Migingo; time to settle this once and for all

An aerial view of the disputed island. The island has a population of about 500, who are served by four pubs, a pharmacy and a number of brothels.

It’s Museveni to the West, Al-shabaab to the North, the Pirates to the East and post-Socialist suspicions from the South. We are in that position, as one once said, to attack the enemy on all sides. Famous last words, I think. Let’s head west.

Museveni is spoiling for a fight…and in not so subtle ways. The fact that he’s choosing a one-acre rugged and rocky island half the size of a football pitch as the battleground is inspired! Really it is.

Now like the rest of the melanin-endowed people- or should I say melanin-burdened- I’ve come to the point of African maturity in which one attains a certain indifference to neo-colonialism. You know, the nice white people who tell us when and when not to stage our own civil wars- The nerve!

But one must admit that as founders of the Republican concept, they do have some paternal authority in telling us how to run our fledging and miserably failing democracies

We are used to our sovereignty being undermined by the West- we have budgetary deficits to show how established a feature of modern African government this is. But when a fellow, equally unimportant African nation tries it; that’s where we should naturally draw the line!

This brings me home…and to our lame-duck president. One look at Kibaki and you know he’s a man who needs to brush up on his Machiavelli. The amount of public discontent going around makes Nixon (he of the Watergate fame) look iconic. Of course this would all somehow matter if Kibaki actually gave a damn- the indifference brimming from State House is borderline Olympian. The man has the PR instincts of…well; take a pick of your favourite African dictator. And Kenyan cynicism being what it is, there are already remarks floating around about Migingo having been ‘secretly’ sold off in a ‘Grand regency type’ deal. This incidentally makes me think that this blend of apathy and cynicism should be the only requirement for Kenyan citizenship. Slap on your best ‘devil-may-care’ expression and suddenly you belong.

But back to the main dish. We need a war. More to the point, Kibaki needs a war- and a victory, a genuine one this time. He needs something to rally the people around him; he needs a legacy. His reputation as a London-schooled economist is as in doubt as a possible prompt resurgence of the global economy. So too his reputation as the ‘gentleman of Kenyan politics’. Migingo is more PR than he could have dreamed. Or Alfred Mutua which, as it goes isn’t saying much.

Now I’m hardly suggesting we get a cover story in the line of Museveni hiding weapons of mass destruction in Migingo. We all know how that story goes. Just a loud enough bark from our military…with a few visible bite marks to boot.

The harassment of fishermen seeking an honest living, the horror stories from the past of them being forced to eat raw fish at gunpoint, some languishing in foreign jails where the ambience is nothing to right home about. It means nothing to be a Kenyan abroad, that’s a given. But it has to mean something here; on our own soil for Heaven’s sake!!

There’s something of a friendly enmity between Uganda and Kenya. Always has been. Reports of declining water levels at Victoria in the past could be attributed to a hydroelectric project at Jinja. And there’s Ugandan folklore that ascribes part of western Kenya for Ugandan territory. If the Ugandans claim Migingo, they’ll be bold enough to claim anything else that ‘tickles their fancy’.

To the objection that the government is too broke to fund this proposed ‘escapade’ is the retort that 140million is too exorbitant a fee to settle border disputes. To the conscientious objectors is stark reality that nations are built on the soils of conquest, not white-livered pacifism; war is the only way of securing peace. Border committees are an elaborate waste of time and an avoidance of the issue. And while we’re busy playing happy families with Museveni’s diplomats, the UPDF is moving beacons in Kenyeris, Pokot. And to those who think that a one acre stretch of land is not worth it- Migingo is hardly about land, or fertile fishing ground. It’s about supremacy and taking a stand. And to postpone this stand taking would be to our detriment.

It’s ours- gospel truth of Tembo and Kibebe, the island’s initial inhabitants of ’91. Uganda’s appetites need to be tamed.

‘Men must either be caressed or annihilated; they will revenge themselves for small injuries but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore we do a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance.’ –Machiavelli.

And a better war cry cannot be found.

