Author: Jacqueline Kubania
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Africa Is A (Sad, Dysfunctional) Country
I watched the outcome of the just-concluded Nigeria election in disbelief, my heart breaking for the millions of Nigerians whose hope for a fresh start have been dashed against the jagged edge of the status quo. That popular Labour Party candidate Peter Obi lost to the establishment must have felt like a slap to the…
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Rejections, Man!
I spent Monday this week waiting for an email that never came and that’s when I knew I had gotten rejected for something I really wanted. You know that feeling when you are constantly refreshing your email? When it pings with a new message and you rush to check it, except, once again, it’s not…
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Go On, Risk It All And Ask Someone Out Properly
I had a conversation with a friend recently. He wanted to start dating again. “I have a tip for you, if you want,” I said “Ok, shoot,” he said. “Ask her out properly,” I told him. “Don’t be vague. Say when you would like to meet and where. How she responds will tell you whether…
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Every Move Into A New House Is A Reinvention
I’ve been renting in Nairobi for nine years now, and in that time I have lived in nine different houses. My first was a bedsitter at Alsopps on Thika Road, so new the window caulking was not fully set and you could still smell the fresh paint, and so small that once your feet left…
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We Can All Secure Bigger Bags
I remember the first time I candidly told a friend what I earned. I had received a job offer and was trying to make sense of how it compared to my current role in terms of benefits, perks and base pay. The stakes were high. Accepting the new job meant moving countries and starting a…
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What’s In For 2023
Stop being rude. Stop asking people invasive questions and giving them unsolicited advice to their faces. Instead, go over there and gossip about them with your friends. Dissect their choices in life, theorize about their relationships (or lack thereof), make up stories about why they do not have children, and question how they make and…
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Holidays Are For Family And Family Is What You Make It
I don’t usually go home for Christmas. By home I mean Meru, to my mother’s house. I typically spend the holidays in Nairobi, enjoying the traffic-free streets, in a collective stupor with everyone else, sinking into that limbo period where we don’t know what day it is or when we last ate a vegetable. In…
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There Aren’t Enough Women in Kenyan Newsrooms, and it Shows
When I walked into my first class at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in 2010, I felt right at home. I looked around and girls made up over two thirds of my class. We were studying journalism, a career that I had been made to believe suited women, so the class composition felt…
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It’s The Little Things
I am trying to design a life I like. A life I don’t need to run away from, or sedate myself to get through. It’s a trial and error thing, one whose rewards manifest in rest, ease and quiet joy, nothing glamorous. An inner-life thing, you know? Central to this design is the question, “how…
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There Is No Shame, Beloveds
A few weeks ago, a Kenyan social media influencer advertised break up classes. Ms Lydia Mukami, having recently gone through a break up herself, partnered up with Dr Caroline Vundi, a psychiatrist, to offer a workshop called “A Better Break up” where for the price of Ksh 3000, one would learn “the science and psychiatry…