“Hiyo gari ilikuwa inaenda kasi sana”! (that vehicle was moving very fast!) is a statement you very often hear every time there is an eye witness describing a road accident to a television news crew.
Having talked about ‘speeding’ trucks on Mombasa Road recently it got me thinking that speed is one of the most misunderstood concepts probably universally. Without going into the tedious descriptions of speed in physics that many of us have long forgotten, speed is a relative concept and it is always relative to something else. That means that where an object is stationery, then something moving past it is moving at speed. On the opposite end, two objects moving towards each other will have a closing speed of the combined speed of both of them (perhaps double speed would be an apt descriptor of such a scenario).
A tortoise plodding along would therefore consider a rabbit running past it to be moving very fast while a rabbit would consider a cheetah to be moving at great speed if the cheetah were to hypothetically be running in a race alongside the rabbit or even come to think of it the rabbit was running for its life from a cheetah out to make a meal of it! Similarly, a cyclist would be moving at speed when passing a walking pedestrian while a car would be at speed when passing a cyclist at top speed on his bicycle traveling along the same road. Ergo, a policeman waving down a truck that refuses to stop would consider the truck to be ‘speeding’ in relation to his relative position in regards to the truck!
However, this fascination with speed makes one think that all drivers in Kenya cause accidents by perennially speeding the concept of a speed limit not withstanding! Is it correct to state that an accident was caused by a ‘speeding’ vehicle (as would be reported by a watching bystander) which was travelling at 50 km/h while the maximum speed on that section of the road is 80 km/h? If the reaction by our overzealous police officers is anything to go by then they too believe that speed is the root cause of all road accidents and hence the recent crackdown on over speeding in various parts of the country.
They forget that decrepit and poorly serviced vehicles, poor road surfaces, careless pedestrians, slow moving trucks, foggy weather, tired drivers etc all contribute to the accidents on our road. If speed were the defining factor then those German autobahns with no speed limits would be a veritable disaster zone though access is restricted to motor vehicles with a top speed of more than 60 km/h meaning that many of our ‘speeding’ behemoth trucks would not be allowed on these roads.
Recent statistics sourced from Wikipedia indicates that the autobahn fatality rate in Germany is 1.7 deaths per billion-travel-kilometers and is much better when compared with the 5.1 rate on urban streets and 7.6 rate on rural roads in that country. On autobahns 22 people died per 1000 injury crashes; a lower rate than the 29 deaths per 1,000 injury accidents on conventional rural roads. I am sure these numbers are much higher in our speed deprived nation of Kenya.
So don’t believe any eye witness reports that an accident was caused by an over speeding vehicle in the absence of facts to back this up and to the detriment of other contributing factors. Similarly don’t believe any policeman who says that speed is the main cause of accidents on our roads because the well-built autobahns in Germany would be veritable killing fields if this were the case.
My take is that if the governement were to build us better roads, get those ‘speeding’ trucks of those roads and then leave us free to get to our destinations as fast as possible they would see the accident rate plummet!!
Thursday, 21 August 2014
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
Trucks speeding off, go tell that to the birds!
A recent story where the newspapers reported that some policemen in Mombasa are having a hard time arresting truck drivers on account of technology that enables the trucks tires to remain intact even after rolling over the police road block spikes in the middle of the road thanks to self-sealing properties injected into the tyres piqued my interest. This was a fable if ever I have heard one but that probably explains why most police road block spikes look like something akin to well run over road kill, but that’s a story for another day.
The excuse by the police officer (who comes up with these stories anyway?) that their vehicles were rammed into by over loaded trucks and then the trucks sped off is the stuff of Aesop’s Fables which however difficult to rationalize have kept children enthralled for generations! No self-respecting Kenyan should believe such utter nonsense when clearly the intention is to deflect our attention from some nefarious goings on along our highways.
But, let’s analyse this issue logically.
Firstly you have a contingent of police officers manning a road block at a weigh bridge along with assorted other officers from the Ministry of Transport and the SGS at two sections along the 500 kilometer Mombasa to Nairobi highway. Each of them is responsible for something or the other within the weighbridge station while the policemen are presumably there to ensure law and order is maintained and that there is adequate protection for the other personnel carrying out their lawful duties. In between the two weighbridge locations at Mariakani & Athi River you have innumerable police checks of one form or another some equipped with police vehicles at the more remote sections of the highway some even equipped with speed guns to catch unwary over speeding drivers. How come they were unable to catch the ‘speeding’ trucks either through the speed guns use or the tried and tested method of just giving chase!!
Secondly, the trucks in question are behemoths and what are popularly referred to as trailers with 18 or 22 wheels with most carrying heavy loads of commodities and machinery to destinations upcountry and even beyond our borders. Many carry the 20 or 40 foot closed containers and as someone told me you just have to look at the way the tires are in contact with the road surface to known if the contents of the trailer are heavy or light. If you have ever had the misfortune of being stuck behind these trailers while on Mombasa Road, then to say that they are capable of ‘speeding’ off is to mangle the usage of the term speeding if you know what I mean.
