I now have two full time jobs and a baby and a hubby. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed, overstretched.

And I keep running into people asking ‘how do you do it all?’
VERY BADLY

Can I scream that out loud to everyone. To all those women out there who might be tempted to take on the madness of what i’m doing. DON’T!

Its not sustainable in the long run.
The problem is that I don’t know what to drop.

I can’t quit being a mom, though I feel constantly guilty for not spending enough time with baby Barak.
I can’t quit my day job. It pays the bills and honestly, I love it.
And I can’t quit project A after spending the last five years getting it off the ground and on the verge of going big.  And it feeds my soul with joy and wonder.

I feel stuck.
very very stuck.

And I’m not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel which is more scary.

Thats my honest authentic truth at the moment.
i’m still waiting to exhale.

I’m taking a break from taking a break about blogging to post an email I thought was so incredibly important about the ongoing constitutional debate in Kenya.

It was written by Ngunjiri Wambugu of Kikuyus for Change and I think the point he makes are incredibly relevant at this important moment for Kenya.

I am at Adis Ababa with some colleagues, and we have just been reminded how it feels to be in a ‘controlled’ environment. It also reminded me of a comment I heard that was once made by President Museveni to some Kenyan journalists; he told them that Kenyans have too much democracy.

As we were standing at Adis International Airport waiting for our transportation, we watched the local population milling around & one could feel that ‘feeling’ that you cannot explain; the feeling that tells you someone is watching you on behalf of the state. It is something similar to what Maina & I felt in Nyeri over the weekend when we were showing the ICC movie-and police officers showed up to ask what we were doing, as a guy who claimed to be an AP Officer hovered around Maina with a notebook & pen.

A group of us started reminiscing about where we have come from as a country; & being younger than most of them, I was reminded of stuff that happened before I knew what civil society is.

I was reminded of the mwakenya years when university students and scholars could get thrown out of campus (and that was the easy option), for being friends with ‘undesirable’ elements. I was reminded of Rev Njoya being caned like a child, on a street, with police watching; I was reminded of Kepta and Rev Njoya being followed into All Saints Cathedral by armed police officers, teargased in there & beaten to near death, for daring to demonstrate before Moi; I was reminded of Prof Wangari Maathai standing up to Moi’s plan to build a multi-storey bulding at Uhuru Park, and what she went through: I was reminded of Muite, Orengo et al, being arrested in the middle of the night & airlifted to police cells in their home towns, to be charged there; I was reminded of Saba Saba; of the mothers keeping vigil at Freedom Corner & stripping naked, for their illegally detained sons; I was reminded of KBC; I was reminded of roadside firing & hiring; I was reminded of Saitoti’s humiliation, & the fiasco that was our elections; I was reminded of Moi saying how ‘hawa watu wataokotwa mmoja kwa mmoja, mpaka watetemeke’, and how some of our current leadership clapped at his words: I was reminded of Moi saying ‘kutoka leo sitaki kusikia mambo ya human rights tena’, and people clapping.

Then I was reminded of the optimism of 2002; how we screamt saying Moi has gone, Kenya is saved; I was reminded of Kenyans taking responsibility of their areas of residence, volunteering for community policing: I was reminded of citizens arresting corrupt police officers and taking them to police station; I was reminded of Kenyans travelling from upcountry to bring their taxes to KRA to help the new government; I was reminded of Kenyans walking so that the PSV industry could get streamlined: I was reminded of how we all believed that we now had an opportunity to right old wrongs & that there was nothing that would stop us from rebuilding our country.

Then I was reminded of the Standard raid; I was reminded of the First Lady’s visit to Nation; I was reminded of Michuki saying if you rattle a snake, you should not be surprised if you are bitten; & saying that the last constitution was bad because we had a good president, and how we did not need to change it because we had a good president now; I was reminded of Anglo Leasing: I was reminded of unknown MOUs made & broken; I was reminded of 2005 firings of the whole cabinet; I was reminded of the 2007/2008 PEV violence; and I was reminded of how helpless I felt then.

