Simple Complexities
I demand too much of writing. I demand every story to tell everything, everything in totality; the beauty and the horror. Unable to bear the weight, it crumbles right at the tip of my fingers, and like dust, vanishes into the thin air, unsettling, drifting through the air for all eternity, awaiting the day I […]
Fragments of Whys of My Writing
A few years ago, maybe more actually, I was going through it with Nyayo House as narrated in Room 15, a short story in my book Highland Cactus . I was in the CBD pretty early. I could feel the weight of the day already and I looked like I was returning from war even […]
Who Built the Ark?
Growing up in Marsabit was a blend of proximity and distance that allowed us certain freedoms. I was lucky to be a child before electricity and televisions of Mrasabit (That’s a lot later than for most people) and often, we were left to our own devices, both in my home and the homes of the […]
Afar: The Ends of Earth
We are in Semera, the capital of Afar Region. The heat in the airconless hotel lobby is melting our flesh. We sweat, water dripping out of our fingers like ten taps running concurrently. The one in math class that was supposed to fill a leaking bucket. Why fetch water into a leaking bucket and try […]
Hawassa, The Wide Body of Water and Life
A mother plays with her little girl by the roadside. The beautiful baby girl sits atop her mother’s lap and attempts to tickle her. The mother plays along, pretends to lose control, and then wins over and tickles the girl. Her glassy laughter clinking through the busy streets, getting entangled in the wind from the […]
Sheep-Tail Fat
This writing is something I was supposed to do immediately after Eid-ul Ad’ha but then you know, I stood in my own way, as Charley Pride says. Growing up, we always had dhadha oola (sheep oil) in the house and there’s nothing we hated more. It had a strong smell, it was fatty and we […]
The Language of my Volatility
The Language of My Volatility Most of us claim to resort to our vernaculars when in the depths of pain or joy. All the pain I experienced as a child was in Afaan Borana. My father would yell dabanasan madhi gar sigalcha bekh (I will turn your forehead inside out with a slap), dabanasan […]
Playing Catch-up
You ain’t seen me in a while but I’m good. I ain’t worried much these days, and it’s been a bliss. Met a man and I let myself fall in love, and it’s working out. I am thirty now and my skin is clear. I haven’t cried as hard in months and the bursting banks […]
The Hope That You Lived Well
My thoughts are often morbid but they don’t start out like that. Lately, however, a transformation that I cannot recall, happening, drifts my morbid thoughts off to a place of soothe, a certain acceptance that almost bears happiness. The sun glaring through the kitchen window blocks my vision. I have been planning to reposition the […]
Fatherly Vignettes
Father carries the yellow spray pump on his back. We are headed to my grandparents’ home to spray the goats. Ticks and fleas are running the show and it is time to close the curtains. I convince father to let me show him a shorter route that we have discovered and he hesitantly agrees. I […]