Living and Letting Live

There is a Pastor cum Bishop cum Apostle whose followers fondly refer to him simply as Daddy. He has been trending on social media because somebody claimed that his “children” have bought him a private jet. A lot of “Christians” who are obviously not from his church are up in arms. They claim that he is living large at the expense of his poor adherents. They say that it is wrong of Daddy to be thinking of taking to the skies and yet his followers don’t even own bicycles. Well, you who is reading this and thinking that for once the Layman supports you. I hate to burst your bubble. If you ask me, they can go ahead and buy him a rocket and it won’t affect me. After all, it is their money and they are giving it out of their own free will.

My Dress My Choice

If there is one thing I love about our new constitution, it is the bill of rights. I like the fact that my fundamental rights are protected and nobody is legally empowered to take them away from me. Key among these rights is the freedom of expression and association. I can express myself in whichever way I want be it verbally or demonstratively. Much has been said about women dressing provocatively and how Un-African it is. I took the liberty of researching how Africans dressed before western influence. I was appalled at what I discovered. In the vast majority of communities, women walked around topless and, almost invariably all never wore underwear.

Sexual Orientation

I don’t know who assigns sexual orientation. What I do know is that it is hard to change. I have never heard of a homosexual who became heterosexual and vice versa. I have however heard of a homosexual trying to live a “straight” life so as to fit with societal expectations. I have also heard of heterosexual people trying out homosexual activities either out of curiosity or in a bid to make money through prostitution. I also hear that there are some people referred to as bisexual. This group claim to be attracted to both sexes but they claim they ascribe to only one orientation at a time.

Minding Your Own Business

This is one of the first expressions in English that was widely used in the village where I grew up. We were taught and constantly reminded to mind our own business. Gossip and eavesdropping were frowned upon. We were always told to pay attention to only that which concerned us. That is how we were conditioned until Hollywood happened and we had to know everything that the Kardashians were doing.

Tolerating the Intolerable

In Africa today, if somebody takes your rights away, he will have more defenders than you. This is the reason why you can be jailed for life for being homosexual while a fraudster who amasses millions of dollars of public money is celebrated as a hero. I was watching TV last evening and was shocked to learn that there are Kenyan refugees in Uganda who were displaced during the Post-election violence in 2008. I know some people will support their resettlement, and some won’t, based purely on which community they are from.

Defending the Undeserving

It has come to that time again. The time to reward those who have served us well for five years. The time to send home those who have failed to fulfil their promises. The time to put in their place those who hinder us from living our lives the way we desire and deserve. It is time to realise that inasmuch as we let others live, we have to fight for our right to live. It is the time to love others as we love ourselves by first learning how to love ourselves. The only person you should be defending is yourself; not some goon who views you as a mere election statistic. Do not defend somebody who wants to live at the cost of seeing you die or live a pitiful life. Do not defend the undeserving. Live and Let Live!

Two Sides to Every Coin

When I was in school, I used to love debate. I was a member of debating club. We would be given a topic and each side of the team could choose to either propose or oppose it. The prowess of a debater would be proved by how well he convinced the judges irrespective of the topic. In some instances, we would be swapped so that the opposers became the proposers and vice versa. Amazingly, the top debaters were always convincing irrespective of whether they were opposing or proposing a particular topic.

Although what we debated in school was purely hypothetical, in a way it prepared us for the real world. I have consequently come to learn that most situations in life provide us with two options. Some examples of binary choices include good against evil, old against new, left against right, top against bottom, and now against later.

Lawyers Vs Judges

There is only one course of study in law. On graduation however, one is either admitted to the bar or the bench. These two groups will spend their lives trying to outdo each other using the same law. It is this eternal conflict that makes me find law sagas in books and movies to be so interesting.

Police Vs Criminals

Criminals are always on the lookout for opportunities to break the law. Police on the other hand, are forever devising ways of effectively enforcing the law. They will go to school and study criminology and the ways of combat. They will learn how to use firearms effectively and condition their bodies to withstand extreme conditions. This will ultimately help them to either stop criminals from carrying out their acts, or accost them when they do.

Criminals will go to the black market and buy guns. They will then get somebody to teach them how to use these guns. If they can’t get somebody knowledgeable enough to train them (possibly a rogue policeman), they will teach themselves in makeshift shooting ranges in some forest and test their skill on an unlucky or uncooperative victim.

Government vs. Opposition

The presence of a government and an opposition is considered the hallmark of a democracy. The government does what it promised to do while the opposition questions it when it fails. These two sides provide us with enough noise to last us the whole period between subsequent elections. They also occasionally provide us with some comedy breaks.

Men vs. Women

Most men are on the lookout for the ideal woman either to marry, date, or just hit on. Being a man, I may not know exactly what women are looking for. I am however relatively reliably informed that a lot of them are looking for suitable men to date and marry, or otherwise be in a long-term relationship with. Apart from homosexual attractions, men generally seek women and vice versa.

