Thank God it was not in Kenya!!

As Hurricane Sandy roared into the Eastern United States on 29th October 2012, I said a quick prayer for my relatives in that country. I said a prayer for my sister in Maryland, my brother in law, his wife and their new born baby in Philadelphia and for my cousin in New York. I also said a prayer for my sisters and their families in Atlanta and Chicago because though out of the eye of the storm they could be affected and traumatised by the effects of the storm and I also said a general prayer for all Americans and Canadians that in one way or another were going to be affected by this monster of a storm as was predicted by the authorities in the US and Canada.

By the time Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, it had ploughed a path of destruction in its wake and left tens of people dead around the Carribean and mainly in Haiti a very poor nation and many more people affected by the storm. The leaders in the USA had all come out and urged the people that they are responsible for to evacuate low lying areas when requested to do so and also made an appeal for 'common sense' to prevail and many heeded the warnings and it is expected that the death toll should be minimal given that as I pen this blog the reports are that 16 people have died. It is estimated that a population of 50 Million people living in the Eastern USA and Canada will be affected by Sandy which is equivalent to about one fifth of the population of the USA or the whole population of Kenya and then some 10 Million more......affected by one storm!! 

I wonder what the position would be like here in Kenya if we had a similar storm? How many would die either from the poor planning or because they did not heed sage advice to evacuate. Remember Muranga, Meru, Kakamega, Kisii, Nairobi where scores have died and shall continue to die because they did not (and will not) heed the advice to evacuate after a steady rainfall for a few days? How long would we be without electricity and a reliable water supply? Would our roads and drainages cope with the sheer volumes of water and surface run off unleashed by a mammoth tempest?

Would we in any case be able to monitor the severity and intensity of an incoming storm? What would be the level of our disaster preparedness or would we all perish in our beds ignorant to the fact that storm surges of 13 feet plus are bearing down on us all along the Mombasa coastline and far inland? Would we be able to convince our matatu and private bus operators to suspend their business for a day or two in the interest of the safety and security of the general populace? Would the government declare a stay at home day or would they just turn a blind eye as all of us try and get to the offices by hook or by crook through the eye of a storm? Would be close our bridges and tunnels in the interest of safety so as to ensure that no one is able to get to to their workplaces?

Would our politicians who in many cases have national responsibilities during such occurences stop campaigning or would it be business as usual? Where would they be? Hunkered down in their cellars and houses or out there commiserating with the masses and providing words of comfort and solace?

We should thank God for his small mercies given that he knows we are so ill prepared for any natural disasters and that we only read about these massive storm systems in far off countries which have the experience and resources to handle them and whose early warning systems work and are monitored constantly around the clock. Where governments have put in place eleborate plans to cope with emergencies of all kinds and where the citizens can be relied upon to make informed decisions based on the levels of awareness and preparedness.

If Hurricane Sandy was to ever hit Kenya or any of our neighbors, people would die in their thousands. Property destruction would be in gargantuan proportions and we would need aid and assistance like never seen before to build our tattered and battered economies!

But for now I stand by those who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy in the Carribean and in the US and Canada and pray that you will continue to survive in the tough times ahead even as you are buffeted by the winds of Sandy and other storms in future and that you will rebuild your lives adn rise from the flood waters of Sandy.

Why I love my Monday’s!!

I don’t know why people don’t like Mondays. I look forward to them with eagerness and relish. I look forward to Monday as a day to dissect my weekend and welcome a new week because anything that starts must end on another weekend.

I also look forward to Monday because this is my designated day when I go for my weekly ritual, a ritual that I have tried to follow religiously over the years but have failed in badly often changing days of the week to accomplish it. It is something quite personal and something that you cannot do on your own very well except for a very few who are able to do it better when they are doing it to themselves!!

But don’t get me wrong, it is not what you are thinking so get your mind out of the gutter. It’s my weekly haircut and shave!

Now some would wonder why I look forward to this most intimate of rituals. After all, you may argue, it is just that; an action by a barber to trim your hair and give you a nice smooth shave that you can then live with for a week without looking like a rascal and then repeating the same thing next week!!

