Jasmine

“There is nothing wrong with you Eddie,” she said, “you are simply doing your best in a game that is obviously rigged against you.”

“Jasmine,” I replied, holding her hands close to my chest, “what happened to happy endings?”

She let go of my hand and crossed over the expansive room towards the window. It was 4am in the morning and the birds had started chirping. The sun, groggy from sleep, was turning up in the horizon casting an incandescent hue across the beach. The view was breath taking and Jasmine and I had survived the night watching the moon give up life for the sun.

“Eddie,” she started, her back against mine, “I don’t like quite endings. I hate happy endings. Give me cheers or tears or parties of fuck you’s. Please not the slow fade.”

I walked over to her, hugged her from behind as we watched the waves of the ocean kiss the sand in a careless whisper.

It’s been two years since I last saw Jasmine, but it feels like just yesterday when we parted.

 

-fin

 

 

Coming Back Is Not The Same As Never Leaving!

It’s been a while since I wrote in this blog. Honestly, I have no idea why I stopped, but one thing I know is that I started sleeping better, and longer. Much has changed since that September evening of 2012 when I last wrote.

For starters I completed graduate school with modest grades to secure me a promotion at my University. I fell in love again, and again, and again and at the same time I fell out of love again, and again and again. I changed houses, changed offices, changed friends, added haters.

I bought a car, I traveled – a lot!

I grew up, stopped shaving, and started shaving again. I stopped dressing up, started dressing up again.

I grew older, took an insurance policy, took a bank loan, and blew it all in a holiday at the seducing coasts of Zanzibar. I became more attached to my family, took to calling my Dad and Mum at least twice a week. I became protective to my siblings!

I drank, slept, woke up, and drank again!

I read- a lot! I started a library, bought tonnes of books. I took membership in several libraries, took out books. I borrowed books, gave out books (never got them back!).

I started going to the gym. Then stopped! I realized, as many of you have already, the only reason I can be motivated to go to the gym is if I am in prison.

I laughed, loved, cried, and lived – to the best of my ability.

In the book The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the protagonist Changez Khan talks about loss in a deeply profound and romantic way. He says, ‘to me loss isn’t what I had and lost, but what I had the potential of having and never did’. In the two years since I last wrote here, this notion has been most enduring. Of course I have lost a lot – money, friends, and love – but what is significant is what I lost without really having it.

Oh, I enrolled for a PhD! in South Africa – at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg!

I have changed the name of the blog to ‘Rogue Academic’. I wanted to name it ‘Militant Academic’ just like the protagonist in the book Reluctant Fundamentalist, but I thought otherwise. I realized that in as much as I might have crazy ideas, defiant desires and perhaps a militant mind, I cannot possibly die for my beliefs! (My beliefs could be wrong). So I went with ‘rogue’, to imply wayward, odd, eccentric – perhaps queer!

This will be a blog about my personal journey, personal reflections and personal experiences. It will be an acknowledgment of how much I have grown and also an understanding of how much I need to grow. It will be a reflection of how much I have undergone and also a belief in how much I can undergo.

It will be about love – and sometimes hate. It will about friendship – and sometimes enmity. It will be about laughter – and sometimes tears. But most of all it will be about why I came here – to Jo’burg and how I experience it.

I like to think of my 2-year absence from writing as an eye opener. My friends (Shady and Dan) and I travelled to Rwanda for the 2014 New Year holidays. At the eve of New Year, we went to this party hosted by Serena Hotel at the beach of Lake Kivu. It was a chilly night and I was having a bottle of Primus beer, a popular local brand. It was a smooth beer. I decided to check out the reviews online of how others found the beer (I do that in foreign countries). While online I stumbled upon this blog by an American aid worker who worked in the Congo whose hobby was collecting beer stickers from all over the world. I would do that if I was in a first world country!

On her blog were these words from Terry Pratchett:

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. Coming back is not the same as never leaving. ”

And this is where this blog is headed! Or has come back to. It will be a manifestation of my own self. Sometimes the blog will be long, sometimes it will be short. Sometimes it will have stories, sometimes pure facts. Sometimes pictures will be added, Johannesburg is a beautiful city you know!

This blog is recognition of my own self – as a son, a brother, a friend, a lover and a dad! And sometimes a complete jerk!

Two months before I left Kenya for South Africa, I broke up with this girl I deeply cared for. Well, actually she broke up with me, over text. I want out, the text read. Do people still break up over text? Anyway, this girl once proposed that I go see a therapist to get in touch with my emotional side. She said I am emotionally unresponsive, whatever that means! I remembered this yesterday over dinner when a friend told me her doctor had suggested she gets a pet to help her connect with her emotional self. Of course that’s bullshit! (Sorry Naledi, if you ever get to read this. Good luck with your dog).

