50 Things To Do Before You Die

The other day I caught a TV programme titled “50 things to do before you die” on BBC Prime and quickly recorded the top 30 items on the list. 30. Travel the 6000kms Trans Siberia Railway 29. Trek through a rainforest 28. Travel to space 27. Wander at a waterfall 26. Trek Mount Everest 25. Cowboy ranching 24. Ride motorbike on open road 23. Explore Antartica 22. See elephants in the world 21. Travels on the Orient Express 20. Helicopter ride through the Grand Canyon 19. Drive Route 66 18. Travel the Rocky Mountaneer 17. Bungee jumping 16. Walking the Great Wall of China 15. White water rafting 14. Drive a formula 1 car 13. Escape to a paradise island 12. Climb Sidney Harbour bridge 11. Walk the Inca trail 10. See the northern lights 9. Go on Safari 8. Fly in a jet fighter 7. Fly in a hot air balloon 6. Sky diving 5. Diving with sharks 4. Whale watching 3. Fly on Concorde 2. Scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef 1. Swimming with dolphins From where am seated in Kenya, these are not exactly earth-shattering activities, and you doubt if you had a poll here any of these items would feature anywhere. To start with, we don’t have a fully functioning passenger railway system yet and we can therefore do away with all the items that try to romanticize railway travel. The condition of our roads is well known and it is unKenyan to glorify road travel. I mean we all want to travel by air. Only less than 1% of our people are familiar with a plane and flying in the Concord, jet fighter is more hot air than a hot air balloon can handle! Who wants to take a backbreaking road trip for leisure? We only do it when we must, like travel upcountry to see folks, bury a relative or while working. To even imagine a motorbike ride is suicidal itself! You must be a messenger or crazy to imagine the undignified motorcycle as anything worth your time! Waterfalls are numerous out here and you cannot think of a mere geographical occurrence as a must-do item. Back at the village, you just walk downstream and your waterfall is sitting there waiting for you. As for white water rafting, our villages are flooded every other year and kayaking and rafting with your furniture is a necessary survival and not a recreational skill. Who wants to dive with sharks and dolphins? Did you say thrill? Try walking home with the River Tana crocodiles swimming in the flooded streets of Garissa for sport! We are putting up hundreds of kilometers of electric fences and digging traps and trenches to keep wild elephants out of our homes while someone is dying to see elephants in the wild? How about an exchange programme- you came live with our wild elephants for a change? Taking a matatu to work using our uneven, potholed roads will work up a substantial amount of adrenalin-on a daily basis. That is more excitement in a week than you require in a lifetime. So strike out that bungee jumping business. The one thing all Kenyans want before they die is to be rich. All else will follow. Seek Ye the Money and everything else falls in place.