While I was away (Part II)

The second part of our 10 day trip took us to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Did you know that there are seven Emirates making up the UAE? Did you know that of the seven Emirates only three produce oil? Of the three that produce oil Abu Dhabi is the one that accounts for 94% of the total oil production in this country while Dubai produces 4% with the balance of 2% being produced in Sharjah? Well now you know!!

Abu Dhabi is the capital of UAE by virtue of contributing 94% of the total oil revenue of this country and is the seat of the UAE government. It is a relatively new city having risen from its humble beginnings as a desert town 40 short years ago thanks in part to its vast reservoirs of oil sitting under its desert environment and estimated to last another 70 years at a production rate of 3 million barrels per day.

UAE has a total population of about 9.5 Million inhabitants and comprises of 600,000 indigenous people called the Emiratis who control the economy and own all the businesses and factors of production. The workforce of 8.9 Million is provided by people from across the world and from every conceivable continent that drive the economy with the vast majority of non-skilled labor coming from Asia.

All this information was given to us by a very knowledgeable tour guide originally from Sri Lanka and who has lived in the Emirates for the last 15 years.

The contrast between Delhi and Abu Dhabi starts at the airport. Whereas we had obtained our valid e-visas for both countries in Kenya, in India it took a minimum of 10 minutes for them to process your entry into the country while in Abu Dhabi this was done within a minute. The queues at the exchange bureaus at the airport in India need no repeating and the process in Abu Dhabi look literally seconds and with a promise that your remaining dirhams would be reconverted back to the original currency at the same rate on your way out of the country so that you did not suffer exchange losses. From entering the airport terminal to boarding our bus in India it had taken well over 4 hours while in Abu Dhabi this was accomplished within 45 minutes.

While infrastructurally the two countries are almost similar with wide highways and infrastructural development projects ongoing at a frenetic pace, the roads, streets and sidewalks of Abu Dhabi are scrupulously clean and free of congestion. Perhaps the fact that we arrived on a Friday the traditional day of rest in this predominantly Muslim country may have worked in our favor but this was F1 weekend and hordes of tourists were expected into the country. This is clearly a well-planned city unlike Delhi which seems to be two different cities of New Delhi and Old Delhi one representing order and sanity the other representing chaos and anarchy.

Day 1 was an exciting day of sightseeing and included a desert safari complete with a session of dune bashing, that insane sport where you follow each other in a convoy of fast moving 4x4 wheel drive Land Cruisers across the sand dunes in an exciting session of sliding up and down those gigantic sand dunes……something not for the faint hearted! Thanks to one of the passengers in the vehicle that I was in who succumbed to motion sick we got lost in the desert for at least 15 minutes and with a driver who spoke nothing else but Arabic we had no idea what they were conversing with his colleagues on phone as we wandered about looking for the rest of the convoy whom we found at the venue of the evening dinner among the sand dunes and loud piped music to our huge relief.

A delicious dinner under the clear desert skies followed and was finished off by an exotic belly dancer from Ukraine doing her thing to thunderous applause from the large crowd of tourists present. The desert safari is a must do experience for anyone visiting the Arabian Peninsula countries for the sheer exhilaration of speeding through desert dunes followed by an authentic dinner under the stars.

But we were here for Formula 1 the last race of the F1 season and which promised to be the culmination of an epic battle between two rivals that ironically race for the same team so as to determine the winner of the 2016 season. The event was at Yas Marina Circuit on Yas Island a reclaimed island that is now a popular recreation venue hosting the F1 circuit, Ferrari World, Yas Water World, multiple upmarket hotels, the Yas Links Golf Club and Yas Mall the largest mall in Abu Dhabi amongst others. Yas Island attracted 25 Million visitors in 2015 just so that you can get some perspective on what good planning to attract visitors can do for a country and its economy.

I am not a particularly great fan of F1 but some among the group are diehard fanatics and do not miss an opportunity to catch up on the action on their TV screens while in Kenya. They had managed to convince a good number of us to experience F1 racing in the raw. In addition these events normally go on long into the night with an excellent after show concert and this night promised to be a thrilling one with a live Lionel Richie concert at the adjoining Ferrari World open air stadium which to me was the highlight of the Abu Dhabi visit.

Let me confess that my F1 experience is better in the comfort of my living room because it gives you different perspectives to the same race from the starting grid, to the pit stops, any accidents, to the tight turns and the straights all captured by a battery of cameras both on the ground, in the air and on some selected drivers helmets also.