 

In search of the Kenyan conscience

 

 

Welcome to Kenya, former beacon of hope for the East African region and the greater Africa. It is a third world country currently grappling with the problems that seem intrinsically tied if not divinely pre-ordained for the dark-continent: hunger, pestilence, famine and death- the mainstay of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Add to that poverty, ethnicity and political immaturity and we have a winner! Here where a low-key massacre was staged under the glaring lights of the story-hungry Western media. ‘If it bleeds it leads’ and so on. There was blood…so much blood. The word genocide was loosely bandied about. The West came to the rescue, as usual, with that condescending blend of gun-boat diplomacy and playground taunts about donor budgetary ‘review’. We behaved, chastised. This love affair has an almost a tedious ring.

And lately poor governance which while a given in the Kenyan political context has risen up a notch to power plays over whose toilet can be constitutionally carpeted or not. The politicos are definitely upping the ante!

It’s them. It’s always been about them. But what about us? Who are we as a nation? Where is our compass…moral or otherwise? And does it at all instances have to be defined by this rag-a-tag band of thieves masquerading as reformers. Do we always have to be taken in by them?

I take issue with cynicism. Not mine because mine actually earns me an honest keep- ‘the first duty of a writer is to let down his country’ after all.

In 2003, Kenyans were the must optimistic people in the world. Now we are a people without expectation…without hope. There’s no doubt that Kenya is suffering from battered-woman syndrome. Twenty four years of Moi alone saw to that. And the third time isn’t a charm (read Mwai Kibaki). But this alarming trend in which Kenyans are ready to trust the same old breed of vermin shows a different malady.  And then to have the gall to be surprised by them, to be disappointed in them when they act according to their nature…there’s no mid-way with us. It’s either self-deprecating victimhood or cloud-nine entitlement. Stockholm syndrome perhaps?

It says something about us as a people that we can wake up one sunny day and decide with a surprising surety of purpose to butcher our neighbours…whether on command or ‘sporadically’. Says something unflattering about people who are ready to canonize high grade criminals but show unrepentant savagery to petty offenders who are more like them than they care to admit. Those on whom the African sun has shone cruelly bright and who have been denied a chance to honestly pursue the Kenyan dream. Whatever that is…  

At forty-five, Kenya is relatively at the infantile stages of its existence. It would be a highly imprudent course for us to console ourselves with the woes of those around us for the misery of others is a comfort for fools. Our Asian counterparts have made quantum leaps working on less than we have been endowed with. We have all the potential in the world to succeed, and in just the right doses: a vital and energetic youth, an enviable degree of political consciousness and a unmatchable entrepreneurial zeal. So why are we constantly missing the ‘failed states’ list by the skin of our teeth? Why are anti-establishment Mafia rings like Mungiki gaining such resonance and sympathy with the mainstream, who are us. We’ve lost that right that we brazenly claimed for our own once to say: ‘Karibu Kenya. Hakuna matata.’ Something has gone terribly wrong somewhere.

I feel we’re a nation without a conscience. We need to find what makes us Kenyan. Define it. Make it a part of our instincts. And this doesn’t need to emanate from the political class. It has to be from us who are the heart and soul of it.

Welcome to Kenya.

The future is for us.

 

