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Joyce Nyairo Profile
Joyce Nyairo

@jnyairo

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Research : The Arts. The Politics of Culture. The Culture of Politics.

Home (it’s a plural noun)
Joined May 2009
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
Notes to self: People will wiggle out of doing the work of reason when they need their feelings to be the only currency in the room. Mute your queries, save your answers. Feelings seek space not solutions.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
Those of you who have always wondered about the politics of Chinua Achebe never winning the Nobel Prize might find some answers here.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
1 year
Things that we should read together…
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
“This is the first time that the son of a peasant…” I have news for you. Jomo, Moi, and Kibaki were sons of peasants.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
6 months
👀Such a conniving way to rationalize harassment at JKIA -items that will raise moral panic, shame, and also gaslight arriving passengers into defending themselves i.e allow search. Show us the confiscated perfumes, phones, shoes, laptops. Or have they found new owners already?
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
6 months
Sex toys, viagra, guns among items intercepted at JKIA between July and October
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Spare a thought today, for the Ugandan teachers who taught in Kenyan schools in the 1970s and 1980s with such dedication. In our towns, rural centers and villages, they showed us the meaning of starting over again; the challenges of (dis)placement, (be)longing and finding a home
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
Yes, delete it. And not because it is unconscionably rude and irresponsible, but because there is nowhere else in the world where a government is so reckless and uncaring as to experiment with giving 2% of its population one dose of the COVID vaccine.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 months
(Is there, currently, a national outbreak of foolishness or is it just the heat getting to all of us)?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
RIP Charles Mangua, author of “Son of Woman” (1971), “A Tail in the Mouth” (1972) and “Son of Woman in Mombasa” (1986). Pioneer of the Kenyan urban novel, he used derisive laughter to expose the city’s dark underbelly with a keen eye and a conservative politics of culture. 🙏🏿
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
9 months
As an MA student at UoN in the ‘80s I went to the HoD Prof Indangasi to let him know Achebe was flying through Nairobi with a long stopover and perhaps UoN could invite him to spend an hour talking to us. Indagasi: “Achebe knows where we are. If he wants to, he can come.”!.😲🙄
@kimaniwanjogu
Kimani Njogu
10 months
What a pathetic article! We know why Prof Micere was never welcome at the Univ of Nairobi. There was Prof Indangasi shutting doors. The man also blocked Ayi Kwei Armah from meeting students of literature when the writer was at UoN!
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 months
This idea that the sum total of your intelligence is your (K)CPE and high school performance, and that it is a static and immutable quantity, where did we get it? Intelligence doesn’t sit frozen in the past and neither is it unshifted by circumstance and context. Unlearn Relearn.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
Notes on Death and Funerary Practice in Modern Kenya: “Bizarre” is when you and your loved ones reject feasts, printed programs, branded water and T-shirts, gaping crowds, endless self-serving speakers and allied rituals of hypocrisy, waste and tedium. 🤔
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
1 year
A broke government paying for funerals of those who can afford them is surely the peak of our state-led absurdities.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
6 months
I don’t know what has disgusted me the most in the last 24 hours in Kenya: 1. Chirchir’s sketchy warning on increase in fuel prices 2. Gazetting a public holiday to plant trees🙄 3. Displays from KRA CG and Alfred Mutua’s JKIA walkabout What is clear is that we are led by thugs.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 months
Sir, harambees exist precisely because our taxes are not used to do what we need. Now do you get it?
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
3 months
PS Chris Kiptoo: Every weekend everybody is paying for Harambee and is doing so willingly. Why do we have to struggle when it comes to paying taxes?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 months
The original sin: Late 1963 –or early 1964 –American businessmen in Nairobi presented Jomo Kenyatta with a Lincoln Continental convertible car. As Hale Cope stammered over his well-prepared Kiswahili speech, Jomo said: “forget the Swahili, Hal. Just give me the car keys”. …
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KIPRONO
5 months
Devki group imports a Rolls Royce for President Ruto and the answers as to why lies in the 4th frame. Narendra Raval has been everywhere in Ruto's projects, appointments and so on.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
6 years
Thank you @dailynation for using this NY Times piece. If your own writers - who have spent years in Iten, Eldoret and Nandi - can’t anticipate seminal sporting moments like these and write with depth and context beyond $$, then let us read from those who finish their homework.
