I am a victim:

I am a victim. A victim of justice and circumstances!

I am a victim because I happen to live in the vicinity of Thika Road. That eight lane super highway that has been built with the assistance of several Chinese contractors. I am a victim because I remember with nostalgia in the not too distant past having to wake up at 5.00 am in the morning ready to leave home at 5.30 am so as to get to the office by 7.45 am after dropping off the girls in school. Leaving even 15 minutes later was not an option since it meant getting to the office by 8.30 am or later. JUST IMAGINE!!

Now I suffer each morning because it now takes me a whole 20 minutes to get to work on a highway built with a speed limit of 110 km/h but whose official speed limit is currently at 50km/h and with the odd speed bump and pedestrian crossing thrown in for good measure. I oversleep many a time to well beyond 6.30 am when my body was used to being up and about by 5.00 am and it is only that my alarm stirs me awake from my deep slumber otherwise I would sleep on knowing that in 20 minutes after leaving the house I will be in the office. If only I lived in Ongata Rongai? I would be waking up as my body is used to at 5.00 am………..on second thoughts, for Ongata Rongai………..make that 4.00 am instead of being a victim of circumstances of living along Thika Road. JUST IMAGINE!!

 50 km/h? Please confirm to me that someone somewhere has a missing part in his brain? On second thoughts forget that question because rhetorical as it is, it can have no answer other than an affirmative one. How in heaven’s name do you enforce such a speed limit because no cop in his right mind will stand in the middle of the highway with arm outstretched to stop one of those ugly, humungous ‘Githurai 44’ matatus hell bent on breaking the speed limit on this super highway and therefore driving at well over 120 km/h tout leaning out of the door displaying all kinds of dangerous antics to impress God knows who! Why should I not be in the office within 10 minutes driving at 110 km/h minus the speed bumps and pedestrian crossings that just slow me down unnecessarily?         

But this highway has also brought its share of mad cap drivers, those who clearly were asleep, drunk or confused when the driving instructor was giving lessons on road markings and what they mean and the implications of how you react when you see them, or did they just buy their licenses and skip those boring lectures on road markings? These are the chaps who will accelerate as they get to the pedestrian crossing forcing pedestrians to scamper in an undignified manner in all directions or who will insist on entering a junction yet the road markings clearly indicate that the traffic from another direction has the right of way.

Some (mainly matatus) also access the service road through a non-designated spot off the highway which is supposed to be an exit lane, clearly marked as such, for vehicles accessing the highway itself where even just by looking at the design of such a spot you would know this unless of course you were a complete imbecile, which sadly many of them are. And what about the pedestrians and cyclists hell bent on dicing with death by walking on the overpasses and road tunnels despite clear warning signs to the contrary.

 I would fail miserably if I failed to recognize the kings of them all, those driving against the flow of traffic in total disregard to the lives of those they are ferrying and other legitimate road users (since they clearly have no regard for their own lives) having failed to spot (or totally ignoring) the ‘no right turn’ sign one kilometer back and then continuing against the traffic flow re-enforcing their stupidity by flashing their high beams at oncoming traffic to clear the way for them!! Boda boda operators are also notorious in this regard though they are not even worthy of a mention given that they are neither licensed nor insured meaning that they are not legal road users and furthermore  have no comprehension of the basic rules of the highway code!!They rank lower than pedestrians in my judgement.

If this is what justice is all about, bringing traffic from a halting grind and perpetual gridlock on the old Thika Road to a 20 minute commute at 50 km/h on the new superhighway, perhaps I would be better off suffering on a road where I knew that it would take me ages to get where I was going. If this beautiful but shambolic and dangerous super highway where breaking the posted speed limit, crossing the highway at undesignated spots by pedestrians who also walk where they are not supposed to, driving on the wrong side of the road, PSV’s stopping to pick  and drop passengers on the highway rather than use the service road and designated bus stops and forcing me to endure unnecessary and expensive fuel guzzling stops and slowdowns at numerous zebra crossings and speed bumps is the norm rather than the exception then I may have been better off in the old days.

So even as you wake up at 4.00 am if you live in Ongata Rongai to get to the office by 7.30 am, spare a prayer for us the victims of justice and circumstances who have no choice but to use Thika Road every day and get to the office in 20 minutes instead of our rightful 10 minutes the downside being that we dice with potential mayhem along every meter of this highway. With the passage of time and the completion of your own road to hell (at present), you too will be victims later rather than sooner……….and you can take that to the bank!!

Time to get to work now………in 20 minutes flat at 50 km/h!

JUST IMAGINE!!

For Heavens sake let’s stop this culture of tardiness:

Tardy (or tardiness) is defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary as ‘’delayed beyond the expected or proper time’’. Many of us are guilty of tardiness in our daily interactions with each other ! I have a feeling that the mobile phone has everything to do with it! How many times has some one been late for a meeting or appointment and when you call them up they say that they are right this minute entering the meeting venue and then you wait for another 15 minutes before they turn up?

