Kissing My Landlord Goodbye

I have just ended 2017 on a high note. I move to the New Year without a landlord to call my own. I am not homeless. It’s just that I have put something up. It is what a lot of people would call a shack although I prefer to call it ‘My Beautiful Cottage’. It is not anything fancy. It comprises of one room with iron sheet walls with separate pit latrine and outdoor bathroom (the kind you have to visit with a basin and towel around your waist).

I have been living here for the last one week and while it has required some getting used to, it has the perfect ambience. I no longer have to listen to youthful neighbours play their cheap and noisy sound systems late into the night. I also don’t have to neighbours’ wives brawling with their husbands’ resident lovers. My lullaby now comprises of the rustling of grevillea, wattle, and eucalyptus leaves. I wake up to the singing of myriad birds. If I listen keenly enough, I can also hear tiny (and other not so tiny) insects scrambling out of their hidden burrows on the forest floor.

It is an exciting move although the journey has been rather strenuous on the pocket.

 

This is my former front door where my identity had been reduced to a number.

This is my new front door (the only one).

This is the scene I would see whenever I walked into my Landlord’s compound.

This is what I now wake up to every morning.

I would love to invite you for a meal in my beautiful home. However, you need to give me some time to restock my kitchen. As I have told you above, the move was not cheap.

The Long Ride Home

So yesterday I decided to travel to Eldoret to spend the Christmas holiday with my wife and children. I woke up and left the house early. I was in Nairobi CBD before 6 a.m. I proceeded to my usual terminal for North Rift Shuttles. The scene resembled a political rally – with only the politicians missing. There were hundreds of people some with small children and all carrying or dragging some form of luggage in different sizes, shapes, and colours.

It was obvious that today was not going to be a luxury trip in a spacious ten seater shuttle. It would take several days to ferry all those people out of Nairobi and I was not willing to wait that long. I decided to go for the one option that has never failed me in my quest to travel upcountry. I walked through unusually crowded streets (for that hour) to the busy Country Bus Station (at one time it was referred to as the Machakos Airport).

As was to be expected, the scene at the noisy station was bursting with humanity. Fortunately for me, there were many buses there parked in the respective sections depending on their destinations. I went straight to the Western Kenya section and targeted this beautiful Scania Bus that looked brand new judging from the registration number and gleaming paintwork. It was aptly christened “Sweden Special” owing to the fact that Scanias are manufactured in Sweden.

On enquiry, I was informed that the bus would pass through Eldoret as the first stop as it proceeded onwards to Bungoma. That was favourable information because I was now assured of getting home to my family. The other news about how much the trip would cost was not so sweet. It was going to set me back about two and a half times as much as I normally pay on a luxury shuttle. Anyhow, I didn’t have much of a choice so I paid, entered the bus, and took my seat next to a window.

As passengers boarded, a long string of hawkers streamed by selling everything from foodstuff to cosmetics and everything in between, including solar panels. I bought biscuits and some weird tasting yoghurt to act as my breakfast.  The bus filled up pretty fast and in less than half an hour, we slowly drove out of the congested station. There was some light traffic through town but we were soon cruising on Waiyaki way in the general direction of home.

We stopped at Kangemi to pick some people and as their luggage were being packed into the under-floor compartments and strapped onto the roof rack, a lady on the back seat started complaining that the bus crew was taking too long and delaying us. Somebody was irritated by this ranting and suggested to her that if she was in such a hurry, she should have left the day before. Another person suggested, to gleeful laughter by other travellers, that better still, she should have stayed on upcountry after Christmas last year. That made her quiet.

Soon enough we were on our way and although there was some more than normal traffic on the highway, it was flowing. The flow however, was short-lived. Just before Limuru, we started running from one pile-up to another. Consequently, it took us four hours to reach Naivasha while it usually takes about one and a half hours. We hoped (or assumed) that that stretch was the end of our problems. It was just the beginning of a slow and tiring trip to Eldoret.

It turns out that we had not been the only people to make that last minute trip upcountry. All matatus, buses, and private vehicles seemed to be headed our way. The town service matatus and house-to-office drivers had decided to test their long distance driving abilities using their usual around-town discourteous over-lapping skills. The result was disastrous gridlocks which fortunately (as far as I saw) did not result in any accidents.

Seven hours after we left Nairobi, we reached Nakuru. We didn’t enter the bus station and so we couldn’t access proper washroom or dining services. My lunch consisted of roasted maize sold through the high bus window on a pronged stick by a grinning trader on the road far below.