@NationAfrica
Nation Africa
6 years
Eliud Kipchoge is the greatest marathoner, ever - PHOTOS
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 months
Those of us who experienced dictatorship and SAPs have been asked how we lived through the assaults. Well, first, whatever means you choose will come at a cost to you - your overall health, your safety, your future… Work out the possible costs before you pick your path(s). 🧵
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
A 66yr-old man, known for transforming the lives of others for the better, tells you he is willing to serve as president and your first words to him are : they will fight you. Do you really believe that he hadn’t seen that danger and decided to face it squarely?! Go away.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
9 months
If media wants to be helpful in this matter, the first thing they should do is stop calling it a scholarship programme.
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
9 months
Uasin Gishu scholarship row: Parents demand money paid in scholarship row. Parents question huge withdrawals from accounts. Governor Bii says predecessor Mandago answerable #MondayReport @TrevorOmbija
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
Dear @MutahiNgunyi and @DavidNdii Please stop. I know both of you to be adult, intelligent and kind men. Our generation cannot be the one descending to ad hominem and gutter insults in the name of political campaigns. Raise the game. I know you can.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
Someone will have to tell me one day why Kibaki insisted on being chancellor of Masinde Muliro University; spurned the position in all other public unis, and renamed WECO to MMU. Muliro must be a man Kibaki valued deeply… the many whys of it would be a good thing to know.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 months
This trial: The victim, the acquitted, and the convicted are all children of pastors. What lessons can we draw from this?
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
3 months
Jacque Maribe: "For you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free (John 8:32)."
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
6 months
Perhaps we should stop looking at where he is going and start asking what he is running away from. Also: folks who don’t (know how to) delegate either have serious trust issues, or have surrounded themselves with incompetents and are incapable of mentoring and skills-building.
@NationAfrica
Nation Africa
6 months
PRESIDENT RUTO travels to Brazzaville, Congo for Summit of the Three Basins climate change conference.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Note to self: You are buried the way you lived His presidency was distinguished by this scarcity mentality. He could never produce enough to go round. Instead of establishing systems to serve all, he built patronage; throwing crumbs at a few favoured ones. Othering the rest.
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
4 years
Moi burial: First 30,000 mourners to receive free soda, bread
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
🇰🇪 at 4th place in the medal table with 10 medals (6 from the women - just saying)! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾Well done to our athletes. They bring us joy and pride.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
A wise person once told me that if you cannot explain your PhD research to your grandmother, in the language that she knows best, then that research cannot be of much value to humanity (and you are a bad teacher, anyway!).
@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
@MitullahWinnie @ggithaiga @muirucngugi @kimaniwanjogu @idschss @uonbi Because knowledge production means more than preaching to the choir. We must find ways to speak to those whose lives stand to gain the most from the research that we undertake.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
(Genuine) apologies are never conditional. You don’t say “I am sorry if...”, you say, “I am sorry I have wronged you”. Own it, own your wrongdoing, then we will believe you.
@ntvkenya
NTV Kenya
4 years
"Kama kuna mtu mimi nimefanyia makosa, naomba msamaha" - President Uhuru Kenyatta #NationalPrayerDay #HudumaDay
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
21 days
He should have stayed with service traditions and dorned his C-in-C uniform for that announcement. Or he could have changed into a black suit and found a black tie. The Kaunda with epaulettes was giving Mobutu/Amin. (Oh, memory/the curse of witnessing decades in Afr politics).
