People write stories these days.Anyone can do a story alright,but it takes creativity to do mind-blowing stories, who unfortunately are just a chosen few. I was introduced to the world of stories by this man ,Ted Malanda. Of course you read standard`s crazy monday. There i met the likes of Oyunga Pala. Then I also read Clay Muganda's articles in the nation. I was just a mere 3rd form then.
These are things I remember with nostalgia, my friends Makamu, Levius and I would compete for the keeping of the school newspaper. But I don't know how Levius managed to beat us all. I always thought he gave the librarian something.
I sincerely miss those days I would sneak articles to class and read them through out the prep.
This put me at loggerheads with most of the senior prefects in my class, especially one Soita Enock, I remember he was the senior Boarding or something.
In our school it was illegal to carry anything non-academic to class but who cared anyway. Things became even harder when I was appointed the class secretary. My duty among others was to report those who read not so academic stuff in class. This was hard for me, I was summoned by my principal Mr. Mwaturo severally over the matters of newspapers in class, bamboo touched my backside a few ten-times. By the way, I enjoyed these visits to the principal, he was my role model, i even cried the day he was transferred.
Mr Mwaturo was no ordinary principal, he knew literally everything whenever he would stand up to speak everyone would listen,He is the greatest of them all. He studied in mangu school, went to Kabarak high school for A levels, and graduated from the University of Nairobi. When I buy my first car I will pay him a visit.
In school, I wondered how can people possibly stay without getting informed, that was very ignorant, people need to know stuff, people need to read, people need to write. If you don't read, you can never write that a fact.
Someone said Kenyans don't read. Only a few people really read. But what do you expect?
Kenya is a country of very funny people, I'll give you an example. I schooled in Bungoma county. It was during our fourth form that our "proud" alumni came visiting . The alumni is big. There was one professor, several Doctors, a judge (of the supreme court) and a politician. Of all things they did, the greatest was buying us a bull worth ksh50,000. That was what called for cheers from amongst students. And our library had no books except those 16th century things that smelled like old.
When people who don't read write, we are doomed! But you are safe, I read few things here and there.
There are People who write great stories,like the likes of Bogonko Bosire. In the Kenyan online society, writers, or rather people write a lot of rubbish. There are no story-tellers. Only Jackal news has got some.
It is really embarrassing that the paradigm of print journalism has changed in way of presentation but nothing has changed in the way of writing.
I read something about the journalists of the future, and through out the text one thing was very vivid, he is a story-teller.
Most of us were unlucky to be born in such terrible times. I wish I had sat down and hear a story from an old, wise grandfather. I would have been the best.
Such stories, I am told, they were very interesting, and at the end it had a moral lesson. But you weren't told the moral of the story directly, you were supposed to think and come up with one. So it was something like a mind teaser.
That is how it should be.
Writers need to write, tell stories, exaggerate a little or even lie, tease the reader's mind, give the facts and if possible, be biased, and the reader can think and find the moral of the story.
A story should be something like a ritual. It should carry you away, it should answer your many questions, it should make you think. It should make you cry, laugh, it should inspire.
It should be a story. It should make you learn, it should emancipate. A story should be a saviour.
It should save the ignorant, it should save the society. It should save them from making poor decisions.
A story is everything.
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