The stretch between Nakuru and Eldoret was not so bad and we managed to do it in four hours. Finally we made it to Eldoret after being on the road for eleven hours on a journey that normally takes six hours. I, and a few others, alighted and the bus continued onwards to Bungoma. I don’t know how long it took them to get there but they must have been damn tired. That was a long way home but I thank God I arrived safely.

Seeking the Spirit of Law

When we overwhelmingly passed the new constitution in 2010, we were hailed as one of the most progressive societies in the world. We expected it to change our fortunes for the better. Today, however, barely seven years after its promulgation, the constitution has not met most of our expectations.

After flashing back to how President Kibaki did wonders with the same constitution that President Moi used to oppress us, I have come to realise that maybe there is something more to a law than just the words used to define it. We saw a government working what appeared to be miracles in Kibaki’s first five years than we had seen for decades before. And this was through the same laws that had been in force before he came into power.

The Purpose of Law

A law is intended to be a guide for people to know what to do in different circumstances while ensuring they do not lose perspective of their society’s objectives and aspirations. An ideal law should therefore ensure that different aspects of the direction that a people want to take are effectively captured. In a democracy, the law is supposed to ensure that the power of the people is not usurped either by a small section (read leadership) of the same people, or delegated to outsiders (read foreign masters). The law must protect the people’s sovereignty.

Unlawful Law Keeping

The government has three arms namely the Legislature (Parliament), Judiciary (Courts), and Executive. The legislature, in which every citizen is represented through a member of parliament in the national assembly and a senator in the senate, makes laws (that’s why they are referred to as Lawmakers). The Judiciary is responsible for interpreting the law while the executive is responsible for implementing the law. Each of these arms of government is intended to be independent of each other, only that this is not always the case. There has been a lot cross-interference between the arms of government leading to situations of ‘’unlawful law-keeping”.

Dependant Independence

The only word more misused than ‘Independence’ in Kenya is ‘Love’. We attained our independence from Britain more than fifty years ago. However, we run to them with every small problem. We are like the kid who moves out of the parents’ house but has to run to them for rent, food, and general upkeep. We have bodies that are intended to be so independent that they even have the word ‘independent’ in their titles but they cannot exercise that independence even if the lives of their employees depended on it. They are dependent on the same people they are supposed to exercise independent authority over.

Change for the Sake of Change

We have been unable to obey our own law which we wrote ourselves. We now want to change that law to match with what we have been doing. Election laws have already been changed. There are talks of changing the borders of our country so that those who don’t like each other can belong to different countries and not be forced by law to live together in harmony. People at the coast want to be on their own because our ‘wonderful’ and ‘progressive’ law has not managed to make them feel ‘Kenyan’ like the rest of us. We all want change – not to be better, just to be different. Our new words in Kenyan vocabulary are ‘secession’ and ‘self-determination’.

Appeasement of the Disgruntled

None other than the National Council of Churches in Kenya (NCCK) through their ‘white-whiskered’ cool, calm, and collected General Secretary, Reverend Canon Peter Karanja, have made calls for a change in our amazing new constitution to create the office of official opposition, as well as a Prime Minister and two deputies as consolation prizes for election losers. This, they claim, is ‘for the sake of peace’.  

Understanding the Law

There are two aspects to every law. One is the word of the law represented by the words used to describe it. The second is the spirit of that law which is the actual intention of why the law was written in the first place. If the spirit of the law is not felt by those who the law is supposed to govern, then changing the words will not achieve much besides generating frustrations. I say, let’s seek the spirit of our laws before changing a single word – Gospel according to the Layman.

God Does Not Vote

Before I tell you why God does not and cannot vote, I must clarify which God I am talking about. Kenya today is polytheistic meaning we worship more than one God. The God each Kenyan worships is determined by which community or consortium of communities he comes from. By extension, it is also determined by which political party or coalition one supports.

We currently have two dominant Gods in Kenya. One “blesses” the Jubilee Party while the other one “uplifts” the NASA coalition. Christians are praying, fasting, and laying hands in the names of their respective Gods. Meanwhile, Atheists, whose number is fast growing in Kenya, seem to be the only ones practicing the impartiality that is being so emotionally preached by Christians.