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
Unpopular opinion (yes, this is the bill I have chosen to die on): Let us allow people to announce their own illness. Exposing people in posts carrying their photos, when they are clearly unwell, with words of commiseration aka wishing them well, is trash social media culture.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
Notes on Kenyan English: “My names are ...” from Vioja Mahakamani - “kwa majina mimi naitwa..” (and wayward pastors)?🤷🏾‍♀️ No matter how tall or wide you are; how many nicknames you attract, or how many ancestors you are named after, you are one person. Singular. My name is...
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
I am reminded of that moment in 2002 when so many walked to the bank to deposit their contributions for the NARC campaign. Not because they sought personal rewards - jobs and things - but because they wanted to be part of a revival. Tell me “the times have come round again”.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
Is there a 🇰🇪 president who has had more published nicknames than this one? Loan-a-Lisa Gikunda Jameson Wanjohi Mureu Kinyua Wamacati Jayden Uhunye Essay loading, and its about the creativity of Kenyans, how they punch power and find bandwidth to live through anger and oppression
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
How do we clean IEBC? Serious answers only.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
Was it impossible for the President to say to the Commissioner-General “Give me a report within 24 hrs”… And when he receives the report, he says “Please sit down and give me your resignation letter.” ? What do we gain from this show of indignity (besides another uniformed man)?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
Dear Kenya, AllI am asking for is a chance to be angry about one thing at a time.
@NationAfrica
Nation Africa
5 years
Puzzle of missing Sh5.6bn at NSSF
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
We won’t impeach the Governor because we don’t have money for a by-election, but we had Sh. 300m to bury one man. Whose priorities are these? The living (with zero social services) are dispensable, but one dead man and his kleptocratic legacy must be kept alive? How insane.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
11 months
Yes. a) You should be in your offices delivering on your mandate. Stop squandering work hours. b) You can pray alone, at home. c) You can pray together, after work hours, without paying for a venue, wasting fuel and eating. d) You can eat at home. e) Stop guilt-tripping Kenyans.
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
11 months
A.G. Justin Muturi: I heard somebody question why leaders congregate to spend too much money while there are people who have nothing to eat. I wondered, is it a mistake to hold a #NationalPrayerBreakfast ?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
Notes on Kenyan English: “I waved at her and imagine she just assumed me!” This popular assumption that “assume” means the same thing as “ignore” has it origins in some adventurous teacher in the mid 1990s. Given its epic spread since, shall we just assume it and move on?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
6 months
Let me leave this here.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
Go well, Mwai Kibaki. May you be remembered for what you achieved, and for all that you could have done better, so that we can all strive to seize every chance to do right by this country and it’s people.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
2 years ago today, I had carrot cake and tea with my mother. As I left, she said: “So now we won’t meet again” Twice. As a question the first time, and then as statement. I heard her. I wondered I shrugged 7 days later, she didn’t wake up😢😰 Learn to listen to goodbyes🙏🏿
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Clearance letter. As we bury Moi, let’s pause for 1 min to remember: no lecturer could get past JKIA to attend a conference without a clearance letter from PS Min of Education. And then there was the other hurdle called foreign exchange. Stunted careers are a form of torture.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
9 months
What’s my point in telling this story: to point out that Prof Indangasi has always been threatened by the achievements and fame of others. Smallness is a condition of the mind that is not cured by multiple degrees because it stems from the heart. The End.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
“Charity is the opium of the privileged ... While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.” The wisdom of China’s Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah, (1987).
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
👀 (I know my eyes won’t stop this trainwreck but someone must say this publicly: First KDF, now KRA😮‍💨 Instead of every state institution starting a TV station fund KBC, the public broadcaster, properly then we will effectively have the public-interest content that we need).
@NationAfrica
Nation Africa
2 years
KRA to launch TV station
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
The failure here is not the Nobel Committee, or Ngugi. The failure is that of Africa (👀AU; SADCC; ECOWAS; EAC; APEC) to mount a literary prize that Africa can own, take pride in; one to transform the condition of writers and writing, and dilute the dubious prestige of the Nobel.
