to do with her femininity and a lot to do with her Godliness, even as I write this, a big part of me feels sorry for her. That part of me that feels that a woman should be excused for her actions, simply because she is a woman, and the world has not cut her enough slack. 

The same part that forgets to tell girls - as we tell them that they can be anything, as we tell them that they can be like men - that the world they live in does not truly think so. That the men around them will not live in fear of defilement as they walk home late at night. That they do not have to worry much about what happens to their bodies when they're drunk and passed out at an inconvenient spot in a ditch. That while it's OK to push for equal opportunity, equal circumstance can never be achieved.

That same part, I would imagine, that this comment recently criticized in a discussion I was involved in:

[There is a line between] "rape" and consensual sex at a party. Getting drunk with a girl is not necessarily sexual assault or rape [sic]. It still bothers me that it is expected that a drunk man is responsible for ALL his decisions and actions, but a drunk woman is not responsible for her decisions and actions. Where's the equality?

Either drunk people can still make sound decisions about sex, or they can't. Pick one. 

Lay over – To place on top of; to superimpose

What many women do not always get, in getting what they want, is what they deserve. What their needs often forget, in justifying what some women get – usually and quite simply because of their structure – is the inherent irony. The irony in expecting to be taken seriously in complete disregard of what you look like, when your other hand willingly accepts money and gifts; because of what you look like.

The irony in complaining about the world’s evil hold on women’s necks, when in the same breath expecting women to receive lighter or no sentences for their transgressions.

There’s a million voices

To tell you, what you

Should be thinking

So you better sober up

For just a second.

-   Youssou N’dour.

To rape… to abort; two unwanted mutually inconvenient verbs that demonstrate just how much more men equal, than women.

These two verbs; two doing words that pit their choices against each other while consciously ignoring the woman. Choices that society’s misinterpretations of feminism forget to mention. Mention that some men choose to rape a woman of their choice. Mention that when a woman aborts, it is often out of lack of choice.

Not every woman, society’s feminism seems to ignore mentioning, aborts for lack of choice. Being born male, contrary to society’s ignorant double standards, does not herald a predisposition to rape a female.

Two words that are consistently peddled to generalize women’s fears and struggles, while simultaneously in many cases pitting men in general as the cause of these fears and struggles. In one fell swoop ignoring the fact that these are not, should not be, absolute issues.

This, especially not, where gender were concerned. Because pitting men against women, not only defeats the purpose of seeking a solution; it entirely closes our eyes, locking out the few in society who do not ascribe to our definitions of gender.

What happens when we refuse to think for our selves? Absolute and systemized pigeonholes become systemic definitions of right and wrong, and provisions for selective absolution. 

By labeling yourself - dear feminist, dear counter-feminist, dear activist - you simply label others. Because a label asks them, from the get-go, if they are "for us; or against us." 

___________________________________________

Written by Fred Wambugu Maina.

Photo by Fungai Machirori.

Noni || by @MarunduMuturi

Wallflower by night,
Temptress, woman by day.

In the quiet of the noise
And in the darkness of the light,

I saw her.
Poised regally.

 
Image from CGhub

 Powerul in her stillness, her silence,
Nary seduced by her wine

Which stood subdued red
And cowardly before her.

The tendrils of her unspoken unwitting seduction
Caressed my inebriated soul.

I was drawn to her.
Inexplicably, inexorably.

Right there
I needed to touch her,

To take her in my embrace
And drown in her intoxicating essence.

I wanted her pain to become mine,
Us to ravish each other with abandon.

I could trace these words on her golden skin,
Make her sweat my ink.

Instead,
I drowned in dreams and drink.

Image from CGhub

 Imaginings of what could have been
Blinding me to the moment.

In the end,
When the silence had killed the noise

The earth stood still.
Yet, I still throbbed, as she still tugged.

The Women Who Lay ME

Nairobi, July 21, 2013; 10.45 am.

Timothy Mwaura Wambugu's Photography; Fred Wambugu Maina's Writing

There is no need, and indeed there never is, to quantify thoughts about women. This is one opinion, a personal one. It is also the overriding frame with which the next few words are to be read, if not the very same they were written in.

¹ To beat or strike down with force.

At this point, I will allow the first general quantification of women. We will attempt to call her Stoopy, this little feminine generalization; perhaps only she, ever so feminine, can explain my own physical – and beyond – relations with women. I might even get to the sub-atomic particulars of wrath, love and fire – all mine – for, about and from women.