So this blog is an appreciation of who I am and what I am capable of being! It’s a journey, not a destination. It’s a traveler’s diary, not a tourist’s journal!

Dear reader, you have managed to, once again, stumble upon my blog, journey with me to wherever it is I am going!

Confessions of a Mama's Boy!

My mama

I hate rap music. I really do. But Tupac Shakur stole my heart with his mad lyrics. My buddy G and I usually tease each other with his famous line: You claim to be a player but I have f**ked your wife! Hit ‘Em Up is pretty dope. Classic! Epic! But that isn’t why I love Pac. I love Pac because of his timeless hit single. I love him because of the track I have as the ringtone for the only woman in my life. I adore him because he had the words when I could not, cannot. I love Pac because he pulled the words out of my mouth directed at her. I love Pac because he wrote and sang “Dear Mama.” I love him because he was, and still is a Mama’s Boy!

Pac says, “Aint a woman alive that could take my mama’s place…I can always depend on my mama…I gotta thank the Lord that you made me!”

“Can’t run away and leave my mama alone, cause I am her boy, mama’s boy. Just don’t run off and leave my mama at home,  cause I am her boy, mama’s boy. Just don’t.” These are the words to Justin Bieber’s single ‘Mama’s Boy.’ Ok, I don’t particularly like Justin or his song, but if anyone sings about his mother, then we can definitely connect.

If there is one thing I am proud of, that would be that I am in my 20s and am proud mama’s boy!

This Tuesday evening, just home from work, cold, drenched and hungry I reflect on my brief life and the impact my mama has on my life. Whatever I am, whatever I hope to be can be owed to the only woman in my life: my mama.

I am a mama’s boy!

When I was young I had a serious case of nose bleeds. If it rains, I bleed. If it heats up, the nose taps flood. If I get a slight headache, the bleeds start. What I never missed while going to school was a pair of handkerchiefs. One evening, it rained heavily. We were seated in the living room when my nose acted up. This time the normal first aids refused to work and I was losing a lot of blood. Laying prostrate on that cold, rainy night I saw the look on my mother’s face, the worry in her eyes and I literally cried. Somehow I felt it was my fault that she was worried. I wished the bleeds would stop not for me but so that she could stop worrying. Many years later I still get worried sick if she as much as contracts a common cold.

One time, close to a year ago she had a case of Malaria and Typhoid. She was sick, not seriously but sick. I remember praying to God to let me be sick but she becomes well. You see, my mama is literally my life.

Last week I was in town for classes and I met this guy, a friend who sells jackets. Mike was his name. He was seated next to his stall, hunched back and in deep thought. He looked like he was disturbed about something. I asked what the matter was and he told he just got a call that his mama was sick. You see that to me was a mama’s boy.

I am a mama’s boy!

She has been the solid anchor of our family, my mama. She has sacrificed a lot, gave up so much just so that my siblings and I can have a better shot at life. I am who I am today wholly because of that beautiful woman, my mama. My grandfather used to say we would be nothing but for my mama. It is not because she gave birth to us, No. it is because she gave her whole for my brothers, sister and I.

Madea and my sister

As a boy I would rush home from school, get to the kitchen and prepare her anything available to eat. I would serve the food on the table, in front of her favorite seat. Then I would run to the gate to wait for her. I would direct her to the seat and get her food to eat. I would get disappointed if she doesn’t eat. I would get mad if my brothers would touch her food. That was me, that was us: my mama and I.

The trips to town were the best. She would go to the bank. I used to marvel at the massive banking halls, the queues and people. Later, we would go for lunch and my staple dish was usually fries and a soda. We would go shopping and I would push the trolley as she drops item into it. On our way home I would sit next to the window, looking at the trees fly past, little boys waving. Sometimes I would wave back.

Even later when I was shipped off to boarding school, I always cried on the opening day. I never wanted to leave home. I thought, then, it was because I hated the school’s food but later I realized I never wanted to leave my mum. She was my life. Visiting days in school were the best. When she would come. She never missed any.

I am a mama’s boy!

There were also the bad times with my mum. The beatings and punishment were a horror in our household. Mama used to beat us like she was on a mission: to seriously wound or worse kill. She would beat us with anything within reach, from shoes to cooking sticks; slaps to wooden hangers; ropes to electric wires. Even after all of that, she, like all moms, kept her arms open for all of us.

