My Cottage Journey

"I am the proud owner of a small beautiful cottage in a pristine locale surrounded by nature, laden with all your daily needs of cool clean water, sunshine, fresh fruits and traditional foods. When the world around me goes all chaotic, this is the place where I seek refuge.

This cottage might as well be located in any of the following exotic places- Takaungu, Lamu, Kwale, Mathews Ranges, Kesses, Naivasha, Taita Hills, Nanyuki, Kikambala, Vipingo, Aberdares, Happy Valley, Nyambene Hills, Chyulus, Mfangano Islands, Isinya, or a thousand other such places in any direction you take in Kenya.

I could have moved in sooner, but I especially wish to turn the cottage into my retirement home. I have therefore started planning how I will put it up in the next five years.

This cottage is found in my dreams, but the view from is worth dying for."

In 2008 I wrote the above in a post here. Having set a target of 5 years to get that dream cottage, its now 8 years since but the good news is that the cottage is almost done!

It has been a long journey and I wish to share it with you in one of my longest posts yet. 

Welcome to the journey........

It started in 2009 when I got together with three friends and bought a piece of land near the shores of Elementaita. We did not have any specific plans at the time, but I vaguely had a proposal running in my head. My proposal was to bring together about 10 friends and building holiday homes collectively in some exotic locales of Kenya. I had in mind places like Naivasha, Coast, Mt. Kenya, Mara or Amboseli. 

I imagined that ten families pooling resources would make life so easy and sooner than later the happy ten would be moving to their 2nd, 3rd, 4th holiday homes. They would timeshare and sell their homes to others when not in use. It was a brilliant idea but no takers. I made numerous pitches to friends but all wanted to get their own pieces of land.

So I decided to go alone and started planning my cottage. I did not lack for inspiration. Because money was tight, I started planning a two bedroom cottage. Many drafts were done and trashed. 

In January 2015, I made a resolve to dedicate the next 8 months to building a getaway cottage in Elementaita. I did not need a project plan. I knew what needed to be done. My land was in a remote area with a lot of pastoralism and a fence was the first step of my journey. 

Having done my own concrete fencing posts in an earlier projects, I had 6 moulds and therefore needed to add 4 more so that I can make at least 10 fencing posts everyday. 

I decided to do the fencing posts on site. A gracious neighbour allowed me to use his compound for security. I needed a caretaker of fundi to work on the post and take care of the land after fencing. Raymond was recruited as a casual to work on the posts for ten days. 

On 17th January, I went to Mwariki area of Nakuru Pipeline area to buy sand from the local mines. I needed to buy quarter inch ballast, sand, cement and Y8 rebars. 

Materials were delivered 

There are the ten moulds with a height of 7ft. 

Training work started in earnest 

The results 

Finished, cured and ready for duty Sir!

I Have Lots Of Respect For These Men Who Overcome Adversity Everyday......

Life is hard and we all are fighting one battle or the other. True we do have occasional episodes of some good times when the stars are aligned in your favour, but it seems we are always fighting challenges and obstacles most of the time.

Some say that life is not fair and we should not expect it to be smooth. Some say that the true mark of man is how he handles and overcomes challenges that marks one as a success.

Others like the good people at www.thindifference.com say that life has gifts and challenges. Its your duty to identify your gifts and utilize each them for your benefit.

They say "Each of us has gifts. We may not recognize it right away, or some may take time to develop. Either way, we all have gifts. It could be writing, dancing, leading, lecturing, designing, inventing, thinking, business etc. In our life, we have gifts to use.

We all have challenges. Each of us has challenges. They stare at us each day. Our challenges can be procrastination, disorganization, drugs, alcohol, laziness, negativity, unhealthiness, anger, poverty, etc. In our life, we carry a challenge or two."

In the context of our third world realities, it may not be possible for opportunities to abound for one to take advantage of his gifts.

Two men who are in the lowest echelons of our society and who are my friends have earned my immense respect and admiration for overcoming challenges that would overwhelm many. Here are their stories.

Ernest is a security guard working for a multinational security firm. He plys his trade in my block of flats in Nairobi. He is the first born in his family and the burden of expectations from his family is just too heavy. He moonlights as a carwash guy, cleaning at least 8 cars in the compound when he reports for duty. Between 7 pm and midnight, he will wash the cars and earn at least a thousand shillings from each every month. That meagre amount complements his net salary earnings of seven thousands. Ernest has taken all loans possible from his salary.