Campus living

It’s months into the campus experience and the glow of newness, that enigmatic aura that surrounds those things in life that seem to us mysterious, has faded. The idyllic enchantment that is synonymous to all freshmen with institutions of higher learning has fizzled off.
It’s High School all over again albeit with a few perks such as a liberalized dress code; the self-aggrandizing tags- lecture halls for classrooms, mess for dining hall, tutorials, e.t.c. Yes, there’s generally an air of self-importance. But one gets the feeling that something is amiss. Where is the intercourse with brilliant mind? Where is the colour and vibrance of youth…the bubbling of great ideas? The sad truth is that nothing substantial has changed. And nowhere is this stunted growth more evident than in the social scene.
There is still that pointless obsession with lyrics- remnants of the teen years. You’re no one if you can’t hum to the latest Rihanna tune. And to give you a glimpse of  just where I stand in the social ladder…pure rap is lost on me, hard rock too- all those suicidal lyrics and the lunatic headshaking; what’s that about!? And there’s something adolescent about the unwavering interest in gadgets- cell phones, I-pods. Something near-menacing about earpieces popping out of underclothes, and something infinitely sad about a generation more at home with automated  voices than the warm laughter of those around them.
Come to campus and there’s a silent declaration: it’s beer o’clock. Booze and sex are the basics of life. When you’re not brain-dead wasted from drink you’re shacked up with some one night stand whose name you don’t even know; and here the world revolves. The more liquor you gulp down and the less classes you attend, the faster you achieve legend status. There’s still that same popularity contest; the girl who shows the most skin wins. These are the simple but illusive principles of popularity as laid down by the gods of fame.
For a first year girl, the mood is unapologetically predatory. There are pick up lines used that are an insult to seduction. Lines that would make Romeo turn in his very grave. Some actually work…more’s the pity.
But there are also the lovers. The Don Juan of the Denim generation. The ‘smooth operators’. The ruffle of skirts excites them. The clinking of heels enflames their blood. Ahh, they live for women these gentle rogues, and the women live for them. With subtle whiffs of musk they make provincial girls swoon for them.
When one reaches university, the journey of re-invention and continual self-improvement begins. To the Problem girls of High School who discovered that their beauty could get them attention is the realization that this attention could be converted to economic remuneration. They are trophy women and nocturnal creatures with a penchant for shiny jewels, flashy cars. They are the skeptics of this age with no love left but the love of money. And who can blame them? Love dies…money has continual life. Behind each jewel is a sob story that could syndicate a back-alley Kenyan tabloid and Daddy-issues that years of therapy won’t crack.
In campus, there’s something irritatingly predictable in the turn-over from Evangelism to bar-hopping. The choir girls of High school who refused to glorify the flesh are now party girls on a mission of debauchery and drunken dissipation. They have set aside the Stoicism of religion for the Epicurean delights of sensual living.
And the cliques! I have nothing against social stratification, honest to goodness, but the manner of groupings…it’s like the minute you come here you have to be branded and tagged and placed in a little box.
Yes, life here is pretty much a cliché. At first you’re wide-eyed, basking in the light of your youthful idealism. You vow not to become one of these cheap imitations, you swear to be different, and for a time you truly are. But then you see how easy it is to belong to this headless revolt. See how good it feels to be admired even by those who matter least and it becomes a drug. This need to impress and gain favour.
Yet there are a few brave souls. Those who know who they are and who refuse to be lesser men. We label the ‘weird’ and we condescend to them. We hate them because they show us how pathetic we are…because they are better than us.
It’s months into the campus experience and I feel terribly unprepared for it.

 

The D word

I have never attended a funeral. I remember though, very vividly, when my neighbour died. Urban planning being what it is in 1990s Kenya, a great idea poorly fulfilled, I was afforded a rare glimpse into this private affair- as was half the estate. (We’re not a gated community)

I remember the emotion, the plaintive moans, the masked expression of the grieving widower, the sullen ones of the children. I remember all those things that are expected in the in the natural progression of as unnatural an event as death.

She was a Muslim. Had to be buried on that day. Of all these things, I remember nothing so much as the thought that struck me when I saw them carry away the corpse, draped in a dazzling white sheet. It was a purely selfish thought- but a completely human one.

I wondered whether the angel of death had hovered over our neighbor hood, over our house…over me before finally descending on her. And if so, what had made Him not choose me?

Death gives meaning to life. It scares us into living, if only for a little while. That’s why when it happens on a large scale- the Nakumatt fires, the Molo explosions and more recently the famine deaths, the Nyakach floods- we feel the need to huddle together. We hold memorials, we declare mourning periods, and we blame Satan…the government. We pray and cry. As if death were an unforeseen eventuality. As if it weren’t some immutable aspect of existence.

Death hovers over us everyday. Sometimes it treads silently, strikes unexpectedly.  Sometimes it is in the obvious pain of disease. Sometimes it is the physician that ends that pain.

