This animal called the motor vehicle:

Recently while driving within Nairobi on some errand or another, I was dumfounded by the icy eyeball stare of a pedestrian in reaction to my warning hoot as he sauntered nonchalantly across the road against a red light for pedestrians and a green light for vehicles. It was obvious he had not the foggiest idea that a car is an animal capable of devouring one in mere seconds.

 A few weeks ago I blogged about the fear of being ‘eaten’ by an animal drummed into many of us Kenyans at a very early age. My intention was to bring out the fact that perhaps if the dangers of motor vehicles had also been drummed into us at an early age maybe, just maybe the carelessness exhibited by many pedestrians walking in the streets of the towns and cities and the highways and byways of Kenya would be more wary and aware of the imminent dangers posed by motor vehicles. So I will try a different tact and see how it goes.

A motor vehicle, be it a bus, a truck, a trailer, a pick-up, a passenger car or any of the many other variants is a wild untamed animal. It moves at speeds many times faster than a human being can ever accomplish, and is unemotional, unafraid and totally unaffected by its tenacity to inflict harm on one of  its favorite meals the human being. Any human being trying to out run it would be fodder to its voracious appetite in the blink of an eye. Its appetite is not only reserved for the human being as it also devours others of its own kind who dare to challenge its authority while on its side of the path!!



I doubt anyone survived this accident!

It is so vicious that it should be feared more than a well-aimed bullet, a dangerous man eating lion, the innocuous scorpion whose sting is fatal or a hissing poisonous serpent and should be treated with the utmost respect. It is can make mince-meat out of a human being and is also an accomplished cleaver cutting through bone as easily as a saw. It can disembowel you, mangle you, throw you a hundred feet, churn you into an unrecognizable mash of meat, bone, gristle, intestine, your last meal and brain and still keep on going as if nothing happened, its innards unaffected and unblemished by its voracious appetite.

Sometimes the brainlessness and unhealthy appetite of the motor vehicle comes from a strange feeling of power and invincibility when it is is being controlled by a driver high on cheap liquor, who is anemic and suffers from poor eyesight but is too proud to accept, or one who has been exposed to some illegal substances either smoked or injected or out of plain tiredness causing him to want to move faster and faster and becoming even more of a killer animal than usual. Talk about an unseeing, unfeeling automaton!!

Often many motor vehicles are in a poor state of health and have not been subjected to the tender loving care expected to tame a dangerous animal. It often suffers from poor braking, a suspect suspension system, defective and smooth tires, use of poor quality fuels and lubricants, poor blurred vision as a result of dodgy head and tail lights all causing it to stagger all over the road and often refusing to move at all and in addition to being a dangerous animal while in motion, making it also a potential killer while at a standstill – general malaise occasioned by poor diet and health care. The sicker the animal the more dangerous it is almost like a rabid dog unable to distinguish fact from fiction.

This is an animal to be respected by all means and has been the leading cause of suffering and misery across the country - and indeed across the world - as it continues to devour people day in and day out with no respite. It has killed more people annually than cancer and AIDS in Kenya combined and will continue to do so as the Grim Reaper of choice unless we Kenyans start respecting this animal and giving it space to travel at its crazy speeds because believe or not if you give it the space it demands, it will leave you alone as it passes along its well-trodden path.  

A bad motor vehicle accident

And when the animal suffers from its health related issues, it is incumbent upon you to leave it alone and look for a healthier specimen which is much easier to tame to take you on your wild ride home. When the driver himself seems to be suffering from delusions of invincibility it is your responsibility to let him know that your life is not fodder for the insatiable greed of this animal called a motor vehicle and choose to alight rather than wait to be the next serving of its voracious appetite!

So you have been warned about this heartless animal called the motor vehicle, responsible for gruesome deaths across Kenya over the years and which is as unfeeling and as callous as they come, lurking around the corner waiting to pounce on those foolhardy enough to dice with it by crossing its path at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

For the sake of your family and friends………..TAKE CARE lest you be the next victim of this vicious beast!!

NB - For those with a strong constitution you may view pictures of motor vehicle accident victims by following this link - http://www.nairaland.com/375098/nasty-effects-road-accidents-caution .
The pictures are extremely graphic so proceed with caution

The change of guard beckons

Recently my daughter hosted some 5 friends at our home for an overnight visit. All but one of them are boys and a girl whose parents have been friends with me and my wife for many years hence we have watched them grow up over the years to what they are today, young adults.

