MY BROTHER AND ALSHABAAB

My brother’s mouthpiece is distorted, the one in his phone. The kind of distortion that gives his voice a twist and he starts sounding like one of those antagonists in movies I used to call ‘guezz staro’ – that was like ten years ago and anything I said then cannot be held against me in any fair hearing, especially the Mr. Right hearing.

So what if I made a few pronunciation mistakes several years ago? People still make them now. My friends don’t like the way I say three or Seychelles. But I don’t care, none of them were lucky enough to get first class English education under a tree and from the one and only Mr. Sayialel, the one who during his school days he had to divide his attention between his two wives, his livestock, being a clan leader and his several children. Just to mention, some of his children were his school mates when he was in class eight. The one who would avoid pronouncing Seychelles for fear of what might come out. At least I try

So, a lot of times I laugh it off with a stupid joke. They think its funny, but I know it aint.

Back to my brother’s phone. The movie is staged in some building in outering on a fateful Sunday. The apartment is cool – there is flowing water and electricity – what else could one ask for? I am fast asleep. At about 12 midnight, my phone rings. Just to mention, I hate late night phone calls if am not the one making them and especially if I spent the whole day wondering the streets of Nairobi with a heavy laptop on my shoulder.

So I receive the late call, the voice is strange, not the stranger kind of strange, the strangest kind of strange. It sounds like the distorted voice of a ‘guezz starro’. The kind of voice that says something like this; ‘is this the prime minister, oh who am I kidding I know it is. Now listen very carefully sir, we have fifty bombs distributes in the city, if you don’t meet our demands… blah blah blah blah’ you get the drift. Its so distorted, it sounds like it was mined from deep inside the throat.

And what does the voice say? ‘halo, halo, Joshua’. I freeze. First, the number is strange, two, it is distorted like in a movie, and three, the voice knows my name. I hung up the phone and switch it off. Sounds pretty cowardly but if it was you, and you have seen several classic movies, you would have shitted your pants.

Let me explain to you why. Sunday morning, a grenade explodes in a bar I Nairobi. On Sunday at around eight am in town doing stuff. Sunday evening, just before I leave town, two grenades explode. The route am supposed to use out of town is blocked and all the traffic is diverted to a much smaller road, we nearly empty that road of oxygen. The buses and cars are crowded and I am seated in one of the buses wondering if they did that so that the traffic can be diverted and then they can cast their net in a much richer pond. In movies, that is a brilliant plan, in real life it is a terrifying one

So we are stuck in traffic less than 100 meters from where the grenade exploded. People are conversing in very sad tones in the bus. Most of them don’t want to talk about the grenade attacks. They go round in circles and come back to the same topic. Me? Am not talking, am tired so I go to facebook and write; ‘these Al-shabaab want us to do to their mothers and sisters what they are doing to our civilians?’

I eventually get home after a few hours and go to sleep immediately. So when my phone rings I add one and one together. Strange number, distorted voice, strange time of the night, the voice knows my name. Al-shabaab must have seen my update and they are looking for me.

After I turn off my phone, I try to sleep. I can’t. I wake up, turn on my phone, go to facebook and I delete the text. I don’t know what purpose that was to serve. Maybe I thought they wouldn’t have evidence incase they decided to take my head to court before they grenaded it.

At around five in the morning, my brother calls again. I don’t know why I picked it. He says very fast ‘ Joshua, Joshua, ni Lenana. Nilikua tu nataka kukuuliza ka utanitumia success card.’ At midnight?

BE HAPPY

I asked a number of my friends what would make them happy, like really happy. Some of the answers were logically what everyone else would say.

Here are a few. Money, someone who makes me laugh, when am not hurt as in when there is no one stressing me. Others were unexpected, for example a baby who doesn’t cry at night, sex, a lot of things, matoke and stew; and some guy said ‘a cat’.

But what really makes people happy? Can a single thing make you happy your entire life? If your priorities change, do the things that make you happy change?

A lot of people are not sure what makes them happy. Money, a good job and recognition can make someone happy for a period of time, but then, in the long run people get tired of routines and the attention that comes with them. The friend I asked took an average of ten seconds to come up with an answer. Most of the answers started with ‘many things….. Or I guess……. Or that is really hard but…….’.

Happiness is related to self realization. Knowing who you are first and then working to make you happy. Without understanding yourself well, you would never know where your happiness lies.

As a necessity, you need a positive attitude towards life and the challenges that comes with it. The challenges should be seen less as stumbling blocks and more as the stuff that will make you happy after you overcome them.

