True stories and the things noticed between them.
In a Kasarani kitchen, a separated couple pins their civility to the fridge in neat colours, only to discover their toddler has been reading the timetable as a map of love. The city applauds the paperwork; the child asks what the boxes really mean.
Most mechanics dismantle your car so you can't leave. Mzee Jamo doesn't do that.
Bukit Bintang at night is a fever dream of neon lights, the smell of diesel and satay, and the constant hum of people who don't know where they are going but are determined to get there.
Told from the estate up.
A lifetime of paying attention.
Notebooks before laptops.
There is a geometry to Nairobi mornings that nobody talks about. The matatu routes form a web across the city.
There are things you can only say over meat. This is about those.
Turning forty far from home. Still not brief.
Turn 40 far from home. Write about it. Still not brief.
The notebooks become stories. The stories find readers.
Mwangi reads a notebook over nyama choma in Rongai. No good answer.
Dar es Salaam. Write 40 pages in three days. Leaving home is the fastest way to understand it.
Start filling notebooks on the Number 33. Every morning, every evening. The passengers become characters.
Mrs. Odhiambo reads my composition about the rain to the whole class. First addiction.