Thirdly, these trailers crawl along at a mind numbing 50 kmp/h………on a downhill slope when fully laden and at a slothful crawl when going up even the smallest hill. At certain places on this highway, they even have special climbing lanes for the trailers so that other traffic may at least overtake at these sections and flow comfortably and where many of the trailers, huffing and puffing and belching obnoxious clouds of diesel exhaust come to a juddering halt unable to complete the climb clear signs of being over loaded. Then some joker claims that these trailers ‘sped’ off!
Finally, my experience of Mombasa Road is that there are few if any alternative routes that one may take along the highway to get to Nairobi & beyond. Something as big as a trailer cannot possibly hide or be hidden anywhere along the highway without being spotted by anyone with 20/20 vision and if the shambolic recent police recruitment exercise is anything to go by, a great premium is kept on the physical attributes of those keen to join the force including presumably eyesight. So how can we entrust our security to people who can’t ‘see’ a large trailer on a 500 kilometer highway which is the gateway to East Africa that has almost run over other fellow officers along the way? Even if we extend the journey by any of these ‘speeding’ trailers all the way to any of the border crossings with our neighbors, that gives the authorities a 1,000 kilometer and at least a 3 day window in which to locate and arrest the offending drivers!!!
Some of the comments (excuses is more like it) attributed to our men and women of the police force are just comedic in their dead pan delivery and this one clearly takes the cake. It belittles the intelligence of the Kenyan populace and becomes yet another joke focused on the extent of the (in)abilities of those in charge of keeping us all safe. Who is responsible for disciplining and keeping such dim officers who can’t even be trusted to communicate propaganda statements right?
Come on man, we Kenyans are not as daft as you think so go tell that to the birds!!
The excuse by the police officer (who comes up with these stories anyway?) that their vehicles were rammed into by over loaded trucks and then the trucks sped off is the stuff of Aesop’s Fables which however difficult to rationalize have kept children enthralled for generations! No self-respecting Kenyan should believe such utter nonsense when clearly the intention is to deflect our attention from some nefarious goings on along our highways.
But, let’s analyse this issue logically.
Firstly you have a contingent of police officers manning a road block at a weigh bridge along with assorted other officers from the Ministry of Transport and the SGS at two sections along the 500 kilometer Mombasa to Nairobi highway. Each of them is responsible for something or the other within the weighbridge station while the policemen are presumably there to ensure law and order is maintained and that there is adequate protection for the other personnel carrying out their lawful duties. In between the two weighbridge locations at Mariakani & Athi River you have innumerable police checks of one form or another some equipped with police vehicles at the more remote sections of the highway some even equipped with speed guns to catch unwary over speeding drivers. How come they were unable to catch the ‘speeding’ trucks either through the speed guns use or the tried and tested method of just giving chase!!
Secondly, the trucks in question are behemoths and what are popularly referred to as trailers with 18 or 22 wheels with most carrying heavy loads of commodities and machinery to destinations upcountry and even beyond our borders. Many carry the 20 or 40 foot closed containers and as someone told me you just have to look at the way the tires are in contact with the road surface to known if the contents of the trailer are heavy or light. If you have ever had the misfortune of being stuck behind these trailers while on Mombasa Road, then to say that they are capable of ‘speeding’ off is to mangle the usage of the term speeding if you know what I mean.
Thirdly, these trailers crawl along at a mind numbing 50 kmp/h………on a downhill slope when fully laden and at a slothful crawl when going up even the smallest hill. At certain places on this highway, they even have special climbing lanes for the trailers so that other traffic may at least overtake at these sections and flow comfortably and where many of the trailers, huffing and puffing and belching obnoxious clouds of diesel exhaust come to a juddering halt unable to complete the climb clear signs of being over loaded. Then some joker claims that these trailers ‘sped’ off!
Finally, my experience of Mombasa Road is that there are few if any alternative routes that one may take along the highway to get to Nairobi & beyond. Something as big as a trailer cannot possibly hide or be hidden anywhere along the highway without being spotted by anyone with 20/20 vision and if the shambolic recent police recruitment exercise is anything to go by, a great premium is kept on the physical attributes of those keen to join the force including presumably eyesight. So how can we entrust our security to people who can’t ‘see’ a large trailer on a 500 kilometer highway which is the gateway to East Africa that has almost run over other fellow officers along the way? Even if we extend the journey by any of these ‘speeding’ trailers all the way to any of the border crossings with our neighbors, that gives the authorities a 1,000 kilometer and at least a 3 day window in which to locate and arrest the offending drivers!!!
Some of the comments (excuses is more like it) attributed to our men and women of the police force are just comedic in their dead pan delivery and this one clearly takes the cake. It belittles the intelligence of the Kenyan populace and becomes yet another joke focused on the extent of the (in)abilities of those in charge of keeping us all safe. Who is responsible for disciplining and keeping such dim officers who can’t even be trusted to communicate propaganda statements right?
Come on man, we Kenyans are not as daft as you think so go tell that to the birds!!
Wednesday, 6 August 2014
So what’s wrong with slaughtering a dog?
