Kenyan Pundit

Ethan, I’m only doing this for you. Really.

And I have been dreading it for over a week…I’m sure that folks who’ve tagged me before know that I’m a notorious “tag dodger” (blame Googling). I even thought about appealing but once Ndesanjo folded I knew there was no hope

On to the list:

1. I hate driving. Very much. In fact, if I had my druthers I’d be perfectly happy to be chauffeured around for the rest of my life. This doesn’t really fit in with my control-freak personality. Perhaps it’s because driving doesn’t inspire a sense of control in me like it does for most people.

2. I have always wanted to be a lawyer for as long as I can remember. Like since third grade or something ridiculous like that. Basically once I discovered that there was a career where you could get paid to read a lot (that was the first message conveyed to me as a child…being a lawyer involves a lot of reading). In fact, for the longest time I couldn’t understand how people didn’t know what they wanted to do when they grew up or how people couldn’t decide on their majors in college etc. For me, it was pretty clear. Become a lawyer then become Kenya’s first female A-G (that was before I discovered that I don’t have the stomach for litigating). I’ve never even had a plan B. In high school my biggest fear was not get into Main campus for law…what the hell would I do then? When I was younger, I had brief flirtations with the idea of being a detective (thanks to Nancy Drew) but that’s about it in terms of diversions. Funny thing is that right now, about 50% of my time is spent doing non-legal work…so much for being the first female A-G.

3. I LOVE Nollywood films and those tacky Filipino soap operas that come on Kenyan TV. One of my favorite past times when in Nairobi is getting a whole bunch of those 250kshs Nollywood DVDs and watching them back to back with my mum.

4. I was raised Muslim from when I was about eight. Long story. Developed issues with organized religion when I got older. Still believe in God though. Sidebar: I had a great time stumping my C.R.E. (Christian Religious Education, I went to a Catholic school) teachers with facts from Ahmed Deedat’s tapes.

5. I was a precocious child. I’ll try and give one example. It’s a bit of a long story.

I once left a birthday party when I was about 3 1/2 years old because “I was bored” and walked myself home. The birthday party was at a close family friend’s place in Nairobi West (specifically Tysons) and we lived in Madaraka Estate and I’d gone with my dad. (apologies for non-Kenyans who’ll miss the context as far as the distance I ended up walking, think about a 10-15 min walk as an adult with a major junction to cross). Since the bash was mainly a kiddies affair in the afternoon, my dad dropped me off and went to the pub to have “a few drinks” before picking me up. He said he’d be back at six, which at the time in my head coincided with getting dark time. I tolerated the party for as long as I could, but started getting antsy in the evening and there was no sign of my dad anywhere. I asked someone what time it was, they said it was 6:30 pm and I began to panic and think that my dad had forgotten me at this god-forsaken party with bratty kids (I mean we’d even cut the cake…what else was left?). So I sneaked out without anyone noticing and started walking home. I remarkably made it all the way to the junction before anyone noticed me. And then it was mainly because I was stuck and unable to cross the road (there were no traffic lights at the junction). One lady approached me and finally asked me where I was going and where my parents were. I told her that my dad had “forgotten me” at a party so I was talking myself home. She was of course incredulous, but decided to play along and offered to walk with me to the house…she was probably thinking this child has no clue where she is going. But I did (if you’re a parent please avoid baby talk and talk to your kids like normal…it’s amazing what they pick up), where she proceeded to give the maid what must have seemed like a totally bullshit story. Meanwhile, I was rather proud of myself and peacefully unaware of the havoc I was causing elsewhere. It must have been about 7:00 pm by this time. My dad had shown up at the party (a bit blazed to add to the drama) to find his child missing. He went crazy and threatened to “finish” the party hosts if I didn’t turn up. How the hell could I be missing from a house party? Meanwhile my mother who’d been working all day and was supposed to link up with us at the party shows up and is now lighting into my dad for “losing me.” So they start searching for me, going house to house, going to hospitals, going to police stations etc. All this time, I’ve eaten and I’m fast asleep in bed. They finally decided to come home at about 11:00 pm to recharge only to find that I’d been at home the whole time Shock number 2. No one could believe my story. I was woken up, bundled into the car and driven back to the party and made to retell everything. Basically it was like a show and tell. My parents were livid with me…actually everyone was livid with me (most of all the hosts who had been in absolute terror up to this point, my dad had forbidden guys to live the bash in case this became a police issue). I was so perplexed and rather angry with everyone…I was expecting to be congratulated for walking myself home, instead I was in trouble…hehehe. Anyway, I could never live down the story for years especially with the hosts and I never attended any more boring parties after that.