Kenyan Humour

Christmas is here (again!) and we Kenyans will start our urban-rural age old migration. This is probably the reason our wildebeests also have an annual migration from their rural areas (Tanzania) to their urban which happens to be Kenya. It might also be that we learned migration from the wildebeests and I get afraid when people say that when societies live together, they start looking like each other and it will just be a matter of time before we start looking like the majority denizens of the Maasai Mara. This season always brings me the tender memories of yesteryears because chapatti was reserved for it and Easter which made chapati taste better. This was followed by mandatory new clothes and shoes. My shoes were always a size larger (my mom reasoned that I would grow into them before the following Christmas) the result of which was blistered heels for the better part of the festive season and the first quarter of the New Year. It was the same with the dress or the petticoat an...

I have these insects that have erected their nests (or what do you call insect housing?) in my bed. They have decided that they are going to eat it down from below and when I discovered how they have been slowly sawing my bed, I was not just unnerved, I became hysterical! My mind raced through the options and the first one was to call Hon. Ruto, the Minister for Agriculture. I remembered that it is his Ministry that deals with issues insects. The most scary thing that came to mind was what they would do to the mattress and even worse to me when they start sawing through my bones. So I called the Ministry and when I asked to talk to Hon. Ruto, and explained what my problem was, the person who answered the call advised me to call the Ministry of Livestock. I forgot the name of the Minister but asked to ask to talk to him anyway but I was told he was only dealing with pastoralists at the time. If I tell you that my heart sank, I will be lying. I was alarmed, worse because the gover...

Dear Madam, I am writing this letter to you because I am distressed by your recent remarks about your Ministry not having enough reagents to test whether what is killing us is cholera or not. The way you said with an obvious nonchalance, was as if you were talking about running out of rocket fuel and not reagents that would ultimately save our lives. Let me start by pointing out that I have never suffered from cholera and so I would not presume to know an inch of how much my fellow citizens are suffering. But I did come close due to a rotten choice I made this past Jamhuri day. I hate to bog you down with my woes but on that day, my eyes and mouth formed an unholy alliance and later a coalition where they agreed that so long as it looked and tasted great, it was to be wolfed down. I am not sure whether my stomach was cleaning up or sleeping when all the wolfing was going on, but an assortment of food and drink did end up there and what followed, even though I am afraid is not half o...

We are in the New Year season and as always we are coming up with all sorts of resolutions. Let me first state my opinion about New Year resolutions – they were invented by very mean sadists who wanted people to be depressed after the Christmas season. Another idea is that they could have been created by Mother Nature for stability. After peak pleasure during Christmas, the other way is down and she made sure that she did not give us a descent but a fall. So I am sick and tired of New Year resolutions because I have had one for the last 20 Years that I made at midnight on January 1st and broke it at 7 A.M. the following morning, even though I would have broken it earlier if I had not been sleeping. My take is that since I have turned out just fine even after breaking all 20 New Year resolutions, that they are unnecessary depressants that we do not need. Their only result in my life is that they make what I have always done with ease become difficult because they come wrapped in a gi...

The joy of writing about our national holidays is that you can always turn in the same column every year, except of course for the election year where the national holidays are converted into political rallies. So during the non-election year, the president drones on and on about the achievements of 'my government' and then realizes in the election year that his government has achieved zero and he starts to promise us pie in the sky come the following year. During the Nyayo Era,we kids attended the National Holidays with zest especially if one belonged to the 'exclusive club' of the school choir. To join this club, all one needed was a pair of black Bata leather shoes. We pleaded with our parents for this privilege and if they could afford it, or if they did not subscribe to an imaginary 'rebel' group, one was in. The only problem is that when the shoes were new, they were five sizes larger because they were meant to last the whole upper primary duration. ...

I am suing CKJ for causing me, a citizen of a democratic country pain and suffering. And I am looking for the best lawyer in the land - one who has sat in several commissions of inquiry. This at least narrows the number to quite a few but before you raise your hands, this is a serious case with serious money. I need compensation from the clothes line for the humiliation, pain and suffering the company has caused me. I am the kind of person who appreciates instructions and I read them very carefully before using anything I buy including tea leaves to make a good cup of tea. I always do just in case there is a change in formula or content. I read the instructions on the pair of jeans about how to wash, dry and iron it. You must be wondering what went wrong if I had read the instructions and followed them. What was not in the instructions was the most important because I had bought the pair of jeans to wear it, right? You don't buy a pair of jeans or any other piece of clothing...