Transport in the land of hope...

its been a year since i left this place, i returned in January this year only to find things just as they were if not worse. The road still has potholes the size of a wheel barrow every 5 meters. The dust is so much that it actually reduces visibility to 20 meters. Dust storms are common here after which everyone is left brown, covered in dust and coughing . Getting to mwihoko takes faith, courage and a spirited sense of adventure. Drivers here can tolerate anything. Driving speeds range from 0 to 25km/hr. Every one moves slowly bumping into mis-shapen bumbs and small ditches scattered all over the road. The vehicles used here are those rejected elsewhere. They have poorly working lights, windows are a luxury and paper bags are sometimes used in their place. Those with covered sits and a radio (albeit hand held) are called "Nganya" meaning cool and stylish vehicle.
At night drivers steer with one hand while holding a torch with the other. Their touts keep watch with another torch to show the oncoming vehicle that its not a motorbike. Those with both lights, they are not focused and they face up, sideways, anywhere but the road. They serve the purpose of letting an oncoming vehicle know you are moving too.
Doors get stuck so often we dont get shocked anymore. The touts use all techniques trying to open the doors, including kicking it with their legs. Can you imagine him taking that position to kick the door open, he leans back onto the passengers, lifts his leg and kicks the door, sometime you can hear the passengers encouraging him saying "put more effort" or ""try again". there  are instances when these methods fail and we are forced to exit through the window. I however have not yet had the pleasure.
One day, the matatu stopped halfway, the driver said its spoiled but they can fix it. spoiled is used here to mean mechanical failure. Since these matatus are few, there is never the luxury of getting off and boarding another one. So you wait. The tout came to my side and said  "madam ebu toka kidogo" he wanted me to get off. so i did. He casually pulled out the sit and put it on the side of the road, exposing a confusion of twisted wires and a battery somewhere in the mix. He meddled with them until the vehicle started up again. In case you were wondering the sit was placed back onto the vehicle and i was invited back on it. we kept driving on like nothing had happened....only in the land of hope! 

Battered Husbands

There is a debate going on about husband battering in some parts of the country. So I go home on sunday only to find the whole household discussing the issue. It turns out that my day had commented extensively on this debate on the sunday nation. Being an expert in African religious studies, his opinion mattered. It was an entertaining afternoon with everyone giving their take on the issue...including Isaak Mwak...yes him! my brother oh, he has never been one to comment on current events or other. My opinion is that, all the lies we have been feeding ourselves about who is the leader and who is the follower are finally catching up with us. Our tribe was founded by 2 parents and 9 daughters. They owned the land and the clans. They got men to marry and invited them into their land only for this men to take away their land and force out their own daughters. Such that today it is the girls who move out of their homes to the mans home. Ridiculous! This is just one of the many falsehoods that we have come to base our culture on. Back to the business of husband battering….What?1 Haha. Many say that this has been caused by an increase in power for the women. What they forget is that ‘violence is not a sign of power’ nor is ‘the absence of violence a show of inexistence of power’. Also you cannot rise into power if the power was already yours. It’s a question of becoming aware of previously ignored but existing power. Earlier I had written on ‘equality of education’ it has become relevant now more than ever. Simply because you perceive a woman to be weak does not mean that they are however this should not be a debate on who is strong or not. It should however act as a reminder that the girl child is efficiently trained to handle herself well and handle the great challenges of a home while we, the parents and teachers leave the boy to his own means. This people (men) have no idea what is expected of them, what it takes to eat, stay clean, make a living it’s a pity really when a person is not capable of keeping himself clean. Simply because women in the past (recent past because women were warriors since time immemorial…do your research!) have not been violent does not mean they had no power in the homes. But men, husbands are continuously neglecting their duties in the home, victimizing their wives while at the same time expecting to be accorded kingly treatment and obedience…think again. Women are excellent disciplinarians; they beat their children under the principle of ‘spare the rod spoil the child’. Now the men need some discipline and who better than…the woman.

