On a loose end month

Yesterday evening I was sitting on the balcony of a pub on Koinange Street a victim of my own idiocy and foolhardiness nursing a cold White Cap Lager, the best beer in the world!

Working in the suburbs as I do you tend to forget the ridiculous traffic jams in downtown Nairobi....particulary at the end of the month that everybody else that works in the downtown area either takes for granted or has learnt to live with.

What was supposed to have been a straight forward run from my office to Waiyaki Way and then on to Thika Road then home after a meeting that ended just after 6.00 pm turned into a never ending game of a dog chasing its tail as I took corner after corner in a desperate attempt to avoid or is it evade traffic. I eventually found myself near Nairobi Serena Hotel and  I tried to get to Tom Mboya Street to get onto the Globe overpass only to find the mother of all gridlocks at the entrance to the overpass no doubt caused by some daredevil of a matatu driver somewhere in Ngara! So much for our newest highway if stupidity sits firmly in the driving seat and decides to invent its own highway code!

So there I was stuck fast so what next but to look for a trendy pub and wait out the traffic which as at 8.00 pm was still chock-a-block along K Street. My well laid plans to avoid drinking alcohol during the week for the period of Lent preceding Easter are in shambles as my 'fast' for the season expected of any good Catholic. Incredibly all the parkings were full and the watchmen would make a killing that evening on account of tips from tipsy Kenyans high on booze and a full wallet! Good for them as they will carouse with the rest of Kenya high on the euphoria of recently discovered oil in far away Turkana County.

The ebb and flow of human and vehicular traffic on this famous strip of Nairobi is mesmerising with pretty girls sashaying across the road, the occasional wannabe rally driver zooming along the road, the young couple across from me engrossed in whatever conversation the youth engage in, the bouncers at the entrances to various joints keeping a stern eye out for trouble, the plain clothes police men trying hard to blend into the surroundings etc.

I eventually left the City Centre at 9.00 pm with some suprisingly heavy traffic in the Old Nation House vicinity and was home in 30 minutes flat, glad to have been a part of the Nairobi ebb and flow for a few hours.

Why I love my golf

I may or may not have mentioned that I love golf. As I approach the ripe old age of half a century.....OK in a couple of years........I have come to the realisation that the conventional exercises in the gym are really not my cup of tea.

I don't mean to say that there is nothing that the gym offers to me, but I just don't see how a jog on a treadmill would compare to the joys of enjoying a good walk over 6 kms in 4 hours, amongst God's creative handiwork, in the pristine outdoors and with people whom you hardly knew as you teed off on the 1st hole but who you finish off on the 19th hole as fast friends!

I have played with captains of industry, senior politicians and members of parliament, ambassadors, senior civil servants, former caddies, high school students, bank managers, 80 plus senior citizens, grumpy old men, svelte sophisticated ladies, the know it all golfer, the has-seen-better-days chaps, the high flying high rolling individual but I am yet to play the blind golfer. Yes there is one! 

Within the four odd hours that you are together in  the 18 holes required to complete a round of golf it is you playing against the course in the company of the other three golfers together with your caddies so there isn't really much else to do other then to get along! It helps if you like talking and do not get intimidated by authority figures because on the golf course and in the club house, all members are alike and none is supposed to have any special priviledges over others. It is often customary on the 19th  hole to socialise with the other golfers that you played with and this is where stories of missed putts, sliced drives, dropped shots etc are exchanged and if there was a friendly side bet, cash exchanges hands!!

I recall a few years ago where a new member whom I had introduced to a club where I am a member contemplated resigning from the club and actually handed in a resignation letter (later withdrawn after some friendly counselling) which we later learnt had come about because this very shy new member had bumped into a few high ranking society figures whilst in the changing room as they prepared to take the customary shower and could not come to terms with the fact that they were naked in his presence! He was off golf for a number of months but eventually recollected his wits and now frequently patronises the club in the company of his family.

This guy is now a reformed person, less shy, more confident and generally less of an introvert thanks to the power of golf and the relationships that it forces you to make...........and he has made a few valuable connections and friendships that have translated into business opportunities for him in his insurance vocation as has similarly happened to me in my golfing life.

Being one of the sports where one is handicapped, it is generally possible for less experienced players with a high handicap to be able to compete and often beat more highly experienced players with a low handicap and at the same pace of play as a result of this handicapping system but it helps if you seem to have an idea of the game and therefore get you handicap to move downwards in good succession and not perenially stuck in the upper percentile of the handicaps!!

It is a game which not only gives you a walking work out but also requires a clarity of thought, quickness of mind and focus on the game because while playing any issues troubling you or hangover clouding you brain will reflect in the golf scores you return. You are required to assess distance, decide on choice of club, effects of environmental factors such as wind speed and direction, effects of rain, effects of dryness of the course, slope of the green/course, direction of the sun, cut of the grass etc in arriving at the decision to make a perfect shot all factors that you have to train youself to do to be that great golfer.

Finally it is one of those games where a 12 year old boy or an 80 year old great grandfather can hand you a humliating defeat because it is game that transends generations of players and can be enjoyed by any who wish to play and so long as you have a swing in that body.