JOSEPH OWAGA.

Take a moment and think about it. This might not be one of the most pleasurable discussions to have with self but don't you think it's equally one worth having? So, Who are you? Maybe you probably do know already and that is a good thing mate.  You might think you know, but maybe you don't. I think I belong to this category hence the need to actually pen this down.  Sometimes this question will prove way harder than we thought, but for you to get to a point of being self aware then probably this is a path one must tread on.  What is it that you genuinely love? What is it that you genuinely want for yourself? What is that picture in your head about your ideal self? What do you find valuable or pleasurable? Do you negotiate fairly for yourself?...or do you downplay yourself just because you feel it's the moral thing to do, or probably you think looking out for yourself is such a selfish to do.  Or you just sit there and fit in to other people's definitions of what is ...

    I see a lot of stretch marks indicating how much I have struggled to fit in their uniforms, I have stretched for long and I feel the pain of the limit, Tears rolling back inside, Blood shakily dancing inside, Thunder inside my stomach, Like they were born without love They say it's poetry or them, In the caves craving for attention, Conscience escapes, Poison spreads, A gangster's fire dies, Numbness befits, Heart is a spreadsheet of abuse, If they had love they wouldn't have shared toasts with ghosts. Joseph Owaga © 2023

  HOME   I long for home, a home with a father To hold my hands and show me how to love unconditionally, to make me feel secure and handle all my insecurities I long for home, a home with a mother To show me how to give and take care of a family and extend the love to others too To enlighten me on what to expect from a woman and what to offer in return I long for a home, a home with a brother Who takes after my father But have my mothers heart, To sneak around with him and carry me on his shoulders as we glare on the sun during twilight I long for a home, a home wit ha sister To keep our little secrets and talk to her about girls and how chickee they are A home is what I want, home is where I want to be, lough and smile at the adversities , to cry and lean on each other For how long will I long, Oh have become an alien  in my own land.   ©Joseph Owaga        2023 

  Trust me, when Biko says, ‘it gets better’, I want to so much to believe that it does. But yet again, I have seen doomed men, I have seen men who find themselves in a lot of ‘dirt’, men who are born in shackles and have to struggle so hard to find their way out. Men who, by all means, embrace all that it takes to pull themselves out of the mud but are stuck on slippery paths and uncountable setbacks. Men who are born with the verdict already drawn on them, who are paying for crimes they did not commit. Or yet again, don't even know what crimes they are actually paying for. Men whose only crime was trying to be better at being a man.  Men who are stuck in an unyielding pit of darkness, men made of strong broken hearts. Is this what Lucky Dube meant when he sang his famous song… Born to suffer? Because how can so many bad things happen to one person? But guys, what happened to ‘Nothing beats a man with effort?’ Well, the other day a friend narrates how this movie series 'From...

Well, you know the buzz that comes with getting to campus. The new friends we make, the cliques we form, some of which end up lasting a lifetime...friends become family they say.  This was us. Vincent, Justus and I, right from the first day on campus we had 'cliqued'. We did have our own share of disappointment, quarrels and fall outs but all in all we have maneuvered. The power of solid bonds you know. But in campus you make your own world, and what is in a campus dude’s world if not fame and girls, yes girls.  For Vincent, he was the most chilled in the group yet he had the largest share of ladies. I really don’t know what there is that girls see in chilled men. I am a chilled man yet…okay, okay. I’m not that chilled though, don’t give me that look. But I also had my own share of ladies too you know, a little world but do I say? I am a contented man. So, to me little was enough. Then there was Justus, the funniest in our group, but with zero lady power, that’s sad, right?...

  Men, you should be aware that Hiba Abouk, Hakimi’s wife, is not indigent or struggling financially. She is secure enough to live comfortably, but I have a nagging doubt: Why would she request more than half of her husband’s fortune? Unknown subsurface phenomena exists. Men, you shouldn’t be feeling like you are now on top because of Hakimi’s action. Women can work hard to own assets. You shouldn’t be like women are nothing and your mothers are more important. As a result, we shouldn’t treat this issue as if you’re doing women a favor by marrying them, and we shouldn’t talk as if they can’t work hard to own assets. This makes me bitter as a toxic man. Can this man now be contented? After his wife filed for divorce, Achraf Hakimi will now receive half of her wealth. However, I still believe that something deeper is what has motivated this. I’ll be the first to say that it makes me glad to see evil people punished by the rules of nature. And for that reason, I can kind of feel okay ...