Another guy has been arrested slaughtering a dog in Naivasha hardly a week after another guy (who I can bet was probably not the first to do so, nor was it his first dog to slaughter) was arrested doing the same dastardly deed. Haven’t these guy heard of something called in the privacy of your own home, where you can do all you want including dancing nude and slaughtering dogs without a nosy neighbor pointing the cops in your direction? Whether the meat was for sale or for personal consumption is not the issue here because no one will admit to offering dog meat for sale in Kenya.
Why I ask, as an aside, would someone one to chow down on man’s best friend? I however think that we may be making a mountain out of a mole hill (as usual) because one man’s meat is another man’s poison or so the old adage pontificates! If you recall the recent loud protests when one enterprising Kenyan decided to set up a donkey slaughter house in Naivasha (not Naivasha again!) for export (so he said) to places where they are not so full of pretenses about what they eat and after obtaining all the licenses from the authorities including building and NEMA approvals only for the same authorities to turn around and sabotage the project “in the public interest”. Was theirs a knee jerk reaction or a well calculated and well thought out reaction to an issue that had hurt the sensibilities of a populace who have probably partaken of the same donkey meat under the mistaken belief that it was beef all the while smacking their lips at the deliciousness of the punda nyama choma!
For thousands of years the Chinese have been eating all sorts of creatures including dog meat with no apparent ill effects. I hear that so long as it walks, crawls, flies or swims it is fair game for the cooking pot in China! The Chinese are also considered to be one of the longest living human beings on Earth no doubt as a result of their not too choosy life style when it comes to culinary matters! Dog probably makes a delicious meat stew as well as a tasty kebab or samosa and by the same token you would never hear of someone in China dying of hunger thanks to their keen noses for something tasty irrespective of the wrapping around it!!
Closer home when the Chinese arrived to construct ( the soon to be stripped bare of all metal) Thika Super Highway several years ago there was a hue and cry that all of a sudden there were no stray dogs in the vicinity of the area where many of the Chinese engineers and foremen lived. I don’t recall if it were Zimmerman or Kamiti or both. Was it a mere happenstance that the arrival of the Chinese and the demise of the stray dogs in that general area were a coincidence? Why in any case would anyone care for the welfare of a stray dog in their neighborhood a creature which is more famous for scaring children and women as they go about their business and fighting for scraps of food while howling loudly in the dead of night while all along these same people had been calling upon the City Council to remove the strays from their midst unless of course it was their timid and half-starved Jimmy, Simba and Tiger watchdogs, for lack of a better word that were finding their way to the Chinese wok to be garnished with some dhania, onion and soy sauce.
Was this magnanimity towards the strays as a result of competition for the dogs from local Zimmerman and Kamiti dog meat aficionados now starved of their favorite delicacy since the masters of dog delicacies had finally arrived and pitched camp in their hood and knew how (thanks to a long tradition) to entice these animals so as to turn them into a tasty dish they probably craved after the novelty of goat meat, chicken and beef had worn off? We will never know!!
Stories abound of a thriving bush meat trade in West Africa where beef, goat and chicken meat are considered expensive delicacies and where the choice available even in many upscale hotels is bush rat stew or fish stew whereas in the seedier parts of many towns your culinary fare shall probably comprise a wide variety of ape, bat, snail, porcupine, warthog, wild boar, any unidentified rodent and so on. In many parts of South & Central America, Central Africa and South East Asia, I would like to believe that no one is too squeamish about what lands on the table because let’s face it, when you have a choice between starvation and a nicely roasted vampire bat, the bat would land on a grill faster that you can think….eehww and the bigger the bat the more people it can feed.
So even as you make disgusted noises at these folk from Naivasha slaughtering and eating dog meat, rest assured that something you eat is anathema to someone else and vice versa. What you crave as a delicacy may make someone else puke at the mere thought of how it has landed on the table. It is likely that you have partaken of dog meat or donkey meat sometime or other in this great land called Kenya because after all my own brother partook of ‘agouti’ (look it up) while on a visit to Senegal under the mistaken belief that it was goat meat!!
Why I ask, as an aside, would someone one to chow down on man’s best friend? I however think that we may be making a mountain out of a mole hill (as usual) because one man’s meat is another man’s poison or so the old adage pontificates! If you recall the recent loud protests when one enterprising Kenyan decided to set up a donkey slaughter house in Naivasha (not Naivasha again!) for export (so he said) to places where they are not so full of pretenses about what they eat and after obtaining all the licenses from the authorities including building and NEMA approvals only for the same authorities to turn around and sabotage the project “in the public interest”. Was theirs a knee jerk reaction or a well calculated and well thought out reaction to an issue that had hurt the sensibilities of a populace who have probably partaken of the same donkey meat under the mistaken belief that it was beef all the while smacking their lips at the deliciousness of the punda nyama choma!
For thousands of years the Chinese have been eating all sorts of creatures including dog meat with no apparent ill effects. I hear that so long as it walks, crawls, flies or swims it is fair game for the cooking pot in China! The Chinese are also considered to be one of the longest living human beings on Earth no doubt as a result of their not too choosy life style when it comes to culinary matters! Dog probably makes a delicious meat stew as well as a tasty kebab or samosa and by the same token you would never hear of someone in China dying of hunger thanks to their keen noses for something tasty irrespective of the wrapping around it!!
