What a little rain can do

My name is Rahma(the big revelation finally :-D :-D) but it varies because different people call me different names but mostly I am Rahma which I now know is also the pet-name for rains because rains are mercy from Allah and people call rain Rahma from Allah because all good things are called Rahma :-) :-), Now that I am done selling my name if you didn't notice this is the ultimate pitch for the name and more-so in this age of fancy names and because we are talking about names I have decided/figured that I will do village names when the kids come insha aa Allah, I will give them long names they will thank me or hate me for but I am going with they will love me for it later.Top on the name-list is Khadija Warsan Chaltu (the beloved wife of the prophet, one of the best women in Islam, who is the bearer of good news,an epic poet and is a quite beautiful girl).

I am a lover of the rains and will always walk in the rain because rain where I mostly am when it rains is warm beautiful rain and there is the fact that all the duas you make in the rain will be answered so two wins; walk in the rain/stand in the rain and make the longest of duas. Also I happen to have lived for the longest of time in places where people will as a way of greeting ask 'so is it raining where you are' or if they see a car and it has mud on its tires people will always ask so where are you from and what is the rain situation there.

You will not believe what a few days of good rains can do; It can turn dry tracts of dry land into beautiful  ‘flower farms ‘, increase milk availability, water availability and overall village happiness. Rainy seasons are the happy seasons and by happy I mean they are the default wedding season, debt repayment seasons,court (mahakama) season and story-telling season.

I took these pictures during the past week in places that in March were dry!!

Desert flowers-The magic that is rain

3 years of being the noisy villager!

The Noisy Villager turns 3 this May and I sometimes read my old posts at some I smile, at some I think why did I write them, But I would like to think I have grown in how I write which was my intention to start with; to write better and keep memories (which is and will always be the number one intention).

Throw-back to them good old Dadaab days :-)

3 years is a long time and seeing that my first post was Dadaab!!!! in 2013 which was ‘just’ post 2011 and the drought/famine of 2011 in Dadaab I came to realize was called the influx and people will talk about the influx and I wouldn't know what they were talking about but in a few short weeks I began making talk with big words like durable solutions, repatriation, resettlement, integration, host community and persons of concern (words I hardly used before then and do not use now)

What I have learnt about blogging is that the biggest hope you have when putting a post up is that at-least one person finds what you write interesting to read to the end because there is always the fear that nobody reads beyond the first few words.

Because of this blog I read my books more carefully as I always want to write book reviews(but I always get too lazy to write them!), take more pictures and make a lot of inquiries about stuff I want to write about so as to make sure the stories are good.

5 things I have learnt so far........................

Define your niche

Blogging is like having a conversation about any topic of your choice, with a room full of people you otherwise would never have met. Tell a story, teach a skill or impart knowledge that makes them want more! Whichever you do make it worth their time-Berry Dakara

Funny I should put this here because the Noisy villager is all over the place and doesn’t have anything in particular that is it’s focus but it is important to have something specific you write about and are some sort of an expert in and that thing can as well be your own small day to day adventures.


Be yourself 

Writing is fun and easy if you are writing about things that you love and are close to your heart because if you are writing as a hobby and then you start say writing about technology(assuming this is mostly unknown to you) then you are bound to make mistakes and will struggle to keep on doing it and will in the end kill all the happiness that comes with hitting the publish button because you are writing about things that are unfamiliar and will need a lot of research to write on.

Read

Read books, blogs, magazines, anything really but just read. I picked up reading for fun last year and I have not regretted. It makes you think better, wider, be more creative and definitely write better. The  Kenyan blogs I think are the best currently and this based on the three blogs I read because they are the best are Biko Zulu and This is Ess and I love love this article Owahh did on Sudan(the white Rhino).

Use Pictures as much as you can

As much as you can add pictures to posts it makes them more interesting and easier to read.

Keep it short

People don’t have all the time in the world to read your thoughts, keep it short as the saying goes be sure you are done speaking before your audience is done listening.

