“There are two types of women in the world: those who like chocolate and complete bitches” (Dawn French)

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Happy New Year! (for those of you using the Gregorian calendar).  It is one of life’s small cruelties that if you live in the Northern hemisphere, a grey, dark, cold time of year is also inexorably bound with resolutions to lose weight.  It’s entirely illogical: your body is bound up in layer upon chunky layer of clothing, and all you want to eat is comforting, stodgy carbs.  Far better to start a diet in March – its brighter, starts getting warmer, the prospect of salad is less likely to send you howling in despair from the room (unless that’s your modus operandi all year round, and you are not alone).  There’s a sense of approaching summer and the associated disrobing to act as an incentive to lose those extra layers you’ve acquired that you can’t hang in the wardrobe.  But right now its January. So, until those spring-like days, let…

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Dear New Subscribers

I wish to thank all new subscribers to this blog, keep that fire burning! (Don’t ask which fire).

I also wish to tell you that you missed the memo!!!!!

I am no longer a campus girl and as such I quit writing on this blog.

I moved to savvykenya.com. Find me there and subscribe too!!!

Thanks,

Former Campus Girl.

2010 in review

I started blogging here: Savvy Kenya. Just thought I’d review how 2010 was.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 28,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 106 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 238 posts. There were 148 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 77mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was December 9th with 282 views. The most popular post that day was Porn In Kenyan Matatus?.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were kenyaunlimited.com, twitter.com, savvy.sikika.co.ke, mashada.com, and savvy.blog.butterfly.co.ke.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for kenyan porn, jkuat, anorexic models, anorexic, and kenyan pornography.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Porn In Kenyan Matatus? May 2009
52 comments

2

Mr and Miss JKUAT December 2008
68 comments

3

The Kenyan Anorexic January 2010
7 comments

4

my side life-savvy the poetess July 2008
14 comments

5

XXXXXRated 2 October 2008
27 comments

The End of An Era

For three years, I’ve been your faithful blogger, sharing my campus adventures.

Well, it’s time to move on.

I’m now blogging at Savvykenya.com

This is Not Goodbye

It’s hard to say goodbye, so am not going to say it. I shall not do a going-away post or anything of the sort.

Today is my last day in campus; am happy am leaving, am sad am leaving. It’s a bittersweet moment. Fours years in this place…anyway, I’ll be reminiscing later. Perhaps at another blog, who knows?

I’ll leave you with the words of my current favourite song:

Closer to the Edge- 30 Seconds to Mars

I remember one moment, I tried to forget
I lost myself, is it better not said
Now I’m closer to the edge

It was a thousand to one
And a million to two
Time to go down in flames and I’m taking you
Closer to the edge

No, I’m not saying I’m sorry
One day maybe we’ll meet again
No, I’m not saying I’m sorry
One day maybe we’ll meet again
NO NO NO NO

Can can can you imagine a time when the truth ran free
The birth of a song and the death of a dream
Closer to the edge

This never ending story
Paid for with pride and fate
We all fall short of glory
LOST IN OUR FATE

No, I’m not saying I’m sorry
One day maybe we’ll meet again
No, I’m not saying I’m sorry
One day maybe we’ll meet again
NO NO NO NO

NO NO NO NO

I will never forget
NO NO
I will never regret
NO NO
I WILL LIVE MY LIFE
NO NO NO NO
I will never forget
NO NO
I will never regret
NO NO
I WILL LIVE MY LIFE

No, I’m not saying I’m sorry
One day maybe we’ll meet again
NO NO
No, I’m not saying I’m sorry
One day maybe we’ll meet again
NO NO NO NO

Closer to the edge
Closer to the edge
NO NO NO NO

Closer to the edge
Closer to the edge
NO NO NO NO

Closer to the edge

The Trip To Coast

I know I’ve been updating this blog like once in a lifetime, which is really sad because this is the last month I’ll be writing here, but blame it on my busy academic schedule. And a little laziness. So this year, for our ‘academic’ class trip, we chose coast again.

The journey always begins with someone being left behind for one reason or other (because they went to pick a pair of fake sunglasses, or buy alcohol, or pick something they forgot, or they were sleeping), but always, someone calls and runs after the bus. If they are lucky, we’ll stop at a petrol station to get fuel or at the bank for the lecturer to get our allowance, and they can catch up with us.

