WE HAVE MOVED!

We looked  glammer and better  on word press, so we moved with everything we owned.
Find us at www.kenyanskeptic.wordpress.com

DOMESTIC TOURISM MARKET IN KENYA

July of this year marked my one year anniversary since i started marketing my domestic tourism business.

A lot of it has been trial and error since i didn't have much of a grasp of the industry except what I had read and seen from the media.


So excited was I ,having grown up with a dad  who had been to almost every game reserve,resort,national park you name it as a film producer,he would bring back home photos of wildlife and I can still remember I kept a brochure of the Ark under my bed vowing i would go there some day..

Now years later,the brochure is lost,I haven't been to the Ark but i want more Kenyans to visit this beautiful country we call home.

If you haven't ever heard of this song,you need to listen to it, because it makes you feel like rushing to a tour operators and booking a holiday to Malindi,Lamu,Maasai Mara anywhere in this beautiful country.Seeing ever nook and cranny of my country is certainly on my bucket list and i wish it is on every one's list too.

That said you have to wonder why the government does not spend as much money marketing our beautiful country to its own residents.Kenya has a growing middle class with money to spend and we are sitting on millions in terms of revenue if we could tap into this niche market.

There was a domestic tourism board that had been set up under the Ministry of Tourism but you never hear anything from them.


A lot of us Kenyans are guilty of never having travelled to see our country as it is ,most of us have seen Malindi town from the comfort of our couches in our living rooms when some news item from them catches the eye of a news editor.

Yet Malindi is an hour away by flight.

There are so many great places to visit in this country some just a drive away it is possible for one to spend their whole lives discovering the gems that lie just in our backyards.


From the little church built by Italian prisoner of war along the Mai Mahiu road,to the castle that was built for love by Lord Egerton in Ngata ,Nakuru,to the house where Jomo Kenyatta was put under house arrest in Kapenguria,the places to visit are inexhaustible.

Not to mention the archaeological sites scattered all along the Rift Valley...we have so much to celebrate.

It s time we started selling the concept of family holidays,safaris to Kenyans,it should not just be a preserve of foreigners that they should enjoy what this country has to offer.

We should celebrate our diversities and this will only be possible if we are able to venture outside our "gates".

Hopefully the yet to be formed county governments will take into consideration the domestic tourism as a niche market to expand their revenue base.

HOW I REMEMBER WAMBUI OTIENO-MBUGUA

1987,I was just eight years old in class 3 and i was fascinated by Wambui Otieno.

Her face was all over the newspapers,as she fought the Umira Kager clan who didnt want her burying her husband at their Ngong  home.The clan wanted him buried in Nyamila village,Nyalgunga in Siaya District.

I pored over the blow by blow accounts of the court proceedings that were printed out in the Daily Nation every day.

I could read pretty well for my age by then and I could not wait for my dad to bring home the paper so that I could see what would happen next.

Two things stuck out during that time,that Wambui was a woman fighting men who didn't want her to bury her husband the way she wanted.

I will never forget picking out the words Umira Kager clan ,this  band of men that were hounding the poor widow because of traditions.

Feisty woman that she was Wambui fought the clan but the clan won and her husband was buried in his ancestral home.

Years later when Kenya had almost forgotten this woman who apart from being well educated ,came from a wealthy family and was reputed to have been a Mau Mau fighter,she hit the headlines again in 2003.

She was marrying a man 39 years younger than her.

Picture from mwakilishi.com

Kenyan society was scandalized but Wambui never faltered ,she was in love with Sam Mbugua.
I was enthralled with this feisty woman.

Now sad to say she has gone to rest after being unwell for sometime.

Let us not forget the courage with which she faced all her battles her gender not withstanding.

Let us remember Wambui the woman who was willing to confront tradition that said a woman should never challenge men in African society.

Let us remember Wambui the warrior who fought in the trenches with the men in the Mau Mau war.

Let us not forget that the rights we enjoy today as women were partly as a result of the battles and wars women like Wambui and others fought.

Let us remember and not forget that we owe Wambui and other fallen heroines of this country to fight for our daughters,grand daughters that they may enjoy freedom,rights and opportunities to live in a free and democratic country regardless of what tradition says.

Women like Wambui lit candle of women rights  when it was unfashionable to be so outspoken .

And now that she is gone,she has passed on the baton to the women left behind,let us keep the flame burning.......

Fare thee well Wambui Otieno- Mbugua.

Read about her court battle here and her marriage to Sammy Mbugua here.

BLOG ANYWAY.........LIFE WITH WORDS

Blogging is a labour of love,putting thoughts into words and seeing them spring to life from my keyboard to the screen is so exhilarating.


Sometimes,most times I suffer from mental block and even cups of Kenya's finest coffee do not have me bouncing off the walls with inspiration and feverish bending over my laptop;crazily typing away and breathing life into words.


But there are times I lie   in bed sleepless and cant wait to get up and see the blank white screen come to life with words.


As a blogger you can never tell,predict,imagine whether what you write will be understood or misconstrued but you blog anyway.


So far it has been amazing and I am loving every minute of it.


A peculiarity with my blog though is that i have seen more traffic from outside Kenyan than from within.
Maybe more people are curious about what is happening in our country than we are ..i do not know
But i write on


In another lifetime i will probably achieve my dream of teaching in a university about the beauty of words both spoken and written ,how much hope,fear,dreams and change they can bring if used well and how much destruction,hate,violence has been meted out on mankind using the same medium.


How I wish we were would be more careful with what we say,how we say it ,what we write and how  we write it...

VISION 2030 IS IN THE HANDS OF OUR CHILDREN,IN THE CLASSROOMS

Vision 2030 so far has been the property of all manner of stake holders,political pundits,skeptics,government officials,the Executive but not the Kenyan youth in schools who are the ones who are set to benefit the most from this vision as well as turn it into reality.

As a country are supposed to have achieved all the Millennium Development goals by 2015 before we can talk about 2030,these goals include,eliminating extreme hunger and poverty,achieved universal primary education for all,reduction in child mortality,improved maternal health,achieved environmental sustainability,achieved better partnerships with international development agencies and reduced incidences of HIV/AIDS and other major diseases.

Now those look easy compared to the ones vision 2030 aspires to,right?

We are yet to eliminate hunger,seeing that we had a major funds drive Kenyans4Kenya to feed fellow Kenyans that was mostly driven by the Kenyan public and the private sector.Every now and then most of us have read about one woman or several who have lost their lives during child birth,NEMA(National Environmental Management Authority) busy haranguing public service vehicles to provide wastebaskets while real estate developers are busy satisfying Kenyans appetite for living in suburbia by constructing gated communities in areas previously classified as wetlands.

A lot of the time many of the things that are important like asking ourselves how we will achieve vison 2030 when the MDG goals have proved elusive are not discussed.

The vision 2030 is based on three pillars,economic,social and political;an economic growth of 10% over the remaining 18 years,in a just and cohesive society enjoying equitable social development in a clean and secure environment and ensuring our politics is issue based,people centred,result oriented,accountable and democratic.

Young Kenyans today aged about 12 years will be 30 years of age by the time this vision is achieved,which only makes sense that they should be made aware of what this country hopes to be by the time they are adults.This will help them bring the dreams of their fathers and grand fathers(the drafters of vison 2030) into fruition.

A country's future is vested in its children and if we aren't asking our young ones to be  part of this vision or even involving them into the walk towards a better Kenya, i am sorry to say we aren't going anywhere.

We need to hear Vision 2030 being preached to young Kenyans in our high schools and our universities.
These  young people need to start being made part of the development of this country.Otherwise all we are going to see is them having dreams of immigrating to other countries because theirs (Kenya ) is in shambles.

Apart form those of us who have been privileged to get a look at the document,or maybe attended the workshops or think tanks that have been organized on this dream of a middle income economy of the future,how many school heads know what Vision 2030  is all about?

Has these grand march to "freedom" been made part of the school curriculum?have changes been made to the education sector to factor in the fact that in 18 years the world will be a lot more  different from what it is today?

We just need to remember the destruction that was wrecked by young people in London to see what idle energy and no sense of purpose and belonging can do.

And back home,if we remember the crowd that was at Uhuru park for the Kenyans4 Kenya concert,it was made up mostly of young people.

What better example or evidence for hope can there be than this?young Kenyans are changing our country left,right,centre,Generation Y  is the answer to how fast or slow vision 2030 will see the light of day.

We need to hear it being taught in our classrooms from Mbale in the western part of the country  to Balich village in Garissa.Young people need to hear about  the visions of a better  Kenya so that the they grow up knowing exactly what is the dreams of their fathers were.Only in this way will we be able to get rid of the demons of tribalism,nepotism and corruption that stalk our daily lives.

