A frightful foreboding filled the room as Adira stood before her mother. Her cheeks were ruby red with anger, and her mother’s skin was glowing in the sunset’s scarlet lights. Both women held onto their waists and leaned forward as if bracing themselves against the other’s attack. While watching the two squaring off, one would…
Kenya’s 2022 General Election has been a roller coaster of lauded firsts, lousy mishaps, laughable decisions, bitter political rhetoric, an orchestral revelation of open secrets and recently, a vicious court battle whose culmination is awaited with anxiety across the East African region. I explore a dataset compiled by members of the public that contains the…
[This piece was submitted to the Future of Life Institute as part of a global AI World Building competition. The full submission containing more material was selected among the top 20 finalists. If you are reading this before June 15 2022, like the finalist announcement on Twitter and send us your feedback via the main…
I wish I could see you as vividly as I see my reflection in the mirror. I wish you were here. Right now. I wish you could hear me as clearly as I hear my thoughts. Technology has not yet provided the tools for me to reach out to you in the future, and neither…
I arrived in Kilifi at the break of dawn on the midnight bus from Nairobi. In the final moments of the trip, as the bus crossed the Kilifi Bridge — the longest bridge in the country — I caught a grand mural of colours as the sun reached above the ocean to claim the skies,…
The tender human heart has its seasons: Its summer’s joy, but sorrows when it snows. When silence comes, and peace surrounds, Its autumn falls, then solitude, its golden spring! Composed by V on 30th November, 2009 04:57
As it has been for millennia, all Jewish boys are required by Jewish law to be circumcised on the 8th day of their birth. Since Jesus was a Jewish boy, well. However, the question of whether Jesus was circumcised was once a significant issue of debate, one that received comment even from the great Saint…
I remember when it first dawned on me that I was not just merely perpetually sad, negative, unmotivated or for the most part indifferent, but, that I was actually suffering from depression. At the time, I was only old enough to sprout three or four strings of hair on my chin, and I had not…
The pungent fumes of cheap cigarettes had chased me away from the back of the bar – where I liked to sit – to the counter. I found a spot that was being bathed by the evening breeze hissing through a broken pane and pulled a stool. It’s fine, I thought, no need to fuss…
Underachievement in Gifted Students It is a warm, Saturday afternoon, and I am sitting in the library of a certain National school in the distant outskirts of Nairobi. I cast my eyes about and admire the impressive collection of books all around. In front of me, a quiet Form 2 student flips through an old…