Is this the beginning of better things!!!

I had sworn not to include political commentaries on this blog about the state of Kenyan politics because politics tends to be a rather emotive topic - more so in an election year - and you never know whose sensibilities you may rub the wrong way and land youself in a tight spot.

In any case there are enough armchair politicos providing unabashed, unashamed and equivocal support and opposition on the world wide web to each political development as it happens depending on whether their favorite candidate is euphoric or depressed!!

My change of heart is informed by the rather dramatic events of the past week that will surely change the course of history of our beloved Kenya regarding the confirmation of charges of the Ocampo 4. Momentous and life changing events do not occur often in the life of a country more so fundamental events that change the way millions of people will relate to each other in the political sphere in years to come. It is something akin to the dramatic events that took place in 1903 when the Wright Brother, Wilbur and Orville Wright took the first few steps in transforming the aviation industry into what it is affecting the way millions of people travel the world currently.

The confirmation of charges against the four individuals named - Uhuru Kenyatta, Willam Ruto, Francis Muthaura & Joshua Sang - will have the effect of taming that hydra-headed monster called impunity that has for too long ruled the corridors of politics in this country. By whatever name you wish to call it - tribalism, cryonism, corruption etc, impunity has been dealt a lethal and fatal blow because no longer will any Kenyan across the country even contemplate taking up arms against their fellow Kenyans at the instigation of their political masters thanks to that genius at the ICC called Ocampo. 

Never again will women and their children wake up at night unsure of whether that bump in the night is the silent footfall of a neighbor high on some bootleg liquor out to terrorise an innocent civilian because he has been 'ordered' to do so by some politican somewhere who has paid him a pittance for his troubles. Never again will meetings be held in the dead of night or in the full glare of sunlight in some of the most exalted and dignified places in this country to plan mayhem and terror against other Kenyan's.

Innocence or guilt of the 4 is neither here nor there because either way I gain nothing personally whether the go to jail or not. The only winner will be justice for the people of Kenya who have for too long been made marrionettes and puppets to do the bidding of their tribesmen clothed in the silk ties and shirts of opulence. After all there are thousands of individuals in this country that can be real leaders of change and uplift us to that level of positive energy that is needed to drive the economy to the next level.......watch our Malaysia here we come!!

It is therefore a waste of time continuing to focus on irrelevant matters affecting a few people while the stakes for the majority have just inched up several notches on the pendulum that measures improvement and it is incumbent that we all ignore the sideshows that will invariably be screened every night on our television sets and instead begin to dream of a Kenya free from the clutches of impunity.

Impossible pedestrians!!

Pedestrians in Kenya are a funny lot, particularly the men folk and many are the instances where a pedestrian will walk on the road without a care in the world as if he were some sort of latter day Incredible Hulk immune to injuries afflicted by a mere motor vehicle. They will saunter on the road risking life and limb inches from following or oncoming vehicles as if daring any motorist to be man enough to mow them down and suffer the consequences of a damaged vehicle, possible injury and death and the Incredible Hulk wannabe walking off without a scratch. 
I am sure that many an accident has happened due to the carelesness of pedestrians on our Kenyan roads. In any case many roads lack adequate road shoulders, pedestrian and cycling paths thus forcing pedestrians to walk on the road to avoid dust and mud while going to their destinations. But this should be no excuse to expose oneself to the dangers of possible injury or death from speeding motorists.   

I seem to recall that many years ago while in primary school we used to get regular road safety lessons. The mantra 'look left, look right then left again and if there are no cars then cross the road' was drummed into our young minds long ago as were to only cross a busy road at the zebra crossing, not to walk on the road, but on the sidewalk/pavement etc, etc. I wonder if this still happens today in our primary schools?

From the casual and careless way Kenyans cross roads/walk on roads today, I wonder what kinds of role models we are for our kids because kids naturally imitate their parents and where they imitate a wrong then they do it trusting in the knowledge and comfort that their parents are leading them by example.  

Pedestrians ought to be aware that there are drivers/motorists who are half blind, drunk, tired, careless, stressed and who drive decrepit and unroadworthy vehicles with defective brakes, cracked windscreens, dodgy suspensions, worn our tyres, faulty bushes etc on our potholed and road shoulder deprived roads that do not afford the luxury of safe control of the vehicle to the driver meaning that walking on the road or very close to the road is dicing with danger.

