Of freshly caught fish and nature at its best:

I went fishing recently on a weekend thanks to my brother who had invited all of us including my parents to a weekend stay at Mugumo House at Mweiga Farm in Nyeri. The fishing was at a dam in a neighboring coffee farm that is owned by his employer and where he is a senior management staff member.

The dam is stocked with Tilapia and occupies perhaps one acre or so. A trip around the dam at a natural walking pace takes maybe 15 minutes…..20 minutes tops! I was accompanied by my brothers and some of my brother’s children for this afternoon of fishing. Our fishing rods were rather rudimentary being a fishing line with a hook attached to the end and then tied to a bamboo rod. For the floatation a piece of slipper placed about a foot from the hook and our bait, those earthworms that are dug out and are found in any moist soil anywhere in the world and which you had to thread expertly head first (or ass first who knows) through the bend in the hook to make a tempting bait for the fish!

For those not aware, fishing is one of those activities that requires copious amounts of patience and on this afternoon unlike an earlier trip to the same dam 9 months prior, the fish were not biting. One by one my nephews and brothers who had enthusiastically caught many fish the previous visit, lost interest and wandered off and it was left to me to stoically soldier on the prospects of returning home with no fish too terrible to comprehend promises of plenty of fish for those waiting at Mugumo House looking as good as broken! As the afternoon wore on so did the tedium of walking up and down the banks of the dam tossing my rod into the water and looking for a place where the fish would bite. This was now getting embarrassing, three veterans (I and two farm workers) and not a single fish between us??

The tranquility and beauty of this dam and a cool calming breeze was however more than enough compensation for the disappointing fishing. The ducks lazily swimming on the water, the incessant hum of the cicadas and other creatures a sonorous background to my own thoughts weaved a tapestry of adventure and folklore. After all this place is adjacent to the Abedare National Park home to some very rare species of wildlife in Kenya and where a bitter war was waged against the colonial government in the 1950’s leading up to independence in 1963 fifty years ago. Is this how the dam had been all those years ago? What had changed in the intervening half century? Had any Mau Mau been fed from this dam and had it seen any action in those dark days?

It’s funny how ones thoughts causes them to lose focus on what is around them because I had been standing at one place lost in my reflections my line in the water when the bobbing piece of slipper indicated that there might be something at the end of my hook. A quick yank and voila, I had caught my first fish of the afternoon and the jinx was broken!! Now the action would start.

As the afternoon wore on the pile of freshly caught fish steadily grew in our bucket as the three of us continued to fish even as the number of worms reduced drastically for it seemed that the fish this afternoon were adept at nibbling on the bait without latching onto the hook. The final tally was a miserable 13 fish down from a record 45 fish nine months earlier but still enough for all of us to have a well-deserved meal of freshly caught and grilled fish for dinner that evening.

After dinner it was time to play some family games involving all the children, parents and grandparents. It was interesting to watch the children get the better of their parents and grandparents, a natural reaction given that they are in the digital age and the information age. It was definitely time well spent with family and bonding came easily despite the scarcity of fish at the end of our line in a beautiful setting overlooking the Abedare Mountains on one side and Mount Kenya Forest on the other.

We were truly in God’s playground that afternoon and even if I had not caught any fish, it was still time well spent.

Is it me or are our brother and sisters in ‘pwani’ a fascinating lot!

While on leave I had the opportunity to go on a short holiday to Mombasa with my family for some rest and relaxation but also to attend a wedding. For me the best way to travel to the Coast is to drive down so that you get the freedom of having your own set of wheels to see the sights and sounds along the way as well as to commute at the Coast. Admittedly, the drive down can be rather stressful given the large volume of long distance trucks and trailers on the road as they lumber and crawl across East Africa delivering their varied commodities that oil the economies of countries as far away as Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. The numerous rest stops and weighbridge stations obviously don’t help particularly on heavy traffic days when delays to the truckers are inevitable leading to impatience and queue jumping which results in almighty gridlocks.