@QulshTM
Abdullahi Halakhe
4 years
Can Ngugi be considered a great writer without being awarded the Nobel Prize? Why are so keen to seek external validation? Achebe was never awarded the Nobel Prize, has that diminished Achebe’s remarkable gift as a story teller?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Should we go back to pre-pandemic normal? To: - weddings with 500 guests that cost Sh.5m - destination weddings with 50 guests that cost Sh.50m - 3 day funerals with 3 hour church service, across 3 towns like a mega-city rock concert; feeding 1000 people at a total cost Sh.5m?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
Pheroze Nowrojee has just published a new collection of short stories. A welcome addition to reflections on the (dis)comforts colonialism and the inevitability of independence. Beautiful and subtle writing, full of wisdom, compassion and clarity💫 Thank you, Pheroze 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 months
Should we tell them, or….?
@effodu
Jake Okechukwu Effoduh
2 months
Today, Senegal has made history by electing the youngest President in the history of the country. And coincidentally, he just turned 44 today.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
Wake me up when the outgoing Governor, his panel of recruiters of ghosts, and the ghosts are all firmly in prison, and the proceeds of their graft are with the Assets Recovery Agency. (Anything short of that is purposeless spectacle).
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
2 years
Kisii Governor Simba Arati weeds out 861 ghost workers from the county government in an ongoing purge across all departments
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
1 year
I am not surprised that the government lies blatantly. What stuns me is the sheer number of people who defend those lies; their explosive rage, their dubious logic, their recourse to ad hominem …. Wow. Their shrillness will never carry the day, it just confirms the lies.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
This. This is the megalomania that is destroying the world. Who told you to runs around donating anything when you were sent to parliament to effect systems that work for all? This small-minded charity that you lot learnt from selfish presidents must end one day. Shindwe!
@RealJaguarKenya
Hon. Jaguar
4 years
I have donated 200 water tanks in informal settlements in Starehe to fight coronavirus. These tanks will complement efforts by Nairobi Water which is installing water sinks near public facilities within the constituency. I remain committed to Wanjiku. Wash your hands #Covid19Out
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Dear August, What your predecessors have shown us this year steals words from our mouths, steels our hearts and minds in fear. Show us, not cruelty but, compassion. Give humanity the world over rest from the indignity of want. As you rise - brilliant, grand, imposing - lift us.🙏🏿
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
6 years
I want to talk about water tanks... Yes. Those huge black plastic things that hang above every structure in 🇰🇪! Key symbol of zero public service; They shout: ran; grab; hoard; don’t share; mind only yourself! Why can’t we have 1 water tower per town? What is wrong with us?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
8 days
Those “Nyayo” songs really did a number on us. How else do you explain the viral delusion over patriotism? Patriotism is an emotion of love guided by a critical sense. I love my country AND I loathe the way it is mismanaged. And it is patriotic of me to call out myopic leaders.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 months
Before we hire foreigners to build our infrastructure, one of the requirements we should put them through is a class on David Rubadiri’s poem, “An African Thunderstorm”. Our rain is not ordinary rain, it carries spirits and the fury and contestattions of our ancestors!
@MwangoCapital
Mwango Capital
2 months
When it rains in Nairobi, we literally need boats to move around:
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
1 year
When will we rise beyond gestures, magnanimous as they may be? We need a healthcare system that takes care of all of us. We need pension schemes that survive inflation. We need a new economy.
@smutoro
Stephen Mutoro
1 year
Welcome news that President Ruto has ordered @KNH_hospital to waive Catherine Kasavuli Sh4mn bill. Catherine, a veteran TV personality, succumbed to cervical #cancer .
