IMPORTANT NO MORE!

I came across a telephone pole earlier today and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for it. I have been passing it and several of its brothers many times but I have never noticed them until today when I almost tripped over one……………………………..well not actually the pole itself but that thing that props it up!! The clumsy oaf in me had finally been able to see what had been staring me in the face all these months without recognition.

Back in the day the telephone pole was an important part of life. It was festooned with wires and all kinds of finery and some gadgets that enabled the switching of the signal between different numbers. It arrogantly stool tall and strong looking down aloof at all the hustle and bustle around it secure in its own cloak of importance. After all nothing could happen unless it said so. No one could communicate unless it said so and infact the minute something would go wrong all the technicians would look up for a sign that all was alright up there shading their eyes from the sun as if genuflecting to this all important deity of communication.

Then the mobile phone came calling…………….pun intended…………and everything changed. Slowly the telephone pole fell into a state of disrepair, no longer looked after with tender loving care until finally those tasked with ensuring that it was constantly pinging for all it was worth gave up all together.

Now it stands there on its death bed hoping that the relevance of the past can be rekindled but knowing that its death sentence was sounded a long time ago and it is now only a matter of time before the final fatal blow is struck…………..with the uprooting of the telephone pole as progress inexorably marches on!

The importance of the telephone pole was no more, people had moved on and found a new love and had virtually………...pun intended………….decided that the mobile way was the way to go!! Now stripped of its finery and festooning wires and things the telephone pole is a pale shadow of itself. Gaunt and stark it stands, naked to the eye and invisible to all but those that stumble or trip over it or its component parts, its relevance now overtaken by the digital and mobile age where everybody carries a device no larger than a good sized pamphlet and just as light with a computing power 1000 times more than the earliest military computers of the 1940’s.

And so it goes too with those that were important in society in days gone by and whose word was exalted, listened to and feared all at once. They were held in awe and high esteem by all and sundry and treated with kid gloves lest they throw a tantrum that could get you a stint in a police cell or worse still prison. The glory days of many of these people is long past and their feeble attempts to remain relevant are slowly become more like a pantomime or a dark comedy funny to only those with the darkest of souls!

So there you have it a comparison between the humble telephone pole of yore and those once powerful VIP’s amongst us whose glory days are long gone, scattered to the four winds like the whirling dervishes of the desert and who you are more likely to trip over than recognize being consumed in their own sense of self importance and relevance while the reality is that they are waiting for the final nail in their coffins and illustrious lives and careers!!

I am sure you can relate this to many once self important folk amongst us today, and before you castigate me for spreading potentially scandalous ‘muchene’ please say a quick prayer for those whose relevance like a telephone pole is no more.

All for the love of golf:

I am at a golf course standing on the tee addressing my golf ball. I grip the unfamiliar driver trying to get my standard address right and I look at the rising sun as it splits the well-manicured fairway. It is barely 7.00 am but you can tell this is going to be a scorcher of a day because after all summer is just beginning. After a series of practice strokes, I let one lose right down the middle of the fairway and hope that there is no hidden obstacles where my ball went. After all this is a new course and I am completely unfamiliar with its lay out……………..but I am getting ahead of myself so let me start from the beginning but with a disclaimer!

Those that are not golfers will in all likelihood be unable to relate to this narrative……………………but keep reading as it may just pique you interest in this game that all golfers love to hate.

We had taken a trip to the US recently. It was partly for business and partly for pleasure. I and my wife both have family and friends there so the pleasure part was all about visiting and reconnecting with them. After a 14 and a half hour flight from Dubai we arrived in New York, tired but happy to be on terra firma. The drama that awaited us at John F Kennedy International Airport is a story for another day, but suffice is to say, don’t carry food to America!

From there it was a short 2 hour flight to Chicago, Illinois where my sister in law and her family reside where we visited with them for two days as she was also leaving ironically for Kenya on an official assignment.