Over the last two years we have talked about his desire to get out of the poverty circle. His father has a two acre shamba and with four sons, there is not much land available for farming. He once mentioned that his home is on the outskirts of a small rural town. I asked him if he consider building some four rooms for rental. Construction is not expensive in his part of the country where bricks abound. He took up the challenge and commissioned his young brother in high school to bake the bricks. His father donated some timber for curing the bricks.

In no time, the rooms were ready and the forces of demand and supply soon dictated that a lodging was preferred to the monthly lease by the locals. Although he could not afford to furnish them with beds, a mattress on the floor was earning him three hundred shilling a night. The possibility of earning over a thousand shilling a day as opposed to washing a car for thirty days to earn the same was his eureka moment. He used to call me to chat on how that was eye-opening moment.Soon he was planning to run a pub in the compound and increase the rooms.

Two years later, he is about to resign from employment to go to the village to run his pub and lodging. He is moving his family to the village in the new year. He has a chicken project planned for the wife who was jobless in Nairobi. He will lease one or two farms to grow sugarcane as well as manage a brick making enterprise to supplement his income. He says that he will be busy with the bricks, chicken and sugarcane businesses in the mornings and the pub later in the day.

As part of my encouragement and support, I donated to him two empty crates of beer and an old computer that will be refurbished to house a hard disk of 40 plus hours of music to keep his patrons entertained.

I wish Ernest all the best on his ground-breaking venture.

The other gentleman I have met and admired makes a living in a trade we called "chupa na debe" or "wadebe" in our youth. He buys old newspapers, plastics and metals from those who have more than they need. He is the original OLX though his repertoire of products is limited. Mbogo was brought up in abject poverty and was not lucky enough to get an education. His family had a small piece of land that was disputed and forced him to look for a way out.

Without education, he didn't have many choices and ended up scourging for scrap metal and paper. He soon built a network across the City and beyond into the region selling his papers as far as Kampala. I met him when I wanted to get rid of my heap of old papers and as we were measuring the same we got talking and became good friends over the last three years.

Mbogo today owns a nursery school in his adopted village employing three qualified teachers and earning some money from a business he admits he knows nothing about. He has entrusted his business to the teachers and the community supports him.

He recently invited me to his village as his boy was being initiated into manhood and I was proud of his determination to overcome the challenges he was dealt by life. He has a permanent home and thriving farm on his one acre shamba. And what a transformation- when in the city he rides an old bicycle and adorns some not so pleasant clothes. However in the village he is well dressed and groomed. When I inquire he tells me that in Nairobi, no one will sell scrap metal to a neat person, there is a mental lock we have on who should trade in old papers and scrap metal.

These two men have earned my respect by the way they have overcome adversity and make something of themselves. They have used their gifts and not dwelt on the challenges laid on their paths. Hongera.

Do we let our gifts shine through, or do we let our challenges weigh us down?

Image Courtesy-http://inspirationcafe.org/

Kudos to Safaricom Sevens organizers

In a country where sports events are known to degenerate to chaos with cases of vandalism and hooliganism, I was pleasantly surprised by the deliberate order exhibited during the recent Safaricom Sevens tournament held at the Kasarani Sports Complex.

Right from the entrance off the highway, multiple security checks were mounted to ensure that only those with tickets were allowed into the complex. Media notices were made to the effect that no ticket sales would be made at the site on any of the four days. As we got closer to the main gate, physical checks to ensure no weapons and unauthorized merchandise were sneaked into the stadium were professionally conducted.

Once inside the stadium, there was visible security in the parking lots and along the way to the stiles including dogs. Once inside the stadium there was visible security everywhere. The fact that all fans were issued with age appropriate bands to ensure no underage fans were sold alcohol was a plus and spoke of the organizers being socially responsible. In view of the bad publicity from a recent rugby tournament during which more was reported on the raunchy happenings off the pitch than rugby action, it was only proper that such measures be taken.

I do hope the other crowd-pulling sports like football, basketball and athletics can follow suit and ensure similar measures are taken during their events. There is hope that we can see more Kenyans can spend quality time supporting their chosen sport’s teams. With more spectators coming to cheer their team, I do believe we can be able to make money from gate collections necessary to ensure sustainability of many sports teams.

The only downside at Kasarani was the low turnout which could be due to high entrance fees or due to other competing events taking place at the same time. On the last day, I don’t believe the 60,000 seater stadium had more than 15,000 fans in the stands. In such a big venue, there are many alternate means the organizers could have explored to fill the stadium including subsidizing entrance for schools, police, military and other uniformed cadres who deserve to be encouraged to come to stadiums. Designated seating could have been reserved for such groups. 