The live experience is a bit of an anticlimax because you stay in one position as defined by your ticket and then watch the cars passing by at blurring speeds. Thankfully a well-positioned large screen TV close to where we were seated allowed us to follow the race in real time much as we would do from the comfort of our homes! However the overall experience of a live event including the atmosphere, the high pitched sounds of high performance motors, the excitement, the cheering crowds, the fireworks display, the aircraft displays, the adrenaline etc cannot detract from the fact that it was a once in a lifetime experience and definitely time well spent for the qualifying and final rounds of the last race of the 2016 F1 season.

So there you have it folks, my experiences during a recent trip to India and UAE are now permanently on paper, but before I sign off it would be unfair to forget those who planned and made the trip so memorable for the 31 of us on that trip.

To DGI and EKG (you know yourselves) your planning, frequent feedback and patience over the months that we planned the trip was a breath of fresh air and you are recognized amongst us all as having been invaluable to the overall success of the trip. To the 31 souls that made the trip (again you know yourselves) we made new friendships and alliances that cannot be taken for granted and which we need to cultivate and exploit for our future well-being and peace of mind.

Finally we need to keep encouraging each other in our resolve towards attaining better health for ourselves and our families and be ambassadors to society in regards to matters of health.

And let us also not forget that what happened in India and UAE stays there!!

While I was away:

I am back to Nanyuki after a wonderful two weeks break away from work. I have come back to find that KFC is in town as is Java House at the brand spanking new Cedar Mall with other tenants continuing their fit our work to open as soon as they are done. East or west home is always best they say.

There is also a new Gulf Energy petrol station at the junction to my house that almost made me miss my turn off that was under construction when I left but is now open for business, and they say that progress happens slowly in Africa!

My sojourn while I was on leave took me to New Delhi in India and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Both are the capital cities of their respective countries but they are as different as chalk from cheese. I studied in India but haven’t been there in almost 30 years so this was a nostalgic visit that brought memories flooding back of my student years despite New Delhi being hundreds of kilometers from Poona (or Pune) where I studied in the 1980’s.

We were a group of 31 men a majority being in their mid 40’s to late 50’s while the minority were in their 30’s and one gentleman in his late 70’s. It was a diverse group cobbled together by their love of golf and travel. Several in the group had been to India before either as students or visitors but for the majority it was their first time.

It has never been more difficult to travel to India than at present thanks to Prime Minister Modi’s unexpected decision a few weeks prior to our arrival to demonetize the INR 1,000.00 and INR 500.00 currency notes in a bid to tame black money and force those holding the cash in their mattresses to surrender it through the banking system in exchange for the new INR 2,000.00 notes. These two denominations represent almost 80% of the cash in circulation so in this country of 1.3 Billion people this was a logistical nightmare however you looked at it.

In addition no businesses were accepting these demonetized currency notes and as the ATM machines had not been programmed to accept the new notes the only place to exchange them was at the banks where unending queues of impatient Indians were the order of the day.

There was no respite for us tourists either and we were forced to endure a 3 hour queue at the few banks and exchange bureaus at the airport to convert the maximum allowed of the equivalent of $100.00 (INR 6,000.00 after taxes!!). It was at least a 7-10 minutes process per person something that would ordinarily take a minute at most in any other country thanks to the infamous Indian bureaucracy that I had forgotten about in the intervening 30 year period.

Our agony didn’t end there either as the hotels were not exchanging or accepting foreign currencies either as the priority was for the new currency notes to go through the commercial banking system to be available to the suffering local populace desperate to exchange their useless currency notes before they became worthless pieces of paper.

After one exhausted their INR 6,000.00 the only options left was to use your debit or credit card (when they worked) to settle your local transactions as well as do your shopping or in the alternative hope that someone among the group was willing to convert some USD into INR for you. Simple payments that we always take for granted to pay for your taxi fare, or a meal or a drink or make a tip now took on gargantuan proportions thanks to the cash crunch. Talk of having money in your pocket but being unable to use it?

One of our purposes of visiting New Delhi was to take advantage of the excellent medical facilities available in that country and undergo full medical check up’s and this we did at the very busy Apollo Indraprastha Hospital thankfully located quite close to our hotel. Theirs is a model of efficiency from the registration and reception right through the various stages of check up by various specialists including dentists, cardiologists, opticians, general practitioners, podiatrists, nutritionists, dieticians doctors that check your lung capacity, those that take chest XRAY’s a ECG readings to those that check your stress levels and so on.

