Is there more to just being free from discrimination based on race, tribe or origin? Can we really say for a fact that we are not under any colonial rule? Or did the rule just move gradually from territorial and dictatorial to emotional and psychological? As Africans we have become quite liberated in terms of development or technology but are our minds still free from mental slavery?

Sometimes, I share half of my seat with a random person and our skin touch, leaving a tacky sensation on me. Worse even, it is a smoker whose odour makes me want to grow my nose out of the window.

She remembers the sweet dreams. Those she had of their future or rather the plans that turned to be sweet dreams. The cool names they came up with of their children to be. The serene suburbs they planned to build their simple bungalow.

The woman in the next stall urinates loudly as Miriam squats over the toilet bowl. Nothing comes out – she is too anxious. A bespectacled man stares at her …

The two men stared at each other, sizing each other up for their impending dance. Who would lead, and to what music, what rhythm, would there be sore feet when the music stopped? At least the man had a sense of humour, The Man thought. The boy knows enough to come, the priest thought.

Even as the woman takes up greater responsibilities, often out of absolute socio-economic necessity, her maternal instinct seems not to be too adversely affected. In some cases it is enhanced. These women haven’t ceased being mothers; they’re smarter about it.

I stood gazing, trying to tattoo it on my would-be memories when the time would come to remember it. I wanted to paste it on my soul, imprint my being with its essence. I had to dip myself and saturate in the trueness of what my eyes were seeing.

My guardian angel is one sad fellow who walks around with his face contorted into an ugly scowl like a Kenyan whose salary has delayed for a day. He never says it but I know the kind of thoughts he harbors in his mind about me. He thinks I am pathetic.

Sarah is a Visual Artist with a background in Human Resource. She worked in a digital marketing agency when we first met. We would later meet again this year at the Go Downs Art Center.

I grew up in the arms of a queen,

Who got married off to a man more of a grandfather than a husband at the age of ten.

At the age of thirteen, she was selling tea in the school’s canteen,