Ellen
Ndeto Feb 7, One morning when everybod had had breakfast and had gon to watch tv jst to find they had disappeared. so they went from house to house looking for their tv's until them came to my house. I did not open the door until the whole town was there. when I opened the door the whole town poured in. luckily the house was big enough. they started searching and searching until they came to the living room where my tv was and from then on I was paid hundred dollars a day. The End. Oh. My. Word. I am so sad for the poor lonely girl I was. Let me tell you, showing up to a new school in a new country with an accent, an Afro and major cultural differences was really a detriment to making friends. Funny enough, as I got older, being the kid from Kenya with the major cultural differences was a draw. Sure, when I was a kid, most folk thought my life in Africa looked very much like a National Geographic article with lots of naked tribes people, but it was a great starting point for a conversation. Even to this day, my background is something that sets me apart from the usual, something I'm not ashamed of, something I celebrate, but then - fitting in was all that mattered. And to fit in, you needed a TV. I can't tell you how many school projects I couldn't do because I didn't have a TV. Or conversations I couldn't take part in because I hadn't watched whatever it was last night. "What do you mean you haven't seen...???" was constantly shouted at me in horrific shrieks Friday or Monday mornings. I still have flashbacks to those days when I confess I haven't seen a single episode of 'Breaking Bad' or 'Game of Thrones' and someone starts to explain the plot of the latest episode. "What do you mean you haven't seen GOT?!?" I'm okay with it. Really, I am. Okay, really I still have Fear of Missing Out. I still can't walk past a TV without getting sucked into the content just in case it is something I'm quizzed about at the water/wine cooler later. But TV has sometimes been the best friend, the only friend I've had. I know that's sad but that was true. Thankfully, it's certainly not the case now. I mean, now I have friends. Really, I do. I also have TV for those times I just want to sit in my house with my passive TV "friends" who are looking for love or hunting for houses in foreign countries or beating up bad guys in ways that only Jason Stathum can. Imaginary friends who won't bug me and ask me if I wore clothes in Africa but will make me feel better about my life and my life choices. Oy - therapy session over. Here's another brilliant picture of a house. My show is on.
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The Three Bears
Ellen Ndeto Jan 24 Once upon a time not far from the woods there lived three bears. they were friendly and very rich. Everybody came to their town just to have cakes and a party. But day after day they got poorer and one day they died. Welp. A therapist would have a field day with this one! I'll save you the sessions and sum up the message: In Kenya, both parents worked so we had money. In Kenya, we had lots of family. My father was one of 20 and they all had wives and husbands and children. And they all had children who had wives and husbands and children. Every gathering was a massive celebration. And then my mother left my father, because of his aforementioned bad choices, and we moved to America to live with my mother's mother and the parties and cake stopped. Poor me. It was years before I learned all the ins and outs of my parent's relationship and understood that leaving him, leaving Kenya, was the best choice my mother could have made. But, at that young and tender age, I only recognized the loss of cakes and parties. Now, at my not so young and almost brittle age, I understand the need behind the choice she made. I know it was the right choice, the only choice to have made. Sadly, though, I still feel the loss and freedom of parties and cake and celebrations without (knowing) the inner angst of all the adult players... Yeah, yeah. Poor me. Side note: That house and those lollipop trees and the smoke from the chimney... simply amazing! Here. We. Go. My first story in my first book. Jan 17
When I Grow Up When I Grow up I will be an Artist and Dancer. I hope the world have oil and food with no pollution. I also hope there will be TV's. Wow. What a visionary I was. What hope. What passion. What - the hell is the 'TV' statement doing in this future world I saw? It's simple, really. When we moved to America from Kenya, we lived with my grandmother for a few months. That's what has to happen when one parent leaves the other parent because they are not making good choices and has to move back to a country they've been away from for a dozen some years and start over. In Kenya, we'd had a black and white TV that only seemed to have programing from 5pm - 8pm. In America, my grandmother had a TV that was a wonder of sound and color and stuff that could be ours for only $9.99. And we watched it from dawn to dusk and wanted everything it showed us. I wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer, (hysterical because I so cannot dance!), and swing my hair around while gyrating on the floor. I wanted to make brownies in my easy bake oven. I wanted the Barbie house and car and all the Barbies that came with the house and the car.I wanted to cut the hair on that doll and then grow it back and cut it again. Brother wanted the Transformer toys, and the matchbox toys. We both wanted Big Wheel bike and LiteBrite and the View-finder thing and just about everything we saw on that TV. When my mother finally found a house to move us into, we left my grandmother's TV, weeping all the way, and moved into a house without one. Sure, we could go and visit it. On weekends. When we also visited my grandmother's washing machine and dryer. But it wasn't the same. I, obviously, felt the loss deeply. So much so, that more than one story in my brilliant opus will touch on the wonder that is Television. If only finally owning a TV had solved all my - and the worlds - problems instead of making them worse. Way, WAY, worse! I know it's been ages since I posted regularly but I've been busy. Well, busy-ish. You see, along with all that living life stuff and running off to Nicaragua and trying not to scream at people for being so stupid, I wrote a book. Yay me! I've actually written a lot of books. And scripts. And screenplays. And TV pilots. And poems... I've actually mastered the art of avoiding finishing any of these books and scripts and screenplays and TV pilots. Or even letting people know they exist... The poems - well, no one wants to read that angst. BUT, I finally did pull my thumb out and, a children's story I wrote for my mother, is actually going to see the light of day. Yay me, again! But, this is not my first book. No, my first 'published' work is a collection of stories titled, appropriately, My Stories written soon after my arrival in America that actually won an award! I know. Amazing, right? To be honest, 'award' might be a bit misleading. I was actually only given a Certificate of Recognition as the 'author of the outstanding book,' My Stories. But, the fact that the word 'outstanding' is in there, I'm feeling pretty confident that this was, indeed, an award! Now, I don't want to be too cynical, but it is very possible this 'Certificate' was one that was awarded to every student that year. It was in California in the early age of the Self-Esteem movement. Then again, just because my name, and the title of the book, was typed into blank spots on a mimeographed page, doesn't mean that the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District Superintendent of Schools, the District Librarian, the Principal and the School Librarian of Monte Vista School didn't think my work was worthy. It doesn't! I mean I, apparently, thought it was valuable enough to save the Certificate, pressed between the dog-earred construction paper pages of my opus, My Stories. Since the details of my latest book aren't ready to share yet, I thought I'd give you a peak at this 'outstanding' book, written in my first tender year in America. A book filled with such potential and possibility, captured in shaky cursive and heavily abstract drawings. I don't wish to overwhelm you with it's Outstanding-ness, so I'll stager this share in a few posts. Wouldn't want you weeping over the beauty of my words, the humanity within those stunning drawings. I'm caring like that. (I'm also in Nicaragua for a few weeks and won't be able to post about that awesomeness so this'll have to hold you until I can get internet and write about that - whatever that may turn out to be.) And so we begin ... THE FRONT AND BACK COVER: I'm going here tomorrow with the Mom and the Brother. I hope like hell to avoid stepping on, this! That's a back full of scorpion babies, people. FULL OF BABIES THAT BITE!!! Sure to not be boring. Will write about it when I get back.
If I come back. |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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