Stadiums in other countries also have sections set aside for other special groups like disabled members of society. For a tournament that could hardly fill the less than 10,000 capacity KRFUEA Ngong Road stadium, I think it is a bit ambitious for the organisers to imagine they could fill up a stadium as big as Kasarani.

Being an annual tourney, I do hope that the organizers can consider such strategies to fill the stadium next year.

Otherwise they need to me commended for the good organisation.

Where Do You Want to Be In 5 Years? Start Planning Now

“ Live with intention. Walk to the Edge. Listen Hard. Practice Wellness. Play with Abandon. Laugh. Choose with no Regret. Continue to Learn. Appreciate your Friends. Do what you Love. Live as if this is All there is.”

- Mary Anne Radmacher

Paint a picture of your life in five years? Name three things your have to do each year to reach your five year goal in each of the following:

1. Family/Love life or Relationships
2. Health & Fitness
3. Spiritual/ Religious life
4. Knowledge or Education
5. Business/Career life

Most people can't answer this questions, yet we all want to have a successful life. Just like a Baker aiming to make the best Cake in the World, we have to decide what the ingredients are & how much of each ingredient we need in advance & deliberately. You cannot bake a perfect cake without all your ingredients nor their quantities. All things needed to have a Good life are like that.

A Good life is only possible if deliberate action is taken to achieve all this, otherwise if you can't deliberately quantify your steps in all the five parts, just sit and watch by the sidelines.

Success has to be Deliberate, Quantifiable & Planned in Small Steps. Plan your Life before Your Life Plans You.

Courtesy of -Mr.RoyKing

Photo Courtesy of -lexsilewis1.blogspot.com/

Who Wears The Pants In Your Marriage?

"I once asked my friend, "What is the secret behind your happy married life?" He replied,"You should share responsibilities with due love, and respect to each other. Then absolutely there will be no problems. "I asked, "Can you explain?"

He said, "In my house, I take decisions on bigger issues whereas my wife decides on smaller issues. We do not interfere in each other's decisions. "Still not convinced, I asked him to give me some examples.

He said, "Smaller issues like how many kids to have, the neighbourhood to live, which car we should buy, how much money to save, who, when and where to visit, which sofa, cooker, refrigerator to buy, monthly expenses, whether to keep a maid or not, where to go for holidays, whose mum we should visit etc, etc, are decided by my wife. I just agree to it."

I then asked, "So then what is your role?” He said, "My decisions are only for very big issues. Like whether America should attack Iran, the uranium enrichment in North Korea, whether Britain should lift sanctions against Zimbabwe, how to fully exploit Africa's economic and intellectual potential, whether Yoweri Museveni and Barack Obama should retire, whether Arsenal FC needs to buy new players or change their coach to improve their play, whether Usain Bolt should retire now-while still at his prime etc, etc. My wife never objects to any of these decisions and we live happily!"

Source unknown

Image Courtesy of whatsnew-riddhi.blogspot.com

Its Been A While ..........

I feel that I have not been true to my various promises I have made in the past about my desired regularity of posts. But hey! that is what happens to the best laid plans, always.

I am back and promise that I will be very regular here, especially now that I have a blogging partner in my daughter Natasha. She is starting her own blog and I am exited that the family will have two bloggers. I will guide her on the ropes of blogging and I know she will be a very good blogger famous in the world. She will be better than me and many others.

Watch this space.........

Dear Sunshine............

Dear Sunshine,

I write to you on behalf of all Men from our corner here in Eastern Africa. It not like they elected me their sole voice, but I know many will agree that my plea to you concerns them too. Anyway, I know we haven't gotten along all that well in the past. I didn't cause the sunburns, but I could blame my forgetfulness for not carrying my hat knowing what you are capable of. It wasn't me who scorched the succulent young plants that a family depended on or caused droughts. Anyway, I am no angel either. 

I know you have been hiding from me for a while now and I guess the lesson you wanted to teach me about needing you has sunk. Absence makes the heart grow fonder they say. On a few occasions when you have shown your face for a short while, I have embraced you like a long lost friend. And indeed you are just that. I don't know why you are playing hard to get. It may be that you and your Mum Nature don't like our part of the world much, it may be something they call Global Warming or it maybe  its some mysterious cycle that mortals like me may not comprehend.