The trip to coast is like one big party; we start having fun even before the bus has left. Drinks are mixed, cocktails experimented with, jokes cracked, noise made, cigarettes smoked (at which smoker will be shouted at to stop, while he claims he’s smoking with his head out of the window so he doesn’t see how it’s bothering anyone else), and so it goes on till six or so hours later we are in coast. At every stop, we’ll empty our bladders, refill our bottles, buy shades and sandals, take photos and maybe make out in the bus.

Note the Masai sandals in the background

We reached coast at around 5.30am on Thursday. We booked into a really really nice place for a really really cheap price. Student rates. I’ll so miss being a student.

Before we booked the rooms, we lined up to get our allowance. Can you see how everyone is smiling?. Tell me money doesn’t bring happiness.

Lining up to get our money

By the time we were getting a place to stay and settling down, it was already 7.00am. so while we checked in, we ordered breakfast. Since we hadn’t had supper the previous night, breakfast was something like this:

Breakfast remains

I don’t blame her for KOing.

Sleep was the last thing on our minds, we changed into swimwear and took to the pool. That’s right, the place had a pool too. We passed the morning playing water games and making good use of the poolside bar. Thinking it must be in the afternoon, we asked what time it was. It was only 10am! Guess time moves slowly in coast.

Fun at the pool

We chilled by the poolside and begun to feel hungry and the beach was calling out to us. We ( I mean my group of friends and I, the rest of my classmates were doing their thing elsewhere) went to Mtwapa for some biriani at some place called Tamu Tamu Dishes. The food is tamu but their milkshake is whack! Horrible! The food is really good though.

At Mtwapa, we passed by Tuskys and I picked a Mountain Dew soda. It’s manufactured in Uganda ( I think) and thought I should sample it. It tastes like a cousin to Coca Cola’s Sprite would taste. Not bad.

We went to Serena beach after that, where I decided to get another tattoo.

new tattoo

Alright, so it’s a fake henna tattoo. But it looked real for a day or two, then it started fading. We took a boat ride on Halleluyah boat, but the water was just not ideal for swimming that day. Too much floating vegetation and stuff…

It was around six when we were going back to shower and prepare to go out and sample Mombasa nightlife. Sleeping was not a priority at the time.

Day Two

The highlight of the trip was actually something academic-ish. We went to the SEACOM station; which supplies the underwater fibre optic connection to the whole of Africa and parts of Asia and Europe. The entire place is just run by 4 people: 3 engineers and one manager. It’s just awesome; the design of those transmission/control rooms, the software they use to monitor their cable for vandalism, the redundancy in everything including the standby UPS, air conditioners etc. they explained how they have to lay the cable one meter beneath the ocean floor, no matter how deep. They’ve got submarines to do that in the deep waters, and divers along the shore.

For every fibre optic cable inland, they’ve got two connections using different routes, so that in case one is vandalized, the other can continue functioning with no downtime. They can monitor traffic from all the EA countries, so far .ke leads in the amount of traffic but their capacity is way higher than the current demand.

It was just awesome.

From SEACOM on Friday afternoon, we went to Pirates beach, where we swam and made merry and smoked shisha etc.

Then at night, some opted to go out, while the rest of us stayed in to have a pool party. It was just about to kick in at around 10pm, we had the crowd and everything, when some hotel worker told us we can’t swim at night, something about a student drowning the previous year. Then ordered us out of the water.
We decided to chill out by the pool anyway, till around 4am.

By 7am the following morning (Saturday), the bus was vroom vrooming at the parking. It was time to leave.
It was just two days of the coast of Kenya, but it was well worth it. It was short because we had to come back in time to start our exams and finish our final year projects.

So now am in the middle of my last undergraduate exam ever and may God help me.

I had another weird day

So you are forced into this awkward unexpected hug when all you did was stretch out your hand. Then to make matters worse, the person wants to hug you on the other side too. And when you pull yourself away as quickly as possible, you find the said person is still holding onto you, and does he want to lean down and kiss you? Arrgh, you put much more effort in pulling yourself away and say your goodbyes.

It happened to me.

Remember the Patron of our church story? Well, let me refresh your memories. He called me requesting for a meeting, asking me to go to his house and talk. I didn’t know who he was then, so I was asking him what his intentions were. How did he get my number? When I eventually agreed to talk to him, he never got to the point. He just talked on and on about everything in general and nothing in specific. We talked about our families, the church, the student body, politics, university issues, education, discipline issues, the weather, counties. Rather, he talked I drank cold uji. Then his wife invited me for supper, which I’ve never made an appearance.

