You Are Awesome, Woman!

 I have had a hard time thinking about how to blog on this issue. It has been weighing me down for various reason. Today someone sent me a video that I watched and it gave me a beautiful insight.

Who are you? It starts by asking. Top of my mind was; "I am a woman."  And sure enough it was about women.

There are many women who cannot define themselves beyond their gender. When they look at themselves, woman is all they see. Which is great, but they never seem to realize that a woman is a great thing to be. A woman is a giver of life, a nurturer, a definition of beauty, a source of strength, a leader just to name but a few. I have to admit when I was thinking about this topic I actually posed and asked myself, what are the chances that God is a woman? Valid question, see women are strong though not physically, their emotional strength is a force to recon with, they bring fourth life, they are beautiful and man is made in God’s image. :)

POTUS on his visit to Kenya while addressing Kenyatta University students admitted that women make better leaders. See, even powerful men recognize the strength of a woman. This begs the question then why the woman does not recognize her strength.

The world around the woman hardly aims at elevating her. The woman is crushed, broken and demeaned just for being a woman. The African society is best at this. Everyday for a woman is a struggle to prove herself. We may think we have won the fight for equality but the fight is far from over. We have women who develop a negative attitude towards life because of the pain caused by the men in their lives. Dads who still value their sons more than the daughters and men who treat their wives and girl friends like trash because they have self esteem issues and to feel powerful they pick on women’s weaknesses. It makes a man with low self esteem feel powerful when a woman begs for his mercy. It is the core of abuse in relationships and the woman feels worthless and unacceptable so she will stay at the only place she think she can be accepted.

However, what women need to realize is a that there is a power that lies within them to do great things. Delilah conquered the most powerful man. It was the feminine charm that made such a strong man lose his strength to a woman. Esther married a foolish King, but she used her beauty and wisdom even in a corrupt kingdom to save her tribesmen. The late Waangari Maathai; If you read her autobiography, you will feel the power of a woman’s struggle to save the environment that went largely unrecognized yet she still changed how the world handles the environment today. Rahab was a prostitute but she used her womanly wisdom to save two Israelite spies.

It does not matter who you are in society, you can make a difference. These women are no different from the woman you are now. You were born with that amazing wisdom, strength and power to do amazing things as a woman. This power is vested in every woman. Your job is to find this thing and release it.

Dear woman;

You are beautiful,

You are smart

You are funny,

You are kind

You are unique

You are worth y of love and affection

You are never too much and you are always enough

You are precious,

A rose, a diamond, the most stunning of all God’s creation.

You are worth more than you can ever imagine.

You are worth more than your weight, more than the value of your shoes.

Your worth does not increase with designer clothes.

You are worth much even when you are naked.

You are worth more than your career.

You are worth more than the number of girls who wish they were you,

and the number of men wish they had you.

Your worth surpasses all earthly things because in the eyes of God you are worth dying for.

Regardless of who you think you are,

Whether you look at the mirror and hate the image you see,

Whether you are a mother to child whose dad you do not know,

Whether you are such a winner, but an empty soul,

The truth is you deserve to be loved by someone who can give up their lives for you.

Because you are powerful, strong and capable.

Inside of you is a capability to change the world.

Your responsibility is to find that powerful woman inside you and set that woman free.

Because, you are that woman.

Go ahead woman, be awesome.

                                 Don’t you ever forget, to be awesome, woman!!

The Devil is Not a Toddler

There will always be situations in life that will make you realize that and the devil is not a toddler whom you dance around with singing silly songs in high pitched voices. He is also not your boy that you will negotiate terms and conditions in such situations. 

Here goes some;

1. You have always arrived to work in time. You get there, do your make up, read the business daily, see how the national airline is fairing, text your salonist and book an appointment for her to check on your hairline in the evening, pray and work starts flowing. This has been you for the last three years. Then this day you are told of a board meeting at 7am, which means you have to be at work by 6.30am. You work late the previous evening to ensure all necessary material for the meeting is ready. Your boss sends you a mail asking how ready you are for the meeting and your response? "I am on top of things, everything is going on well" Till the next morning when you wake up to the sunlight coming into your bedroom through the window. Its 8am and you are not dreaming.

2. You leave the club in good shape and great health. The kidneys decide to do the filtering a bit faster than they were doing as you were drinking and you get pressed as soon as the driver starts the engine. You nod to the music and sing along to keep your mind off the thought. You take the stairs in faith because you live on fourth floor and the grace is sufficient. But the lock wont open easy, you say a silent prayer and as soon as its open, it is actually open. :) The walk, no run, I mean sprint from the door to the loo is ten times longer than taking the stairs in slow motion and you still don't make in one piece. 

3. No sooner had you lathered your whole body in soap than the lights go off and you have to rinse off with cold water. Wuui

4. On a day like today, you leave home when the sun is shinning. You have been in a jacket and a scarf all week, so what a relief to dress less. Then as soon as you get to town, it starts to drizzle.

5. That one week you have not gone to the salon, because you din't have time or you want your hair do to be fresh for a certain event so you put up with two or three bad hair days, on the last day of your bad hair week, you meet your ex on your way home from work. Well well well..........

6. You buy this new dress and you know for sure you are going to turn heads in it.  On Monday morning, it fits a little tighter, as you walk down the stairs, the hind section does that thing of lifting the dress up with every stride. You get to ground floor and the care taker gives you this look and you confirm that for sure you need to change into something else. You rush up the stairs and on you way back, you trip and fall down the stairs. Its already ten minutes past your ideal time.

