Samwana

My grandfather is quite the story teller. As children, we would always seek him out during visits as he would gleefully tell us the tales about his life. He wasn’t one to make up stories, as he would show us photos, letters, basically to prove to us kids that these stories were real. I never questioned the realism of his tales as a child. Young children rarely take a story as fictional, at least from my perspective. The man who traveled all the way from Nabiswa village in Bungoma to witness the burial of Mzee Kenyatta in 1978.Peter Wamalwa Mukhwana is his name.Born in 1937 and circumcised  in 1956(Omunyange namba tano).His father was Mukhwana and his mother Veronica Naswa. He’s warm, loving, firm and straightforward. He has a way of accepting whatever came his way with no more than a shrug. His deep catholic faith carries him through what life has to offer. One of nine children, he pulled himself out of poverty with great drive and determination but he never forgot his roots. He wa

Dear Mark So, here we are,  another year later —and today’s your birthday. The second year was so much different than the first. You didn’t see daddy more often. By the time you turned one, you weren’t walking, much less doing more than crawling. But all that changed just before you turned 15 months—you became an Olympic speed crawler, and before we knew it you were walking, stretching your hand to reach for the TV, playing around with electric switches and getting into all kinds of trouble, including but not limited to bumping your head on the table and falling off from the sofa. I still can’t tell why standing on the sofa to reach the window was fun. The KCB’s Wafula and Koinet’s advert was your favorite. You were the baby who didn’t move a muscle—now you’re the toddler who won’t sit still.Funny how fast things change… You know, I think of you many a times. I know that when you get older you are going to ask me what happened with our family now that you don’t see me more oft