But I digress because a gridlock is what we found ourselves in at 8.30 pm as we completed the Miritini section of the Nairobi-Mombasa highway a few kilometers to Mombasa Island caused by a road crew obviously struggling to complete an allotted road section before they called it a night. Frenetic activity with the heavy machinery had led them to partially close off the road and traffic was now forced to use one section of the road at a time for east bound and west bound traffic alternatingly. Clearly frustration had been mounting among the drivers of the various vehicles this evening because once our side was opened up we were struck after barely 100 meters or so possibly due to an errant driver from the opposite side blocking us from moving. So there we were in a gridlock 30 cars deep unable to make head or tail of what was causing the tailback. Suddenly from out of the blue one of those reflective jacketed fellows carrying red and green flags began beckoning me to squeeze myself in through the smallest of spaces between two behemoths presumably guiding me towards freedom and a chance to unlock the gridlock no doubt caused by his poor management of the situation.

So born of the foolhardiness of the impatient and with the prospect of freeing myself from this entanglement before anyone else, I obeyed the animated instructions of this overzealous individual unaware that I was but a pawn in his dastardly plot! Inch by agonizing inch I maneuvered my way between the trucks only to find that once clear, I was confronted by a mess of impatient drivers in a long line of oncoming traffic angrily hooting at me. With a “haya mzee, sasa jipange!” (Now old man, sort yourself out!) he disappeared from sight the tailback in the section where he had extricated me from now miraculously moving.

What to do now? A steep slope on the left and traffic on the right and a mob of impatient, angry drivers facing me……..and a carload full of a laughing wife and children, clearly the joke was on me! Within a short time I was able to extricate myself marveling at the evil genius who had landed me squarely into the face of oncoming traffic and out foxed me in the process!!

Many years earlier I was caught up in similar mischief on another trip to Mombasa after arriving at the Mwembe Tayari bus stage at the ungodly hour of 5.00 am. Still too dark to trust going anywhere on foot (as many of us mistrusting Nairobians are wont to be) I stepped into a nearby restaurant with my luggage for an early breakfast. This is one of those restaurants which being located close to the main bus terminal in Mombasa is open 24 hours a day to cater to the hungry arriving and departing passengers to and from destinations across East Africa thus guaranteeing freshness and a fair price. The restaurant was not busy and hence the waiter quickly took my breakfast order and went off to have it prepared. The only other people in the restaurant were a sleepy cashier nodding off at his counter and a cleaner who was busy mopping the floor.

Anyone who has travelled on the night bus knows that the first thing you look for when you disembark is a loo for a welcome toilet break. Not wanting to disturb the cashier from his torpor, I approached the cleaner to ask him where the loo was. For a moment he went about his business ignoring me altogether before he retorted in rapid fire Kiswahili “Huoni mimi ni na kazi? Hiyo siyo kazi yangu. Nenda kamulize yule!” (Can’t you see I am busy? That is not my work. Go and ask that guy!) as he pointed at the still drowsy cashier with his mouth and resumed his mopping. Somewhat taken aback and unable to formulate a response quickly enough, I sheepishly went to the cashier as I noisily cleared my throat to wake him up which he gratefully did to enquire where the ablution facility was. Would you believe it, the door to the toilet happened to be just behind where the cleaner was mopping?

A friend of mine also narrated to me a story of how on a visit to Mombasa’s Mama Ngina Drive one evening a few years ago he stopped to buy madafu for his family from one of the numerous sellers that line up along that stretch at dusk. He intentionally chose a seller who appeared as if he was the most hard up so as to ensure his money would be well appreciated. As he chose his coconuts and waited for them to be split open, he casually began chatting with the seller, after all the process was going to take a few minutes to complete. The madafu seller was obviously reluctant to talk more so as he realized my friend was obviously not from Mombasa due to his Kiswahili accent, but he had little choice given that my friend had probably uplifted his sales that evening substantially. They made casual chit chat and then my friend asked him the question of how much money he had made selling his coconuts, to which after a short silence he replied “ Milioni si kitu” (“A million is nothing”). My friend almost died of laughter as he remembered the look of complete seriousness on the madafu sellers face as he proclaimed that he was a rich man!

So while at the coast expect anything from our ‘pwani’ brothers and sisters and don’t take it to heart! It seems that they have this uncanny ability to recognize a person from ‘bara’ from miles away and want to make a complete fool of them.

You may be wondering why my blog posts have petered out!