Whatever it is, Sunshine, and whatever you are planning next; please understand that in our part of the world we have no idea how to deal with your teeth-chattering, dull grey and shiver-inducing replacement. We were born with a sturdy skin pigmentation, a sense of adventure and a love for the great African outdoors. We were not born with a gene that tolerates being indoors too long, the hearth and fireplace  were meant for cooking not warming our limbs.

Remember that our days are regulated by a slight morning chill, just enough to keep our senses sharp, day long sunshine and warmth that is retained in our mud walls and woolly kinky Afros, our early evenings are warm and suitable for a few hours outdoors to allow the chicken pens refill, women finalize their culinary duties and put the young ones to bed. We were not made for huddling in the house in full sight of children covered head to toe, sniffling and eagerly waiting for the wife's broth. This cold is making us look bad.

When the morning comes, we are expected to be first out of bed as soon as the cockerel  announces a new dawn, but lately we cannot afford that luxury and our role as breadwinners and hunters may be questioned for

we are now wont to hang around the bed and house too long to allow the day warm just a wee bit more.

Remember that from our youth we are taught not to be anywhere near the fireplace. We were admonished by the elders that sitting astride the three stones is not for men who hope to keep the family safe from oblivion. There is nothing to warm there. Our mothers too won't allow any young man hanging around the hearth with his sisters and exposing his loins and their chance of being proud grandmothers to the vagaries of the smoke and heat of the homestead's hearth.

I hope you now understand why all men are missing you so much. We have lived with at least a month or two of dipping temperatures every year, but not what seems like half a year. Didn't they say that it will go on well past August?

Seems like every new day is  worse than the previous. The weather man and all his technology and gadgets doesn't seem to know if and when we will be reunited and my anger and impatience is now directed at them.

I suspect your absence for so long is not something they are able to explain to me and all the suffering African men.

If nothing else, just remember that the indoor fires in stoves, heaters, whether they are driven by firewood, charcoal, electricity and so on are all meant to "dry out" or kausha our loins and thereby cut our supply. Please do come back sooner dear Sunshine.

A Concerned  African Man

Image Courtesy of http://chimptrainersdaughter.blogspot.com/ 

Photography Runs In The Family......

I have always loved and practiced photography and in my school and early days in employment I did a bit of photography moonlighting shooting wedding and all manner of events. I have always had a camera at hand having invested heavily in my passion. 

As technology improved and went the digital way, the business side of my passion died and I no longer invested in seeking new markets, but I continued taking photos of my travels, family, friends, events and so on. In the meantime, photography has become localized and we now have young and awesomely creative photographers who are not only earning a handsome living from their cameras but also splashing the digital space with very creative images. 

I am therefore not so surprised that my children have taken an interest in the art  and are proving to be better than I am. Of course my son  Gregory is using a host of editing tools to come up with very creative photos especially of the macro genre. He is a big fan of the Kenya's leading photographers like Mutua Matheka, Kitoto, Mwarv, Emmanuel Jambo and many others. When the time is right I will introduce him to one of the leading lights for mentor-ship and training. 

I recently encouraged him to start a blog where he can post any of the photos he thinks are worth sharing with the world.  I us some of his photos as my screen savers for my electronic gadgets. Here are some he has taken using a phone camera. 

If Writing Be The Food Of Life, Write on........

 I have not been here for a while and it really bothers me that amongst all the things that I love doing, I am not able to create time to come here for a sessionful of venting, sharing, preaching, bragging, condoling, conversing or debating.

Between my miserable attempts at earning a living, parenting, having some "me" time, reading, travelling, staying healthy, giving back to society, educating myself, investing, farming, fighting, loving and generally surviving, I seem to have run out of time and I cannot be able to find adequate opportunity and space for my beloved blog.

Blame it on all the other competing activities in the same alley like Facebook which I actually enjoy,twitting which I dont enjoy doing but love following, writing for work, reading numerous genres ( and I enjoy this too  or writing money-making proposals that never see the light of day, it seems like all the juices are sucked out of me and I have nothing left in me for the blog.

But wait a minute, why the heck do I seem to get time for just about everything else and not the one thing that makes me feel good. Writing is therapy for me, makes me feel good when I churn out a good thoughtful piece however small it may be. Even a phrase with the right choice of words in the right places makes me feel good. I know there is pleasure in writing because it is creating, it is sculpting, molding and giving form where none existed.

Seeing that writing means so much to me, I am resolving to do it  more often and make it more meaningful. I want it to be focused and not aimless chatter and commentaries on just about everything under the moon. I want to write more about my experiences, my observations, lessons I learn everyday, my proposals, my ideas ( and I have very many and wild ones ), my passions, my pet peeves, parenting, relationships, my fears, my aspirations, my projects, my travels and travails, my reviews and my society.

