IN THE KENYAN BEDROOM

Have you thought of a bedroom before? I know you haven’t. But in case you have thought about it, I am more than certain that, what traversed and visualized in your wits was, “a bedroom is a slumbering place”. Simply because we have two words conjoined in one; a bed and a room. That’s a silly thought. Anyway, in your aptitude, you are right, but in my capacity, you are conclusively and stupidly wrong. Allow me today, to solve this bedroom riddle.

Casually and literary, under the disguise of ‘civilization, a bedroom is a room and a bed. However, in reality, we all know that in our extreme and obvious life scenarios, we need not have a bed to call it a bedroom. Right? Regardless of whether you reside in a bungalow or a maisonette in the high end estates of Karen, in an apartment in Kilimani, in a flat in the densely populated drinking estate of Kahawa Wendani, or in the square shaped Mabati structures of Mukuru Kwa Njega, a bedroom is a bedroom; with a mattress, no mattress, with a bed, or no bed.

It’s in these bedrooms, where, after a hard day’s work, we lay our bodies to rest. It’s in these bedrooms where the majority also get an exquisite chance to lay their woozy bodies after a night of, deliberately and knowingly, poisoning their organs with the third generation liquor or in this case, expensive liquor in the name of their social economic status and position in the society.

It’s also in the bedroom where we intimately enjoy our bodies and souls through the proclaimed God given sex. An act that, in the Garden of Gethsemane, apparently, forced man into toiling and the woman into a painful procreation experience after the disobedience of the heavenly powers. In itself, the Garden of Gethsemane was a bedroom albeit having no bed or a room. Correct? It is in the bedroom that we rush to solve our relationship concerns. A locked room that we will either quarrel, fight or amicably and diplomatically solve our burning issues, only if individual interests do not prevail. Sadly, it’s in these same bedrooms that thousands of our women are being murdered and equally thousands of others committing suicide; both genders.

The bedroom, a strange mysterious place. A private and a secretive place where all the evil and the good is made. Call it heaven and hell on earth. Ideally, there is no other eternal heaven or hell other than what we encounter, practice and execute in our bedrooms.  It’s a place where decisions and conclusions are made, solely and importantly, to the benefit of the bedroom occupants. Decisions and conclusions that could either be constructive, destructive, disruptive or hazardous.  It’s a bedroom, more secretive than a grave.

Kenya is a bedroom. A bedroom of greedy individuals with the intent of raping, committing suicide, impregnating and dumping its fellow bedroom mates (citizens) into an abyss of poverty.  Kenya is a bedroom of tumbocrats with the intent of secretly freezing the citizen’s socio-economic benefits through deceit of their hard earned monies.  It’s a bedroom of political deceit. A bedroom of political assassins. Kenya is an intimate bedroom where only a few will lock themselves, to masturbate and enjoy the pleasures of ejaculation among their own selves. What a sad story! I am however optimistic that the bedroom status will change. Sadly, the change will not be soon though. 

As far as my conscious self is concerned, Kenya will remain a bedroom country, at least until that time that our conscious, collectively as citizens, will agree to undergo a complete paradigm shift. A paradigm shift that will shift our domicile from a bedroom to a dormitory. A dormitory where we will have leaders consult and make decisions in the open dormitory corridors and in full scowl of the citizens.  A dormitory where we will have collective thinking and agreement to say no to corruption and economic rape. A dormitory where (we citizens) we will have occupants who will collectively engineer a mind revolution; the revolution I believe is all we need to step out of the bedroom.

But not until such a time descends on us, we will remain a bedroom.