Appreciate small things. Sometimes the smallest of events can turn into one of the best inventions in history. Everyone knows Isaac Newton not because an orange interrupted his hobby of sleeping under a tree but entirely because unlike most people would have, he didn’t just eat the orange and go back to sleep. He thought, an opportunity fell from the tree, and he utilized it.

When you decide to peg your happiness on things that you can’t control like how much you earn or how much sex you get, you are playing a gamble with your moods. If you decide that finding a person who appreciates you, makes you laugh and never stresses you will make you happy, you are deriving your happiness from the behavior of other people, what if you are disappointed.

Happiness is not in the hands of other people, it’s not bought, and it doesn’t come with a good job. It is in us. Inside every one of us there is the trigger that excites our moods. You choose to be happy even though whatever you earn is for subsistence only. You choose to be happy even though she left you for that lecturer. You choose to be happy even if your baby cries throughout the night and you choose to be happy even when your matoke and stew turns into ugali and soup.

Happiness is a choice, not a person, not materials, and definitely not food

THIS IS FOR ME

The problem with a white blank word page is that it stares back at you. In your face, it seems to say. It is a manifestation of the blankness in your mind then. The fact that you can’t seem to figure out how you start, how to make sense of what you are thinking, how to make it understandable for the few great minds and the numerous feeble minds out there – if this hurts you, you are in the latter group hahaa.
You look, and then you think. You make a sentence in your head and then move your fingers, before you give the kiss – sorry, keys – that delicate touch, you find a fault in your sentence. It can’t be like that, you say, it won’t fit into the story well, it doesn’t bring out the sarcasm, I need a better one. Then you are back to thinking again and like a wicked witch’s spell, the circle goes on. You keep making sentences; you keep moving your fingers desperate for a touch of the delicate kiss even just once.

They tell a fairy of a princess that only needed a kiss from a prince to break a wicked spell that was cast upon her. Like that princess, your ideas remain an imagination in your mind, you imagine how the prince will look like after you get that delicate kiss – this time it’s the right word – and like the prince in that story the perfect sentences eludes you. Just like the princess you get imposter sentences, sentences not worth the stature of a prince, sentences that you can’t touch with your hands leave alone letting your lips touch theirs.

You imagine the rest of your story after you get the perfect start; you create it in your mind, word after word, sentence after sentence, paragraph after another. Like that princess, life after the kiss makes sense, it’s perfect, it’s happy and everything just falls into place. But you have to get that kiss. You have to get that touch. You need your prince. Damn this blank page.

Your mind starts wondering off. You start thinking about awkward stuff. Stuff like why did Microsoft make this page white? White is pure, white is clean, it symbolizes righteousness. This page is white; it might be clean but pure and righteous? Definitely not. Its tormenting, its rude in its stare. It is sinful, with thousands of sins. I just can’t pin down one of its sin in my head for you but am convinced it sins. Maybe it has cast a spell that obscures its sins from the eyes of men, even the most observant of men.

Then in between the confusion, between the awkward thoughts and when you are convinced you are not getting anywhere with your story. When you have given up on your prince, when you are thinking that maybe it was never going to happen and maybe it was meant to end that way. Like the princess, you start thinking that maybe you were meant to die with the spell. But then it hits you. In between the kilos of chaff you find your lost pin of gold. In that large dark cloud of thoughts you find the silver line. The thought jerks you. Your fingers cant wait to feel the keys. You hit one after the other. Just like the story in your mind, you go sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph.

You see, just like every fairy tale, there is always a happy ending. The prince shows up in an entourage, the princess’ heart jerks, then like an excited fetus it kicks with excitement, beats through the chest. She is wearing that wide smile on her face. She lifts her big robe and throws away her shoes. She runs like she is going to lose her legs if she doesn’t and embraces the prince in a kiss of love and witchcraft. She cant stop now, her heart wont let her. The satisfaction that comes with it wont let her.

Though it seems like forever for the onlookers, ripe with envy, blushing and trying to avoid eye contact with the two – there is no point, their eyes are closed anyway – its seconds for the princess. She wishes she didn’t have to eat, shower, wishes that she couldn’t get tired of kissing. That night never fell and day never broke. She feels a little guilty that she wishes the people around them could be swallowed by the earth. But what’s a little guilt? What’s a little evil thought if they could stand there forever, if she is going to be free of evil for the rest of her life? If she could do what she loves until death takes either of them away?

What is the moral in this jumble of word you might ask? I will not answer. I will write this. Everything everyone does needs the first step. For some people it comes easily, not such a biggie. For others its treacherous hard work, you practice, you type, you backspace like hell. You try to create that story. Man you try.