I will start with a story. A few years ago, I saw the utter frustration in the eyes of one of the HR staff where I worked who had convened a meeting where members of staff were to be briefed about a new medical scheme at a meeting where representatives of the service providers were to give a brief and only 5 staff had turned up on time. To my utter disgust, staff took this as an opportunity to flaunt their tardiness by sauntering in late and without even attempting to apologise for their lateness! I am sure that the service providers out of politeness (and the potential for financial benefit from the organisation) chose to ignore this blatant lack of consideration for their time, but nonetheless something was imprinted in their memories for future dealings with the staff of that organisation!



Time causes pressure

 Since we all need to be open with each other, may I loudly proclaim that I am fed up with the tardiness shown by many of us in our attitudes to keeping time for important engagements, meetings and appointments at work, for functions or occasions. I am also fed up with the oft quoted cliché that ‘there is no hurry in Africa’.

I am a firm believer that we all have an equivalent amount of time within a day as God, in all his magnanimity, accorded each one of us.This means that the President of Kenya right down to the lowliest person in society has an equivalent number of hours, minutes and seconds within a day and there is nothing that anyone can do to expand this time. It is possible to change a lot of other things by buying the surplus of others to add to your own but is it possible to add on to your stock of time by buying surplus time from those who have extra? Therefore when you waste someone’s time by being late for an appointment or a meeting, then this is the height of unfairness and lack of consideration to others. When this culture of tardiness spreads to those that have convened a meeting, those that have a role to play in ensuring that everything is ready before the rest of the participants arrive as often happens...........……then people something is definitely not right!

If we attach as much importance to time as we profess to by being on time for our job interviews, or when we need to attend a movie or a church service or when we need to catch a bus or flight, then surely the same discipline should be inherent in all of us when it comes to work related meetings and engagements as well as in our social lives!

Granted that in certain instances it may well be beyond the control of an individual to get to a meeting on time but they should have the courtesy and decency to send an apology IN ADVANCE to the party you are meeting with expressing your inability to attend the meeting at the scheduled time rather than strolling in half an hour late (or not attending at all) and giving vague excuses when asked later on. Incessant traffic blamed by many in Nairobi and other towns and cities in Kenya should not be an excuse for lateness since proper planning will see that you leave earlier than expected so as to arrive in time for your appointment.  

Since time is a God given asset, everyone should be able to control and manage their time in a manner pleasing to God. So for Heavens sake, let’s stop this culture of tardiness and begin respecting each others time the same way we would wish our time (and material assets) to be respected!

The Fishy Connection

Has it ever occurred to you there that there may be a parallel upside down universe under the sea? Just think about it, a place populated by creatures that have gills instead of lungs, flippers and fins instead of hands and feet, cartilage instead of bone.

To the best of my knowledge the creatures that inhabit the deep have brains and some reasoning capacity too. Otherwise how would you explain the instinctive nature that finds them located at the best food sources for their breed and where to find the optimal breeding conditions for their kind just like us humans on earth!!

The sea is where creatures swim on flows of warm or cold currents, and where the water could be as cold as ice or as warm as tea depending on your location in an atmosphere rich in oxygen the closer you get to the ocean surface. On earth our birds soar on currents of warm or cold air during their migrations or when hunting, and where the temperatures are freezing at the poles and are steamy at the tropics and where the oxygen is the best at sea level and gets less and less the higher you get.

The deep is a place where it is inky black the further down you go and where the pressures exerted on an object are great enough to squash steel encased vessels. A place so hostile to humans that they would not survive without protective clothing and breathing apparatus. On earth the creatures of the sea have to be equipped with breathing apparatus to survive if at all they ventured there.

This is a place where the hunters - the sharks, dolphins and other fish - and the hunted co-exist in an uneasy hide and seek game and where flight or fight as a defense mechanism is well embodied in many creatures and is comparable to any of the animals of the Maasai Mara.

Here lurk creatures of the night terrifying to other creatures of the deep and where death stalks your every move like in the deep, dark shadows of downtown Nairobi, Johannesburg or Moscow at night. A place where venomous sea snakes co-exist with the deadly chameleon in the name of stone fish and where the graceful but deadly manta ray wings its way effortlessly as if in surreal flight. A place where the carnivorous cats of the sea, the sharks and the killer whale, prey on the weaker and smaller fish and conversely a place where the very largest elephant of the animal species the vegetarian sperm whale feeds on nothing but tiny plankton.

A place where the dolphin rules supreme in the deep through his superior communications vocabulary of clicks and bursts of ultrasonic sound. A place where the sea horse is bi-sexual and where the male of this creature, in a role reversal unknown to man, is the one that becomes pregnant.

