Count your blessings

We usually take things for granted and never stop to count our blessings. My blessings are many and today I will stop to count them.

Blessing No 1: I have been away on leave and returned to work recently suitably refreshed and looking forward to getting back into the humdrum of things. I was however not looking forward to the usual pile of emails that one encounters when going back to work, many of which are already historical and already sorted out over the period I was away. Thanks to the power of the internet and technology, I was able to access my official email while I was away on leave and was able to delete those emails that were inconsequential or informatory and that I was sure had already been sorted out together with those junk emails that somehow sneak into your mailbox despite the best efforts and the firewalls put in place by the ICT administrator. My emails were therefore suitably culled by the time I reported back to work.

Blessing No. 2: Suffice is to say that it was time well spent partly at the coast enjoying a well deserved quiet break away from the hustle and bustle of the big city and partly catching up with my long ignored golf game that has seen my handicap plummet from a low of 8 to a high of 11 over the last 6 months or so. My Facebook friends based in Mombasa were not happy that I had chosen to keep a low profile while in their neck of the woods and had given them a news blackout until I was at the airport about to board my flight back to Nairobi.

I also learnt a thing or two over the period that I was on my self imposed exile from the office that not reading a newspaper will not kill you nor will ignoring the evening news on Citizen or KTN that has the usual sickening politics that is the staple food of many Kenyans 24-7-365.

Blessing No. 3: Over the 3 weeks that I was away, the access roads in the vicinity of my office have been patched up and traffic flow is much improved.

Blessings Nos. 4 & 5: It is also expected that bank interest rates for which we bankers have been vilified for too long will start coming down (some of the players have already announced this and others are expected to follow suit). The price of fuel went down greatly during the last review effective Sunday 15th July and the price of everything else, common sense and a public spirit prevailing, should also come down over time.

Blessing No. 6: We also got to host some German ladies who were in the country courtesy of my wife and her fellow members of the Soroptomist International, Milimani Club and the insights that they brought and the lively discussions we had about the differences between our respective countries and cultures was eye opening. They have promised to host us next year in Berlin should we choose to go there in July 2013 when they hold their international conference in that city and then accomodate us in their homes in Witten a city of 100,000 located in Central Germany.

Blessing No. 7: My daughter was involved in an accident over the weekend where the matatu that she was travelling in started to over heat leading to the driver of the vehicle jumping out as it was still moving. In the ensuing confusion and panic, she was pushed out of the matatu by an impatient fellow passenger where she fell on the tarmac and lost conciousness.

Blessing No 8: Thankfully, a passing commercial ambulance stopped to assist the injured passengers (my daughter and a friend) administered First Aid to them and rushed them to Aga Khan Hospital where they were treated and discharged but not before giving my wife and my other daughter a fright of their lives as one of the friends accompanying my daughter panicked when she went into unconciousness and reported that she had died when she called them to inform them of the accident!!

Final Blessing: Being able to have the gift of family and friends who were there for us and my daughter after the aforementioned accident (let's call it an incident). Though she is still in pain and on drugs and with bandages where she was hurt  and has been given one week off by the doctors, she will recover fully healed and return to college as soon as possible.

Remember to stop and count your blessings as you go about your lives because they are many.