Story of a life...

I don't know what brought me back to this blog after so many years....I guess the older I get, the more responsibilities I have and I can afford less and less time for such pass-times. So here I found something I wrote some years back and I decided to post it.

It was at the Main Campus cafeteria. Our eyes locked. I starred on. He looked away. I remarked to myself....black Africans rarely have such brown eyes...then I scolded myself. Why am I looking at such a young lad? Probably he is just an undergrad. Who is interested in young lads anyway? I continued munching on my fries, lost in my thoughts.

 A tray was placed on my table. I looked up. It was him! Damn him! I don't like small boys trying to hook me up. "Mind if I join you?," He asked. "Why not?" I answered. As straight faced as I could muscle. He looked into my face. I guess he expected me to look away. But I gazed on. Thinking to myself...I don't loose small battles baby! His friend had just settled at the next table. I noticed as they communicated though their eyes. He got a little bit confused. Probably he had not expected to be invited at my table. His friend was waiting. He profusely apologized for not joining me...and proceeded to join his friend.

 Moments later, and probably an appropriate excuse to his friend, he brings back his tray to my table. "Will you still allow me to join you?" He asks. "My offer still stands," I reply.

Dreams dreams dreams....

Dreams can come true, and oh, sometimes we dream and we don't want it to come true!

Last night I had a dream, one of those that you really can't believe you have dream't...In any case, how did it come close to my mind?

So here I was, I can't remember where, when suddenly I hear Julie Gichuru is looking for me...What? Me? No, it must be a mistake....and then she was like, oh, so you are...Word has gone round that you are the best presenter around, and we needed to hire someone chap chap....No, at this point of the dream, you are telling yourself, wake up, this is not real, I have NEVER wanted to be a presenter...why can't it be like, We are looking for the best writers and political analysts and it suddenly occurred to us that we could use your services... that would be better...

Bad dream, and I finally woke up, and it has not happened. Well, thinking about it, being a presenter is not a bad job....what with the rumors about some salaries these presenters earn...but I must give a thumbs up to most journos...that job can be stressing, everyday you have to come up with something new, trust me, from my days in a leading media house, where you need to produce a newspaper daily, it can be pretty stressing, but I still loved the adrenalin of working in media...but of course, not the harassment of being known by every Tom, Dick and Kamau, or the speculation with things the public should care less about.

Back to dreams that come true or don't. I once dream't I was on a holiday in Egypt, lying next to the ocean, sipping juice in a long stemmed glass, enjoying the sun while dressed in a yellow bikini, trust me, I did not want to wake up!

Between High school and University, I once dream't that I had gone to India for my University education...well, this one never came true. It was in those days when If you didn't make it to public University, your next option would be to go to India...or other such places. I made it to UON, but somehow I wish I had gone to India, and experienced life in another continent.

Then I dream't I had two sons...one was light skinned, and very intelligent, yet I loved him less. The other was dark skinned, and not well endowed intellectually, yet I loved him the most! Worst of all in this dream, I had died, and I was watching how my two sons would cope without me. Of course, the elder light skinned one did a remarkable job bringing up his brother, in this cute little house I had built overlooking the shores of Lake Victoria, set on a hill near the new tarmac road that connects Lwanda K'Otieno to Bondo...near Ramba. The only part I wish to come to in this dream....owning that pretty house on the hill.

Dreams, dreams, dreams....dreams.

Martina's Gift

I never used to consider myself so lucky, no, so immensely blessed...until I started reflecting on the life and times of my grandmother, who passed on early this year.

Martina is one person who instilled on me the value of hard work. I still think about her a lot, not because she was just my grandma, but for all the values she stood for. I think I have all these blessings in my life because of her.

Every morning, she would wake up before dusk, just to say her prayers and recite her litanies...growing up in the Catholic tradition, she instilled in the whole family good work ethics, the spirit of giving and especially to the needy and most importantly, always to pray and thank God for his gifts. I am indeed truly thankful for her gifts.

It was just the other week when I stumbled upon the story of a Ugandan woman whom the press nicknamed "bad black". The part that got me intrigued was that she was convicted of having squandered money from a company that she co-owned with a British partner. This reminds me of so many instances I see of my fellow women folk, one of them being my own mum. They are so eager to spend money they have not earned! Thank God for lessons from my dear grand-mum, I have never paid rent from money I did not earn, nor do I depend on handouts from men....I think this is the hallmark of being independent, one of those rights that women fought so hard to earn, and some, e.g in Saudi Arabia, are still fighting to earn. Being independent is not just being able to drive your own car, that you bought with your money, but, being able to provide for your self and your family, not being a pest that squanders other people's hard earned cash.

I was listening to some "girl gossip" recently....the discussion was on some lady who had got herself a diplomat of a boyfriend....the girl apparently used to live in an apartment in up-market Nairobi where the rent was like 70k per month. And then she bore this diplomat some "twins"..., from the discussants points, the girl should have meekly played housewife, and ensured she had a house in her own name, to continue enjoying the perks provided by the diplomat, some black Muslim guy from a West African country.

Apparently she was not the main squeeze - she enjoyed the status of what Kenyans call "clande". Now what she did wrong from the point of view of the gossipers - she actually still continued hanging around Westlands with "Umoja girls" waiting for "handouts" of course after granting "favours" to "mzungu" men. And when the diplomat found out, this girl got kicked out of the house, and thus, the big fall from grace to grass...since she now had to move back to "shags."

