A Frog Hoping Out into the Sun...

In my tongue they say that you can never meet a frog hoping out of the pond and into the open unless things are very bad whence he comes. In fact it was common when I was growing up in Masiro to take to your heels if you met a warty toad or frog hoping in a hurry to what seems like nowhere. There could be a snake! Problem was when it was in the open, it made an easy meal for a hawk up in the air.

And I thought of the same yesterday when the ever blissful Wako came out for the first time in my memory of him to defend himself against accusations of sleeping on the job and also deliberatively aiding the people of power and influence to perpetuate impunity. Many people say Wako is a brilliant lawyer which explains why his tirade yesterday against the mighty America was like a the frog hoping hurriedly to nowhere.

Some people have argued that you can eat, dine and be merry even if you didn't have a USA visa. After all like Isaac Ruto said Wako's office is not in New York. But thats not the point. The point is that its very difficult to perform your duties as a senior govt official without this Visa given that the moment you lose it, you also most likely lose Visas to most European countries. And since most of our governance is based on foreign support which basically implies foreign trips and so on. It means you cant travel for these overseas meetings which means your assistants who may not be decision makers have to represent you etc etc. That basicaly translates to you not performing the duties you were hired for.

My thinking is that denying an official visa is a way of firing the official on behalf of the President! And thats why Wako came out like a frog.

On another note, I couldn't help but notice that so far the US has already forced out 2 people they have always had problems with. A. ringera, and M. Ali. Wako is probably next because I don't see Kibaki backing him. The man will most likely not comment but Wako will also probably not get access to him which is his silent way of telling you to take a walk! Kibaki is the kind of sonko who cant bear firing anyone even if you were stepping on his toes but he will just silently ignore you or avoid eye contact!

Failing...To Succeed

Just after reading cracked's article on people who made their failure a personal success, I got home to news that one Ngangalito, the young man who stole the fame during the last tusker project fame show had actually got success and will be running his own show on the dynamic Citizen TV.

Its quite a shocker I must say. I disliked the boy from day one. I was fearing that he would do a Hemedi once again and I kept on wondering what EABL was trying to achieve with such non-talent's in the premier show. However as the days wore on, I started seeing the other side of Nganga. One trait that endeared him to everyone I guess was his never say die attitude. He took all criticism in his stride and added a warm smile to every apearance. Nganga probably knew what none of the contestants knew. That the show was not really about talent. Such shows are about viewaship since they are just another mega advertisement. Neither EABL nor Citizen will care if you choked as you sung as long as people are watching and drinking!

So much about Nganga and his Italians. Yesterday, I was rather taken aback watching one truly talented Usain Bolt jokinngly touch our president on the shoulders as his senior ministers looked on like kids. I felt bad. It didnt help that he was towering over the old man and patting his shoulders like those of a small boy who has been given candy.But we already agreed that you never look a gift horse (goat) in the mouth. So that too will pass.

Such gifts would not have been necessary if we were more proactive in managing our internal affairs. The Excellency would have protected our sovereignty by not standing in line to receive donations from a 23 year old '3rd Worlder'. But that would only have been posible if we shuned shortcuts to reaches.

Shotcuts like the ones used by teachers and students to get ahead and pass the national exams. All because they fear to fail in life while they should just be referring to Ngangalito above on how to succeed in spite of failure!

Villains and Psychos

A long lost Congolese journalist and Academic friend of mine has remembered me by way of an email. And that was very comforting and good of him after all these years of teaching at a UK varsity. The only discomforting thing is that he only remembered me as part of a large list of email recipients of a lewd forward. So I dont know whether to smile or frown.

And the forward is rather bizarre. It shows several worm eye-view pictures of the renown mutwashi dancer and musician Tshala Muana. My friend was criticising the singer for her appearance during the show.

The pictures reveal a very stylish Tshala, clad in a long flowing dress but not wearing any panties. And that was my friends bone of contention. He was angry that the musician was not showing good picture and of the DR Congo and was instead showing her 'goods' to the public. And I wondered who between Tshala Muana and the photojournalist who took the pictures has a problem. The musician could have decided to wear less undergarments due to her size (elle est un peu bien enveloppée) and vigorous dance to reduce on sweat for all I know! But looking at the angle from which the pictures were taken it was impossible to miss an upskirt on the dancer given she was on a raised platform. Am even wondering had the journalist obtained pictures of her undergarments, would it have been less worrisome? it still would have pointed to a sick person , going out of his way to catch details of the musician which were not for public consumption.