Consistency

Write often and if you can stick to a schedule say maybe post every Friday stick to it.In that way it will always be easier to write instead of writing when you feel like it as laziness can creep in if you do not have days to post on trust me I know :-).

Promoting your blog

If your main intention as I know/assume many bloggers intention is to have people read their blogs, then you have to actively promote it by using this tip I picked from Silvia Njoki. If you have more than one social media account and you really want a lot of people to read your blog; Be sure to share it in all your social media platforms but at different times so that you have the opportunity to catch as many readers as possible and there is no harm in posting twice at say maybe 24 hrs interval.This tip is especially good for all looking for traffic to their site(unlike me who sees 5 hits and I panic)

In the spirit of celebrating the small things we went out and kinda ate :-). I was initially going to go for cakes and tea/coffee but the person I was going with insisted there is a new joint in town that she thinks is cooler than the cake place. My verdict is; It is not cooler just different but it is more spacious and they have caano moos(banana milk-shakes) :-) :-).

food :-) :-)

To everyone who spares a few minutes and reads this blog in all its randomness thank you!.

'Beyond' Photography Exhibition

Guess who is slowly evolving from her home-body self to explorer, a gradual painful process because you can't leave the house in a baati,ok you can but you want to look nice and put together sometime :-).The struggle to get ready is something I am not keen on and this is me who is always in buibuis outside..................................this is to say mad respect to all those put together colour co-ordinated women on the streets with shoes matching belt matching ear-rings.Nobody says it but you guys are truly special and winners.

A few weeks ago there was this exhibition by OneTouch Live while I am not artsy at all, I am into history and such a patriot at heart so because I was lucky to be in Nairobae when the exhibition was on I checked it out for the sole reason that it show-cased hidden gems in Kenya.

I went twice because the first time it was mid-week and the place was so empty and by empty I mean EMPTY so I kinda got intimidated and didn't check it out fully.I went again on the closing weekend and loved it mainly because it was full of people and people would randomly talk to me about the pictures and ask me to take pictures of them.

Exhibition going 101 if you are to go for an event either go on the day it opens or the day it closes the middle days as I found out can be intimidating but if empty galleries are your thing then avoid these two days.

The exhibition was to the best of my understanding to showcase towns in Kenya that the OneTouch Live photographers had visited and it was in collaboration with World Vision's HungerFree initiative.All the pictures were on sale and % of the proceeds went to support the HungerFree initiative.For each of the towns they visited they had a description of the town and the pictures were arranged per location so all Nairobi pictures were together,all Samburu pictures were together and so on

Their description of Nairobi; Nairobi is the largest and the capital city of Kenya.The name Nairobi comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nairobi,which translates to cool waters,however its popularly known as the green city in the sun.founded in 1899 by the colonial authorities in British East Africa,as a rail depot on the Uganda railway.The town quickly grew to replace Machakos as the capital of Kenya in 1907.A lesson in history because how many people knew Machakos was Kenya's capital city at some point??

Some pictures that I liked from the exhibition ;-)

Matatus in Nairobi are a work of art :-)

A maasai watches over his herd of goats down below by the shore of Lake Natron

Ngare Ndare's forest 450-metre canopy walk,one can watch animals like elephants grazing 40 feet below.This is the only canopy walk in East Africa

Fishermen harvesting fish from river Sagana and Masinga dam.

Mount Ololokwe, also known as Ol Donyo Sabache a distinctive land-mark on the Isiolo-Marsabit highway

Who knew there is a female only village in Samburu!

This Pokot elder we should start looking for because this man is rich!!!! man has 60 goats and 100 beehives

Lemonade

The whole Somali community after hearing Warsan Shire on Lemonade

So Beyonce released a new album called Lemonade sometime last week and a visual on HBO by the same name,while I long stopped listening to a lot of new music and especially from 'new' artists because there is this thing called becoming ancient :-)........................recently I was talking to my small brother who is going through this phase of perpetually having earphones on and he tells me the way guys from his school love Mavado and that when it comes on every one screams(they have entertainment nights sometimes).I thought it because  I didn't know Mavado is a singer and so I ask 'kwani nyinyi ni watumbo aje mna-screamia ovacado'. I am sure he will be  laughing for a long time when he remembers that I thought Mavado is Avocado, Therefore I am safe sticking with Beyonce because I know her as well as you can know someone you have never met but know when she has added weight and its maybe because she is getting baby number 2 and all related rumours.

