The day the world came to an end

It was a breezy sunday afternoon, My two friends, Ben, Ken and I were doing some class research that had to be handed in on monday morning. We were inside a room that made us feel detached from the rest. The room was located on the rustier sections of campus where people seldom went. It was tiny and a spiders' playground and home. All sorts of webs decorated it uncouthly and a musty smell was wafting around to the whims of oncoming draughts.

We were the freaks who read on sundays when everyone else was listening to sunday soul or at least present in a mass somewhere.Not that we were not religious. We were just different. None of us knew that alot around us as we knew it would soon change.

It was four o' clock when I suddenly felt the need to urinate. I wiped the cob-webs that were now flowing irritatingly on my face and headed to the door. Instinctively, I turned the knob to let myself out but it could hardly move. It felt like bags of soil stood heaped behind it.

With some effort, I managed to pull the door to myself and the most unusual thing happened. A heap of dry soil came rushing at me with avalanche might, burying my legs to knee-height. I could not move. As I stood there, contemplating on my next move, the influx of the dusty soil continued with increasing speed and I strove to maintain my balance.

It was then that I felt my friends, tugging at my arm-pits. As we stepped back into the middle of the room to look at the incoming soil, a stronger wave came at us from the door, completely covering its entire height. We had to get out of this room or drown

Grains of soil were being hurled at us from behind by the mighty wave. we pried the windows open and jumped to the grassy lawn outside, very thankful for being alive.Upon further inspection, we established the source of this soil to be a retaining wall that had collapsed and spewed soil into the adjoining building. I could not help but think of an idea for a movie. picture this: Two guys trapped inside a building by an immense heap of soil and upon getting out, they discover that 'everyone else' is dead and have to embark on a peril-laden journey to seek others. Cool huh?

THE BEGINNING: 5th &6th June 2008

I have never seen so much talent in the same room at the same time. Ladies and gentlemen were oozing with it in all directions of that room at the Goethe Institut. Personally I came half-baked to this workshop, literally of course, but after the give-and-take session that followed I was full of ideas on how to improve my work.

Authors were displaying some of their best creations such as poems and articles that completely blew me away.Falko Hennig, a great German author and a member of the Reading Stage fraternity in Germany gave good direction during the workshop on how to establish and run a reading stage.

The first piece was a first hand experience of an unborn child in the womb where we take a rivetting journey with her through the intrigues of nature inside a woman's womb.Mmmh!! I was smiling through the whole reading of that story that relates us so fondly with a greater existence. Beatrice Tangai surely knows how to weave the unexpected into gold.Kudos!!

Another nice piece was read by Khainga O'Okwemba. It was a poem based on the U.S Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama's visit to Kenya and written a few hours after his speech at the University of Nairobi.
Wonderful off-the-cuff narrations were done beautifully by Philo Ikonya and Mshai Mwangola during the two day workshop.
In addition were Neema Mawiyoo, a poet and musician, who acted as the workshop coordinator alongside Eliphas Nyamogo.

It was an enriching experience to share and talk to all these greatly talented people.