It just reminds me of similar pictures I have seen of other prominent personalities like Martha Karua, Amani and even Pasaris. All of them just showed me evidence of irresponsible and really very very sick journalists!!!

Of Face Book and Its Alienations

In the days when a TV was a possession to behold, I used to curse a friend of mine who would promptly turn off the box when I went visiting. I used to think he didn't like me enjoying the moving pictures playing on it. One time I braved it and complained to him but he said that the TV prevented him from connecting with his guests. It was his practice to switch it off when he had friends since he valued a one to one conversation more and did not like any third party interruptions. He also never liked the direction of his causerie dictated by the events displayed on the magic box.

But that was then. Today am just finding out that unlike my friend, a ubiquitous facility called Facebook is quickly alienating me from my friends and even relatives. Just the other day, I discovered that I had not met our close family friend for almost 3 months when in my mind I thought we have been with her at least every other day. Because of Facebook, I have been able to know everything that was going on in her life and so I hadn't made time to pay her a visit or even call. Her status always updates when she goes to church, misses out on water, buys a new water tank for storage or when looking for a new house-help! So when I met her and insisted I had been a 'good' friend you should have seen her shock. For a definition of a good friend is not one who keeps up with you only on a website!

But I like the site. Even though I never update my own status (it has to do with my soldier cousin's comment about the site) I normally find it quite interesting. Facebook has made me know most of my friends based on what they update in their status. One of them is a smooth operator and always has sweet words for the fairer gender. Another is a funny man who always sees the ticklish side of life. While another will all the time praise the gods of inebriation.

I have also seen who among them are born leaders. The ones who always updates the others when he meets a long lost acquaintance. Another complains and blames everyone but himself about corruption and mismanagement of public affairs. While a yet another shows split personally syndrome. Wanting to mask her stories while at the same time reveling the juicy details of them. Its also good entertainment especially on the phone when waiting for someone who cant keep time or whiling away the moments.

On another note, today marks the start of KCSE 2009 exam. The one opportunity for young men and women all over the country to determine whether they will move from Mathare to Muthaiga or from Muthaiga to Mathare. Whether they will brew changaa to survive or charge people an arm and a leg to do life saving surgeries. In Kenya, nothing provides a life changing chance than the dreaded national exam called KCSE. No wonder there are so many cases of cheating!

To all candidates, its a big success wish to you all from Odegle.

Heads in the Sand or Plain Charlatan?

This week the media has been on the case of young people with stories of sex and related subjects. Predictably each media house has gone out to find what they would think was the juiciest of the underage sex stories to tell. (Are these houses managed by one person?)

So one came up with the story of a study which found out that young people have started engaging in sex at a very tender age and most of them are procuring abortion. The reporter said that in his time underage sex was unthinkable yet now things are 'shagalabagala'. Well that is what I too heard in the '80s and '90s when I was growing up. Our parents and adults always told us their days were saintly days! Never mind that this reporter appeared to be no older than 23.

Another media house went to the air with the story of young people buying and trying out sex enhancing drugs. They even had hidden cameras and managed to get viagra and other sex enhancement drugs from a street vendor. She was shocked that these drugs were so available to young people. She even wondered how come the youth knew about them. Well this is someone who works for a TV station that advertises Zoom in national free viewing TV in broad daylight. Zoom and many other such drugs are actually available over the counter in of all places supermarkets!!! In my view you do not need a hidden camera to find out that people both old and young buy them all the time. And again remembering my own youth, I started hearing about a drug called 'kukumanga' (sp) when I was in class five. I wonder why anyone would be surprised that kids know about these things.

But a third TV was not be left out of the 'competition' on kid sex stories. They went to bed with the one about brothels and strip joints which they said are surprisingly available in Nairobi. O boy! Is that really news? stories of karumaindo and riva rodi are almost as old as Nairobi itself. And Strip joints? They have full color A3 size posters all over the streets of Nairobi!