But if writing is what you want, writing you will get. Hit those keys until they lose their markings if that is what it takes. Hit that backspace until it comes off the bottom of your laptop. Write simple things, try to write complicated things. Write when you are sad, write when you are happy, write when you are mad and write when you are hungry.

Make mental and physical notes of ideas you want to write about. Then explore them, research them, give those angles and most importantly turn them into stories.
Practice for you is like patience for the princess, in the end it bring the perfect kiss. In the end, it doesn’t matter how much chaff you make. Your gold pin is in there somewhere. Find it. And please don’t swallow it or keep it within the reach of children. hahaaa

OF BOLD AND BEAUTY: THE Bs THAT GIVE BABIES TO BABIES PART 1

As a Maasai boy about to be a man, no meter in the world can measure your happiness. Those circumcised before you come to mock you, they hit you with sticks, they sing you coward songs. They ask you why you are still holding on to your dirty foreskin at this age. Like it’s your fault. If you had a circumcision choice, you would have followed Jesus. They sing for you the whole night, those evil beings in black clothing. They mock your manhood; they say you will never get beautiful girls. Look at me now, idiots.



They try so hard to kill your excitement. But you are not excited about girls, or your manhood or singing the whole night. In the morning you will kill your foreskin – whatever that piece of tissue ever did to people. That is what you are excited about. After that you get to stand at the gate and all the women and children leave whatever they are doing to address the emergency of greeting you, you get to go to night dances with girls wearing nothing but a few shukas, you get to greet men with your hands, you get to get laid.



Then there is the blessing and the lessons. The elders teach you to be a man. You never drink from the same cup with children including women; you don’t get beaten by a woman. Since you are a man now, you should start thinking about your own family. Then they take a sip of some milk and alcohol concoction and spit it all over your face. Sip and spit, sip and spit, sip and spit, your eyes, your lips, your forehead, until they are all done



They tell you that Maasai men don’t go home early. It’s a rule. They make it clear that going home to sleep early is for mothers, small and big girls, young boys, goats and small things that crawl this earth too afraid to be tramped in the thick of darkness. Earlier in life, when I still didn’t mind my foreskin, my father would carry his walking stick and leave after making sure the animals and the children are fine. He would come back after most of us are asleep, stand outside the house and say mmmmhhh. Anyone who is awake and in their right mind would not dare let him say that again.



They say women and children have too much noise. If you think this is insensitive, try boarding a train full of Maasai women most of them carrying babies. Maasai women have this annoying high pitch voice especially when they argue or sing. Combine that with hungry babies and if you are not lucky it will be the last music you hear. They tell us that the more you stay around children, again including women, the more the chances of getting mixed up in their uchafu (I was torn between crap and shit here, I chose to be neutral)



So as a culture and in search for better indulgence for my ears, I don’t go home early when I am on holidays. Here is where the entire problem is. Picture this, me with my crew seated on stones by the roadside because we can’t pay to watch translated outdated movies, even if we wanted we couldn’t because they have managed to lose all the money we had in the local pool. There are guys there who are experts at living by the number of balls they put in holes.
Those stones are strategically placed. Furthest from the video, close enough to the coolest pub so that we can listen to roots and drown the video show noise and close enough to the road to identify who is passing



She passes. She knows am seated there. She knows I have eyed her several times. So she does like they all do. Change her walking style. If her mama gave her what she is shaking now I wonder if there is any left with her mother. She has a body, a good one. The kind of bodies men create in their sleep. The kind body that belongs in a glass house with the words ‘marking scheme’ written above her head in Hebrew.



The good thing about having no electricity is that there are no street lights. Makes work easy for the hunters with eyes sharper than infrared lights. There are a few lamps with the market women, not much trouble though.



One of my friends says ‘get her’ like an evil whisper. That voice of the devil that lives inside you, the one that says ‘just one more beer, you have already spent most of the food money anyway……. So what is the harm if she is his girlfriend, he says he is going to dumb her anyway……. Why do they care if am gay, its not like they are the types I can get down with……. I will go to church next Sunday….. The dog ate my homework’



There and there, as truly as that hypocritical oath witnesses give in court. I follow. Slowly at first to give her time to be clear of the small paraffin lamps these market women curse our hunting practices with. Like I always do, I catch up and start a conversation. I hate silence, it freaks me out.



If I was American I would avoid like a plague those dates people go to where they pour half glass empty Champaign, toss and take a silly sip, smile, and peck and later lie down, look at the stars and smile silently. Before your hammer is down and your verdict is Josh is not romantic, hear me out.



