THE HAIRPOLITAN MAGAZINE VOL 5 APRIL 2017

INDUSTRY
Njeri Wangari:
Sharing my
blogging experience
I have been blogging since 2005. My first blog was
kenyanpoet.blogspot.com, which was about my
poetry initially. With time it grew to a platform for
news and information on arts & culture in Kenya. In
January 2014, I started AfroMum.com. I had been
contemplating starting a blog on motherhood,
parenting and family technology for a while after I
had our first baby. My career was in the tech space
then doing network support. I had noted that most
parenting blogs focused mostly on motherhood thus
I decided to focus on tech, lifestyle, issues affecting
women and entrepreneurship as well.
just us good...and then that happened (her shop is
right next to Swarovski) and I was just like…Guys!
Guys!”
The Designers Studio was not a fluke but rather the
result of a series of well-planned steps executed
to perfection. The shop stocks a wide range of
local designers including; Adele Dejak, Nawalika,
Le Collane di Betta, Canvas and Kangas, Akinyi
Odongo, Deepa Dosaja, Urban Artefacts, Penny
Winters, Njema Helena, Ikojn, Kooroo and Drop of
a Hat.
She is happy with how business is going and she has
been pleasantly surprised by customers who come in
and buy without even looking at the price tags and
loves it when they mix up the different brands, which
was what she always wanted. “It’s been fun. It’s been
really cool, seeing how the shop has turned out. It
just goes to show that you have to keep working at
it because a shop like that does not appear out of
thin air.”
Jewelry curated by TDS
economy. I would I feel that I would be doing more
rather than just pushing paper in the UN and I had
always wanted to start a shop where we sold Kenyan
stuff!” she concludes.
FOLLOW WANJIRU ON HER WEBSITE:
www.tdsblog.com
When I was starting out in 2005, we only had
Wordpress and Blogger. Wordpress was quite
technical thus most of us preferred Blogger, as it
didn’t require any coding skills. Blogging was not
as easy back then as we didn’t have all the fancy
themes, plugins and widgets available now. It was
very manual. Sharing content was especially hard
because twitter came much later.
However, back then we were few bloggers in Kenya
and we knew each other by name so we read each
other’s work. I came across blogging purely due
to frustration. I had put together collection of my
poems, which I hoped to publish. Despite attempts
to get a local publisher, all I got were regrets. A
friend mentioned blogs and how one went about it
and I just set it up and put up my work.
It was pure magic. I had never shared my poetry with
the world beyond my close friends. Having the ability
to publish my poetry on a site I owned and have the
whole world read it was a surreal experience. Initially
it felt like un-dressing in public because my poetry
is very personal (all poetry is actually) so sharing my
feeling with the world, open to criticism was and has
always been a bittersweet experience. I still get that
feeling everything I publish my poetry or thoughts
on a topic of interest in blog form.
She may have started out as a blogger but the brick
and mortar shop was always part of her plan. “I
felt that the business would contribute more to the
Sharing one’s thoughts, feelings and opinion on
things they care about is a very honest and selfless
thing to do. It takes guts. To be willing to lay yourself
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Njeri Wangari