She taught me all there is to know about this life. She was the first to teach me how to make money. She was the first to teach me about women and dating. Daddy later took over and books covered the embarrassing questions. Avoid hot women, she would say. Even though she understood that she could not teach me how to be a man, (that was my Dad’s forte) her influence on my life today is strong and unmatched. If God would let me live my life all over again, I would choose to be with her even if it means that we live penniless.

I am a mama’s boy!

I feel safe whenever I am with her. I feel complete; whole. I am not afraid to be myself with her. I feel capable, able, and strong in her presence. She does not have to do anything at all. Just her mere presence, her laughter activates my creative energies and power. The reason I go home every weekend is because that is where my true source of strength comes from. The reason I talk to her every single day is because when I do that, I sort of recharge. My power levels go up. My mama has this way of making me feel alright when the odds are stack up against me. When the world seems a tough wall to break, she is the ladder to the other side. My mama is one wise woman. Her is word is sage; her deed honorable.

I am a mama’s boy!

My mama and I communicate like old friends. This is because we are just that, friends! While in college, my roommates would constantly be surprised the way I talk to my mother. Harrison would say, “You talk with her like your age mate.” Okumu would say, “She is like your girlfriend.” I always chuckle and smile inwardly for you see my mama and I do not have the formalities that define a parent-child union. This is the beauty and power of our perfect relationship. We are friends.

I finally got round to watching the movie “Think like a Man.” Is it just me or Zeke, the player guy looks like Ramah Nyang the Kenyan journalist? They might be related. Anyway in the movie there was the self-confessed mama’s boy, Michael. The way he relates with his mama is just like me. We can lounge and chat, my mama and I, hours on end about politics. We can be in the kitchen cooking while discussing the weather. We can be seated on the table reading the papers. We can do anything. Lately, we have started discussing investment options. She says I have finally come of age, I pay my taxes.

Pac’s mother taught him three things: respect, knowledge and search for knowledge. You see my mama is a teacher and the book bug sort of runs in me too. I am a teacher. My mama would tell me to read hard and pass my exams. She had high expectations of me and I never disappointed. The joy in her eyes whenever I showed her my report form or transcript was priceless. During my graduation ceremony I could see she was the happiest of all. She had invited her friends and I could tell right there mama was proud of me. I was happy too, really happy because I made my mama happy.

My mama taught me to be myself even when the world around me wanted me to be someone else. My mama taught me to stand for myself, fight for my space. She made me learn the power of success and power. Mama taught me to be bold, confident and self-assertive. She taught me to respect myself and people around me, especially women. Mama had me realize so early in life that I can have whatever I want so long I work hard at it. She was right!

I am a mama’s boy!

Now that I have a job and live on my own, mama would sometimes call and ask if I have eaten. I would tell her I was tired and made tea. She would get angry, mixed with honest concern. ‘Tea won’t keep you till morning,’ she would say. Sometimes she would call to ask if I am in the house and safe. I would tell her, jokingly, I am big boy now. She would say I can never be too big for her.

Whenever I have money I go out on Fridays or Saturdays to jive and drink some wine. Mama would call to ask if I am out. Yes I would say. Keep safe, she would sign off. You see the big girl and I share a connection deeper than anything in the world. She is my mama.

I am a mama’s boy.

Pac says, “There is no way I can pay you back.” I can never repay the love and affections shown to me by my mother. I can only hope my deeds and actions would be sufficient in at least showing her that I appreciate and never take for granted everything she has done for me. That is why I always drop everything I do when she calls for me. I never argue with her. I try as much as possible to help her out when I can.

I will build her a bigger and better house. I will buy her a car. I will take her to all the nicest holiday destinations. I will give her all the finest things in the world, she deserves them anyway. But they won’t be enough to repay her.  

When the time comes, I will take my girlfriend home to meet my mama. She has to. Her opinion would be the only one that matters. If my mama doesn’t like her, the girl has to go!

I am a mama’s boy!

I take great pride in that phrase!

To me a mama’s boy is a man who knows and appreciates the love that is given to him by his mom. He is wise enough to know that sometimes the instincts and emotions of a man need the softness and wisdom of a mother.

I am a mama’s boy and I am damn proud of it.

-Don Eddie Ombagi-

May the Bridges I have Burned Light the Way!

It has been ages since I wrote a piece on this blog. Actually my New Year resolution was to consistently write at least one post each month, if only to rejuvenate my soul. Well, so much for resolutions!

A lot has really happened since the last time I wrote. For starters I got a job. Interesting I first thought. But each coming day makes me question the whole essence. This should make a new post. I am not unhappy; on the contrary I am quite OK. But just that OK.

Here is the real deal.

I got a girl…. She was, and still is, beautiful. She had this smile that would always make me go limb in my knees. She had a killer body, with a fine posterior to boot. Oh, and she loved pink. I do wear pink, gentlemen do pink!