Closer home when the Chinese arrived to construct ( the soon to be stripped bare of all metal) Thika Super Highway several years ago there was a hue and cry that all of a sudden there were no stray dogs in the vicinity of the area where many of the Chinese engineers and foremen lived. I don’t recall if it were Zimmerman or Kamiti or both. Was it a mere happenstance that the arrival of the Chinese and the demise of the stray dogs in that general area were a coincidence? Why in any case would anyone care for the welfare of a stray dog in their neighborhood a creature which is more famous for scaring children and women as they go about their business and fighting for scraps of food while howling loudly in the dead of night while all along these same people had been calling upon the City Council to remove the strays from their midst unless of course it was their timid and half-starved Jimmy, Simba and Tiger watchdogs, for lack of a better word that were finding their way to the Chinese wok to be garnished with some dhania, onion and soy sauce.
Was this magnanimity towards the strays as a result of competition for the dogs from local Zimmerman and Kamiti dog meat aficionados now starved of their favorite delicacy since the masters of dog delicacies had finally arrived and pitched camp in their hood and knew how (thanks to a long tradition) to entice these animals so as to turn them into a tasty dish they probably craved after the novelty of goat meat, chicken and beef had worn off? We will never know!!
Stories abound of a thriving bush meat trade in West Africa where beef, goat and chicken meat are considered expensive delicacies and where the choice available even in many upscale hotels is bush rat stew or fish stew whereas in the seedier parts of many towns your culinary fare shall probably comprise a wide variety of ape, bat, snail, porcupine, warthog, wild boar, any unidentified rodent and so on. In many parts of South & Central America, Central Africa and South East Asia, I would like to believe that no one is too squeamish about what lands on the table because let’s face it, when you have a choice between starvation and a nicely roasted vampire bat, the bat would land on a grill faster that you can think….eehww and the bigger the bat the more people it can feed.
So even as you make disgusted noises at these folk from Naivasha slaughtering and eating dog meat, rest assured that something you eat is anathema to someone else and vice versa. What you crave as a delicacy may make someone else puke at the mere thought of how it has landed on the table. It is likely that you have partaken of dog meat or donkey meat sometime or other in this great land called Kenya because after all my own brother partook of ‘agouti’ (look it up) while on a visit to Senegal under the mistaken belief that it was goat meat!!
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Why not have similar medical facilities here as in India?
In recent years, India has taken on a larger than life persona among the middle class in Kenya as a preferred medical tourism destination. As one who studied in that country many years ago when it was a perfect education destination for those who required university admission but missed the minimum floating entry points required for admission into the only university in Kenya then, it was the logical place to go as it had hundreds of universities to choose from, a myriad of courses to suit any number of individuals, a mere 5 hours flying time from Nairobi, a multicultural student population depending on the university college that you were admitted to and more importantly was easy on the pocket.
Today with tens of universities across Kenya to choose from and access to distance and correspondence studies from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide, I think India is one of the destinations that has lost out as a favorite education destination for Kenyan students. However, it has more than replaced what it lost in student enrolments with medical tourists from Kenya and indeed across the world seeking to visit the hundreds of medical facilities, many of them specialist facilities for advanced medical care and treatment at a fraction of the cost of similar treatment here at home.
India as a country with a population exceeding a billion strong (I heard 2.1 billion on radio recently but it was probably a dyslexic radio announcer that meant to say 1.2 billion) the doctors there have surely seen it all and by the same token have become experts in their chosen fields of specialization if the success rate of the many people that I know that have been treated in that country is anything to go by.
By and large the same conditions that saw many of us flock to India for studies many years ago are the same ones driving the medical tourism business today, to wit hundreds of hospitals to choose from, a myriad of specialists to suit any number of individuals, a mere 5 hours flying time from Nairobi, a multicultural patient population and more importantly is easy on the pocket.
My understanding is that the medical field in India is so competitive that to get to the top of the profession requires a commitment to providing medical care and not necessarily enriching yourself in the process. Pre-eminent and wealthy doctors are also found in India, but their journey to the apex of their careers has been a slow slog after years of success and positive contribution to their chosen speciality that then gains them a glowing professional reputation. This is a country where if your condition is diagnosed as being at an advanced stage and therefore inoperable or untreatable, this information is conveyed to you early enough without expensive surgical interventions, whereas the practice at home might be most likely for a doctor to see an opportunity to make some money and to therefore immediately recommend an elaborate surgical procedure to be carried out exploiting the desperation many families face and they are ready to cling to any possibility of a cure and that shall cost a fortune and with no hope of recovery to the patient therefore ensuring that families spend the last few resources they had paying for a treatment regimen that is doomed to fail from the word go!
But why can’t this medical tourism business practice be replicated right here in Kenya? Has any county government thought of partnering with those hospitals in India to set up facilities and laboratories similar to those in India in their backyards? Has any county government thought of partnering with those same hospitals and utilizing existing medical facilities in their counties for setting up of specialized medical units/branches of those Indian hospitals?
