Love yourself. Be yourself.
Lifestyle inspiration, stories and guides, from an African and diaspora perspective. Mostly snapshots from my own life, as I work on designing the life I want to live.
I recently returned from a wonderfully rejuvenating trip home to East Africa. Here’s the story of my trip, told through the tropical flora!
First stop was my hometown of Nairobi. I felt so lucky to wake up each morning to this – such a diverse, colourful collection of foliage. If you’ve been following my #plantsomethingdaily challenge, you know how much inspiration I derive from nature!
Continue reading “Inspired: Tropical Flora from my East African Travels”
I’m honoured to join the family of ‘Bosschiques’ over on Women Change Africa – a blog and brand founded on the theory that if women are celebrated, connected and cultivated, change will occur in our communities.
Women Change Africa founder, Moiyattu Banya had some great questions for me, providing an always welcome opportunity to pause, reflect and appreciate.
Read the interview over on Women Change Africa. I love the last question and would love to hear how you’d answer it. Let me know in the comments below.
Blog beginnings
When I started this blog, I had a hypothesis behind it but, as the years went by, I continued to write about the things that interested me, without consciously checking them against those founding ideas. What I did realise is that there were some emerging themes: creativity, enterprise and wellness.
Now, I can finally articulate what underpins these potentially disparate things – sustainable living.
Sustainability begins with me
In this context, it’s sustainable living on a very personal level – how can we, as creative people, respond to this calling while earning a heathy income and taking care of ourselves, so that we may continue to create (and live). All these three things are interdependent.
Those who’ve been reading the blog for a while might be bored by now of my insistence that it all starts with self. I truly believe we can’t effectively help others until we’ve helped ourselves. However, what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, is sustainable living on a larger scale.
My daily art challenge continues. There have been times, when I’m just about to go to bed, after working really long hours, and I remember that I haven’t created the day’s piece! It’s been so tempting to just give that one time a miss. However, thanks to all the wonderful encouragement you’ve been showing me, I’ve stayed on course and I’m really grateful for that.
Above are some of my favourites from February. It’s interesting how different themes emerge:
Continue reading “Plant Something Daily – February Favourites”
Summer is a distant dream for many of us living in the northern hemisphere (climate change aside, that is – only 3 days ago I was out and about in short sleeves!). Indeed, it's now 2 months since I returned to London from my trip to a hot and humid U.S. and, I've been meaning to share the highlights since. What better timing than when I need a reminder of how good it feels to have the sun kiss my appropriately darkened skin.
My 5-week trip was a glorious respite from what has been a very challenging year, in so many ways (more on that another time).
(Corset by Evie Nix)
It was a time for perspective: I find being away from your 'normal' environment great for seeing things clearer.
(Hammock grove at Governor's Island)
Today, I turned 21 29. I considered creating a “30 before 30” list but I fear that creating realistic goals achievable in one year would make for very boring reading! Instead, I thought I’d share 29 important things I’ve learned in my days. In no particular order …
As Nakumatt malls pop up all over the place in Nairobi, large impersonal retailers in Western countries are hitting hard times. People in these countries are demanding experiences that: make communities vibrant; are architecturally harmonious with their surroundings; are small business friendly and; offer localised rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.
The late bird catches a break
Do we have to follow the same path that these countries have travelled to reach similar conclusions, decades from now? Can we learn from the experiences of the West and avoid this fate?
Continue reading “Rethinking Prosperity: Why I’m not embracing a mall per mile in Nairobi”
Artist Kehinde Wiley talks about his collaboration with Puma in celebration of African footballers. Thanks to Afripop! for the heads up!
On the Afri-love facebook page, a discussion got going about favourite books by African authors. Recommendations so far include:
Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North, Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, Yvonne Vera’s Butterfly Burning and Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy.
What are your favourites and why?