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In the shadows of opportunies, where men are trapped
Where things brewed but happen for a reason
And for a season
Where years of toil and turmoil reign
Where empty wallets crashes the doubled pavements
Empty debris spewing across the streets below
I search the lost bubbles forgotten years ago
Alone!
Having done my best to sustain my relevance
Pushing up the seniors to the blink of hope
Wiping down their gullies with terrainial ages
Lifting heavy baggage in a processing factory
Delivering pizzas with Chinese food
Chasing up the boys with mental challenges
Hoping I dont collapse in my glued uniforms
Mostly, getting home beaten and weary in need of sleep
Alone!
Many hopes were shattered, tumbled and crumbled
A forgotten schedule here, a forgotten check there
A late fee of this, and a penalty of that
Then doubling twice sometimes, because I didnt pay up
Through predatory lending that wiped my accounts
Losing my home, my car my everything
While marauding vultures breathing below my neck
Alone!
Remember those days at the parking garage?
Waiting for MTAs on frozen bus stop
Packing heavy boxes in a sweltering truck
Wishing my mother will swallow me again
Balancing school before you were shipped home
I recall those days like it was yesterday
Yet on this day, this flight this hour
I drive my hopes to where I was born
Alone!
With an act faith, and perhaps of pride
I had known too well my time was up
Cracking down an exit these break my chains
Staring the horizon with a tearing eye
Way up in the sky with goggled retinas
Wishing one day and only one day
Retirement homes and nursing homes
I will thank my Lord for thanking Him again
Alone!
Sick and tired of breathing in courts
Shoving down my biological clock
Working for days that have already past
Banging through my walls to seek my freedom
Wishing one day will see the end of times...
I pack my conscience in bundles of four
Watching up the skies for a forgotten spoon
Boarding the ferry towards my l
Alone!
How I hate to think, the way I said it
Saying idius, for my tales of hope
And my friends I held so high
Going back to school and forth to work
Full of narrations of life gone sour
Some so scaring than Haloween we know
With costumes of fear and melodical attires
Almost alone!
From a village so remote a hyena would bite
Crawling pests sticking on my veins
I take my flight with the vultures at bay
Ending up years of hellish upheavals
Echoing Jesus last words, "Its all Finished?"
Landing in my country I buried fifteen years ago
Alone with family very strange but familiar
Staring at me like I dropped from heaven
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Safi wa Safi aka Iphone4G, pipo always think you are a cow(ng'ombe) and I always disagree with them, only that this time I have added a spare tail so that it can back up the other one to get rid of popoooo. Read that poem literally and to syphone or understand what she/he talking about, andika a stanza tusikie yako. Otherwise, nyeuthis have deKenyanized you
It's beautiful to see 15 years in America simplified in a poem. While everybody's experience in the US is different, the basic outline and challenges are mostly the same. So when we criticize pliz understand that this is someone else's story and not yours. And the grit of telling the story will help a teenager in Africa or a parent understand life in a world oceans away
Trust me, home may have challenges but it is the best in every possible way. Like the bible says in proverbs better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a meal of fattened calves where there is no love.
Better come home, Kenya has changed a lot and has a lot of oppotunities, one can thrive and live confortablly as compared to toiling there with no papers,or jobs with no security etc. In Kenya you can still have your American dream, drive a nice car, live in a nice house, own some land, business, have some solid families ties and friends ties that are real not fake like over there is US.
Of course in Kenya you will have to deal with corruption and some people wanting to be bribed in order to do their jobs, but all in all, i think Kenya is much better than living in shelter or with friends. Cut your losses and come back home, your will be appreaciated and accepted even if not by all. In life some things should be valued more than a Green card or dollars like the unconditional love of a family that can never forsake you.
The poem is a reminder of events we all know too well. struggle is an everyday business in this country. Poem just remind me all the hard work we put forth, waking up 4am in cold to catch the bus, work and school and less to show for. But the true is we made it and now we can look back and just give stories to these who need to hear.
Today going back home (kenya) should be celebrated. Look at the struggle in this country as a learning experience, and equipped with that, the challenges awaiting back home can be easily overcome. After all even if you stay here there are more challenges to come so be prepared.
If you made your decision to go back home, do so without regret. And these years in school will pay off. If you are doing good or OK in this country, don’t forgot your home and do something there while still here to prepare your comeback. If you feel like you have tried and not going ahead, make plans on how to go back home. (I mean make plans don’t just jump for it).
Either way, any day you living above the ground is a good day and you should be thankful for it.
US was a land of opportunity and is still is to some extent. Use the opportunity as tools to help your ground work back home. remember on a perfect community, anything you have back home is yours and no one can take it away from you, in America, you can loss everything you have in a brink of an eye and no one will ever care what happened.
Nice poem….
True. It was not easy and sceptism was alwasy pushing me back....until I boarded that plane. Thats when the curtain fell: that it was for real
Brilliant summation of life in the states....Congratulations!