“Good Leaders are from Above”

This was the phrase Kabogo (former Kiambu Governor) is said to have used every time he arrived at campaign rallies in his helicopter. The words are however used by many Christians after elections, to endorse politicians “on behalf of God”. They will go about in a frenzy blowing whistles and dancing on the streets claiming that God has given them a leader. This is notwithstanding the fact that they queued in long lines well before dawn to cast their vote for the new leader whose victory they now attribute to God. Supporters of the losing candidates will on the other hand be mourning the blockading of their leader’s descent from above by “agents of the devil”.

“Our God is Better than Yours”

Elections in this country always lay the stage for what I request to call the “Grand God Showdown”. They present an opportunity for various adherents of the different Gods to showcase what their God can do. The measure of these Gods’ power is in how many votes their God garners above those of the “visiting” God. The children of the winning God will tauntingly call out to the children of the lesser God asking them to do the “Christian” thing and cross over to the one true God’s side. The children of the losing God will reply, “Over our dead bodies!” and the winning God’s children will say, “Okay, that can also be arranged”.

The Third Dimension

I recently read an interesting article by a Bishop whose name and church I will not divulge (just to spite the stereo-typists amongst you). He was talking about how Kenyans think in two dimensions of “Us” Vs “Them”. He called this the dichotomy and described how dangerous it is. He then introduced the third dimension, which is the God dimension and called it the Trichotomy. The gist of the sermon is that God does not take sides. He is above all. 

Whoever you support politically is unimportant to God. All he needs is for you to know him and obey his commands. He will not vote on your behalf or tell you who to vote for. You will just have to use your common sense to do that.

The Supremacy of God

All candidates and voters belong to God. The earth and heaven belong to him as well. The politicians who we tend to love to the extent of worshiping them will still raise a bible as they take their oath of office. If they go to court for their petitions they will still raise their bible and ask God to help them. That God who these leaders stand in awe of, the one who speaks to their consciences as they plan to engage in corruption or unjustifiable war campaigns; that is the one true God and the one this Layman ascribes to.

Mourning the Demise of Plastic Bags

In the village where I grew up, every home had a basket. It may have been made of sisal or nylon thread. It might also have been made from reed straw but there was no family without one. The basket, coupled with an account with one of the three shopkeepers in the entire village ensured that everyone in the village could do their monthly, weekly, or arbitrary (never impulse) shopping.

Sugar and rice used to be packed into khaki paper bags. Even the tape to seal the bags was made from paper coated on one side with a sugar solution which the shopkeeper would lick before sticking it on. It used to be a really neat affair and it appeared as if all shopkeepers had been well trained in packing stuff.

That covers our history lesson for 90s kids and millennials. Then came plastic bags marking the extinction of all traditional woven baskets. Every Mama Mboga (Green Grocer) in villages and estates across the country could be seen with packets of the light-weight clear bags which would make her lick her fingers before rubbing on the flimsy material to open it up to pack tomatoes and sukuma wiki (kales).

Travelling Light

Many people, particularly men, do not carry bags any more. They can buy whatever they need and get it packed into our ubiquitous plastic bags. People’s busy schedules do not have to include rushing to the house to pick a kiondo (woven basket) whenever they need to buy and carry something. People have gotten used to travelling light. That era however, is coming to an abrupt end in the next few days.

Versatility Galore

A plastic bag can be used as a carrier bag, food dish, eating glove, and garbage bag. It is hard to imagine how life was before the plastic bags came to be widely used. It is even harder to imagine how life will be without them seeing as it is that they occupy every space of our living memories. So many products will have to be introduced into our market so as to compensate for every function of our beloved plastic bags.

Peculiar Kenyan Habits

There are people who sell boiled eggs and smokies from wheeled dispensers. They use plastic bags as serviettes to serve their addicted customers. At the end of their working day, they wheel their trolleys away with all their stock and leftovers. If you come to the site later, you can still tell the exact spot where they had been conducting their business. This is because; their faithful customers would have dropped every single piece of plastic film on which they had been served their favourite delicacy. The entire area would be littered with the now dirty plastics.

If you visit Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), you will notice a small square litter bin placed on the floor right next to the machine. You are supposed to throw your receipt into the bin if you don’t want to take it home with you. The amazing thing is that most of these receipts end up on the floor all around the largely empty bin because people don’t bother to ensure that they land in the bin. The even more amazing thing is that when the machine asks someone whether he wants a receipt for the transaction, he clicks yes and yet he only glances at it for only a second before crumpling it and carelessly throwing it on the floor. Why didn’t he just tell the machine that he doesn’t need a printed receipt because he can read his balance on the screen?