Pedestrians need to keep away from the roads however irresistable the temptation because it just takes a swerve, a veer, a bump, a carelessly overtaking vehicle approaching on the wrong side for one to be dispatched to the next world. If for nothing else do it to show our children how to be safe on our roads!!

And you wonder why they speak funny English....!!

My car came from service one day and lying on one of the floor mats, no doubt left over by one of the mechanics, was an empty package case of an “Omnipotence Travel Charger” brand name “Liondo” and made by Shenzen Liondo Telecom Company Ltd of…………no prizes for guessing…….. China!! On the cover was a representation of what the charger probably looked like. It appeared to be a fancy gizmo with some red and green LED’s and something akin to crocodile clips and what appeared to be some kind of measuring dial.

More out of a morbid curiosity as to what Omnipotence (Merriam Webster dictionary meaning ‘having virtually unlimited authority or influence <an omnipotent ruler>’) and Mobile Charger would be doing in the same sentence rather than any other reason I picked it up and that is when I realized the lengths that people go to in order to get a message across in a language that they don’t understand, in this case English, and with direct translation from whatever language the speak in that part of the world called Shenzen, probably Chinese Mandarin or Cantonese.

In the “operation step”, probable ‘Chinglish’ for “instructions for use” was the following:

1. play the slice the charger first to aim at the plus or minus pole of battery. good battery of cover.
2. press the “test” the key,” confirm” the bright elucidation of light is normal to refresh. If the “confirm” the light is not bright, press the” the conversion “the key convert the power supply’s pole, then normal refresh.
3. normal refresh, refresh the light flicker, Battery saturation hour, the saturated light is all and bright, and refresh the light to put out. Refresh time general for 4 hours, add result of an 1-2 more good.
4. this charger can circumscribe link the line, direct opponent machine to refresh. Can refresh the pond with the charger cellular phone at the same time.

Hand over heart the above is a verbatim reproduction including full stops, commas, italics etc.

Stay with me for a moment and remember that I did not have the benefit of having seen or even fiddled with the charger itself and therefore had no idea what they were talking about.

My wife has been to China and had told me that communication was a real problem in that country because though they have over a fifth of the population speaking and understanding English (approximately 200 million or just about 3 times the population of the United Kingdom) they are few and far between.

My first thought was, “how do they expect anyone to understand how to operate the $%*#ing gizmo!” then it occurred to me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the instructions because someone had bravely (and probably been paid a handsome amount for his troubles) translated into what were in his opinion perfect English sentences, that had also passed the muster of this superiors and had received the necessary sign off from the quality control chaps. A panel of Chinglish experts had probably sat down over endless cups of coffee (or whatever they drink in China for inspiration) to also come up with the name for the product and had concluded the discussions with someone earning a large bonus for his creative ability to come up with the name “Omnipotence”. 

The point that I am trying to make is that an “Omnipotence travel charger” (OTC) syndrome is evident in all of us in one form or another and for the simple reason that we are not native English speakers but have only picked it up through the formal education systems that we went through.

So remember that since English is not your native tongue you are bound to get stuck every now and then so don't pretend that you can speak it like an Englishman.........unless of course you are one!!!

Driving Attitudes: Which one are you I wonder

I am generally the type that considers myself quite courteous and considerate while driving and I often give way for people driving out of their houses or side roads and I try not to block junctions, exits, intersections and accesses to/from homes and businesses as well as practice good driving etiquette while on the roads much to the chagrin and unending scorn of many motorists whom you would think were rushing to put out a fire at 6.30 am in the morning. I do not overlap nor overtake on the wrong side of the road and I definitely do not jump traffic lights while driving on the highways and in Nairobi city center.  

My courtesy logic is based on the premise that I do not like getting stuck in traffic jams and therefore I plan my journey with this in mind. I leave my house at 6.00 a.m in the morning and take a leisurely 45 minutes to get to the office. So if I give way to a few motorists as they exit their homes, or yield at a junction, exit or intersection so that I do not block it unnecessarily, so what after all my official day commences at 8.30 a.m meaning that I have a whole 1 hour 45 minutes to kill reading my newspaper in the car oblivious to the chaos wrought on the roads by those who woke up late and are in a rush to get wherever they are going and at any cost and inconvenience to other motorists!! 

I was therefore somewhat surprised the other day by the courtesy directed at me by a representative of that much maligned matatu driver clique who very courteously waved me through as I attempted to enter a major road from a side road. It was a relatively busy time of day 2.00 p.m ish and I was expecting the usual reluctance by drivers to yield and let me join the road but for this matatu driver in a well turned out and clean matatu. 

