Recover all

I finally found my Mr Maua.

On 21st April, the man I fell in love with 18 yrs ago, the father of my child and the one I dreamt that would let me complete him finally got into my life, fully.

To the Man upstairs, I just wanna thank You for Your completion. 2011 was the year of pursuing and 2012 became the year of recovering all, 1 Sam 30:18.

I THANK YOU LORD FOR YOUR FAITHFULNESS.

Dear Valentine

Dear Valentine

You thought you whisper to my ears, but the whispers instead talk to my heart. You kiss my soul every time I give you my lips. Thank you dear Valentine, for in you I see things I was blinded to. Thank you for letting me see the world in you.

Your Valentino

Lived nightmares can have a hope.

I was in my mid 20s, at an age when I aspired a place in the world of young professionals when I met an influential relative who would turn my love dreams into lived nightmares in the hope of ending with 'happily ever after'.

It was my brothers birthday party and honestly, my mind was too occupied by events to even notice him. This was the first time I saw him, but I do not think I gave him a second thought that night. He went home in the wee hours of the morning and scribbled something in his heart's diary, in the lines of 'TODAY I MET THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS'. 18 yrs on I am still in his dreams. There have been 2 proposals, both 17 yrs apart, a son and a 16 yr separation. For a good fraction of that 16 years both of us have dreamt of killing each other. We have both done things in our own rights only to be haunted by their results years later. We both felt justified that our actions were getaways to entering new chapters of our separate lives, but....., God always has a wicked sense of humour.

On 31st Dec, both our families gathered for a negotiation aka 'uthoni'. My son has his father back, an 11 yr old brother and I am just about asking Kenny Lattimore and Chante Moore if they will help me say 'When I say I do'.

Learning Kenyan

For the first three years of my mid teenage son's life we communicated in Kikuyu, my mother tongue, and only Kikuyu. A few people were a bit apprehensive, like my brothers, but he is my son. I caused several times when they spoke English to him, or when he responded in English. Being born in UK, and with no immediate plans of relocating to Kenya he was going to learn the queen's language anyway. Kikuyu was going to give him a sense of identity and belonging, not to mention having a medium of a private conversation with him in public, or a language I could threaten him, 'eterera tukinye mucii' (wait we get home).

Two weeks to his third birthday, I had to leave for Kenya to care for my mum, and what I thought was a short stay lasted for nine months. I came back to find a chatterbox and my hard work had gone down the drain. My chatterbox son did not speak a word of Kikuyu, courtesy of my brothers. But he was well taken care of.

Last Christmas, my son and I went to Kenya. It was his first time ever, and he hated 16 of the 20 days we were there (the 4 were spent in Malindi).

To my surprise, he picked so many words, but they are all Kenyan. Uka haha, oriti, wacha ujinga, poa, tugende, ninguukuna, barikiwa, shindwe, wi mwega, habari, misi, I have no idea which language to concentrate on. I only speak Kikuyu and Kiswahili. I hate Sheng.

But I'm glad the interest to learn Kenyan is there. I can also proudly report that my son has come from being a Gikuyu, Kenyan, English, British and back to Kenyan.

Yes, it's all over, for now.

I have finally come to the end of my journey. My project went in yesterday. I have spent 14 hours in bed and the rest indoors not knowing what to do with myself. The last 3 weeks have been spent in front of ‘Stalker III’, and right now, although he and I have spent too much time together, I’m trying to spend as much time away from him as possible, therefore, as soon as I use him to write this post, I’ll be off him for a few days. My son has missed him so much. Apparently he shows the best movies. I’ll be using ‘Handy’ instead.

Anyway, I have survived the last few weeks with this project, and yesterday after the hand in I went to see my course director, just to thank him for his help thru the journey. I expressed to him how tough it was, and how I thought I don’t have to ever go through that again. He was sympathetic enough, and just kinda repeated the exact words I had told my ‘gal’ earlier in the week that I’ll either never touch an academic book ever in my life, or I go back and do a doctorate within a few months. Mmhhh, Doctorate? So I can do a doctorate, a DBA, me, Dr Maua?

The doctorate can wait for now, I need to re-bond with a few people. My God for starters, He never let me down even when I sometimes, sometimes is an underestitate, most times forgot Him. My brothers even gave up phoning me, I was unavailable. My son, oh my son, he so understood me through this journey that he just kept off my way. He cooked for me, he ran my baths, he tucked me when I fell asleep in the wrong places and he even did the shopping. He was just the perfect guy for me, that I wrote this in my acknowledgement.

This work is dedicated to my son, whose smile every morning gives me the reason to get up and strife to make the world a better place for him, and who, even when he didn’t understand, showed me and softly told me, ‘mummy, you can do it’.

A big thank you to God for all His love and cares through this journey, and for showing me that through it all, Him and I are tight and I’m forever His girl.

Thanks to all who contributed in making this project a success.

Special thanks to my supervisor, her guidance and support is/was invaluable, my Course Director and the administrator, the men who knew where everything was, thank you for being there.

Thank you to all my families, i.e. New Hope Church Int’l, T & D and my ‘gals’, especially Winn who did all the critical bit, words cannot express my gratitude.

I acknowledge all the men in my life
Master, thank you for being the adult in my absence. No more junk food from now on.
Big guys, sorry for all the calls I missed or never made; you can have your sister back.
My Pastors, thank you for your continued prayers. The prayers never went to voicemails or held in queues, they went to heaven express.
Boss, you are the best I could ever ask for.
Friend, you inspired the start of this journey, thank you for being there through it all.
Stalker, for all the e-tissues and the tele-stalking, especially at night to check my progress, for being the ‘devil’s advocate’, technical support, and your ‘can you do this?’ lectures, priceless.

It was mother’s day on 3th April and again on 8th May, but I forgot all about it. And I’m therefore adding this bit of acknowleding.
Mum, you never had the chance to attend any of my graduations, but the seeds you sowed in me have surely come to harvesting. Thank you for all your hard work and the wise words, and most of all, thank you for all your unselfishness.

A big thank you to my e-friends, when I was down, you came down to my level and showed me I could wipe the dirt and slowly get up and going.

Thank you all.