For the few moments I was with her I thought, actually believed that true love exists, it isn’t just a magazine. We could chat hours on end, text our sore fingers away, tweet with reckless abandon and whatnots. I was happy. She was too. I could tell from her smile, a permanent fixture in her face.

I invited her to my house one day. We made love that night, rainy it was. Those who know me know how touchy I am with the rain. My creative power comes alive with the showers. I am after all a Pisces! That evening was like no other. It was pure magic crafted with the divine hands of God. For those who believe in Greek mythology, it was when cupid and Eros met and created a masterpiece.

I was happy. 

 

One particular weekend, I go home to visit my folks. It had been a while, two weeks actually and I was dying to see my mum. When I am home I always do three things only: eat, watch TV and sleep.

I was asleep this time when my phone vibrates. Due to the nature of my work, my phone is always on vibration. Now I have this ritual with my phone that guides our absolutely lovely relationship. When it vibrates, like this time, I wait to see if it’s more than two vibrations. If it is, that’s a call. I pick. If it is only two, it’s a text. Now, when am half asleep, like I was on that Saturday afternoon, I never respond to text messages. Never! So I decide I will deal with it later. I tossed, put my hands between my curled legs and sleep.

My sister wakes me up at a little past seven. Its dinner time, she says. I jump out of bed and head into the living room in time to see Musalia Mudavadi in some campaign rally in Isiolo. I make a mental note to contact his campaign secretariat. He needs a speech writer ASAP.

During dinner, I remember the text message from earlier in the evening and I decide to read it. It was from her, the beautiful girl.

“Je suis enceinte” she wrote. 

Well, for those who know French would know the meaning and would be probably smiling now. But for the rest of humanity she meant: “I am pregnant.” I know. I remember reading a blog somewhere that of the top ten things men fear to hear from their girlfriends, this was number five. Below “Let’s get married” and above “There is something I wanna tell you”.

I was still numb from sleep so I responded as coolly as possible.

“Wow, that’s good news, right?”

“Really?” She texted back

The texts went back and forth but four hours later, I was confused as a baby in a topless bar. I sure as hell didn’t want kids, at least not now, but then again I am a gentleman. I never shy away from responsibility. Responsibility and I have been lovers since forever. No kidding.

That was two months ago.

In between nothing much happened. We never spoke about it again. Actually we never spoke again. I decided to let things fall into place. I think it was Desiderata who said, “the universe unfolds as it should.”

Let’s wait for the bump, I told myself every morning.

Yesterday night I find myself with time on my hands and I text her.

“Hey, too quiet” 

“Seriously? It is you who went quite after the French thing.”

“I didn’t go under, I was confused” I replied

“…confused about what? I was just trying my French and the word came to mind”

“What?”

I felt like a fool. I still feel like a fool. I am a fool. She was trying her French on me. Of all possible French words, she thought it wise to use that! But I wasn’t angry, I felt stupid and foolish. 

I was afraid. Who isn’t anyway?

Here I had a perfectly good relationship, that had the obvious ability to transform into something meaningful and I screwed it up because I was scared. I was afraid.

In the movie Midnight in Paris, there is an episode where Gill, an aspiring writer is riding in the carriage with Hemingway, the famous writer. Out of the blue, Hemingway asks,”Have you ever made love to a truly beautiful woman? When you make love to her you feel true and beautiful passion. And for at least that moment you lose your fear. A love that is true and real creates a respite from fear. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well which is the same thing.”

I have just finished watching the movie a third time. I know, it’s lame but I am a sucker for flicks set in the medieval. The English at the time is fascinating to hear. That’s why I love Sheldon Cooper, the Physicist, in the sitcom Big Bang Theory.

I never believe in second chances so this isn’t about an apology to the girl I liked. No, it is something more serious, something more important. Worth blogging about.

This morning while flipping through my diary I came across an entry I had made on the 1^st of May. It had to do with a conference I was applying to and I had marked down the deadline for the submission of abstracts.1^st July it was. Obviously I had missed the deadline and for no apparent reason. I had not been busy as to forget the date. I had not been out of reach as to assume complacency. I always wrote down stuff in my diary and constantly reviewed it. My computer screen is a litany of sticky notes reminding me of what to do. How could I forget such an important thing? 

To further complicate matters, I was supposed to volunteer at the conference secretariat. I feared the coordinator would view me as a fraud. How could I not keep my word? I sent her, Prof. Kamaara was the name, an email, explaining my predicament and asking if I could send my abstract. She replied. Three minutes later. Of course I could send my abstract. Wasn’t I part of the organizing committee? 