But for me, it is not the act of being shaved and getting a haircut that I look forward to, it is what follows after the haircut! You see I agree that there is nothing really exciting about the whole process but there is something really special about the excellent secondary service that you receive when you go for a haircut and shave. I don’t know about you but I have been having a haircut and a shave regularly since I discovered that I was greying up top because there is no better disguise to grey hair then a close shave. As for my beard which greyed long before my hair, it gives one a distinguished look when it is left neatly short with a starkly contrasting goatee to the little hair left on the head.

One way or another, in the past it made little difference whether I had my weekly ritual on any day of the week including weekends………..until I discovered a little out of the way barber shop somewhere along Kiambu Road that changed my routine completely. This is just like any other barber shop on any road, street or highway in Kenya. A place with a reception area comprising of a three seater lounge chair with a magazine rack and a reception desk, some barbers chairs facing some mirrors and a washing place somewhere in the back area. It is just large enough to fit four barber's chairs and with a staff of seven gets to be quite crowded when all the chairs are occupied. Three competent barbers provide the customary shave and haircut and there is no tea, coffee or soda served to bribe you to stay if the chairs are occupied.

But that is where the standard shave and haircut experience ends when the ladies take over and guide you in the back for a shampoo wash! When you get back to the barber’s chair all the next ingredients in this magical journey have miraculously arranged themselves neatly on the table. These include the various oils, lotions, portions and aftershaves that provide an integral whole to the experience.

Its starts with the customary, hot towel to the chin to kill any pimples that thought they would sprout after the shave, just hot enough to be pleasant to the skin but not to irritate followed by the rubbing of spirit and after shave to finish off any bad boys that thought they now had a chance to play and cause havoc to your face.

By now my skin is literally tingling as I await the next routine, the face wash and face massage. This is where your face is oiled liberally with a mix of...….I have no idea…..but which is applied in rapidly expanding circles around the whole face, around the eyes, around the mouth and cheeks. Any semblance of a headache, stress and fatigue is rapidly consigned to the dark corners of the mind and you feel rejuvenated and refreshed as the age lines are quickly worked on to make then disappear into your skin.

Next is my favorite part, the head, neck and shoulder massage………heavenly!! Here is where a generous dollop of oil is applied to your scalp and the overgenerous excess is then spread to your neck and shoulders. Words fail to describe the pleasurable sensations up and down your spine as the expert ladies work on your tired and aching muscles and rub away the tiredness and aching. Round and round, in and out, up and down they go until you feel as if you will conk out in sheer relaxation. But there is still one more stage before you can be released to go back to the big bad world of aches and pains!

The last and my second best part is the mid and lower back massage with a big massage machine that feels as if it grips metal bars for a living!! The sensation of this machine as it is guided expertly by the masseuse as it glides across your back needs to be experienced to be explained but many a time the ticklish me comes out giggling like a small boy in a pool of Fanta due to the sensation of this machine near the tickle zones of my body.

And there you have it, a magical 45 to 60 minutes of relaxing me time to look forward to every Monday, and the damage to the pocket, a mere 300 bob. Often the place is packed with men patiently waiting their turn for this most exciting of experiences for it is a men only salon. It’s amazing what great service will do to a place and keep them coming in for more and I would urge you to think of doing something similar on a Monday that will make you look forward to the day rather than looking at it as an interruption of a weekend.

And before I forget, the place is called “The Glamour” salon or just “TG” opposite the Hospital at Kasarini……………if you ever want to forget your troubles for an hour!

Just writing this story makes me tingle and I can’t wait for Monday to come!!

To abandon your vehicle is to ask for trouble!

A news item in one of the dailies today has caught my eye. It is about the stringent traffic rules that have been drafted and which now await presidential approval to become law. One specific issue that I noted was that anyone abandoning a vehicle on the road would be hit with a stiff fine and/or jail sentence and have their driving licence suspended.