VISION 2030 AND DANCING ANGELS ON PIN HEADS

How many angels can dance on a pin head......?

Can you see angels?

Can it be proved they exist ?

The question of how many of these "beings" can dance on a pin head originated in medieval times and was often times used as a metaphor for debates that usually ended up nowhere or had no clear answers.

And that to me is how the debate on who the most popular presidential candidate is to me.

Already it seems we have almost if not more than 20 presidential candidates all seemingly offering miracle cures of the Loliondo kind for what ails this country.

Am beginning to ask myself whether we aren't being hoodwinked with the popularity contests instead of focusing on the key issues.

Like my pet subject, Vision 2030.

A lot of the time the politicking going on about issues is done devoid of the grand plan for Kenya that was funded by tax payers money.

Politicians and Kenyans too ,forget that what oils the cogs of government is tax payers money,hell even the coffee and sandwiches members enjoyed when they sat till 12.00 am to pass the pending bills was funded by tax payers.

So why aren't we asking what these presidential wannabe's are going to do for our beautiful country.

Why are we wasting time discussing polls,tribal alliances and whom we are going to fix next.

Because we are so caught up in non issues we have lost focus of the three key pillars(economic,social and political)that Vision 2030 rests on.

Take the economy for example which at the moment we cant do much about...However, we can be vigilante and show collective displeasure for kleptomaniacs who are hell bent on leaving treasury dry with  their pilfering.

We can be responsible citizens by asking for more transparency in the way CDF(constituency development funds) monies are spent,in the way the CDF boards are constituted,such that an MP does not use it to reward cronies.

On the social  front ,do all Kenyans feel safe and secure ,of course not! and this is largely due to the social inequalities that exist and also the high rate of unemployment among the youth.

This has resulted in them being the perpetrators of social crimes like theft,burglary,hijackings and all manner of social evils.

But something can be done here,like government  creating an enabling environment  for the private sector to run business that can soak up the large numbers of unemployed youth.Removing most of the bottle necks and bureaucracy when it comes to investors setting up business here would be a great boost to the economy.Rwanda has already made quantum leaps in this direction and is now number one  among the East African countries when it comes to attracting investments,it takes only a day to register a business there.

And what about our politics.....

We need to strengthen our parties,too bad that the  amendment by a section of parliamentarians to have party hopping safeguarded even a few days in the lead up to the general elections will do nothing but slow down reform in the political front.

Party hopping a quintessential Kenyan habit especially when it comes to politicians will be with us till another generation sees what lack of national values and political ideology can do.

In part Vision 2030 foresees this on the matter of politics as a pillar towards vision 2030 "...Kenyans shall formulate and adopt a set of national values,goals and a political ideology supportive of Vision 2030.Among the key guiding principles for this third pillar of the grand march to a middle income economy are :constitutional supremacy,sovereignty of the people,equality of the citizens,national values goals and ideology,visible political party system,public participation in governance,separation of powers and decentralisation.

All of the above make sense and if implemented would see us achieve political maturity as a country sooner than later. But after the recent happenings in parliament left me  wondering if we weren't getting ourselves into  a fix by going against the very same plan against which our Vision 2030 is going to be propped on.

Pray,how does allowing party hopping and whimsical change of parties days to general elections strengthen or even promote ideology?

Guess this Vision will need another generation before it sees the light of day and that is why i posited in an earlier post that this change we need will have to start in our schools,among young Kenyans or else we will be discussing ethereal beings and their ability to dance or lack thereof on pin heads for a long long time.

WHY KENYANS NEED TO START WALKING OUT OF POLITICAL RALLIES

Apparently i am not suffering from arthritis as i previously thought i have wrist tendonitis.Le me explain...
I have been having some excruciating  pain shoot through my wrist every time someone shakes my right hand or i do any work that involves movement to my right wrist,texting,writing,sometimes even when typing my fingers have to be on the keyboard inclined at a certain angle.

Now i have been telling myself i can live with it till i get it attended to but it seems to be getting worse,so i need to see a doctor soon.

This discomfort if i may call it so has reminded me of the way Kenyans have been putting up with politicians                                          and their tribal rhetoric for as long as i can remember..which is like dog years .

We have been ululating,dancing to the drum beats of our politicians.Women have been gyrating their hips to the tunes of the piper who has paid them the highest to sing his praises and even our artistes sometimes grace this political platforms claiming to be doing it on neutral grounds but we should know better.

I was having a conversation with some very nice gentlemen on twitter and it started with someone asking whether Kenyans would ever move away from tribal based politics.Someone joined our conversation should and said that for you to succeed in politics you need tribal numbers.

Of course i had a rejoinder and  quickly tweeted back and told him that,its because we have made our politics that way,we think tribal numbers are all that matters when it comes to politics.

Then i sat back and thought,of course he is right in Kenya numbers matter,the bigger your tribal bloc the better.


Our leaders have made us believe that numbers and especially tribal number matter.It an excerpt fro the book Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan he says

 "......humans have a sad tendency to make the same mistakes again and again.We're afraid of strangers or anybody who's a little different from us.We we get scared ,we start pushing people around.We have readily accessible buttons that release powerful emotions when pressed.We can be manipulated into utter senselessness by clever politicians.Give us the right kind of leader and,like most suggestible subjects of hypnotherapists,we'll gladly do just about anything he wants-even things we know to be wrong."

Don't you think this passage aptly describes us Kenyans..?

Look at the way we idolize our tribal chieftains,how there is so much hot air when someone is made an elder of such and such a tribe in Kenya.


Kenyans are very bright people and it is not like they do not know these readily "accessible buttons" as  politicians use.We know them.

Back to our tweeter discussion...I tweeted that Kenyans need to start walking out of rallies that are nothing but tribal rallying around.I was glad when it was re tweeted by a few Kenyans.Too few i thought.

But just think of what mass walk out would do  in one or two rallies,that is what should happen  and  (some of)  our  politicians would get it.We want issue based politics and not tribal war cries.

         

TEACHING THE CONSTITUTION TO OUR CHILDREN:THE WAY TO STOP TRIBALISM

This Saturday on the 27th of August,how many Kenyans will be popping bottles of champagne  and celebrating one year since we passed the new Constitution?Few if any and you know why,because nothing much has changed.

Except for the fact  that we have a new CJ,more judges were sworn in after going through a very open vetting process and that they   finally   get rid of the hideous wigs and cloaks they had to wear while in session,everything else remains as it was before August 27th 2010.

Things like the way we run our politics remain the same.And with an election next year,we are carrying on like we have done in the past ,basing our politics on personalities,tribal affiliations and nothing else.

How many of us have referred to the constitution in the run up to the general election?

Much as we may talk about the benefits of the new constitution i think we need to focus on the young Kenyans who still cannot vote and are in school because i think that is where the future of this country lies.

Teaching them about the Bill of  making it part of the their studies will go along way in ensuring that the next generation of Kenyans knows exactly what their parents and grand parents  voted in-a break from the past!

We should not wait for the government to start civic education ,as parents it should start in our homes.We could start with the easy stuff like the rights and fundamental freedoms they have as Kenyans and that are enshrined in the constitution.

The right to life for example, that is an easy one,that we are all equal before the law and that all women and men have the right to equal treatment  and opportunities in political,economic and cultural spheres.

Moving on would be that, no Kenyan deserves discrimination on any basis  whatsoever whether because of their sex,race,color,tribe,marital status,religion,conscience,belief or dress code.

Add to that the rights on freedom of expression so long as they do not include propaganda for war,or advocacy for hatred that constitutes ethnic incitement or is based on any form of discrimination.And that in exercising this freedom of expression the rights and reputations of others should be respected.

Too often we have had our politicians cloud our minds with tribal vitriol and it seems at least for now Kenyans have accepted their  charades as a way of life.

Yet this need not be so.

We can start changing the fortunes of our children by preaching to them the good news the constitution brings .That irrespective of their ethnic origins or gender they each have an equal stake in this country of 582,650 square kilometers.

Only in this way will we ensure that we are grooming future Kenyans free of the tribal bag loads their parents and grand parents have carried,yet make them proud of their ethnic diversity.

It will also ensure that we are grooming future leaders who will be focused on discussing issues and not tribal alliances,who will put the issues of all Kenyans before those of their tribes.

Catching Kenyans while they are young will be the best way to ensure these national values are part of the fabric of society.Can you imagine the ripple effect this will have in lets say 100 years?