Why, you might ask, is the Layman going into a long discourse of smoky eaters and ATM users? Well, it is just to show you how after the plastic bag ban, we will merely change from littering with something that takes 50 years to decompose to another thing that possibly takes much less time. The littering however is bound to remain constant. The ban will not influence our peculiar habits in any way. If anything, some people might be encouraged to litter more because they will feel like they are doing the environment a favour.

‘Ngamia One’ a Still-Birth

We have just discovered huge oil reserves in the country which are yet to be tapped. One of the most useful by-products of crude oil is (you guessed it!) polythene, used to make the now illegal plastic bags. It is safe to say that that aspect of the project is still-born. Our hope to supply all our local plastic needs while exporting the rest might remain a pipe dream.

Accept and Move On

I am not looking forward to a life without my beloved Jualas (of which I, like many other Kenyans have a large stock of in my house). I however do not have a choice because nobody will ask me what I think before deciding. On that account, I will accept and move on into the uncertain future. What else is there to do for a humble Layman?

The Fallacy of Polls’ Victory (and Loss)

My Blessing from Another’s Loss

I once attended a job interview and passed. As I was settling into the new job, a colleague asked me if I knew how the vacancy had come about. I replied that I didn’t know. The colleague went ahead to explain to me how the immediate former holder of the position had come to lose the job. Apparently, the guy had just been confirmed after a successful probation period. He was understandably happy because the job was permanent and pensionable with an extremely attractive remuneration package. He had therefore invited his newfound friends and colleagues to celebrate with him on what appeared a long and promising future. He threw an extravagant party at a lovely little establishment near the office one Friday evening after work.

A few weeks after the party (which had been the talk of the office for days); he was driving the office vehicle running some errands. Another vehicle rammed into him slightly denting the car. The other driver didn’t bother to stop. My guy decided to give chase but in the process got involved in a major crash in which the car was written off. Fortunately, he was not hurt but that was the end of his job. The colleague who was giving me the story needed me to understand that passing an interview does not necessarily equate to keeping the job.

Elections are Merely Job Interviews

The just ended elections have seen a record number of unsuccessful interviewees go home with downcast faces. Voters (who are basically the members of the panel) are unhappy in the case where the candidates they favoured did not make it. As with any other job interview, an unsuccessful candidate is well advised to take stock of what he may have done wrong and find ways of improving his CV for future opportunities. Successful candidates on the other hand have to commit to do what they promised to do and utilize the skills that they had so attractively showcased during the interview. Interviewers (Voters) can get back to the normal work and leave the new employees to their work. After all, no person in an organisation is a full time interviewer. He has his main work to do.

Embarrassing Emotional Reactions

I have witnessed both purported winners and losers (but really just mere voters); doing the things they always warn their children against, in the name of celebrating their preferred candidate’s victory, or mourning his loss. When a grown man screams his voice hoarse (in full glare of television cameras), then it is possible to tell that our country is not as civilised as we would want the world to believe. It is also equally surprising to see friends insulting each other on social media with the most hurtful words possible just because they supported different politicians.

Not My Responsibility to Follow-Up Votes

I have the right and responsibility to vote which I carried out on 8^th August. However, my responsibility ended there. It is not up to me to ensure that my vote is counted or collated. No politician has the right to call upon me to go and demonstrate on any issue relating to elections. Once I tick against his name on the vote paper, that’s it. I am done. I am a voter, not an agent, analyst, auditor, or activist.

Disconnect Between Bad Politicians and Poor Policy

There seems to be a severe disconnection in the view of voters between poor policies (or implementation thereof) and the politicians they put in place to develop and implement the said policies. It is for this reason that a large number of people whose corruption cases went to court and some, who were fired from public service for the same, have now been elected to relatively powerful positions.

The Best President Kenya Never Had

I admire Raila Odinga. I like his fearlessness which has often left him with no friends apart from Kenyans who believe in him. I like the way he is willing and able to expose rot and underhanded dealings in the country. I like the way he can push for his opinion so hard that the powers that be are forced to give in, if only to get him off their backs. I like the way he mobilises people and makes them understand his point of view on any matter. For a long time, I have believed that he would have made a great president. I have just voted for him the second time and although am disappointed he didn’t make it I have taken it in stride. His place in the history of Kenya is secure. He and we, his supporters, have not lost anything as history is bound to judge us.