At the risk of possibly aggravating those in the medical profession, would any government refuse duty and tax concessions for life saving medical equipment and drugs so as to push the costs of seeking treatment here at par with what one pays in India? Imagine the consequences of such actions such as outsourced residential accommodation close to the medical facility, a possible reduction in the cost of treatment at competing private hospitals in the country, a reduction in health insurance premiums because now health care is now more competitively priced and the cost of repatriation to India to seek cheaper treatment is no longer an insurance rider option, additional jobs for Kenyan nurses and doctors in the facilities, improvement in general healthcare practices as competition intensifies etc etc.
A well thought out strategy to increase the accessibility of quality healthcare through such strategic partnerships formulated by the Central government, the licensing board for doctors, dentists and other medical practitioners, the KRA, Immigration Department and other interested bodies would see the destination of choice for medical tourism shifting to Kenya (or specifically one or several counties) and by the same token improving on the accessibility of quality medical care to more Kenyans who may not have the resources to seek treatment in foreign countries.
Today with tens of universities across Kenya to choose from and access to distance and correspondence studies from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide, I think India is one of the destinations that has lost out as a favorite education destination for Kenyan students. However, it has more than replaced what it lost in student enrolments with medical tourists from Kenya and indeed across the world seeking to visit the hundreds of medical facilities, many of them specialist facilities for advanced medical care and treatment at a fraction of the cost of similar treatment here at home.
India as a country with a population exceeding a billion strong (I heard 2.1 billion on radio recently but it was probably a dyslexic radio announcer that meant to say 1.2 billion) the doctors there have surely seen it all and by the same token have become experts in their chosen fields of specialization if the success rate of the many people that I know that have been treated in that country is anything to go by.
By and large the same conditions that saw many of us flock to India for studies many years ago are the same ones driving the medical tourism business today, to wit hundreds of hospitals to choose from, a myriad of specialists to suit any number of individuals, a mere 5 hours flying time from Nairobi, a multicultural patient population and more importantly is easy on the pocket.
My understanding is that the medical field in India is so competitive that to get to the top of the profession requires a commitment to providing medical care and not necessarily enriching yourself in the process. Pre-eminent and wealthy doctors are also found in India, but their journey to the apex of their careers has been a slow slog after years of success and positive contribution to their chosen speciality that then gains them a glowing professional reputation. This is a country where if your condition is diagnosed as being at an advanced stage and therefore inoperable or untreatable, this information is conveyed to you early enough without expensive surgical interventions, whereas the practice at home might be most likely for a doctor to see an opportunity to make some money and to therefore immediately recommend an elaborate surgical procedure to be carried out exploiting the desperation many families face and they are ready to cling to any possibility of a cure and that shall cost a fortune and with no hope of recovery to the patient therefore ensuring that families spend the last few resources they had paying for a treatment regimen that is doomed to fail from the word go!
But why can’t this medical tourism business practice be replicated right here in Kenya? Has any county government thought of partnering with those hospitals in India to set up facilities and laboratories similar to those in India in their backyards? Has any county government thought of partnering with those same hospitals and utilizing existing medical facilities in their counties for setting up of specialized medical units/branches of those Indian hospitals?
At the risk of possibly aggravating those in the medical profession, would any government refuse duty and tax concessions for life saving medical equipment and drugs so as to push the costs of seeking treatment here at par with what one pays in India? Imagine the consequences of such actions such as outsourced residential accommodation close to the medical facility, a possible reduction in the cost of treatment at competing private hospitals in the country, a reduction in health insurance premiums because now health care is now more competitively priced and the cost of repatriation to India to seek cheaper treatment is no longer an insurance rider option, additional jobs for Kenyan nurses and doctors in the facilities, improvement in general healthcare practices as competition intensifies etc etc.
A well thought out strategy to increase the accessibility of quality healthcare through such strategic partnerships formulated by the Central government, the licensing board for doctors, dentists and other medical practitioners, the KRA, Immigration Department and other interested bodies would see the destination of choice for medical tourism shifting to Kenya (or specifically one or several counties) and by the same token improving on the accessibility of quality medical care to more Kenyans who may not have the resources to seek treatment in foreign countries.
Thursday, 19 June 2014
Brr………it’s freezing:
It’s the cold season in Nyeri but longtime residents are telling me ‘ngoja July’!
But if this is a ‘kionjo’ of July, then do I really want to be around when July comes calling? It’s just round the corner so it won’t be long now. In anticipation, and based on the fact that it is just me and my lonesome self, freezing my butt and every other appendage off………no wife, no housemate, no one but me (reminds me of a Mexican soap on TV some years back), I decided to find a companion to give me some warmth in the cold of the night.
So I went out and bought a room heater at the second of the local supermarkets (the first one having exhausted its stocks already) that I visited and not a moment too soon as I was told by the very friendly attendant serving me because once July and her arctic conditions kick in, the heaters literally fly off the shelves and become scarcer than a politician visiting their rural villages after an election. I think I shall call her Malina goddess of the sun in Inuit mythology. Even the locals are grumbling that this is the coldest it has got this early in the year so are we about to experience a snow fall in Nyeri??