All of them are in college somewhere or the other around the world, majority being in Kenya and they are all now on the brink of starting off on their own life journeys free from the tyranny of parents, having learnt valuable lessons along the way which they hopefully will not repeat in their own lives and with their own families. Now peer pressure stares them in the face, they have access to the internet and all kinds of information at their finger tips and the influence that this can have on them.

Several of them have had varied experiences when growing up as children either from broken families, to having to live with step parents and step brothers and sisters, being shunted off to boarding school for long periods of time and parents separating for whatever reasons and periods with the inevitable imprint that this leaves on young and impressionable minds.

There are lessons to be learnt in any such situations and some may leave a lasting impression while others may be fleeting in terms of their psychological impact on the mind and future approach to life. As they exchanged stories about their various experiences, played cards, listened to music, had a drink etc it occurred to me that these children (they will hate my liberal use of this word) were on the way to parenthood probably making me a father in law and hopefully a grandfather in the not too distant future.

I have watched them grow from crying babies, to arkward toddlers, to confident infants, through school, through teenage and now as young adults and I wonder if I also did pass through those stages in my life to what I am today - almost a grandfather. This is the future generation now ready to take on the baton and the changing of the guard to chase their own destiny and vision in their chosen career paths with all the promises of youth and energy behind them goarding them on and channeling them to a life that is fruitful and gratifying. There is a time and a place for everything and those that ultimately succeed are those that know when and where to draw the line.

I wish you all the best - you know yourselves - as you take over the guard and wish you and your friends a richly rewarding and engaging life. Do the right things and encourage those who are your friends to do the same and make sure you enjoy life but not to the detriment of what is important at any one point in time !!

A campaign to lose

I am not one who sees into the future and neither do I profess to be a soothsayer, a tea leaves reader, a clairvoyant or a Mayan! I do not know how to read palms, or shells, or the dregs of your coffee and neither do I commune with witches, wizards or anything ‘shetani’. In other words I am not a political commentator or an armchair politico, whatever that means. I use my mirror on the wall into the world

My mirror on the wall tells me that politicians are a very clever though devious lot. They are very good at manipulating the status quo so that they come out as projecting a larger than life persona, a mythical god like image that they can then use to bargain at the table of power. My mirror tells me that Uhuru & Ruto and their Jubilee alliance are just such clever politicians, who have managed to imbue in their followers this god like status and larger than life persona. They have a fanatical almost suicidal following among their tribesmen and that they command great political power is not in doubt. The Kikuyu will almost certainly to the last man vote for Uhuru while Ruto promises to bring a mountain of votes to the ballot paper for Uhuru through his Kalenjin community.

Now these two fellows are very clever and therefore they are not foolish. They know that with the ICC cases hanging over their heads like the guillotine of old, Kenya will be in extremely dire circumstances should they be elected as president and deputy president respectively. They are astute businessmen in their own rights who own either directly or through numerous proxies some of the most profitable businesses across Kenya as well as tracts of land the size of small countries. They are in businesses which rely on the international perception of Kenya including tourism, banking, insurance, real estate, insurance, dairy farming, minerals etc  and it would be foolish for them to jeopardize these businesses once elected to the highest offices in the land. Their businesses must also have also lost massively after the last fracas in 2007.

My submission therefore is that they have everything to lose if they are elected and that they are now merely running a campaign not to be elected but to entrench their positions amongst their communities so as to obtain respectable representation in parliament, the senate and other leadership positions for their rank and file so that while they may not be in government, they have the numbers to insist on their pre-election coalitions being honored to some extent even with another as president. Without these two at the apex of the Jubilee alliance, many senatorial, gubernatorial, parliamentary and other political candidates will not see the doors of the offices they aspire to occupy and that is why Uhuru & Ruto have been held hostage by these political wannabes who know that without their masters, they will get nowhere. Uhuru & Ruto badly need to be on the ballot paper as they have all along insisted but this will be merely to pander to the egos of their respective communities who want to hear nothing else other than their ‘man’ being on the presidential ballot paper.

They are therefore campaigning to lose as can be seen from the many shenanigans being played around surrounding some senior government officials, the devil and the other alliances, which are all calculated to ensure that however you look at the numbers the CORD Alliance will most likely win the next general elections, with Raila Odinga, warts and all, as the next president of Kenya and at the first ballot.