The article however does not however define what "abandoning" a vehicle means given that in Kenya we come across vehicles many times left by the side of the road or on the road either because they have suffered a mechanical breakdown, have run out of fuel, were involved in a minor/major accident, have had a puncture and had no spare tyre or the driver was too intoxicated/sick/tired to get home and decided to park by the road and get some sleep........or in extreme cases as happened a few months ago a motorist died while stuck in a traffic jam and no one is any the wiser! To cut a long story short and put things into perspective, www.dictionary.com defines abandon as; 1. to leave completely and finally; forsake utterly; desert: 2. to give up; discontinue; withdraw from:

Just this morning on my way to work, a truck had stopped/stalled at the Pangani underpass causing a tailback several metres long. "Was this an abandoned vehicle?" is a question that came to mind when I read the referenced article though there as a policeman strategically standing a few feet away animatedly conversing with an obviously agitated person, perhaps the driver of the offending truck. Vehicles are routinely abandoned for one reason or another on our roads, as I have mentioned earlier. Many of our roads contain no road shoulders and instead have dangerous, jagged edges which would de-commision a small tractor coming into contact with it therefore forcing many otherwise law abiding citizens to abandon their vehicles on the road as they jog off to the nearest petrol station with a "mtungi" to obtain fuel or summon a mechanic to enable them continue their journey.

Many people in Kenya own cars without the foggiest clue that regular servicing and maintenance of a vehicle is important to keep it running in a mechanically sound condition and to reduce the risk of stalling along a dangerous stretch of highway where people with other intentions other than your safety will rob you at panga/gun/simi point and steal your tyres to boot. This lack of service is one of the causes of many vehicles stalling and being abandoned, albeit temporarily, where they broke down as the desperate driver goes out to summon assistance from a mechanic or towing vehicle to get him out of his predicament.

Could a stalled vehicle therefore be considered an abandoned vehicle? How long would it need to be left in one place to be considered abandoned? If one is still in the vehicle when the long arm of the law catches up with you, is it still considered an abandoned vehicle? What about those instances where a vehicle is abandoned by fleeing gangsters that have commandeered another vehicle to make a quick getaway? Who is responsible for the abandonment of the vehicle? The owner of the vehicle or the gangsters????

If you ask me the law is surely an a$$ because within the new legislation there exists loopholes that any enterprising law enforcer can now use to extort from those that have 'abandoned' their vehicles. I am not sure if the full act defines what it means to abandon a vehicle or whether it will be left to a magistrate somewhere to deliver an interpretaion on what 'abandonment' constitutes, but you can bet there shall be a lot of very unhappy people who have been accused of abandoning their vehicles and therefore risk a large fine or jail sentence in the process!!

You have been warned. Acquaint yourself with the new stringent traffic laws lest you fall foul of them and find yourself facing a fine or jail sentence!!

Thank you for why I feel special today:

So today - 10^th October - was my birthday and I have never felt so special. I have received birthday messages from my wife and daughters, most of my family members (including an uncle who works in Tanzania and an aunt who lives in Nyeri and who never forget our birthdays), most of my friends and some of my colleagues mainly thanks to the Social media and more specifically Facebook!

This is despite the fact that my birthday over the past 12 or so years has always been celebrated as Moi Day, a day when everyone got time off to relax with their families and friends but which was declared as one of those unnecessary ‘Moi’ baggage holidays and was therefore removed from the Kenyan holiday calendar under the current constitution. It was and will continue to be a normal working day in future unless you elect me President one day (wink, wink!!!) after which I promise to re-instate it!!

Today also marked the day that President Kibaki seemed to break ranks with the Members of Parliament (fondly known by their many haters as MPig’s) and announced that he was not going to approve the amendments to the constitution that the MP(ig)'s had voted for with their stomachs to award themselves a hefty send off package once their parliamentary term comes to an end at the beginning of 2013.

I am from a school of thought that believes that everyone has a job and a role to play within a country, a company or a home and President Kibaki’s role, which he swore before a multitude of Kenyans in August 2010, was to defend the constitution of the country which has been severely compromised by the MP’s in this latest attempt to steal from Kenyans. Therefore for doing his job, I don’t see what the big fuss is all about unless people are just surprised that he is actually capable of doing his job and are congratulating him as a result!! This is akin to congratulating a company CEO for showing a profit in his company after a year’s trading while it is his job to do so otherwise he gets kicked out by the shareholders along with his board in the next AGM.

But I digress because these are all issues that conspired to consign my birthday to the ‘pipa la sahau’ but failed miserably since today’s blog is a reflection of the day that I was born many years ago. The month of October is also a blessed month for many in my immediate family as well as my wife, brother, children and parents since I can count no less 5 birthdays spread right across the month…..............they could be more but short term memory loss has kicked in prematurely!!