I was relieved of course. I hurriedly drafted a 300 word abstract; after all I had all the materials I could need for the paper. I sent it and immediately she acknowledged receipt. 

See you at the first meeting, Prof. said. 

I couldn’t wait. 

 

Below the conference entry on my diary were the words; May the bridges I burn light the way!

May the bridges I burn light the way!

I could not remember where I read that from and I had no idea why it was on my diary. I brushed the thought aside and continued with the day’s work.

This afternoon while having lunch the thought abruptly interrupted my reverie.

The words: may the bridges I burn light the way!

I was having lunch with my buddy Gilbert while watching the news on TV. Something about Miguna Miguna fleeing to Canada. This man, Miguna Miguna! Anyways! The line got me thinking. A lot. I know that there are bridges that I have burned. There are people that will line up from here to Siberia to tell you that.

Would these bridges that I have burned light my way?

Would I use my past mistakes, past failures and blunders to rebuild my life? Would I be willing to accept that there are relationships that I can never recover and use this as a lesson for the future? 

This is where the story of the beautiful girl actually lies. I know that I cannot recover that relationship that we had. I was afraid, I botched it up and chances are I might be afraid again. I burned that bridge! Would this burnt bridge light my way? Or would it consume me midstream?

My prayer is: may the bridges I have burned light the way!

-Don Eddie-

I Will Date a Girl Who Reads!

 

I want to date a girl who reads. A girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes.  She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. A girl who has a list of books she wants to read or has already read, and who has had a library card since she was twelve and in primary school

I want to find a girl who reads. I will know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag, under her pillow or her bedside table. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. See the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader and I want to date her for real. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and mothy.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If I take a peek at her mug, the creamer is floating on top because she’s so engrossed already that she forgot her coffee was getting cold. She is lost in a world of the author’s making. I will sit down. She might give me a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. I will ask her if she likes the book. I will buy her another cup of coffee.

She’s the girl reading while stuck in traffic on her way home from work. While the other passengers are busy wondering when the gridlock will clear, when they will get home, when they will alight, what they will wear tomorrow or how that date will go; she is wondering what will happen to Santiago in The Alchemist. Will he reach the pyramids even with all the odds stack against him? She is silently crying for Dill in To Kill a Mocking Bird. I will ask her if she likes the book. I may pay her fare home; she may be too engrossed to realize the conductor has not asked her.

I will let her know what I really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Did she now get why Nafisi had to Read (ing) Lolita in Tehran and in private. I will understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. I will ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

I will ask her if she has read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and how the title, ironic as it is, is derived from Miranda’s speech in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest; oh, has she read The Tempest? Sons and Lovers, has she read that? I guess she understands the oedipal drama that surrounds Paul Morel.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. I will give her Ayan Hirsi’s The Nomad for her birthday, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf for Christmas and My Heart is a Lonely Hunter for anniversaries. I will give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. I promise to give her Neruda, Dickens, Hughes, Pound, Allan Poe, Hemmingway, Cummings, Frost, Maya Angelou, Yehuda Amichai. 

I will let her know that I understand that words are love. I perfectly understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by God, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. Like Alice in Wonder Land or Cinderella and her prince.  It will never be my fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow.

I will lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. For through words, do we express who we really are, our hopes and aspirations. After all she knows the Bennet’s daughters did it all the time in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

I will fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. And I can always write a sequel. That I can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Judith McNaught’s Paradise brings that so well and I know she has read it. She has to!

With a girl who reads I am not frightened of everything that I am not. I know girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Gossip Girl series where Serena Van Der Woodsen still gets everything easy from chapter one to the end. I can be myself, with my imperfections, my issues and shortcomings. She is comfortable because has read Phantom.

If I find a girl who reads, I will keep her close. When I find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, I make her a cup of tea and hold her and tell her it is OK. It was a good read. I may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to me, she always does. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

I may propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or during a book reading. Or very casually next time she’s sick, over Skype.

I will smile so hard I will wonder why my heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over my chest yet. We will write the story of our lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce my children to the Harry Potter series and Jane Austen’s Emma, maybe in the same day. I will walk the winters of our old age together interpreting The Dream Within. She will recite Keats under her breath while I add firewood to the mantel. She will read Rebecca while I kiss her gently and soliloquize Only You when I am making love to her. Watching the sunset she will be memorizing Tristan and Isolde.

I will date a girl who reads because I deserve it. I deserve a girl who can give me the most colorful life imaginable. If I can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then I am better off alone. If I want the world and the worlds beyond it, I will date a girl who reads.

-Don Eddie Ombagi-