This knowledge resides at the deepest recesses of our minds. It is pushed there by fear. Fear of the unknown, of what cannot be controlled. But to claim this truth would bring certain pointlessness to living. We live…to die?

So we live our lives, pointless and purposeless at times but temporarily free of that fear of the end. We create routines and daily rituals, subtly scorning death. Some live it on the edge in flagrant defiance. We are shocked when those around us die. What a farce. We know death. It knows us…will one day call us by name.

But this insane farce is the only way to sanity. We need to pretend to live so that we can live, truly live. Until the next calamity pushes this inevitability back to the forefront of our minds.

 

 

More ramblings…

 

Once, my friend Mariam, tried to set me up with a guy, which happens quite often when you’re twenty and never-been-kissed. She’s a childhood friend and she takes this as some sort of license to meddle…perhaps with a bit of encouragement from me. On this particular occasion, in a string of many, she was fed up with me questioning my loneliness from a couch instead of actively pursuing happiness. Accused me of waging a one-woman campaign in the effective wrecking of my own life- not in so many words, but you get the drift.

With a blend of irritation and frenzied philosophy, she said: “you’re alone because you want to be alone. Loneliness, just like love is a choice.”

It amazed me- still amazes me- how her words both consoled and confounded me. So it wasn’t a cosmic conspiracy or some quirk of fate but rather a subliminal decision on my part. But when does one make such an outrageous decision? I want to remember with clarity and precision that moment. To go back to it and relive it, and choose the other door… to choose love.

Yet why this need for shared existence? For the tedious melodrama of love- cliché and redundant? Is humanity secretly greedy for punishment? Then why the need to belong to others outside of us. This unfortunately is the narrow field within which my mind wanders- when I’m not channeling feministic independence and the validity of sole existence, I’m questioning my affinity for loneliness…why it comes so easily to me.

“It’s the sex, isn’t it? How it must frighten you being untouched and all,” Mariam chided. The proverbial point of no return. Did it?

“No!” I had replied thoughtlessly. Hastily. “It’s what comes after.”

Now that I think of it, it’s true. I don’t know men. Think I’ve lost the opportunity to. I can relate with them from an intellectual base but emotionally I’m at sea. I’m awkward when forced into pheromone-charged encounters. Haven’t the sure-footedness required in the mating dance. I don’t know how to giggle and it strikes me that at twenty, I’m too old for training wheels! It’s too late for me to learn.

And I question the wisdom of abandoning this solitude, these lonely nights that are so commonplace with me to stare at phones that refuse to ring; to acknowledge a need at whose mercy I shall always live.

Romance is a myth and love is an illusion of that myth, says Mariam who favours herself to be the Aristotle of this weed-head generation. There is no man-of-my-dreams dying to make me happy. She forbids me to even go there.

But I go there often. Go there during the unenthusiastic preparation of dishes, during the mechanical devouring of those dishes. Go there during nights alone spent in the dark. And I wonder whether I saw him that day or whether I will the next. Whether he’s the one behind the radiant smile of a random stranger or the reassuring pat of a friend. Whether he’s walking towards me or away and whether such an encounter would have the makings of one of life’s defining moments or no.

 From an objectively intelligent standpoint, is the comforting knowledge that one cannot die of loneliness but beyond this stream of intellect is the silent and irrational fear of it. The feeling of being invited to a party and finding yourself behind closed doors, face pressed against the glass.

It didn’t pan out. The set up, I mean. It wasn’t him.

So where is he?

 

SCOUNDREL OR SAVIOUR?

William kipchirchir samoei arap Ruto is without a doubt the greatest political paradox of post-independence Kenya.

He is a champion of his country’s democracy; he was mentored by its sincerest dictator.  He is a child of those despotic times; a rebel against them. He stands in the pulpit to condemn ethnic loyalties; his career balances on his manipulation of the Kalenjin vote. He is a fraud and a traitor; he’s a democrat and a leader. He is the elixir in the veins of Kenyan politics; he’s Moi’s most enduring legacy.

I write with that awe that someone staring at Frankenstein’s monster would probably feel. Ruto, a creation of Moi’s politically intuitive imagination to gain his own ends, has risen to the higher echelons of the Kalenjin top-brass; a feat that is nothing short of meteoric, praise-worthy and severely chill-inspiring.