My daughters term me as old but save for the wisps of white hair fringing my beard and hair, the protuberant and prominent belly, the eyeglasses, a slight case of short term memory loss (as mentioned) and the occasional twinges of pain in my joints on cold mornings out of the blue, I feel as if nothing has really changed over the years……...........I kid you not!!

My choice of music is still very much my choice as it was in the 1970’s and 80’s, while my choice of movies is still very much in the genre of James Bond early action flicks. I however do seem to command a lot more respect from many members of society, I am (very) occasionally referred to as “mzee” by accident (I believe) and I am sometimes given preference in situations where I expect my father to be given preference and I often wonder why! I assume that all this is as a result of my prominence in society at present which I have earned over the years but not as a result as my advancement in years.

Be that as it may, I have been blessed to have a truly loving and supportive wife, some super adorable girlfriends (whom some refer to as my daughters), a caring understanding family from my mother and father to my sisters and brothers and friends too numerous to remember right from my workmates, to my former classmates and to my golfing buddies in Kenya and around the world.

To all of you who remembered me today on my birthday whether in word, in thought or in prayer, I thank you from the bottom of the heart and may you and your families continue to be blessed in the years to come.

GOD BLESS YOU !!

The way not to behave

My wife was involved in a minor accident with a matatu in the Nairobi CBD last night on her way home from college. She was accompanied by my daughter and a friend and thankfully no one was injured.

 It was one of those big matatu buses - a ‘Star Bus’ - that go around menacing the rest of us with their loud and uncouth driving habits. I believe that Star Bus is a cooperative or a franchise model business that manages public service vehicles on behalf of individuals like you and me and who seem to pride themselves on their efficiency and cleanliness of their buses. Their crew however was another thing!

Since the vehicles were smack bang in the middle of ever busy Moi Avenue and impeding the flow of traffic, my wife after assessing the damage and seeing that it was minor prudently decided to move her car to the side of the road while the bus defiantly remained on the road oblivious to the inconvenience to other road users. Despite clearly being in the wrong the crew came out as being belligerent and uncouth, intimidating and harassing my wife and telling her that she had to pay them Kshs. 5,000.00 for the repairs to their bus which had a broken side light while her car had a dented rear door and with the paint scraped off. When she objected and told them that they were in the wrong they started telling her that her car was not even an expensive car and they did not see the reason that she should be making such a big fuss about it!! Mistake No. 1.

Those who know my wife will agree that she projects herself very well, is not loud or intimidating, will not throw her weight around and does not show her anger. But when push comes to shove she will not be intimidated. The harassment, bullying and abusive nature of the bus crew pushed her to her limit and she told them that she was not going to pay and that they should wait for the traffic police officers to show up and sort out the mess.

In the middle of talking with the bus crew she had received a call from her mother and they had conversed briefly in her mother tongue Kikamba. The crew then began commenting among themselves in their own mother tongue Kikuyu to the effect that they would wait all night if they had to and that they would tire her out and that “this kamama” would eventually have to pay them the Kshs. 5,000.00 that they was demanding. Mistake No. 2!

My wife happens to be fluent in Kikuyu in addition to Kikamba and this blatant show of disrespect to her increased and steeled her resolve to wait until the cops showed up, which they eventually did almost 45 minutes after the accident. In the intervening period, she had approached the bus crew so that they could proceed to Central Police station less than a kilometer away to make a report and they had refused - 'sitoki na sitoki' - unless she paid them the amount they were demanding or the police showed up.

The cops after assessing the situation and deciding that the matatu was in the wrong jumped into the Star Bus and asked my wife to follow them to the police station where the respective parties made their statements, with a now suitably mortified bus crew trying their best to distance themselves from their earlier statements which she had clearly heard them make in Kikuyu in addition to their extortionate demands for money from her.

The bus crew was then told to call their Manager to explain what had happened and to get the company to agree to repair her vehicle and she took down the number with the police officer telling her that if she encountered any problems to report to them since the incident had been recorded in the Occurrence Book. She was then released to go home while the bus was impounded by the police officers to enable them complete their investigations and hopefully prosecute the hapless bus driver who by now was in a state of shock the tables having been effectively turned on him!

There are several lessons to be learnt from this incident mainly to bus and matatu crews.