Isn't it a beautiful thing that we are seeing more and more Kenyans marrying across tribal lines even racial lines?that can be nothing but good news because soon we will not need to watch over what our politicians  or public office holders say or do just so they do not spread tribal bigotry or loot public funds.We shall have thrown off these "monkeys" of tribalism and corruption  that have  clung to our backs since independence and we can march on to a brighter future.

OPINION POLLS ARE JUST THAT......OPINIONS

The fact that an opinion is widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd;indeed,in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind,a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible"-Bertrand Rusell.


Opinion polls in Kenya,especially political ones are big business in Kenya and everyone is cashing in on it,especially now that it is one year to the election.

Everyone company polling Kenyans on their political opinions wants to prove to us that their have their pulse on Kenya's political temperature and so you have  a poll released to media houses every other week.Most of them are all the same ,and they all focus on presidential candidates and their parties.

From who is most popular,to whose popularity is tanking you can be sure that most of them never offer anything new.

Too often Kenyans and politicians get fixated on these polls,yet they are just opinions which are just a reflection of people beliefs and are not based on facts.

If we look at the way the polls are conducted,they never even focus on issues,to me they are just glorified popularity contests like you would expect among teenagers in high school,we should not take them too seriously.

But as a harbinger of the general political mood of Kenyans ,they are a good indicator.


How i wish they would focus less on politicians and more on what Kenyans want form their next presidential candidate.In my opinion they are just exercebating the Kenyan obsession with personality based politics that relies more on individual clout rather than on real issues that face the 40 million or so Kenyans.


We can be sure that most Kenyans political opinions are not tempered with good sense,facts or even critical thought,most of the time our opinions are clouded by ethnic bias and are often based on "facts" gained from media and most of these are never thoroughly researched too.

We forget that most politicians are like actors ,they know how to read the mood of their audiences and playing to the gallery is second nature just like breathing.Kenyans too have perfected this art among themselves,we are very adept at hiding our feelings and have a penchant for never calling out greed,impunity and blatant disregard for what it really  is.

Opinion polls should not be the yard stick by which we use to form political alliances or even make decisions as to who heads this country.The search for the next Kenyan president should be based on facts and not widely held beliefs.It should be based on character,integrity,honesty,faithfulness to the constitution and a sense of servitude to the Kenyan people and the nation as a whole.

BATTLE FOR NORTHERN KENYA LIES IN THE CLASSROOM

Frederick Douglass was an African American abolitionist leader who was known for his anti slavery stand as well as for his great oratory and writing skills. Separated from his mother at the age of one so that she could go back to working in the plantation as a slave and forced to work as a slave himself at the age of 10,he rose to become one of the leading lights of the civil rights movement in America long before it became popular to do so.

Former  slaves who had escaped like Douglas and were well read,joined  a minority white population who decrying the evils of slavery.To Douglas literacy as he was so often quoted was the path to freedom

This great man came to mind because i realized that in Kenya today though we lack the chains of slavery ,poverty,ethnic bigotry  have  taken up where slavery left off.With a population of 40,862,900 as of August 2010 the world Bank report on Kenya shows that our national poverty levels were at  45.9% in 2010,this was a marked  improvement from 1997 when it  stood at 52.3%.The literacy levels in our country are also very high with the report showing that of our population above the age of 15 years,at least 87% are literate.This of course can be nothing but good news.

But  why our high literacy levels are not translating into change in our political sphere is another matter altogether

Am sure we cannot forget the clips we have seen of hungry children in Turkana,a region that has been largely marginalized since independence and that is only in the news for the wrong reasons-hunger and drought.

I often find myself wondering what the residents of Turkana would do if they knew the power to change their circumstances lay in their hands.That they do not have to wait for the government and non governmental institutions to provide relief food when drought strikes.

With one of the lowest literacy levels in all of the 47 counties and a poverty level that is said to be at 95%,i  the solution to Turkana lies in its people.With the right government support this county which is home to the largest fresh water lake in a desert,can be a case study of the proverbial phoenix and rise from the ashes of poverty,disease and illiteracy.

Much of Northern Kenya is faced with the same problems Turkana is battling with and the issues the counties in this region face will be waged in the classroom.

A correlation and a causal effect has been shown between illiteracy and poverty levels,disease and high infant mortality rates.Much of the cause for disease especially among infants  can be attributed to lack of rudimentary knowledge on good hygiene .

Other factors such as lack of safe drinking water,good sanitation,poor nutritional knowledge and lack of economic power all contribute to under development in the region.Government however does not escape blame for forgetting the region exits when it does its planning and allocation of  resources.


With the mapping out and setting out of boundaries soon commencing let us hope that the funds these counties in the region receive will be prioritized especially towards fighting illiteracy,because that's where change for Northern Kenya will begin.


To paraphrase a quote by the former Secretary General of the UN,Kofi Annan,literacy lies at the heart of development of any region and it is only this that can guarantee and active democratic participation of the members of any society, country in active development.

GENDER ISSUES,ELECTIVE POSTS AND THE NEED FOR THE CONSTITUTION TO STAY AS IT IS

I am watching the unfolding debate on women representation with a lot of fore boding because i think the  Cabinet  resolution to amend the constitution clause  hat representation in any one office by any gender should not exceed 2/3 will pass through.And it is going to pass through because men are a majority in parliament.

Despite having the highest ever number of women representation since independence in 1964,we have just 8% of parliamentarians being women,we still rank among the countries in the world with the lowest female representation in parliament

Rwanda which has held just two elections since 1994,they have managed to have 56.25 of their lawmakers being women.Their speaker is also female!

How did they do it?

Rwanda it seems under the keen eye of Paul Kagame made a deliberate effort to make more women representation a reality,and this in a country where women are 55% of the 11 million total population.A UNIFEM report on how this was achieved is available here.And much of it lays the success of this on the implementation of the quota system which in our haste we do not want to give a chance.
Our politicians need not chalk up air miles or split hairs on the issue,Rwanda is an example of how this is easily achieved and it starts with the President.

Paul Kagame whatever you may think of him has led the way in making sure the voice of women is heard and that it is heard loud and clear.Women representation in Rwanda is the highest in any legislature anywhere in the world.

Instead of chalking up air miles going to far off countries to see how successful parliaments are run, an overnight bus to Rwanda for our MP's would do.Let us go learn something about empowering our women politically from our neighbours in the land of a thousand hills

We need to hear the partners ,the President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga leading the cause for more female representation.It is not an impossibility , we have seen the shattering of the glass ceiling in the corporate sector,where  successful corporates are being headed by women.We can have the same in the political arena if only there is good will to honour what the constitution protects.

The battle though may sometimes seem to be a societal one  e rather than a political .Kenyan women despite the fact that we form half the voting bloc rarely if ever vote for a woman no matter how qualified she may be.They would rather rally behind a man.

We need to confront the prejudices,stereotypes and myths we may have about being led by women and this i guess needs to start from our homes.In a country that is still fighting female genital mutilation,rape and domestic violence the task ahead is huge but it should not daunt us.

If Rwanda could achieve this task that to us seems  insurmountable ,aren't we taking the easy way out?

Such a bold move as was envisaged in the constitution   rattled Kenya's patriarchal  society ,but this should in no way cow the Kenyan women into giving up.The writers of the constitution which has been hailed as one of the most progressive meant to right a historical wrong.

By amending the clause it will take us back to the dark ages.

We as a society should be bold enough to stand up with our grandmothers, mothers,sisters and daughters and fight for the ideals Constitution envisages.

We need change,change in the way we view governance,politics,our core values as a country and women representation was the first step into laying the groundwork for more participatory politics by Kenyans from all walks of life.

Let us not give up dear Kenyan women , men we are asking for your support too.More women representation can bring nothing but good to the country.And  i am asking women activists,civil society bodies not to alienate  the men as they seek for more support to ensure that the right that was granted in the constitution which we overwhelmingly voted for is not taken away.

We all remember what happened in 2008 after our disputed elelections and the lives that were lost,the blood that was shed,electing more women can be nothing but good news for a society like ours which hides its ethnic disguises under a thin veil of complaceny till the next election.

Lets keep talking,let us not give up.

DISCOVERING CARL SAGAN:WHY EVERY (SCIENCE) TEACHER NEEDS TO READ THIS GREAT MAN

Carl Sagan was a man famous for many things and especially for de- mystifyng science for ordinary Americans,sadly he died 15 years ago and today as i read his book The Demon Haunted World I wish I had met him but more  than that ,that science teachers in Kenya would get the book and read it cover to cover as i did.Sagan sets out to portray Science in an easy to know way without sounding pompous and his reverence for the universe (he was a Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences)jumps at you with every word in this book and with each turn of the page.

