Ifehenia's blog

I have a black hoodie that Dad got me last year. It's about two sizes too big but the last time Dad bought me an item of clothing  was at least 10 years before that, so it meant a lot that he had taken the risk. I mainly wear the hoodie to bed or to go to the shops in the evening. The first time my sister saw me in it she joked that now that I had a 'Trayvon Hoodie', I should probably take care not to get shot walking around at night in it, and we laughed about it. We could afford to. Let's face it. The police post near my house probably doesn't have a gun... and if they did, you can be sure that they aren't doing patrols to keep the peace. What, with all those pubs at the shopping center where they can go extort bribes? Then there's the fact that no one is going to shoot me simply because I am black and wearing a suspicious-looking BLACK hoodie. This is Kenya, we are almost all black and can't use race as a basis to discriminate. When tribe and class is...

Turns out Green Day was wrong... Silence is not the enemy... If you've been following my blog you know that I just finished school...exactly one week ago, actually. As expected, I was starry eyed and full of dreams. All my life I have been prepared for this moment. For a person who didn't peak in primary school, high school or college; I figure the next few years will be my moment in the spotlight. I have become quickly disenchanted. You see, as I said here , I have spent the last four years in the company of highly intelligent people and in a place where almost everything runs like clockwork. In other words, I have spent the last four years in a scenario that was nothing like the real Kenya. In fact, make that eight years. My high school had this antique feel to it that made it seem like a prep school. Now it's dawning upon me that most people are pettier, duller and generally more difficult to work with than I had imagined them to be. I have to say it started wit...

This is my final week of school. Actually, my final two days. I have waited for this moment since I was six and realized that school was not fun. We weren't here to play at break-time,  talk about the Tausi and make new friends. Six year old me couldn't understand why I had to wake up early to face bullies in the school van and bigger bullies in class (read 'teacher') just for a mark on my report card. However, when it became clear that this wasn't a passing phase... that I was stuck in school for at least 12 years, 16 if I was fortunate... I figured I might as well make the most out of it and pass. Besides, I was already doing homework for 3 or so bullies. Doing it conscientiously wouldn't make much difference. I have to admit that school hasn't been as dreary as my 6 year old mind imagined it would be. I outgrew getting bullied, which was cool. I discovered that I enjoyed learning new things and actually did well in exams which made the teachers less ...

Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace Over the weekend I got this amazing app from my sister where I was able to download every imaginable e-book for free: The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie; The complete Divergent Series by Veronica Roth; Good Morning, Mr Mandela by Zelda la Grange; There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe; The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason; I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou; The Railway Man by Eric Lomax; The Fault in Our Stars by John Green; among others. I was ecstatic. This was heaven to a poor person like me who loves books way above her budget. I immediately started on The Fault in Our Stars (TFIOS) because I really wanted to read it before watching the movie. From everyone’s tweets I already knew that it was a sad and depressing story so I vowed not to get attached to the characters from the very beginning. I tried to keep Hazel Grace, Augustus Waters, Isaac and even Patrick-who-w...

I’m late to the party… but I think one week is well within the grace period. The World Cup is here! The very first one since I completed high school, and like with everything else that I have experienced post-high-school, it really felt much more exciting when I was on the inside. Maybe it was just the vuvuzela orchestra.  Richard: SI unit of the underdog It is no secret that I root for the underdog… always have. Maybe I do it just to be the different one with the dissenting opinion. Whatever the reason, I will be the girl cringing every time Richard Jenkins embarrasses himself and the one crying softly when he finally launches the fastest, most lossless (is that a phrase?) compression software on Silicon Valley. However, for once, I will be rooting for someone with a real and apparent shot at winning. My support for Brazil is completely non-football related. Don’t get me wrong, I am convinced (largely by my boyfriend) that Neymar is a football demigod.  Even with...