I didn’t know what a drip tray was:

I get home early one Monday morning after a weekend in Nairobi with my family. There is this awful smell coming from somewhere in the house. It’s not over powering but it smells like something small has died and is putrefying. Or perhaps the house help who comes on Saturday to wash my clothes and clean the house in my absence may have switched off the fridge and now the meat has gone bad, I think to myself.

So I drop my stuff…..stuff here meaning my dirty laundry and the special lactose free milk that I can’t get in Nyeri and which my wife bought for me to bring to Nyeri. I am lactose intolerant and can’t digest regular milk so it’s the Kshs. 130.00 per half liter bottle for me of Bio, but I digress!!

I look in the fridge, and sniff about like one of those wolves I see on National Geographic channel as it sniffs the air for goodies, but nothing. That smell isn’t coming from inside the fridge which thankfully is switched on and my meat is nowhere near rancid. It can’t be my dirty laundry either as it was in the car with me or I would have noticed. For good measure I take an extra strong whiff of it confirming that it’s just the regular dirty laundry and correct manly smells!!

I look through the rest of the kitchen and house and other than what appears to be some liquid in a container bolted to the back of the fridge I can’t seem to find anything out of the ordinary. So I open the windows, spray some air freshener and after a shower off I go to perform my nation building duties!

Fast forward to evening! I have just come from the kinyozi and I am feeling well coiffed, itchy beard gone and hair looking smooth and lustrous…………..and jet black!! I feel and look 10 years younger. That smell is still there, pervasive and funky as ever and the house help is also at home. She has washed the dirty clothes and is cleaning the house and cooking my Monday evening dinner the leftovers of which I’ll have for Tuesday afternoon lunch or dinner depending on my mood.

She has also noticed the smell but can’t quite figure it out. She thinks it’s the container of liquid that I noticed in the morning but we can be sure because it’s hidden out of sight and you can’t even drain it properly. We conclude that the pallet that the fridge came on could have been stained by some liquids following a defrosting exercise a week ago and it probably just needs airing for the smell to clear. So we lift up the fridge, remove the pallet and she takes it outside the house to clear up the smell.

But this smell just won’t go away and I can’t think of what I’d say to any visitor that may come calling, though it’s unusual for me to get visitors anyway but who knows, someone could just visit me after the smell no longer bothers me and leave with a very poor impression about my personal hygiene habits!

So down on all fours I go to peer closely at this liquid thingy and using the corner of one of the kitchen towels try and drain the liquid. It is now crystal clear that this is the cause of the stench because the minute that towel soaks up that liquid the smell overwhelms. That this is the source of my problems is now clear!!

A closer look reveals that the container which I later find out is called a drip tray has been screwed onto the fridge with two small nuts which I promptly unscrew, gingerly lift the tray and empty the stinking brown contents into the toilet……….together with one of the screws that makes an audible splash as it disappears from view into the murky waters!!

But I can’t return the tray with only one screw and I don’t know where I can get a screw at this time of the night so like any clever chap and against my better judgement I have no choice but to reach in and pick up that screw which thankfully is still at the bottom of the toilet bowl after which I quickly flush away the remaining muck ensuring that it becomes someone else’s problem.

I then rinse of the drip tray, dry it off and then reattach it to its correct position and after a through wash of my hands with anti-bacterial soap and some apple cider vinegar thrown in just to be sure, I have solved my problem and there is no longer a malodorous odor in the house.

So next time you get a stench in your house whose source you can’t trace you have learnt from the expert that the drip tray on your fridge could be your source of woe and that’s how I found out what a drip tray was!!

My pretty neighbor:

She smiled at me this morning and waved at me shyly through the window and it made my morning and I can't stop thinking about her the whole day!! But let me start from the beginning because like many stories already written and yet others still unwritten, this is a love at first sight tale.

I live in an apartment complex of 12 units on three floors. One of my neighbors is a real looker, a cutie pie as one of my brothers would describe her, and though I don’t see her many times, the few times that I do my heart skips a beat. As she passes close to me on those few occasions that our paths crisscross I can’t help but look admiringly and longingly at her. She is shy and bashful and there is always a hint of a smile playing on her pretty face.

She reminds me very much of others who have been in my life in the not too distant past in her innocence and pureness, unsullied as yet by the difficulties of life and seemingly ignorant of the rat race scurrying around her. Wherever I see her, strains of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t she lovely” belt out stereophonically and loudly through my head as I wonder where she has been all my life. I shouldn’t be having these thoughts because I am old enough to be her father, her grandfather perhaps god dammit! But I can’t help myself.