If you observe keenly, Raila has been playing a very conciliatory game including promising to fight to have the ICC trails brought to Kenya for the sake of Uhuru & Ruto and imploring Mudavadi to rejoin ODM (and CORD by extension) because this is part of the lose-lose strategy of Uhuru & Ruto’s joint presidential bid so that they get a soft landing under Raila Odinga’s presidency (assuming he sticks to his promises) as well as almost guaranteeing Mudavadi whose penchant for getting himself check mated while all along he was holding a commanding edge over his opponents is legendary, a good position in his administration.  After all you would rather have a reluctant homeboy on your side and rooting for you and not on the other side barking and letting all and sundry know your dirty little secrets!! If by some miracle Raila was to succeed in bringing the ICC cases to Kenya, then Uhuru and Ruto will be suitably chastised and avoid making a nuisance of themselves in front of the benevolent Raila.

 Uhuru & Ruto are now firmly in the barrel already in the river and moving with the high current at breakneck speed towards the elections waterfall and not knowing how to get off without hurting themselves. They have built the barrel and they must now ride it to its inevitable conclusion. Unfortunately, they will never accept that they are not in in for the long haul, because they know that the country will be ungovernable under their rule as well as the fact that Kenya will lose all forward momentum and economic growth and go the way of North Korea forever shunned and vilified by the international community and struggling to meet the basic need of its people.........and their businesses will all but collapse leaving hundreds jobless and destitute and the ensuing multiplier effect leading to complete economic collapse of the economy.

As I said before I do not see into the future but rely on my mirror into the world, but if I was a pragmatic man in the shoes of the duo, Uhuru & Ruto, I would do what is best for my country but still be seen to be putting up a semblance of a fight so that my supporters remain convinced that I am in it for the long run and that I still retain my status as king maker but I would 'throw' the election.

Whether guilty or innocent after my trail with the ICC my stature as a nationalist would be on the upswing giving me a better chance at the highest office in the land once free of the shackles of the Hague.

My mirror has spoken!!

Sometimes ignorance is surely bliss - Part 1

You are going on a long journey of some 700 kilometers or so so the logical thing is to start your journey early, know the weather prevailing where you are headed so as to carry the right attire and also plot a course where you can stop for refreshments and to stretch your legs and work of that benign deep vein thrombosis sitting just below the veins in your legs. Easier said then done............but think again!!

We set of at 7.00 a.m on our maiden journey to Uganda the Pearl of Africa in a hired minibus. We were 16 of us, three families inclduing adult kids and our luggage. We were 45 minutes late but so what? After all we were going a mere 700 kilometres or so from Nairobi to Kampala and at a sedate speed of 80 km/h we would be there in 9 hours.....10 hours tops, meaning that we would be greedily gulping in the fresh Kampala air by 5.00 p.m. The mood was euphoric and positive never mind the fact that some looked the worse for wear no doubt a reminder of their carousing the previous night. The route was decided upon as the longer Nairobi-Nakuru-Eldoret-Malaba one as the Mau Summit-Kericho-Kisumu-Busia route was said to be under construction and therefore very slow and difficult going. The weather in Kampala was focussed to be overcast with showers and thunder storms for the fours days we would be there.

Barely out of Nairobi, we encountered our first stop. The driver of the minbus had not been home for several days and as he was scheduled to be out of town over the Christmas period had planned to meet his daughter somewhere along the way to give her some money. This took but four minutes but should have been an ominous sign of what awaited us all day long. Soon after passing Uplands, one of us who suffered from motion sickness suffered an attack and we had to stop off at a petrol station for him to be sick and go to the toilet. Thankfully we had a doctor on board who presecribed some pills for him to take to control the motion sickness which were procured at a nearby pharmacy.

The driver having eaten his breakfast (it turns out he had arrived in Nairobi at 3.00 a.m), the patient somewhat cured, 30 minutes later we set off on our merry way, down into the escarpment and on into Naivasha where our first official toilet break awaited us at "Delamare" for15 minutes or so. On we ploughed thereafter - Mau Summit, Timboroa, Burnt Forest - and just as we approached Eldoret our first major hurdle, a massive traffic jam on the diversion where they are redoing the road caused by overlapping, impatient drivers in a hurry to get to their destinations. So there we were stuck for almost an hour and 15 minutes while the mess untangled itself. Our next stop was scheduled to be at Sirikwa Hotel Eldoret but just on the outskirts of Eldoret our sick friend unable to wait a moment longer decided he needed another toilet break so we stopped for another 15 minutes as he did his thing.