You

Cut me see if i bleed All you who deal with me as if I were made of stone. Push me, see if I'll fall All you who put me under such a load. Break my neck, see if i die You, who waste my time as though I was immortal. Call me not, if u see me not And to you and yours I be blind...I'll see you not.

of tribes and who we are...

A young man told me once that he did not consider himself a Kikuyu, kamba, Luo or any tribe but a Kenyan. I got to thinking what a tragedy? What would happen to a person to deny who they are? This campaign of we are Kenyan I feel is misguided. A person cannot seize to be in order to exist in an alternative geo-politically defined state. We have our ethnic languages and culture that needs to be recognized! Parents, grandparents, ancestors..all these are people who make us who we are. Should all that history be wiped out and forgotten simply because a politician says so? We cannot be repainted to appear similar yet it is our diversity that makes us beautiful.!

That big Day!

This was perhaps the most tense day for lovers of politics in Kenya. It was the day the ICC were announcing their ruling on those accused to be responsible for post election violence in 2007. My interest was never at the ruling itself, no. I became intrigued by the people's reaction to the whole thing ...I mean, there were prayers involved and lots of church going went on.
Being placed in a rather remote area,( the land of Hope) I had the opportunity to witness some of the residents reactions.
So I go to a nearby cafe/kiosk for lunch, I found 4 people sited. All of them had sat on the sits that were facing the TV. In order to get an uninterrupted view, the man I had sat next to moved to a sit closer to the TV. U know, to hear the news first! As 'landlover' gave the ruling no one spoke, chewed or swallowed ..it was silence.

Unemployment...!

There is no god in unemployment! There is nothing ;no hope, no light or darkness, just a massive sense of 'lack'. Time grinds by, u watch urself wasting, crushing under the weight of despair! To have nothing to do, not to be needed or valued, to realize that your skills are of no use to anyone ...this is what most of the youth in our country are experiencing. And no matter how many people go through this, the impact on the individual is devastating. Open your eyes to those around you...and empathize.

My nephew..Cadi

So we r working on a document at home, my sis and I, when our nephew comes along and hovers for some time . Finally he says u know tata (Swahili for Auntie ) I can type . Ok. I say. He continues maybe u can give me a job to type for you...I tell him that a job would imply payment ... Well u see, tata, by this time he is smiling broadly, he is a clever one this one. My sis says we can't let u type but what else can u do, he lights up and says spell checking ...I can spell check, without hesitating he pulls a chair and starts to read our work. Things go on fine. Then he sees a name in Kikuyu ..not his strong point, and corrects it wrongly ...everyone around the table laughs out loud, Cadi is put on suspension on grounds of incompetence. Later that night his grandpa listens to his plea to be reinstated as the spell check officer, after alot of convincing he was allowed back. He went to on to yet again correct a Kikuyu name wrongly, this time he was so convinced ...oh u shd have heard his argument . He was fired. At this point he decided to lawyer up...and who better than his mum...yes her.! The one person in our family who never loses an argument. She said that he had work for long hours without break, note he had been at it for 1hr half of which he had been suspended! Further she went on to claim that his spell checking assignment was limited to English text only! ...at that, everyone burst out laughing... and let him have it. bow down! I love our family.

Teacher

I don’t mean to hate on anyone but teachers can be petty at times. They will carnive to get more sodas than their share with such explicit strategies u would think they were planning a corporate merger. Sports day seems to provide for them an opportunity to show the head just how active they are, all in hopes of getting some form of recognition. There are those who feel that their mastery of the queen’s language is unmatched in the school. These teachers use words like ‘indefatigable’ while introducing another teacher to the assembly. With the newly applied learner centered approach to teaching and learning, some school administrators have for some not yet clear reasons taken this to mean learners importance over teachers approach. The teachers have been reduced to puppets whose role is to recite the syllabus content but they have little authority over the class. This is more evident in private schools where teachers are fired at the snap of the owner’s fingers. Totally disregarding the disruption to learning caused by such sudden changes.