One, if you decide to give me alcohol, you’d better give me alcohol. I drink from the bottle – old fashioned but like every African man, quantity matters. I am not the guy you peck, that is your dad and relatives. I am the guy you kiss until your heart stops, until you need me to breath for you, until both your feet are off the ground. I don’t lie down next to you looking up at the sky (do I need to explain this?) and most importantly I don’t keep quite for more than one minute if I am not alone. Heck, I don’t even keep quite when am alone, I sing or whistle



‘Niaje’ I start



She gives me the look. I know it, all straight men know it. Even gay men know it –they have their girls in that side of the world, don’t they? It’s the kind of look that takes the color off your face. The look that says ‘keep this up and I am going to pack your crap in porcupine skin and shove it so deep up your ass you will choke on the spikes’. That look makes us buy deodorants. If you are locked in a cold room with that look, you can shower with your sweat. If you walked four miles, ran three kilometers or carried her from the bus stop to your room, you don’t sweat as much as you would if you are exposed to that look for twenty seconds. Ask men



That is the look that asks you ‘who do you think you are… kwani you think you are how irresistible?’



Keep your cool Josh. Try to pull yourself together and keep the conversation going. Don’t mumble Josh. She can’t hear you well, damn those roots, damn that movie. Now what did you just say Josh? You can’t find any better joke Josh?



‘I want to ask you something’ I finally manage to ignore the voices in my head



‘I know what you want to ask me’ she jumps in



‘Ok. So you do?’ I ask



‘Yeah’ she says



‘Answer it then’ I say



‘No’ she replies



‘No what?’ I ask



‘You want to ask me to be your girlfriend. Don’t you? The answer is NO’ she says



‘Ok. Where did you get such a question?’ I ask.



‘Your eyes’ She says



Am speechless so I give that awkward smile that separates your lips showing your teeth while the rest of your face stays cold. A desperate effort to look assuring. Once when I went camping with the scouts club by some river 50 km off the village and we realized that I forgot to carry matches, I gave the same smile.



She has been looking in my eyes while they were busy elsewhere on her body. We get off the main road and she keeps walking, just as fast as she used to. I grab her hands and use more force than its necessary to make her stop. She stands there looking straight at me. Her shoulders drop, eyelid rise lips twist. It’s clear she doesn’t like this set up.




And the story continues in the next part two…………..

THE MENTAL PICTURES WE NEVER WANT TO LOSE

Am looking at this mental picture, It’s still early in the morning. It’s a young Maasai boy, barely three years old, standing a few metres in front of a manyatta. The Manyatta is in one end of a Maasai Boma deep inside Maasai land. From a few metres above one can see the other three manyattas, all conveniently located in different ends of the tall thick enclosure. There are cows roaming outside the boma, others sleeping, others standing idle chewing the previous day’s meal. Beyond that, all one can see is endless stretches of stones, anthills, scattered acacia and ground all around the boma going as far as the eye can see. There is no road, only footpaths. The boy is naked, apart from a beads’ chain around his waist and the dust on his feet he is as bare as the sand in a desert.



The boy is holding his little manhood, trying to push his piss as high as he can. He is determined, determined to shove it as far into the heavens as he can see, determined to piss on the rising sun. He has only managed a few inches apart from pissing all over his fingers and toes; all the same he is determined. His face is bright and he looks as happy as any child can ever be. He stops, a little disappointed that he hadn’t reached the sun. Next time. With pissing, there is always a next time



There is a call from inside the Manyatta. A crispy clear female voice with a gentle scratch on it calls on the boy. The first call is ignored, and then there is another one, a wordier one, as the boy picks a rock with the intention of throwing it at a calf strolling nearby. He drops the rock and runs towards the curved space used for entering the Manyatta. Words that follow sound like warning, some directions, and then soft instructions.



From the exit the boy comes out holding a big bowl. The bowl is filled with ugali and steaming fresh milk. His hands are dripping water and his dust covered feet are decorated by wet spots spread randomly up to the knees. He is smiling widely. He goes and sits next to a calf – the same one that was strolling – and dips his fingers into the meal oblivious of the flies landing on his hands, face and plate.



The woman comes out next. She looks around with a deep sense of satisfaction and smiles. She is proud to have her grandson around. She will keep him around as long as she can.

“Baba yako alipigia simu mzee asubuhi (your father called my husband in the morning)” My aunt says, disrupting my mental image sequence. All this time I hadn’t realized that my eyes were watering. I try to focus on her face. She looks like a moving image from one of these poor quality digital cameras. I look away and rub my eyes with my thumb acting like something foreign is inside them. Who was I kidding? She knew it would get to me. That is why my dad didn’t call me.