The full spectrum of medical tests is carried out within a day efficiently managed by a squadron of pretty executives everyone carrying their personal files with their doctors reports which you submit at the end of the day for the final processing and then follow up visit a day or two later to see the various specialists who then discuss any issues with you. In and out in two days and with your sack of prescriptions in hand something that is likely to take several days here in Kenya and at a fraction of the cost to boot!!

Like any car that you take to the garage that always has an issue that needs repairing we all had medical issues that were revealed to us through the plethora of tests that we underwent and we were each given sage advise by the doctors and specialists along with strict instructions for diet change and exercise for those that were considered overweight by the dietician and nutritionist.

The highlight of the visit to India however was a visit to the Taj Mahal located in Agra the journey taken aboard the Gatiman Express train that takes 1 hour 50 minutes to cover the 225 kilometers distance. The story of the Taj Mahal is a story well documented so I will not dwell on the details but it covers an area of 94 acres and for a building well over 350 years it is in remarkably good condition and a labor of love as we found out. The postcard pictures don’t quite capture the architectural beauty of this wonder of the world and is a must visit for anyone touring India if for nothing else to marvel at the intricate craftsmanship and beautiful lawns of the well landscaped gardens.

(To be continued)

The season of the Ponzi scheme is on us again:

The Ponzi scheme also known as Pyramid scheme is once again alive and kicking in Kenya. One having its origins in Russia 20 years ago has been reported in the newspapers today as having taken root a few months back and is still going strong raking in millions of shillings from ever gullible Kenyans and this despite free advice from the government and concerned experts to the public to stop engaging in these dubious schemes.

A similar scheme has already collapsed in Zimbabwe to the great disappointment of many and the scheme is also running in several other African countries with incredible success if the newspaper reports are anything to go by albeit with criminal investigations ongoing in one African country.

Which begs the questions? Why do people tend to trust their hard earned money to total strangers with tall stories of get rich quick return on investment schemes (or scams)? Why do people ignore the sage advice of their government and other more discerning people? Who shall whip the greed and stupid out of these people because it is nothing other than these emotions that propel people towards these scams?

These games of ‘pata potea’ have been there from time immemorial. From the three cards Monty of yore to the sophisticated and intricate Ponzi schemes of today, people have lost and shall continue to lose money simply because of their greed for quick riches and the allure and sweet tongues of those with the gift of the gab.

At present there is a lobby group that has a case in court fighting what is no doubt a losing battle to recover billions of shillings lost 10 years ago to other unscrupulous people who engineered Ponzi schemes in the country. Similar sordid and sorry tales continue to be told across the world with entire countries still counting the cost of these Ponzi schemes on their economies.

It is very likely that the quantum of reported losses is much higher than the amount stated of Kshs. 8.1 Billion because a vast number of people who may have lost small amounts of money may have decided that the cost of pursuing what they lost was not worth the time and effort of follow up. Similarly it is also likely that there are other cleverly disguised Ponzi scams out there that are yet to be unearthed and which have already found their way into the minds and psyche of many Kenyans investors.

There appears also to be a direct correlation between the politics of Kenya and these Ponzi schemes because the game of politics firstly is a ‘pata potea’ as well. The winners ‘pata’ the spoils and continue feasting on meat at the table as was recently reported by the holder of the highest office in the country, while those who ‘poteza’ are salivating as they wait their turn to feast. It is also clear that the election campaigns have started in earnest with each side out to convince Kenyans that their message is better than the other side’s message and in blatant disregard for the law which specifies that the electioneering period within which aspirants are expected to campaign shall be announced well in advance all the more reason for these Ponzi’s to thrive.

It is also more than probable that the timing of these Ponzi schemes (along with the now well entrenched sports betting) is nothing more than a well calculated move to raise the much required campaign funds from a gullible public seeking to earn a 100% return on investment in no time flat through some dubious and unscrupulous schemes out there.

Further, with the recent enactment of the capping of interest rates on both lending and fixed deposits by commercial banks anyone who promises a fantastic return on a cash investment is sure to have a long and growing queue of investors seeking to throw their money at the said scheme regardless of the inherent risk lending credence to my theory that these Ponzi schemes are nothing but avenues for fundraising to finance what is likely to be a very high stakes campaign period as we head to another general election in 2017.