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Notes to self: To be described as a “difficult” person in this Kenya is a great compliment. It means you do not stomach mediocrity, overselling, broken promises and the tricks that pass for customer service. Find witty, civil ways of calling out the BS but keep your standards.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
@DavidNdii Thank you for doing this. This letter has all the clarity, quick and novel thinking, and compassion that our country needs right now. Asante.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
6 months
So he returned under cover of darkness? And these other ones - they had nothing more important to do than lining up to meet someone they were with day before yesterday? May this country find all the light that it needs. And may restless feet find real purpose.
@KBCChannel1
KBC Channel1 News
6 months
President William Ruto jets back from Saudi Arabia. #KBCniYetu ^RO
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
RIP Kenneth Binyavanga Wainaina. What immense talent; what an enormous personality; a child of luck who beckoned opportunities like a magnet, Binya leaves an indelible foot-print in the sands of that surge of creativity and production that defined Kenya in the new millennium.🙏🏿
@OtimMichael
Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Kɪʀᴋᴘᴀᴛʀɪᴄᴋ ☮️ ❤️ 🌍
5 years
Saddened to learn of the passing of Binyavanga Wainana. His satirical essay "How to Write About Africa" boldly challenged stereotypes about #Africa . Rest in power. You're now one of the ancestors.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Yesterday, someone sent me a 101,900-word manuscript. Her second novel. The first seven chapters have blown me away - the storyline; the craft! (Very often this work of ploughing through drafts is a delightful privilege😋)! May our writers find all that they need to write on🙏🏿
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
And when Soyinka bagged the Nobel, Achebe said: We rejoice with him on this achievement …one of us has proved that we can beat the white man at his own game, it is wonderful for us and for the white man. But now we must turn away and play our own game.”
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
Q: “Are you ready?” A : “Almost.” Q: “Am I going in next?” A: “Almost.” Q: “Where are you?” A: “Almost.” In Kenyan English, “almost” is always affirmative. It is a time, a place, a confirmation, a generously distributed dose of hope everlasting!
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
9 months
Stop using this phrase “dig deeper into their pockets”. We have no secret pouches there. @NationAfrica What is happening is that we are doing with less, shifting brands, deleting many items on their shopping lists; delaying payments, running into serious debt. Cover that pain!
@ntvkenya
NTV Kenya
9 months
The month of double pain Kenyans will have to dig deeper into their pockets this August as the taxman moves to recover new taxes not deducted in July because of a court order that has since been lifted. The expected double taxation will coincide with the third term’s school fees…
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
For some people, the school they attended is their tribe. It’s the aggregate of their thoughts, actions and beliefs, the unit by which they measure everyone to determine (be)longing. Strange how a place where one spent just 4 or 6 years becomes the sum total of their worldview.🧐
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
Dear Raila Odinga, Pole. Naelewa. Exhale. Call yourself to a meeting. Find out why your ambition does not match your purpose. Bask in what you have achieved not what you have lost. There is still so much to live for. Seize it!
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 months
Stop with these silly distractions. Why are we crossing the globe in search of “experts” when by 1968 Kimathi’s grave at Kamiti prison was not only known by the Jomo govt it was even fenced? May all those out to mine fame and waste our money with this circus never know peace.🤬
@NationAfrica
Nation Africa
3 months
A consortium of experts from Kenya and across the globe have started the process of tracing Kimathi’s remains, 67 years after his death.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶ ̶A̶f̶r̶i̶c̶a̶ please say: “our version of Africa” Because there is that singular Africa that you desperately want to believe exists, and then there is that Africa - the one of vitality, variety, plurality and ingenuity - where we live (and write about). Read!
@StevenErlanger
Steven Erlanger
5 years
Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura @kimidefreytas is a fine journalist, empathetic and serious, who cares about the people of Africa. She does not choose photos. Please let her do her job, which can only enhance our understanding of the real Africa.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
17 days
Whenever I see young Kenyans relying on tribe as a unit of analysis in understanding someone’s (wayward) actions, I gasp. We older folk bought the lie of white anthropology but surely, enough has been written and done by us now to revise thinking about identity. Find new lenses!