Ruto is ambitious and at a relatively young age he has managed to secure mention in the deeply satirical tragic-comedy that is Kenya’s history. I in no way mean to vilify him for his aspirations. He has also managed to romanticize the Kenyan plot, for there’s something whirlwind about a Sambu village boy gaining the favour of the president. The poet in me worships him.

But Ruto is a dangerous man. He lives in times where self-assertion (to any extent) is the accepted formula for political success. Behind his disarming smile is a silent ruthlessness. He is that blend of man who would have made Machiavelli both deeply horrified and greatly impressed. And despite his coaxingly rosy dreams for the future are the indelible exploits of his past….

Being an old boy of the ‘Youth for KANU 2000’ school, there was something hilariously ironic about the din raised by him over the December 2007 elections. The very man once appointed ‘Director of Elections’ by Moi for matters of …er…political expediency.

He features prominently in the scandals lining up in quick and alarming succession both from the Moi era and past it. The Nyayo connection is something he can never shake off. Angloleasing, Goldenberg- there are enough cases pending due to injunctions and other technicalities.

He is widely seen as having orchestrated in the ’92 and ’97 clashes and recently the Waki report where he is accorded notable mention. Ruto, MP for Eldoret North where Felician Kabuga MAY or may not have  been allegedly residing once; here where the worst of the machete wielding took place- something that Kabuga knows more than a little about. No implications here, just a ground break in the field of the blatantly obvious. A leaked ODM strategy paper of the ’07 campaigns contains odious truths- if so proved- of an exclusionist campaign with ethnic cleansing as a last resort- Headed by him.

His subtle passes coloured by some rather overt gestures at the presidency should more alarm than excite us. He is a fiery proponent of the parliamentary system. That scares me. But the Kenyan populace, being what it is, innately whimsical and capricious, is hailing him as a political messiah of sorts. That surely makes a case for him being a ‘Teflon’ politician. – Nothing sticks to him.

He will survive every major scandal thrown his way. He will wade his way through the murk and still come out squeaky clean. Sometimes logic…common decency are at the mercy of history. ‘Sometimes history decides’

Already the political sphere is abuzz with news of a Ruto-Uhuru merger that, if it lasts to Election Day, promises a substantive shift in loyalties- a paradigm of politics. Perhaps this is his true talent; this ability to realign and continually re-invent himself. From a Moi errand boy under the self-proclaimed professor, to the lifeblood of the opposition- the young turk who was a symbol of  the change that was proving so elusive- and now a warrior of the people; all fronts on which Uhuru has failed miserably. As a politician, William Ruto is that evolutionary breed of cockroach designed to survive a nuclear holocaust, and us all.

 

 

Daydreamer……

love, strong and immortal shields life and roses sprout from where he treads

You linger at the edges of my subconscious,

Like a rudimentary sketch of a brilliant idea,

Elusive and taunting; formative…still growing in me.

Like the aftertaste of ripe oranges on a dry tongue,

Bittersweet and sensuous; an awakening of dead energies,

Like an empty space desirous of filling,

As the hollows of a tree that needs the warmth of burrowing feet,

Like warm draught on cold nights,

Flighty and fleeting…unforgettable.

Like hearty memories of a sunny day,

Imprinted brightly on the mind,

Like a loving gaze,

Domineering, compelling, and soft.

Love is the substance of life,

It is a river, its gentle currents pushing me to you,

But you are that river,

And I reeds upon the bank,

Pliant, constant and firm,

Swaying to the soft undercurrents

Of love, of life

Thought is the element of life,

It is a tree spreading branches of shade over a scorching existence,

But you are the veins of these branches,

Giving life…giving breathe to a sleeping mind.

And you occupy my thoughts,

Sedentary and unsummoned,

Like hazy dreams of beauty,

On an artist’s pen.

There’ll be no want in our love,

There’ll be no need,

No lack…no dearth.