Then it was onto another flight, this time on a short hop to Atlanta, Georgia to attend an international conference of Rotarians of which both I and my wife are members. The venue was the Atlanta International Convention Centre smack in the heart of downtown Atlanta, a centre built specially for the Atlanta Olympic Games of 1996 but which has continued to attract huge events from across America thanks to its stupefying size and ability to morph to hold small or large events.
This Rotary conference had approx. 40,000 people in attendance all being hosted under one gigantic auditorium for the official part of the sessions with all being accommodated at the hundreds of hotels that have sprung up in the Atlanta area as a result of the convention centre. The conference logistics were handled by a team of hundreds of people to assist delegates from 150 countries navigate their way around Atlanta which is also a major tourist centre in its own right. It is highly likely that no single city in Africa can handle such a conference with so many delegates let alone accommodate 40,000 visitors and other tourists and businessmen in town on their own matters.

The business of the convention done after 4 days, it was now time to join my sister and her family that live not far from downtown Atlanta for some quality time with them. After checking out from the hotel, we were picked up by my brother in law Chris.

Now Chris is built like a wrestler………....hence his nickname Njogu which he loves! He is stocky and looks like he lifts small calves just for fun but he is a gentle giant. His southern drawl also takes some getting used to and the easiest way to understand what he is saying is to look at his mouth as he speaks. I am told that people from the Southern part of Georgia have a drawl that many Americans don’t understand but Chris’s accent is way better than most and since he is aware that we Kenyans struggle to comprehend what he is saying he speaks slowly for us to catch on.

No trip to a foreign country is complete without a round of golf as any golfer shall attest to and we were itching to play a course or two since we are also a golfing couple! My sister and hubby had planned a trip to Orlando, Florida an 8 hours’ drive from their home in Atlanta at a time share resort where they are vacation club members and this resort boasted of three golf courses so we were excited at the prospect of finally playing some golf.

The journey to Florida was long but uneventful save for the shameful and wasteful habit of Americans serving huge portions of food in the restaurants that we dined at enroute to and from Florida but leaving much of it on the plate uneaten and unappreciated. If only they knew the challenges faced by many people in Africa and other parts of the world to get a decent meal a day!!

The Holiday Inn Club Vacations at Orange Lake Resort which was to be our home for the next three days is located close to Disney World and Disney Animal Kingdom and is therefore a very popular holiday destination for families. It has three golf courses and a myriad of other family themed activities including various water rides and sits on about 1000 acres. The villas are laid out in various sections, probably 2000 or more huge and self-contained but you need to buy your own groceries at an onsite store though you also have a pick of dining at nine themed restaurants in the resort.

All vacation club members - my sister and her hubby - must attend a presentation as part of the check in process at an agreed time. It seems to also be the practice for any adult guests of members - I and my wife - at check in to attend a presentation on how to join the vacation club as a member and though this is not compulsory it is encouraged and they very cleverly throw in a free activity which you nevertheless have to pay for in advance to ensure that you attend the presentation but is refundable thereafter in cash whatever the outcome. Our free activity was a round of golf for which we paid the princely sum of $ 54 each.

The presentation time is fixed and at the risk of losing you money everyone tends to keep time. Both spouses must attend the presentation together and that is how we found ourselves in a well decked out room with several other people on a one on one presentation with an agent. They have free vending machines onsite that dispense tea, coffee, soda, juices, water and some snacks also in case you get thirsty or hungry.

This presentation is like none that I have ever been to before because each couple is assigned an agent who takes them through the full presentation and the facilities on offer. Where you are unable to agree on a price then the supervisor of the agent is next in line to try and convince you with an even juicier offer on the table. Finally the Manager himself is summoned for the most difficult of clients to try and convince them with a mouthwatering offer 75% less than the initial offer by the agent and payable in monthly instalments while you still get to enjoy the benefits of vacation membership.

There is no cajoling or coercion. No brow beating or threats, just good old fashioned salesmanship and those guys are really good at it……..but we were better! We declined all offers on the table based on the fact that we were unlikely to visit America anytime soon. As an example I told them that my last visit there was 13 years ago while my wife had visited 5 years ago so it was unlikely that we would visit again anytime soon. Didn't these guys get that we just wanted to play a free round of golf? However their offers have a complicated algorithm which factors in air fares when taking advantage of your time share but that would only start accruing after you had made payment of a certain percent of your time share………just to try and convince us!!