For the record, I do not participate in fund raising activities for political campaigns or even individuals aspiring to a political position something that I have held for many years so I will neither encourage nor participate in any games of chance or betting whose funds are likely to find their way to the coffers of an aspiring politician or political party. My hard earned money shall continue to earn a pitiful return on investment at the bank or be channeled to more tangible assets.

Silly season is fast approaching and I warn you that any sweet deal that promises you a return on investment greater than what banks are offering at present is likely to be nothing more than pie in the sky or manna from heaven and a myth perpetuated by people with ulterior motives to separate those gullible enough from their money.

The irony of certain situations:

Sometimes you just have to laugh at the irony of certain situations that you find yourself in rather than cry from the frustrations wrought by those you encounter.

The following is my story, embellished with some license for dramatic effect.

My duties involve overseeing the region where I am based and yesterday I visited Meru Town where construction work has commenced on a new branch location in that town. After inspecting the upcoming premises (this being my first visit) and being rather early I decided to via through Isiolo on my way back to Nanyuki through the Ruiri route directly to Isiolo. My business in Isiolo done…......it was a drive through to see what the town looks like in readiness for the promised development through LAPSSET...... I began my drive back to Nanyuki.

Those who may have used the route from Isiolo to Nanyuki will confirm that it is a sparsely populated region albeit with an excellent road that from Isiolo stretches 277 kilometers to Marsabit and a further 250 kilometers to the border town of Mandera and as I understand it is well tarmacked all the way to Marsabit. There is hardly any serious settlement along the 25 kilometers odd section from Isiolo to Subuiga to talk about. You probably see less than 20 vehicles in either direction also and it is clearly quite a lonely road.

A few kilometers past Isiolo and roughly halfway to Subuiga is a market - village more likely - called Maili Saba. It is as uninspiring as they come being just a collection of dusty shops and houses like you’ll find in a thousand similar markets across Kenya. Unless you are really keen you will miss the speed limit sign like I did and only see the cancelling one as you exit the market 50 meters later. The speed limit is 50 kilometers per hour within this market. Believe it or not the hunting pack, NTSA and the Kenya Police, had set up a speed trap within this village and the arresting point was 1 kilometer further down the road.

Unaware that I had broken the law, I was pulled over by a very young chap clearly a no nonsense NTSA officer and in my naiveté handed over my driver’s license sure that I was compliant in all aspects. My innocent question whether I had done anything wrong was met with a cold stare and I was asked what speed I had been doing to which I confidently said that I had not crossed the 100 km/hr speed limit that all drivers in Kenya are now familiar with, to which the response was that I had been doing 82 in a 50 kms/hr speed zone a hefty 32 kms/hr over the speed limit.

This was clearly a sting operation. The only vehicles which could not have been doing anything close to 50 kms/hr were the heavily laden pickups and trucks ferrying goats, cows and whatnot to whichever distant market they were headed to. This was a farce and the number of cars at least 10 coming from Isiolo pointed to the fact that we were all guilty of excess speed even as the few cars headed towards Isiolo zoomed past clearly not slowing down for any 50 km/hr speed limit sign as they approached Maili Saba. I was cornered and in a fix more so because they wanted a cash bail and then an appearance in court the next day in Meru 77 kilometers from Nanyuki where I live, work and play.

I pleaded my case to an understanding police officer who from his comments seemed to consider me a hardened criminal that was a threat to the lives of the 75 or so local residents of Maili Saba and their livestock by zooming past at 82 kms/hr oblivious to the dangers that I exposed them to in my haste to get back to work. The fact that the place was sparsely populated, had almost zero vehicular traffic and no bumps to help us criminals slowdown was lost on these officers who clearly saw a chance at beefing up the governments depleted coffers by arresting speeding motorists as part of their responsibilities to their employer!

After intense deliberations and a lecture from the officer that all villages, hamlets, markets and towns in the whole country were considered urban centers and hence subject to a 50 kms/hr speed limit whether or not the speed limit signs were in place, I was let off with a stern warning to proceed to Nanyuki which I did slowing down to within 50 kms/hr at every hamlet that I came upon even as the dare devils from Meru unaware of the harassment on the Isiolo-Subuiga route sped on their merry way.

