Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Kenya. In The Cold Season

Recently I was privileged to have had the opportunity to visit my motherland end of June and stayed there till end of August. It was a somewhat sweet/fearful experience especially after recent events related to insecurity. I was quite apprehensive as the day to land there drew near and as we approached Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from the Ngong hills, I couldn't help but notice the vast expanses of well lit residential estates and streets in areas that would have been covered in darkness a few years ago. The land surrounding the airport has been swallowed up by homes and all sorts of buildings which unfortunately brought to mind the 'cancer' of land grabbing and impunity as I wondered if the airport land had been infringed upon like that of the small sister airport of Wilson,  but all that was swallowed up by the blissful feeling of happiness as I stepped out of the customs area at JKIA and was surrounded by family members who had arrived to welcome me home. There's no words to exactly describe the feeling of 'home sweet home'-Not Shakespeare, not Ngugi wa Thiong'o, not even Philip Ochieng can capture that feeling in words.

As always, I had a harsh reminder that east or west, none is like home by some traits that will always cling to us like the common catchweed bedstraw, the one that always brushes against your clothing as you pass by and hikes a ride un-invited. The smell of engine exhaust fills the air, I was pretty sure had it not been night I would have seen the dust and the foul smelling exhaust, but the curtain of darkness took care of that. On the highway out of the airport, I was again reminded that this is home by the drivers who never keep to their lanes and never use their flashers to indicate intention to cut right in front of you onto your lane. My experiences away from home soon disappeared and I started living at home again-driving on the left side of the road, using my right hand to indicate direction of travel and the left hand to turn on the windscreen wipers.

Two or so years after the general elections and two or so years before the next, one cannot help but notice the general ease Kenyans are with each other and tangible too is the confidence the common mwananchi is going about doing their thing. It is a feeling that one wishes is more extended and un-interrupted by the so called democratic practice of electioneering that we undergo every five years. Everyone I had the privilege of interacting with; from the mLuhya at Kawangware who made my furniture, the jaLuo mechanic at Roaster's who fixed my car ball joints every time they went loose, the mKamba artisan who would fix my leaking roof, the mKikuyu/Maasai goat seller at Limuru who knew (even before I told them) the goat I needed for ngoima. 
The game wardens in the Mara who wanted to know if I had paid to have the animals look at me, the police manning the million road blocks I crossed as I travelled; all had this debonair way of interaction that reminded me how wonderful it is to be in Kenya.

During this stay, I had to-because of the latent politician in me- figure out a score sheet on which to judge the jubilee government which I have all along held in my cross-hairs. I have never been an UhuRuto apologist or sympathizer nor have I ever been a bosom buddy of the CORD outfit. I had the first hand opportunity to see the changed face or phase-if you may, of rural the electrification program. This has stretched out to thereto un-imaginable areas, word on the ground is that having no money is no reason for not getting a domestic connection! This scored high on the score-card. I renewed my driver's licence at a cyber cafe in Nairobi without having to go to the dreaded Times Tower where I did my last renewal. The Huduma centers; the mobile clinics being distributed by the first lady, the roadsides in the rural areas without bushes, the sanitized informal settlements in Nairobi, Kisumu and hopefully other urban centers following soon. While I was in Kenya, an Obama visit, a Global Entrepreneurship Summit, a First Ladies' (African) summit happened in Nairobi and there is talk of a Papal visit and WTO summit coming soon (to a theatre near you?)

For all these, I could easily give the Jubilee government credit for aiding and abetting. For some things to happen, there has to be a conducive environment and the government of the day has a paramount role to play in this. The Jubilee outfit does not need a propagandist to narrate all these-yet they are behaving as if ignorant or are they just plain modest?

eCitizen, ejijiPay and KRA internet portals are another godsend for government services. Utility companies and service providers have eased payments by employing the M-Pesa facility.
The Nairobi county government (and probably other counties) is still in the snail-pace when it comes to revenue collection. One has to apply to be entered in a rates/rent payers' roll (at a fee of course), then they create an invoice which the applicant then picks up at a later (much later!) date to pay land rates or rent. 

As I drove from home back to the airport on my way back, I took the wrong turn twice on the Thika highway which I wholly blame the authorities charged with putting up signs on the roads. Signs should be advance information for visiting travelers but I found that it's not the case at home. They assume one knows where one is and that one knows where the next turn leads to. Driving at night can be treacherous due to the poor state of roads-potholes polka dot the surfaces, no pilot marking on the tarmac and one is never really sure where the road edge is especially on being blinded by oncoming vehicles' full beams. I was held up in stand-still traffic jams twice and I could see the window for boarding the plane slowly closing shut. It was as if I was being sent a subtle message by the Oracle---You are home! Where are you in a hurry to?

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