Say No to Terror…Say No to Violence, Stand Up and Shout

Given the mire that our country is wallowing in, this is not the time for us to continue resting on our laurels. Truth be told, our country is languishing under the incompetence of the “leaders” we let sail into the August house.

Why is Mungiki wreaking havoc and leaving terror everywhere, when our country boasts of having one of the best security forces in East and Central Africa? Does it mean that there is nothing that can be done?

Sometimes the poignant words of Jonathan Swift ring in my mind and I sigh heavily and let them run the breadth of my mind:
“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”

Sometimes it seems to me that laws are put in place to stifle, strangulate and asphyxiate some people while some others toy around with them and have a field day. (Otherwise what do you make of the Anglo Leasing and Goldenberg masterminds enjoying the free air while someone who stole Ksh 100/- rotting in jail!)

I know some of us have ever read “The Nation’s Prayer” but I reproduce it here for the benefit of all of us:

“God give us men!
A time like this demands: strong minds, great heights, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who posses opinions and a will;
Men who have honour; Men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue;
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tell men, sun-crowned who live above the fog;
In public duty and in private thinking;
For while they rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds;
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps;
Wrong rules the land, and waiting justice sleeps.”

Kenya needs serious men and women who can give their eye teeth to afford the electorate the best their country can and could offer. That’s what we should ruminate over this election year.

Najivunia Kuwa Mkenya...

A friend of mine sent me a very interesting read yesterday. Here it is and I hope you will agree with him (tongue-in-cheek!):

Technology
After digging to a depth of 100 meters last year, Russian scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years, and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network one thousand years ago.

So, not to be outdone, in the weeks that followed, American scientists dug 200 meters and headlines in the US papers read:
"US scientists have found traces of 2000-year-old optical fibers, and have concluded that their ancestors already had advanced high-tech digital telephone 1000 years earlier than the Russians."

One week later, the Kenyan newspapers proudly reported the following:
"After digging as deep as 500 meters, Kenyan scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have concluded that 5000 years ago, their ancestors were already using wireless technology!"
Na ndio maana najivunia kuwa Mkenya. Wewe je?
Are you proud to be Kenyan despite all the madness (Mungiki, insecurity etc) that's been going on?

The Spitting Image of a Party Pooper

Yesterday I read a very interesting poem that describes, quite amusingly, what I call a party pooper. In essence, a party pooper is a person who spoils other people’s fun.

Read the poem below and judge for yourself whether you ‘qualify’ to be in the club.

Street Scene

A helicopter in the sky,
Observed the traffic down below,
Establishing the where and why,
Of anything that stopped the flow.

A motorist in a crawling queue,
Distracted by the whirring rotor,
Looked up to get a better view,
And rammed (of course) another motor.

The police worked for half the day,
To clear things, and at last succeeded,
The helicopter whirled away,
To see where else it might be needed.

The Test

The Pastor made it very clear to us that, as a prerequisite, we had to go for a HIV test before we got married. The results of the test would determine whether the church would marry us off or not. If either of us tested HIV positive, then, that would mean the end of the journey to conjugal bliss.

That was three weeks to the publishing of the banns. Never had there been a harder time in our lives than at that very time. The task that we had to accomplish was almost daunting.

Our minds were abuzz trying to figure out our pasts: had we slipped in our earlier trysts? And if so, had we contracted the HIV virus? What would happen if the tests confirmed our worst fears?

After lengthy deliberations, we decided that taking the test was the only way of either confirming or allaying our fears.

The next day we headed to a Voluntary Counselling and Testing centre that was in town. We were received cordially, and, after the preliminaries, we were ushered into a room where a counsellor was waiting for us.

I’ll never forget the cold chill that ran down my spine when I entered the room. I felt like a cow that had entered an abattoir. My face was flushed and my lips felt dry. I tried to compose myself to no avail. The feeling I had could only be equated to the feeling of an accused man feeling guilty before being pronounced so.

With a warm smile, the counsellor led us through the counselling session which included questions posed at us and explanations she gave for the questions we asked her.

Then came the question: “Are you ready for the test?” My wife-to-be and I exchanged glances and, almost in unison, we said, “Yes.”

We were led to a room that was adjacent to the office. This was the ‘testing room’. Blood was removed from the big veins in the crooks of our arms. Then we were told to wait in reception while the tests were made and results processed.

The fifteen minutes in reception were an eternity to me. There were a number of magazines on the table. I took one of them in the pretext of reading but in real sense it was to camouflage the fact that my mind was in turmoil. All manner of wild ideas and thoughts were doing their rounds in my head.

“What if I am found to be HIV positive, what will become of my life? What will come of my wedding bid? What will people say and how will my parents take it?” My head was spinning. My mate was going through the same motions.

When our names were mentioned we jumped up in unison almost leaving our hearts on the seats! The counsellor, with two spring files in her hands, led the way into her office. We followed suit, our steps almost faltering.

Once inside the office, she asked us to be seated. With a disarming smile playing on her lips, she told us that she had the results. Our hearts missed a beat.

With the precision of a marksman, she opened the two files and looked into them. At the back of our minds we knew that the contents of the files held the key to our fate.

She looked at us and, as she was about to say something, she stopped and cleared her throat. Was that hesitation? We felt the air in our lungs being forced out.

“Both of you are HIV negative. You don’t have the HIV virus. Here, have a look at the results.”

For a split second we could not believe our ears. Then we stood up, with tears of joy coursing the breadth of our cheeks, hugged each other and thanked the counsellor profusely.

As she handed us our result certificates (the key to our marital bliss and ‘happily-ever-after’ story), she quipped, “These results are very different from the ones that show academic qualifications. You can depend on your academic certificates to open doors for you tomorrow i.e the qualifications don’t change. The certificates show the skills you have acquired. The results you have received today, on the other hand, can change at the flash of lightning if you don’t take care of yourselves.”

Vernacular lingua franca?

The aim of this article is not in any way to fan the smoldering embers of tribalism to a roaring fire nor to stoke the hearth of tribal prejudice. Far from that.

There are some of us who are so much in ‘love’ with our tribal languages that we feel inclined to use them to communicate even in public places and offices – oblivious of the fact that it doesn’t rest very well in the ears of the people who can not help but hear what you are talking with your mate.

Some of the proponents of this ‘system’ find it very easy to gossip about people in and around the office by using their vernacular other than the standard Kiswahili or English that is normally supposed to be used (to communicate in offices and public places).

It incredibly irks me when I hear people talking in their mother tongue in an office oblivious of who is around them and what discomfort they leave in their wake.

But the results of using the mother tongue in public places do sometimes turn out to be amusing and embarrassing all in one pot.

This reminds me of a certain incident which took place in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania some years back. Two Kenyan ladies (from the same tribe) had boarded a bus to town one Saturday morning. As they were settling in the vehicle (Daladala), a burly man got into the vehicle and sat close to them.

One look at the man and one of the ladies almost instantly started telling her friend, in mother tongue, what she thought of the man: a big, good-for-nothing man. In the same vein and tongue, the other lady, tongue-in-cheek, said that she wouldn’t date a guy his size. And she also thought that he wore smelly socks.

And the undue criticism of the man went on and on.

The man got off the vehicle first. As he was alighting, he turned to the two ladies and, in their mother tongue, he wished them a good day. This struck the ladies and they realized that what they had all along said about the man had been understood by him. With egg on their faces, they just looked down and felt immensely foolish.