A World of Choice

As can be seen from my examples, life often provides one with choices between two things. In most cases however, either choice does not portend any immediately obvious adverse effect on eventual outcome. This then means that the main effects of the choices we make are more on our frame of mind at the time we make them and not so much on their consequences. This applies in most everyday choices we make. The exception to this generalisation is when one is involved in a life or death scenario such as would occur in the average brain surgeon’s diary.

Celebrating Evil

It started with a couple of suspects rising to the highest office in the land. Well, maybe that’s not where it started but it was the first most glaring example of what we had become. It seems to me that for anyone to make it big in this country, he has to do something outrageous or at least outstanding in an evil way. If he can’t do it himself, he has to condone or encourage it in others. If all that fails, he has no option but to fake evilness until he can amass enough of the real stuff.

Just as it has been with all societies in history, the young learn through example from the old. However, in Kenya, the old do not seem to have good things to teach the new generation. Since a teacher can only teach a student what he (or she) knows, our elders have been teaching us the ways of corruption, tribalism, greed, and hatred.

Hero’s Welcome for Nandi Quack

We were all appropriately shocked – in that impersonal way we have perfected as a people – when we heard about a guy who has never set foot in college performing surgeries on real people. It had our tongues wagging as we discussed the catastrophe in hushed tones, saying how the world was coming to an end. What we said, it turns out, was not what was in our hearts. We secretly admired the young mid-wife (he had even been performing caesarean sections) and wished we had the guts to do what he did.

When he was released from custody, he went home to a hero’s welcome. His relatives and fellow villagers know how to welcome heroes. They receive many of them every year as they come home after defeating other athletes on race tracks all across the world. They were therefore able to prepare a garland to place on the young dude’s shoulders. His grand homecoming would definitely not have been complete without a gourd of that cool and delicious mursik.

Herald into Politics

Although it is no longer the biggest scandal (in terms of amount of money lost), it is still the most emotive one on our waggy tongues. It is known by the infamous title of “The NYS Scandal”. It comprises of the stuff which Hollywood movies as made of. One of the key players in the scandal, owing to her being the Cabinet Secretary at the ministry in which it happened, had to bow to pressure and quit. Her apparent humiliation was however quite brief. She is now back in all her glory seeking to become a governor in next year’s election. I hate to be the devil’s advocate but I don’t think she can afford to run for elections. Those things cost a lot of money and she has just been a mere technocrat earning peanuts all her life.

Amazing Normalcy

Our two major national examinations have just ended. They have been hailed as the most credible in the history of our country (since independence). One man has done what he promised to do (and is paid to do) and we are all amazed. We are wondering why he kept his promise when he didn’t need to. He will soon be in trouble for making others look bad. He will also be in the bad books of an apparently powerful group of people going by the vague title of examination cartels. I hear that these elusive but influential people were behind the spate of arson in schools a few months back. They are said to have been trying to make the man of the hour go against his oaths and do nothing just like everybody else.

While we may laud the man for earning his payslip, we do not realise the anguish he has caused some parents who had saved, borrowed, or stolen money to buy the exams for their sweet little angels. These poor children will have no chance against academic brutes from poor families who place their feet in basins of cold water in a bid to ensure sleepless nights of study from borrowed or handed-down dog-eared text books in the flickering flames of barely-parafined korobois.

Thinking Inside the Box

Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded. – Charlie Chaplin

Chama

In our country, there is an explosion of chamas (self-help groups). They are popular among Kenyans from all walks of life. People with the flimsiest of bonds, be it co-workers, business associates, or just neighbours, will be found struggling to form a chama as soon as they are faintly familiar with each other. While the basic concept of a chama is good, I don’t think it should replace individual dreams and ambitions. Most people join chamas to enable them save money; which is in itself a positive thing. What I have a problem with is the assumption that joining a group can replace hard work and actual wealth creation.

Tribe

We are headed towards an election year as a country. Alongside political campaigns, this is also the time many of us will retreat into our respective tribal cocoons. This will be at the expense of beneficial personal relationships with neighbours and friends from other communities. We will assume that there will be enough time after the elections to rebuild all the bridges we will burn during this volatile season.

Politics

Still in line with electioneering activities, leaders with previously impeccable stands on critical values, will be joining those who only hear about standards and ethics from international media. These leaders who we have often looked up to for guidance will lead us to support those things that they have always warned us against.

G8

I am reliably informed that there is a group of eight countries who are super powers. They control the entire world economy and decide who trades where and who fights with who. I am also informed that it is not their union that made them powerful. Each of them was powerful on their own before forming this formidable union. These eight did not become great as a result of hooking up. They hooked up because they were already great individually.