As they say, this is the kind of cold that comes to claim old men and as I am now rapidly approaching the shorter side of life………shorter as in the journey of life that I have travelled so far is longer than the one I am expected to travel from here on biblically speaking………….I do not wish to be claimed prematurely so Malina was a necessity. She will see to my needs to keep warm without a grumble!
This is the kind of cold that permeates every nook and cranny of the house and the office and causes ones toes to feel as if they are frost bitten and the tiled floor to feel like a skating rink. This is the season when mugs of steaming tea are quaffed in huge quantities to try and maintain a stable metabolism and you can be sure that hotels, cafes and restaurants are doing a roaring business in this regard.
Even when outdoors and the sun is shining, it feels as if it is titillating you with its promise of warmth because despite its shine, little warmth passes through to warm the air so it feels like a sun unable to penetrate a bubble wrap of cold frigid air. Grey skies are the order of the day with short intervals of sunshine without warmth and therefore clothes take forever to dry despite the sun shining and Mount Kenya’s peaks have not been seen for more than a month now. I feel sorry for those with many kids and therefore heavy loads of washing. Maybe the mountain has moved a few miles closer to town hence the unrelenting cold.
The guys who sell used woolen ‘kabutis’ the type that you see people in Europe & North America wearing at the peak of winter are doing a roaring business. These items are flying off the hangers and come to think of it, I must also get myself one before they become expensive since my new found companion Malina cannot possibly accompany me wherever I go to keep me warm. Hers is strictly to do so in the house.
I see gloves have also begun showing up on roadside displays and shops as have balaclavas a.k.a ‘bochori’ and these will soon be acceptable dressing accessories. Anything to keep the cold at bay! I’ll have to ask Malina if the gloves are necessary though before committing to them.
So there you have it, my first winter experience on the slopes of the great mountain “na mambo bado” so I am told! I am not sure I am looking forward to it but again beggars can't be choosers.
But if this is a ‘kionjo’ of July, then do I really want to be around when July comes calling? It’s just round the corner so it won’t be long now. In anticipation, and based on the fact that it is just me and my lonesome self, freezing my butt and every other appendage off………no wife, no housemate, no one but me (reminds me of a Mexican soap on TV some years back), I decided to find a companion to give me some warmth in the cold of the night.
So I went out and bought a room heater at the second of the local supermarkets (the first one having exhausted its stocks already) that I visited and not a moment too soon as I was told by the very friendly attendant serving me because once July and her arctic conditions kick in, the heaters literally fly off the shelves and become scarcer than a politician visiting their rural villages after an election. I think I shall call her Malina goddess of the sun in Inuit mythology. Even the locals are grumbling that this is the coldest it has got this early in the year so are we about to experience a snow fall in Nyeri??
As they say, this is the kind of cold that comes to claim old men and as I am now rapidly approaching the shorter side of life………shorter as in the journey of life that I have travelled so far is longer than the one I am expected to travel from here on biblically speaking………….I do not wish to be claimed prematurely so Malina was a necessity. She will see to my needs to keep warm without a grumble!
This is the kind of cold that permeates every nook and cranny of the house and the office and causes ones toes to feel as if they are frost bitten and the tiled floor to feel like a skating rink. This is the season when mugs of steaming tea are quaffed in huge quantities to try and maintain a stable metabolism and you can be sure that hotels, cafes and restaurants are doing a roaring business in this regard.
Even when outdoors and the sun is shining, it feels as if it is titillating you with its promise of warmth because despite its shine, little warmth passes through to warm the air so it feels like a sun unable to penetrate a bubble wrap of cold frigid air. Grey skies are the order of the day with short intervals of sunshine without warmth and therefore clothes take forever to dry despite the sun shining and Mount Kenya’s peaks have not been seen for more than a month now. I feel sorry for those with many kids and therefore heavy loads of washing. Maybe the mountain has moved a few miles closer to town hence the unrelenting cold.
The guys who sell used woolen ‘kabutis’ the type that you see people in Europe & North America wearing at the peak of winter are doing a roaring business. These items are flying off the hangers and come to think of it, I must also get myself one before they become expensive since my new found companion Malina cannot possibly accompany me wherever I go to keep me warm. Hers is strictly to do so in the house.
I see gloves have also begun showing up on roadside displays and shops as have balaclavas a.k.a ‘bochori’ and these will soon be acceptable dressing accessories. Anything to keep the cold at bay! I’ll have to ask Malina if the gloves are necessary though before committing to them.
So there you have it, my first winter experience on the slopes of the great mountain “na mambo bado” so I am told! I am not sure I am looking forward to it but again beggars can't be choosers.
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
Where is justice for the victims of terror?
Clearly we are on our own! We are under siege and have nowhere to run because our government has seemingly abdicated its responsibility in ensuring security and safety of its people.
How can heavily armed raiders waltz into the country without so much as a blip showing on the intelligence radar? How in this day and age of the internet, heightened awareness, shared intelligence and other clearly failed initiatives like ‘Nyumba Kumi’ can what seems like a well-planned, coordinated and financed mission have gone on unnoticed ? When the British government chose to close down its Consulate offices in Mombasa last week probably as a result of resourceful intelligence gathering pointing at an impending attack somewhere in the Coast what did the security organs do with that information or is it still sitting on someone’s in tray unread and gathering dust?
