Sensodyne for sensitive teeth……………….

Sensodyne for sensitive teeth, anti-allergy tablets for a cough that won’t quit, eye drops for redness and sensitive eyes are becoming standard in my life. Every time my employer changes medical service providers I am one of those required to get a full medical checkup before being admitted into the scheme. I am getting to that stage (and age) where health becomes an ever present constant that requires regular medical check-up for cancer, diabetes, hypertension and whatnot and where you are always being warned to watch what you eat and drink and avoid stress.

Where recalling names becomes a chore that the more you try to remember the more difficult it is. Where forgetfulness, loss of sleep and tiredness are your constant companion and one dreads password change day because you are bound to be a nuisance to your network administrator for the next few days after the change because you have been locked out of your account. One morning recently I spent a good 25 minutes looking for my car keys which I had left in the pocket of the tracksuit that I had worn the previous evening…….and couldn’t recall that!!

It is that time when eyes start to get a little rheumy and eye glasses become a necessity, the aches come to joints unbidden and itches explode all over your body at the wrong time and place. Your toilet breaks become more frequent and at shorter intervals and where you have to chart a route that guarantees you a stop over half way home for a urine break.  At the hospital, offices, post office and other service outlets the doctors, nurses, attendants, engineers, receptionists all appear to be just out of their teens and at the local pub or restaurant the buxom middle age waitresses of yesterday are now replaced by the slim down models of 2012.

This is the time when you are addressed as ‘Mzee’ to your face in a public place, and enjoy it, and your children no longer accompany you for functions and visits and are more comfortable going off with their friends. It is also the time when you turn to your children to assist you in anything technology related because somewhere along the way your ability to cope with the changing technology is obsolete and now completely irrelevant.

It is that time when you are looked upon to provide pearls of wisdom to the younger generation because of the wisps of white hairs setting you apart as a wise one, and where suddenly talk of long ignored cultural visits to accompany friends and family for some wedding negotiation or some family get together come your way unsolicited and uninvited.      

As one of my friends said recently, it is time in life where if you do not have an ache or a pain somewhere on your person when you wake up on any given morning; it means that you are close to meeting your maker!!

Speeding on the roads is now behind you because why accelerate (pun intended) to your demise when you are approaching the last two score of your biblical life anyway. You are also attending more burials and funerals of parents of friends and relatives and of your own kith and kin who have either grown old and passed on or succumbed to one illness or another.  Stories abound of titanic battles against cancer and other deadly diseases that ravage families or parts of families and which now morbidly fascinate you while you wonder if you will be exchanging similar stories soon. Now is the time when talk of preparing for the weddings of our daughters and sons supercedes plans for the weddings of our friends and peers.

But it is also a time where you have forged great contacts and friendships and are confident in your professional or business life and you wear a weathered mature look about you. You are probably, if in the middle class, a member of a private members club where you visit once or twice a week jealous of the retirees with all the time in the word to indulge in their golf unhindered by the nine-to-five humdrum of the rest of us working folk.

You have a regular routine for your weekly haircut and shave; you tend to find comfort at a favorite stool in your local club or bar where you can sit and while away time alone and with an understanding barman to serve your usual tipple at the right temperature.

I am lucky to have a surviving grandfather and grandmother one each from my mother and father side who must now be pushing 100 years well past their God given ages and I hope to one day emulate them to be a nuisance to my grandchildren and daughters who will be doomed to take care of me until the ripe old age of 100 for that is my prayer to my God.

To Commend or to Condemn!!

Kenyans, I had a dream that I would like to share.