The other day she talked to me! This pretty face actually shyly looked me over and asked me a question and my knees buckled. Why me, me of all the neighbors in all the complexes in Nyeri, why did she choose me to have a brief conversation with or was it my lucky day or was this perhaps just a cunning plan to entrap me?

She was almost surreptitious in her approach to a conversation, unsure of whether I’d respond to her request. But it had happened because she needed my help; she needed my help to assist in a rather difficult and delicate task for her to retrieve something that had been dropped over a fence. The God's of fate had smiled down on me and put me in this envious situation .

You see she is not cut out for climbing over fences and gates and so on but I would do it in a heartbeat, in a jiffy even……and I did soaring over that fence almost as it wasn’t there. Carl Lewis that champion hurdler of yesteryear would have been proud of me. And after all, ladies should never ruin their trousers on account of such things when a gentleman is around!!

She had dropped something, a ball actually, and she needed it to be picked up and for her to go back home. I guess it is possible to accidentally drop something and then be unable to retrieve it hence asking a kindly passerby to do the gentlemanly thing and I happened to be that gentleman who was at the right place and at the right time………or maybe she was baiting me looking out for me to exit my house and then dropping something at that opportune time so that she could strike up a conversation with me, I will never know!

Suffice is to say that I was happy to have been of assistance and if I had been a puppy I would have been wagging my tail furiously a million times a minute secure in the knowledge that I had been of assistance however brief and fleeting it had been to this angel.

So who is this amazing human being, a little girl who can’t be more than 2 years old that lives in my complex but who has an amazing command of English in a grown up sort of way. I don't believe that I was as confident back in teh day as the three and four year olds I see nowadays loaded down with books (as I would imagine) in their back packs confidently believing all that their teachers tell them.

This little girl reminds me of my own daughters all those years ago just starting off in their journey through life innocent and pure in their thoughts and actions. One of them was so precocious and adventurous when young that she almost got lost at Heathrow Airport as we waited for our connecting flight as we proceeded on a family vacation, her older sister being less adventurous firmly seated next to me despite my entreaties to look our for her little sister. That's why I feel weak in the knees when I see these young ones and marvel at what comes out of the mouth of these babes and boys.

Enjoy your kids while they are young because soon they will fly the coop and become independent and free then you'll wonder where time went!!

Short insight - What is the fuss all about?

The hullabaloo about the NYS scandal is too noisy and unnecessary. You see, I came to the conclusion many years ago that the human being is the only animal capable of infinite harm to its own kind and these things don’t shock me anymore. Those mentioned in this unfolding scandal are doing nothing more than confirming what I have known all along.

That people can choose to enrich themselves by over invoicing on essential drugs that would benefit scores of children, or being paid for delivery of non-existent goods and services is not news anymore because this is what has been happening in Kenya for many years with barely a yawn from the gate keepers who are paid to see that these things don't happen as those entrusted with public funds continue to pillage and line their pockets at will.

The Kabura affidavit that has exposed the corruption that goes on in high places in Kenya is to me just a tip of the iceberg and the stuff that is under water (given the iceberg analogy) and the corrupt schemes that have been perpetrated by various senior government officials over the years would put this small Waiguru scheme where only Kshs. 791 Million (or Kshs. 1.6 Billion depending on who you are talking to) to shame.

I wonder whether other similarly walking wounded having been used and then dumped in the dustbin of obscurity will now come out to pen their own affidavits exposing corruption in high places. I wonder how many more of those involved in past corruption practices are now seeking divine intervention so that their filthy issues are not exposed. I wonder whether there is any blackmail going on even as I pen this post from those threatening to expose their puppet masters and finally I wonder if there shall be any mysterious deaths on some whistle blowers who know too much and must therefore be consigned to their makers before they spill the beans!!

The “Cow Syndrome”

A Chinese story is told of a wise man that after many weeks of travel hungry, thirsty and running out of supplies came across a very poor farmer and his wife and son who offered him and his assistant some food to eat, water to drink and a place to spend the night. The farmer and his family were very poor and their clothes were well worn and had seen better days while the house was of the poorest quality, with a leaky roof, was poorly constructed and clearly the farmer despite having a large tract of land was struggling financially his only source of income the money that he and his family got from selling milk to their neighbors from their one solitary cow.