And that is how we found ourselves on the first tee of the Legends Golf Course at Orange Lake Resort at 7.00 am with hired “his and her” golf clubs $108.00 richer to play our first round of golf in America when daytime temperatures hit 35 degrees. The strict rule of thumb as we were informed by the starter is that once it starts to rain, get off the course as the rain storms as we discovered later that day are accompanied by thunder and lighting and the possibility of being struck are quite high. Thankfully we were done by 11.00 am well before the hottest part of the day………………..and the thunderstorms later that afternoon!

We managed to play another round of golf at Westover Golf Club in the greater Philadelphia area as we made our final visit in the States to see my brother in law, his dear wife and daughter but that is a story for another day.

We had accomplished our mission of playing golf together as a couple in the US and we loved it.

I am Back!

It has been several months since my last blog post, 7 months to be precise almost to the day.

I had thought to take a break from blogging and come up with a theme that I could adopt as my “raison de etre” going forward. When I shared these thoughts with some of my friends recently, they urged me to continue blogging as I had done before putting my thoughts to paper in the whimsical fashion that had come to define me! So here I am……..

Over the last 7 months, a lot has happened. I became a grandfather, we have had a national election which was won and lost at pretty much the same time, and we are back to the ruckus of another election albeit only at the presidential level. As I predicted, many legislators have been shown the door for not delivering to their respective constituents and many are now busy realigning themselves with one side of the political divide or the other now that they have a chance to show their allegiances to their respective party head honchos in this season of defections and re-defections.

I wonder what would happen if those that are abusing the president and his deputy in all manner of colorful insults were to be called by State House and be offered a plum job in a government parastatal? Would they refuse? Knowing the greed exhibited by many of the leading political lights hardly likely!!

It was also a rather sad time as some close friends have passed away. These were men in the prime of their lives plucked away by the cruel hand of death leaving their families wondering why it had to be that way. The irony of death is that life pretty much continues on its way for the rest of the living even as we mourn the departed, whose memories slowly fade away over time and being pragmatic about the finality and fallibility of life is something that I don’t take for granted knowing that my near and dear ones will one day depart from this world.

Sometime late last year something happened among a group that I am a member of. We took out a group personal accident policy. Many in the group of 17 were reluctant to cough up the very affordable premium of roughly Kshs. 12,000.00 per person but common sense and a lot of threats from one amongst us who had seen the value of this policy in another group prevailed and the policy that only pays out in the event of death through an accident has been in place ever since. One of the friends who passed on through a road accident was a member of this group and so his family shall soon be the beneficiary of a handsome lump sum from the insurance company, an amount that should comfortably see the younger children through the rest of their schooling. This pay out shall be in addition to any other life policies that the deceased may have taken out on his own.

Many times we take insurance policies for granted and moan and complain that we continue paying premiums year upon year with no benefit only for the unforeseen to happen and the policy to crystallize. All members of this group which was not even a registered entity have pulled out all the stops to formally register it since payment from the insurance company is made to the group and not to an individual members next of kin and we are now convinced that this is a worthy policy to have. It also pays out Kshs. 200,000.00 as the last expense as a benefit towards the funeral expenses of the individual.

So those of you in formally registered chamas, associations or groups please look at the option of a group personal accident policy which is very affordable and assists the family greatly when one of the group members passes on due to an accident……no questions asked! You need to go out with a bang showing those that you leave behind that you cared enough to think about them should you be the victim of an unfortunate accident while going about your manenos.

As we also head towards another fresh presidential election remember that the time of honey coated promises is once again upon us and vote with your conscience.

OPEN LETTER TO C S ROTICH

8th February 2017

OPEN LETTER TO CS ROTICH

Dear Hon Rotich,

Happy New Year!!I will not bore you with a lot of trite and meaningless dialogue so I'll just cut to the chase.

This year seems to have kicked off to a rather bad start for Kenya. What with the drought affecting millions of Kenyans including the pastoralists and their livestock around the country, the recent terrorist attack on our brave soldiers in Somalia, the ongoing doctor’s strike that seems to be coming to an end thanks to the intervention of the senate, the ongoing lecturers strike with students coming out in solidarity rather late in the day with their lecturers, the lack of food security for a starving populace etc.

