My Afrobloggiversary

Writing is my forte or so I tell myself.Writing is like being on a date, I want the reader to bear with me and see my strength/ vulnerability therein such that by the time the date (reading) ends , they’re willing to go out with me again next time I write. I cannot even try shouting right now. I would produce that super awkward mumble that a baby produces, only that I am an adult baby. I loved Grey’s Anatomy, the scrubs and the medical language. Next month will mark five years since I got into an accident that changed my life. I got a Celebrovascular accident ( CVA) and survived it, that’s why perhaps, I am here and you are reading this. A stroke is romanticized as a CVA and not many survive it, last week on Friday, was world stroke day and contrary to the myth, stroke can happen to anyone. Long ago, I thought that stroke was a preserve of the old folks, I am thinking again in light of what is happening. I think life said,”Mwene, you like calling your self an old man, welcome to old age with the illness for old folks”. The insight on my stroke is that I can speak with the right hand as the left hand is paralyzed and unable to type. The body is amazing, how it adjusts to situations is amazing, so I continued writing. Like Milan Kundera, I write to disturb the comforted and not to comfort the disturbed. Writing has always been my thing and it is not surprising that I bring up screenshots of thoughts on a topic as early as five years ago.

Wordplay is a style I use to make my point known. So I have for example written about Africa being a country and how Uganda was once a country,all those, humorous as they may be are supposed to drive the point home. Uganda is the Pearl of Africa but I thought why not call it the Peril of Africa because the trick in there is that you abuse subtly that even a government sympathizer will agree with the writer. On the recent Kenya loans with the IMF, I wrote, Let’s go on a debt and spend some time ALOAN. Word play brings healing to the writer first, before communicating the frustration therein.

So I pen my frustrations with the government for stopping the Democratic Governance Facility and share it,a friend shares it on their WhatsApp status and Musa Benjamin reads it and then contacts me and one year later, we are here.In June 2021, I was a nominee for the best outstanding blogger nod and that’s no mean achievement, I write about my own struggles ( journeying with stroke) as well as sociopolitical commentary. I can say that in the past year,I have grown, become a better writer and I will continue writing on, one hand at a time. I can safely write that this is my first Afrobloggiversary.