No 1. – When in the wrong, belligerence and intimidating behavior will not help you at all. Acceptance and a simple apology may go a long way in eliciting some sympathy from someone you have clearly wronged and help resolve a situation without reverting to the authorities.

No 2. – Common road courtesy is expected of you so that you do not impede the smooth flow of traffic or cause unnecessary and expensive time consuming mistakes. In this instance, the bus lost the additional three hours of income it would have earned, it cost the driver an alomost guaranteed deduction of his wages to repair my wife’s car, a possible loss of income to the owners of the bus if it continues being detained, possible prosecution of the bus driver and a loss of reputation to Star Bus as a deliverer of efficient public transport service.

No 3. – Customer service training for the staff and crew of all reputable public service vehicle companies is necessary and long overdue.

No 4. – Don’t say things in the heat of the moment assuming that the other party does not understand what you are saying lest you are forced to eat the words later and come across as a groveling fool.

To the rest of the world,

No 5. – When involved in a minor accident in a well-lit and safe area stand your ground if you know you are in the right and don’t accept to be bullied and intimidated by those that may have caused the accident.

No 6. – If you are involved in a minor accident move the vehicles to the side of the road to improve traffic flow and wait for the police if you must. Since most people have mobile phones with cameras nowadays, there is nothing wrong with taking photos of the accident scene before moving your vehicles but for heaven’s sake stop blocking the flow of traffic because of a minor accident.

Hopefully with the new Traffic Act that has harsh penalties for errant drivers some semblance of discipline will reign on our roads in due course more so with the PSV operators who are always in a rush looking for the next shilling.

NB - Her vehicle was repaired the next day at no cost to her save for the whole day that she spent getting the car fixed and reprayed

What happened to 'Nathi'?

This is not a post to provide answers to complex questions, but merely an observation  I have made over the years of something that I have been taking for granted and which probably points to what is happening around us as time moves on.

‘Nathi’ or the Cape gooseberry was a fruit back in the day growing wild in many parts of where we lived and even in many places we visited in Kenya. It comprised of a bush growing about 3 feet tall and laden with tiny green husks with the fruit quickly growing inside the husk in size before the husk finally shriveling into a brownish color indicating that the fruit had ripened. Then you plucked the fruit alongside the husk (or just picked it straight from the ground where they often fell after ripening) and then peeled it back and hey presto.

The fruit was about the size of a marble and was yellow/gold in color and extremely sweet. Our childhood days were filled with long days during the school holidays and on weekends spent in the bush foraging for this delicacy and we would often carry armloads of them back home to share with other family members!!

Today I see ‘Nathi’ on sale in various supermarkets but back then it seemed to sprout with every rainy season and within a few weeks was heavy with succulent fruit. It was so virulent that you would stumble upon it while in the bush, walking alongside the road, among the growing maize and beans, in a shrubbery of grass and flowers seemingly because it was also a delicacy much liked by a myriad of birds and other small animals no doubt thus aiding in its dispersion whenever they ate the fruit.

But now, it appears that ‘Nathi’ like many other indigenous plant species can no longer be found growing as virulently and as wildly as it once did. Climate change, the greenhouse effect and the effects of human encroachment on the environment means that the birds and other small animals that disperse the seeds of these wild berries are no longer as prevalent as they used to be meaning that the dispersion and dispersal of the life giving seeds is no longer as wide spread.

Could this be a harbinger of things to come? Could this be the time when the survival of ‘Nathi’ and other wild fruits is pre-disposed to genetic engineering? Could we be going the GMO way in sustaining the once thriving indigenous berries? Are there any truly wild spots left in our country or is ‘Nathi’ doomed to go the way of the dodo?  Is this the curse of our changing lifestyle and changing weather patterns? Of pollution and the greenhouse gas effect such that the diversity and purity required sustaining a healthy population of wild berries no longer exists?

Cape Gooseberry fruit about to ripen

What does this portend for the future of mankind in regards to the biodiversity of our world today?

Does it mean that soon those organisms that rely on plant and animal materials of  plants going into extinction will themselves also face their day of reckoning?

What can be done to reverse this state of affairs so that our world continues to thrive and the delicate balance to sustain an already fragile ecology is maintained??

Destiny in your hand: Please register as a Voter!!