There’ll be silence but no solitude,

Tears but no grief,

There’ll be hardship but no misery,

Pain but no loss,

There’ll be anger but no bitterness,

Lures but no succumbing,

There’ll be love in our love, my love

Never have my faculties and passions swayed in similar fashion for the contentment of my soul,

They sway to you.

And every beat of heart,

Every rush of blood and breathe of life,

Looks to you for indulgence,

Like feeble flowers in the brilliance of the sun.

Never has the leave of my senses brought with it such lucidity of mind and clarity of thought,

Every sense is filled with the awareness of you.

To taste,

To touch,

To hear,

To smell,

To see…the very object that enflames them.

Here’s to fires of the blood,

That razed hearts, consummate flesh

And we, moths singed by the undying sparks…burning embers,

Rekindling passions

Here’s to the madness of youth,

To its appetites: absolute, insatiable and all-consuming,

Lusty

Spent and fanned by its hungers,

Here’s to yearnings, subtle tempting,

Silent longing and meltings,

Stolen moments, dark exploits.

To the sacrifice and fanaticism of our youth

I slept and dreamt a dream tonight,

It followed me to consciousness,

And into the light of day,

It lingered there,

Like the sun,

Brightening my thoughts…scorching them,

It teased and confused me,

Confounded and plagued me,

Was it idleness or a vision,

A message or a hope?

I slept and dreamt a dream tonight,

It was a promise,

The promise was love,

I dreamt of you.

 

The thing about me….

Am twenty. It strikes me like a diplomatic age. The early teens were awkward, the late explosive. At eighteen a girl can get pregnant by a forty-six year old man, be adequately shunned for it but also be accepted back with a shrug of resignation.’ She is young’. As if youth instantly blots out any sufficient clarity of thoughts in the direction of birth control!?

At nineteen, they shun you period.

At twenty, they call you a woman, scold you for making them grandparents at such a young and hold hushed discussions about shot-gun weddings- without an actual shot gun. They excuse your mistakes as the residual effects of mindless teenage rebellion, applaud your pluses as subtle steps into responsible maturity. At twenty you’re pre-adult. No one really has any expectations of you. You float by in life and the world takes you as you are. There’s diplomacy in this indifference.

I hate waiting.I hate the familiarity of caught breathe, the predictability of dashed hopes and the inevitability of this downward trend. And yet I have been waiting, for twenty years, for something big to happen to me. Something that would propel me into my life and make me an active participant in it, not just a detached observer to its unfolding. It wasn’t the belated and unwelcome jutting of breasts at that shy age; a kept promise of womanhood , an affirmation of my femininity. But whatever did I need in breasts for? I was content to live in flat-chested ignorance. It wasn’t my first crush on that boy a year ahead of me who made my heart race, my stomach tie knots and my thoughts hazy all at once. All at the sight of him. I would have given up a world for him back then ,was convinced I was going to marry him, be the mother of his four children. I still am sometimes .That boy who still makes me nostalgic for those years ;those times .

It wasn’t turning eighteen; the ability to exercise my constitutional right not to vote ,to engage in a ‘life of meaningless sex’ and alcohol. Freedom isn’t all it was cracked up to be.

I’m twenty years old and I haven’t discovered my ideals, haven’t embellished them, made them the roots of my existence. At the risk of sounding cliché –I don’t know who I am, don’t know what I believe.

Does God exist in a world where children are raped? If He does, does He understand? If He doesn’t is He still God? Does He exist for everyone or is He a sunflower only brightening to the sunny side? If there is not a God, are we in hell?

What is love? Is it a chemical production borne of raging hormones and dirty lyrics or is it the secret love-child of intelligent design wielding a corrective hand on an imperfect world? Is it an urge or an instinct? If love makes sense, will it be love?

Is Samuel Beckett right; hell is other people or should we sway to Thomas Paine that people are inherently good? Is man the destructive force of nature, intrinsically evil and with an insuppressible urge to dominate?

What is life about? Does it matter? Does mine? Are we floating purposeless in a world without end or meaning . At twenty no one expects you to have the answers. You can postpone this quiz for the later, early twenties. Twenty is like the beginning of always. When do answers come? I don`t know, DAMN IT. Am twenty. See, diplomacy through and through.