I will ask God to help me stay away from politics because our brand of politics is just too distressing. I have no problem with our politicians, but I think there is everything wrong with our politics. Should I get carried away in my writing and end up touching on politics, I pray that I will not be partisan but objective in my opinions.

This new journey starts tonight by forcing time and prioritizing and ensuring that there is at least some 30-45 minutes every evening before bedtime for some writing. So help me God!

Images Courtesy of www.ziglar.com & www.loesje.ee 

Opportunity - Mirfat "Susan" Musa's Chance For Fame & Mullah

The story is now a week old and very well known. No need going into the details.

My take is that should Susan be known to someone more brighter than she is, here is an opportunity that can make her a "celeb" and maybe some dough while at it. Kenya finally gets a person who is famous for being (in)famous. This is our own homegrown answer to the Kadarshian Sisters, the Hilton Sisters and Nicole Ritchie all rolled in one. Our girl Susan is famous for no talent at all. she is famous for being rude, domineering, nasty, ill-mannered, class-worshiper, pretender, ignorant of the world around her, vain and owner of zero-eating etiquette.

So how does she go about it? It is obvious the girl has no counsel around her because as soon as the backlash started, she was on her twitter page saying that the show was scripted and that the person she so ably depicted is not real! Bad move! Take advantage of the swelling public interest girl!

There are many marketers and owners of products who can pay a tidy sum of money to use her as an ambassador or magnet to pull crowds. Imagine the organizers of the Mingle event daring the bravest of Kenya's young men to date her? Imagine if she was to make a presentation to the thousands of women who hate men on how to deflate a man's ego in the shortest time! Imagine if she joined a cause that is counter to her personality and totally ignored the public's perception of a man-eater.  No, not the jiggers- that is crowded and already well known. How about sanitary towels, anti-rape, anti-blindness or any cause looking for a heroine to take it to the next level.

Imagine if she advertised as the answer for domineering mothers-in-law. Imagine a badge or t-shirt endorsing a product saying that with product X, you can date Susan and come out alive! How about a fencing match with Susan? How about selling barbed wire and fencing posts with dear Susan as ambassador? The good people at the Rhino Ark can use the girl to market their latest initiative to fence the Eburru Escarpment Forest. How about Visa and Mastercard? How about sellers of general knowledge books? Imagine a spin-off show by Tujuane producers as Kenya's search for the male equivalent of Susan. The list is endless. 

Over to you brave marketers.  

Opportunities- Posta Sleeps Through The Revolution!

Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) ( aka Posta for brevity sake) is one example of organisations in Kenya that have slept while opportunity and her sisters were knocking very loudly at the door. What do I mean? 

Every family wishes to have a postal address rental box. I know for a fact that there is scarcity of new postal rental boxes and in some families, up to 3 generations are sharing one postal address as does extended families and whole neighbourhoods. Many SMEs also wish to have their own rental boxes, but demand by far outstrips supply. Bearing in mind the amount of space that a rental box takes, I cannot understand why Posta is not rolling out 10,000 per month! Every new shopping mall needs to have a subsidiary post office and you don't even need to take up expensive shop floors but a parking bay. Most of the expensive building are letting out their parking bays at between Kshs. 8,000 and 12,000 per month. One such bay can accommodate as many as 256 boxes at the front (assuming that its 8 x 8 ft) and the same number or more on one other side. With five hundred rental boxes from one parking bay, you don't have to be a genius to see how Posta can make loads of money. 

Some say that they may be broke and don't have the 2 million needed to put up the structure- 500 locks, 1000 hinges, a door and metal casing for the boxes, but they can start a subsidiary separate from the debt-ridden mother ship and with long term credit, many Kenyans will be willing to pay the Kshs.4,000/- it will cost upfront or in installments of Kshs. 111/= per month for 3 years!    

Many including Posta managers are always lamenting that Mobile telephony, internet and couriers may have taken over the express business and personal mails, but there is opportunity in traditional mail like shares, dividend, land registry correspondence, school certificates, etc I don't ever see registered mail being transmitted through text messages or emails. We all want to touch and feel the real thing. Isn't that opportunity for Posta to work with the conveyors of such documents. It is called captive market! 