As we mourn the 48 people that have now been confirmed dead in Mpeketoni, Lamu County though eye witness accounts put the deaths at many more, hard questions need to be asked. God knows how many other lie dead somewhere in the bush while many more are injured. Perhaps in the fullness of time we shall get the correct numbers of death and injured Kenyans if the government statements are to be believed which is becoming increasingly difficult given the confusing and conflicting information issued through government statements during the Westgate siege 9 short months ago.
Boko Haram tactics of wanton and callous massacre of innocents and destruction of property seems to be the modus operandi in this instance and probably portends to bloodier attacks in other areas where Kenyans live with no security sooner rather than later if the apathy and ineptitude of those supposed to ensure the lives and properties of Kenyans are safeguarded is anything to go by. What is to prevent these terrorists from raiding bigger towns and settlements in Kenya with more loss of life and property for they can only be emboldened by their past successes?
But surely, we can’t keep on saying that we have competent security in place in Kenya while heavily armed raiders, looters, poachers, bandits, militants…….or whatever other name you want to call them come into the country with impunity, carry out their dastardly raids and attacks on our animals, innocent people and our police stations and then just vanish into the night after an orgy of violence lasting several hours. Is there no rapid response machinery in place to respond to just such situations? Don’t we have any military bases close to our borders with our neighbors that should respond to external threats from our warlike northern neighbors close to Mpeketoni, Lamu and other towns lying along the access route into Kenya from Somalia?
And why are those tasked with ensuring the safety and security of Kenyan still in office promising fire and brimstone to those responsible for the continuing terror attacks but doing nothing that seems to remove the threats from our midst? They should have been relieved of their duties through summary dismissal a long time ago and charged for dereliction of duty for they have the blood of almost 150 people that have been killed in terrorism related attacks since that fateful day in September 2013 when 67 people lost their lives at Westgate.
A nation under attack needs to be more responsive and better able to respond to well publicized threats to the security of its people and their property and it appears that they are clearly off the mark on this. We have been promised swift and tough action by the responsible government functionary, but this is not the first time that this tough talk has happened and nothing concrete can be seen.
Kenyans are crying out for justice for those who have lost their lives and been physically scarred by terrorism and the government must be unrelenting in the quest for the perpetrators and financiers of these terror activities before they close our country down.
How can heavily armed raiders waltz into the country without so much as a blip showing on the intelligence radar? How in this day and age of the internet, heightened awareness, shared intelligence and other clearly failed initiatives like ‘Nyumba Kumi’ can what seems like a well-planned, coordinated and financed mission have gone on unnoticed ? When the British government chose to close down its Consulate offices in Mombasa last week probably as a result of resourceful intelligence gathering pointing at an impending attack somewhere in the Coast what did the security organs do with that information or is it still sitting on someone’s in tray unread and gathering dust?
As we mourn the 48 people that have now been confirmed dead in Mpeketoni, Lamu County though eye witness accounts put the deaths at many more, hard questions need to be asked. God knows how many other lie dead somewhere in the bush while many more are injured. Perhaps in the fullness of time we shall get the correct numbers of death and injured Kenyans if the government statements are to be believed which is becoming increasingly difficult given the confusing and conflicting information issued through government statements during the Westgate siege 9 short months ago.
Boko Haram tactics of wanton and callous massacre of innocents and destruction of property seems to be the modus operandi in this instance and probably portends to bloodier attacks in other areas where Kenyans live with no security sooner rather than later if the apathy and ineptitude of those supposed to ensure the lives and properties of Kenyans are safeguarded is anything to go by. What is to prevent these terrorists from raiding bigger towns and settlements in Kenya with more loss of life and property for they can only be emboldened by their past successes?
But surely, we can’t keep on saying that we have competent security in place in Kenya while heavily armed raiders, looters, poachers, bandits, militants…….or whatever other name you want to call them come into the country with impunity, carry out their dastardly raids and attacks on our animals, innocent people and our police stations and then just vanish into the night after an orgy of violence lasting several hours. Is there no rapid response machinery in place to respond to just such situations? Don’t we have any military bases close to our borders with our neighbors that should respond to external threats from our warlike northern neighbors close to Mpeketoni, Lamu and other towns lying along the access route into Kenya from Somalia?
And why are those tasked with ensuring the safety and security of Kenyan still in office promising fire and brimstone to those responsible for the continuing terror attacks but doing nothing that seems to remove the threats from our midst? They should have been relieved of their duties through summary dismissal a long time ago and charged for dereliction of duty for they have the blood of almost 150 people that have been killed in terrorism related attacks since that fateful day in September 2013 when 67 people lost their lives at Westgate.
A nation under attack needs to be more responsive and better able to respond to well publicized threats to the security of its people and their property and it appears that they are clearly off the mark on this. We have been promised swift and tough action by the responsible government functionary, but this is not the first time that this tough talk has happened and nothing concrete can be seen.