Self Development

I believe that for us to grow as communities and as a country, we must first grow individually. We need to acquire actual knowledge and skills that will help us to earn an honest living. Our education and examination system has had a tainted image which the current Education Cabinet Secretary is, thankfully, trying to fix. The need for knowledge has been replaced by the desire for useless titles and accolades.

Self Esteem

In the quest for fitting in, many people (especially the youth, but also older people), are swept away by the floods of peer pressure. They fall into the trap of alcoholism, drug addiction, and crime. Experts concur that the underlying cause of this collapse is a poorly developed individual self-esteem. This causes people to look for their worth in acceptance by others.

National Development

A friend who adores our President once told me, “You always complain that the government is not doing enough to improve our economy. Don’t you see how many foreign presidents are coming to visit? Would they come if we were not doing well?” I was at pains to explain to him that Presidents don’t visit to help the host countries. They visit to find help for their own countries in the form of markets for their goods, and as a source of cheap resources. After a long discussion, I could tell that he had no idea what I was talking about and I had probably just pushed him into adding me to his hate-file.

The Neglected Box

After myriad clarion calls to think outside the proverbial box, we have managed to leave the inside of the box unattended. It has grown dusty and musty. We have failed to develop our special gifts and talents and instead become cheerleaders to those who have. We have stopped believing in ourselves as individuals, as communities, and as societies. We have shifted our values to how others perceive us instead of how we view ourselves.

When we were growing up, our teachers often gave us the example of washing a dirty cup. They would tell us that it is more important to clean the inside of the cup rather than the outside. Inasmuch as people might view us badly for using an apparently dirty cup, we would be comfortable in the knowledge that the most important part of the cup was clean. I therefore say, think inside the box. The outside will take care of itself.

When you start to live outside yourself, it’s all dangerous – Ernest Hemingway.

A Land of Bright Darkness

Africa used to be referred to as the Dark Continent. However, probably owing to a growing sense of political correctness, this tag was dropped. I had heard that the darkness was apparent from satellite pictures taken at night. They displayed a shadowy patch where the Continent is supposed to be because electrification of the continent is rather sparse resulting in the darkness.

Hatred Galore

News from Africa is filled with stories about how people hate so much that they even kill each other on flimsy reasons. The hatred is not veiled. It is expressed in the strongest terms possible. Everybody from religious leaders to politicians take any opportunity to express their hatred for one or other individual or group. It is this free display of hatred that has made people liken the President elect of the US to an African. Comedian Trevor Noah, on his Daily Show during the campaigns, stated that if Donald Trump was elected President, he would be the first truly African President of America.

Unfettered Greed

It is probably only in Africa that public funds can be diverted to a few people’s pockets. It is a level of greed that sounds unreal by its sheer magnitude. It has led to the collapse of entire countries’ economies. It has forced those countries that send aid to Africa to implement projects directly due to painful past experiences with diverted funds.

Corruption

Every time I type the word corruption, I always hope I won’t have to do it ever again. I have however come to accept that I will be writing about it for a long time to come. Nepotism, cronyism, sycophancy and other such vices have found a comfortable home in Africa. Policies on paper fill volumes in various archives. Off the cuff policies rule and are determined by immediate potential benefit to the one calling the shots.

Tribalism

It is surprising to know that there are only a few distinct language groups in Africa. It is more surprising that most people can pick some familiar words from those who are of different communities from them. It is most surprising that these people, who understand each other’s languages and customs, are willing to kill just because of some subtle differences between them. They are also willing to shout from the highest places about why theirs is the superior community in various aspects.

Intolerance

I recently heard a street preacher talking on a loud public address system on Tom Mboya Street in Nairobi. He was saying how he has been with people from other East African countries and how he could safely conclude that Kenyans are the most intelligent of all the people in the region. Judging by the way the congregation was cheering, it was possible to tell that he was speaking for a lot of them. He was preaching intolerance in the name of God.

Lost Heritage

Colonisation was intended to make us do away with our values and adopt those of the Europeans. It was designed in a clever way to portray the new way as better than ours. This conditioning worked extremely well, maybe even better than the colonisers envisioned. All the vices mentioned above did not exist in Africa before the white man showed up. Africans however took them up with gusto and perfected them. This left us without a heritage to call our own, and an alien culture which we copied shoddily.

Inexplicable Bliss

Africa is a place where one finds happy people whose infectious joy appears inexplicable. There is contentment with the measly little available. There is a strange love for political leaders who seem to get worse in the kind of evil scheme they can dream up. Families keep together and support each other with needs such as accommodation, food, and education. Black sheep are kept in the fold and no matter what they get themselves into, they always have a home to return to.

