Potentash

03/06/2026

“Go to school, and make your own money so that when your husband gives you nyokonyoko, you can leave him for good.” Those were words my father would often tell me. This mainly happened as he dragged me with him to his escapades. In those days, going to an alcohol joint with your children wasn’t as frowned upon as in this era.

I was the lastborn and only daughter. My three older brothers were in boarding school. My father, a man of many colours, seemed to have a special fondness for me, which was ironic given our relationship was mainly characterised by his criticising everything I did. It was never good enough for him.

“Just like your mother,” he’d say. This was one of the less harsh statements from him. My mother and brothers bore the brunt of it. He made it no secret that he considered our mother a woman deficient in intellectual capabilities whose only virtue was ‘knowing her place’. She dared not speak back to him-my mother.

Not even when he paraded his other conquests in the little village town with three bars and four streets, if we’d even call them that. Everybody knew everybody. You could easily be sent to the butcher because the butcher knew the amount of meat your family often bought and whether to include fatty cuts. If you had too many bones, it was a message to your parents that they needed to clear their debt.

Despite my father’s transgressions, my mother served him dutifully. She worked harder for his approval. We all did. My brothers would never be caught in any cheeky business like many of their age mates. They worked hard to be perfect in the eyes of our father. We all did. He was well admired by his peers for his acumen in business, his extended family looked up to him, and he was a charmer. When my father showed you affection, you felt like the only thing that mattered.

I Loved Him But I Realized He Was Exactly Like My Dad And Not In A Good Way

“Go to school, and make your own money so that when your husband gives you nyokonyoko, you can leave him for good.” Those were words my father would often tell me. This mainly happened as he dragged me with him to his escapades. In those days, going to an alcohol joint with your children wasn’...

02/06/2026

The Anchored Toastmasters Youth Speechcraft is now open!

A communication bootcamp designed to teach youth to speak confidently, think clearly, and express themselves with impact

🗓️ Registration now open:
Payment details:

Mpesa Paybill: 880100 Account Number: PAYANCHORED
Investment KES 6,000 per person

🎟️ Limited slots available

Apply here: https://forms.gle/gA3T4rNfzYyy971j6

01/06/2026

“This is Kemi, my friend.”

Five words that changed everything. We were standing in line at the coffee shop near his office when his colleague walked up, and those words fell from his lips so easily, so naturally, like they’d been waiting there all along.

My heart dropped into my stomach. We’d been dating for three months. Three months of stolen kisses in his car, of him sleeping over at my place every weekend, of late-night phone calls where he told me things he’d never told anyone else. Three months of what I thought was us building something real.

But in that moment, watching him chat casually with his coworker while I stood there clutching my latte, I realised I’d been building alone.

“We don’t need labels,” he said later when I worked up the courage to ask about it. His fingers traced patterns on my bare shoulder as we lay in his bed. “What we have is perfect as it is. Why mess it up with definitions?”

I wanted to believe him so badly that I swallowed the words climbing up my throat. Because what we had when it was just us, God, was beautiful. He would text me good morning every day without fail. He remembered that I hated mushrooms and loved terrible reality TV. He’d hold me during storms because he knew they made me anxious, whispering stories into my hair until the thunder passed.

In his apartment, with the curtains drawn and the world locked out, I was his everything. He looked at me like I hung the moon. He told me secrets he’d never told anyone else, about his father walking out when he was twelve, about the panic attacks he got before big presentations, about how he wanted to write a novel someday but was terrified it would be terrible.

But the moment we stepped outside, I became a ghost.

At his best friend’s wedding, I watched from across the room as he danced with his ex-girlfriend, the one whose photos were still scattered throughout his social media like breadcrumbs of a life I wasn’t part of. When she asked who I was, he said, “Just someone I know from work.”

Just someone.

I locked myself in the bathroom and cried into paper towels that scratched my face, wondering how someone could make you feel so precious in private and so worthless in public.

The full story in the comments.

05/05/2026

His Family Lost Their Financial Fortune In His Childhood. He Decided To Date Up As A Man But It Didn't Work Out The Way He Thought It Would

What is in a title? It’s the automatic respect many people give you when words like ‘Engineer’, ‘Doctor’, ‘Lawyer’, ‘Magistrate’ or ‘Honourable (Mheshimiwa)’ are used to address you. Maybe it’s the social circles one has access to when you have certain titles. It may not even...

05/05/2026

He Planned To Invest Their Joint Savings Without Consulting Her, Claiming He Had Authority As The "Head Of The Household"

When you meet someone who has almost everything you’re looking for, you waste no time. Dan and Elsie could see themselves spending the rest of their lives together. They were both calm and collected individuals and felt compatible in so many ways. After a year of dating, they decided to move in to...

05/05/2026

He Discovered His Fiancé Committed A Serious Crime As A Teen. It Made Him Unsure About Their Future

How long do you need to date someone before you know them well enough to marry them? A few years, maybe? But what if you discover you were looking in the wrong places? Asakania could never have imagined that looking at a photo album would reveal a secret that would knock the air out of […]

05/05/2026

“Your friends talk about cheating with so much ease,” I said.

“You know how men are and the nature of the job,” Jay responded.

“So you’re saying it’s expected?” I asked angrily.

“That’s not what I said. Why are we fighting over something that’s not directly related to us?” Jay asked.

When I woke up that Friday morning, I thought I had broken up with the greatest love of my life. Everything tasted bland, even the coffee that I loved so dearly. My decision later in the day to go out with my girlfriends was purely because I couldn’t trust myself not to go through all […]

02/05/2026

The Singlehood Series: She Got Tired Of Dealing With A Meddlesome Mother-In-Law Who Overruled Anything They Agreed As A Couple

Mercy waited for her daughter to fall asleep to finish packing. John walked in on her, folding more clothes. He would have ignored her, but he saw a heap of their daughter’s clothes on the bed. That was when he saw the suitcases. “Mercy, what is the meaning of this?” John asked. “I can’t d...

02/05/2026

The Singlehood Series: He Gave Her An Ultimatum: She Must Quit Her Executive Job, Or He Would Leave Their Marriage

Jenny kissed her kids goodnight and went into her room to finish packing. Tim had been waiting for her. He paced around, hovering over her as she moved from the bathroom to the closet and back to folding clothes on the bed. “Should I make arrangements for a cab or will you drop me at […]

02/05/2026

The Singlehood Series: His Rich Family Looked Down On Hers. She Could Not Take The Contempt And Cancelled The Wedding

‘Save The Date’ invitations were yet to be sent out. Sally’s family was beginning to worry, and by family, she meant her mother. “You know we have to invite even the Mutuas and the chairman of the church. They really helped us with your education,” she told Sally. It felt like her mother r...