This pack was having field day though and they must have raked in a tidy sum seeing that this is a transit route for vehicles either to Isiolo and beyond or from beyond Isiolo and it was also likely that many would be seriously inconvenienced like I would have been to attend a court case in Meru. The officer even regaled me with a story of a mzungu guy who was going all the way to Nakuru for an important assignment the next day and who had to be led back to Maili Saba to confirm that there existed a speed limit sign after which he apologized profusely for wasting their time!

Whether he paid a cash bail or was let off like me I will never know but I learnt several things after this encounter:

1. Everyone is aware of the 100 kms/hr maximum speed limit on our roads and motorists tend to stay within this limit.
2. No one sees or remembers the 50 kms/hr speed limit and the NTSA well aware of this seems to be targeting motorists in areas where this speed limit sign is posted.
3. It is not certain what constitutes an urban area. Is it a collection of two huts, 10 buildings, 15 houses? What?

Finally, even in the most remote of roads expect anything from the pack hunters who seem to be getting better and better at cornering their unwitting prey even as it dawns on me that this is a war that we can’t win as all the odds are stacked in their favor.

This is either the planning of an evil genius or a demented and sadistic organization whose sole purpose is to harass innocent motorists (hard core law breakers in their books) on lonely back roads even as they purport to enforce the law while on other busy roads speed limits are being broken with impunity and wanton abandon by mad cap miraa vehicles and private motorists alike.

Disconcerted as I was I laughed inwardly at the irony of the fact that these guys could be lurking wherever you might be try as you may to avoid them !!

NB - A friend has just informed me of a similar incident that happened on the way to Karatina from Nairobi of motorists being busted for breaking the 50 kms/hr speed limit. It looks like a change in tact so be observant and stay within the posted speed limits!

The pack hunters:

The hunters were out hunting early one fine morning. It was barely 7.00 am but they were already out and about on the lookout for easy prey. They were positioned strategically, ready to pounce should the victim make a move in the wrong direction. All around the well-travelled route they lay in wait knowing that it was just a matter of time before someone, something, anyone made a wrong move when the pincer movement perfected by the Germans in World War I using their Panzer tanks would encircle around making sure that there was no possible escape route and to devastating effect.

There were in all shapes and sizes the pack hunters some coming out in large numbers ready to share the spoils of a successful hunt. Then there were those that chose to hunt in pairs and trios, and then there were the lone rangers hunting alone and keeping all the spoils to themselves like the lions, hyenas, leopards and cheetahs of the wild that they were not.

These tricks had been perfected long time ago seemingly from the beginning of time itself. The positioning, the encircling, the anticipation clear on their furrowed brows and wrinkled foreheads some clearly not able to hunt effectively thanks to protuberant mid sections due to years of engorgement with scant or non-existent exercise.

This was like a well-oiled machine most able to work alone but sure that at the end of the day they would all share in the kill, each afforded a share equal to their importance within the hierarchical pecking order.

Lest you wonder why I am talking about the Masai Mara yet I haven’t been there in close to three years let me let on that this was the situation on the Thika super highway not so long ago as a proceeded towards Nanyuki. There were no less than 6 groups of traffic officers, brilliantly lit in the early morning light in their reflective luminous jackets, obnoxious beacons of corrupt practices broadcasting to the matatu drivers and lorry drivers that they were waiting for them. It seems that no matatu or lorry passes them by without being flagged down and the obvious shake down happening as they pretend to inspect new worn out tyres and expired current PSV and insurance certificates even as the rest of us ordinary motorists speed past as a sedate 100km/h.

As had clearly come out during the ongoing police vetting exercise these law enforcers gone rogue have been enriching themselves at the expense of maintaining law and order on our roads. Many of you have been victims of these extortionists masquerading as police officers even as they brazenly position themselves strategically sometimes clear entrapment on our poorly marked roads and highways.
They demand with menaces and act with wanton indiscipline always having the upper hand on the hapless motorists. The rules are clear that they are not supposed to enter your vehicle if you have committed a traffic offence but they will demand that they do so to more easier shake you down no doubt as the hijack your driver’s license and hold you to ransom in the process until you part with something.

The frustrating thing is that it is easier to pay a bribe then be dragged through the system to be charged with whatever offence you have committed something that they are very sure about and hence guide you quickly towards the bribe giving way. So there you are a law breaker yourself for giving a bribe as the lesser of the two evils and racked by guilt knowing that you have fuelled the dragon that is corruption.