Why? Because while I like the ‘care less’ attitudes women around me have developed in response to such outright stratification as is Stoopy, I also like being real. I can only be as real as my own experiences are. 

So perhaps it serves better logic to stalk off with these ‘imported airs’ women have been walking on. 

Perhaps.

Enter the women who lay me.

“Such docile creatures, women are. Women are drama queens, such little bundles of explosively combustible chemicals. Women are elementary; probable; possible. Women are not plausible. They are hardworking multi-taskers; women can take a hit and be silent while at it. They can take another hit.

Women are short, literally and figuratively; so portrayed in literature, so assumed in their ability to move furniture around. I kid you not. Women are lovers. Women are quiet in their suffering. Women are sufferers: mass sufferers in the subjugator systems of The World, et al.

Women are housewives. Women are mani-pedis and mothers; women are not career-led.

Women are to be submissive; the perfect woman is to be patient, kind, servant, willing, and savant to the man’s needs; strong under conventional duress…” Thus Spake Stoopy.

“I do not let women teach men or have authority over them. Let them listen quietly; [or]

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet; [further]

“I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.”

² To dispose or spread over or on a surface; to press down giving a smooth and even surface.

There are no accusations to be advanced; no duties or burdens, the lot of us is under punishment, should we be so willing to acquiesce to it. Many women have been laid to such faulty inspection, for all of time in her eternity; for most, the order barked at them, becomes them.

Man: Silence!

Nanny: Sit at your corner!

Women are dyslexia. Dyslexia is a woman.

“Dyslexia is characterized by difficulty with learning to read fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal intelligence;” thus spake the world’s freest – most used, and sometime abused – encyclopedia. 

The world’s most womanly encyclopedia, that is.

Why are you still reading, woman? When, do you reckon, will I stop bullying? When, do I reckon, will you be bullied no more? 

A woman I know told me recently, that her mother told her – showed her really, in analogizing life – that she is to ‘wear your seat-belt when you sit in the front seat...’

Is this the front seat? Are you, dear feminist, driving it? Are you, perhaps more likely, riding shotgun? I wonder what the buckshot feels like; how much better the headlights are, coming right back at you, dear “doe, a deer, a female deer…”

A mother is the elixir of her child’s life. Her blood is as thick as it will be allowed to be. Like water, the more it is allowed to flow out of her cuts and bruises, the more her elixir extinguishes, long before she has the chance to be her child’s life. Yet unlike water, blood clots.

We have taken advantage of this ability of blood to clot, calling them strong, our underprivileged and underfed, overworked and overborne ‘weaker sex’. Blaming them for not being stronger, criticizing them when they become too strong. Telling them that they do not have all the answers; paradoxically blaming them when they ask "why?"

Never ever being, never ever being real; the lot of us. Being a woman is a criminal action, and being a man the ultimate disciplinary action; the ultimate violent reaction.

"Inside of you is a smart, powerful, dynamic, capable, self-confident, alive, alert, fabulous woman! Let her come out and play. The world is waiting for you."                                                                                                        - Louise L. Hay

³ To bring forth and deposit (and egg); to place for rest or sleep, especially: bury.

To give and to take away; such was my mother, the woman who first laid me. An egg was my self, an odd quarter century and a twenty-fifth of this next ago. 

“Why am I soft in the middle now?” Can you call me Al? Call me what you like; my mother gave what she took; and she got a lot of bad, disposed of it, left with the good and gave it to me.

Just like that, five years ago today, so too was she taken. Taken by men; by a manly system... by an unhealthy Hospitalized system of protocol resigned – not designed – to live and let leave. 

Living, you see, is for the fittest; for the blurred lines between price and bids, prize and greed.

The expression ‘pre-loved, not brand new’ perhaps attempts to sum me up; in my own estimation of my self, it is the lasting lesson from my mother: the self-supply of responsibility, a yearning for release from the shackles of commune. At the same time, tis the realization that our individuated response abilities are interconnected: and much as life goes on, when a loved one moves on to a ‘better place’, moving forward is that much harder. 

We are internally connected to them by choosing to love them.

⁴ To bring against or into contact with something: apply; to prepare or position for action or operation.

I have had bosses, in my time doing the corporate do-do. My immediate bosses, it turns out, have all been women. In all except one case. I have found many of them – within the confines of the office – to be headstrong misogynists masquerading in thinly-unveiled misandry.

One particular incident springs to mind. A bikini bash I went for, liked and was liked, particularly by this one woman’s drunken tongue. Four months later, she was seating across the table from me, next to the male CEO of the company and his female second in command, who turned out to be her friend. 