What made me aware of Lemonade was a lot of people I follow on social media went on and on about how Warsan Shire was quoted in the visual/album and I really really wanted to see the visual so I bargained with my other brother to buy the album on itunes because as we all know I am team mulika people and he refused, but he indulged me by checking how much each song in the album goes for and that the whole album is about 18 USDs and that Sauti Sol's album live and die in Afrika is also on itunes, all this and he still doesn't buy it.People who own iphones why have them when you can't buy this album because if I had one I would have bought that album the minute it landed on itunes, listened to all the songs and held a discussion with Mresh on their validity in Queen Bey's life but...........my mulika doesn't have a clue who Beyonce is and what itunes is and doesn't care because it has it's benefits like 7 days no charging and falls down you worry it might break the floor :-) :-)

I have read that Beyonce has called out her husband on this album for cheating on her with someone called Becky with the good hair and even threw her wedding ring and says;

'Where do you go when you go quiet.........You remind me of my father, a magician,able to exist in two places at once.In the tradition of men in my blood,you come home at 3 a.m. and lie to me.What are you hiding?The past and the future.merge to meet us here.What luck,What a fucking curse'' 

'Who the fuck do you think I am.You aint married to no average bitch,boy.You can watch my fat ass twist,boy.As I bounce to the next boy.And keep your money,I got my own.' When you play me,you play yourself,If you try this shit again you are going to loose your wife.

I haven't listened to any song on Lemonade except for formation and I haven't seen the HBO visual yet(yet being the key word), but I will tell you what I think about Mr Carter cheating on Mrs Carter,It can't be true because she released the album at first exclusively on Tidal that is majorly owned/controlled by her husband What Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” Can (and Can’t) Do for Tidal,if he was really cheating on her and she was real on this 'who the fuck do you think I am' threats she wouldn't have.In addition to this she has sang crazy in love,dangerously in love and drunk in love and has constantly spoken of how lucky she is to have Mr.Carter as her husband and even bought him a plane!!!!!! as a gift when she got her daughter.

Since we are talking about the fact that she is calling out her husband in a few songs what about all the lines in her songs (trust Beyonce to bring out the hopeless romantic in all of us) that talk about her undying love and what she will do for it and she is definitely singing to and for one Mr.Carter.Some of them that I can think of now are; (but these are like the proverbial drop in the ocean or even smaller!)

'Damn I think I love that boy,do anything for that boy,Now I'll never be the same its me and you till the end'-Countdown

'Got me looking,so crazy,my baby,I'm not myself,lately I'm foolish,I don't this,I've playing myself,baby I don't care,coz your love's got the best of me and,baby you are making a fool of me.you got me sprung and I don't care who sees'-Crazy in Love

'If I wrote a book about where we stand then the title of my book would be life with superman'-Roc

'If there's options,I don't want them,they are not worth my time,cause if it's not you oh no thank you,I like us just fine'-Roc

'Ring the alarm I have been through this too long but I will be damned if I see another chick on your arm'-Ring the alarm

'She is going be rocking chinchilla  coats if I let you go,hits in the house on the coast if I let you go,she gon take everything I own if I let you go,I can't let you go,damn if I let you go'-Ring the alarm

'And I know you love me,love me for who I am because years before I became who I am baby you were my man,I know it ain't easy,easy loving me,I appreciate the love and dedication from you to me'-Dangerously in love

and finally to all those out there saying the way she has been cheated on and all to quote an article on Lemonade I read.............

'As art,it was an unforgettable act of public shaming.As business,though,it was a gift of surpassing values.The irony is rich:the man whose presumptive philandering provided the subject for this album now stands to profit most from its distributions.'