This alcohol thing seems to be Kasongo’s entire arsenal. There is a generation that believes you can’t drink your whitecap or whisky and still love God and people and do great work. This is why they voted for a sober murderer only to discover he was bloodthirsty, that’s his drink
Heavy rains, strong winds and a storm uprooted a large tree along Mumias Road in Kakamega town, as the October–December rains begin.
Photo by Benjamin Sakwa
Leo I was at Mlolongo, heading back into town via Jogoo Road, running on pure hope and 80 bob in Airtel Money.
Kabla nipande, I asked the conductor, “Hadi Doni ni how much?”
“70 bob.”
I offered 60. Classic test. Sometimes they fold. This one didn’t.
So there I was: either alight at Donholm and walk like a pilgrim, or pretend I paid all the way to town and pray the conductor develops selective blindness.
I boarded the Embassava, sat down, and immediately started having an existential crisis. Five hundred metres later we stopped to pick more humans, and a short girl with cornrows and a face card that could start wars sat next to me. She smelled like she had her life together. I, meanwhile, smelled like overdue rent and unfulfilled LinkedIn applications.
I wanted to say hi. I wanted to compliment her. Instead my anxiety did what it does best: turned me into a malfunctioning NPC. Also, I had exactly 10 bob left. I’d heard those legends of men paying a girl’s fare to look chivalrous. With 10 bob I couldn’t even look charitable.
My sister called. I answered in French:
“Hurira after thate minutes ndî matatu îna inegene, please.”
The Mpongo Love babe side-eyed me. I could feel her reassessing my entire bloodline. For a second I felt like the mysterious bilingual girl in a matatu romcom. Then the club bangers kicked in, MC Mido saying unspeakable things, and when “Shake It to the Max” dropped she sang every word.
Gen Z confirmed. Early twenties. Going for hepi. Me? A geriatric millennial whose idea of excitement is refreshing job boards until the Wi-Fi cries.
Then it happened.
She put her head on my shoulder. Looked me dead in the eyes to check my reaction. And just… stayed there. Scrolling TikTok like this was normal.
People in the matatu started giving us the jealous couple stare. We looked cute except stuck in traffic between Syokimau and Pipeline with no memory-erasing machine in sight. Every time the bus hit a bump her head shifted… and she put it right back. I could feel her body heat through my black hoodie.
I said nothing. Not a single word.
But for a few minutes I forgot I was jobless, living at a relative’s place that had reached the “they hide the toothpaste and tissue” stage of hospitality, and refreshing job sites like a man waiting for a miracle. It felt like when a strange cat chooses you, or a baby smiles at you for no reason. Warm. Temporary. Dangerous.
Maybe God sent that pretty little girl with cornrows just to distract me from my problems for one Monday evening in October. I might never see her again. But I will remember that bus ride.
We got to Donholm. The conductor, who had clearly been watching me the whole time like a CCTV, asked for the remaining 20 bob. I told him the truth: I was broke. He sighed the sigh of a man who has seen every trick, then dropped me at Jogoo Road where I was supposed to alight anyway.
Anyway, good people… if you know of any marketing jobs (or literally any job that doesn’t involve flying planes or performing surgery), please connect a human. My dignity and my Airtel balance thank you in advance.
Alert! Kuna reporter fulani wa Newsmax ametukosea heshima sana. Listen to the video.
This is his handle @RobFinnertyUSA
Phone number +1 561-686-1165
Share Widely, lazima tumsalimie.
So the post below went a bit viral, and I was tagged on it several times. I'm not posting to disagree, as I write and talk a lot about freeing NASA from external impositions, eliminating needless bureaucracy, empowering our talented workforce, and focusing resources on the objectives NASA was created to achieve. No need to rehash all of that here and make this post excessively long.
And of course, SpaceX is an extraordinary company that has enabled NASA to accomplish far more at lower cost, from transporting astronauts to the ISS, to launching Europa Clipper, to the first Moon Base mission set to launch in December. Its ambition to make humanity a spacefaring civilization is exciting and important beyond words.
I will just leave you with this: NASA is the world's greatest space agency. We put 12 American heroes on the Moon and brought them home safely, built the Space Shuttle, landed rovers on Mars, launched great observatories like Hubble, James Webb, and now Roman, sent a spacecraft to kiss the Sun's corona, and sent Voyager nearly a light-day from Earth, and she is still going.
There is a reason the NASA "meatball" is one of the most recognizable logos on the planet. What our people accomplish inspires generations. Even with the occasional institutional inertia, NASA remains the space agency others aspire to be. We didn't earn that reputation through continuous perfection. We earned it by accomplishing what others thought impossible.
TOMORROW, THE NAIROBI HOSPITAL COULD FACE TENSION.
A section of Luo youth is planning to storm The Nairobi Hospital to demand access to Oburu Odinga.
Silence breeds suspicion. Transparency can prevent chaos.