Why I Write

Healing, advocacy and manifesting improved designs of self

The first important piece that I wrote was about my mother. I was in class 4. We were tasked with writing this essay. It was easy to write because I love my mother more than life. I got 31 out of 40 marks. That marked my debut in the world of words.

You have to understand that I did not enjoy school at all. I spent most of my years in primary school trying to figure out how not to go to school. My father almost always fell for my antics, but after figuring out what I loved, I decided I could go to school for the few subjects that required wordplay.

I got married pretty young, and life quickly happened. My children came early and I was busy trying to stay afloat. By the age of twenty-two, I had a whole husband, a baby, a house and my first employee. My daughter will be twenty-two years old soon. I often wonder if I can leave her to look after a cat. I mean, why didn't anyone see I was unprepared for what I was pretending to know?

I barely remembered to write, but the urge to pen down a few words on anything was strong. Twenty-two years ago, we did not have the luxury of devices where one could quickly type in thoughts for later use. So most of my words got lost. In moments of frustration or sadness, I would put my emotions on a serviette or the back of an old novel. Never to be seen again.

Life continued happening, fast and furious, and now I found myself in the workplace. It was strange being a new entrant at thirty years old. 

I was learning everything with much younger work colleagues, but I quickly discovered what I was very good at. I wrote the best emails. Whether it was to appreciate a client or to take a jab at a colleague in an email they enjoyed reading, I did it and enjoyed it.

Still, I loathed the work environment. I quickly realized I had a penchant for rebelling against authority. So I became a serial entrepreneur because, ‘if you hate your job, you must fire your boss!’

The itch to write would not leave me. So I started a blog and decided to write about what I was going through. A guide to life after divorce. This was scary my friend because people did not just write openly about divorce. Many people called me bitter, and angry and said I was vengeful. But I was not particularly moved because my writing had taken on a different shape. It had become my avenue to heal my wounded spirit. I had been through a lot and I had not even acknowledged it. Not until I started to put it down on paper. Many days I cried for myself even if the piece I was writing was a humorous one.

I remember on one of my writing days, my two youngest daughters were playing in my bedroom, and one said she wanted to be a princess when she grew up. Her sister giggled and said, “You can't be a princess, to be one you must have blue eyes and white skin like snow white!” And I realized that I had done a great disservice to my African children. Right there and then, I wrote them an urban fairy tale, about Aminata, a girl orphaned by AIDS who was being mistreated by relatives but found her salvation in IT. That was my first publication. My kids loved it. I also loved it, because the book had so many lessons. The book was a talking point for a lot of conversations for a while between my kids and me.

While guiding myself and my audience through divorce, I created my alter ego, Adua. I was not as brave as I would have liked, But Adua could say anything. So I used Adua to do some of the heavy hitting.

My writing got the attention of Carol Mandi of True Love East Africa. As a women’s magazine, they had been producing content for the single woman, the married one and the widow. Nothing for divorced women. She allowed me to write as truthfully as I allowed myself to. And I did.

It was not until I started writing for The Star Kenya that I gathered courage and my resolve to speak out became so strong. My then-editor David Makali gave me a column and free rein. I started very cautiously. My first article was about a baby shower. When I tell you I got a lot of heat for that harmless article, I am not capturing the extent of it. When I lamented to my editor, he said, “That’s all they said? Buckle up, they are about to say worse!”

And worse they said. I have been damned to hell by so-called men of God, I have been abused and called names that were not so imaginative, very disappointing actually. Mostly because I hoped the disagreements would be on the topic at hand and not on where my soul would go after this life or what things needed to be inserted in my nether regions.

From healing, my writing evolved to advocacy, for self and others.

I had written for years about relationships. Often looking back to conversations I had had with my mother and also years of observing the women around me and how they handled their relationships. Erykah Badu said in an interview that she was an improvement on her mother’s design. That we are our grandmothers’ and all our ancestral mothers’ opportunity to manifest parts of themselves that they did not get an opportunity to.

It became clear to me that the women around me lacked one thing. Joy. African woman joy. This is a rare phenomenon. I mean, we laugh, we claim to be glad, and we look forward to heaven but in the present, there is no joy. Our existence is based on a relationship with a man. From the time we are born, all we hear is; ‘Who will marry you?” “Look after yourself or no one will marry you!” “You are getting old, when are you getting married” “ If you leave your marriage, what will people say” “You are too old to get married, men like younger women” “You are going to be lonely, you thought your money and jobs would hold you at night?’

Nothing about joy. So I wrote my second book. THINGS I WISH THEY TOLD ME: How To Enjoy A Relationship With An African Man. I focused a lot on myself, my mother and my grandmothers. I am going to be an improvement on their design.

As African women, we are taught that staying at all costs is the solution to having a successful marriage. Pretty much like riding a bull. Jump on and stay on no matter what. But just like you cannot control a bull even though you are on its back, you cannot make a human being do anything. Acceptance will contribute to your joy.

I have been thinking of how we can be content without performing like circus monkeys. Happiness is free.

This year I revived Adua. I had shelved her when I started writing for different publications. Because the more I wrote, the braver I became and the less I needed to hide behind my alter ego. 

In my latest publication, Adua helps me look at some of my past relationships and boy, haven't I played a part in my sorrow and betrayal. Adua Is Dating In Nairobi is a collection of short comics based on my real-life relationships. 

Why this comic? I realized finding my joy involved healing, and writing heals me. As hysterical as this comic book is, it was a difficult journey for me. Looking at myself from an aerial point of view, letting you know that I have been that clown and finally accepting that I took part in my hurt is not funny. I will admit that there were tears and late-night meetings with myself. After this book went live, my skin cleared, I had a lightness about me and the glow in my skin returned. It was not all gloom, I had a lot of fun. Accepting one's humanity and not taking everything so seriously all the time has a positive effect.

I have written professionally for almost a decade. This has been my experience. Few read to understand. They see your name and automatically go for your neck or vagina. I could be writing about corruption, and someone will decide it is because I have not had sex. 

Many have opinions on things they have not read. I remember once a woman giving me a feminist lecture. She rebuked me for telling women life was only about men. She went on and on. I asked her if she had read my article, “No, I don't need to read it to know what you are writing about!” And here I thought I was dealing with mere mortals!

Very few women read, and even fewer will debate on thoughts and ideas. I think many women just gave up and then some behave like using their brain is the most unfeminine thing there is to do. It is depressing for me who decided to write for and about women. Most of my readers have always been men, which is ok. Maybe the change will come through them.

Writing has given me friends who have never met me but know me deeply. I have penpals really who have written to me for years. People who share their thoughts and dreams with me. People who can tell when I am downcast by the way I wrote that particular week. It is a special world we have created with those souls. I have never seen their faces but I know their hearts.

I thought I would share with you how I started writing and why I continue to write. I do not think I have ever written about it.

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