I dreamt that I would commend our dear legislators for many things amongst them:

• Their unending and ongoing efforts to remove the shroud of tribalism from our midst by actively discouraging tribal speak,
• Their commitment to fighting corruption and all things corrupt since corruption always fights back,
• Their acceptance towards ensuring that this government (or is it goofernment!) of national unity that was a creation of the political class to serve their own interests will work towards ensuring that it succeeds at any costs,
• Their determination to ensure that no single citizen of this country sleeps hungry for lack of access to a job to enable them feed their families,
• Their attitude in fostering a sense of collective responsibility that they would want us citizens to emulate,
• Their pursuit of exemplary leadership so that we can see them as role models that our children can eschew,
• Their leadership by example where they accept the fact that we all have a common destiny in the future growth and stability of this nation including paying taxes on all income and allowances earned,
• Their commitment to a better livelihood for the common good of all by fighting land grabbing and other social ills that now threaten the very existence of this country since the primary water towers in the country are now threatened at the alter of politics,
• Their high moral standing in society where they preach that the family is sacrosanct and must be protected as a basic unit of continuing peace and prosperity at all costs,
• Their dependability and  non partisan crusade against crime, criminals and criminal gangs by whatever name they are called,
• Their sober and reasoned arguments as they go about their parliamentary business where decisions are taken based on conviction rather than any other considerations,
• Their passion to ensure the continued growth of this country on the economic front and the social front by passing laws that generate best business practices, encourage local and international investment and create a level playing field to attract and treat all players equally

The list is endless. However on waking up the reality struck because my dreams are instead a nightmare, unrealized and unfulfilled since all that I wish to commend I can only condemn our leaders for since they appear not to care two hoots for me or my fellow citizenry.

But, what do you expect when you elect people with criminal records including defilement, theft and obtaining money by false pretences? What do you expect to happen when we choose people with illegitimate children and tens of concubines?

People that are looters of public resources, plunderers of public land and die hard corruption czars have no business leading Kenyans and neither do businessmen protecting their personal interests over the public good or tribal chieftains preaching that their tribes are being targeted at every opportunity or liars who only pretend to care about you and me when the campaign season is imminent and who promise heaven and deliver nothing once in high office.

These people can only be termed as cabaliers (cabals) and carteliers (cartels) intent on forming alliances to continually exploit the citizenry while pushing their own narrow political interests and survival.

I condemn them all in the strongest possible terms but still dream that one day we as Kenyans will be free of this phenomenon that is as anti-development as it is despicable!

The weekend in the Masai Mara

This is the story of the long weekend just past. A story of the Masai Mara but not of the elephants, lions, hippos, bushbucks, hyenas, buffalos and crocodiles that we saw, the amazing vistas we photographed or the memories that will linger but instead of the relationships forged, the camaraderie built, the trust developed and the promise of future friendships.

I and a group of friends was in the Masai Mara over the long Madaraka Day weekend. We were actually 6 and a half couples out of a possible 9 couples in total and after a planning process of almost three months to visit the Masai Mara and view the wonders of nature at close range over 3 days and 2 nights. We knew it was probably too early to see the great migration when the wilderbeeste and zebra follow the tradition migratory patterns established by their ancestors millenia ago and which usually happens between mid-July and August.

We were headed to the Mara Serena (full name Mara Serena Safari Lodge)  a good 150 kilometres distance from Narok town in a remote area and based in the Transmara side of the Masai Mara and located atop a hill with a stunning view of the Mara River and vistas of the sprawling Mara Plains out in the distance. With a good pair of eyes you can just make out families of giraffe, buffalo and other plains game as they go about their business in the area surrounding the river eco-system as well as the hot air balloon soaring above the plains in the early morning mist. Groups of baboons often make their food gathering trips near the lodge as do the occasional impala, thompson gazelle and buffalo.

We travelled in two 4x4 Toyota Landcruiser vehicles and decided right from the outset that we would separate ourselves into the guys in one vehicle and the gals in the other which did not sit right with one of the couples only recently married and still on honeymoon. This decision proved fruitful for reasons that will be clear shortly.

The group comprised of the gals, fast friends who had been associated together in a "chama" for many years and their husbands. The gals (actually middle aged mothers with mainly grown up children and a sprinkling of younger children too) had been on many trips together over several years and were very close knit and met every month.The guys were their husbands who occasionally met when the wives had organised family outings or get togethers and while we were familiar with each other we had never really bonded as a group inspite of our wives relationships. The decision to separate ourselves in two separate vehicles therefore proved crucial in establishing and cementing the bond between us guys.