There I was, being interviewed for a job under the direct supervision of a woman I was not sure I wanted to be under.

Much more recently, I got back into employment in a Consultant capacity, under an open-minded trio of women. With more than enough experience in the sado-masochistic world of femdom that is many of this kind of scenario, I vetted them as hard as they vetted me, before deciding to work with them. I should actually be signing that contract by end of this month, fully 2 months after I agreed to start working with them.

On the other hand, one particular woman I got involved with recently – in a corporate, not corporeal way – is quite the epitome of what’s wrong with misguided feminism; the kind that ignores the very fundaments of itself, assumes that being manly equals being feminist. A Kenyan living in Diaspora, a South African tired of having to be Kenyan. 

Choices, it has been said, have consequences. Whether in the unions or communions, matrimony or testimony, beds or leads. The pervaded scent of ‘quotidian violence’ as one Keguro Macharia calls it, is fast becoming an epidemic.

My argument, if it ever was one, is not that women “submit for examination and judgement” by men. It is not that they “copulate with them; often vulgar.” It is not that they silently lay back as the fists are laid to their noses. It is that they prepare, personally, to be well-laid; to be contrived, not misconstrued.

It is, in fact, an argument that as a woman is, so is a man; human. If we are to continue to lay each other equitably, it will have to be under each other, laying our respective businesses before each other with our intentions clear, our attentions bare.

Before we can call ourselves ‘we’, let us first define the ‘I’ that makes ‘us’. This, however, is my truth.                                                         

Only mine...

^1-4 Various definitions of the word ‘lay’

Sex? Just Like Obama, Yes We Can.

O...Bummer! *Runs away from the N(A)SA*

“You have 18 kids? Do you pay child support?”

“I can’t pay no child support! They [the women] know…” he can’t afford it, says the very 'ign'ant' black American-sounding young man.

“What about contraception? Is that not an option for you?” responds the bemused inquisitor, to the amusement of a live crowd, from the cued laughing sounds of it.

“I was young…and ambitious.”

This was an audio recording played yesterday morning on my trustee @105.5XFM, the everyday all-day Kenyan rock-head’s station. Of course I don’t know that the perp was black, nor do I know that the inquisitor was white. But: suspicions a-sneaky, my mind a-freaky.

Now think about it. Is this kinda brouha (because the last ha was deemed inadmissible to sense) not the very crap we allow in our society when we consciously ignore any and all talk about sex? Forget that he has a whole football team, nay, an entire changing room, of children. They could probably play a game of 11-aside, with the women part of the teams, and still have enough bodies leftover to play linesmen and part of the fan support. As the man plays referee, since any self-respecting football fan will tell you that the ref is the biggest fool on the pitch.

I’ll admit to being sorry, however, for being so overly presumptuous as to figure the man could actually afford all the equipment required to facilitate this kinda game, let alone a Sunday dinner complete with cornbread and some Kool Aid. Because drinking Kool Aid makes you Kool, nigga!

See what we do to ourselves, black people? Of course there are crazy white people out there, as there are reds and yellows; the KKK and general redneck fuckerries of yore, the red Communist brouha, the red vein-juice regularly flowing in the Middle East and India. But this? This could be avoided with a simple culture of honest open talk!

“Son. This is your penis. If you put it in this…” father proceeds to show Google image of a vagina to Young Turk, “…without this…” another Google image of a condom “…being wrapped around your penis…”

How hard was that? Are your sensitivities now pricked anywhere near hard enough?

No harder than this poor sod’s prick was when he went on a fucking rampage, I might imagine. I sincerely hope you won’t prefer thinking that your daughter is not going to be affected. How do you know? How can you say, for certain, that this, or worse, is not what awaits her in the jungle we cultivate for our future by not talking about sex and the precious gift that is womanhood? Or as one particular wench I’d like to biblically ‘know’ says, her ‘laughter and the sweet scented sanctity between [her] legs’?

Story #2 for Storymoja Africa

Imagine a world in which sex was discussed freely. I’m talking about Vagina Monologues held in the chief’s baraza out in the middle of Jangwa County, in the desert, not in Capital Cities and City Halls. Waza Dunia. Imagine. Your. World.

Is what we have here enough? Can we prevent the proliferation of single-seed families all over our world without engaging our children in better preparation for their futures? And believe you me, sex runs this world, so the kids had better get used to the idea. As should you, dear reader.

