MERU DAILY

Shosh Sarah Mpinda Nkubitu. Photo/Samuel Kaimenyi-Facebook. My dearest readers, today I take a short commercial break from my usual storytelling chaos to pay tribute to a very special woman — my grandmother, the legendary Shosh Sarah Mpinda Nkubitu. This week, I received the heartbreaking news of her passing. For days, I disappeared indoors like a politician after losing elections — no calls, no jokes, no social life, just me, memories, and occasional dramatic sighs while staring at the ceiling. But now that I’ve slowly accepted the reality, I feel compelled to tell you about the Shosh I knew. You see, I spent most of my infancy with my grandmother from the age of zero to almost six years old. In fact, at that tender age, I genuinely believed I was Shosh’s lastborn child. Why? Because she was all I knew. The woman practically raised me with one hand while carrying firewood with the other. And from her, I learned the purest form of love — unconditional love. The kind of love where someo...

An illustration of Felix Kinyua's Memoir back page. Illustrated by Felix Kinyua .  This is a continuing series drawn from Roads Less Travelled: A Street Kid’s Memoir by Felix Kinyua. Each installment shares an unedited extract  from the book, offering readers an honest window into a childhood shaped by the streets—and the fragile moments of kindness that made survival possible. Below is a direct, unchanged extract from Chapter Four. Extract from Chapter Four > As the sun begrudgingly rose over the streets of Meru town, I stumbled my way through the aftermath of the previous day's trials, my face bearing the fresh reminders of my misadventures. I sought refuge on a nearby empty veranda, my body aching, and I nestled into a corner like a battle-worn warrior seeking respite. Exhaustion engulfed me, and I drifted into a deep slumber, as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. In that elusive realm of dreams, even the scars and pain dared not intrude, or pe...

Front Cover Page of Felix Kinyua's Memoir, Now available at Ksh. 350. Image/Felix Kinyua.  Some stories are lived before they are written. Others are written so they are never forgotten. Roads Less Travelled: A Street Kid’s Memoir by Felix Kinyua is a deeply personal account of childhood shaped by poverty, hunger, and abandonment—and the quiet strength that emerges from surviving it. Below is an unchanged extract from Chapter One , offering readers a glimpse into the world this memoir reveals. Extract from Chapter One By the tender age of three, I was well-acquainted with the gnawing pangs of an empty stomach, a rite of passage in our grand saga of struggle. Our main culinary masterpiece was the art of surviving a few days on nothing but sheer willpower. My grandmother and I ventured into the world of casual Labor, navigating the perilous landscape of sporadic job opportunities on nearby farms. These jobs, like the fabled pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, were elusive, deman...

Felix Kinyua is the face behind Meru Daily's Content. Photo/Felix Kinyua. As a journalist, my mandate is simple: to inform, educate, and entertain .  Anything else is volunteer work. And as 2025 quietly clears its throat and prepares to exit, I find it only right—professionally and shamelessly—to look back at the last 365 days. Dear reader, it was eventful . Being a freelance print journalist is a lot like being Batman. You do the work, save the city, but rarely appear in daylight. That’s why whenever I tell friends that I am the blogger behind this famous blog , they often go silent—processing, recalculating, and suddenly respecting me differently. People love the writing, but very few can put a face to the name. I prefer it that way. At the start of the year, I revived this blog after it had been dormant for about three years —deep sleep, no alarm, no dreams. I expected a slow comeback, maybe a few courtesy clicks. Instead, I received mad love and a crazy following . Readers we...