The sharing of a drink, the communal meals, game drives and games played also brought us closer together given the different professions and businesses that we all represented. As expected all common bills were split equally for all to share including that for a delicious but rather late nyama boilo/choma and bread lunch in a decidedly dingy joint in Maai Mahiu organised by a cousin to one within the group.

I have a feeling that this will be the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between us guys after the baby steps that we took in the Masai Mara, exchanging stories and anecdotes as only men are able to do secure in the knowledge that among men all things discussed in the privacy of a vehicle remain privy to only those in the vehicle including the ribald and dirty stories and jokes.

We guys also made a firm commitment to meet early in July to  move this relationship to the next level and also involve the other four husbands who for whatever reason were unable to join us on that eventful and fun filled weekend in the Masai Mara.

Tough times go away, tough people remain!!

I received a call out of the blue recently. It was from a former school colleague (let's call him Tim) who I met while in Form 1 many years back. I had met him in the intervening 30 years at most twice in social functions. He had happened upon my business card that I had given to him at our last meeting and he wished to discuss personal business issues and accordingly set up an appointment for us to meet.

I had known that Tim had built up a substantial business empire that included real estate, trading and investment in a hotel and he was evidently doing well. As is won't to happen in such instances and after the usual pleasantaries were exchanged we tried to catch up with what had happened in the intervening time since I had last seen him and he told me a heart rending story with a lesson in it.

Ever since he could remember, Tim had suffered from sinus problems that meant frequent trips to the doctor during a particularly bad spell and exemption from certain activies in his formative years. He had learnt to live with the condition but over time and with the introduction of various remedies many touted as all natural mainly from the East, he was persuaded to test one of the products, a Chinese ointment to be applied twice a day all over the body, and see whether it would relieve the condition.

That was the start of his problems because within a period of four months, it would seem that his body developed a severe allergic reaction to the ointment and in Tim's words his skin started to peal of like that of a hot potato. Gradually the condition spread to other parts of his body including his mouth and alimentary canal causing him excrutiating pain and inability to ingest anything. The regimen of pain killers he was being given were inadequate to fight the pain without causing other side effects and so he was in a constant torturous and painful agony throughout the treatment over a two year period with admission on and off at a Nairobi Hospital.  

Worse still, the Kenyan dermatologist who was treating the condition had never encountered it before and had to keep consulting with expert doctors in another country where the condition is prevalent for solutions on how to manage it. To cut a long story short, he believes that it was his prayers and faith that kept him alive and also as I reminded him he had the resources needed to be attended by the best medical doctors available because had it been any ordinary person without the resources he would surely have gone to his maker!! This is because even his doctor often told him that he had done the best that he could and he should pray that he recovers.

Tim's story touched me in several ways.

Despite frequent expert advice to people not to experiment with unknown chemicals, be they all natural or otherwise, Kenyan's still flock to places and respond to advertisments offering remedies to insomnia, slimming, increase in size of breasts, hips, penises, skin allergies, skin lightening etc many of them from China. The advertisments purport to show before and after pictures of people who have undergone the full course of treatment (for lack of a better word) and glowing testimonials from satisfied customers and accreditations from one health body or another. These are mainly peddled by charlatans, quacks and conmen out to make a quick buck out of the desperation of the human being, unqualified even to dispense over-the-counter veterinary medicine to a cat.

Tim's was a story of an experiment gone horribly wrong and a valuable lesson to those who still believe in these often cheap remedies which could disfigure you for life or even kill you! His skin now looks like that of a person 20 years older though he turns 50 next year.

After his ordeal Tim told me that he takes a more reasoned approach to life because after all one could get killed just by stepping out of his house. He has also learnt to be more philosophical and laid back, appreciates his friends better and often surrounds himself with what he termed as people going through hard times because often all they may need is the company of someone successfull to reassure them that while "tough times go away, tough people remain to fight another day."

Tim showed me that despite all the personal problems we face there are others out there shouldering worse problems and stoically moving on oblivious to the issues and burdens that they carry. He still has to visit his dermatologist every two months as a follow up to see that the condition is not recurring and I can only hope and pray that he recovers fully even as he goes about his daily business of expanding his business empire.

My decisions.....my life!!