I have been on leave for the last three weeks. On leave from having to wake up at the crack of dawn to get to the office, on leave from an 8.00 am to 5.00 pm job, on leave to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to and on leave from writing my regular posts.

Leave is supposed to be a time to recoup, recover and recharge ones batteries but many are the times when one gets back to their daily routine from leave and still feel like they require a few extra days to recover! Hands up anyone who feels the same way…!!

I hope to soon get back into my regular routine of writing my blog articles when the chaos at work as I catch up with stuff subsides so for now hold that thought!!

You, I we are all corrupt !

I am disturbed today! In fact I am extremely disturbed and disgusted with myself because I am corrupt so says Transparency International (TI) in the Global Corruption Barometer report released recently. Kenya is at number four globally on the list, with only Sierra Leoneans, Liberians and Yemenis more corrupt than us!

The report says that I bribe the cops, I bribe my way at the Lands office, I bribe my parliamentarians, I bribe the headmaster to get my kids into schools as well as bribe the judges and magistrates who dispense justice. But is this really the case?

A recent case of a local MP in Nairobi nabbed red-handed topping up his Kshs. 1,000,000.00 plus salary with a bribe of Kshs. 100,000.00 is probably an indicator that the report is not too far off the mark as are cases of petty bribery that cause our rotund and portly police officers to assume the ‘Usain Bolt’ position when caught as they flee unsuccessfully, distended midriffs dancing a discombobulated jig, from the clutches of the anti-graft officers composed of swift, slim and trim graduands as hundreds of Kenyans become yet another damning statistic as they fall victim to yet another avoidable road accident as unwitting victims of corruption.

Who can forget the sad scenes of palatial mansions costing millions of shillings being demolished a couple of years ago and the hysterical wailing of those who were affected as they watched their life savings brought down by a bulldozer and who knew all along that they had cast iron title deeds in their hands victims of scheming and bribing of Lands Office staff or those languishing in prison in perpetual misery having been found guilty of non-existent offences their only crime being tried by corrupted judges and magistrates willing to sell justice to the highest bidders!

But why is there no hue and cry? Why is there no national uprising if we feel that we have been slandered? Is it because TI is right? Is it true that we are actually corrupt? You, I and all Kenyans have been branded with the branding iron of corruption and we should hang our heads in shame as we once again become the laughing stock of our neighbors!

Shame on us!!

The thanksgiving function:

I had the privilege to attend a function recently in rural Muranga the land of my ancestors. Muranga is a beautiful, verdant and bountiful place that starts 40 kilometers from Nairobi though the place where the function was held is about 85 kilometers from the capital city of Kenya in Kigumo Constituency of Muranga County.

The occasion was a thanksgiving function for Mr. James Macharia who also happens to be my relative and who was the immediate former CEO of NIC Bank Ltd and who had recently been appointed as a Cabinet Secretary for Health by his Excellency the President of Kenya after a rigorous vetting process.

After an uneventful drive broken only by a stop at Blue Post Hotel in Thika where those invited had congregated so as to leave together in a convoy, we arrived at Kamunganga ACK Church the venue of the function to find a huge tent packed with a multitude of probably 2000 strong all expectant and eagerly awaiting the forthcoming festivities. In attendance was a strong contingent of Muranga politicians led by the County Governor, The Senator, the local MP, MP’s from other constituencies in Muranga and elsewhere, the Muranga women’s representative, members of the local county assembly, the area deputy county commissioner, ward representatives and local chiefs. Also present was an 11 strong clergy led by the ACK Bishop of Mount Kenya Central as well as captains of business and industry, representatives of the banking fraternity, friends, family and well-wishers. The local administration was in full swing backed up by armed uniformed and plain clothes police officers to ensure that security prevailed.

I have known James for a very long time as a close family member and he has come across as a genuinely caring and down to earth person notwithstanding his high status in society. He attends family functions without much prompting even on relatively short notice and is always quick to offer a word of encouragement and advise when needed. The multitude that had gathered were here to celebrate the recognition of the hard work and determination of an individual who had chosen to exit the relative safety and security of the private sector for the rough and tumble of the public service for the greater good of his country!