 

THE RAMBLINGS OF A VIRGIN MIND

It’s the 21^st century and no, the Martians aren’t here: no, Raila isn’t president: and yes, I am still a virgin. (Yes really). My friends advise me not to think this obscenity even in the confines of my room…it’s so very terribly old fashioned. They chime in with their…..

‘D, life ni short tu sana…..campus ni time yako ku have fun”: The message repeated ad nauseam is carpe diem.

And living in as cosmopolitan a city as Nairobi; belonging to as liberal-minded a generation as the motley college crowd makes me certain that such anachronistic thoughts as mine have no company- except maybe with the bible-flashing evangelistic crew .This gives me little comfort. So it is that I find myself in this curious position some twenty years after my uneventful birth. And after bitterly and vehemently discounting the ‘inability’ and ‘lack of opportunity’ arguments,(virginity is not inability but lack of opportunity), the rapid tide of socio-cultural changes raging around me officially begs the question: Why?

Is it religion? Do I secretly harbour some puritanical hang-ups about getting laid? I did have my closet-agnostic moments but years after jumping on the Salvationist bandwagon, and generally looking for loopholes in the Good Book, I realize that it isn’t God. My views on celibacy do not stem from the moralistic prohibitions of religion, although I suspect they may be fanned by them. They are not direct but incidental to my sunny Sunday school promises to keep away from boys. Easy promises to keep back then. That age when boys were immature and untrainable partly from raging hormones and partly from the intrinsic rebellion of the pre-pubescent years. As men they haven’t greatly improved on their flaws…

Is it my mother? Who surreptitiously skipped the sex talks but who still managed to instill, ever so subtly, the fear of God in me over matters pertaining to boys and babies. (No connection was made between boys and babies). My whole chapter on sex is a story of diligent curiosity on my part and my friends’ faithful but rather undependable delivery on the other. I’m wiser now.

Is it my father, who also evaded the sex talks but was more brazen about it being an unapologetic member of the breadwinner school of thought?

(Yes we’re happily dysfunctional. It’s not them.)

Or is it me? Suffering from an acute form of the virgin syndrome that leads one to have a generally skewed world view; namely over-sentimentality towards it. Towards sex.Sex isn’t love, I know that much. But the world over there is the fuzzy logic that generates sentimentality towards such physicality: a fitting together of complementary organs, which in truth is the whole rationale behind sex. And here subscribe the free thinkers of the post-romantic age. They of the ‘you-can-have-my-body-but-not-my-heart’ credo.

So here I am, standing aversed to the wind of change that seems unrepentant and content to sweep in the direction of decadence. This wind that makes me, and my virgin kind, quite…redundant. I’m standing in the middle of a world that has no use for me! Like the last believer in a dying doctrine, which effectively makes me crazy? And the only thing that can compound such insanity is a sedentary residence at campus grounds. Here where the mood of hedonism is not just encouraged but required. (The things they don’t teach you in high school!). Here where booze and pheromones enjoy frequent and beneficial encounters over substandard food and cheap lyrics. Let the good times roll!

But I do wonder, often and unwillingly, about love. Question it. Wonder what it’s like to be in it. To swoon to the faint whiffs of cheap cologne mixed with sweat. To be under the intoxicating influence of hormones. To walk about lightheaded and in a trance and to be content at such idleness. I wonder about giving my heart, about having it exist outside my body exposed to the world. About whether it will last or whether like all things in life it’s fickle…ephemeral.

I wonder also how it feels like to be claimed. Desire to know this feeling of belonging and possession. ‘To be his.’ How gloriously those words linger on a mind that has tried, vainly, to disprove the ill logic of need. A mind that prefers the familiar discomfort of loneliness. I wonder whether love is real or whether it’s a depreciating asset that starts with lofty ambitions of infinite bliss and degenerates rapidly, predictably into a misery in which one is trapped.

It’s the 21^st century and yes, I still believe in love…still want to. No, you cannot have my body without my heart. And no, I won’t apologize for who I am.