I am approaching the "half century" mark in a few years time. Long ago I had made up my mind that I would be free of a lot of things by the time my half century clock struck noon.

I had decided that I did not want to have to be educating children at the age of 50, that I had to have a modicum of respectability surrounding my persona, that I had also to have accumulated a few assets and that I also had to have invested in a pension plan to give me some solace in my old age so that I could play my golf to my hearts content while in retirement, and I had to have a written a will so that my few earthly possesions will be shared out as per my wishes and not as per the dictates of others and also stating how I wished my remains to be interred!!

I had also decided that I would like to live to a ripe old age of at least 100.............. and be a burden to my children (and grandchildren) since I had decided that I would take appropriate steps to shield my self from the life threatening conditions that seem to afflict men in their prime ages of between 35 to 50 and leave many of them on one form or another of medical treatment, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, dialysis etc for the rest of their lives.

I had also decided that I would wish away stress from my life since I have no control of anyone's comments, thoughts, idiosyncracies and biases about me and therefore should attach little if any attention to their words, thoughts or actions.

I had decided that my brand name was unique to me and that I would  uphold the very principles that were ingrained in me by my parents while still young of honest work for an honest wage, empathy to my friends, colleagues, acquaintances and strangers alike......of course within reason.

The jury is out but by my own measurement, I have accomplished many of my life goals. I have a successful professional career and I know that I have contributed greatly to the sucesses of the organisation and my colleagues where I work, my daughters are both in university with my first born about to finish her 4th year while her sister is just starting of her university life. I believe that I am a well respected member of society since I have many friends and acquaintances within my network and I am a member of two prestigious private members clubs one of which I sit on the Board of Directors. I have also taken up a healthy lifestyle and in the process lost 6 kilos in the past year and avoid or reduced on the 4 deadly stress CATS indicators - Caffeine, Alcohol, Tobacco & Sugar!! Taking up this blog writing has also been one of the contributors to alleviating stress.

I recently went for one of those tests prescribed for men over 40 years old, the PSA Test, that is supposed to detect early signs of prostrate cancer a silent killer of men today. The laboratory staff at the hospital where I went to have the test done could not believe it when I told them that it had not been recommended by any doctor but I had taken it upon my self to do the test. The results were negative and though the fee is quite steep, it was money well spent for the piece of mind it bought. The lab staff were all praises and suggested that this should be an annual routine.

As one morphs from one day to the next, the clock is ticking and inexorably age is gaining and one must take steps to chart their own destiny by taking up a sport, going for your own medical tests, eating right and avoiding stress.

The next chapter..........!

Yesterday was not just another ordinary day. Our baby girl was following in the footsteps of her elder sibling and joining university a culmination of her 17 and a half years 13 of which were spent in one form of basic education or secondary school or another. It was also parents orientation day and we had to attend it as new parents in the campus she was being admitted to because if we had attended orientation for her sister Sam we had to do it for Shan also!!

From her joining nursery school at the tender age of 4 to yesterday has been a journey fraught with worry, excitement, sleepless nights, anxiety, suspense and joy for us based on which point of her educational experiences we were at. She has gone on school trips, been in trouble with the school authorities, rebelled from parental control, sneaked out with her friends at night, extended her curfew, been sick in hospital, visited her relatives in other parts of the world, been conned off her phone and money and lost a grandfather. She had also recently worked in a therapy centre and attended a course in mobile phone application development after her 4th Form just to keep her busy.

She has lived a life and had experiences way beyond that experienced by many people twice her age and now it was time to move on into the great unknown of university life and the doors and opportunities it opens for one in the hereafter! It was time for us to let go and watch her soar as she makes the difficult transition to becoming an adult, unsupervised and alone in a hostile world where it is your own judgement and wits that help you along and where peer pressure is waiting in the wings to pounce on the weak in spirit and then take them down the beaten path to destructive tendencies.

Thankfully the campus she is joining is a private campus situated not too far from Nairobi and which has a strong discipline and high standards. Part of the discipline involves attendance in christian activities be it chapel, christian groups etc so as to lay a strong moral foundation for all the students. It is one of those campuses that prides itself on being a campus free from the physical vices that bedevil the youth of today, who free to roam unfettered in the blogosphere and internet discover and know things that those in the earlier generations learnt about a scant 5 to 10 years ago.

