WHY I WILL NEVER SHAVE AGAIN USING A RAZOR BLADE!

Hairstyles are the in thing currently in my village. Gone are the days when the standard shaving style was a jordan, where every hair on your head was liquidized. The more enlightened folks in the village would go with the famous "bakisha kidogo" (leave a little hair). the downright spoilt ones would go with a "box" otherwise known as "punk". Those were the bad examples of the village and form one dropouts.
My mother however, has a bad idea of shaving. Where ingredients like salt and avocados are involved in shaving one's head is just inhuman. It is a family ritual that all male members of the family get rid of their hair every fortnight. This of course is with the exception of my father.
EXTERMINATION
the process begins with the washing of the head. A stone is used to scrap off any living thing that is present in the head and a stick to remove the non-living ones. Boiling salted water is then run through the thoroughly washed head just to make sure the extermination is successful.
UNDRESSING
For some strange reason, we were always naked before the shaving began. The idea, my loving mother explained, was not to dirtify the shirt. those were the days when a small boy did not require to wear anything below the waist. As long as the shirt was long enough to cover the important areas, we were good to go... until we were forced to strip during the shaving. And do i need that the shaving was done in public. Apparently the lighting indoor was was not favorable for my mother's shaving skills!
THE AVOCADO
Imagine my excitement when my mother sends my sister to buy ten avocados.. obviously i sharpen my appetite and make a mental note not to steal guavas from our neighbor's orchard. Come the shaving time and my hopes are dashed. Each one of us is smeared with two avocados on the head. The reasoning is to soften the hair. I still object to the use of food in this manner! (hujuma!)
THE BLADE!!
This is why we had a fight with my father at the age of eight when he tried to explain the concept of circumcision to me. I was never good under razor blades! The blade was passed only once, taking with it my hair and pieces of my scalp! nerves and capillaries were not spared. We dared not shed a tear just in case we got a thrashing from crying!
THE BABY POWDER
After our heads looked like the bottom of a calabash, the baby powder was introduced in not such a soft manner. it was slapped on our heads with astonishing    sharpness. this was to kill the germs that the blade had introduced and also heal the wounds we had acquired in the process.
TIPTOP
This specific brand of petroleum jelly was smeared generously leaving our heads shining like disco lights!
though i appreciate my mothers expertise in the barber industry, I will never shave again using a razor blade! not even my beards!

MATTERS OF THE WINDOW!

A good friend of mine from the village (now a town girl who has finally lost the accent and the ways of my people from the village) once narrated to me an ordeal she encountered when the door of a matatu they were traveling in got stuck. This is not an uncommon scenario in our beloved country! As long as a machine has a yellow band and can move, it is qualified as a public service vehicle.
The long journey started when Melissa's alarm clock decided not to wake her up after she had kicked it to the floor the previous morning. Downing a huge cup of hot tea down her throat, for she had not completely forgotten the ways of her people, Melissa took off the house and in no time was at the stage. She was terribly late for work.
No sooner had her sharp pointed high heels stepped on the stage than a rattling assembly of rusting metals with a yellow band parked next to her. The matatu was as full as a sack of potatoes with all kinds of body parts sticking out of the window! The tout, a loud mouthed class five dropout with an otherwise outstanding skill in addition and substraction was hanging by his finger nails at the door. This guy could spot a traveller from a mile away. It is no big news then when she swept our ever elegant Melissa into this potential accident.
The innards of the machine were worse than the out. there was no space to even wiggle! There seemed to be some heat generating device from behind the driver's seat and someones shoe was melting due to that heat. A deadly stench of onions fed the nostrils of half of the travelers who were not lucky enough to have blocked an running noses! The owner of the onions did not smell any better. She was a generously sized mama mboga with no concept of hygiene. The irony was that she was loudly complaining of the bad smell in the nissan.
"Kuna mtu hajaoga hapa! Tutamuosha vile tuliosha Kamau wa butchery! (There is someone who hasn't taken a shower! We shall wash him just like we did to Kamau the butcher!)" said the big woman suspiciously looking at the tout. No one commented. Everyone was looking ahead as if in deep meditation. The mama mboga went on to narrate in gory detail how Kamau the butcher was picked out as an anti-shower thanks to her super natural sense of smell. It was in a matatu just like this one where our stinking stench picking madam had apparently raised the alarm and Kamau consequently arrested and thoroughly cleaned at the heart of the capital city! All this while the onion smelling Mama mboga was narrating this graphic story, she was animating it with all sorts of non-verbal cues occasionally sticking a thumb into poor Melissa's nose! The tout, sensing the pending danger of being picked out as an anti-shower gave the big woman a tongue lashing; threatening to kick her out of the vehicle. She defiantly changed the subject and started complaining about the government. a topic which everyone contributed.
A space finally opened up next to mama mboga. It was much better than sticking out ones behind outside the vehicle while it cruised at a blood-chilling 90kph! The space was a piece of wood cleverly placed in between two seats to serve the illegal extra person. Mama Mboga, sensing how unpopular she had become, she decided to boost her fan base. She gladly offered Melissa her seat saying that beautiful ladies who worked in offices should not sit on 'sambazas' (the wooden chairs!)
She then offered the seat to Melissa. As she sat on the sambaza, the piece of wood pinched Melissa! The Mama Mboga did not seem to move any time soon!
Tragedy was when the door stuck and the big woman had to go out through the window and over Melissa! Talk of deals too good!