I didn’t know she was sick, had an operation they said. Maybe am guilty of negligence, didn’t ask about her a lot. Or did I? But then, I should have been told. Nobody thought it was important to mention it in our numerous conversations? What the hell are those damn facebook inboxes for if they can’t tell you about your ailing grandmother?



She passed away. It’s painful and I can’t think of any other way to lessen the pain apart from writing. Telling those that will read this how it feels. That Maasai boy in the boma is now seated in front of this laptop 19 years later. His fingers shaking as they type this story. The screen beginning to blur. Damn these tears

STORIES FROM MY TEENS

There are three things that make this laptop bearable; these words I write, a very beautiful desktop picture of the scenery from the back door of the office – sometimes it just lets me imagine am looking outside- and this gospel folder especially Mfalme wa amani by Solomon. Though I don’t know his second name, his song is the cornerstone to the very fragile container that houses my good moods while I am here.

This afternoon, the moods are hanging on a balance. I feel shitty. I can’t stand my own presence and I understand how that kid across the river feels whenever he comes across this person I can’t stand now. Feelings that make him spit, twitch his nose and attempt to make the mscheeeeeew sound he sees women in these pointless Nigerian films make. You see, I had an experience with that kid across the river that I don’t like discussing. A few of my friends know it and make a point of mentioning it every time I piss them off. I hate that story. I hate the thought that I am about to write about it.

I live in a remote part of Kajiado North County. So remote that I have to describe Magadi Company to my comrades at Maseno so that they get a picture of home – Nguruman is more than 35 km away from Magadi on a dusty road that also serve as a seasonal river; so remote that youths pay to watch these epic Jackie Chan movies with some loud mouthed MC describing every move and giving the actors Kikuyu names. These ignorant MCs watch a movie once and become experts then start these off the topic translations while throwing in words like cheki sasa, jionee kisanga (I don’t know how to translate this), WTF. From this place, you pay only Kshs 2,000 for a return ticket to see the good old doctor in Loliondo. To take a shot of his mysterious concoctions apparently prepared to heal numerous diseases.

This village is divided into two areas by a mostly dry river which is a physical representation of all the other unseen differences between the villages. The other unseen differences involve this;

When I was a few years younger I scored myself this cute chic across the river. Men, She was beautiful, she was the most beautiful girl in the whole world (that was then. A few years later I have met ‘most beautiful girls in the world’, each in their separate times). I used to go and see her on weekends and everyday during the holidays. Sometimes late into the night we chatted, laughed, held hands.... ooh how I felt complete when I was around her, when she laughed... Damn that laughter...... Somebody slap me now.

One day I am flying home – I was walking; my spirit felt like a breeze, swooping past the road, untouchably – from seeing her. Am whistling the song these uncircumcised Maasai boys use to keep goats and sheep walking and grazing, swinging my head from side to side, smiling at the moon and feeling like I own that small world I knew which did not extend beyond Magadi.

A boy runs out of a bush and starts throwing punches and curses. I run, very fast and hard, followed and sometimes overtaken by rocks and curses. Some of the rocks caught my back, some missed but the curses all caught their target. I cross the river and sit on a rock off the road where nobody can see. Am confused, things like this almost never happen around here. Nobody is beaten on roads, nobody throws stones to strangers at night, nobody is demon possessed here, and nobody runs at night here. Nobody we have heard of.

This place has green, untapped crime potential. The only thieves here harvest your shamba at night and run like hell at the sound of a cockroach. That seasonal river has claimed more lives I know of than crime. The police in this area bask the whole day, occasionally having to deal with awkward land issues which are then referred to the village elders, and sleep soundly the whole night turning around when the neighbor’s dogs bark then going right back to sweet sleep without even bothering to open their eyes.

There has been only one instance in which someone was shot by thugs. The whole village has never recovered from the incident. They talked, coming up with all these crazy explanations, wondering what it meant to the family. They will never forget that one incident.

I meet this kid several more times. Every time in different places, catching me completely unawares and spreading terror along my spine. Then it became regular. This cursed idiot made me start walking like a mouse living in a household full of cats.

I couldn’t stop seeing her, I couldn’t tell her what was happening and I couldn’t tell anyone else either. I wasn’t going to look like a coward in front of my family and my girlfriend. Not me.

I started feeling like seeing her was costing me more than it gave. I felt tired, I felt terror. The memories of her smile that kept me going back were replaced by the pains on my ribs where his foot caught. Everyday I went, I felt worse than the previous day. I chose to stop, and I did.