                               One thing about me, I think and think a lot. Mostly over nonsensical things. Sometimes I don’t think at all. Whenever I walk past a stranger on the streets, I can't help but think what they are thinking about.   If only I had powers to read minds, to know what thoughts are stuffed up in their heads. But the look on their faces says it all. It’s tough, this life. As I walk through the fields, I find myself questioning the grass. Why is the grass green? What if the grass was red, not green? Feels weird, right?   Then I remember my science teacher had mentioned something about chlorophyll, the green colouring pigment in plants. But still, who said chlorophyll should be green and not red? And who is this that gets to have a say about grass being green and not red, and who gives him the power to decide this? For a fact, it’s not my fault that I am like this. I am...

  "The court finds the defendant guilty as charged and sentences you to..." These words were deafening to his ears; he wasn’t sure he was awake at that time, but he sure was. All he wished for was that this could turn out to be a dream, so sad that it was all but the reality. It was dawning on him that he had lost the most precious thing in his life—his freedom—along with his time, his dream of having a family, and so much more. He was a family man, you know, right from when he was a kid. His father always said he would make a great father, and he was sure of that. The sound of the handcuffs clicking signaled his last taste of freedom. Well, all the time left for him to live now would be spent behind bars; what a sad way to live, but did he have a choice? They say life is like a wind; you can’t really dictate in which direction it chooses to blow. Maybe only God knows, but he was too ashamed to even ask God for help. And so he let fate decide his path. His mother was the ...

Well, even before we delve deeper into this conversation, let me hype you guys ...because wueeh... adulting can be tough. So, if no one ever told you, then let me, you gat this! Growing up, we kind of seemed to have a picture  though vaguely, but we seemed to have a ka-radar of what we want our lives to turn out.  Literally, I want to go back to the times I used to say,"when I grow up, I want to blablabla"   But has it ever occurred to you that what if stuff didn't turn out the way you thought they would. Well. Let's face it, there are things you saw yourself into growing up but they are so far-fetched by now. You probably thought of having a great career by 25, but you are 29 and still doesn't have any substantial thing going on in your career life. You probably thought of having a good marriage by a certain age but it is not the case right now and so on. Getting to deal with that could turn out to be one of the hardest thing in life. The fact that you get to a...

Hello there, it's me again. This time lets talk about something that most, if not all of us, can relate to. But before we even get there, can we agree that, if anything, relationships, probably marriages or anything tied to this thing called love could be or actually is one of the most complicated kind of things any person has to maneuver through. A thing that makes you move from thinking with your head to thinking with your heart...stupid, right? But if you think relationships are hard, then campus relationships are way messy. You can trust me on this, I have been there, you probably been too... or you could ask Ibra, because what hasn't he seen.. haha But truth about breakups, some can be messy, others will leave you broken for years while others can be way more refreshing. One break up you might never heal from though, is the one that come with a touch of 'it's not you, it's me'. Well, I remember at some point someone really had to tell me that I am such a g...

  He says that growing up, he had a rather salty relationship with his dad. His dad was the typical African dad. Those fathers who expected everyone to be on their best behavior when they returned home When he spoke, you obeyed. You'd never say anything back. You were never allowed to hold an opinion, and in case you did, you kept it to yourself. Not like in our days, where we have the audacity to scream, "I hate you!" and run to your room and slam doors. He paid fees, and you went to school. He said you'd study medicine, and you said "Yes, dad!" only to discover, during a period of one of year holiday , that you hate what you do and end up hating the people you do it with, and the only thing you want to do is stand in front of crowds with a guitar in your hands and a crowd shouting in your direction. We are seated in this spot, under some shade, on a sunny afternoon, the kind of afternoon that makes you think, ‘What if the sun had moved an inch closer to ea...

Joseph Owaga © 2023 Come to think of it, we have so little control over our lives. We can’t control who likes us and who doesn’t, we can’t control who will hire us and who won’t, we can’t control who we get to love and who loves us back…we don’t even have the slightest control over life and death.   What I have come to learn is that we have so little control about how our lives and situations turn out…probably a whole 95%. But what we really have control over is how we choose to respond to situations that occur in our spaces.  To be honest, I love control, I bet most if not all us do. Control means order and yes, I love independence, to shape the different aspects within my life and be the sculptor, crafting myself to the person I want to be. But with all the effort there is always something that turns out to be contrary of what you expected or rather wished for. with all that was said, it trickles down to one question, ‘how do you react when you find yourself in situation...

This Blog is inspired by a talk a had with older men in a club, not long ago. I trust it moves you, especially men. No man on the earth has ever dealt with heartbreak like a man. None. Whatsoever. He can be big like Goliath, have the thickest beard like a biblical legend, and be a women magnet like the greatest fabled Luo man, yet he can also be dumped and heartbroken. Every man has that one lady who is capable of putting him in his place. He can be the head of a country's military, one of those faceless deep state officials who decide who the next president of a country is, or one of those hit men who can plant two cold bullets into your heart and two to your head, in other words, as manly as one would imagine the toughest man is, but trust me when I tell, there is always one woman who told them, "you ain't shit." Barack Obama was told that. Cristiano Ronaldo has been told that. Steve "Stonecold" Austin was told that. LeBron James, Donald  Trump,  Nel...

