IMPORTANT NO MORE!

I came across a telephone pole earlier today and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for it. I have been passing it and several of its brothers many times but I have never noticed them until today when I almost tripped over one……………………………..well not actually the pole itself but that thing that props it up!! The clumsy oaf in me had finally been able to see what had been staring me in the face all these months without recognition.

Back in the day the telephone pole was an important part of life. It was festooned with wires and all kinds of finery and some gadgets that enabled the switching of the signal between different numbers. It arrogantly stool tall and strong looking down aloof at all the hustle and bustle around it secure in its own cloak of importance. After all nothing could happen unless it said so. No one could communicate unless it said so and infact the minute something would go wrong all the technicians would look up for a sign that all was alright up there shading their eyes from the sun as if genuflecting to this all important deity of communication.

Then the mobile phone came calling…………….pun intended…………and everything changed. Slowly the telephone pole fell into a state of disrepair, no longer looked after with tender loving care until finally those tasked with ensuring that it was constantly pinging for all it was worth gave up all together.

Now it stands there on its death bed hoping that the relevance of the past can be rekindled but knowing that its death sentence was sounded a long time ago and it is now only a matter of time before the final fatal blow is struck…………..with the uprooting of the telephone pole as progress inexorably marches on!

The importance of the telephone pole was no more, people had moved on and found a new love and had virtually………...pun intended………….decided that the mobile way was the way to go!! Now stripped of its finery and festooning wires and things the telephone pole is a pale shadow of itself. Gaunt and stark it stands, naked to the eye and invisible to all but those that stumble or trip over it or its component parts, its relevance now overtaken by the digital and mobile age where everybody carries a device no larger than a good sized pamphlet and just as light with a computing power 1000 times more than the earliest military computers of the 1940’s.

And so it goes too with those that were important in society in days gone by and whose word was exalted, listened to and feared all at once. They were held in awe and high esteem by all and sundry and treated with kid gloves lest they throw a tantrum that could get you a stint in a police cell or worse still prison. The glory days of many of these people is long past and their feeble attempts to remain relevant are slowly become more like a pantomime or a dark comedy funny to only those with the darkest of souls!

So there you have it a comparison between the humble telephone pole of yore and those once powerful VIP’s amongst us whose glory days are long gone, scattered to the four winds like the whirling dervishes of the desert and who you are more likely to trip over than recognize being consumed in their own sense of self importance and relevance while the reality is that they are waiting for the final nail in their coffins and illustrious lives and careers!!

I am sure you can relate this to many once self important folk amongst us today, and before you castigate me for spreading potentially scandalous ‘muchene’ please say a quick prayer for those whose relevance like a telephone pole is no more.

All for the love of golf:

I am at a golf course standing on the tee addressing my golf ball. I grip the unfamiliar driver trying to get my standard address right and I look at the rising sun as it splits the well-manicured fairway. It is barely 7.00 am but you can tell this is going to be a scorcher of a day because after all summer is just beginning. After a series of practice strokes, I let one lose right down the middle of the fairway and hope that there is no hidden obstacles where my ball went. After all this is a new course and I am completely unfamiliar with its lay out……………..but I am getting ahead of myself so let me start from the beginning but with a disclaimer!

Those that are not golfers will in all likelihood be unable to relate to this narrative……………………but keep reading as it may just pique you interest in this game that all golfers love to hate.

We had taken a trip to the US recently. It was partly for business and partly for pleasure. I and my wife both have family and friends there so the pleasure part was all about visiting and reconnecting with them. After a 14 and a half hour flight from Dubai we arrived in New York, tired but happy to be on terra firma. The drama that awaited us at John F Kennedy International Airport is a story for another day, but suffice is to say, don’t carry food to America!

From there it was a short 2 hour flight to Chicago, Illinois where my sister in law and her family reside where we visited with them for two days as she was also leaving ironically for Kenya on an official assignment.

