Favorkhaoya

I'm going to try to be as honest as possible.  Part one of my article ,  Small Girl, Big America,  created some fear in some of my readers, and I am sorry about that. Please note that those were my fears on my second day in America, not a reflection of what I feel right now. I am pretty sure you remember how big and scary it was for you on your second day in high school.  It felt the same, but then it felt better after a while, right?  Anyways, just know so far, I haven't seen a gun, a serial killer or a racist police officer . When I do, I will let you know 😉 Sunday 6th October. My birthday was a few days ago. I turned the age that aunties start asking for you to bring them a son and uncles start talking to you in parables; lots of parables involving cows and boots. And my grandma has started talking to me about birthing hips and what to wear around their "husband." For the first time in my life, I had no plan for my birthday. Last year, it was my firs...

  One thing I have learned in California is that a car is not a luxury item! It is a basic need! My first week here, I wanted to buy sodas; I walked for 46 minutes! 46 whole minutes! I saw the distance from Google Maps was 8 minutes; I assumed 8 minutes’ walk. Little did I know the 8 minutes was time for people driving. Do you know what those 8 minutes look like? It was like driving from Kitale town to Kiminini or Karen to Ngong! And I walked! At the end of the day, I was exhausted but proud of myself. I promised to buy a car as soon as possible.  But since I haven't bought a car yet and I need groceries, I guess I have to find alternatives, no? Wednesday 5.31pm The mall I am going to does not close until 11pm. So, I can actually leave for the mall in the evening. My Kenyan side is struggling so much to reconcile the fact that going to the mall at night is okay. In fact, not my Kenyan side; this is more of my father's daughter's side. One day, I was taking him a...

Today, I laughed with my Uber driver! Do you know how surprising that is? Laughing with an Uber driver, a fully-fledged laugh! Not one of those laughs you have to be polite! No -not those ones! A hearty laughter! The kind that starts in your stomach, through your chest, and then to your mouth! Then it ends with a smile as wide as the river Congo and maybe, just maybe, a twitch in the eye! I had that today! For you to understand how significant a milestone this is, I have to take you back to my home country! My home county and my hometown. As a matter of fact, let me take you on a particular Saturday morning. Pinney had come to visit me that week abruptly. She told me she had come but didn't want me to alter my week in any way to accommodate her (her way of saying, I want to be alone in your place). When you have friends for as long as we have been, sometimes you know being a safe space is giving space literally! I did that faithfully! I went to work, came back in the evenin...

  Today is my second day in America. But it is the first day I have walked on the streets. Which, by the way, is very different from my hometown. While my hometown has a million people walking in every direction, conversing and laughing, I was the only pedestrian in the street! However, I am not complaining; I enjoyed the walk and came home with clean shoes, while a walk in my village would have resulted in washing red soil off the shoes for hours, and words have not been invented yet for my dislike of washing shoes. Anyways, I saw a cute "pick up after your pet sign on the walk" which made me think, are you picking the toys they leave behind when you are playing "catch," or do you clean up the poop on the pavement? I wanted to take a photo of the cute poster, but behind it was someone's car, and the number plate was visible. So, I got scared for a hot minute because what if that was trespassing? Yesterday I went to Target for shopping. I was keeping my host...