The Parklands Diary

                                                Image on Freepik by Freepik Eight, sixteen, thirty two, sixty four, one twenty... You are seeing too much, more than you should, do you like what you see, or do you revile it?   Tell me, I fear your eyes, I don’t want you to see how I love, how I hate, who I am What’s your story then? Allow me some space in your fantasy, in your little world and I will tell you mine, do you eat raw eggs like I do? Tell me, you, you, even you, do you think like I do? I love to see you happy, too objectified to be living, I feel it for you I can see the awe in your eyes, I’m just as childish as you are, as heartbroken as you are, as entitled as you are, maybe a little different, I fall so hard, I love too much more than I love myself, too young to be too old, the crown on my head is heavy, I’ve seen heavier crowns though, I don’t kno...

                                                                           Image by Freepik on Freepik INTRODUCTION Abortion is one of the most controversial topics in Kenya and Africa as a whole. This is because most African countries are guided and follow almost blindly two aspects that being religion and their customary traditions. This means that if an act contravenes the very specific codes of religion and tradition it will be rejected at the fullest extent. This is evidenced by a recent event where a homosexual, Edwin Chiloba, was killed and instead of being sympathetic and supportive to the deceased’s family, most Kenyans were quick to condemn the dead fellow and some even went to the extent of stating that his death was a punishment from the heavens due to...

                 Image by Freepik on Freepik Your face in the threads of morning light, Your fair hair shining like fine silk, My soul with the angels takes flight, To hold your skin glowing like silk, To lay my head on your beautiful shoulder, For all my heart ever screams is “hold her.” Mbarak Khalid Mazrui is a first year student at The University of Nairobi.

                                                            Image on Freepik Abstract 30th December 1916, at the height of world war 1, sitting in the trenches of the Western Front, struggling to keep warm in the cold winter, French soldier Marc Boasson wrote a letter home and part of it said, “ Life is a terrible burden, never has the baseness of human thought weighed on me so deeply. Life is an immense responsibility.” Marc Boasson and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are cut from the same cloth- they are at an existential crisis and they have to find the meaning of their lives, a terrible burden. Life as they put it has meaning and one is tasked to find it. I look into Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, to find more questions than answers. Why do we live? Do we live because we f...

                                                        Image by jcomp on Freepik But Why? You embraced my being at first, Promised to shelter and cloth, And like an innocent child, I fell entrapped Never believing you would change, Now my question remains, BUT WHY?   Take a detour, you said, From the bondage holding your dreams, To the realization of full potential, And the passion you must seek, Now my question remains, BUT WHY?   A few days have passed and nights havegone, Still, I hold steadfast, to your lost affection, Like a deer I pant, for water scarce, Like a widow, I mourn the slow death Now my question remains, BUT WHY?   Helpless you left me, in a world of peril, Trust you, you said but Now, Now my question remains, BUT WHY? Ian Makau is a Second Year Law Student at the Universit...

                                              Image by Google In 2021, when we were all crazy new to TikTok and wondering whether our president will open the country up for sherehe or not, a man in Trans Nzoia was brandishing his files in a bid to sue his son. Hold it there. A couple of decades back, the newly employed Zulu and Xhosa men and women in South Africa coined a term that they lent to us; the rest of Africa. This term found significance in most upcoming economies and societies, and still, even now is relevant and deeply rooted in our customs. We can say that it has become part and parcel our proud Ubuntu. I am so glad that I first heard the term “black tax” from a Xhosa young man. ` Khuomide (sound `kh pronounced in click) and I was talking about the forms of corruption during the MNIV Debate Championships in Dar es Salaam back in 2018. I was bragging about ...

Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik In Kenya, the month of June is one with great significance as it marks the beginning of a new financial year. This is usually characterized by the enactment of a novel finance act that is set to determine various economic factors of the country, for instance, the cost of living, for the next 12 months. This year, the finance bill that was presented to the national assembly was not received with much enthusiasm by the citizens of Kenya as well as a faction of the legislators, most of whom belong to the current opposition coalition, Azimio la Umoja.   The Constitution of Kenya 2010 under Article 37 empowers every Kenyan citizen with the right to, “peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket, and to present petitions to public authorities.” Hence, while several parties including the senator of Busia County and popular activist, Honorable Okiya Omtatah filed petitions in court challenging ...