A place with beautiful homes and apartments for the creatures in the sea by way of the coral reefs and gardens as well as a place with dense jungles of kelp and other sea plants home to the sea otter and other shy fish species. A place where there are thousands of undiscovered plant and animal life, as is the case in the great Amazon River system. A place where there are undersea deserts as devoid of life as our very own Sahara Desert and where underwater rivers form swift moving currents waiting to trap the unwary diver and send them to their Waterloo as also a place with mountain ranges and mountains higher than Mount Everest and as large as the great Himalayas range.

A place full of dark anonymous creatures with voracious appetites and uncanny stealth waiting to spring on the unsuspecting victim in the blink of an eye. The sea is where you get the Salt water turtles & salt water crocodiles alike in so many respects to their air breathing cousins the tortoise, Nile crocodile and Monitor lizards as well as where the camouflage adopted by the octopus is comparable to that of the land dwelling chameleon. This is a place where undersea volcanoes and earthquakes reek as much havoc as if the same phenomenon occurred in Tokyo or Los Angeles.

The parallels to our own earthly world is startling but true given the extreme conditions that each views of the others world. Imagine if you may being a fish and cast out on dry land and then you may see where I am going with this analogy or the contrary, you a human being consigned to the sea for all eternity!

Fishy business this but if you let your imagination run away, you will see that there is order in what appears to be a jumbled up watery universe under the deep blue sea.

After all being blessed with a superior intellect means that you are able to visualize what may not be the obvious!!

Count your blessings

We usually take things for granted and never stop to count our blessings. My blessings are many and today I will stop to count them.

Blessing No 1: I have been away on leave and returned to work recently suitably refreshed and looking forward to getting back into the humdrum of things. I was however not looking forward to the usual pile of emails that one encounters when going back to work, many of which are already historical and already sorted out over the period I was away. Thanks to the power of the internet and technology, I was able to access my official email while I was away on leave and was able to delete those emails that were inconsequential or informatory and that I was sure had already been sorted out together with those junk emails that somehow sneak into your mailbox despite the best efforts and the firewalls put in place by the ICT administrator. My emails were therefore suitably culled by the time I reported back to work.

Blessing No. 2: Suffice is to say that it was time well spent partly at the coast enjoying a well deserved quiet break away from the hustle and bustle of the big city and partly catching up with my long ignored golf game that has seen my handicap plummet from a low of 8 to a high of 11 over the last 6 months or so. My Facebook friends based in Mombasa were not happy that I had chosen to keep a low profile while in their neck of the woods and had given them a news blackout until I was at the airport about to board my flight back to Nairobi.

I also learnt a thing or two over the period that I was on my self imposed exile from the office that not reading a newspaper will not kill you nor will ignoring the evening news on Citizen or KTN that has the usual sickening politics that is the staple food of many Kenyans 24-7-365.

Blessing No. 3: Over the 3 weeks that I was away, the access roads in the vicinity of my office have been patched up and traffic flow is much improved.

Blessings Nos. 4 & 5: It is also expected that bank interest rates for which we bankers have been vilified for too long will start coming down (some of the players have already announced this and others are expected to follow suit). The price of fuel went down greatly during the last review effective Sunday 15th July and the price of everything else, common sense and a public spirit prevailing, should also come down over time.

Blessing No. 6: We also got to host some German ladies who were in the country courtesy of my wife and her fellow members of the Soroptomist International, Milimani Club and the insights that they brought and the lively discussions we had about the differences between our respective countries and cultures was eye opening. They have promised to host us next year in Berlin should we choose to go there in July 2013 when they hold their international conference in that city and then accomodate us in their homes in Witten a city of 100,000 located in Central Germany.

Blessing No. 7: My daughter was involved in an accident over the weekend where the matatu that she was travelling in started to over heat leading to the driver of the vehicle jumping out as it was still moving. In the ensuing confusion and panic, she was pushed out of the matatu by an impatient fellow passenger where she fell on the tarmac and lost conciousness.

Blessing No 8: Thankfully, a passing commercial ambulance stopped to assist the injured passengers (my daughter and a friend) administered First Aid to them and rushed them to Aga Khan Hospital where they were treated and discharged but not before giving my wife and my other daughter a fright of their lives as one of the friends accompanying my daughter panicked when she went into unconciousness and reported that she had died when she called them to inform them of the accident!!

Final Blessing: Being able to have the gift of family and friends who were there for us and my daughter after the aforementioned accident (let's call it an incident). Though she is still in pain and on drugs and with bandages where she was hurt  and has been given one week off by the doctors, she will recover fully healed and return to college as soon as possible.

Remember to stop and count your blessings as you go about your lives because they are many.

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.