But maybe its not only Kenyan media. A friend sent me a youtube link with a story told by this American journalist about underage prostitution in the Kenyan coastal towns. Where kids as young as 13 are being paid by rich old men from Europe to engage mostly in unprotected sex. I would have been shocked had I not also been sent a website hosted in the US of A calling itself child models website. In reality it was full of pedophile fodder. Kids some barely 3 years pictured naked or with the subject of the photo being their panties or lower torso. Someone has to be acutely sick to in the first place host such a site, update it and even collect money from subscribers. What even of the subscribers themselves! Does that even begin to compare with the 13 year olds of the Kenyan coast?

Picking your Poison

In my current calling (where I earn my daily ugali) I have been facing a number of options on the people whom I work with. The options range from the funny to the absurd.

Take Mr. T for instance. The man is what you need for your ego in this trying Kenya especially when the good Lord decides to hold back rain for a year. He looks at me as the leadership masterpiece with unmatched intelligence, foresight and strength. He praises my fashion sense (I can assure you this is my weakest link though) and will ask me where I bought those shoes so that he too can buy. In our meeting he nodes in approval when I talk and quotes what I said ages ago some that even I have forgotten! Downside? Mr. T's assignments are always at best 1 week late! However he always has very fitting explanation for any such delay or any flip up.

What of Miss Y? O boy! For starters I find her beauty kinda intimidating especially since am happily married and also her boss (probably she knows it) when am talking she is always restless showing body signs to suggest am talking trash or too much. She fights everyone at every opportunity. Any time I have any significantly urgent and delicate task to be done at whatever hour (even night) I would quickly but nervously dial her number and give it to her. Naturally if it was after hours she would take me through a long litany of gripe which she refers to as a 'piece of her mind' after which I would thank her and disconnect the phone. After an hour or two she would send me an update sms and an email detailing the job done to my satisfaction.

But Mr. D is the guy who when around would stammer every word and fidget and basically fail to say anything coherent. Its impossible for him to do anything unless you expressly tell him to and direct him how to do it and so on.

Really to succeed how do you pick your poison?

On another note i was deeply encouraged by Geoffrey Owiti Oyoo winning Churchill's Top Comic competition. The young man from a fairly humble Kibera background 'walked' away (he said he couldn't drive) with a new Isuzu D-Max)

Know Birthday, Will Travel

A friend of mine has been denied a simple US visit visa for what I find to be the feeblest of reasons. That he did not know the birth day of the sister he was to visit! I don't know whether its derisory or woeful. And in either case who is to be laughed at or pitied. The drift is that after I heard the story, I did a quick and dirty 'survey' on my friends and discovered that a majority of them did not have such information either. In fact they dint even know their own parents birthdays. Birth years, yes but not the day! Am told in the first world things are so good that they don't have grounds for divorce so such mundane issues like not remembering your significant other's birthday can cost you a marriage and send your kids into full lives of stress and related abuse.

But I would understand them, its probably just a cultural thing. In Kenya celebrating the date of birth is quite a new affair and again its mostly done for kids below 5. The fetes normally fade in significance as years advance. However even the birthdays I have attended never even looked like such. Picture this one where we went to celebrate the first born's first year. There was bbq (nyama choma, kawaida yao), crates upon crates of tusker, pisner and even my favorite WC. There was mukwangala and even mugithi the dance that gives neighbors and friends the moral right to hold each others wives at the waist. I wondered how that was a kids birthday celebration. I even wondered if it would be remembered at a random questioning eg at the embassy!

New Kenyan Humour

I met Njeri the other day after almost 11 years since our college years together. Well thats no news. Former college mates meet up all the time. The news actually is that Njeri was a scientist who studied wildlife and related issues. She was very passionate about her course and was an excellent colleague. When I met her, I thought I would be meeting a passionate campaigner for wildlife now that we are losing them at break neck speed.

But no, Njeri today is a high riding humor writer. She invited me to her humor blog which has increased my menu of top Kenyan online content where I get that deserved 'tea' break and get a good laugh or a firm node to my self.