Anyway, in short he was asking me why I haven’t been active in church of late etc and made me promise to be going every Saturday. That was like almost two months ago.

I did go back to church. Once. The first time this year. Then I sort of went MIA. I lost my phone soon after and it took me a while to replace my Safaricom SIM card so if he was following up on me, I wouldn’t know. When I finally replaced my SIM, he was one of the first people to call me on it.

Recently, we had a finalist dinner with the VC (on the 19th of November) and he called me then requesting another meeting. I agreed to meet him after the dinner, but afterwards, I just wanted to hang out with my pals so I cancelled the meeting. The following week, we went for our annual (unacademic) class trip to coast so I told him I’d meet him when we got back. Eventually, we did meet on this past Tuesday night, around 7pm.

This is an exam week and I have a paper tomorrow (Friday 3rd December) so I told him we couldn’t talk for long. We sat by some bench at the graduation square and watched students walk to and from the library. He asked the general usual stuff: how have you been? Any problems? How are your studies going? Do you think you’ll get a first class? How was coast? Did you enjoy yourself? (I digress here to tell you I utterly enjoyed myself. That blogpost is coming up soon. Again, something very exciting about playing with fire. When I was down in coast. That’s a story for another day though.)

As usual, there was no point to this talk. He asked me why I don’t go to church anymore, and I told him it’s a faith thing. It’s not just our denomination, as he was thinking I’d moved to a modern flashy church or something. It’s the whole Christianity thing. He asked me if it had anything to do with a relationship. Excuse me, relationship? Yeah, he said he’d heard of students who break up with their sweethearts and then leave church because of that. I laughed and said I’ve never actually been in a relationship in JKUAT. He said that’s good news.

So I told him am making a clean start next year, I’ll be attending church as from 1st January of 2011. He said that’s good news. Etc etc.

So after talking for about an hour, it was now a few minutes past 8pm, it was time to part. He was going in one direction, and I in the opposite direction, but he asked me to ‘stretch my legs’ a little in the direction he was going. I saw no harm in that and walked with him towards the university hospital road, and there were many people walking around. When we reached the hospital, I told him I can’t go any further, I had a lot of studying to do. He said alright, be a good a girl. You’re very special and very bright and you’ll go far if you keep up and if you get a first class you should come back to the university and teach so you can be sent to German/London for Masters. I wish you knew how special you are. Etc etc.

Then I stretched out my hand to say goodbye and instead got the surprise hug. I was so stiff, and wondering what the hell is happening when he hugged me the other side too. So as I started to pull away, there he was holding my waist and refusing to let go.

I’ve never been so disappointed.

Not that older married men have never approached me, but they are always direct in their intentions and they are not the PATRON of our church. They don’t pretend to be interested in saving your soul or concern for your well being. I just don’t like pretenders, especially in the name of the church or something. And one thing about these ‘direct approachers’, they never force physical contact.

Earlier, we had agreed I’d go to his house for supper on Wednesday 1st, because I had made a promise to the wife.

After that awkward goodbye on Tuesday night, he hasn’t called me again.

The Highs and Lows of My Life in Campus

The highs:

First day in campus- definitely a life changing moment. I was so excited to be joining campus, though the queues to register and what not were the longest I’d ever seen. Campus meant new relationships, another chance to shine academically, the pursuit of computer studies, fashion etc. campus was everything.

Numerous crushes. I think I lead the list of the highest number of boys I have crushed on. And when they responded I was the happiest. At least for the week or two that it lasted.

Babaroa announcement in 2008. Babaroa is the award for being top of the class for your course. What do you know, working hard actually pays off. I was a diligent student in the first year and was rewarded with a trophy, certificate and 10K in cash. I bought a phone, Nokla 95, which was stolen from my room about a year later. Sadly, Babaroa has eluded me in subsequent years. Blame it on my competitive class.

Nokla N95

Writing/blogging contract- this came in June 2009. I signed a contract that would pay me about 10K thereof per month, and they used to delay payment, so after three or so months, you got yourself a nice fat cheque. For a student, 30k or more of your own cash, awesome. Sadly, it was not renewed come June this year.

Hanging out with my friends. One night in particular stands out, sometime when we were in third year. It’s my first ever twitpic.

My crew

The class trip to coast in third year. Our trips are purely un-academic.