But before I did I had to do something, in my days at the other side of the river, I had made a number of friends. I told them about my ‘ghost’. They said they had a plan so the next day I walk at my usual time, whistling Maasai folk whistles. Like usual he appeared, though less enthusiastically. I held on to him, screaming, cursing, holding tight. My friends who were a few steps behind me appeared and took over the holding then I did the punching. It felt good, God, it felt amazing. I punched, he screamed, I kicked, he yelled, I bit, he groaned. I never remember feeling that good in my life. I did not ask why, I just drained all that rage, all the pain, all the terror; I unloaded feeling lighter and lighter. One of my friends let him go, he held me, and I still punched and kicked in the air.

She never knew why I stopped and I am never going to tell her. It felt bad at first but my ribs felt better. I still think about her sometimes. But then her memory is always followed by that of the kid across the river.

I hate that story. It takes a very large chunk of my manhood pride. I don’t talk about it. And if you read this post, don’t dare ask me about it.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

So you wake up in the morning. No, it’s not morning yet. You wake up at 5 am. This is not the time you usually wake up and you are not awake by any natural process – though you really need to pee you could have ignored that for a few more hours. You are woken up by music, not the good type of music. The shouting-neighbour-praising-the-lord-5am-in-the-morning type of music

Now, this neighbor of mine does this everyday since I started this holiday. I even got used to it and could sleep through it most days. Sometimes when he is away I would wake up some minutes after five maybe to adjust to the strange environment then I would go back to sleep. Today however, he is not alone; they have visitors at their church that came for a Week of Power crusade. My good born again neighbor has accommodated three of them and today they are a choir of groaning voices. How do you sleep at three in the morning because of a revival and make to wake up at five to praise?

I use my ear phones to plug my ears, I cover my head with the pillow then pull the blanket over my head – its really hot around here, even at 5 am and soon I start sweating. The voices, like a persistent tracker, still seek out my eardrums and torment them. So I sit up look at where I believe the heavens are and ask the great one above ‘is this really, really necessary?’

I wait for a few seconds, and then I grab my phone. Am an early morning and late night face-booker, am not an addict, am not. Just because it’s the last thing I do before I go to sleep and the first thing I check out in the morning doesn’t mean I am an addict. It doesn’t. Facebook is boring this early so I check out twitter, these people don’t sleep.

There is this hot chick I follow who wakes up in the morning and tweets ‘ God send his only Son to earth to deliver us from our sins, his only son, and yet we are all Gods children. So clearly we are all a bunch little of girls’. Hahaha that was funny
This guy from BBC Africa is talking about a Tanzanian court that slaps a life sentence to this former Rwandan prime minister and her son. From the way he talks about her condition I imagine the sentence went like this ‘this court.......................................... and therefore sentences you to two months in prison by which time you will certainly be dead, otherwise the court orders that you remain in jail until such time as you will be pronounced dead’
Jokes aside, this international trial took ten years for people who are directly involved in the crimes against humanity. Mrs. Nyiramasuhuko was found guilty of extermination, ordering killings and aiding rape. Her son led a militia and participated in all these heinous acts.

I couldn’t help but think about our own struggle with the ICC, how long it’s going to take and if Kenyans are going to get justice at last. I have written in this blog before that I believe the process was flawed, that there are people with more ‘responsibility’ as Prosecutor Ocampo calls it than people like Sang. However it would be a very big flop if the prosecutions would delay beyond 2012. Knowing Kenyans and looking at the current trends from opinion polls and rallies, I have this sickening feeling that power is going to land in the hands of the people who are on trial or who have been campaigning against the ICC all through.

The price of 2 kg packet of maize floor is retailed at 170 Kenyan shillings here; Sugar goes for 150 a kg. But that is not the kind of things we Kenyans hold ‘peaceful’ demonstrations for. You might think am a hater by now. But check the trends. Fuel prices go up, there are a few protests here and there, the government takes two shillings off the prices, there is an artificial shortage and now we are just thankful that at least there is fuel. Doesn’t matter how much it costs. Very clever

Back to food. I know the price of sugar because of a conversation I had with some farmer in the joint I take breakfast – I prefer buying tea instead of hustling for all the ingredients that make it then spent time converting and mixing them. The gentle farmer tells me that for the past one week, half a kilo of sugar has had a different price every day he goes to the shop to purchase it. He has resorted to joining me on my breakfast table. He thought it was a consolation until he was told the price of tea has also gone up. I advised him to grow sugarcane or keep bees as long term sugar problem solutions.