For any serious transformation of the Posta to happen, they have to move their thinking away from the traditional Post Office set up. The colonial era post office will not do. Posta needs to outsource. They need to learn from the banking industry's agencies or the M-pesa agency model. I know being a parastatal, there are a thousand and one reasons why its not "doable". The biggest reason is that no other parastatal has done it before! With the recent enactment of the Public Private Partnership Act, I believe this is another opportunity waiting for a taker. So the model of post offices have to move away from the tradition.

The agency model can also see Posta utilize the home delivery model which naysayers may wish to say is an anti-thesis of the traditional rental box model! If you have devolved postal agencies some of the local agencies will deliver to homes of their customers. The same can be done for slums and poor sectors of society where one box can be shared by up to 20 families with the agency owner managing the mails received via a register. For a small fee, he will deliver your mail to your home. 

Kenya has not been left behind in the E-commerce & Online trade front. Many intra-city business are using the online platform to showcase their products and services. The trade is facilitated by plastic money, mobile money and cash on delivery. In my view Posta needs to get into the game and facilitate delivery via postal boxes. With increased efficiency, every purchase should be in the buyers post office within 48 hours (after all even long-service buses and matatus are "couriering" tonnes of goods across the country overnight).

Posta can also take advantage of the failure by physical address system project which would have seen the city gradually move to the delivery of mails going physical to homes and offices. Unfortunately since 2006 when the idea was mooted as part of the Afri-Cities beautification programme, not much has happened and no one has bothered link it to some use beyond security and assisting visitors find an address. The project has not worked and may not work because City Council as the implementer lacks credibility. Posta needs to go out and grab that project and own it. For the whole country to go physical address system, it will be another 30 years and since one of the benefits of the system is quick delivery to final addresses of mail, Posta has the biggest stake and interest in the project.

It is also possible that Posta could complement courier services by offering post offices as dropping zones with a requirement that out of town mails will be channeled through its system. Win-win situation they call it. Allocate the various couriers desk space in the various Posta banking halls and demand a minimum amount of business  per day from the couriers. Turn your perceived competitors into a complementing opportunity.

All these opportunities may need the management and board of directors to shed away all the organisation's history gathered over 100 years that the organisation has existed in different forms. They also have to operate like the box did not exist. It is not enough to think outside the box- imagine there was no box at all! Do not take study tours abroad to study other countries, come up with a home-grown solution. One for Kenya. M-pesa has failed to click anywhere outside Kenya. Think local solutions to our local unique and peculiar problems.

We are watching.

Radio Jambo Converts

Radio Jambo is now a gospel station Seems like I didn't get the memo from Radio Africa Group. Tell, when did Radio Jambo, once touted as Kenya's home of sport and talk, get "saved"? I bumped into the station after many months hanging around Capital FM, XFM and Machoka's Roga Roga only to get a shock by the deeply religious reportoire of local and international gospel music on air.

Is it not a fallacy then that Kenyan's are mad about sports and English Premier League? Seems like that love will not pay the bills! So are we then officially a religious people? No chance in view of the crimes especially of a domestic nature that we witness on a daily basis.

I will keep an ear on the rest of the "new" Radio Jambo's programming for the rest of the week.  

Opportunities Begging For Takers

For some time now I have been contemplating a series of articles here of the various opportunities I see all around me that are just begging to be taken by individuals, companies, state agencies, leaders and so on. Why do I care, you may ask or why cant I take the opportunities myself? Well the truth of the matter is that I am a fountain of ideas, but unfortunately I don't have the courage or resources to implement them. The ideas are not all about making money, otherwise I would have cashed a long time ago. Most of them are just ideas that can save the state coffers a load of cash or make the life of citizens much better. Others are just plain common sense and you keep wondering just why didn't any one see them earlier.

You may wonder why I bother writing about it instead of taking the fight to the owners- the guys who are in positions where they can change things. Well, I have tried all that and more. I recall once when I made an appointment to see the then Mayor of Nairobi to discuss possible cost-free solutions to the perennial hawking problem in Nairobi. However after a long presentation, I realized he was not listening or did not see the opportunity therein. Of course my idea was not bought and we still have the problem. I have made formal and informal presentations to opinion shapers and implementers all over the place. I have written to the media via Letters to the Editors and opinion editors, some times I do get published and most of the others I am just ignored. Anyway, I am determined to share some of the opportunities that I see around my society just waiting for takers.

Please indulge me.

Been A While........

Seems like time just flies right past us.  I must admit that a statement I heard on radio today kind of woke me up- that we are just a month away from Christmas. Did we not just start this year the other day? Is it time to bid the year adios? So soon?