Then it was onto another flight, this time on a short hop to Atlanta, Georgia to attend an international conference of Rotarians of which both I and my wife are members. The venue was the Atlanta International Convention Centre smack in the heart of downtown Atlanta, a centre built specially for the Atlanta Olympic Games of 1996 but which has continued to attract huge events from across America thanks to its stupefying size and ability to morph to hold small or large events.
This Rotary conference had approx. 40,000 people in attendance all being hosted under one gigantic auditorium for the official part of the sessions with all being accommodated at the hundreds of hotels that have sprung up in the Atlanta area as a result of the convention centre. The conference logistics were handled by a team of hundreds of people to assist delegates from 150 countries navigate their way around Atlanta which is also a major tourist centre in its own right. It is highly likely that no single city in Africa can handle such a conference with so many delegates let alone accommodate 40,000 visitors and other tourists and businessmen in town on their own matters.

The business of the convention done after 4 days, it was now time to join my sister and her family that live not far from downtown Atlanta for some quality time with them. After checking out from the hotel, we were picked up by my brother in law Chris.

Now Chris is built like a wrestler………....hence his nickname Njogu which he loves! He is stocky and looks like he lifts small calves just for fun but he is a gentle giant. His southern drawl also takes some getting used to and the easiest way to understand what he is saying is to look at his mouth as he speaks. I am told that people from the Southern part of Georgia have a drawl that many Americans don’t understand but Chris’s accent is way better than most and since he is aware that we Kenyans struggle to comprehend what he is saying he speaks slowly for us to catch on.

No trip to a foreign country is complete without a round of golf as any golfer shall attest to and we were itching to play a course or two since we are also a golfing couple! My sister and hubby had planned a trip to Orlando, Florida an 8 hours’ drive from their home in Atlanta at a time share resort where they are vacation club members and this resort boasted of three golf courses so we were excited at the prospect of finally playing some golf.

The journey to Florida was long but uneventful save for the shameful and wasteful habit of Americans serving huge portions of food in the restaurants that we dined at enroute to and from Florida but leaving much of it on the plate uneaten and unappreciated. If only they knew the challenges faced by many people in Africa and other parts of the world to get a decent meal a day!!

The Holiday Inn Club Vacations at Orange Lake Resort which was to be our home for the next three days is located close to Disney World and Disney Animal Kingdom and is therefore a very popular holiday destination for families. It has three golf courses and a myriad of other family themed activities including various water rides and sits on about 1000 acres. The villas are laid out in various sections, probably 2000 or more huge and self-contained but you need to buy your own groceries at an onsite store though you also have a pick of dining at nine themed restaurants in the resort.

All vacation club members - my sister and her hubby - must attend a presentation as part of the check in process at an agreed time. It seems to also be the practice for any adult guests of members - I and my wife - at check in to attend a presentation on how to join the vacation club as a member and though this is not compulsory it is encouraged and they very cleverly throw in a free activity which you nevertheless have to pay for in advance to ensure that you attend the presentation but is refundable thereafter in cash whatever the outcome. Our free activity was a round of golf for which we paid the princely sum of $ 54 each.

The presentation time is fixed and at the risk of losing you money everyone tends to keep time. Both spouses must attend the presentation together and that is how we found ourselves in a well decked out room with several other people on a one on one presentation with an agent. They have free vending machines onsite that dispense tea, coffee, soda, juices, water and some snacks also in case you get thirsty or hungry.

This presentation is like none that I have ever been to before because each couple is assigned an agent who takes them through the full presentation and the facilities on offer. Where you are unable to agree on a price then the supervisor of the agent is next in line to try and convince you with an even juicier offer on the table. Finally the Manager himself is summoned for the most difficult of clients to try and convince them with a mouthwatering offer 75% less than the initial offer by the agent and payable in monthly instalments while you still get to enjoy the benefits of vacation membership.

There is no cajoling or coercion. No brow beating or threats, just good old fashioned salesmanship and those guys are really good at it……..but we were better! We declined all offers on the table based on the fact that we were unlikely to visit America anytime soon. As an example I told them that my last visit there was 13 years ago while my wife had visited 5 years ago so it was unlikely that we would visit again anytime soon. Didn't these guys get that we just wanted to play a free round of golf? However their offers have a complicated algorithm which factors in air fares when taking advantage of your time share but that would only start accruing after you had made payment of a certain percent of your time share………just to try and convince us!!

