SPECIAL DEDICATION TO DAD

              I must confess growing up was tough under the umbrella of my dad. We called him Dad, but he was referred to as Mzee Nyakenyanya, the tough man.He is a disciplinarian by nature so you can imagine what paraphernalia he had for discipline. A bamboo stick hidden behind his bedroom door. My elder sister was brave and could try to wrestle when the lashes came down, but not me. I hated being caned and preferred to be the humble obedient girl. Sometimes I look back to how he shaped us and smile because without his strong principals we will not have made it to who we are.

          He has four girls ...that meant molding each one of us to become unique and responsible at the same time. He had no worries about my big brother and the last born for after all they were men and were required to be strong and protective of their sisters. We loved to play, but we had to do it focused on the time. You see, time was what distinguished whether you would be the recipient of the cane or not. We grew up in the Refinery Estate in Mombasa, a posh green estate that housed 100 houses separated by zones. I loved my zone; Zone B where most of my friends lived. It had the talented girls in "Shaky and Katy", the games of our time. We loved to play and engaged in all manner of games. At the end of the day, it was how dirty you were that defined how much you played.

         Back to my father, you see my dad used to go for job shifts. We especially loved the morning shift that began at 8 a.m and ended at 3 p.m. It meant that we had an ample time to play before he came home. Lunch was not always on our mind, of course except the time you heard Pilau or Chapati was on the menu. These were the good times when life was full of joy and happiness. When the play items were bladder, sticks and 'pekele'...mmmh am filled with nostalgia thinking back.

         Dad used to leave us assignments on the blackboard especially for me and my immediate sister who loathed mathematics. It was required that the work be done by the time he came home. I struggled with doing the work for the better part of the morning. But my sister would always be the first to go out and come shortly after lunch to struggle with it. Am not sure who really managed to beat the time and whose strategy was the best, what I was sure of were the lashes that awaited me.

         Today I celebrate the birthday of my father who has softened up over the years. He has learnt to responsibly let go of us to make mistakes and learn from them. He is the pillar of our family, the man who instilled in us values and principles that we have carried on to our children. He is a strong and a powerful man of wisdom upon whom the ethics that we practice stem from.

I love him for being a good and supportive father who realized very early in life my talent of writing and nurtured it. He might be strict and tough, but with a heart of gold, that is priceless. Many happy returns Dad...