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
It’s the last week of campaigns😮‍💨 Is it too much to ask each candidate to campaign without mentioning the name(s) of their rival(s)? Just tell us why you are running and what you will do for us if you win. The smears, innuendo, threats, victimhood only tell us how petty you are.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
9 months
He won’t resign. He won’t be jailed. He won’t refund. So what about them? They will go away. On GoK diverted scholarships; justice deflected; anger diluted by the magnanimity that is made possible by taxpayers. 🎵Just like fishes in the water There’ll always be some new scam
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
1 year
To Whom it May Concern: Broaden your cultural references beyond the Bible. There is plenty of wisdom in the words of your forebearers And tons of inspiration in the wit and fiction of your contemporaries. Read. Read beyond the obvious.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 months
“Kenya pulled through then” is a phrase that needs a lot of unpacking. Which 🇰🇪, the Treasury, the thousands broken by poverty and the indignity of lay-offs in middle-age, youth whose dreams were gagged, pensioners sinking deeper into poverty, citizens robbed of social service?
@SylviaKangara
Dr Sylvia Kangara
5 months
Kenya pulled through then because a generation of citizens understood we had to get through it. It was also in that period that we demolished the single party dictatorship and enormous work eventually produced the new Constitution. We also be sure to avoid SAPS-3 in future.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
Notes to self: Maybe the distraction is the work. To spend your life refuting nonsense and ranting over injustice is, perhaps, the highest calling. Keep writing about what is overlooked or thought unworthy. Find its value, show why it matters; build that archive.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
7 years
Popular memory is so frail.Have we forgotten that Peugeot 504s used to be assembled at AVA Mombasa two decades ago?🙄
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
Notes on Kenyan Values: 1. Being first 2. Being right 3. Being seen and “known” (not the same as being famous, but yeah, that too) 4. Amassing (more) money (than sense) 5. Amassing (more) certificates (than knowledge) 6. Scoring bonga points in church.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
7 months
The erasure of freely accessible and well-tended public parks in Nairobi is the only evidence anyone needs of heartless, selfish and uncaring governments. Why deny citizens access to the serenity of green spaces? Such wicked folk!
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
9 months
I disagree. It’s important that newspapers create space for bitter old men to write themselves into disrepute. How else would they prove the follies of a colonial education, the woes of being stuck in time, faded glory wrapped up in missed opportunities?
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
10 days
Why do we imagine they (mis)communicate the way they do in error, or out of incompetence? Have we still not read “Disorder as Political Instrument”? Even you, the most accomplished Comms guru will join their ranks and lose your Five Cs stat cos moving madly is a form of control.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
There is more… (And no, please don’t ask me to provide answers to the question of Ngugi and his unmet longing for the Nobel Prize).
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
The lowest point in our politics must be this church-affiliating and Bible-quoting. It’s low because it stems from cynicism and distortion. The work of politicians is not to sell hope, along with the churches; their work is to stem the conditions that generate despair.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
5 years
Sunday Nation, March 3, 2019 p45 One of the most breathtaking “obituaries” that I have encountered in our press. 🙏🏿
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
6 months
“I had lived in Nairobi for over 15 years … I realized just how much it was robbing me of time, how much of it I spent stuck in traffic, in meeting and hanging out with other writers to talk about writing without actually writing.”
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
8 days
Oh, for the last time Penninah: the fact that something is happening everywhere on the globe doesn’t make a gross refusal to contain its disastrous outcomes normal, or even right. We are not disposable populations. We deserve GoK’s preparedness, care, efficiency, excellence.
