gachunia

A Stranger

A stranger walked up to me and asked me the way.

The way to the bus station

I explained it to him in a strange language

I felt good that i did.

A couple of months ago i was like him

In this city i felt lost

The language was all crazy and annoying

I got lost in the shops.

The bus schedules were a nightmare

A stranger is consulted once in a while

Smiled at for courtesy sake

ignored most of the times

He is asked obvious questions

His opinions are great only that they are not considered.

It feels good now

It looks like home,I like the people

I know where to get kebab,

The language is not annoying anymore

Am glad the buses are on schedule

We are all strangers somewhere once

All your friends were strangers also

Patience brings familiarity

And with it comes confidence

This wins approval and acceptance.

You are part of ,no longer just joining in

Written by Simon Gachunia

If the end of the world was tommorow i would still go out and plant this tree.

Martin Luther

Would you still do that.

I tried ice skating in a very fine hall in Stavanger.It was so intense that the sweat on my forehead was forming into a thin sheet of ice..It is so fun.The legs have a way of going b4 the body and transform the walk to a sort of dance especially if you have strong guys holding you.If not of course you skate with with legs up head down!!

I thought i will try it then enroll with the oilers for a icehockey game or something. i was shocked when i put my skates on! the first thing i did when i got on ice was to fall and skate on my back.Maybe we should start back skating for the begginers.

Thank God for the guys from Lage who were gracious to hold me and train me.I found one thing the kids are really good at.One boy volunteered to offer a crate which eases the strain and gives you speed.Its a bit awkward but for a begginer especially from Africa where the sun is up all round it should be fine.The Norwegians are born with skates on their feet.Now i get the point.

Looking forward for my skiing trip soon after chrismas.Winter games are so much fun.i might just win snowball fighting competitions.i do not fair so badly.

have fun

Simon

A Review of Naïve Super

The Times called it a charming debut novel,but i thought it like a crazy little book. I wondered why on earth HALD a Christian institution would recommend this book to its students! This book must be understood in its context. The Writer Erlend Loe has two unique things which in my opinion affects his writing. He has worked in a psychiatric hospital as a social worker and has also written several children's book.

Naïve Super is a fascinatingly simple novel. The writer brings out such beauty in simplicity. The greatest things that we probably value most are free. The narrator buys a kaleidoscope for his girlfriend Lise and says “Lise will probably be glad when i give it to her. Presents are important Little presents are often better than big ones.” In a very competitive world where the bigger the better this is an interesting and a sobering way of looking at life. He alludes to the fact that money is not important it comes and goes.

The use of very short sentences is amazing. On page 195 he has a sentence with only one word :Water!This makes the readers to pose and see the very thing he is talking about. It creates a picture in the mind. This book is more or less like a painting of a very obvious thing. Sometimes in life things become too common that we stop noticing them. He forces us to reassess the way we look at things until we get there where:the most trivial things become attractive patterns .He breaks short chapters to have us see each idea at a time however small or trivial .

He lists a lot of familiar things like Menus in hotels they are easy to read with not many explanations aren't they?He has this phrase that anybody who rides a bike is a friend of mine. By Gary fisher!He believes in cleansing the soul through fun and games. He makes a friendship with a very small boy called Borre. He gets to the world of this boy of counting the animals he has seen. He seems to blend so well,he gets a new perspective. He gets in touch with the boy inside him.

Life is too fast in the west. The bus goes on the minute!You miss the train by seconds! It is very easy to align with the schedule and just be busy without getting fulfillment or even meaning of what one is doing. In a clamor to look smart we are shy to stop and ask for help or even slow down to search for meaning. Whether we get it is another thing but at least that is a step in the right direction The narrator has a funny habit of hammering .He says he is not ashamed of having such thoughts and such likes. This hammer revolves all over the book. He carries it to New York and back to Norway. It always helps him to think when there is so much meaninglessness.

Life is a search for meaning. This book exposes one of the most hopeless situation humanity has found itself in.Dr.Hugh Moorhead,a philosophy professor at Northeastern Illinois University,once wrote to 250 best known philosophers,scientists and writers,and intellectuals in the world,asking them, “what is the meaning of life?”some offered the best guesses,others were honest enough to say they were clueless . In fact a number wrote back requesting the professor to write once he discovered the meaning to that question.

The narrator in his quest for meaning sends letter to a Prof Davies who unfortunately replies:he has a policy of not replying mails! What an ending for a book based on search for meaning .The author points out that the meaning of life may not be found by looking inside ourselves,thinking hard or traveling to the world. What options does he leave to us?

The vastness of the world is fascinating and confusing at the same time.

He also mentions a prognosis that conclude that the total number of galaxies in the universe seems to be in the regions of ten billion...These numbers are so absurd that i strangely enough find myself in a good mood. Its all so immense...There is little i can do to make a difference is all liberating. My own responsibility is decreasing considerably. We definitely are overwhelmed by the world problems. The United nations. South and North issues and the way they affect development. The gaping secularization !.all these are big issues one feels like we have no chance. Are these issues for me to change. What should i do about it.

The narrator gets a girl friend through whom he gets a lot of satisfaction and meaning.

We all have our melancholy moments. Days when the feeling of meaninglessness creeps in and we sink to cynicism and sarcasm. Days when we stop believing in love and that everything will be alright in the end. Family and the people we love are at the core of life itself. They help us get meaning in life and they hold us when we have nowhere else to go.

In the last chapter called journey. He says that he is unsure that all will be well or if everything will fit together but he believes that something means something. When hope is lost then all come crushing down. It does not matter whether one is European or African,Muslim or Christian .Kim is organized but he also gets to a point when he needs to hammer a little. We all have our days. We should not be ashamed of ourselves when we reach there .It always time to ask for help and lay off all human expectations on us. Take time off to cleanse the soul. When we stop hoping in Someone higher than ourselves that something will add up to something then we could end up in despair. We must always hope.

One of the lecturers in the dept of philosophy teased our minds one morning.He looked at a flat surface and said what do you guys see?So fast we said a flat wooden surface.You got to be kidding this is not flat at all it has so many bumps and ridges.We thought he is nuts.On clarification he said i had seen it using a a very strong magnifying glass lense.Come on get real teacher!

On discussing perspective am so fascinated that we view the world so differently.We even view God from the lenses our society have given us.Onew guy joked and said that since in the northern part of kenya it gets so dry the Maasai community should try the invention of green eyeglasses for their cattle to see if they will accept to eat the very dry shrubs and save the day.

God is slowly weaning us from from fashioning him in our image.Like Aslan, the christ figure in the chronicles of Narnia,God is free and he comes at will.By refusing to be a puppet on our string or a genie in our bottle,God frees us from ourfalse thoughts about who he is.

Am so glad that God is stable.I am so thankful that he does not present himself at our wish as Richard forster suggests at times we may not endure such meetings.At times the Israelites were scared out of their wits when they met him face to face.

One little girl during a war was so scared since all of them even their dad was hiding under  the bed for fear of the bombs sounding above their roof.She cried to God "God make sure you are safe up there otherwise we all perish"

God is so here with us.The kingdom of God is at hand through Jesus.He has choosen to reveal himself to us in our generation through his word.Its so much fun to Him and commune with him.He is no equal.It is only in knowing him in the right perspective that we know ourselves fully.He designed us men he has the blueprint.Lets go for it!