The next day as the wise man set off on his journey he turned to his assistant and told him to lead the cow out of the farm and push it off a nearby cliff to its certain death. Questioning the wisdom of his master for instructing him to lead the only income generating asset that the poor farmer had to its death after his generosity in sharing the little that he and his family had he nonetheless went ahead and did his masters bidding and off they went on their merry way the assistant with a heavy heart for surely they had condemned the farmer and his family to a pitiful life.

Many years later the wise man and his faithful assistant happened to pass by the same area and instead of a poor shack they found a beautiful and magnificent house, well-tended fields with a variety of food crops and a well-stocked granary and gleaming farm machines in the barn and the garage all looked after by a retinue of workers and servants. The farmer and his family were clothed in shiny clothes and looked prosperous and well fed. The wise man introduced himself to the farmer and asked him the source of his wealth whereupon he told him of a wise man whom he had accommodated in his home many years ago but that had repaid him by pushing his cow off a cliff to its death and how that had been his only income generating asset for him and his family.

He went on to explain that after the loss of his cow he struggled financially as he had no other source of income and decided to start farming on his piece of land to at least feed himself and his family. In the process he realized that they would grow more than they could consume and so they began diversfying the food that they grew selling some of their produce to their neighbors and soon they were suppliers to hotels and other businesses in the area. The act of that wise man in pushing the cow of the cliff had grown his wealth into what it was today he explained and if that cow were still alive he would still have been selling the milk and his life would not have improved at all!! The” cow syndrome” was consigning the farmer to a life of penury while he thought that it was his source of livelihood.

Today I came across such a person that has shed off the “cow syndrome”. It was a lady, let’s call her Joyce, whom we had extended a loan facility to increase her residential units so as to supplement with rent her income from her job at a nearby school as well as her poultry business. However as is wont to happen and despite the best of intentions, Joyce’s tenants moved out en-mass for whatever reason, her chickens were afflicted by a mysterious disease and died and suddenly she was unable to meet the loan instalments she had committed to pay monthly. In the process her telephone was stolen and unable to get a replacement she remained unreachable.

The situation rapidly went downhill and unable to contact Joyce as her loans were now in arrears we went in search of her at her home where by my colleagues were directed to her place of work at the nearby school where they were able to talk to her and understand her predicament and agree on a course of action in regards to the repayment of her facilities.

It would appear that there was a storm already brewing in regards to Joyce’s future at her place of employment because as she mentioned to me she was thereafter sacked by the school management with no notice for the grievous crime of being visited by CID officers (my colleagues) and was not accorded the right to tell her side of the story and be heard as is required under HR practices and the law!

The unfairness or otherwise of her sacking or indeed the flimsy reason for her joblessness is not the topic I am discussing here because if she so wishes she may pursue her tormentors through the acceptable legal processes to get redress. As she mentions to me this was the turning point in her life because Joyce has crossed the Rubicon, her cow had been pushed off a cliff and she is now a much happier and contented person then when she was in employment and my offer to help her with a letter to the school administration so as to get her job back explaining that my colleagues were not CID officers has been firmly but politely rejected.

Her employer had shackled her to her desk for 16 years and she had very little time (as anyone in formal employment shall attest) to engage in other activities to improve her livelihood and now that she is free she has found a new lease of life, looks more contented and happy and has even been able to engage in some focused income generating activities that has allowed her to catch up on her loan repayments and looks forward to a more prosperous life in future. Life now looks rosy!!

My colleagues drove her cow off a cliff and she is now thankful for the opportunity this has given her in revealing a hitherto hidden new lease of life!! So push your cow off the cliff and see what will emerge if you are fed up with your current cow…….you’ll never know unless you try!!

How my year has kicked off:

Today is Day 62. It has been 62 days since I had a drink after I took a decision that I needed a detox period from booze. Over the years I have talked about it but this time I decided to just do it, cold turkey, without any fanfare and without consulting anyone or making those pacts that I see other making that if caught drinking anything alcoholic it’s a 10K fine!

It’s difficult to give all the gory details so let’s just say that I was an occasional drinker and mainly on weekends so it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be though for the first three weeks I craved the taste of beer – my favorite tipple – until I discovered a beer with 0% alcohol called Bavaria that became my favorite drink. It has all the effects of any other beer except that you don’t get the buzz. You pee just as you would and it tastes pretty much the same as any other beer but has no other effect and it was kind of strange, but I persisted and today I don’t even feel like I need the taste of beer.