I am a student who cannot wait to return back to Kenya once I fulfill my academic ambitions in this country. I am glad that I discovered pretty early, and while I am young, that this is Not Home, rather than yeaaaars later, when you choose to go back to Kenya and find all your friends and family miles ahead of you......Kenya has grown. Those who left in the 90's and early-mid 2000's may not understand but just visit and see the transformation. Most people are usually embarassed to find their friends Mileeeees ahead of them owning businesses and properties, married, strong relationship and family ties etc....The Kenyan job market, believe me, is very ripe for anybody with Academic Papers.....congratulations to you because it takes COURAGE to make that decision of packing and moving back HOME.
Most Kenyans want to go back...but are held back by FEAR and plus the longer you stay here, especially if you have a family, the harder it becomes to make that transition as children and a spouse are involved. I sincerely believe and trust God that he has prepared for me the path, removing any mountains and created opportunities for me as I prepare to make that huge step of faith, pretty soon. East West, home is best.
What a soulful heart speaks let no man's brain dispute or trivialize. For this soul ( like many others) has traded its life for a host of woes and barren promises. As you farewell, just tell them my folks that you saw me; and they will know the rest!
Good good good poem,It's good to see the light at the end of the tunnel.I have bin saying
that kenya is still the best place to bring up yr family kama umenjipanga poa according to
what poa May means to u.Make sure u own yr hse then another income ya like 100k which must
come.My Fred packs yr things n come back home,u will leave comfortably n for thoz who want to
continue with diaspora life we wish u the best.Work hard pay yr hse off then relax which mite take u
about 20 yrs but it's up 2u.I lived in states for almost 12 yrs n my Fred how I wish I landed here b4.
Rem with good plans u can enjoy life n leave an ok life.I do farming n I do good n I mean good only
farming dairy,green hses n make like 6000$ after expenses month farming only in an acre.Am not bragging but wasee njipangeni.U can easily make 300k a
month n with this naumeown kahse utaishi poa.
@MkenyaHalisi, just wondering....sounds to me like you try really hard to justify your relocating to Kenya. If things are working for you, move on - you dont have to prowl Diaspora websites and commenting on every story about US vrs Kenya. What works for you is not someone elses cup of tea. Congratulations to your perceived success and thanks for the advice but relax on having to justify your relocation, maybe you wish you could enjoy some things about US? Just wondering...
Well, Mwananchi, I think the message was clear. I like reading about people' experience especially when I find one who can express it in writing. Its not easy to write a blog or an article. Takes lots of time and input. I have learnt something I didn't know from this peom. But you sound like somebody who have been stuck or fear relocating coz of reasons you know, especially if you have family, or have nothing to show back home. Its good to appreciate others success or failures. Its not easy to decide to go home, and once I read about a diaspora returnee, it wakes me up. Otherwise dont wait unti they force you to go home, or they take you home while sleeping. Look ahead and plan. If its here, then let it be. If its home.........upto you
Folks, all this fascination about living in US vrs Kenya...mpaka Poems are written about it...so whats the big deal? The world is now a smaller village. If you have the ability and proper legalities of living and working in other countries and you want to experience it go ahead! If you are tired and things aint working for you - move back quietly. Dont feel a great need to justify your position. If it didnt work for you, just pack and move wherever you feel works for YOU. Dont feel a need to preach to the whole world about your decision. Africans and Asians are moving back and forth all over the world - within Africa, Middle East, Asia, Europe, US,,, to look for opportunities. This is the new global economy we live in. Kenyans are now moving within Africa and embracing new opportunities within Africa. And some are still doing quite well in the US and are investing in Kenya. I notice the ones doing well dont go telling the whole world about it...The world is open to those who like a good challenge and are adventorous, for those who prefer the comforts of the familiar - you have an option as well... Do whats good for YOU!
Fare thee well, my brother/sister of America. Soon you will realise that so many who share your story of America will feel like sisters and brothers....by the mere fact that you have so much in common. So much because the majority in Kenya, including your family and friends, will never again 'know' in total, the person you have become. You will be like a bi-racial kid, this minute feeling like one of them and the next so lost you might even wonder who you are and what happened to you. Lift your hands and thank the powers that you worship, because in all those experiences that you have shared above, you only became a better person. Hardships, loneliness, stooping low, having to rely on you and you alone......formed a character in you....and that character only made that inner person a better person. Money is not the measure of all things good.... experiences are....'that which does not kill you, makes you stronger"....sounds cliche, but so so true. I know one day in the near future, when you have settled down and gathered yourself together, you will look back and think how wise and lucky you were to have chosen to take this experience, even with all the tough times. You will draw your strength from situations you experienced, those lessons of perseverance, fear and victory....and when all is said and done, you will not believe what you will have achieved with the aggregate experiences of this tough life! Fare thee well! Blessings!
You are very right. Am different, and my family and friends seem to see that in me. They say am queit, humble and reserved and I dont make them laugh like I used to, and I dont entertain trivial stuff or backbiting etc. But I just wish they know, what I have gone through. They wont understand where all those millions I sent really came from. Wherever I go, in banks, matatus, supermakets, etc.am noted very fast. How... I don't know. I dont speak English, or put on something they dont wear. Am kinda charged more, than the price am given. I was fowarned. So, simply, I don't purchase anything on my own. I think they is something I carry with me. Am still trying to unravel this mystery. I need your help. The good thing about this is that I prepared psychological, mentally, etc and replaced with new shock-absorvers so that I could deal with the new brand new cultures I have not known for years. But, Am Home!