cjenty

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

@MChelimoh Weeeuh

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

🔥🔥😌

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

@DebMosero 😂😂😂

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

😪

[Okong' Okuna @XivTroy]

Let me give you an experience I had for context:

Some time back, I was seeing someone who is in - relatively - the upper echelon of public service. She had an interview for a new job. We are driving - a few days to the interview - & she receives a call.

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

But can we talk about this confusion right here 😪. Culture does not only revolve around birth or ancestry. It also encompasses experience, community and a whole lot of things.

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

I usually say, if someone has made it this far then they’ll probably find a way to make it all the way 🤷🏾‍♂️ just because you don’t agree with the method doesn’t make it not work

[The Old Narrator @TheOldNarrator]

@LaCienegaBlvdss i will never understand people who feel entitled enough to say how someone else should live their life

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

My jam 🔥🙌🏾

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

The 🐐

[World Athletics @WorldAthletics]

History-maker 👑

🇰🇪's @EliudKipchoge becomes the first man in history to win the @berlinmarathon for the 5th time 🙌

2:02:42 for the win 😎

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

@laban_ach This shit is funny 😂😂

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

I think I’m in love

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

Beautiful work

[K. Kimuyu @wakimuyu]

I confess. When I was flat broke I tampered with the water meter. You would too if you had to sit in a house without water. Your skin becomes sticky to the point that you could grow arrowroots on it. And the toilet? Let’s not start with the toilet.

Nothing helps, not wrinkling your nose, covering it with the front neck-drop of your t-shirt, or opening all the windows. You still can’t stand your own shit. So you see I had to tamper with the water meter.

I could no longer rely on rainwater. By virtue of dirty corrugated roofs, the water was always dirty and only good for the toilet. And, because it was around September, it was unreliable. I also couldn’t borrow from my neighbors anymore. So I had to tamper with the water meter.

It’s not what you think. I didn’t tamper with it so that the good people over at Nairobi Water could charge me less, no. After they had switched it off and left, I simply went back and switched it back on. They usually carried the water thingamajig that opened the taps and it was cheaper to replace than to pay the bill.

The bill was three thousand bob, the thingamajig, four hundred bob. The only problem was that I would usually get a full-blown shower when replacing it and the whole time my heart was racing because I had to be the lookout as well as the plumber.

I confess. When I was flat broke I tampered with the water meter but I didn’t tamper with the electricity meter, so it’s ridiculous that it was the one that got me in trouble.

How could I tamper with the electricity meter when I heard stories of people who had died by its cruel hand? The craven in me wouldn’t even allow me to get close to the switchboard. When they switched off my lights I usually picked a stick and walked to the main socket board, hands trembling, poke the stick inside and turn my juice back on.

After months of flipping the switch on after they had switched it off, Kenya Power finally got tired of the Tom and Jerry games and carried away my fuse. And to think we were having so much fun. That forced me to pay. They brought down one of their technicians to fix it but that’s not what got me into trouble.

Lights Out

You see the main socket of my house used to make these noises. As if it was full of bees. (Irony for a house that smelled like a honey sucker truck.) I never paid too much attention to these sounds, not when I was busy trying to earn a living. The noises came and went and after two years my neighbors left and the noises with them. Did I mention they had a clan of people living with them?

After they vacated, the grapevine was rank with rumor that they had left a hefty bill behind, one that rung to the tune of forty thousand bob. When the rumor first touched my ears I thought, “Wueh, glad that’s not my problem,” and slept like a baby that night. God was probably smiling knowing that in a cruel twist of fate I would soon be on the hook for it.

Turns out, my other neighbor, the one who lived downstairs, was also not diligent enough to pay her electricity bill and it had climbed to a figure of twenty thousand bob. She would bribe Kenya Power every so often to have her juice turned back on. That news got to the landlady’s ear and she came down with a technician in tow to put a plug on the madness. It was then that I was told that the meter that I was paying for was dormant and the one that I was using was my neighbors’, the one with forty thousand on its tab.

I still remember that night. I was on my sofa, I think reading a book or wondering what else I could sell. My two-seater sofa? The carpet? The doors? They were looking especially attractive. Did I really need three doors in a one-bedroom house? You see I’m generally a good person but you will be surprised to what extremes the carnal need for survival will push a human being.

I was having these thoughts when my lights went off. “Goddamit, I just paid for that,” I thought. I got up, pushed back my curtain and other houses were illuminated. Come to think of it, did I really need curtains? I knew someone was playing peekaboo with the meter so I stormed out, my anger rising, ready to fight them. Okay, I’m not a fighter so, cough a small roar at them.

Landlady

“Sorry, Kevin,” my landlady, a middle-aged light-skin woman, apologized. “We are just doing a routine check, your electricity will be back shortly.” I turned my back but before I could put one foot in front of the other she asked me to bring her a pen and paper. I still insist I’m a good person; even when I was tampering with the water meter I was doing it for a higher cause. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, not my words. I went back into the house and came back with the pen and paper. It was when I was going down the stairs that I realized I might be bringing the stove that was going to cook me.