The ceremony started with a church service with much singing and powerful spiritual messages being delivered by the Bishop and his team with a famous Kikuyu gospel musician adding spice to the service by belting out some favorite and well known gospel hits that many sang along to. The local administration, family members, friends, banking fraternity representatives and politicians were then invited to give their brief comments  by the presiding MC’s who all extolled the virtues of James and his appointment to this high office as well as the expectations (by the politicians) as one of their own.

The most memorable of these speeches was from the obviously overjoyed father who talked about his joy and happiness that his son was now in the Health docket and since he and his wife suffered from Diabetes they were now almost cured knowing that their son was in charge of not only their health but that of millions of Kenyans across the country! It was priceless!!

Then it was the turn of the guest of honor to make his speech and a moving and memorable one it was as he recalled his days while growing up and studying in rural Kenya and having never dreamt of being in the position he is at today and explaining the process of how he had been requested to submit his CV (which he did though he was out of the country), how he had then been called personally by the president, how his interview went, how the vetting process went……………..there was pin drop silence as the audience lapped up this first hand narration up and raucous applause as he introduced those present who had made this possible.  

To me the most poignant part of James’s speech was in extolling the virtues of getting an education and the fact that whatever seed that one sowed would eventually bear fruit and that hard work and determination were key in developing a successful career and this from a person who reported to the office at 6.15 am a message directed at those in schools and colleges as well as those just starting off in their professional careers!! But the icing on the cake was that this was not just idle talk. His hard work had paid off because, he went on, NIC Bank his former employer in recognition of the hard work he had put in over the 8 years he had led the institution in the process growing the assets of the bank more than 10 times over had written off a substantial amount outstanding on his mortgage loan and had also given him a parting gift of a brand new BMW 4x4. He was quick to point out that this was not bragging but a true reflection and statement of what had transpired.

In retrospect, I guess the message that he was conveying was that in life, what appears to be on the surface was not always what was on the ground. He had no reason to tell the congregation that his home loan had been paid off nor that his brand new car was a gift from a grateful employer and could have left such matters unsaid for all to believe that he had purchased these items from his own resources content and basking in the glory of owning them free of any encumbrances title and all. But no, not James full of humility to the end willing to bare all so that those present could understand what a person of integrity was all about. It will not surprise me if many of our fellow brothers and sisters out there have similarly been gifted items of a substantial worth by their employers in recognition of their unparalleled contributions to the success of their organisations but who choose to hide this information from the world for their own reasons!!

That show of utmost humility flanked by his wife, son and daughter was I am sure an emotional prick on the conscience of many since it was delivered without any fawning, bragging or overly justifying the reasons behind such ostentatious gifts and I have no doubt in my mind that James will make a significant impact on the provision of health services in this country that will continue for many years to come.

That was one thanksgiving that I was glad I attended that finished with a delicious lunch served at 5.00 pm to all those present hungry as we all were after a marathon 6 hours and I wish him and his team at the Ministry of Health all the success as they embark on this difficult journey of ensuring good health care to Kenyans now and in the future.

Men are hopeless at multitasking:

The fact that men are hopeless at multitasking came to me literally with a thud and rather painfully at that recently. I had attended a meeting at one of the offices where I work and unbeknownst to me the venue had changed from one floor to another. The new meeting venue was just four short flights down, so I chose to take the stairs rather than the lifts.

So there I was walking down the stairs and decided in the interest of time to also send a text message on my phone, while clutching onto my tablet an important business tool to me. One careful step at a time I made steady progress down the first flight of stairs and then I rounded the corner to the next level of stairs still texting away when disaster struck!

Up until now I have no idea what happened, I am not sure if I missed a step or miscalculated the distance to the next step or what because one minute I was busy texting away and a Nano second later, I was on my butt and bumpity, bumpity, bumpiting down the stairs. Instinct kicked in and I reached out to get a hold of the bannister to stop my rapid decent and possible serious injury forgetting for an instant that I was holding onto my tablet, which naturally flew out of my hand and fell two levels down to the next landing where it fell flat on its back the impact thankfully absorbed by the protective case that I had bought along with the tablet.

By this time my rapid gravity aided descent had been halted by my grabbing onto the bannister but not before sliding down four, possibly five stairs thankfully not witnessed by anyone the sound of the tablet slapping down on the landing below the only noisy interlude to a fairly action packed but quiet and tense few seconds.