Written largely for an American audience it does have much to offer for Kenyan audiences too because much of what he discusses we can relate too,from aliens  ,to pseudo-science to miracles and even  hallucinations.He urges his fellow scientists to "communicate the substance and approach  of science in newspapers,magazines,on radio and television,in lectures for the general  public,and in elementary,middle,and high school text books."

As i was reading the book, which is a must have in my opinion for the curious ,i was reminded of two things ,no its four  things that have hit our local headlines and that would be made clearer if Kenyan scientists took time to explain things to the general public.One of them is the afforestation programmes going on in the Mau Forest  and other water catchment areas,the increasing Kenyan population,the proposal to start nuclear power generation and the GMO debate.

Much of the debates that have occurred in the public sector have been based on superstition,ignorance and myths.Take the example of GMO that is sensitive very sensitive here because it deals with a national delicacy ugali(stiff mixture of corn meal taken with vegetables/meat stew).Even scientists who should know better discouraged it on the basis that it was an untested technology and that we were being used as guinea pigs by companies.We forget that maize seed has seen changes made to its genetic make-up to yield more and withstand disease.

Or the Mau Forest where a certain MP whom i would not name was telling his constituents not to move from the areas of the forest they had encroached because there was no way trees could attract rainfall.Yet if you drive along the Nairobi Kericho ,you get a clear view of the heavy grey clouds always hovering over the trees.Ready to pour down ,nourish the trees and provide water for the people down stream and feed the many rivers,lakes that rely on this water catchment.

All of these areas i have highlighted would benefit from a demystification approach without scientists being too patronizing to the listening public.We would all benefit from knowing exactly what it is we are dealing with and the after effects of whatever cause of action we take.Then science would cease being a reserve for the "nerds" but would become the marvel that it is.

In primary school i remember my fascination with the human body and with space,i would read over and over again about leukocytes(white blood cells) and (erythrocytes (red blood cells)blood plasma,how the heart and kidneys worked .My dad and i would even spend some nights outside star gazing,it was wonderful and thrilling !But in high school everything changed,i could never get my head around physics and chemistry was a struggle yet i remained fascinated with biology and would pore over my textbooks and notes especially when it came to the topic on genetics.Somehow my curiosity waned and i never understood why.

Probably it was the way it was taught or i was too afraid of asking dumb questions,something Sagan says he saw in high school kids too, the fear to ask and dumb .He said that his most enthusiastic audiences were elementary school kids who never got tired  of asking questions and Sagan talks about "provocative and insightful questions bubbling out of them.".But he reports his disappointment with high school students ,who had  learnt to "memorize facts" and the "joy of discovery had gone out of them."

Could we as a country learn something from the mind of this great man who never lost his wonder and curiosity about science?With a vision towards seeing Kenya being an  industrialized country by the year 20303,is there more we could add to the present curriculum to motivate students to take up more science subjects.We need to have more students taking up these courses in our universities and we need to have more Kenyan Professors who are passing on this love of science to the next generation.How many of them go to high schools to pass on this  wonder for the natural world to students,most forays in career fairs are by accountants or even lawyers but rarely do scientists venture out from their laboratories.Who knows the next cure for cancer,AIDS could come from among these young ones.With climate change slowing affecting seasons we need more studies done on the effects this will have on our environment,land use and disease and science will have the answer to that.

Hopefully the recent back and forth that has been going on among stake holders in the educational system as to the review of the 8-4-4 system of education and the way this knowledge is passed on to students will be reviewed so that we do not cede the natural curiosity and need to know we had as children.This innate "need to know" and "stretching of our minds" is something we as a humans have and must use in order to survive in a world that is changing pretty fast.

I will end this with a beautiful article by Carl Sagan's wife published  in the Skeptical Inquirer in his memory....

WHERE IS KENYA-What a strange Question..?

Image from photographyblogger.net

 
 When i keyed in the words Kenya on Google analytics i expected anything except what i got .The things people do not know about our  country are many and very simple. I found it buffling that people (meaning the rest of the world)do not know we are in Eastern Africa,that  we border the Indian Ocean and are smack in the middle of Somalia and Tanzania.That our country measures 582,636 sq.km and our capital city is Nairobi.What exactly then do peole know about us apart form the fact that we have some of the best long distance athletes in the world?


The results i got from Google analytics shows the interest in Kenya over the past 12 months ,the  search words used over this period  were  ; Kenya map,where is Nairobi, Kenya,map of Kenya,capital of Kenya and where is Kenya.You would think that with our trail blazing athletes,Kenya Tourism board and the Brand Kenya Team and the  Foreign Affairs Ministry all doing their thing there is a whole lot that is known about Kenya.That  we may as well sit back, pop some bottles of champagne and wait for investors and tourists to come flocking in.But it isn't that way and when i pulled this out ,the global monthly search yield for the ket word Kenya alone was 6,120,000,the local monthly search stood at 1.120,000 and this was today at 3 pm ,the analytics are here.

Which makes me wonder whether we may be putting out the wrong information or not enough information out there or maybe the bodies charged with marketing Kenya or making Kenya as a brand known have wrongly prioritized their need to know areas.Such that what we are giving out to potential investors/tourists is very different from what they want to know.

With the recent resignation of the Kenya Tourism Board chairman Mr Michael Joseph the former CEO of the mobile company Safaricom,maybe the next head of this body needs to be someone as hands -on and with as good a record as MJ.The reason for his resignation which can be read here  were as a result of him being appointed the World Bank money transfer fellow .Seeing the success he had made of the mobile company by the time he left,it is hoped the next chairman's appointment will be on merit,someone who can bridge the disconnect that seems to characterize the various bodies in the tourism industry.

The  various bodies which are charged with the responsibility of making our country known beyond our borders need to know  that sometimes they seem to be all pulling in different directions.In my opinion there needs to be a well orchestrated symphony among all the bodies involved from the Kenya Investment Authority to the newly formed Kenya Association of Women in Tourism  and all players in between from tour operators to Ambassadors on how we can map out a strategy that works .We need to plan it in such a way that  people can locate us on a  world map with their eyes closed and that Nairobi is a capital children in Shanghai can utter even in their sleep.
South Africa is a good example of a country that has done this and  that has benefited from its concerted campaign to be a prime destination  when you think of Africa.This is the strategy that will work for Kenya ,making sure everything a potential tourist needs to know is out there such that visiting Kenya is on the bucket  list of the 7 billion or so people who inhabit the earth.

So next time someone asks where is Kenya do not be surprised because a lot of people really do not know as much as we expect they should about this country that sits on the equator.A country  that is home to one of the hottest places in the world,the Chalbi Desert,numerous world heritage sites,is home to one of the wonders of the modern world in the form of the wildebeeste migration and that  has some of the best climates you will find anywhere in the world.What a strange thing....

WHEN GROWTH ISN'T A GOOD THING:Real Estate and Population Growth

Kenyans in our quest to be home owners  have thrown all caution to the wind and we are now selling our farms to fulfill  dreams of being multi billionaires.The real estate industry in Kenya has spawned off a list of noveau riche  Kenyans who are living large courtesy of the land deals they have been able to broker.If you doubt me just take a look at the number of real estate agents in Kenya's growing towns from Nairobi to Kisumu all the way to the coast,land is changing hands and is appreciating in value like no other time in our country's history.

We can partly lay the cause for the rise in land prices on the growing and better infrastructure in most  parts of the country and also the  burgeoning middle class that is seeking to be home owners.Banks have quickly cashed in on this  and most are offering mortgages and home development loans to their customers.The cement industry in the country is also growning and testament to this was when the President opened up  Simba cement factory in June of this year.The company joins the list of cement factories that have been seeing a growth in the building industry and are recording healthy bottom lines.

While lauding all these commercial activities that can be nothing but music to the ears of economists we must be cognisant of the fact that the boom will not last forever and there are ripple effects not at all positive for other areas of the economy like the farming  industry and the environment .Take the case of the four junctions development project whose owners sold off 200 acres of land that was previously a coffee farm to developers who are putting up plush and luxury apartments for sale.Much of the land under construction around the Thika road super highway and the Northern bypass that will link Nairobi to Thika passes through land that previously had coffee trees ,one of Kenya's top foreign exchange earners.

In Nakuru and parts of Njoro the real estate bug has hit the residents of these growing town and real estate agens have sprung up everywhere selling land for development.The same can be said for other major towns in the country now growing rapidly. The growth curve  is projected to show a steady ascent as now governance has been devolutionized to the counties.With the battle for investment that is expected to set in among the counties, it is time we weighed the benefits of providing housing versus that of feeding a growing populace before the madness sets in.