“This is a terrible person. You mean he switched meters with the neighbor who vacated?” she was telling the technician in Kikuyu. I gulped because I wouldn’t know the first thing about switching meters. Not with my trembling hands and fear of electricity.

“Umekua ukitumia meter ya jirani, eh?” she went off after I presented her the pen and paper.

“Ati?” I felt a pang of pain race across my chest.

“Eh, unajua chenye umekua ukifanya. Nikiwasha meter ya jirani yako stima zinawaka kwako?”

I scratched my head wondering how she had moved from an angel to a Tasmanian Devil.

“Sasa ujue vile utajipanga hio bill ulipe.”

“I have been paying my bill.” I switched to English knowing I did not have the misamiati to address the problem in swahili.

“You have been paying the wrong bill,” the landlady barked.

“I have been paying the bill for the meter number you gave me when I moved here,” I stammered. I usually stammer when I’m livid.

“How does that matter when you have switched the meters, eh?” She pointed a finger at me. “Ujue vile utajipanga hio bill ilipwe.”

“I have all the M-pesa texts,” I said, her words flying over my head.

“You have to pay the bill for the meter you have been using.“ Her voice had hit a crescendo.

“I have all the M-pesa texts,” I repeated myself like a broken record.

“Forward me those M-pesa texts tupatane asubuhi. Either you pay or it becomes a police case.”

I think I went upstairs mumbling, “I have all the M-pesa texts.” And thinking I cannot survive prison. I mean I’m not a fighter, the much I can do is cough a small roar.

Moving

I got into the house and it finally came full circle. I had bitten more than I could chew. I was barely getting by. I had sold my TV, my fridge, my coffee table and there was nothing else left to sell that could settle that bill. I made the decision to make for the village then.

The following morning I called a taxi. The driver was this ragtag who drove a Fielder. I had paid for his services when selling my fridge to Kimende so I knew he would be up for the gig.

It was a Saturday morning when I moved out. I had woken up early and done the hard work of packing everything into manageable luggage. My books, clothes, buckets, two-burner cooker, gas cylinder, TV-stand, carpet, curtains, mattress, and the bed that I had already taken apart. I left behind my sofa and kitchen table. They couldn’t fit into the Fielder and besides, my good side insisted I leave them behind to cover that month’s rent.

It was a sixth sense by now, looking out the window to make sure no one was sniffing anything while I was doing sleazy work. There was no one sniffing around except for a few kids playing outside who I gladly gave the mattress, the carpet, and the buckets to ferry downstairs.

“Are you moving out?” one of them asked.

“No, I’m just going away for a few days. I will be back,” I heard myself say and he raised an eyebrow, probably already used to adult lies.

I was breathing hard and turning my neck this way and that when the ignition of the Fielder roared and we left the premises, heading for our construction site where I would offload my belongings. “Ungeniambia.” The ragtag driver was smiling, looking at me with red-hot, alcohol eyes full of pride. “Ungeniambia ningekusaidia.”

“Kanyaga mafuta,” was all I said. All the while in my head the phrase, ‘I have all the M-pesa texts’ was replaying.

I knew that, unlike the common mwananchi, morning for my landlady meant 10 or 11am. She would be coming to discuss an electricity bill of forty thousand bob with the wind because by then I was in a matatu going sixty km/hr headed for Murang’a. I confess. When I was flat broke I tampered with the water meter but I didn’t tamper with the electricity meter.

[Thirsty Kipsoiwet 🇰🇪 🇳🇱 @Makiadi_]

From Marakwet boys, I was admitted to UON nifanye Anthropology after performing well. Culture shock ilitugonga juu the only time tulikuja Nairobi ni siku tulipelekwa tour Mombasa ya pirates beach tukiwa pry school na tulipita Uhuru highway direct without stopping watching the…

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

@ozzi_euro Using unrealistic and unrelated extremes to prove an invalid point. 🤨

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

@DebMosero I was not ready for that 😅

[Thee Comfort O.🌸 @comfortomovre]

Two years ago, was really ill. Got placed on admission. Diagnosis was severe malaria and enteritis.

Wasn’t up to two hours later that another lady joined me in the semi-private ward.

We got talking while our husbands were away and realized we had the same diagnosis.

[WololoTvofficial @WololoTv254]

When that song you play alone plays by mistake but your peeps still vibes with the song 😅😅

#wololotv

[Ivy🦋 @ivymbayi]

There’s something about guys who went to Maseno School. Very bright people, peak masculinity and are good looking.🤭
God bless that school.😇

[Imani Afua Lauren @SaxBaee]

Sheeeesh

[cjenty @CarsonJenty]

@herbz_m Unajua huna kazi ya serikali wewe, anawaambia nini😅