Traveling to Uganda in September this year. I just packed my bags, called my ex-high schoolmate over there and off I went. I used my own hard-earned cash 🙂

Internal attachment (internship in campus) at the beginning of 2009. It was the most idle time of my life. I watched so many movies and series.

The day I bought Z (sometime in 2009). Z is my laptop.

Zee

The day my blog got a mention in Zuqka.

Getting a place for internship at the beginning of this year was not hard. In fact, I had two offers and I chose the better one. Turns out everyone else who was interning there knew somebody, but my papers spoke for me.

And now I have two job offers out of .ke, of course am yet to do even do my exams, let alone graduate. Decisions, decisions, don’t know which job to take. Hope I make the right choice.

The lows:

Having this fight in third year. I still bear the scars 😦

Soon after, somebody stole my Nokla and wallet. They didn’t just take the cash, they took the wallet and all my IDs, school, national, ATM card etc. I had to struggle to replace them. And I know it’s those chicks in the next room who took my stuff. Am watching you, if you’re reading this.

Every year, whenever the Babaroa list is out, and everyone is making comments like “Savvy, am sure you’re getting it again” and I just wish I’d never got it in the first place so guys don’t have to remind me every time of my earlier successful days 🙂

I’ve ever had a bad experience with Naps. First and last time to take it. Enough said.

Had a disastrous last day at work during my internship (Jan-April 2010). Almost got in the middle of some office politics, ended up not going home that night and got lectured the following day by my dad. He said stuff like, “if you want to get married, just tell us. You’re an adult now.” I’d never felt more of a kid.

Also during internship, I met a tweep who borrowed me my savings, to invest or so, I was stupid and all yeah. Anyway, it was hell getting it back but after a long struggle bravely borne, he finally MPESAd me the cash and I erased him from my phonebook. So long, sucker.

During internship yet again, I went to Naivasha for a weekend, and on my way back, my wallet was nicked by a pickpocket. I had to start replacing IDs and ATM cards all over again.

Last month, I’d just had a new Nokia C3 for about six days when yet again I was pick pocketed.

And so many more, the good and the bad, these are just but a few highlights of my adventurous life in JKUAT.

DEACONS REACHES OUT TO HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS WITH A TOUCH OF BREAST HEALTH AWARENESS

Nairobi, 10 November 2010: Lifestyle brands retailer, Deacons Kenya Limited, has partnered with high schools in a breast health awareness initiative that is poised to change the lives of young girls in Kenya.

Training the Trainer - Edwinah Combar of Woolworths Village Market teaching a student at Kenya High School how to go about reading the Bra Measuring Chart

The campaign, since July last year, has enabled the company reach out to over 2,500 girls in an enlightening breast-health initiative that has so far covered four city schools in the last one year.

Deacons Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Muchiri Wahome says the company has invested over KShs 1 million in the last one year seeking to educate school girls and to boost awareness of their breast health at an early age.

“Our focus is on a relevant, untapped and vulnerable age group made up of young girls between 14-19 years. We realized that this age group had been left out when various campaigns based on breast health and care especially because these initiatives are normally targeted at an older female audience. Most students are also in school when these activities are taking place and that’s why we decided to take this initiative through school visits,” said Mr. Muchiri.

Mr. Muchiri said Deacons intends to extend the campaign reach to 6 schools beginning January to December next year with the hope of netting a larger number of schools in future. The initiative is helping girls to understand various aspects of breast health awareness including knowledge on their correct bra sizes, how to detect signs of breast cancer and how to seek medical attention if any signs are detected. One in nine Kenyan women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, health experts say.

In order to offer breast care and prevention knowledge from a medical perspective, Deacons is in partnership with the Nairobi Women’s Hospital who accompany the corporate on all the school visits imparting knowledge and spreading breast health awareness. Media personalities and motivational speakers also join the team and address issues of self esteem to the students.

Health researchers say 80 percent of women wear the wrong size bra, indicating a low breast health awareness level. Still, in addition, there is low awareness on breast cancer detection and treatment.

“This should be boosted because health experts say early detection of breast cancer improves survival chances of breast cancer. The experience at these various schools has been phenomenal since most of the students are unaware of the importance of wearing the right size bra.

We have had the opportunity to do free bra measuring for the students, and in addition to that trained the class monitors so that the service can reach all the students – and this is greatly helping to shape these young women look at their breast health more seriously,” said Olive Gathinji, Marketing and Communications Manager.