Growing population
Just recently our MP's were in Mombasa to discuss the runaway population growth we are now seeing as the last census of 2010 showed we are growing at the rate of a million annually.With not much focus being put on expanding public facilities like hospitals or even schools to accommodate this  growth i wonder how we will be able to feed and house 70 million Kenyans in 30 years time,seeing that our population right now is at 40 million.Maybe we will have to demolish structures to give way to farmland or lease out land from other countries to feed ourselves.


When the Mp;s held the meeting in Mombasa opinions were split as usual and an interesting article on what was discussed can be read here .However the opinions expressed were not surprising because they were representative of the view Kenyans have on the sensitive issue of population growth.The opinions though were a good indicator that we still have a long way to go in shedding our ignorance on issues affecting us.
In my opinion politicians are the wrong people to be discussing population growth because they are most likely to rely on everything except scientific data and cold hard facts.If we look at the way land has always been and continues to be an emotive issue,marry that with our ethnic bigotries and vested interests in the political circle you have disaster in the making.The reason for this is because decisions made politically will always be skewed towards selfish interests and not national interests.

We need to hear more about the effects of our growing population and appetite to be home owners from our scientists.The National Environmental Management Body (NEMA)should be focusing more on what our commercial and industrial activities are doing to the environment and what this will translate to in the future.Giving too much attention to the wars over whether waste baskets should be availed in public service vehicles and over the noise made by establishments like bars,churches,mosques though relevant is banal in the long term.Where are the great minds that have passed through the corridors of our universities,with great and fresh ideas on how we can manage the resources we have?

An asinine excuse for not discussing population growth is the excuse that our traditions prohibit us from doing so,but ask that in 20 years time and we will be reeling form the effects of the excess growth that was not reigned in in time.Much of the effects of this unchecked growth can be seen in our slums where competition for scarce resources in our cities and towns has seen unemployed youth turning to crime .

Looking for Solutions....
Maybe it is time the government gave farmers incentives to make them hold onto their farms instead of selling them off for quick money.Despite the back breaking work they do,farmers remain some of our most underrated public servants because feeding Kenyans to me is a form of public service.Too often you hear them complaining about price or lack  of farm inputs,lack of transport or poor infrastructure that would allow them  to take their produce to the market.These are things the government can provide solutions to if not ease the inconveniences involved .

Educating our citizens on the benefits of controlling population would go a long way towards demystifying the problems our country is now facing from the land battles that form a major part of the cases in our judiciary,to stemming the rising crime levels in our towns.All these because people are fighting for resources that are not there or aren't enough to go round.

Our solutions are in our hands and in our heads if we put our collective effort together and there is no better example of this in the recent days than in the Kenya for Kenyans initiative that has raised more than half a billion shillings.This has set off a positive vibe of activism that is now seeing Kenyans discussing long term solutions that will see that this national embarassment never happens again.

We need to discuss what the effects of our economic activities will mean for future generations of Kenyans,we need to stop being the ostrich that buries its head in the sand hoping that our problems will magically find solutions

KENYANS FOR KENYA:Why it needs to be long term.

No Kid Hungry is a  campaign that aims at ensuring no child in America goes without food,the national spokesperson and founder for End hunger network   is actor Jeff Bridges.On their website they ask people to donate at least a dollar that will go towards seeing a child receive up to 10 healthy meals.Already over 53,000 peole have signed up for the campaign and it is definitely set to attract more people.

In Kenya we have had the KenyansforKenya initiative started by the private sector, that has seen over 600,000 peole in a country of over 40 million donate in cash and kind to the appeal that was began to feed hungry Kenyans in northern Kenya.When the campaign started i tweeted that i hoped this would not be a short term strategy but that the initiators of this fund drive would find a way to make it long term.The same calls for long term solutions to hunger issues were raised when the private sector held a fund raising at one of the upmarket hotels in the capital city Nairobi last week.The intiative almost hit its halfa billion shillingtarget and you can read more about the drive here.

Now in an earlier article on the current food crisis  i detailed how i made a trip round the rift valley and saw acres and acres of farmland under maize crop .How i drove by little towns ,where market women and men sat by mounds of vegetables and cobs of green maize and potatoes waiting for buyers.Yet we were busy importing maize from outside the country to stem the deficit that is the cause of the hike in food prices especially of maize.Many people reading this who are not familiar with the Kenyan diet will wonder at our obsession with maize or corn as it is called in certain parts of the world.But maize meal is to Kenyans what pasta is to the Italians,so you can imagine the kind of crisis precipitated when  the precious commodity runs out.

While appreciating the good work and generosity Kenyans and friends of Kenya have shown in supporting the campaign i hope there are long term measures by both the public and private sector to see that we have an initiative along the lines of No kid Hungry.This will ensure that no Kenyan child will sleep hungry or miss school because they lacked a nourishing and  satisfying meal at the end of the day.

School feeding program is already in place in some parts of the country where children attending school at least get some food when they are in session.These programmes are funded by both government and international donors.

If such programs like these can be expanded such that the most vulnerable members of our society and especially children are guaranteed a meal or even three meals every day it would go along way towards ensuring that the countrys' future citizens are given a chance to  grow and thrive.

When all is said and done each of us owes it to future generations,whether we have children or not to ensure that we leave this country a better place than we found it.This includes making sure another generation of Kenyans do not grow up knowing the ravages and pangs of drought and hunger.Over to you Kenyans for Kenya team...... hope this is the beginning of a hunger free country.

SIASA MBAYA,MAISHA MBAYA-WHY FORMER PRESIDENT MOI WAS RIGHT ON THIS.

The former President of this great republic Daniel Toroitich arap Moi had a great line he used when he was upset with political going -ons in the country..Siasa mbaya maisha mbaya which literally translated means that bad politcal decisons would always culminate in a lousy life for the citizens.I think more Kenyans should see polical concern for the way the country is run as a sense of civic duty and not something to be left to the civil society activists and donors.

The former president can be blamed for many things but we cannot fault him for the uncanny manner he was able to read Kenyans minds and tell them exactly what needed to be told.That is why when he was giving his speeches we would all wait for him to get through his written speech then deliver the unscripted Kiswahili version which more often than not was not related to what he had just read..That is where you could pick gems like this.And on this one i must admit he knew exactly what he was saying.

Too often when anything  goes wrong in the country we are quick to voice our displeasure over nyama choma (roast meat) and bottles of Kenyas finest beer,but rarely show this displeasure come election time.Some of us who should know better do not even vote during elections yet we are very quick at pointing out what is not working.

If you ask many Kenyans today what they think about politics,most of them will say politics is a dirty game and they would rather be singing in church,planting trees in the Mau or visiting a children's home but do not ask them to go to a political rally or even engage in political debate.That is why come election year we will be praying that God grants us a good President,MP,county governor but we will not touch a party manifesto or even put the political aspirants to task as to what their vision and mission is if they get elected.That is why we have celebrated people who have stolen from the public,lied to us for decades and we give them a free pass to parliament.
Being a keen follower of the Piers Morgan Tonight talk show that airs on CNN,i have followed the calibre of guests he brings on his show.Think what you may of him ,but he really does pick people's minds and one of his trademark questions when he is ending an interview is ,"What do you think of President Obama and the state of the economy?".All guests who have come to the show be it actresses,musicians,comedians,televangelists name them all ave an opinion.If you asked the same question here about our current crop of leaders, you are likely to get a lot of responses ranging from "politics is a dirty game","i leave it to God" or "i do not have an opinion but i am praying for them."

It is after watching this kind of engagement people in the west have with the political going ons in their countries that i am still mystified by the apparent lack of zeal to discuss our current political situations by (some)Kenyans.We quickly forget that politics is what influences a lot of things in the country from the recent power rationing or is it management,to the price of food to the kind of education our children are getting in school.

If we do not discuss the failings,shortcomings,triumphs and mistakes of the leadership who run this country how are we going to move forward?If our MP's in parliament are busy discussing cattle rustling in Turkana ,their non compliance to payment of taxes when the Kenyan shilling is on a free fall,private sector is raising funds to feed hungry Kenyans when food is going to waste in the Rift Valley,how do we expect things to change?

I was quite amazed at the swiftness of the UK government to call an extraordinary parliamentary session in the wake of the London riots,yet here in Kenya when we had the crisis after the election we had to call in Koffi Annan to settle the growing unrest in the country.Don't we have leaders who could have quelled the situation without having to hang out our dirty laundry in public for the whole world to see?