Any time I hear or sniff out even the sneakiest scent of sex, I just as quickly wanna sign up for a piece of that action. Take Sunday, for instance. I promise it was after the duly allowed church-going hours, so you can set those anti-XFreddy placards and Red-Armed pitch-forks down. The effigy looks good, though; methinks me likey!  

*wink wink-back at The 150 Shades, me love you long time*

Back to Sunday, and Back to The Future. At least mine, that’s for sure. There I was, seated by my trusty lappy… We’ll call her Lap-Dance™. So there she is dancing on my lap, sailing through the Twitter sphere of life, and voilà: a new follower! A female follower at that, mused my mind. Something about the profile picture and name just oozed femininity.

Now, normally, I don’t bother myself too much with who follows or doesn’t, until, at least, I use a Social Media tool or other after a while and bulk-unfollow any baggage I don’t need on my timeline. 

But something about her Twitter love handle just got me curious. So I shift Lap-Dance™ on my place-that-we-will-not-mention-coz-society-says-so, and click on the profile.

The following is a word for word transcript of what my mind told me, and what I said back to it, in the next 15 minutes:

Mind:            

Dude! This has got to be the Social Experiment of the Hour!

Me:                

Nay, nay, nay, nigger! This one will serve for the decade!

Mind:           

It was just an interesting Twitter handle, with an interesting regal looking feather of a profile pic that followed me.

Me:                                

        Curious, you read her bio.

“Davina Owombre, a Nigerian short story writer. A published author of a
sexy title known simply as ‘Sarah’, in a collection titled ‘See You Next
Tuesday: The Second Coming.’”

Mind:            

The bio said coming. Twice! Further, it said that she would, would ‘Sarah’, see you next Tuesday!

 Me:               

And so you engaged her. Asked her if you were really gonna see her next Tuesday.

Mind:            

Then you immediately sent a link to her, a review I had just finished reading, about her story. Sometimes you can be such a nitwit, Me.

Me:                

Yeah, right. I didn’t hear you complaining as we sparred on, did Davina and I, segued in jest...

Mind:            

But whose idea was it to request a trade? One of my stories, for her 'Sarah', remember that, nitwit?

Me:                                

One of ‘your stories’? Are you kidding me right now? Who types them out? Do you fool? And will you stop calling me nitwit, nitwit?

Oh well…let the two of them keep on arguing. You and I, dear reader, can be happy to know that, as it turns out, Davina said yes. She sent me a copy of ‘Sarah’, which began thus:

“A sweaty cowboy staggered up, grabbing a chair. The cowboy still on the floor crawled toward the bar. Other cowboys in the room went wild booing and cheering. The chair-grabber raised the chair and broke it on his opponent’s back.”

The ending, however, was less Coward of the County, and more Hero of the village:

“Sarah smiled her new special smile. And she parted her legs ever so slightly to reveal white underwear only he could see. Ani settled down to read.”

The short story was effortless, Davina’s scenes so flawlessly curved out that they formed a mental picture as they oozed out of the page straight to my eyes. She is now in my box :) 

The gmail kind, just so we're clear. Not the vagina synonym. Or the Kenyan version of it, Just plain little old inbox. And the ‘she’ in this case is 'Sarah'...not Davina.

OK, I lie. The last email I sent Davina, after a series of them between us,  ended thus:

You naughty gal you. Wink accepted. Wink countered, seen and raised with a 

tip of the little Johnny. Or is it the little Akpor?

__________________________________________________________________________

Davina Owombre is a pseudonym that the author of ‘Sarah’ keeps as private as possible (hence no picture) because she had to sort of go 'underground' after receiving a barrage of criticisms and threats in Nigeria for daring to publish a same-sex short story involving Africans long before it was fashionable to do so (we're talking about a decade ago).

She will feature in Freddy’s second piece of the month for Storymoja, every month, between now and October 1st. So tune in, every second Tuesday of the month, for more of Sarah’s wiles ;)

First Published on June 11th 2013, for Storymoja Hay Festival.

Miss Sexy: The Miseducation of Sex Education ~

 #WhyPoverty?

My name is Kelina, and I'm 11 years old. 

What goes through my mind is I'm scared to walk alone

because they raped a woman in the street.

We saw the blood she left in the streets afterwards.

You have no choice but to see these things.

You must not walk alone.

Over 50,000 crimes against children are reported every year in South Africa. So I learnt a while back, watching a short documentary - Miseducation - directed by Nadine Cloete, and shot in Cape Town. It is just one of the over 38 short and feature films themed 'Why Poverty'? You can follow @askwhypoverty for details on the same.       