Anyways, it has been a rather hectic year for me both at a personal level as well as at the career level. As always there were numerous ups and downs too, but as always I believe what distinguishes one set from the other is attitude. I am always grateful when things are working out and when they are not, I make a point to learn at least one lesson from each unfortunate or unsuccessful episode that I encounter. It has not been different this year.

At another front, we are now bang in the centre of the silly political season when the whole country seems to lose her marbles. By the way, I have tried to stay away from making any political statements or commentaries in this forum or anywhere else apart from a very small circle of close friends who know me and where I am coming from. That circle is less than five people and even then, we hardly ever seem to agree or share any position. The reason is that my political views are radical and anti the Kenyan script where we are all supposed to take tribal, regional or religious sides.

Anyways, I will not change my position on desisting from sharing political statements just like I learnt that you should not discuss with strangers any of the following no go topics- sex, family, politics, religion and money! Really?  So what else is left to discuss, especially for Kenyans. The weather? I think if you take away politics and EPL from the diet of daily small talk  you will end up with a rather boring bunch of Kenyans.

I think the year 2012 has also been a rather tragic one for me because my mortality has been reaffirmed by the deaths of people close to me. I lost three close friends and at least another four or five acquaintances within the year. November has especially been bad because people of my age were seperated from the world of living and it just seemed so unfair. Why should people who seemed to have everything to live for just depart from our midst so fast and so unexpectedly. Nobody seems to fully explain the phenomena of life and death, but the lessons I take is that we need to live for the day.

Reminds me of an advert I saw the other day from a website for chain of hotels called Viceroy. It is simple but loaded. " Remember to Live" - life is hectic and may just get you lost in it that you may forget to live. How many times do we get so immersed in a work project, in office politics, in religion, in family affairs, in our neighbors, friends, that we forget to live our own lives . I know many people who devote so much of their time in the lives of their children,parents, siblings or friends that they seem content to put their own lives on pause. Their own needs can wait. Seems to me that we must be selfish if we want to lead well balanced, purposeful and meaningful lives.

Anyway, seeing that I have not been able to post anything in more than a month, I am glad that I have let off my rumblings about time, politics and living life. See you some time soon and remember to register as a voter soon so that you can exercise your democratic right to choose your rulers.

Office Guys- No Loo've Lost

I get surprised by the calibre of guys who use the office loo early in the morning. Don’t get it wrong,  I am not keeping tabs on my workmates loo timetables, but I happen to use the small rooms for changing and freshening up every morning from my walking gear to my office gear. So I make a mandatory visit every day just before 8.00 am.

Here, I keep bumping into these senior colleagues with very serious faces full of concentration and with only one thing on their minds. Their greetings are superficial and hurried as they enter the cubicles! These are guys you would expect to be more comfortable using their home and personal loos, but no, they want to jostle for space with their drivers, cleaners and visitors.

I find it strange, because there is nothing I hate like using public loos, be they in a 5-star hotel, at work or another person’s home. I feel like that business needs to be accomplished in the comfort of your home where any discomfort thereof can only be for your family members and not your workmates or total strangers. Which reminds me of a pal who in the old days when public toilets were all nasty and best avoided; he was a walking almanac of the best public loos in the city. He knew which café, cyber, supermarket, and office you could sweet-talk or bribe your way into.  

Back to my office pals. It doesn’t help when the guy with the current record for the smelliest activities also happens to be a guy you like. Somehow, the pong will always get in the way of reinforcing your friendship. I just wish he would keep it at home.

Picture Courtesy - http://sanitationupdates.wordpress.com

Letter To My Son-The Story Of My Handwriting

I am told that your personality can be deduced from your handwriting; that there is a branch of criminology that can investigate the personality of a criminal through forensics including literally reading between the lines of their writings!

While I will not differ or hold a contrary or counter view, however, from my own experience I always find that it is the quality of paper and pen I am using that determines what my handwriting will eventually be. If I encounter very some high grade smooth paper and a softer blotter underneath, my handwriting flourishes and borders on sexy calligraphy!, if on the other hand I end up with one of those extra thin points or tips on a thin paper, then my handwriting ends up being unimpressive.

By the way, I am a collector of pens for I seem to be on a never-ending search for the perfect tip and nib. Over the years, I have retained handwritten diaries not because I had anything important to say, but because I had just the right paper to write on. You can imagine my joy of 365 blank leafs to come back to every day. Talk of a daily fix!