The poor farmer will not participate in peaceful demonstrations. He says it’s a waste of time. What will he eat while parading? He asks .However, I believe that if they decide to settle IDPs in the government land close to the village he can spare a week to parade in Nairobi, courtesy of a leader of course and some twisted organization. But for sugar or flour? He would rather hustle to feed himself than parade on the streets.

Now we are sure what Obama’s mission in Libya was. He had managed to convince the US population that the military intervention was to protect civilians against air attacks – those being attacked in southern Sudan are not very civilian. The mission was to unseat Gadaffi - of that we are clear - and control Libyan Oil – that is just me thinking aloud. Gadaffi has been too stubborn even before the war. Refusing to cooperate with western powers in many a occasions so it doesn’t really come as a surprise that after Iraq the next place the US go to protect ‘civilians’ is Libya.

On Sunday I got bored by that small radio I listen to. So I went out to the river to read this supposedly mystifying collection of stories that did not turn out to be that mystifying. I wanted to have an experience of the overrated feeling of tranquility enhanced by interaction with nature at its rawest. I sat on a big rock and dipped my feet in the river. The sound of singing birds and feeble branches defying the soft breeze that didn’t seem to go in any particular direction soothed my mood, behind me were trees and shrubs growing on a vertical cliff, there were plenty of rocks everywhere in the big space left by the el- Niño flooding. A few shrubs grew among the rocks. There was no sun

I read a story about this community that lived below a volcanic mountain. They grew fruits and vegetable but sometimes the volcano will erupt and destroy the trees and their homes. They believed that the eruption was caused by a king of the mountain that would get angry and make the lands vibrate. Every time the earthquake comes in preparation for the hot river that will flow from the top of the mountain, the people will go to their church, take flowers to Saint Antony and pray that he will persuade the king of the mountain to spare them. By some twisted luck, this worked enough times for the people to maintain their beliefs.

Whatever you believe this week, it doesn’t matter what science, logical reasoning or historical evidence has proved. Hold on to it. Believing worked for the people of the mountain, it can work for you too.

WOMEN RAISING RURAL ECONOMIES

Today I showered with sweet potatoes and water, right after I ate a big piece of this cassava cake in the picture, and some tea, before I came here to write this intro. I will go to lunch in 2 hours, wait lets make that one and a half. I can’t wait to have pumpkin chapattis. But before I do that, I will tell you how sweet potatoes ended up in my bathroom, how pumpkins turned into chapattis.

It’s a Saturday evening and our solar power system is bugging us as always. Now, this power lets me facebook as much as I want but when I get down to writing a script or a story it starts this annoying beep it makes that really gets on my nerves, and cuts the supply after 10 seconds. Today its annoyingly insistent
We decide to do some fieldwork to fill the evening. Attending a women group session in which pregnancy and childbirth is meant to be discussed is not one of the things in my top 100 priorities especially on a Saturday evening. So I do it, one because am meant to learn what they do for the sake of making them a blog, two because its part of my work and three you don’t want to hear the other options I had for the evening, actually there weren’t any.

We board this motorbike and nothing interesting happens on the way except the fact that there wasn’t any difference between the sharp corners and the straight stretches- the speedometer or whatever they call it didn’t move a lot. The thrill felt good though. I don’t want to write that we were welcomed very warmly, had very nice tea then I realized my aunt was one of them- felt more awkward. Pregnancy and childbirth, a group of 11 women, and my aunt.

We talk with my aunt- basic things like how I was doing, how is school, family, home, you get the drift. And then the main business starts. This group is called Tenebo women group – Tenebo means together in Maa. The women in this group are just phenomenon.

I have seen groups within the two years I have volunteered for different NGOs and the two holidays I have spent here. I have been a member of groups, some I don’t want to talk about, the others; well I don’t think they are doing that bad considering the others I don’t want to talk about.

The point is, this group is different, and they enjoy some level of cohesion and commitment to task I have not seen or felt anywhere. We ask them what their objective is.

The chair lady starts with ‘ tunata kua ikifika mwisho wa mwaka hata sisi tunasaidia kwa boma..... (We are aiming that at the end of each year we also help in our families....)’

My supervisor Sam keeps the conversation going ‘pia kununua chrismas.....’

This is met by loud protests from the women from them I could figure out several words ‘Rent, school fees, vitu kubwa kubwa (big things)’. That is the level of vision these women carry

And for this vision they have done big things. Since its formation, on October last year(less than a year ago), the group has supported each woman in buying a dairy goat. A four months old dairy goat is worth more than ten thousands. The 12 members each got one. At the home the meeting is held mama Kibibi now has two fully grown female dairy goats and one male.