What I also discovered was non-alcoholic wine though why they call it wine is beyond me as it is just sparkling juice and too sweet at that. I also discovered that many pubs do not cater for the non-alcoholic drinker save for a soft drink, juice, water and tea so many times I would find myself having a soft drink or a juice if I found myself at a pub. Even the humble mocktail (a cocktail minus the alcohol) in some pubs and bars are unavailable and it seems that the non-alcoholic imbiber is neither recognized nor welcome at many joints. It made me feel like my vegetarian friends who are terribly shortchanged in many restaurants in Kenya by the absence of a variety of vegetarian fare!

While the choice to begin my fast was accidental it could not have come at a better time when the temptation is highest and invitations to all kinds of functions where drinks flow in abundance is at an all-time high during the Christmas and New Year festivities! When Lucifer is tempting you and your conscience refuses to falter to his entreaties then you know that you can soldier on and even my colleagues during the end of year party and the family reunion on Christmas Day couldn’t believe that I was not imbibing!

There are obvious and myriad advantages to not drinking that I have come to appreciate. I recall things much more easily now thanks to a clearer head unclouded by the fog of that fifth beer. I had a great difficulty remembering names and faces but this has improved over the last two months. My appetite has never been better than it has been over the past 60 odd days and I don’t miss a single meal. My sleep pattern is also great and I either sleep dreamlessly or have sweet dreams of positive things in life unlike the nightmares of old where I’d wake up in a cold sweat. My spouse however now complains that I sleep too early so I guess you can't please everyone!!

That is how I started the year 2016 that is already three weeks old and my initial timeline was to take a three month sabbatical from alcohol and reassess the situation thereafter so I still have another 31 days or so to go. I am not sure what I’ll do when my sabbatical is over and I shall take that decision when necessary to do so.

For now I am a teetotaler and loving it. I can’t quite seem to understand how people stay up until late at night imbibing on their favorite tipple and generally seeming to have a good time. You can only drink so many soft drinks, Bavarias or juices after all so I don’t have the urge to stay up later than I should making small talk as I struggle to stay awake!

So for the time being if you offer me a drink, don’t be shocked if my choice is not what you expect as there is a time and a place for everything. And for those of my friends, who have embraced this detox from alcohol thingy, hang in there and don’t listen to the naysayers who will tempt you with an alcoholic drink of your choice no matter the cost. If I can do it so can you!

And before I forget Happy New Year to all of you!!

Short insight - Where not to eat in Nyeri when hungry:

I had half an hour to spare as my vehicle was being serviced at a garage in a local petrol station, so I popped into a nearby hotel as I browsed my newspaper for some lunch. This hotel is one of the oldest in Nyeri and has an excellent location in a commercial/business area so the expectation is that it should always have a sizeable crowd in the restaurant. But today I was alone and this should have alerted me that something was amiss.

So I take my seat and ask for the special of the day that was advertised on the board at the entrance to the hotel. It’s my favorite pork and chips and I figure that being the special of the day it should take very little time to prepare and I should be in and out in 20 minutes tops. As I wait I ask for a soft drink which I sip on in anticipation of a sumptuous meal soon.

After 10 minutes, a threesome arrives for lunch and takes their seats at a table and now we are four patrons. “Poor guys” I think to myself “do they know how long it will take to get served in this place?” It has now been 20 minutes after all and there is no sign of my meal and I am alone so surely for three people it shall take double or even triple the amount of time it shall take to get my meal to the table.

I continue reading my newspaper, the hunger pangs biting and I looking anxiously at my watch wondering what’s taking so long but secure in the knowledge that I shall be out of there before the threesome has even started on their meal. Finally I see the waitress who is serving me appear with a jug and a bowl to wash my hands – a uniquely Kenyan tradition even if the meal requires no use of the hands - and the hunger pangs now nip even more brutally. It has now been 30 minutes since I showed up!

I don’t believe what I am seeing though as she goes straight to the table of three not even acknowledging my presence and proceeds to wash their hands. “Perhaps” I think to myself “I am next!” but alas done with the threesome she troops off to wherever they go when hiding from customers and returns with the utensils to help the Johnnie-come-lately’s enjoy their meal. A few minutes later she comes out laden with three plates of food and proceeds to serve the threesome. It is now 40 minutes since I took my seat.

Now all pretensions of being a gentleman are gone and I hiss at her (why do we do that?) to come to my table and I can see that she is quite uncomfortable because she knows that I am hungry and possibly upset because of the length of time it has taken not to serve me and in addition a threesome who came after me has been served before me.