Looking at her style, content, enthusiasm, it almost impossible that this would be the same hard nosed scientist who found time only between her studies and researches to visit a few friends. And that is amazing. its difficult to tell whether it the misplacement of students into courses or rather the fact that 844 was meant to make us an all rounder. with bawas (sorry powers) to read and to do all that appertains to the degree. Artistic expression and Science some say are like blood and water flowing in the same body. But from our education, the two were placed as far apart as the twin poles of mother earth. so next time you are thinking of punching the boss in the nose, you may just want to punch Kenyan Humor for a good comic relief!

Afraid

Lately I have I have become afraid, very afraid. But I should be because only 24 hours after a wilson airport based plane fell and burst into flames only 50 metres from my wifes feat, another fell just about 500 metres from our house! Am more afraid given the fact that I havent heard any policy statement or concern or anything related coming from those with the powers to do what appertains to governance.

But if that was going to make me fear then TV was waiting for me at home to do a closing, coz I saw something close to a horor movie of cows some dead others half alive being dragged on the dry ground and burried in shallow graves. But again those were cows of a higher social standing because their collegues never even got a decent burial. They were just covered in dust! I wonder if cows have feelings like of the fear of impending death. I saw some who were still alive but too invalid to even stand watching in horror as their friends and family were dragged along and burried. I felt afraid on their behalf.

I was even more afraid when I saw one mans job being secured with hundreds of thousands of acres of prime forest land. I feared what will become of us at this rate. Yet that was not worse. What was worse was the fact that similar trade offs are happening right next to me where I get my daily bread. I fear because Ringera's white hair and even Kibaki's stoop and slow walk lied to me that graft was an old evil. However those who are perfecting it are almost 10 years my junior and are still as quick as a dik dik!
I do know fear

A Been-To!

"Good Afternoon sir", "Welcome"
"May I help with your luggage sir"
"thats good now"
"If you may come this way sir",
(opening the back left door of the new Mercedes S class, black leather seats, woody interior finishes et al)
"Welcome sir" (closes the door goes to the drivers seat)
"There is water under the arm rest on the left. you can take a choice of still or sparkling water according to your liking sir. On your left are todays newspapers if you would like to catch up. And right in front of you are some chocos and sweets for your indulgence sir".
"Is the temperature alright? should I adjust it upwards or down? Would you like the radio or the some cool music or should I just turn it off. Do please let me know if am going too fast or too slow ..."

Phew! Well how is that for British hospitality and customer service. But that was what greeted me on my very first trip to Europe the land of many a history (o yea now am an official been-to with unallianable rights to twang and do all that appertains to having visited a first world!)

But I soon learnt that Britain is the most economically stratified society I have been to and there is deliberate discrimination based on your financial status. When I remarked to my hosts on the treatment I was given by the taxi driver, they told me that it depended on how the taxi company was briefed before sending someone to pick me. Had they been told of higher seniority, they would have sent a bigger more luxurious car (more luxurious!!!. Mercs are a dream car in Kenya!)

I actually did see it when I insisted on using the tube once or twice and saw the difference. There was also a train which was higher in class than the tube and of course the train itself had 3 classes. first class for the likes of yours truly (the hosts were hell bent on spoiling me I guess) then standard class and finally the unnamed class for those the society doesn't even care to provide a name to but at least still get transport.

It was nice to see the rural Europe both in Germany and Britain and see how the local folk actually tough it out. But what interested me most was the old Britain with its imperial buildings so full of history. I visited the national gallery and read about those who taught us every little meanness we know today (ok those who colonized us)and kinda understood why its difficult to compare the first economies to ours. Those guys have had eons to make and correct their mistakes. So I have decided to be more lenient to the likes of Ruto who chose to play politics when our people are dying of hunger, thirst and darkness. After all we have been a nation for less than half a century! (excuses lift the soul dont they)

But one funny culture shock for me was the customer service I got from this very beautiful lady who was helping me shop a few gifts for my family. She said she understood the predicament of men when it came to getting reasonable gifts for the wife and kids. She took her time almost a hour walking with me up and down the huge store and showing me options and so on. finally she took me to the cashiers and helped me pack my luggage before seeing me out. I felt 'Kenyan' and told myself she needed to be tipped. Boy! you should have seen the disappointment on her face! she said she was only too happy to help since it was her job.

By the way how on earth do they manage to keep a country that clean!