Then I started asking myself whether Kibaki’s laidback gentleman mien had lulled us to sleep; whether we realized that there was nothing to stop him doing all the things that Moi had done: I wondered whether we appreciated that part of the reason why we were having the open conversations on Kibaki, his government, the constitution, etc was because people had lost their liberty, limbs and lifes so that we could have this space; i wondered whether we realized that what we were enjoying was actually a temporary repreive, that was based on the operating structure of our current president; I wondered whether we realized that were it not for this particular president’s disdain for political posturing, he could do everything Moi had done; I wondered whether we had envisioned Kenya under a new president but this constitution after NO had won; maybe someone as energetic as Raila-active and focused, & who does not take criticism as well as Kibaki.

I pictured Martha Karua as president under this constitution; or Raila Odinga; or Gideon Moi; or, Uhuru Kenyatta; or Peter Kenneth: or Kalonzo Musyoka; or William Ruto, or Paul Muite, or Maina Kiai,….or even myself. Then I asked myself whether we as a country should first sort out issues of kadhi’s courts, abortion, etc, or put in place a structure that ensures that the law, not a person’s personality, is what determines how we are ruled.

That is when I realized that the YES vote is first & foremost all about managing our executive leadership to safeguard our current space. I realized that we were choosing between allowing the state to beat clergy like children on the street walk, & having them hold press conferences to take on the government; I realized that it was about ensuring no single person had the right to tell me I could be his friend & vice president, but not the next president: It was about ensuring appointments were open & transparent; It dawned on me that the new constitution had one primary and overriding benefit;-to expand & permanently secure the democratic space that Kenya was enjoying, and allow us to elect anyone president, without fearing whether he would turn into another Moi.

Folks, we must let the NO campaign run on single issues as it is doing-it is a hard-earned democratic right, and it was earned in ways that some of us cannot even fathom. However, let us also realize that the YES campaign is also single issue-it is about ensuring no-one else can ever do a ‘Moi’ in this country.

At that point I realized that the concerns on the Kadhi courts; was an issues I could deal with latter; I realized that I can afford to not understand the land clause; that I can live with the abortion clause as it is & work to have it worded different latter. I realized that alot that could be improved; but I also realized how dangerous the option we are not talking about was. The current constitution allows Nyayo Dungeons to come back into existence. It allows police to raid media houses; it allows universities to throw out students on political reasons; it allows clergy to be bludgeoned by shadowy security agents; it allows another Moi to exist.

Guys, the YES campaign is actually a single issue campaign;

Everything else can wait, everything else can be sorted out later; but if we do get the benefits in the draft constitution, we wouldnt even have the space to re-discuss the constitutional process again after Kibaki/The Coalition government are no longer at the helm. Without the 90% good we will not even be able to fix the 10% Bad

If we do not say YES this year, we will not even have the space to say NO in future

Goodness!

Had no time to make baby Barak a costume for halloween but this bat costume purchased from another mom for a measly $5 was a hit!

I’m breathless.

I got sucked in hard!

I just got to the office at 1.30 in the afternoon after spending what was only supposed to be five minutes reading while on my morning loo visit.  Four hours later I had a serious cramp in my legs so I just crawled back in bed and continued reading.  I can’t stop.  I can’t help myself.  Yesterday I went to the library and checked the book and its sequel out.  I thought there is no way I’m going to plough through these in the time I have before they are due.  Well, I’m almost done with the first tome and salivating at the sequel.  I didn’t get to sleep until 4am this morning.

The culprit: Twilight

OMG!!!!

I first saw the movie on a flight to Kenya this summer and I was completely drawn in.  With reading the book now, I’m officially a Twihard.  Yep, a Twilight diehard

O.k. hurriedly catching up with work thats urgently due so i can run home and read some more.

Whats come over me?!!

Any other fans out there?