The voter registration exercise before the 2013 Kenyan General Election is scheduled to commence on 1^st November 2012 strictly for a period of 30 days as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) are working on very tight timelines as was announced recently by its chairman.

For those who have never registered as voters, the time is around the corner! All you require to register, if the same old rules to identify you apply, is your Kenyan National ID Card or Kenyan Passport. The elections beckon and you do not want to be disenfranchised!  Having voted severally in past elections spanning over 20 years, while some of the candidates that I have voted for in prior elections sometimes win, the reverse is also true. They sometimes lose!

Strictly speaking it is not about whether your candidate wins or loses, whether he is a racehorse or a donkey, it is about the thrill of knowing that you had a choice in the destiny of your country and you took it. Never mind the often used excuse that one person’s vote won’t change a thing and that is why you will not bother to obtain that all important piece of plastic. What if two months to the election date your mother, father, brother, sister, best friend or uncle decided to declare his interest in a seat somewhere and then they went on to lose by one vote because you and your sister who would have voted for them did not vote because you did not have a voters card? That is when the realization of how important that piece of plastic would dawn on you, when the fight has been lost.

Other Kenyans in the diaspora and beyond are fighting for the right to vote from wherever they are so no excuses please! My assumption here is that since the current constitution allows them to vote from wherever they are, the IEBC will need to devise mechanisms to make it possible for diaspora Kenyans to vote. In some countries (not Kenya) it is a punishable offence for a qualifying person not to register as a voter. If I had my way heavy punishment for qualifying voters who do not bother to register would be the case in Kenya too.

The voting exercise is not one for the faint hearted. It is not a fun exercise. It is not a walk in the park or a lazy day lounging at the beach. It is a tough job requiring a tough spirit! It requires one to wake up at the crack of dawn on voting day and head to the polling station where if you are unlucky you will find many like minded souls like yourself who woke up even earlier than you and now the line snakes a half a kilometer around the block and back. It might be a hot day, it might be a rainy day but either way you have to line up for at least 3 hours as the line makes it tortuous snails pace to the polling clerks and polling booths when they open at 8.00 am OR you may be lucky and be in and out in 10 minutes!

Since this is the first time that we will be voting for at least 6 different candidates – President, senator, governor, member of parliament, councilor and women’s representative - in the same election using the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits that have caused so many challenges to the IEBC recently I am not sure if this will speed up the actual voting process or delay it further, it would be wise to carry a newspaper or a book to read as you while away the hours on election day.

As you approach the polling clerks and booths, the excitement is heightened and then the question that brought you here comes thick and fast. Who do I vote for? You suddenly realize that you have no idea of the senator, MP or the civic candidate or the women’s representative for your constituency who are the lowest in the pecking order (not necessarily in that order). As in the past, I am sure that no campaigning is allowed on the voting day and more specifically within a polling station so no one can answer this question lest they be expelled from the station.

If history is anything to go by, most people vote for the presidential candidate that they want irrespective of party, the MP and finally the councilor allied to the party whose MP they chose. This voting along party lines will almost certainly happen for the gubernatorial, senator and women’s representative seats also.  

This is not necessarily the right thing to do, but again there is no wrong way of voting short of spoiling your ballot paper. Once a ballot paper is marked, there is no turning back, so erasing and indicating another candidate will automatically disqualify that ballot paper from being counted. You do not get a second ballot paper either since these are accountable documents and hence they reason they are included in the final vote tally as spoiled ballots. You then drop your ballot paper into the relevant ballot box (likely scenario six in the next election).  If past practice is anything to go by they will then mark your pinky finger with indelible ink in conclusion of the exercise thus giving you bragging rights for the next two days or until the indelible ink washes off your pinky!

Voting being by secret ballot means that it will be you, the ballot paper, the ballot box and your God who will know how you cast your vote….so do so wisely!!

But first plan to register as a voter before the end of the registration period of 30^th November……and oh yeah tell your sons, daughters, sisters and brothers to register to! The IEBC is also conducting voter education on how to go about the whole exercise, what it will entail and your rights, responsibilities and duties as a voter etc so listen keenly and closely to avoid spoiling your ballot.

I know that I will be at the head of the queue on the opening day of voter registration to avoid the last minute rush that most of us are accustomed to. Will you join me?