7. After a month of exams and burning the mid night oil every night, you decide to turn up and reward yourself . You wake up to a mammoth of a hangover the next day and your mum calls, she is at the gate, its a surprise :)

8. You get home late, but you are determined to cook a mean meal for yourself. You make the ugali and prepare the vegetables, as soon as you put meat on the fire. Gas goes off. The damn cylinder is done. 

9. What is the relationship between being on the "avoid alcohol" kind of medication and your best friend calling you for a random event by their company and its open bar?

10. Why does one get two great job offers at the same time and you have to choose? Hey blessings, make a queue, don't make me choose you , I love you all equally at different times. 

11. You plan a holiday trip with your pals. Make all bookings and arrangements, your are busy applying for your leave day when you get an email that there shall be a leave freeze for the next two months.

12. The day you do not iron your clothes at night you wake up to a black out.

13. The day yo carry some nice chicken curry for lunch to work is the day you get lunch dates. The day you have nothing, the only message you receive on your phone is Mshwari reminding you to pay the loan. 

14. You miss an office function for a friends party outside town and it sucks the life out of you.

15. Your friends tell you that you are not fit to drive home after a drinking spree. You argue and even manage to prove your sobriety to a reasonable level. The next thing, you are calling your friends with stories about how the alco blow guys wont accept 2k which is the only money in your pocket.

16. The day you are not in talking terms with your dude is when when some guy hits your Nisan March from behind on Thika road. You have to make the damn call. I mean its your orange Nissan March we are talking about. 

17. You always send the chama money in good time and with the withdrawal fee. This one time you forget to send on time and when you remember, the only money available on your mpesa is the flat fee no withdrawal fee. Its a bad day for the recipient, the next thing you are trending on the chama group. haha (insert emotion that laughs to tears). 

18. You leave work early and have no plot despite the fact that its a Friday. You decide #thetrend will be your thing that evening. Larry Madowo then decides to interview that ex jail bird who abused the president and has absolutely no clue of how to be sorry neither opinionated. I think he also has no clue of his age, you cant be so old at 22. Surely, you are making the real 22 year olds look like toddlers.

19. You start this post with an aim of getting 20 reasons and you are at numero 19 and you are too hungry to think further. Its cold and its 1.20 pm. Brain shuts!

The devil is not your boy....hehe but J.C ni baba yao :). 

Have a great weekend ahead and don't dance with the devil. 

State of a Failed Society... Mollis

I logged on to twitter yesterday evening and I found this trending topic #Mollis, curiously, I tried to see what it was about Mollis. Apparently, he is some hero to whom a girl has surrendered. My interest was to see how far KOT had gone with raising #1MilliForJadudi, I realized the topic was trending but not high ranking, its fine anyway. I do a few re-tweets and hope this two or three of my followers will be touched and give something. My contribution was little, so I have to top it up by raising awareness.

In my WhatsApp groups, Mollis is being mentioned again, but it is evening, that time to go see what my son has been up to all day.  I hardly have time to be on the Internet at night. I dedicate these hours to my family.

On my way to work, I read then take a short nap. Once in the office, I see this Mollis thing again and now am too curious. I put on my eye phones and listen to what will turn out to be the most disturbing audio I have listened to after one where a guy did a remix of Sauti Sol's Nerea song and tells Waithera to just get an abortion because the baby she is carrying may turn out to be Osama, or Onyancha or which ever bad personality we know of in this failed society.

I am not sure I was born at the right time, my generation may be in graves by now or maybe they are grand mothers in old people homes. Because I do not understand how a woman in pain during intercourse tells the guy that she is tired and the guy asks her to shut up and stop being silly is funny. How? How do we as a society sit down and decide that this woman's pain is our source of joy and we go ahead and send the audio to other people whom we think are of the same mind?

When I listened to that audio clip, my hands trembled and I was in shock. I tried to listen to the part where it gets funny and I found none. That guy does not care one bit about the lady and he is punishing her for having human desires. Sex should be an act of pleasure and never a one man show. (Pun fully intended). This lady is obviously not feeling the pleasure.

I thought about how many times women take such abuse and assume that it is normal, how many  women suffer in silence because sex is a taboo topic in African setting.
 How men who have lost face in society are seeking to redeem their egos by abusing women sexually. My heart broke at the thought that this may happen to any woman out there and she will not voice it out because this society will side with the supposed hero. Sexual abuse does not have to be violent. Any sexual act done against a woman's will is abuse and if we can not recognise that as a society, we are a failed generation ready to birth a failed nation.
This is the same guy you will tell you are pregnant and he will tell you to procure an abortion because the baby may be a criminal, of course heartless just like his father.

Its is these small seeds of evil we are planting in society today that are growing to be tall tress in the name of rogue pastors who kill people and get away with murder in broad day light and corrupt leaders, Of course when Mollis gets a position in government or maybe he is already there he will oppose the appointment of a lady  . Because any man who aims to gratify his ego by sexually harassing women has very low self esteem and hence sees a woman as a threat. That is why he takes advantage of her point of weakness.

If the mothers of today can stand up and decide to raise a generation of children who respect human life, boys who will grow to love respect and honor women of all ages and girls who will grow with the knowledge that they are no less of a human being because they are female, then we shall have succeeded in redeeming this failed society.

Some will say that this is an exaggerated point of view and that life is too short to try and solve every body's problem, so because it has happened, lets laugh about it. But I say life is too short to celebrate evil. I may not change as many as five souls but that one soul that will have a different perspective after reading this may have been the Mollis that  may have sexually abused your daughter in future .