Kenyans are crying out for justice for those who have lost their lives and been physically scarred by terrorism and the government must be unrelenting in the quest for the perpetrators and financiers of these terror activities before they close our country down.
Wednesday, 4 June 2014
Of Brutal Husbands and Cuckquean wives:
Someone came to see me at my work place recently. It was a lady accompanied by her brother. The reason that she came to my office was to narrate a rather incredible story that she had been turning around in her mind in a state of indecision whether to visit or not for a few weeks or so she said.
Her story starts with seeing an email sent to her husband supposedly originating from Nyeri branch where I am based in regards to obtaining a loan to purchase a truck. Now the business of banking is all about confidentiality and there was no way I was going to reveal whether this person was a client of the bank or not or even if he had applied for the loan. In any case she had received such information from his private email which meant that she had breached the privacy that personal email entails.
So she starts on her spiel telling me about how she was the party behind the success of their businesses because when he married her he had nothing and then goes on to reveal the husbands lack of financial discipline and how their joint property was now the subject of court cases and auctioneers because he had not been servicing his personal debts including loans taken from other financiers for purchase of trucks. I let it go on for some time…..nothing like a good vent every now and then bofore I asked her if they still lived together and Part 2 of her saga began.
He had taken up with another woman after the successes she had brought him in life and in business even owning a residential / commercial building in one of the towns close to Nyeri jointly with him. He had then abandoned her for the bosom of another woman and was a brute of a man ready to pummel her at a moment’s notice. She in fact did look a little dented possibly from previous encounters with this man and even this visit to my office she revealed would get her killed by him if I was to say a word to this mysterious man.
With little else to say other than to give her assurances that the notes that I was writing would be of immense help to me were he to come calling for a loan, I wished her well and she went off her brother in tow.
I didn’t know what to think! If I had known the man, would I have alerted him to the fact that his wife had visited and I wanted assurances that he would service his loans? What if he went straight to where she was and killed her? Would I not be an accomplice to murder because she had mentioned in the presence of her brother that he was capable of killing her?
Could I rely on the testimony of a clearly bitter woman who had neither taken the trouble to identify herself nor brought any evidence to suggest that theirs was a legally binding marriage? What if this was just a jealous busy body intent on spoiling the reputation and goodwill of an innocent hard working man?
Today in banking we have various tools to confirm the credit worthiness or otherwise of anyone with a borrowing record so any red flag would surely pop up should I make an enquiry as I was required to do for any new loans. In addition we request for bank statements going back for the past 6 months to see someone’s financial history at whichever bank he has an account at to see that his financial dealings have been above board and then require that an account is opened with the bank thereafter. Were all these tools available to me in vain and should I therefore rely on the narrative of a total stranger for my appraisal should the man surface? What if she was telling the truth and the man was indeed a scoundrel?
Let’s wait and see if he turns up then I shall decide what to do!
Her story starts with seeing an email sent to her husband supposedly originating from Nyeri branch where I am based in regards to obtaining a loan to purchase a truck. Now the business of banking is all about confidentiality and there was no way I was going to reveal whether this person was a client of the bank or not or even if he had applied for the loan. In any case she had received such information from his private email which meant that she had breached the privacy that personal email entails.
So she starts on her spiel telling me about how she was the party behind the success of their businesses because when he married her he had nothing and then goes on to reveal the husbands lack of financial discipline and how their joint property was now the subject of court cases and auctioneers because he had not been servicing his personal debts including loans taken from other financiers for purchase of trucks. I let it go on for some time…..nothing like a good vent every now and then bofore I asked her if they still lived together and Part 2 of her saga began.
He had taken up with another woman after the successes she had brought him in life and in business even owning a residential / commercial building in one of the towns close to Nyeri jointly with him. He had then abandoned her for the bosom of another woman and was a brute of a man ready to pummel her at a moment’s notice. She in fact did look a little dented possibly from previous encounters with this man and even this visit to my office she revealed would get her killed by him if I was to say a word to this mysterious man.
With little else to say other than to give her assurances that the notes that I was writing would be of immense help to me were he to come calling for a loan, I wished her well and she went off her brother in tow.
I didn’t know what to think! If I had known the man, would I have alerted him to the fact that his wife had visited and I wanted assurances that he would service his loans? What if he went straight to where she was and killed her? Would I not be an accomplice to murder because she had mentioned in the presence of her brother that he was capable of killing her?
Could I rely on the testimony of a clearly bitter woman who had neither taken the trouble to identify herself nor brought any evidence to suggest that theirs was a legally binding marriage? What if this was just a jealous busy body intent on spoiling the reputation and goodwill of an innocent hard working man?
Today in banking we have various tools to confirm the credit worthiness or otherwise of anyone with a borrowing record so any red flag would surely pop up should I make an enquiry as I was required to do for any new loans. In addition we request for bank statements going back for the past 6 months to see someone’s financial history at whichever bank he has an account at to see that his financial dealings have been above board and then require that an account is opened with the bank thereafter. Were all these tools available to me in vain and should I therefore rely on the narrative of a total stranger for my appraisal should the man surface? What if she was telling the truth and the man was indeed a scoundrel?
Let’s wait and see if he turns up then I shall decide what to do!
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