And that is how we found ourselves on the first tee of the Legends Golf Course at Orange Lake Resort at 7.00 am with hired “his and her” golf clubs $108.00 richer to play our first round of golf in America when daytime temperatures hit 35 degrees. The strict rule of thumb as we were informed by the starter is that once it starts to rain, get off the course as the rain storms as we discovered later that day are accompanied by thunder and lighting and the possibility of being struck are quite high. Thankfully we were done by 11.00 am well before the hottest part of the day………………..and the thunderstorms later that afternoon!

We managed to play another round of golf at Westover Golf Club in the greater Philadelphia area as we made our final visit in the States to see my brother in law, his dear wife and daughter but that is a story for another day.

We had accomplished our mission of playing golf together as a couple in the US and we loved it.

I am Back!

It has been several months since my last blog post, 7 months to be precise almost to the day.

I had thought to take a break from blogging and come up with a theme that I could adopt as my “raison de etre” going forward. When I shared these thoughts with some of my friends recently, they urged me to continue blogging as I had done before putting my thoughts to paper in the whimsical fashion that had come to define me! So here I am……..

Over the last 7 months, a lot has happened. I became a grandfather, we have had a national election which was won and lost at pretty much the same time, and we are back to the ruckus of another election albeit only at the presidential level. As I predicted, many legislators have been shown the door for not delivering to their respective constituents and many are now busy realigning themselves with one side of the political divide or the other now that they have a chance to show their allegiances to their respective party head honchos in this season of defections and re-defections.

I wonder what would happen if those that are abusing the president and his deputy in all manner of colorful insults were to be called by State House and be offered a plum job in a government parastatal? Would they refuse? Knowing the greed exhibited by many of the leading political lights hardly likely!!

It was also a rather sad time as some close friends have passed away. These were men in the prime of their lives plucked away by the cruel hand of death leaving their families wondering why it had to be that way. The irony of death is that life pretty much continues on its way for the rest of the living even as we mourn the departed, whose memories slowly fade away over time and being pragmatic about the finality and fallibility of life is something that I don’t take for granted knowing that my near and dear ones will one day depart from this world.

Sometime late last year something happened among a group that I am a member of. We took out a group personal accident policy. Many in the group of 17 were reluctant to cough up the very affordable premium of roughly Kshs. 12,000.00 per person but common sense and a lot of threats from one amongst us who had seen the value of this policy in another group prevailed and the policy that only pays out in the event of death through an accident has been in place ever since. One of the friends who passed on through a road accident was a member of this group and so his family shall soon be the beneficiary of a handsome lump sum from the insurance company, an amount that should comfortably see the younger children through the rest of their schooling. This pay out shall be in addition to any other life policies that the deceased may have taken out on his own.

Many times we take insurance policies for granted and moan and complain that we continue paying premiums year upon year with no benefit only for the unforeseen to happen and the policy to crystallize. All members of this group which was not even a registered entity have pulled out all the stops to formally register it since payment from the insurance company is made to the group and not to an individual members next of kin and we are now convinced that this is a worthy policy to have. It also pays out Kshs. 200,000.00 as the last expense as a benefit towards the funeral expenses of the individual.

So those of you in formally registered chamas, associations or groups please look at the option of a group personal accident policy which is very affordable and assists the family greatly when one of the group members passes on due to an accident……no questions asked! You need to go out with a bang showing those that you leave behind that you cared enough to think about them should you be the victim of an unfortunate accident while going about your manenos.

As we also head towards another fresh presidential election remember that the time of honey coated promises is once again upon us and vote with your conscience.

OPEN LETTER TO C S ROTICH

8th February 2017

OPEN LETTER TO CS ROTICH

Dear Hon Rotich,

Happy New Year!!I will not bore you with a lot of trite and meaningless dialogue so I'll just cut to the chase.

This year seems to have kicked off to a rather bad start for Kenya. What with the drought affecting millions of Kenyans including the pastoralists and their livestock around the country, the recent terrorist attack on our brave soldiers in Somalia, the ongoing doctor’s strike that seems to be coming to an end thanks to the intervention of the senate, the ongoing lecturers strike with students coming out in solidarity rather late in the day with their lecturers, the lack of food security for a starving populace etc.