Miseducation. Original Title: Growing up in a still-wounded South Africa

This short film by Miss Cloete, has stuck with me the longest, since I watched it in late May. There's something almost surreal about how casually Kelina's singsong voice talks about sex, and violence, and death. How she walks alone through the streets, in between gangsters and women being roughed up, then proceeds to say this:

It's better to walk in a group of children

because if they kidnap you while you're walking alone

and you disappear, who would know where you are?

No one will know.

If you walk in a group they'll see who took you.

Everyone will know where you are.

If you walk with people, you shouldn't have an attitude

because then people won't like you

and if you die, nobody will come to your funeral.

No 11 year old should have to think about sex beyond the birds and the bees, or whatever insects 'we' Africans used in our stories about sex. Whether it's the 'we bought you at a market' story, or 'we picked you up at the supermarket,' any of that would do; but not what this child speaks about. Not what children near Kenya's Naks Vegas go through every two seconds, it would seem, going by Kenyan Dailies.

Not what vitriol a man who chose to be a woman has to imbibe, if she so chooses, because losing a dick is such a big deal that the airwaves and media-spaces have to be filled with dicks pointing it out. Or pussies taking it in, and going one step further to protect their own by screaming bloody murder at every other Tom, Dick and Harry.

I always found it intensely ironic that this phrase, one that lumps together three dicks but calls them different names, could possibly mean the same as 'all and sundry.' But we do live in a world where man is right, and woman is left. Left behind. Where man is right, and woman is wrong. Wronged by everyone, and left to her own devices, if she has any.

I am scared to walk, because

a bullet doesn't have an address.

It doesn't say where it's going.

The people who shoot are gangsters

and the gangsters' names are HLs, Americans, Naughty Boys

the Stupas and others. 

It's better if they dies, then they won't come back

I don't like to wake up so early but you have to because there's school.

My name is Kelina, and I'm 11 years old.

Little boys are just about as vulnerable as Kelina is. And I have long felt that they, too, should - in fact MUST - be protected from the world about as much - if not MORE - than the girl child.

Because, when it's all said and done, women are the breast of our society. They suckle it, nurture it, grow it into the responsible collective of individually upright citizens they themselves are. Only IF they themselves are, and IF they choose to do the nurturing. Ignoring the boy child, or saying that as women, (Keguro alert) alert) we:they cannot focus on the boy child as much as the girl because the boy is the man's responsibility is not only moronic but insanely fucked up.

Take a girl to school and you build a community. Take a boy to school and you build an individual. Ignore a girl's education and? What happens? Worst case scenario, anyone? Now, ignore a boy's education, and by education I talk of real education not classrooms; what happens? 25 years down the line, the girls you took to school start bitching, crying 'where are the men?' Your mothers ignored nurturing them. 

25 years down the line, your daughter is raped. Raped by? A girl, was it? How many women did you see in the [K]ICC's Hague-6? 

5, maybe 10 years down the line, your Member needs to be re-elected. Show me one girl-child, on the day, who picks up a panga and slits another girl-child's throat because the MP said so. Show me one girl-child who force feeds herself a dick because the leader said so. 

The system we coexist in is rough. Rough for the woman; who wants to grow in her career only to be Hudd-winked? Rough for the man, who wants to 'hustle' every day without being hooded; thrown into a boot and shot in the middle of a forest? Rough for the man; who wants to help a woman only to be thought of as a bigoted narcissistic chauvinist? Rough for the woman who wants to have a child in her 20s, but is afraid that she will stall in her career and have to play catch-up with the men. 

Utumishi kwa Wote.

We exist, as one Keguro Macharia said recently, in an epidemic of quotidian violence in Kenya; by the police against young men; by young men against women; by everyone against everyone else. And while, as Boniface Mwangi said at a Kwani? forum recently, the police are out there waiting to pop your ass full of lead if you dare defy them, we all do the same thing, if only with less weighty bullets. 

I am convinced that we know precisely what is wrong with our system. Every. Single. One of us. We are not immune to sense. We are only immune to the implications of our role in this sense...or lack thereof it.

Talk about sex, and talk about it like sane, grown human beings. Talk about sex like it's a good thing, because it is. Treat it as a disease, and disease springs from it. The real, the fetishist; the literal, the literary and the figurative.

***

I am currently about to stop putting off reading Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction, compiled and edited by Karen Martin and Makhosazana Xaba. The first story, Pelican Driver, is written by my favorite wenchy wench from last month's piece, Davina Owombre. It begins thus:

AJ got off his knees, licking his lips.