Smiles in the Most Unlikely Places

Driving through the perpetually muddy tracks of Kibera slums in Nairobi, you are met with beaming faces and sweet smiles. The wobbly grocery-laden tables are patiently dragged off the road to let you pass and seamlessly placed back as you move on. Beholding the smiles amid the glaring poverty leaves me wondering, “What are they so happy about?” Then I tell myself, “This is Africa, a land where the darkness is so bright you don’t need light.”

Of Meat Eaters and Saliva Swallowers

A former hairdresser moved swiftly from swallowing saliva to eating real meat. In a remarkably short time, she moved from scrapping dandruff off people’s scalps, to withdrawing a hundred million shillings in a single day. Her account grew from a balance of less than a thousand shillings to more than a billion in a shorter time than it takes to say “Kabura!” I can’t imagine how she moved from being a modest ‘hustler’ with gentle calls of “Auntie kuja nikushuke” from her humble shack, to possessing the poise of a monarch as she takes agitated MPs round in circles with largely unanswered questions.

Story of King of the Jungle

The Lion is the undisputed King of the Jungle. When a male lion comes of age, he approaches a pride whose patriarch is getting old and weak. He challenges him to a fight and if the older lion loses, he leaves the pride to the younger one. The new king can now sit in the shade as the lionesses hunt for him. He eats first which means he gets the juiciest and tastiest parts of the kill even before the kids can eat. He also mates with all the females in the pride without competition from anyone, yet.

As the King Lion grows older, the same fate awaits him as that which befell his predecessor. He therefore has to enjoy his dominion (while it lasts). Once he is out, he will not survive for long. He will either die of hunger (because he never learnt how to hunt), or be killed by scavengers such as hyenas and jackals, or even some of his former prey such as a sharp-horned buffalo. This is the pitiful fate that awaits most of the feared predatory carnivores.

A Government of Carnivores

None other than our own president likened holding the government to partaking of a meat-eating feast while the opposition (and the rest of Kenyans) drooled saliva from the peripheries. The president is the King and he has his lionesses hunting and bringing him the kill. He is then able to put his maned head into the fresh carcass and extract the invaluable fillet. He proceeds to munch contentedly as his blood-smeared whiskers glisten in the hot sahara sun. He will be sounding deep-based warning rumbles lest any of the onlookers forget who is King. These onlookers (us) will swallow the saliva flooding their mouths as they envision the bliss they will enjoy the day their turn to eat arrives.

Belling the Cat

The story is told of how a long time ago, a colony of rats roamed free and enjoyed their lives to the fullest. It is said that the owner of that particular territory decided that enough is enough. He entailed the services of a cat who would go out every day and catch a rat or two and eat to his fullest. The rats were devastated. Their numbers were dwindling and they realised that theirs was an endangered species judging by the rate the cat was eating them up.

The rats convened a meeting during which they discussed ways of overcoming the cat. They observed that the cat had one advantage over them; stealth. They had discovered that however much they tried to be prepared by the time the cat came, he always caught them off-guard. After a lot of excited discussion, the rats came up with what they concluded was a fool-proof plan to evade all future feline attacks. They would fit a loud bell on the cat’s neck which would gong loudly and warn them of his approach. One small rat interrupted the celebratory ululations by reminding them, amid severe resistance, that it was practically impossible for a rat to approach a breathing cat and hang a bell on its neck. That, as they say, was that and the cat continued enjoying rat dinner for the rest of its nine short lives.

Vegetarians (not) By Choice

A lot of Kenyans have become vegetarians in recent years. They did not willingly adopt the vegetarian lifestyle. Rather, it is the vegetarian life that chose them without giving them too much of a choice. These Kenyans have come to discover, appreciate, and even love, various green vegetables that have always grown undisturbed all around them. They are vegetarian for the simple reason that they can’t afford meat – at least not daily or even weekly.

Even Matumbo is Meat

There is a saying from my community which states that even matumbo (tripes) is meat. A former colleague used to tell us that this was not true. He used to say that this is a cheap justification by poor people to try and prove that they are doing well in life. He explained using an observation of vehicles used to transport meat in the country. These vehicles usually have a large container in which the meat is carried. A smaller container is attached to its side in which the matumbo is placed. He would ask a simple question. “If matumbo was meat, why was it not placed in the big box with the rest of the meat?” I have to say he had a point.

Moral of the Stories

It has always been said that there are two main tribes in Kenya. The haves and the have nots. Our President put it in perspective when he said that there are those eating meat and those swallowing saliva (ostensibly because they have no meat to eat). In the words of one John Githongo (title of his book), the ruling class is saying, “It’s Our Turn to Eat”. It is therefore obvious that there is a lot of eating going on in the country. On the flipside, there is also a lot of saliva swallowing. Just a reminder to the current carnivores among us; The King Lion will soon lose his pride to a younger Lion with more libido. His cubs will also get killed to ensure his lineage is curtailed. Vegetarians and Matumbo eaters will soon graduate to eating real meat. The cat will die in his own time.