Time to start vetting landlords?

Nanyuki is a dusty frontier town. It must be the volcanic dust generated by Mt. Kenya erupting millions of years ago that causes all this dust in this rain deprived side of the mountain.

As I approach Nanyuki the refrains of the opening song to the famous Western movie “The good, the bad and the ugly” reverberate in my mind as this fine dust coats everything in its path.

Recently the county government seemed to have a plan to reduce the dust levels but after the bulldozers were done the levels are now worse than ever.They just seemed to have spread the dust more equally to the whole town.

Like any frontier town it has to have its fair share of bad ass guys like in any good Western movie and I encountered one barely a month after I settled down in town and I had to move house rather abruptly as a result.

The place that I called home in Nanyuki turned out to be a tough place to reside in…..like any frontier town! For starters, water was an issue and I came to realise that the landlord for whatever reason had not seen it fit to install a storage tank to have a regular water supply so many mornings like in any town with an intermittent water supply I was forced to bathe from a basin on a slippery floor, definitely not the best way to start a morning. The last straw was when the house help that cleans and cooks for me told me that there was no water to cook a meal and I slept hungry that night!

Secondly, the young man who had been employed to look after the property and who would open the gate whatever time I arrived home upped and left one fine day supposedly (according to the landlord) because his father was threatening to sell the family land in Meru but I suspect more because of non-payment of his salary by his employer......as the young man told me later.

The difficult job of opening a locked gate, on a lonely stretch of road, in the dark of night, after a night out was taking its toll on me and I was getting more and more paranoid that I would be mugged outside my home one night.

But the raison d’etre for my leaving was something more serious, career limiting serious for that matter. It was serious enough to warrant me reporting the incident to my security colleagues at Head Office.

I had no inkling when I moved into that house that the owner of the property was a bad man.....like found in any frontier town anywhere in the world. After all I had dealt with the wife when I negotiated for the place and he only happened on the scene a week or so after I had moved in supposedly after a business trip to Nairobi.

He did not strike one as being a villain and he was friendly and well-spoken his half-finished houses notwithstanding. Seeing possible business for the bank I had struck up a conversation with him once asking him why his 6 houses were still incomplete despite substantial progress on the same – about 85% - and he had shrugged off the question and told me that he would complete them at his own pace.

Apparently this bad ass of a man had a history of crime and more specifically handling stolen goods as the person that crooks took their loot to for sale after committing their dastardly deeds. Depending on who you spoke to, the story goes that he had also been involved in fraud to the tune of hundreds of millions of shillings which as a visitor to Nanyuki I had no idea about but which was however common knowledge in the town.

A person who I can only describe as a good Samaritan and intent on looking out for my welfare is the one that visited me at work and hinted to me that I needed to look for another place to live after giving me a summary of the ills of my landlord but she added that I was free to get independent confirmation from anyone else whom I was close to. I was confused because usually it is the landlord that investigates the tenant and not the other way round.

Armed with this snippet I went looking for confirmation that I was being housed by a delinquent. The information was confirmed through a very reliable source and I immediately began house hunting for alternative accommodation which I was fortunate to get the same day……..on the 3rd floor of an apartment complex in Muthaiga, Nanyuki! It also came out that his trips out of town were court dates in Nairobi.

When I informed him that I intended to move out for the reasons of water scarcity and my own safety……there was no way I was going to tell him that I knew he was a thug lest he shoots me dead……the promises came thick and fast of how he would install a water tank for me and hire someone to open the gate for my safety but I told him that it was too late and I had already paid for the new digs.

I feel sorry for his young wife with her two young kids who has to live in constant fear of her husband being jailed (again) and she having to look after the kids herself. The compound was in a veritable state of permanent lockdown with the gate always padlocked, with signs of CCTV surveillance (though I never saw a camera) and razor wire atop the gate….and a posse of very noisy geese to warn of any intrusion into the compound.

My biggest fear was that my landlord would convince the house help in my absence that I had agreed to keep something for him which I would eventually be found with only to be accused of handling stolen goods and I had to do what I had to do for my own security.

Now I know that in future you need to vet your landlord lest you find yourself caught up in stuff you had no idea about!

