Rastas Za Community

It has been a minute, so let me get straight to it, right? I could complain about not having the urge to write, but every writer does that, and that is becoming a genre in itself, so I will not. I will use my privilege to tell you what my thoughts are, picking up at this exact moment in time. 

It is 8 pm on the day this was published, and it has been raining since 4 or 5 pm; basically, since The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, and now I am done with Part 2, and it is still raining. I ate ugali mayai in-between the movies and inasmuch as I know whenever I eat eggs I often get breakouts in my face, I cannot say with utmost confidence that it is a biological thing; it could be a placebo effect and since I think that whenever I eat eggs I’ll get breakouts, they come, so I might as well be summoning them subconsciously anytime I eat eggs. That used to be the same for Blueband, but I can confidently say that that is not the case. So why am I eating eggs when I know and think that I will have breakouts? One, it is raining, and I don’t want to go out in the rain to get an alternative food. Two, I have not done house shopping for a week or two now, and the last time I did, I bought a tray of eggs, and to circle back to one, it is raining. Three, I had cooked eggs yesterday at 2 am, and since I live alone at the moment, I could not finish them all in one sitting, so they had to double down as today’s meal. Four, I woke up at noon and therefore, had no time to do other things that would have taken up a lot of energy, and I would have eaten the eggs earlier, and now I would be eating another meal. Five, I was watching The Hunger Games, and I didn’t want to break my movie streak and get out of the house. Six, I made really good eggs.

Anyway, I undid my rasta twists and told Nyx of the same, and she almost had a mini stroke. Apparently, and this remains news to me, my rastas have superceded me and are now property of the community. Last year, I was bored and “teased” that I was going to shave them off, and I kid you not, people had a lot of breakdowns. Nyx was angry with me for close to a week, and several of her sisters excommunicated me for a while. Several friends were angry and confused and were comfortable enough to tell me, to which I fully understood the extent to which my hair is part of my identity. For the record, I can count on one hand people who I consider friends right now who have seen me without rastas. 

Now, why did I get rastas in the first place? I know someone might think of a profound meaning, like maybe getting in touch with spirituality, or maybe I felt lost and getting rastas would have grounded me, or as an act of rebellion against my parents, or maybe some influence from a TV show character, and you might partly be right. If I were to answer that question truthfully, I got them because at that moment in time, I had a decent amount of cash, and I had already bought rollerblades and wanted to use money, so I went and got rastas. It is important to note that by then, I had cornrows and an afro, so I was already rebelling against my guardians, who always wanted my hair short. I was tired of getting fades, too. However, I cannot proclaim other reasons than that at the time, I had a friend from Twitter who I thought was cool (she still is cool btw) and she happened to crush on a Grownish character called Luka; yes, Luka Sabbat. Luka happened to have rastas then, so in my own younger self, trying to impress this girl, I got rastas. Funny enough, she has never seen them, so I guess I got them for me. 

Yes, I have also had other influences that coincidentally converged to make the decision to get them. At that time, I was leaning heavily into “discovering” Kenyan music, and the guys popping off were Bensoul, Nviiri, and Nyashinski, and have you connected the dots yet? They all had rastas. Nyashinski has since shaved, but Lil Maina’s rastas are popping, so he has been replaced in that mood board. So with all these factors considered, it was easier to adopt rastas than not, and I can’t pinpoint one specific thing happening. Oh, I remember, that was around the time I was mugged in town, and I was like, “With rastas, now I will be the danger,” and in a way, I have been stereotyped as so. 

I have had parents and their children look at me in some type of way in town. I have had women and men alike make way for me in Moi Avenue because they saw me coming – I also think that my height is not doing me any favors. Every single time I enter an establishment with a guard who happens to have those metal detectors, I will always get checked while everyone else passes through freely. I have had people come to me at parties and ask if I have a lighter; yes, I did, but not because of smoking — I don’t even smoke! And don’t get me started on people who think I have drugs… well, I often do, but that is not the point! I have had a lot of touts and nduthis respect me when I say no because, I guess, they fear rastas. I have had to laugh with a guy at the immigration office when he stereotyped me as “nyinyi ndio mnasumbua kila pahali,” only because he had my passport in his hands. I’ve had my aunties judge me when they saw me, and others send me to the salon immediately — each side of the family had a very different reaction. I’ve had a lot of girls compliment me because of my hair, and I got tired of saying “thank you” to some who had those if-I-laid-my-hands-on-you eyes that if I spot that look, I immediately say that niko na mtu and I am spoken for. And how could I not say that anyone else refers to me as “Rasta!”

The rastas have their perks, too. They act as a whole body part in some extra-curricular activities, and I can confidently say that I get luckier most days when I haven’t styled them than when I have. I cannot base this in fact or science, but I think it also intimidates a lot of people enough that I don’t have to speak a lot — I like my silence most times and if I were to be part of an experiment with a non-rasta guy, I’d say that he would be approached more than I because of his non-rastaness by people who don’t have rastas. If it were to be conducted in a room of people with rastas, all of them would come talk to me, or I would talk to them — it is a whole thing in the rasta community. 

When it comes to entitlement, Nyx is the only one who is warranted to get angry when I lose my rastas. She has poured blood, sweat, water, conditioner, other fluids, and shampoo in my rasta journey. So, as much as it is funny to see and hear how my rastas are part of the community, I unequivocally state in front of the masses that my rastas are hers and hers alone. 

P.S. She pays for my salon visits on most days, and no, this post was not sponsored by her; I just happen to think about her a lot.

From Me To You

To the April babies, I hope your month has been full of food and less food poisoning. I hope the people you lend money to always pay on time, and your texts get replied to on time. I also hope your favourite artiste releases new music soon, and may your eggs never be runny (if you eat runny eggs, you have cannibalistic tendencies and you can never change my mind about that).

This story came to me after watching The Hunger Games, and I was sad that Katniss’ story was over, so I wrote this to make me feel good, and it served its purpose. If it made you feel good, you’re welcome. FYI, it stopped raining at 9 pm.

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider subscribing. If not, please read my last story where I got sad about finishing something else: my Mambo ni Mengi Planner.