WordToday

Author Matshona Dhliwayo says, "Excellence in obscurity is better than mediocrity in the spotlight." The sight of a drunk man eating githeri (boiled maize & beans mixture) from a plastic bag in public should ordinarily elicit feelings of pity at best or disgust at worst. During the 2017 general election a man eating githeri in the queues shot to national fame. This was after another man, (probably in jest) took his sorry picture and posted it to social media. How a whole nation became fixated on a man eating githeri still beats me to this day. But it didn't end there. The image went on to catch the attention of the highest office in the land. And so ‘Githeri-man’ as he came to be known, was not only given land by the state, but was also awarded a HSC (Head of State Commendation) for well, eating githeri in public? Now we have a government official, a chief to be exact, who was caught on video dancing  to some vulgar song in a Nairobi club. This would probably have pas...

For bedtime stories we walk our children through the bible-chapter by chapter until a book is done and then someone suggests the next book. They are pre-teens now and have had opportunity to go through the Bible quite a few times but there are book collections that never cease to fascinate them. One of them is the Samuel-Chronicles series. The evening readings don't always go the same way. Some days find me reading to a drowsy lot fighting monumental battles with sleep. Other days are relatively lively, and I find myself being bombarded with hard-to-answer questions from all corners of the room. On such days I can hardly get a word edgewise as I'm frequently interrupted with rambling and at times, irreverent commentaries. Some time ago we got to II Kings and boy, wasn't it a difficult run? My daughter, usually struggling with sleep at that hour, was unusually hyper. At every sentence she peppered me with rapid fire questions. My son, ever the contemplator par excellence...