We as her parents have done all that we could for her and her sister and it is time for them to chart their own course and destiny going forward, free to decide and free to choose our hopes and prayers being that they should make the right choices. One thing that this adventure of bringing up children has taught us is that there is no manual that will enable you raise a child because all of them are different individuals with varying temparaments, dispositions, abilities, nuances, foibles, characters and associations.

We can only pray that God guides them on the path of the straight and narrow and gives them blinkers and ear muffs so that they avoid the wide and winding road well travelled that often leads to addictions, distractions and dangerous life styles.

The countdown to an 'empty nest' has began in earnest for me and my wife because as sure as the sun sets every day our girls are all grown up and looking to start their own lives in the not to distant future.

Being Kenyan – The Last Minute:

A few years ago I went to my local Nakumatt to do some shopping. Being a Sunday afternoon, I thought that I would pretty much have the whole supermarket to myself. Shock on me, the place was packed tighter than a busaa joint on a Saturday night!!

Then it hit me that this was the weekend before the official opening of schools for the 3^rd and final term of the year and that Kenyans in their usual herd instinct mentality had chosen to make a beeline to the supermarket for some last minute “back to school” shopping. I suppose that the same was happening at myriad supermarkets, bookshops and school uniform shops across the country on that Sunday afternoon. The lines were impossibly long and jammed with mums, dads, their children and shopping carts piled high with all manner of goods, many obviously school related shopping.

Smug in the knowledge that I had already done the “back to school” (or in my case “1^st time school shopping” since my youngest daughter had taken the decision that she wanted to go to a boarding school to finish up the 3 years and 3 months of her formal high school) a few days earlier, I could only look on amazed at the lengths Kenyan go to punish themselves waiting until the last minute to do what had been pre-ordained 4 weeks earlier when the schools closed at end of the 2^nd Term. It took at least 45 minutes for me to get to the check out counter something that had taken me 10 minutes a few days earlier.

This unique “Kenyaness” seems to afflict all of us with the same force and alacrity. Maybe it is the air that we breathe or the infectiousness of our seemingly poor sense of planning towards things that we can already see will be required at a certain time. It extends to our leisure time when we decide to go on holiday in December but wait until the last minute in November to start enquiries on what options are available only to find that all the choice locations were booked months ago then we start blaming the travel agency!

It has also permeated our payment of bills waiting until the absolute last minute then heading to meandering queues at the service outlet to make our payments. This apathy has also permeated our ability to judgmentally make a trip for a planned meeting bearing in mind the horrible traffic snarl ups we encounter, making us all mad and inconsiderate drivers as we rush to fill in every grid locked space on our roads thereby compounding an already difficult situation while we could have very well planned to leave an hour earlier and not at the last minute!!

We also all seem to have the collective apathy towards keeping ourselves fit and healthy, by avoiding anything involving physical exercise unless absolutely necessary and then finally collapsing in a heap of clogged arteries, diseased hearts and high cholesterol blood sugar levels forcing us to spend weeks and fortunes of cash getting treatment for something that we could have nipped in the bud at an early opportunity by a regular regimen of exercise. Again last minute issues become our undoing. Those lucky enough to work in a storied building would very well get the needed dose of exercise by using the stairs instead of the lifts and elevators for instance.

 Calling a crisis meeting at the last minute when a catastrophe was looming on the horizon for the last several months is surely one of the things that we would very easily avoid with proper planning, delegation and control, but look at our government, huddled in crisis meeting after crisis meeting often back to back……no wonder we tend to collectively be the same!!

 As part of the culture change of the country, perhaps we could start by eschewing everything last minute and embrace instead a culture of just in time since just in time involves doing what needs to be done at the time that it will cause minimum grief and inconvenience to yourself and others as opposed to last minute which causes maximum grief and inconvenience to yourself and others.

Kenyans leading from the front to rid Africa of the culture of perpetual lateness well known by the rest of the world should be our ‘raison de etre’  though I am not betting any money that this will start anytime soon.

Anyone game for this?