1. There have been other sitting presidents to be awarded the prize

2. Start your own prize so you can give it to who you see fit

3. Obama has already accomplished much in terms of changing the general direction of U.S.policy!

Heck, at this rate i might even consider taking on U.S. citizenship for how much I love the man.

what have i been up to?
Peanut is now almost 9 months old!

I’m back at work this semester and paying the unspoken price of going on maternity leave for 8 months.  Project A is going fantastically and Mzee still comes home to me at night

I’ve also developed a healthy addiction to harlequin romance novels!
These things are porn for girls.  The well sculpted male specimen, the lusty protagonist, the romance, the sex…..

Its all contributing to a happy Mzee is all I can say

This afternoon I spent two hours trying to get baby Barack to take his nap only for him to scream his lungs out.  I tried leaving him to cry it out and he wouldn’t stop. I went in and rocked him. nothing. fed him. nothing. burped him. nothing.

This is such a mind fcuk!   Its the most frustrating experience of my life.   Sometimes he’s been crying for almost an hour and I really don’t want to be around him.  Mzee is at work and won’t make it home for another hour and honestly all I want is a stiff cocktail, for my ear to stop ringing, and to not smell like a combination of poop, pee, and bad milk.

I finally gave up and now he’s quite happily kicking his legs and playing by himself.  He really just did not feel like sleeping.  What kind of three month old only takes one nap a day?!!

oh crap. there goes the crying again…..

We’ll have guests at home and its time to feed baby Barack.  I sit there trying to figure out if to just whip out a boob and feed the squirming screeming baby to quiet him so I can follow the conversation, or if I should leave the room and go feed him in a private room to avoid embarassing whatever male visitors.

For a while I had decided to follow the Muslim rule whereby I would whip out a boob if the male present was related to me and go into a separate room if they were not related.  I think that doing this made my dad and father in law uncomfortable at first but they soon seemed to get over it.

For Easter we had close family friends over who also have a baby and I decided to just go ahead and feed in front of them.  That seemed to make the other mother comfortable enough so she went about pumping right there.  Both our hubbies didn’t seem to mind.  What a relief!

As I get ready to go home for a few weeks I’m wondering how to navigate this one.  I know that being gone for a while has left me a little hazy on how things are done.  Plus i’ve never had a baby in Kenya before.  So, whom to nurse in front of?

How do you mommies out there deal with this one?

boobs at work: lifted from Arnie Becker photograpy

Now mzee is not the singing type at all so I fall over laughing.  Why is he singing this?  Turns out that a diaper change that normally takes 5 minutes took so long because the baby kept spitting up on every outfit he was put in and there was a total of three outfits involved.  So Mzee concluded to himself that if he liked the outfit, he should have put a bib on the baby to prevent the clotted milk that soon coated every new outfit.

In honor of 30 minute diaper changes I leave you with Beyonce:

But today was special.  Today baby Barack took a long nap enough to allow me to indulge in one of my favorite things; making ice cream.  Mzee and I bonded over the project.  He cut and quartered the fresh strawberries and we chatted as I made up the recipe from thin air.

The final product was absolutely fantastic!  I ended up using very simple ingridients. Fresh strawberries, grated ginger and a dash of apple juice in the blender.  Whipping cream and sugar mixed together and slightly whipped to fold in air.  Combine  the two batches and put them in an ice cream maker for about 25 minutes and presto, fresh, homemade ice cream thats better than anything you could ever buy.  I made three batches so I can take over to people’s houses when we’re invited for meals or to serve as dessert when we have people over.  All that is assuming I don’t eat it all next week.

This new re-discovery of the ice cream machine is going to have me concocting new mixtures all summer long.  I can’t wait till all the fresh fruits come out. I saw somewhere that you can use coconut cream to make a vegan sorbet thats still creamy.  Thats my next experiment.

In the meanwhile, I’ve got containers full of strawberry ice cream to polish off. lets hear it for spring and summer!

the ice cream machine at work this afternoon