Finally we arrived in Eldoret, this one street town that has experienced phenomenal growth in the last few years but where no one seems to have thought to expand the road networks or even have a by-pass around the town for those with no business passing through the town centre. Traffic was at a crawling pace until Sirikwa Hotel, where after a well deserved toilet break and a light refreshment, chips and sausage for those really hungry we set off an hour later back into the crawling traffic that would take us another 45 minutes to get to the Kitale turnoff. It was now approaching 4 pm and we had another 130 kms to get to Malaba and then cross over into Uganda.

By now, a majority of us were in high spirits having partook of the drinks that inevitably accompany such a journey. The obvious downside to this is the need for a toilet break.....or two.....or three! Suffice is to say that we finally rolled into the outskirts of Malaba shortly before 6.30 p.m to find a 4 km long traffic jam of trucks waiting to cross the border which is not unusual since small vehicles, mini buses and passenger buses have right of way and merely overtake the line of waiting trucks and give way to any oncoming traffic. This was not the case on this particular evening because out of desperation, anxiety or whatever some of the large trucks had also decided to join the smaller vehicles leading to the inevitable overlapping and traffic snarl ups as the oncoming trucks now had no room to pass through the bedlam created by this effect. It took up almost an hour to get to Malaba, Kenya and get our documents stamped for us to discover that the driver had only his driving licence and log book for the vehicle but no travel documents!!

.............(To be continued)

Being ‘eaten’ by an animal:

I have a feeling that many Kenyans are more scared of being ‘eaten’ by an animal then of being run over by a motor vehicle. Let me explain.

How many times do you get to visit someone’s house in one of the leafy suburbs and the first thing that comes to your mind once you drive into their compound is if they have a dog? Next you ask the question if there is a dog in plain view, “is it kali”? Or while out walking or jogging you come across a strange dog on your path and the first thing you want to do is cross over to the other side or stop jogging altogether because we all know that a dog will ‘chase you if you are running’ as you fearfully cast your eyes over your shoulder should the dog take an unhealthy interest in you sniffing at your heels as a dog is wont to do.

Many times the size of the dog doesn’t matter and it could be the scrawniest, mangiest, scared looking mongrel but the inborn fear is still in us to fear a dog…………hell any animal. You even go off to the Masai Mara and the inevitable question when you get back is whether you were scared of being ‘eaten’ by an animal.

Seriously folks, I have seen people almost trampling each other when a horse rears up on its hind legs at the Ngong Racecourse or in the City Centre when the police are trying to quell a demonstration, or grown men almost breaking their legs running away from a snake, in all likelihood a non-venomous one at that, sunning itself 10 feet away and what of those of us who are scared of spiders, lizards, geckos and chameleons almost falling down in our haste to get away as far as possible from the offending creature…………….and possibly being run over by a vehicle for our troubles!!

We are taught and conditioned from a very early age that any animal, wild or domestic, has the potential to do serious harm to you, and past experiences are shared with wanton abandon by our parents, aunties and uncles of being mauled by a dog, kicked by a cow, chased by a bull, butted by a goat etc in their youthful day and this is the reality that we face each day. The fact that corpses in many societies in Kenya in days gone by were left in the forest to be devoured by wild animals does not in any way reduce the believability of being ‘eaten’ by animals. Further, recent stories of a baby being half devoured by dogs soon after birth, or lions attacking a Manyatta and eating the livestock and leopards stalking and killing goats, dogs and other domestic animals means that being 'eaten' by animals is the worst nightmare for many.

If only we were also told of the dangers of dicing with death while walking on the road verge and not on the shoulder, crossing a road while the pedestrian lights are red, dashing across Thika Road or any other major highway with scores of hulking metal vehicles hurtling past at breakneck speeds inches from you so as to avoid a 50 meter walk to the pedestrian overpass and its relative safety we would surely be a saner, less suicidal society! Maybe it’s time we thought of policing our roads and highways with animals that would scare the living daylights out of us lest we get ‘eaten’.

Thank you for the year gone by......!

I have now been blogging for just over a year because it was on 7^th December 2011 that ‘Wondering Allowed’ was born..............371 days ago to be precise!!

The infrastructure has featured in my blogs mainly about Thika Road along where I live, so has the game of golf which I have too little time to play and enjoy in my limited free time, as have issues regarding my family and my friends, stories that touched me and which I shared and those that I culled from my C: drive written some time back but now adapted and updated to reflect the current situation. Politics, being the staple diet of the average Kenyan out there and being prone to cause disagreements based on biases, innuendos and insinuations took a back seat but got a toe in comment somewhere along the blogway (is there a word like that?) inspite of my decision even before I started the blog that politics would have no airtime on it!