If you listen to the kind of discussions going on in parliament you will be amazed at the lack of coordination in government,a lot of time is spent answering questions and not enough on moving this country forward.We still have too many bills not passed yet it is almost an year since we passed the constitution.Even the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Mutula Kilonzo says he is frustrated by the pace at which bills are being passed.

If we as an electorate cannot face up to the mistakes we have done in the past of seeing MP's as demi gods who hold solutions to our problems in the name of crispy bank notes,we will not achieve the much touted Vision 2030.We  need to see Kenyans getting more involved in the way their counties,towns and cities are run and not leaving them up to elected leaders because by not doing so  it gives them leeway to steal,plunder and lay to waste national resources.


Let us start seeing more forums where we discuss and educate the general public on the importance of being engaged in the way they are governed,let us all have an opinion as to how we want things to run in this country.Without this sense of civic duty to the country we will be at the mercy of the leaders we elect and instead of them being the servants of the people they are going to be the leeches that suck away our country's life blood.

WHERE ARE KENYAN URBAN PLANNERS?

Kenya's cities and towns seem to have no forethought put into them when it comes to their growth  whatsoever and we can blame this on our lack of urban planners whose job it would be to make decisions on how our cities and towns should develop.Of course each administrative council in the country be it ,a town council,municipal council has a department of urban planning but it is questionable if their advice is even sought if the rate at which thoughtless developments are taking place is anything to go by.

In an earlier blog post here  in April of this year i had lamented the fact that the real estate industry was threatening the very livelihood of our country by encroaching on agricultural land .Housing estates are coming up left ,right,centre in every major town in the country,the situation is especially sad in Nakuru because people are selling off rich agricultural land .In areas that should be the source of food and livelihoods,people are looking for the quick shilling to be made by subdividing the land and selling it off to Kenyans who have suddenly got a voracious appetite to be home owners.Sad indeed....

If we indeed do have  urban planners in some of these towns am sure they should be  at the fore front of managing the now free for all real estate industry that is slowly becoming a cash cow for the well heeled in terms of money.Land has always and will always remain an emotive issue but i think prioritizing our needs and wants should be key.Would you rather live in an Italian  marble palace or go to bed with a full stomach.These are some of the questions we should be asking our selves.

Our cities and towns are growing daily with malls,office blocks and all manner of structures being put up daily,but how many of these have been well thought out ideas that take into consideration the growth of these towns and cities in the future.We are seeing most of these towns turning into concrete jungles with no thought given to recreation facilities like parks or even public utilities.

What is interesting to note is that for our cities and towns to grow we need to think not of today but 50 years ahead.In 2070,where will the residents of Nairobi be living,getting their water from,will there be enough electricity,sewage lines to cater for the cities population or will the city be another spot in the annals of history that was obliterated by a lack of planning.

Take the case of Nakuru that is said to be one of the fastest growing towns,how will the town;s growing population affect the environment around the lake,the deforestation in the Mau Forest that is threatening the very existence of Lake Nakuru,is there worse to come if we do not mange the way this town is growing?

These and many other questions can be replicated in the planning of the towns we envision to have by 2030 and that i think should be what urban planners (if we have any) should be asking themselves and advising the county governments set to come in after the general elections next year.

HUNGER IN A LAND OF PLENTY:The Kenyan food crisis is man made

 For anyone who has been watching local and international news they are already too familiar with the  pictures of starving children and their skinny  malnourished mothers from Northern Kenya and parts of Somalia as a result of what has been called the worst drought and famine the horn of Africa has seen in 60 years.It is said that especially in the Dadaab refugee camp a child is losing their life every day,either because help reached them too late or they succumbed to the ravages of hunger that have predisposed them to illnesses.


Now for any child below the age of three years it is especially important to be well nourished because good nutrition is a buffer against common child hood illnesses and infections that are major causes of child mortality.You can read about the effects of poor nutrition especially prevalent in developing countries here.

Since 1984 when Michael Jackson and other musicians teamed up  to sing the We are the World song in the USA for Africa  campaign to raise funds for the very same region facing drought today,it seems nothing much has changed.We are waking up every day to pictures of children with distended stomachs,hollow eyes and sagging skin  that is barely holding together famished bodies.It is 1984 all over again but on a grander scale or so it seems!

A lot of issues have cropped up over the delay in providing much needed aid, from the alleged squabbling by donors,to just lack of coordination yet every minute wasted will cost the life of a child.I watched with a growing sense of shame as the Australian and French Ministers pleaded with the international community to speed up the relief effort to reduce the loss of life at the camps,yet no senior government official from any of the countries affected has paid a visit to the area.

I went to a public university for a degree in Nutrition yet i got a job in a totally unrelated field as did most of my 20 classmates because international aid bodies would rather hire expatriates rather than local graduates for some of these jobs.

Meanwhile as the shame of the century unfolds ,Kenya is seeking to be a middle income economy in 18 years when we cannot even ensure that no Kenyan child goes to bed hungry.We can lay the blame on the weather,global warming and all manner of factors biggest load of blame falls squarely on our leaders backs.

Why almost half a century we should still be talking of hunger is a shame ,why we should be having power rationing in the name of power management beats logic for a country seeking to grow its economy.There are a lot of whys we need to be asking ourselves in the coming months leading up to the next general election and their answers lie in the kind of leadership we elect next year.

What this all boils down to is lack of vision by our political leaders.I watched with amusement when the speaker of the national assembly was disparaging the government slack lustre response to the famine crisis as they presented a check donation of over 8 million Kenya shillings  from parliamentarians.The speaker,his deputy and a coterie of members of parliament were handing over the donations to Mr Abbas Gullet who has literally been the face of the drought mitigating efforts by the Kenyan private sector that has so raised over half a billion shillings in the Kenyans for Kenya campaign.

As they presented the cheque i was taken back to a week ago where i dd  a road trip from Kakamega all the way through Kapsabet,Iten,eldoret,Baringo,Eldama ravine ,Nakuru,Kericho,Kisumu and back again to Kakamega. I passed acres and acres of lush green farmland full of maize in various stages of growth,at Total on our way to Kericho and all through till the tea county market stalls by the roadside were creaking under the weight of potatoes,cabbages,tomatoes and carrots and i was tempted to believe what i was seeing in the news was the work of an overactive Kenyan media.Along the road to Kisumu women were sitting by mounds of cabbages,green bananas and cabbages waiting for people to buy them while our people in Northern Kenya are starving and we are importing relief food.The rice fields of Ahero were spotting green baby stalks that bespoke of the rice crop that had been planted and was getting much needed nourishment .It is a pity my camera's battery ran out of charge i would have been posting the photos of the bumper harvest this farmers had.

The only blight to these otherwise fertile landscape i witnessed in my trip round the rift was in Baringo where instead of lush green maize field i saw healthy goats, perched on cliff tops ,filling their bellies with leaves form the shrubs that dot the rocky terrain.

We have heard media reports of farm produce going to waste in Nyahururu because farmers had no buyers,why should people be going hungry if there is so much food.?

Because we fail to plan we are faced with images of starving Kenyans holding out tin cans for their monthly
rations of beans,maize,rice and cooking oil.In a country where many more people are abandoning farming than are taking it up,why are we watching mounds of cabbages,green banans and sacks of potatoes go to waste while peole in the north are starving?why cant we encourage this people to change their diets and thus provide a cash cow for our poor farmers .

What many peole forget is that farming is a noble profession much like being a teacher or morgue attendant,it is a job which very few peole take because it requires a sturdy body as well as a sturdy heart to keep going even when the rains fail or your crop is destroyed by pests or disease.We need to hear the government encouraging farmers by supporting them in whatever means necessary because they feed our bodies and are more important than the preacher spewing out condemnation of damned souls.

If presently we have 40 million Kenyans who are increasing at the rate of a million annually,why does our strategic grain reserve have to be at 8 million maize bags?For a country that produces so much milk and even exports most of it why do we not use more butter than margarine on our bread in the morning?why do you have to buy an imported box of cereal when you can buy a packet of millet flour and have porridge for breakfast?

The government seems to be like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights and has been taking one wrong step after another after it was declared that Kenyans were indeed dying of hunger.From our government spokesman who claimed ignorance of hungry Kenyans dying to the late response by parliamentarians when the Kenya red cross has marshaled the private sector to raise funds,it does seem that our elected leaders could as well be living in another country.

We produce enough food to feed oursleves,its our lack of planning that has had us being the laughing stock of the international community.We need to stop being beggars of everything be it expatriate experience,educational funds,funds to improve our roads to food aid,we need to atleast take pride in one thing,feeding our won peole which iwe can do with just more well though out plans .