It is also the season when the IEBC is making last ditch efforts to encourage Kenyans to come out in large numbers to register as voters as their elected leaders similarly plead with the same voters (that they have studiously ignored for the last five years) with loud hailers and at public rallies to come out to register and vote for them in the forthcoming general elections.

I know all these issues demand money…….lots and lots of money…....which the country can ill afford at the moment and I am not even going to talk about the endemic corruption that we always read about that is depleting the national coffers at an alarming rate.

I am also aware that my one month old granddaughter has also inherited a debt of Kshs. 90,000.00 like hundreds of other babies recently born whose only crime is to be born a Kenyan just to paint the picture of just how dire the situation is, and her debt is unlikely to reduce even as other babies are born in future at the rate with which this government is borrowing to fund its recurrent and development expenditure something that doesn't sit very well with me for obvious reasons!

But what has got my goat (pardon the very British expression but my English teacher in high school was a prim and proper school ma’am who would turn up her nose if the inflection or the accent of her beloved mother tongue wasn’t correct) is the obnoxious and sickening demand by our legislators who ensured that the new constitution enabled them to walk away with a handsome gratuity of Kshs. 11 Million at the end of their 5 year term which they are now turning their noses up against!

In the face of insurmountable public debts (remember my one month old debt ridden granddaughter?) even the gratuity that the constitution allows the legislators is a really bad joke and a very tasteless joke at that which is in pure bad faith.

A total stranger coming to the country for the first time would wonder if these are same legislators he reads about and watches on Al Jazeera when they are decrying the challenges that their constituents face as drought ravages the country and demanding that the government make immediate drought mitigation measures to cushion the starving populace and their animals. He would be shrugging his shoulders in disgust at the sheer hypocrisy exhibited by these 416 individuals. Bwana CS, my take is that if through some oversight your office bows to pressure from these cabal of individuals to discuss a higher package than what in the opinion of many is a done deal then God help this country because that shall be the catalyst that is likely to propel this country to failed state status because the hullabaloo will make Al Ade look like a kindergarten play pen.

Why do I say this? If your office gives in to this sloth and avarice from the (dis)honorable members who are only united when fighting for their ‘tumbos’ and they get what they are clamoring for all the MCA’s in the 47 county assemblies will demand a similar send of package and we are talking about thousands of individuals serving in various county assemblies across the country. Their argument will be after all haven’t they also played their part in leadership (however slovenly) under the devolved system of government? All public servants will also in all likelihood jump onto the bandwagon and demand an increase in their salaries because a government kowtowing to the threats of a few is likely to also bow to the threats of many.

Sir, you must accordingly do whatever is in your powers to deny them what is not rightfully theirs because this shall cause a tidal wave of resentment that shall eventually sweep all of you technocrats along with the legislators out of your cushy offices. The more pressing demands on our meager resources are in any case clearly visible to anyone with a modicum of civic duty towards its people.

Sir, with due humility you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don’t but you will need to consider the plight of the majority at the expense of the minority in this Animal Farm called Kenya. "Hakuna pesa" however hackneyed a phrase should be your stock answer to the demands for gratuity payments.

It is also my take that the ruling coalition should also make this the defining moment of their first 5 year term and ask their coalition partners in Parliament and Senate to reject in toto this gratuity payment nonsense so as to show solidarity with the suffering citizenry and acknowledge that the country cannot afford to pay them a sum of Kshs. 4.5 Billion at present but will do so when the financial position of the country improves!!

If the opposition then foolishly decides to fight for the gratuity payment as a right then they shall have only have themselves to blame for not putting the country first and face an imminent and epic loss of face and votes in August 2017. After all an opposition is supposed to fight whatever the government position is if recent past issues are anything to go by!!

I for one shall NOT vote in anyone who received a cent of this gratuity payment because they will have passed the message that they don’t care about the welfare of Kenya as a country!!

Yours sincerely and a concerned Kenyan Citizen

Joe W M - a.k.a Joe-WonderingAllowed

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.