I tell her that I can’t wait any longer for my meal as I am busy and I need to pay for my soft drink expecting her to apologize and try to hurry up the order, but she is either clueless on to how to handle an angry customer or more likely has no training in managing the situation that she finds herself in at present. I promptly pay for my soft drink, walk to the garage, collect my vehicle and go to the office where I sit licking my wounds the hunger pangs still gnawing away but too upset to think of eating even as I write about this nasty experience.

That folks is my experience at the recently refurbished Central Hotel in Nyeri. The hotel has been recently taken over by a tenant – the second in the past year – and they still can’t seem to get it right! The outside sitting area on a sunny day is the perfect place to have a leisurely meal as you catch up on the news but the atrocious service standards and lack of clientele seems to suggest a lackadaisical approach to customer service.

You’d expect that an upmarket restaurant in a town where upmarket restaurants are few and far between would be falling over itself to attract the local business and office crowd but alas this is not the first time I am experiencing mediocre service at the place the first time being about two months ago when the management changed hands and they went around town distributing vouchers for free lunches to introduce the hotel to the masses! On that day the food took about 20 minutes to arrive and some of the accompaniments were cold and the presentation barely exciting to any of my nerve endings.

So you have been warned, avoid that place like the plague and if you know the guys managing the place tell them that they need to shape up on their service because hungry people don’t like to wait for their food for any length of time beyond 10 minutes. As for me they have lost my custom however little it was contributing to their bottom line.

I’m done with lunch today and shall have an early dinner at home instead but that experience has left a nasty taste in my mouth pun fully intended!!

Short insight – Why you should lend your own money

So you want to help that brother, cousin, friend etc who is struggling financially? Then do it with your own money………..not bank’s money!

Recently I came across an incident on the above lines. It appears that one of the bank clients Paul (not his real name) obtained a loan to purchase a vehicle on behalf of someone else. It is likely that this someone else, let’s call him Jamlick, could not qualify on his own name either because he has no bank account or more likely he has been adversely listed on Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) for being a defaulter and his bank declined his loan application.

Jamlick, having probably approached other financiers who were similarly reluctant to lend him the required amount on account of his CRB listing, it is likely that he then approached his brother, cousin, friend Paul to borrow on his behalf with a side arrangement where Jamlick would be depositing money in Paul’s account to cover loan repayments. Paul having had a good track record and not having been listed as a defaulter on CRB had no problem obtaining an asset finance loan from the bank.

This arrangement seems to have worked quite well until Jamlick defaulted on his commitment and the account is now in arrears. Naturally the party known to the bank is Paul whom we duly followed up and it is only after several follow up calls where he makes several unfulfilled promises to deposit money to cover the overdue instalments no doubt while pleading with Jamlick to do the honorable thing and settle his obligation that he reveals that the vehicle is being used by a friend elsewhere. He now requests the bank to arrange for repossession of the vehicle (that is in arrears anyway) as his friend has reneged on the arrangement that they had made!

If at this point you expect me to feel sorry for Jamlick’s predicament then you’re wrong because he is just a damned idiot! Here’s the reason why!!

From the outset and in the normal course of business between friends this is an arrangement that I am sure happens out there without any issues so long as both the parties adhere to their informal agreements. Whether the borrower gets any other benefit for his name to be used I am not sure but suffice is to say that very few business people would lend their names for free!

It is also almost certain that the initial deposit for the vehicle and insurance premium required and any other incidental expenses have been paid from Jamlick’s pocket and he now feels a sense of entitlement in the ownership of the vehicle because after all isn’t he the one that has been making the loan repayments to date and has he not met the earlier financial obligations towards purchasing the vehicle?

To cut a long story short, right now Paul’s reputation and financial credibility is at stake as the legitimate borrower with the bank and may find himself listed with CRB if the loan remains in arrears. The law also recognizes him as the legal owner of the vehicle given that it is him name on the log book albeit jointly with the bank and as such hiding under the cloak of having assisted someone is neither here nor there. The bank expects the loan to be serviced regularly and it is in Paul's best interest to settle the outstanding obligation and then pursue Jamlick separately to pay him back what he has paid to the bank!

Any side arrangement whether verbal or in writing with a 3rd party are therefore not recognized under any law and it is Paul who is likely to suffer the consequences of his misguided but well intentioned actions.

He should therefore have lent his own money and not involved the bank in his tomfoolery and he is therefore a damn idiot!!