life is like that....

Yesterday, I strayed into my gym (don't ask me after how long). I cannot explain it (I guess it's those primeval suicidal tendencies prevalent in the human species that have kept global populations in check these millennia) but I somehow found myself in the parking lot and I asked myself,"..why not?..."
"May be they have new machines", and so I ended up in the gym. The receptionists did not seem to notice a stranger enter and so I thought, "You see, you belong."
I joined the busy bodies endlessly running to nowhere with no one chasing us, experimented with a bunch of contraptions my son would have had a field day labeling the various components of compound machines; pulleys, levers, wheel-and-axles, block-and-tackles and other dumb ones- ever wondered why they call them dumbbells? I was perfectly OK before this escapade but now I find it quite straining to simply de-cork (or is it un-cork) a bottle of Belvedere. Getting up from a sitting or lying position is a painful experience so I have resigned to not putting myself to this uncalled for torture. Thanks to the Oracle of Būsen, my bottle of Belvedere is open, and me thinks it's going to rain today.

Please Kenyans, Not again!

We, as a nation are at a cross-roads again and it is my hope that race memory will save us this time around. Kenyans have had two opportunities in the past to liberate themselves but in both instances, their endeavours have been dashed by; ignorance, greedy politicians, external (foreign) puppeteers, indigenous thugs, high expectations from these two past events were smashed, scattered among the wilderness with the results of abject poverty, illiteracy, disillusionment and the perpetuation of master/slave attitude in the citizenry.

The handover of political reigns from the British colonialists to the so-called African leaders was a well stage managed show that left the African feeling liberated and settled back into hard labour and complacency while the nouveau political class settled into the tasks of plunder and rape of any and all resources. The best placed to take up this political class were the former colonial collaborators, home guards, their kin and kith.

In the early 90's Kenyans agitated for a change in the way they had been governed since the 60's. Lives were lost and property destroyed in this so called 'Second Liberation' struggle and just as we were at the brink of a new dawn, tables were turned and the same politicians who had grabbed the reigns at independence, the same who had modified the governance contract to favour them at all levels, manipulated the citizens' ignorance re-acquired the leadership roles again.

As the new constitution unfurls, new political positions, powers and posts are becoming apparent and as the politicians who have been in our parliament since as far back as most of us can remember start jostling for the new positions, I can't help it but shiver with the feelings of déja vu.

New wine in old wine skins and vice versa. These games have to end.

Back in the days when my old man used to take us to Jamhuri Park for the International Show, my siblings and I would start planning for it way in advance even before it was confirmed that we would actually be going- with him it was never a 'Go' until he would say,'..get in the car, it's getting late'.- Then we knew for sure we would be 'going to 'the show''. As soon as second term commenced, the show spirit was in the air and we would promptly get in the mood. The Air force fighter planes practice flights only heightened the growing hysteria and anxiety attacks- we would plan what rare delicacies we would eat; fish & chips, mandazi, lollipops, ice-creams, biscuits, we would start betting on who would eat the most mandazis, we would get ready to collect as many balloons, sun visors and brochures as possible ( to produce next day at school as evidence that we had gone to 'the show')
When in the show ground, our confusion and unpreparedness became most apparent at the entrance to the 'Fun Fare'. For all kids, and parents with dominant kids, all roads led to the fun fare section of the show. That was 'The Show'. Everything else was just a side show. At the entrance, we could not decide which lane to take first. We could not decide whether to take the merry-go-round, the go-cart rides, the myriad games on offing, the circus shows or other kiddish entertainment events available.
For no proper prior arrangements, we ended up spending excessive time at particular stands and by the time  we grudgingly navigated the way back to where Ol'man had dictated we meet to start our ride back home, we always felt we missed something or other and this would be proven next day at school when some kids would proclaim having seen this or that, a five legged cow or a banana so big one person could not lift it off the ground- there was always something one missed- but, so much for the 'Show'.

Why is Amos Wako behaving like us (in our childhood) this day in time?  Why is he taking us back to the Fun fare entrance? So many months after the CoE passed the draft to him for perusal, editing and reference. So many days after the 'Yes' vote and now he wants us to be happy that he's expecting to go to Europe and Asia to engage constitutional experts to help craft the  numerous bills expected to enact the new constitution. Why had he not foreseen the incapacity of local (indigenous) law experts all this time? And anyway, the CoE which was primarily indigenous produced the law why not get another body of indigenous legal drafters to draft the bills?
I need to be enlightened.

Kenya, Our Kenya ( Tribal Enclaves?)

The exiting of the colonialist from Kenya, whether from the white highlands or from the rich arable tracts of land scattered all over the country opened the floodgates for land ownership. Some ambitious businessmen-cum-land buying cooperative magnates staked out pieces of land, collected hard-earned monies from their peasantry tribesmen and settled them there. Through the years, some of these parcels of land changed hands in willing-buyer-willing-seller contracts between peoples of varying ethnic backgrounds and thus begun a lifetime of aliens-in-own-motherland status.

There are pieces of land that the government appropriated for public use such as the ADC farms or for research institutes like KARI, KEFRI, KEMRI, Potato Research, forest reserves and these were spread all over the republic on what we may collectively refer to as ‘ancestral‘ lands. Some of these were later misappropriated to powerful individuals in government or to their cronies, family and sympathisers. These we need to know and the beneficiaries either forced to remit their true market values to the government or the land is repossessed by the government. If there is no use the government could put this land to, then the locals should be consulted (in genuinely fair fora) to find out their wishes- maybe genuine, bona-fide landless peoples in these parts could be settled on these lands. We still have IDPs scattered all over the country since the invasion of Kenya by the white man!

Lands that have changed hands in what is legally termed as willing buyer willing seller arrangements and these, ethnic backgrounds of the participants notwithstanding, ought to be treated as such- business transactions which are sacrosanct and protected by the laws of the land- if the original owner(s) did not benefit from a mis-appropriation, or land-grabbing scheme.

The Kenya we want today has no room for a blanket branding of regions as ‘ancestral’. We all know that our ancestors did not ‘own’ land, they just occupied what they deemed useful to them without regard to borders or boundaries. Statements by the likes of Gideon Moi, Daniel Moi, Ruto and others who have re-demarcated Kenya into tribal enclaves and sponsored ethnic cleansing are nothing less than criminal. There was no distinct line separating the Masai-land from Gikuyu-land or was there? I stand to be corrected.

I'm your friend. Honestly.

In these times of electromagnetic lifestyles, where friends are just a byte or gigabytes of disk space, our lives have simply become a retention period. One simply has to figure themselves in the hierarchies,  either son, father or grandfather levels in their acquaintances' storage. either just about to be deleted, blocked, status updated or fervently saved. The golden chain, which is friendship, has been remodeled with very fragile links of cyberspace presence.
.."Why was I not invited here?.." You'll ask and the answer will be simply be you never checked your friend's facebook posting.
"Ba!" Your email landed in my junk mail folder which 'self-empties' when the count hits 5.
"...and why did my email get filtered as spam?..."
Good old friendship is now regulated by some database management systems hosted in servers spread all over the globe.
A server somewhere in the Alpine shadows determines whether my village mate down the lane, in Nyathuna, gets to attend my son's 11th birthday.