It is time we stopped having stop gap measures to address drought and famine,we need to sit down and plan and decide that no Kenyan should ever go hungry again or die of hunger.If we can do this and demand more from our elected leaders then Kenyans will cease being the recipients of sympathetic looks and hand me downs from the donor community.

NAKURU:Reaching for the Stars

I have watched Nakuru town grow from the dusty little town it was seven years ago,where shops closed by 7.30 pm to the bustling town it is right now,labelled among the fastest growing town in Africa.Then people hardly ever came to Nakuru except if it was to watch the Nakuru sevens tournaments or visit the Lake national Park.Nakuru to me is home,having fallen in love with this little town more than a decade ago it has become like a little sibling that i have watched grow from infancy and it is bursting with potential.

As things stand right now everyone wants a slice of this little town that sits smack in the middle of the Rift Valley tourism circuit.Banks have already made their presence felt and Kenyatta Avenue the main street is literally overflowing with these financial institutions.High rise buildings are present whichever way we look with their gleaming glassy fronts and security guards in their spanking brand new uniforms can be seen at nearly all entrances to these new edifices making up part of the emerging Nakuru skyline.

It also seems that Kenyan corporates and the non governmental organisations have also got tired of holding workshops and conferences in the capital city and are now trooping to Nakuru where the towns hotel's are working overtime to accommodate the sudden influx of conference attendants trooping to the town.A report of the sudden increase in conference tourism can be read here.

With all these happening in the town we need to ask ourselves how the local leaders and Nakuru residents are readying themselves for what is easily going to be one of the busiest counties in the country.Too often we have heard of the rising cases of insecurity with everything from muggings,to hijackings to murders taking place.For Nakuru to cash in on the goodwill it is receiving from investors,the local administration and security network needs to spruce up the image of the town and beef up security.

For investors security is like breathing air,businesses  only flourish in safe havens.It does no good for businesses to be worrying about getting robbed or the increasing cost of ensuring their investments are secure when they are doing business.It is hoped the security apparatus in the county are watching things keenly and putting measures in place to ensure security is beefed up.

The hotel industry in the town also needs to spruce up their establishments for the growing number of local and foreign tourists who are coming to savour what the town has to offer.We also have to see the towns officials also have to come up with incentives that will attract more investors interested in the growing populace who call Nkauru home and investors who are finding what the town has to offer very attractive.Only in this way will Nakuru reap from all the goodwill it is generating from the people who have seen its potential for growth and have invested in it.

I  wish I had  the job of marketing this now bustling metropolis ,the peole charged with this are not yet doing enough for this little gem of the Rift Valley.We seem to have forgotten  our administrative units are now counties and we need to market them as much as we can so that we see the benefits of the much touted devolution.

WHY IT IS VERY DANGEROUS TO BE EATING GRASS IN KENYA TODAY

In Kenya today it is very dangerous to be caught  eating grass because many people will assume a wizard has worked his magic on you because you stole your neighbours chicken,bag of maize or goat.Worse you could have milked your neighbours cow at night  to assuage the pangs of hunger your children may have been feeling and supernatural powers picked you out as the culprit.

What is more likely to happen if you are seen by your fellow citizens eating grass is that they will either rain kicks and blows on you mercillessly.Pray to God  that the police are nearby and rescue you before you are quicly dispatched to the pearly gates of heaven or the rusty gates of hell.In Kenya today to be caught eating grass is a cardinal sin that points to the fact that someone cast a spell on you for helping yourself to things that did not belong to you.

After seeing the number of people who have been turned into grass eating men(why are there no women) i have come to the conclusion that we do not need the endless number of law enforcement bodies or even police officers on our payroll.We need to employ more wizards.
Can you imagine the number of people who would be caught outside their offices chewing on the monocotyledonous green plant of the gramineae family?maybe this would be the easiest way to catch the men and women who have been fiddling with the funds meant for free primary education.It would even save the head of the Kenya anti corruption body a lot of heartache and talk because he has to wait for the kleptomaniacs to surrender their ill gotten wealth and offer them amnesty.And we all know this is going to end up being an exercise in futility or so i think,Kenyans who get caught with their hands in the cookie jar are more fond of claiming that they would rather die as they gorge themselves on the cookies and are never afraid of getting caught .

We would be provide much needed job opportunities in a stagnating economy that is all but tanking with the rise in fuel and food prices because we would be using the services of wizards who would be otherwise occupied advertising their services in the backstreets of major towns.Their clients also operate like they are  in a cloak and dagger movie because none will ever admit they have sought supernatural powers to heal broken marriages,get financial success or increase political clout or catch a wayward spouse.Engaging the services of these men and women would mean that their services are recognized and the government could proceed to tax them and we would not have to turn ourselves into beggars of donor funding.


It may also be a good idea to engage them in the services of tracking who has stolen bags of relief food  and where they have been transported to and turning the said cereals into pebbles as they leave the warehouses .This would ensure that no one ever attempts to steal food meant for starving Kenyans.


It is my honest opinion that we have  left some stones unturned in our pursuit of the thieves who help themselves to public funds and wizards are the last piece in the puzzle of public fund embezzlement.After all the more developed countries employ the services of psychics in solving murder and kidnap cases.It is time we put the services of these gifted men and women to better use,instead of chasing after wayward spouses and vanquishing enemies let us use them in solving the biggest curse to befall this country-corruption.

CIVIC EDUCATION 101:How does your preferred candidate measure up?

I have been waiting for the government ,civil society and the Ministry of Justice,National Cohesion and  Constitutional affairs to start civic education to no avail.Even the church which hither to has always been active in civic education seems not to be very keen on the matter.So being the philanthropic sort of person especially when it comes to matters of sharing knowledge i have decided to start my own civic education classes here...sort of.In this way we can decide if the candidates we are seeing dialy on our tv screens and reading about in the dailies measure up to what the constituion has defined.

My main focus will be on the post of President ,seeing that we are going to have at least 10 maybe even more candidates gunning for chief executive of the 582,650 Sq Km that make up the country called Kenya and its  its 40 million inhabitants.

Now i took time to go through the constitution to see what the qualities for the next President should be and i am going to share the information here.Hopefully this is going to make it very easy for Kenyans reading this to determine whether the men and women seeking their precious votes meet even the minimum criteria for heading this country.

If you have ever looked for a job in any field we know the rigorous vetting one goes through before they are called for an interview.Once your application letter lands on the desk of the Human resource officer ,whoever is reading it is going to go through it with a fine tooth comb and even a spelling mistake is going to see your resume end up in the shredder.Now Kenyans need to see themselves as employers and the presidential candidates as job seekers,they need to throw away the rose colored glasses they have been using to view politicians before and get glasses that will ensure we all have 20/20 vision so that we do not slip and end up where we were in 2007.

Here is what the constitution says about  the requirements for the next President simple terms.

1.The President shall respect,uphold and safeguard the constitution.
How many aspirants are talking about this?In August of last year we ate,drank and made merry when the draft constitution was signed into law.We all know of the rocky road and the billions of tax payers money that has been spent in the search for a new constitution.How many of the aspirants are willing to protect,defend and uphold this document that has cost the lives of many,seen many Kenyans suffer in the infamous chambers at Nyayo house.Some like Kenneth Matiba have lost their fortunes and been rendered immobile all because they fought to make Kenya a more democratic place for every citizen of this country.

2.The President shall safeguard the sovereignty of the Republic.
If i may quote Wikipedia whose definition i found most apt on sovereignty "a sovereign state is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states.^[1] It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither dependent on nor subject to any other power or state."

Now is the presidential candidate seeking your vote telling you how they are going to ensure that Kenyans no longer have to beg for food to feed its people?is s/he telling you how they are going to ensure we are able to transition into a middle income economy without seeking for more loans from donors which more often than not over the past has disappeared into private accounts or been misused?

3.The President shall promote and enhance the unity of the Nation

Is the man or woman standing before you a symbol of national unity or are they a divisive factor.Do these men and women know that Kenya has more than 42 tribes and we have citizens from all the corners of the world who have chosen to make Kenya home.Are they cognisant of the fact that the country needs Kenyans of every color,tribe,faith and race to work together in order for us to move forward.

It amazes me that in a country that is like a mini united nation because of its diversity our political leaders never seem to remember that it will take the efforts of every Kenyan regardless of the ethnicity and the prejudices we have had about each other in the past to make vision 2030 a dream and not some task force's paper dream.