I gingerly stood up unsure if there was any physical injury on myself, but thank God all seemed fine as I was able to curl my fingers and flex my joints and appendages without any serious pain save for the soft tissue bruising in my nether regions and possibly a mild sprain in my wrist where I had grabbed onto the bannister that is expected in such a situation! I made my way slowly to the meeting having collected my still functional tablet on the landing below, now suitably mollified and chastised having escaped with what could have been a nasty injury, my text message now forgotten and phone in the pocket holding onto the bannister for dear life lest a similar fate or worse befalls me before I got to the meeting.

It was only several days later the lingering pain on my backside now a distant memory and the embarrassment of falling down the stairs almost forgotten, that I retold the incident to my rather bemused wife. Nowadays I avoid multitasking as much as possible particulary when doing something physical lest I find myself in similar and painful situations.

So truly if something so mundane and everyday and as simple as walking down a flight of stairs while texting on the phone can go so awry, what hope is there for us men in a world that will soon be dominated by our multitasking sisters!!

It’s winter in Kenya:

It’s winter in the +254……..…..at least from where I sit (stand, squat, sleep) in the Nairobi Metropolitan area and toes, ears and fingers are freezing. Temperatures have plunged and are now hovering around 13 degrees Celsius at night. This is cold by Nairobi standards though I am told 30 minutes out of Nairobi around Limuru the mercury has been reported at 9 degrees Celsius and we are not yet into July the traditionally coldest month of the year!

I have had a heater in the house that has not been working for a few years thanks to a blown fuse that caused the plug to fuse with the extension cable. A few days ago I decided that this cold was the type to consign me to an early grave and I broke the extension cable and liberated the heater’s plug from its imprisonment by the extension cable. Then to add insult to injury on the unfortunate extension cable, I used its plug to connect to the heater and threw away the now useless cable and voila, I now have a working heater and a nice toasty bedroom. It’s the only place I want to be in these days after work where I can lie down in relative comfort, socks off, half sweater off the only tough decision being when to venture out of the room for one reason or another. Thank God that I have the essentials in my bedroom, a TV and a loo, so those forays are few and far between!

In this weather, those long forgotten heavy jackets, vests, scarves and (yes) gloves have been dusted off and now seem to have become ‘nom de plume’ with majority of Nairobians dressed up warmly to shield themselves from the elements. I see gloves being sold along the highways nowadays and wonder who had the foresight to import them in advance, or are they a product of some sweat shop in Kariobangi running full throttle 24 hours a day to meet the insatiable demand for them?

 I wonder how the young school going kids in those traditionally cold climes in Kenya like Limuru, Meru, Nyeri, Burnt Forest, Kinangop, Eldoret and Nyahururu (in no particular order) are faring since I noted a few years ago that a balaclava a.k.a ‘boshori’ was a necessary item of school clothing and that was in the summer (do we have such a thing in Kenya?) months. Now that it is winter which additional items of clothing to ward off the freezing temperatures will their parent be saddled with? Thermal underwear, full body woollen suits, blankets or hot water bottles perhaps!!! Essential items of clothing considering that many of the public schools require more than a coat of paint to make them spick and span – like windows, doors and roofs.

This is despite the fact that if the current government has its way future public primary school kids will be the proud owners of solar laptops to be used in drafty cold classrooms bereft of windows, doors and roofs!! Maybe they should have a heater app developed for those laptops as an added bonus for the children in the colder parts of this country and to give them an incentive to attend school so as to keep warm or a fan app to keep them cool when in the ravages of a heat wave.

But some Kenyans (and most tourists) in our capital city still don’t get it. They still walk around half dressed in tee shirts and shorts, tank tops and boob tubes as if they are in sweltering Mombasa not realizing that this is our winter season. It makes one wonder who is mad, them or us well draped people or if God, in his haste to create some of us, omitted to add the mandatory thermostat that the others seem to have been given a 2^nd dosage of in his infinite wisdom……….or to mock the rest of us!

Come on people you are making the majority of us look bad and what would your mother say, you going out half dressed when more sensible people are warmly wrapped up! You will catch your death of cold and will have no one to blame but yourself.

But ‘ngai baba’, what shall we do when July rolls in?