And so it was the other day when we went to buy back-to-school stationery for the kids and I stumbled upon some disposable pens with the finest nib, I have ever encountered anywhere. I quickly picked up some black, blue, green and red pieces and headed to the counter. Each would cost Kshs. 350/= and here I was about to spend Kshs.1000/= on disposable ink pens. My children’s stationery for a whole term including boxes of pencils, colour pencils, erasers, sharpeners and other such stuff was only costing me about Kshs.1500 only.

The clerk at the till was obviously brighter than I was and was quick to offer unsolicited advice against buying disposable pens at that outrageous price. He thought it was more sensible to buy a fountain pen and lots of ink which is what I did. Unfortunately they only had school type plain but functional pens costing Kshs. 85. I grabbed one and later in the day tested it and loved it. It was taking me back to my fine handwriting! Don’t know what that had to do with my personality, but the pen was fine and the paper too.

So to test drive the pen, I wrote a letter to my son and earned myself a big bear hug and some mumbling of “ I love you too Dad”. The fruits of a good handwriting I guess…… 

Let Us Find Ways To Enjoy Thika Superhighway

There is need to ensure that all the drivers and passengers using Thika Superhighway are getting the maximum value of the 27 billion shillings that the country has invested in the project? However, the recent fatal accidents on the road have generated debate on the readiness and ability of Kenyan road users’ to utilize this national asset effectively.

In my humble opinion, I think the handling of the expected final product by managers of the project (KENHA) and their client (Ministry of Roads) is laid-back and their lack of preparedness is giving the motoring public a raw deal. They seem too excited about the 3 year construction period which is a means to an end and not the road’s 50 year usability period. They seem ill-prepared for what ought to be a giant leap for Kenya’s transport sector.

Even before the road is officially commissioned, the Traffic Police have stepped in to arbitrarily reduce the speed limit to 50 kmph as a way of averting the accidents. Rumble strips and humps have become an eyesore on an expressway that was meant to ease the perennial traffic jams that continue to cost the economy in time and money by creating a three lane unhindered road designed for speed.  As is usual with Kenyans when faced with a problem, we are known to go for the solution least likely to offer a lasting result.

There is nothing wrong with Thika Super Highway design or infrastructure or the intentions behind the project. There is however everything wrong with the managers and owners of the road imagining that everything will be clockwork smooth without any effort or input!    

This is the first expressway in Kenya. Usage of a three lane high speed road is new to many. We have only seen three lanes on Mombasa Road/Uhuru Highway/Chiromo Road which are one continuous city thoroughfare where the choice of lane is dictated by destination or exit point and not speed.

On an expressway, however the old “keep left” rule learnt in driving school applies with only one or two exceptions defined by law. The outer lane (to the extreme left) is for the slowest vehicles like trucks, buses, trailers, etc which are expected to be moving at  the speed of 80 kmph or less or those exiting into the service roads to their left, while the middle lane is for all vehicles moving at over 80 kmph but not more than 110kph .  The inside lane (to the extreme right) should always be free and not used unless you are overtaking a slower vehicle in the middle lane or your vehicle has a siren (police, fire, ambulance or presidential motorcade). Its important to remember that the road was designed for safe high-speed operation of motor vehicles through the elimination of intersections and roundabouts.

This sounds all sensible, but how do we ensure that every single user of the road understands and adheres. It cannot be through the so-called “sensitizations” that KENHA conducted one morning near Safari Park Hotel and which at most may have attracted a handful of drivers and idlers on a road reportedly used by 250,000 vehicles daily.

The starting point should be installation of very legible signage on the road utilizing the traditional traffic and informational signs as well as the new LED technology to inform, persuade, warn and occasionally threaten with prosecution those intent on breaking the traffic rules. This should be enriched by a 6-month to 1 year multi-media campaign on radio, TV, print, outdoor, online and onsite with a view of introducing and inculcating the best practices by use of “Do’s and Don’ts” with visual, audio and print messages in all languages used by the potential road users and on all media possible. Finally the law enforcers should come down very hard on offenders in a very public way with a view to ensuring that copy cat tendencies are discouraged.

I imagine that this is not the first time that similar challenges have been faced by road users here and abroad. In days gone by, it must have been a challenge for road owners and managers when the our forefathers first transited from the horse cart to the much faster automobile or even the first time that paved surfaces were used as roads. The history of highways and expressways is not very old even in the developed world and we need to take heart in the knowledge that we are pioneering the same in this part of the world. For a minute, think about the confusion that the first roundabout or dual carriage caused in Kenya not so long ago.