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
8 days
Flooding is currently a global issue, let's not politicise it: CS Malonza
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Notes to self i̵n̵ ̵🦠̵ ̵t̵i̵m̵e̵: The young don’t need to be reminded of their inexperience. The aged don’t need to be reminded they are dated and frailer. They know. Don’t read anyone today by grades scored yesterday. We are here to learn and grow. ...No one knows tomorrow.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Notes on Kenyan English: “I am humbled to be in Washington addressing ...”🙄 Don’t fall for the lie carried in the word “humbled”. I am ecstatic. I am gloating. I am silencing my f(r)iends. I am announcing my status. I am marketing my abilities. I am not meek or self-effacing.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
There are two groups of people that you never forget: Those who helped you and yet, they didn’t need to; Those who did not help you, and yet they could.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
1 month
Dude, people die, their ideas do not necessarily die with them. Acquaint yourself with imperialism in all its forms including today’s reincarnations of Vasco Da Gama’s exploits eg carbon credits. You peddle it as a new idea for our wealth creation and yet it’s the same old story!
@Kenyans
Kenyans.co.ke
1 month
It is good to learn history. We all know Vasco da Gama arrived but he has since passed away. We need new knowledge for us to tackle an ever-changing world - William Ruto
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Coronavirus parties: The psychology of youth aside, should we commission a psycho-social and cultural study to dig a little deeper into why some feel safer in bars than in their homes? What anxieties and miseries lie there? #FearOfTheKnown 🤷🏾‍♀️
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
8 months
When I first read Devil on the Cross (1980) I was sure Ngugi had lost his mind. A Devil’s Feast where a cult proposes wild exploitation schemes? Now look. We will tax parents for what is in the CBC syllabus? Just borrow from Ngugi’s characters and tax us for the air we breath.
@Kenyans
Kenyans.co.ke
8 months
Govt to tax services provided by schools that are not directly related to education such as swimming, to reduce inequality
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Dear Debtors, Refusing to acknowledge receipt of an invoice, and failing to respond to reminders, does not erase your debt, it underlines your crassness. Grow some manners, pick calls, answer email, negotiate a grace period. Sincerity and being broke are not mutually exclusive.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
3 years
“So the PS had ulcers too! My ulcers I think are equally painful Only they are caused by hunger, Not sumptuous lunches! So two nation builders Arrived home this evening With terrible stomach pains The result of building the nation - - Different ways.” Henry Barlow, 1971.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
4 years
Practices that pain me: 1. The sexy grammar 🇰🇪create to cover ineptitude - “chasing a payment” 2. How casually we make promises: with no capacity, or care, to deliver. 3. Our (KCPE-induced) inability to say, “I don’t know” 4. We spew abuse to cover ignorance and call that debate.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
30 days
Deliver me from those with the spirit of surrender, escapism, and a defeatist attitude. If we can’t find a way out let’s find a way through. A hill is not a mountain. And a mountain is scaled over hours, not in a minute. Buckle up, the journey is long but it is not endless.
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
FactCheck: Susan Wakhungu was the first (black African) woman to represent Kenya at a Grand Slam : Junior Wimbledon 1978 (And she bagged Gold and Silver medals at the All-Africa Games in the same year).
@NationAfrica
Nation Africa
2 years
History as Okutoyi crowned Wimbledon junior doubles champion
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
10 months
Irony or meaningless chance? Wanguru is deeply tied to the struggle for independence. Thousands of Mau Mau fighters and sympathizers were detained there from 1952, subjected to hard labour and beatings. Many of these detainees were used to start Mwea Irrigation Scheme in 1956.
@citizentvkenya
Citizen TV Kenya
10 months
Confusion at Wang'uru Police Station in Mwea after it emerged that Babu Owino and Maina Njenga are held there
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
9 months
It seems you can give yourself any title and Kenyan media will use and thereby legitimize it with zero due diligence and with no care for the impact that such fraud has on our national character. 😮‍💨
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
7 years
In Oct 1983, Waigwa Wachira's song, "Marry Me" knocked Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" off the local pop charts. 🎸 RIP
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@jnyairo
Joyce Nyairo
2 years
What are the numbers saying today? That a country governed by cheats will never honour the commitment of voters? That whoever gets sworn in will inherit a disenchanted populace wronged by lack of integrity in Govt and tired of bloated institutions? That another way must be found?
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