It got me thinking that common courtesy on the road is often overshadowed by the blatant and flippant disregard for driving etiquette exhibited by so many of the motorists in this country.....and not from the usual suspects the matatu and taxi drivers, but from all and sundry busy executives, mums & dads taking kids to school, school bus drivers, van salespeople, government/parastatal drivers, motor cyclists, cyclists, boda boda riders, mkokoteni pushers etc.


Without condoning or giving excuses for the matatu driving culture which is at best atrocious we should not look at the matatu driver's speck in the eye without seeing the log in our own because like it or not we all  exhibit some horrible driving manners while on the roads leading up to impossible scenarios and situation borne out of selfishness and idiocy to get ahead of everyone else and ultimately creating grid locks and traffic jams that ultimately delay us in getting to our destinations.


I have not forgotten the pedestrians because last but not least they also contribute to the confusion of an already volatile situation by walking on the roads and newly constructed overpasses, crossing while the traffic lights are red for pedestrians, walking against the flow of traffic, crossing roads at undesignated and dangerous sections, crossing against the flow of traffic and generally having a lackadaisical and cavalier attitude as if cars have eyes and will 'see' them as they make a mad dash to cross a road oblivious to the looming danger of speeding cars or crossing in front of your car from left to right as you yield for cars coming from the right meaning that you will not see them since your attention as a driver is in spotting a gap between oncoming cars so that you can make it safely across the road.


Can we not have a "Road Courtesy Day" set aside specifically for all of us to exercise courtesy to each other, motorists and pedestrians alike, and see whether it makes a difference to our commuting time wherever we are going because I am sure it will save us all a bunch of agro, inculcate a sense of caring and generally make life less harried and stressful.........and get us to our destinations quicker.  

I wonder where the year went

2011 is gone, dusted, finished............and not a moment to soon. It has been one of those years you wish never happened. It has been a year where my father in law passed away and my brother's father in law and brother in law passed on all in the space of a month and a half and all three of them to chronic diseases - cancer and pneumonia! A father to a dear friend also passed on after complications occasioned by kidney failure that has led him to undergo chemotherapy sessions every week over the past two and a half years. 

The final nail on the coffin was three young lives snuffed out in an instant on the morning of the eve of New Year's Day 2012 in a grisly road accident along Mombasa Road. Three Kenyans home for the Christmas holidays and all based and living in the USA back home to visit and make merry with their family, friends and loved ones. I do not know any of the three personally but one of them, the only lady in the trio, is a sister to a friend therefore the tragedy is of one of our friends. 

It was also a year when I was involved in a road accident that led to the death of a young pedestrian who decided to play chicken with me and my car a few minutes to 11 pm on a Saturday night...............and lost with his life. That incident so traumatized me that I had to undergo a series of counselling sessions that will remain etched with me forever and never take the power of counselling for granted ever again. 

Without even factoring in all the other tragedies that have befallen thousands of other families across the country called Kenya, all these tragedies have made me come to the realization that life is very transient and we all cling on precariously hoping against hope that one will make it to the next day in one piece. It is a prayer of hope that the next drunk driver will not run you down, or that you will not be present when the next policeman runs amok with his semi automatic rifle spewing death through the shower of the bullets it unleashes, or that petrol pipeline that runs silently underground as it pumps thousand of litres of its deadly cargo to hungry vehicles across the country will not ignite in a conflagration of hot, choking burning fumes that will reduce you to a mass of twisted.........what!

It is also the hope that the next matatu that you board will not have a mad matatu driver at the wheel and in a hurry to pick up another commuter so that he can make a few extra bob and will not overtake at a blind corner into the path of a lumbering behemoth of a truck and sudden jarring painful death. It is also the prayer of the wife whose husband accustomed to his daily drink of 'kill me quick' should not catch up with the variety that will reduce him to a slobbering, blithering idiot and dispatch him to his maker quicker than you can say 'Texian Tornado". Death from the misadventures of buying property in someone else's space complete with a fake title deed is also a distinct possibility either from the heart attack of seeing a bulldozer destroy your millions in investments or the debris squashing you into pulp as the bulldozers continue with their macabre dance as you sleep on forever. 

But that year is behind up now and I hope that the next 366 days of 2012 will present you with boundless opportunities to thrive even as you pray to live another day.