Is your preferred candidate doing enough to ensure each and every Kenyan feels part and parcel of the whole work in progress we are calling Kenya.Or do they make you feel marginalized,forgotten and ignored.

5.The President shall promote respect for the diversity of the people and communities of Kenya

Please refer to (c) above

6.The President shall ensure the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the  rule of the law.


The bill of rights in the constitution we passed is already very clear about this and the President needs to ensure that all Kenyans enjoy the freedoms and rights enshrined in the constitution.


These being the basic requirement the constitution defines,what else do you think the next president of this great republic needs to have?

WHY AFRICAN COUNTRIES NEED TO WORK TOGETHER

When the US President stood to address the men and women of both members of the house of Parliament at Westminster hall,he laughed at  the high bar he claimed had been set by the three predecessors who had the honor of addressing the same gathering before him in the past.Only the Pope,Her Majesty the Queen and Nelson Mandela had been so honored by addressing both houses in the past.The full transcript of the speech can be read here

There were some key note points i picked from his speech and i am going to point them out here.He started of by reminding the gathered members of the long relationship the US and UK have in their shared histories and the value they place on the rights of individuals and the rule of law and not on ethnicity or color.He also emphasised that the prosperity of nations was intertwined,countries could no longer exist in isolation.He defined the US and the UK as being countries that were defined by ideals and one of the most important questions he posed to the audience was,what future are we passing on to our children?

Listening to him was enthralling because President Obama plays and uses words much in the same way Mozart used musical notes to create pieces that resonate 250 years later with audiences the world over.Obama's greatest gift to audiences who listen to him is that he is able to paint pictures with words,and it is a joy listening to the way he puts his thoughts together in words.

But this post here is not meant to extol the oratory skills of the  44th President of the United States of America,it is out to show the need for African countries to work together if they are to shed off the tag of the dark continent.Too many times the world has been treated to the spectacle of hungry and malnourished children standing at deaths door,or to the bloody and mutilated bodies of the victims of tribal violence on the continent.It is time we stopped being the recipients of all forms of aid from food to military to educational aid.

At the moment there is a huge crisis in eastern Africa especially among the countries that make up part of the horn of Africa.This is as a result of the drought and famine that has ravaged the people in these region and left them high and dry begging for food yet again.The area right now has seen an influx of international aid workers as well as the accompanying spectacle of international TV crews.All the food that is going to be donated to manage this crisis will come form the west,it is very rare for African countries to sort out one of their own.Why cant we have maize from Malawi and wheat from South Africa to assuage the pangs of hunger our brothers and sisters in Daadab are feeling?

Why is it countries in Africa apart from the peace keeping forces they so faithfully send out at times of crisis and the support they give whenever one of their own is being hounded by the "west" be extended to helping each other in times of crisis such as this?

The US and much of the countries in Europe operate under various alliances and have perfected the art of bailing each other out to a t".Why cant the same be replicated in Africa?Are we so busy seeking to outshine each other and compete for the never ending aid that we fail to notice that working together would be mutually beneficial to the citizens of these continent?

The re branded African Union needs to stop being a body that does less  talking  and more action ,it needs to have some more  relevance in a world that has changed drastically since it was formed.It needs to answer to Africa's needs today and create a future for the children of these great continent.Too much time is spent discussing conflicts,resolving conflicts and not much time is spent on real workable solutions that cause the conflicts in the first place.

Regionally we have already seen the reluctance that has met the launch of the East African Common Market with some country's like Tanzania being wary of their neighbour Kenya.We will not see any progress on the continent if we are suspicious of each other.We cannot also be fighting over territory like the Migingo and Ugingo islands in Lake Victoria which you can read about here and expect to go on with business as usual.

We need to recognize that we need to work together or we "die".Our countries need each other to survive economically and with the newest kid on the block South Sudan is looking up towards the countries that have been independent for much longer .Countries need to stop living in isolation,there is an African proverb that says .Two trees planted together cannot avoid brushing against  each other " and countries have begun to realize that we do not need the west to market what we produce locally .Our biggest and best clients are right here right across the border .We are now doing more business with our neighbours than we did in the last  5 years,it is time we went beyond being markets for each others goods and became allies and friends,neighbours who can help each other out in times of difficulty because as they say" it is a fool who rejoices when his neighbour is in trouble."

Africa is where the rest of the world is looking towards for ideas,resources,market and expansion yet our eyes are so focused on the countires across the oceans we have failed to see the need in our own backyards.

JANE EYRE ON WOMEN: 19th Century lesson for Kenyan women

"Women are supposed to be very calm generally:but women feel just as men feel;they need to exercise for their faculties,and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do;they suffer from too rigid a constraint ,too absolute a stagnation,precisely as men would suffer;and it is narrow minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings,to play the piano and embroider bags.It is thoughtless to condemn them ,or laugh at them ,if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex"-Autobiography of Jane Eyre  (pg 106)Bronte .C




Charlotte Bronte's famous book Jane Eyre was published in 1847 when just at 31 she published this great literary work that sought to emancipate women in the 19th century and show them there was life beyond the confines of a kitchen and the hum drum of home life.More than 160 years later much of Africa is now waking up to the fact that a woman can be more than a  A woman's contribution to society can go further than the kitchen and this need to be relevant and lead a meaningful human existence is a basic human being that goes beyond gender description.More than one and a half century later she could be talking to the 40 million Kenyans who next year elect more women to parliament and the newly created senate than we have ever seen in the 50 years we have been an independent country.

When the new constitution was enacted it was said women would be guaranteed 1/3 of all elective posts,a lot of argument for and against this clause in the constitution has ensued.Fida Kenya even took the government to court over the constitution of the Supreme Court and we are yet to hear the last of the matter.

A lot of argument has been put forward by women over why they are entitled to these posts but we need to ask ourselves how many women especially outside the urban centres of Kenya even have the means to launch a respectable campaign for elective posts.Women in the country who for the longest time have always taken a back seat in leadership matters now have a chance to shine by electing fellow women to elective posts yet the biggest hindrance to these posts lies in the women themselves..

Kenyan women shine when it comes to  entrepreneurship and things like chamas( financial merry go rounds) have been so successful that women have been able to garner enough financial clout as to gain recognition by banks such that there have been accounts especially tailored to suit chamas and women.The government also noticed this and launched the women's fund that was meant to support women groups and make them more financially independent.

Now as we settle into a new constitutional dispensation women have to come to the fore front and show their mettle as leaders.Already the men are crying foul that the women folk are being handed posts on a silver platter whereas they (men) have had to work hard to get elected.It is germane to point out the fact that we are just getting out of a very patriarchal society and probably the drafters of the constitution wanted to correct the skewed representation in parliament that was always in favor of the men.Maybe the transition to a more gender balanced parliament and senate would have been achieved more gradually by first tackling the impediments that block women from getting elected and by encouraging them to join political parties but it is what it is and we have to work with what the law laid out.

Kenyan women need to prove themselves worthy of the posts they have been guaranteed by the law,they need to join political parties that support causes or ideals that are close to their hearts.It is a fact that most Kenyans (not only women) do not belong to any political parties.We cannot expect to be elected  when we have  taken no initiative to popularize our ideals to the electorate whom we hope to elect us.If people do not know what you stand for what chance do you have of being elected?Women need to show they want the posts so bad the men will stop ,listen and vote for them.

Kenyan women have shown themselves to be among the smartest people we have around and you just have to take a look at the annual pull out of  Business daily's Top 40 under 40 to understand that we are not short of some real gems in our women folk.Why then are most of them shying away from elective posts and seeking to go the route of formal employment or business and more are not choosing public service/Maybe it is because for too long the political waters have been muddied by the men and these posts have been left to the women of steel like Martha Karua with enough back bone to stand up to the men.Yet there are many more Martha Karua's and Jane Eyre's who everyday fight of societal prejudices and male chauvinism to rise above these constraints,it is time we joined these foot soldiers who have paved the way for us and further this great cause for the sake of the next generation of women.

Last year i had written a post asking Kenyan women to stand up and be counted here.My clarion call that was directed towards my sisters was  because the  next generation of Kenyan women who are still in school or in diapers are looking up to us,we owe it to them to be able to fight off the prejudices our mothers and grand mothers carried with them,that women cannot lead, that their place is in the kitchen and that they should be seen and not heard.It is time we proved the drafters of the constitution right,that in granting the privileges they did by reserving special seats for women it was not because of poor judgement but because they had seen and recognized the vital role women have played in the country so far and the immense potential they hold.

Over to you women...it is time you stood up for yourselves,be brave and face the crowds of naysayers who say women cannot rule.