I can now imagine what the editors of the ‘Nairobi Star’, that erstwhile precursor of ‘The Star’ must have felt when they initially decided to forego politics (or so I heard) when it was launched  only to change their editorial policy to include limited political commentary after realizing that politics is what sold newspapers in Kenya.

As I celebrate this anniversary let me mention that I have enjoyed the ride and the thrill of blogging because it has been an opportunity to write about things close to my heart, things that bothered and angered me, my feelings and instincts, my political grouses, my disappointments and anguish at promises made and not met, of incidents and accidents and issues of a general nature.

I have relished writing the articles despite occasional writers block (the bane of many writers and which I had no idea about before) and sharing them on my Facebook wall and the number of hits tells me that there are those out there who appreciate my blog and come back for more.  My target in 2013 is to get at least 50 followers and your recommendations and sharing of my posts and articles to those on your social network sites as well as your friends would be appreciated. Thank you for being a part of this blog in 2012.

 As we come to end the end of the year and the start of the New Year with all its drama, intrigues and political machinations, let us remember that we are all one nation of a Kenyan brotherhood (and sisterhood………gender sensitivity you know!) and we should treat each other with decorum, respect and admiration for each one of us shapes Kenya in our own unique way and without each other we would not be the same!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR as I continue to wonder allowed in the coming year!!

How to tackle the Thika super highway:

As I live somewhere in the vicinity of Thika Road, I always take it for granted that it is easy for anyone else unfamiliar with the road to make sense of how to get to your ultimate destination anywhere along that superhighway! After all it is well marked with various road signages, numbered exits and off ramps and other assorted road furniture and basically everything to make the savvy person get to where they need to be. How wrong I was!

It was while talking to a colleague recently that it dawned on me that it is not as easy as it seems to the uninitiated to get by on Thika Road and it is apparently now one of the most feared of roads to those unfamiliar with its since “you could easily find yourself in Thika” as was exclaimed to me by my colleague.

Let us just take an example of getting to and getting out of Safari Park Hotel which was easy in the days gone by since you just turned left off Thika Road on the Thika bound side of the dual carriageway when you got to the hotel signpost. When leaving the hotel  you exited onto Thika Road drove a few meters and then turned right onto the city bound side of the dual carriageway to find yourself safely homeward bound. Not anymore because now if you miss your exit you will have to spend a great deal of time getting back to the hotel.

For starters, the multi-lane highway and service roads for much of the Thika Road development is a one way system. No oncoming vehicles are allowed to hamper the flow of traffic though boda bodas and some psychotic motorists often do so very foolishly and obviously without due regard to their safety and that of other road users. All the exits are now indicated well in advance clearly showing which destination each exit will take you to and with arrows to show those unable to understand what to do. I suppose the developers of this road in all their wisdom assumed that all the motorists using the road are literate enough to read signs and have been to a driving school and understand the basic Highway Code and what all road signs mean though this may be a little far-fetched given the zig zag maneuvers of many drivers caught on the wrong outside lane and desperate to get to the inside correct lane for them to exit the highway safely !

Back to how you get to Safari Park Hotel. You are required to leave the highway on Exit 7 (any of the earlier exits will get you there along the service road), well-marked with the various places it takes you to including Safari Park Hotel. Follow the service road until the top of the Broadways overpass then make a left turn towards Uchumi ‘Jipange’ following the roundabout that takes you onto the service road leading all the way to Safari Park Hotel. If you miss Exit 7 to Safari Park, the next one is Exit 8 which goes to Kasarani area and Kamiti Road. You will be forced to use this exit double back under the Kasarani underpass get back onto Thika Road then go all the way back to Exit 7 and then right onto the Broadways overpass to use the service road past Uchumi ‘Jipange’ to ultimately get you to Safari Park, almost 5 kilometres longer than using the correct exit.

The above scenario is replicated for much of the length of the (super) highway and one will need to be keenly aware of what the road signs are telling you and what you are expected to do given that the developers recognized the challenges they would face if they made it easy for motorists (read PSV drivers) to just drive over the road divide (where possible) if you bypassed your exit and therefore erected huge curb stones and road dividers  that even the most determined  and foolhardy PSV driver would think twice before trying to tackle.