They recently started a rabbit keeping project, the rabbits are six and they are planning to extend that too. Talking about keeping, they also have a bee keeping project and already have several beehives.

The women in this group have a vision for the products from their farms. They plan to use them to make cake, start a bakery. Why?

‘We are adding value’ Mama Khadija says ‘it would be cheaper and more challenging to sell sweet potatoes, cassava and those other things as they are especially here in Nguruman’

The other things include cassava, millet, soya beans and pumpkins. They are dried, grounded into flour and then used to make cakes. The women believe selling cassava scones is more appealing. I agree.

The sweet potatoes also make bar soaps. I ask them if they think there is a market for these things and they say they have tested them in the market and they are optimistic about the reception.

There is a lot of water in Nguruman. This group sees that as an opportunity to make some extra shilling and also help fellow women who are hit by a persistent water problem around the division and beyond. They are planning to start a purification and supply project in which they will fetch the water in Nguruman, purify it and supply to the women who walk long distances to get water that is not even safe for drinking. At an affordable cost.

I notice that most of them are holding small green books

‘This is our savings plan’ the chairlady responds. ‘Every month each woman gives 400 shillings in our meetings held twice a month, part of the money is deposited in our account and part of it is left with the host of the meeting. The green books are used to record each member’s contribution’

I do a quick calculation of tea and chapattis then I tell them I want to host a meeting. There will be a lot of change for the host I figured. They laugh and say members only.

I can’t keep track of all the random choruses of future plans. The group has had lengthy meetings discussing what they want to do in depth. They have dreams and they know the only way to really get them is to share them.

From those choruses I gather they are planning to expand the bee keeping project, have a fully equipped bakery, start the water purification project and expand soap making. By the end of this year, their savings would have grown enough to be able to advance loans to individual members of the group.

They will also be eying the loans given to small groups by the government and other organizations.

This introduction to the group disrupted their business for a while but then we got to the part I thought would be the most boring. I can’t say I had fun but I learned a number of new things.

Here are just a few random thoughts; Some women have milk in their breasts long before they give birth, some pills given in clinics develops the unborn child’s brain (now I know I should be mad at her mother), headache is a danger sign during pregnancy, pregnant women don’t eat some foods because they fear the unborn child will grow very fat with a big head (this part is really sensitive, they are making facial expressions) and other things

I would have added some pregnant advices but I’ve got to head. My lunch is waiting patiently for its devourer. pożegnanie

been out for awhile but will be back with headbanging post as from next week. part two of the village on my village politics and a lot more on things I've been up to in my absence. keep reading for more.

THE POLITICS OF MY VILLAGE OF KENYAN

Am beginning to feel the chills in the preparations for the 2012 general elections. I have always contemplated and wondered what has been wrong with the Kenyan public. Either we are plain stupid or we don’t really care what happens on our national political grounds to the extend that we fall for the same lies, tribal political alliances and for the same political leadership that has failed us since time in memorial.

I hail from a small town in Kajiado County – Entasopia. What beats my mind about this small town is the campaign agenda that has dominated its politics since, well, cant remember. The same question has been that of the road. Despite being the bread basket of the region and also managing to produce horticultural vegetables for export which generate millions in revenue round the year, the requests for the tarmacking of a road less than forty kilometers that currently takes one two hours to navigate in a land cruiser has been repeated over and over again every five years since I was old enough to listen to and remember political rallies. It has been sung in songs, recited in poems, wrote in petitions and spoken in speeches.

All these efforts always received one answer, elect me and it will be done. Then there will be sugar and lesos for the women, some money for the elders – for drinks obviously, and some money for the youths – which the elders will use for drinks. There will be an applauded announcement that the relief food distributed last year was courtesy of him though Government of Kenya and not for sale was printed all over the sacks and tins.

We sing the same song and tick beside the same name on our ballot papers election after election; he deserves one more chance after all he fed us during the drought. Only to curse and pray in one breath when the old bus we are travelling in hits a rock and goes off. We have to sleep on the road tonight.

The truth is, the MP for this small village I credit with my roots has been the longest serving VP in Kenya, minister of finance, minister of education and is now holding two ministerial positions among many other top ministerial positions. If he wanted to do it, he would have, more than twenty years ago.

So I come back to the same thought. We are either plain stupid as a people of Entasopia and a nation at large or we don’t give a damn about the issues that matter to the extend that we are easily fooled and wooed deeper and deeper into the same crater of tribal politics and underdevelopment that we get so verbal about when the camera is on us.

This story does not end here……… it relates to our national politics in later posts