In the first year of inception of the Deacons breast health initiative – July 2009 up to August 2010 – Deacons has reached out mainly to girls’ high school in Nairobi such as Buru Buru Girls High School, St. Georges Girls Secondary School, State House Girls High School and Kenya High School.

The Princess Project ~ Flight or Fight

The last few weeks have been the kind when I know I am alive because there’s so much going on but I can barely feel my own skin.

It happens, to everyone, at some point. If you are like me, you’ll get a chance to stop for a moment and pinch your own cheek, just so you can feel the blood flow back, affirmation that you are alive. Sometimes I wish I knew a better way to get the same results.

My body seems to shift from severe neuropathic pain – periods when I experience severe pain as a result of both my illness and the medication I have to take to control it – and Peripheral Idiopathic neuropathy, periods when I cannot feel my extremities or experience pain in those areas. It can be a vicious cycle, one that is confusing even to me.

While all this is happening all the other stuff in my life; work, writing, friends, even faith seem to be some kind of routine just to keep me going. If I let it go on too long, then everything can be about my illness and lots of important stuff is neglected.

That’s why I need to stop for a moment and pinch my own cheek. I am glad that along with everything else that I was given, I got a bunch of special people to remind me when it’s time to pinch my own cheek.

Sometimes, I might ignore even them, in which case, we have a pre-arranged agreement that they will pinch my cheek for me. I might flare up, and maybe huff around for a few minutes, but deep down inside, I know that ‘my special people’ love me and only want the best for me. So I’ll probably calm down and start to listen.

I hope you have your pinch-your-cheek routine and your ‘special people’ too, because there is nothing so bad as being engrossed in your own thoughts and worries that you can’t stop to smell the flowers, and to make the world a better place.

I stopped to take in the beautiful scent of two flowers in the last two weeks.

I realised how very much I am proud of my daddy, his strength, his unique perception, and his choice to share his mind with me.

And then I met Catherine Wanjohi, well met virtually, a lady who is doing a great job of educating commercial sex workers in safe practices, as well as helping those who chose to leave the industry find stability and self-sufficiency. You can find out about Catherine’s work on her organisation’s website.

My mum always tells me that I should use what I have to make the world, my little corner of the world, a much better place. And I will. I have my pen, I intend to use it as far and as much as I can.

In other news, Gaby, is going through a Flight or Fight Situation. Which got me thinking that we are always at a Flight or Flight crossroad. Should I leave or should I stay? Should I do it now or later? Should I talk back or hold my tongue?

I think the same thing happens when a child is born and the doctor slaps the bum. Reality kicks in and the baby realizes that there are only two options, fight or flight. Flight at that point is a bit tricky,(unless fate and God had that in mind in the first place) so the tot decides to fight…We all decided to stay in this big bad world and for our places. What about Gaby? What will she do?

“Yeah. I don’t know you very well, figured it would be easier and safer to chat with you. ”

She paused and Gaby smiled feeling incredibly blank.

“See! You haven’t asked a question or given me the disinterested look I get from my friends in the lifestyle.”

“Like you said I don’t know you very …”

“It’s either you are too cynical for your own good or you are a very intelligent babe.”

“Babe? Me?” Gaby laughed as she handed a waiter a tray of drinks for Table No. 12.

“Yeah, babe. Hot one, too. Anyway, have you ever thought of getting out of this pub and maybe doing something ‘better’ with yourself?” She rolled her eyes in a Gossip-Girl kinda way. “Forget about you. You look comfortable here. I have been thinking of getting out of the agency. You know, down my tools and do something that I can tell my children – if ever I have them – about. Well, maybe not give up the whips and boots completely, but you know, not sell the lifestyle. ”

What in the hell makes the Blackberry Princess think that I’m was comfortable working in a hole with drunk yuppies as the main attraction and a patron who kills, deals and threatens? Comfortable?!!

Read The Rest Here.

The Princess Project did interview Catherine Wanjohi and she has spme very profound information on Life Bloom Services International, the organization. Check out how she helps these women Lead Blooming Lives.

The Lybelious Punk did not post any poetry(so to speak), this week. She’s fed up – I know she’s always fed up but this time it’s a bit more constructive- and she is sending all of you to Boot Camp with a poet of old, Rev. Samuel Wesley. Read and learn.

The Global Peace Convention will be held in Nairobi in December and we have all the info for you. This year’s theme is ‘conflict resolution; peace and development’ . Read More on the Convention here and then get to know Where The Truth Is with Imani Opar. Tomorrow she takes us Back To The Basics.

Lovely week.