I look at his elbows, they have wrinkles, and those wrinkles have their own wrinkles. The bottom of his trousers patched with a darker shade, probably a tailor's effort to try and extend its time of use. His head is bend low, like he is obsessed with sadness. On his feet, are old dusty pair of sandals,looks like those maasai's pastoralists wear in their quests along great spans of unforgiving deserts. According to Troy, he looks like those men who wear their right sock on their left leg, he toils more than he breathes, sleeps less than a sinner, eats like it is a duty and forever walks alone. And, whenever he is walking along those campus corridors, he is always in a hurry, like he is always late for something. To him, every second counts.  He is an introvert, not because that is how he is or he would say 'I was born like this' but because his circumstances have made him be accustomed to that kind of approach to life. Despite being in the same class since first year...

Males who are financially strapped are twice as likely to refer to women as "gold diggers" and other derogatory phrases. Contrarily, loaded men, unless they are particularly frugal, have little problem allocating a portion of their earnings to providing for the lovers in their lives in proportion to their income. These people can afford to eat dinner and have a few drinks. Foot rent and other monthly expenses. Others don't have the money to periodically treat themselves to extraordinary things like a vacation in Seychelles, a dream machine, or the luxurious lifestyle she so desires. But not many ladies are so fortunate. To impress their lovers, some guys go above and beyond, sometimes even incurring greater debt. However, broke dudes are frequently cynical about love and relationships. Consider me for a second. I complain constantly as if life owes me an explanation. Valentine's Day is thus upon us this Tuesday. It's that time of year when guys can never be exc...

_joseph     It occurs to me that as we grow older we become more afraid to be wrong. I recall times as a kid when failure only meant lower scores on a test. This meant I couldn't get admission to Alliance or Mang'u, which meant I couldn't be, let's say the neurosurgeon, pilot or doctor I wanted to be... That was my worry then. Education is the key to life, right? I bet that is why we read that much, especially in high school. Those early mornings were pure torture. I hated school. Besides friends and food, I had little to look forward to. Sunday nights were my longest. I hated Mondays. I wonder why they named them Monday blues; it should be Monday blacks. Monday paved way for another long week filled with misery. But in all we needed to win. We had to. Education was the key and we needed that key to open the doors that we knocked on. But you didn't make it to that Med school you dreamt of; and while you fought so hard to become a pilot, your brains didn't...

  I would have started this story with 'ushawahi kaa chini ukafikiria vile...' but not today guys. So, do you ever sit down and think, you literally don't know what you are thinking about but you have these thoughts...scattered here and there. Well, like I had said earlier, one thing about me, I think a lot. But hey, don't mistaken me for an over-thinker, I know when to stop thinking, not every time though. I guess most of the times I have the most odd thoughts, like, why is grass green and not red or why do humans walk when every other animal 'crawls'...crazy, right? But lately, I have more sensible thoughts, like, after school, what next? So, today I am seated in this room,  wondering I am tired, on a Monday morning. There is a thing about Mondays mornings, if not yours, then I spend my Monday mornings wishing for Friday. I think, being in my final year in my last semester has a role to play in this exhaustion. Honestly, I feel like I am riding on an empty...

  Growing up I have wanted to be a lot of things. I remember planes really did fascinate me...like how does something so huge and heavy manage to float in air. Out of curiosity, I decided when I grow up, I want to become a pilot. By class six, out of peer pressure I shifted geers, everyone wanted to be come a doctor and so did I. By class seven half of the class had read Ben Carson and every doctor in the room now wanted to become a neurosurgeon...and you know what guys, so did I haha. Well, by class eight my grades were good enough so I entered high school still wanting to become a doctor, not a neurosurgeon this time though, but a pediatrician. That actually sounded classy to me and I too wanted to be associated with class. There was this moment in form two that I watched some clip on cesarian section...or that term they use when they refer to  delivery through surgery. With that my dream of becoming a doctor died, that thing gave me goosebumps and I made peace with the fa...

So Where do you want to be in five years? This question freaks many people out and I'm not excluded. I bet you have to think a little hard about your life before you answer this. It is even more complicated for those in careers as this question keeps popping up in those dreaded job interviews. In a world where success is measured by the wealth you own or the job tag you boast of, I bet everyone will see themselves richer, popular or more powerful in their next half decade. But if you ask me where I want to be in the next five years, this is what I would say: We are more interested in meeting the person we think we want to become and less interested in the person we really are. And that is where we all go wrong. You just have to live in the moment mate. I want to be happy Life will always throw curves at you. When you think it's moving in this direction then it suddenly comes moving in the opposite direction. So, to be honest it is difficult for me to say what I ...