It is also the season when the IEBC is making last ditch efforts to encourage Kenyans to come out in large numbers to register as voters as their elected leaders similarly plead with the same voters (that they have studiously ignored for the last five years) with loud hailers and at public rallies to come out to register and vote for them in the forthcoming general elections.

I know all these issues demand money…….lots and lots of money…....which the country can ill afford at the moment and I am not even going to talk about the endemic corruption that we always read about that is depleting the national coffers at an alarming rate.

I am also aware that my one month old granddaughter has also inherited a debt of Kshs. 90,000.00 like hundreds of other babies recently born whose only crime is to be born a Kenyan just to paint the picture of just how dire the situation is, and her debt is unlikely to reduce even as other babies are born in future at the rate with which this government is borrowing to fund its recurrent and development expenditure something that doesn't sit very well with me for obvious reasons!

But what has got my goat (pardon the very British expression but my English teacher in high school was a prim and proper school ma’am who would turn up her nose if the inflection or the accent of her beloved mother tongue wasn’t correct) is the obnoxious and sickening demand by our legislators who ensured that the new constitution enabled them to walk away with a handsome gratuity of Kshs. 11 Million at the end of their 5 year term which they are now turning their noses up against!

In the face of insurmountable public debts (remember my one month old debt ridden granddaughter?) even the gratuity that the constitution allows the legislators is a really bad joke and a very tasteless joke at that which is in pure bad faith.

A total stranger coming to the country for the first time would wonder if these are same legislators he reads about and watches on Al Jazeera when they are decrying the challenges that their constituents face as drought ravages the country and demanding that the government make immediate drought mitigation measures to cushion the starving populace and their animals. He would be shrugging his shoulders in disgust at the sheer hypocrisy exhibited by these 416 individuals. Bwana CS, my take is that if through some oversight your office bows to pressure from these cabal of individuals to discuss a higher package than what in the opinion of many is a done deal then God help this country because that shall be the catalyst that is likely to propel this country to failed state status because the hullabaloo will make Al Ade look like a kindergarten play pen.

Why do I say this? If your office gives in to this sloth and avarice from the (dis)honorable members who are only united when fighting for their ‘tumbos’ and they get what they are clamoring for all the MCA’s in the 47 county assemblies will demand a similar send of package and we are talking about thousands of individuals serving in various county assemblies across the country. Their argument will be after all haven’t they also played their part in leadership (however slovenly) under the devolved system of government? All public servants will also in all likelihood jump onto the bandwagon and demand an increase in their salaries because a government kowtowing to the threats of a few is likely to also bow to the threats of many.

Sir, you must accordingly do whatever is in your powers to deny them what is not rightfully theirs because this shall cause a tidal wave of resentment that shall eventually sweep all of you technocrats along with the legislators out of your cushy offices. The more pressing demands on our meager resources are in any case clearly visible to anyone with a modicum of civic duty towards its people.

Sir, with due humility you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don’t but you will need to consider the plight of the majority at the expense of the minority in this Animal Farm called Kenya. "Hakuna pesa" however hackneyed a phrase should be your stock answer to the demands for gratuity payments.

It is also my take that the ruling coalition should also make this the defining moment of their first 5 year term and ask their coalition partners in Parliament and Senate to reject in toto this gratuity payment nonsense so as to show solidarity with the suffering citizenry and acknowledge that the country cannot afford to pay them a sum of Kshs. 4.5 Billion at present but will do so when the financial position of the country improves!!

If the opposition then foolishly decides to fight for the gratuity payment as a right then they shall have only have themselves to blame for not putting the country first and face an imminent and epic loss of face and votes in August 2017. After all an opposition is supposed to fight whatever the government position is if recent past issues are anything to go by!!

I for one shall NOT vote in anyone who received a cent of this gratuity payment because they will have passed the message that they don’t care about the welfare of Kenya as a country!!

Yours sincerely and a concerned Kenyan Citizen

Joe W M - a.k.a Joe-WonderingAllowed