I am on a self-imposed travel advisory:

There is no other way to describe the shooting dead of someone other than to say that the movies glamorize the act of dying through a gunshot. Usually the person who is shot in the movies goes down and is dead before his body hits the ground, or else is able to make a last minute dying confession as his life’s blood ebbs away. But this was no movie that was being shot - pun intended- this is the real deal and real people has been fatally shot before our eyes and shocked the whole world.

But let me start from the beginning by firstly stating that I am neither a bigot nor a racist. What I am about to state is from the bottom of the heart of a peace loving and non-confrontational individual who is also a peace maker at heart and who loves humanity.

Like many of you I have watched the viral footage of those African Americans that were shot by white police officers leading to their eventual deaths in Minnesota and Louisiana whose only crime it would seem was being black American and male and who seemingly posed no threat to the armed police officers involved in the shooting incidents. This has traumatized me immensely for reason that I shall reveal.

This appears to the untrained eye to be the use of unjustifiable and excessive force in a situation which could have been easily resolved without the use of firearms. There is also no gainsaying that the work of law enforcement officers anywhere in the world is dangerous at best and risky at worst and that a split second decision when caught up in a confrontation with someone who could be hiding a concealed weapon and be liable to use it at the slightest dropping of the guard by the police officer is all it takes between life and death. The question on everyone’s lips now is would the same threat level have been perceived should the suspect been a white male American or conversely would the same level of deadly force have been used towards a white male suspect?

The resultant and unjustified sniper attacks on police officers in Miami in what was dubbed as a peaceful anti police rally that has led to the deaths of several police officers has also taken the world by surprise and now threatens to rock to the core the bastion of freedom known the world over amid loud calls to action for stricter control of gun laws in the United States. That action was totally uncalled for despite the levels of provocation that the black community felt in regards to seemingly unprovoked attacks on their community over the years. Is this the start of a civil war of epic proportions?

However that is not the point of this post despicable as the action by all those involved is, my point is to register the reason for my trauma ever since I watched one of the videos. This is the one of the man being subdued by two burly police officers one of who then draws his firearm and then appears to shoot the man at close range in the chest area then rolling off as the man now in his death throes makes feeble attempts to do something, anything as his life slowly ebbs away and all in the full glare of the public who were recording the whole incident. My trauma is probably being replicated manifold across the African continent where many have relatives and friends who are based in the United States.

It is one thing to hear of police officers fatally shooting a suspect but it is quite another to see this replayed in real life and it frightens and traumatizes those who are by nature squeamish and repelled by the sight of blood as I am. Those young men had families just like me, they had dreams and aspirations to see their children grow up into productive members of the communities and their society, they had dreams of being responsible fathers and parents and making a difference in the lives of their families but this was not to be as they have been felled by a policeman’s bullet at the prime of their lives.

I now wonder if I’d be safe as a visitor in the United States and if my African American and Kenyan brothers in law are safe in that country that they call home or if they might also suffer the same fate as has befallen their community member’s victims of tragic shooting incidents through no fault of their own other than supposedly being black.

I also wonder if my nephew who has recently joined college in that country is safe as he makes his way to and from school and his job with his car that may have him pulled over for having a busted tail light. What of my old high school friends who chose to make a livelihood in the United States many years ago and whom we regularly communicate with on social media and meet up with when they are visiting Kenya? Are they safe presently and will their safety continue to be assured?

I can only hope that reason prevails and that these incidences do not provoke an overzealous reaction by the police force intent on stamping their power and authority over a community that has seemingly had enough of their excesses over the years. If 9/11 is anything to go by it is likely that the authorities will want to tame what they fear may be a hot topic for years to come with some sweeping Senate legislation to back up any actions that they might take.

As things stand we had a planned visit to the USA next year with my wife which she is free to go for but which I shall have to put on hold for my own safety until someone, somewhere can guarantee me that I shall be safe in that country because a black man seems to be a walking and legitimate target for overzealous and mostly white police officers.

Accordingly and even as I mourn the senseless shooting deaths of the latest victims of police excesses in the United States I have put a self-imposed travel advisory on myself until further notice to the United States.

For now let me wallow in the difficulties of my own country anonymous amongst millions of other Kenyan males and unlikely to be stopped by police officers for the crime of being a man of African extraction. As for my male family and friends in the United States you need to remain safe as you move and travel around making sure that you do not fall foul of the law for the sake of the sanity of all of us back here not only in Kenya but across the African continent.

Even if I did not know any of the victims over the years I mourn with their families for the senselessness of it all and may God rest their souls in eternal peace!!