Girls, girls, girls, why can't you just work to earn your own living?

I still thank God for the lessons from my dear Grand-mum Martina.

Sometimes

Sometimes you feel like writing, but your mind is going blank. you want to write, but you just have to stare, you say to your self, why am I writing, if it will not be interesting? Why am I writing, if no one will read it? Well, your dream is to be a writer. no, its not a dream, its a passion.... Sometimes, you just need to keep keeping on, and like my friend says, it will come to you with the wind. Oh what's the use in trying...when your senses say no place exists for you, as PM Dawn and Boy George sang, More than likely, you will find what you are looking for!

Freedom

Oh lord my momma hear me out,
oh lord my papa hear me out,
there are just some things I have to do to be free.
Although there are many gone before us,
and still there are many more to come,
I am glad I got my own way to be free.
I know it is not going to be easy,
But I will have to rid my self of this influences,
that, like a bad cold, have been passed on to me,
Yet all I want is to be free.
Although they try to make me forget,
The right path that I should be walking on,
Im glad I discovered it just in time,
and now i'm on my walk to FREEDOM.


Free at last,

free to freedom,

free at last,

freedom has come, at last

Freedom

I wrote this three weeks ago, but i never got round to posting it...anyways, here it is, with a slight modification.
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Freedom. One of the ideals mankind has fought over for a long time, and yet one we sometimes find ourselves in chains trying to protect. Lucky Dube sang about it. Everywhere in the world, people are fighting for freedom, nobody knows what is right....the black man say its the white man, the white man say its the black man...
I am one of the lucky few who have enjoyed the freedom to do what I like to do for a long time. Knowing you have no patron at your workplace who would like to receive all the little nitty-gritties going around in the power struggles that we face in our daily lives, from workplaces to national politics.

Our bodies are searching for freedom, our souls are searching for freedom, and we find ourselves in freedom imposed chains. The Al shabaab is going to attack, so the security everywhere has been tightened, until we are literally in chains!
Freedom is waking up one day and telling your boss, hey, to hell with you, I quit! But oh, the chain of the salary that comes at the end of the month!
Marjorie Oludhe once wrote, the freedom song, about Atieno yo...
Marjorie Oludhe starts, Atieno washes the dishes...I guess most Kenyans know the poem, no need to repeat it, but I feel like singing...Akinyi yo..

Once upon a time there was a butterfly. It worked every hard, and although it was tiny, it still did the work required of it.
Then there was a skunk. It claimed all the work done by the butterfly as its own...
Then there was a Giraffe, which was not so good looking....yet it thought it was a peacock. It specialized in chasing away butterflies...

The good thing is that the butterfly is free.

I'm just who I am

The introduction....a poem by Richard Ntiru comes to mind when I think about   what I am going through at the moment....

The Introduction

Perhaps it was his ugil shirt-
The missing button
The unassertive collar;
Perhaps it was his knotty hair
That boasted little acquintance with the comb
Or maybe it was his usualness
- One more impersonal handshake
Along the constant street-
That induced the functional smile
And operated the mechanical handshake.

His name didn't help either;
Mugambo Mugenge - You'd hear the name
In the outpatients attendance queue;
Not in the current Telephone Directory!

You certainly needed prompting.
I said he was an old time friend
But you continued to wave to passing cars;
I added he was a highly placed man
And you promptly took your cue

-" A University teacher, author of several works"-
"RE-E-Eally? Er-Om-Oh!...."
And you became word and emotion perfect
Like a dog that mistakes a thief for a visitor
And remembers to bark at his masters coughing,
You renewed and pumped the handshake
-Reshaped your mouth to a proper smile
-Recalled his famous public talk
That you had regretfully missed...
And observed, thoughtfully,
How unlike his photographs he looked.

You were tuned-
Delved deep into his latest novel
And wondered why his main characters
Do not walk on solid earth
And fail to effect living communication
You'd have rambled on, no longer looking at him,
But he quipped:
"They are in good company"
And was about to add when you knowledgeably
interrupted

"Society is a market stall
And men are goods on display
Where the label is more important than the labelled
And the price is more fascinating than the value".

We parted, hoping to meet again.
You went away rehearsing his name
But probably un-remembering his face.

RICHARD NTIRU

A person becoming "word and emotion perfect" when he learns the guy he was casually ignoring is actually a high standing man in society.

They say image is everything. Unfortunately, despite knowing myself very well, knowing who I am and what I want, somebody wants me to change my image, because apparently, when we meet other people, they tend to ignore me, until when they hear the position I hold somewhere!

The art of managing an image, especially since I do not hold public office, is one I find hard to master. I am certainly unprepared for these changes being demanded of me. I find myself thinking like I used to in primary school when I did not agree with my teachers. Just being rude. But again, the cost can be enormous. That is my dilemma.

Just listening to Celine Dion's "On change pas" I feel like telling the change mongers...I might be wearing plastic hair and make up to please you, but deep inside, lies a proud African woman fighting to keep her identity.

I leave you with Celine Dion's "On ne Change Pas"

Dholuo love ballads

It is one lazy weekend for me, so I've turned on my old CDs of Luo music. I'm relishing this moment and dancing my heart out. Great music.

I had never realized this before, but it seems all of them are singing about women...love gone sour...is one major repeated theme "Isanda nango" , "Isanda gi hera", for the non dholuo speaker, it simply means, "why are you mistreating me....your love is hurting...and even more "Ilal Kanye", "Rambanya nyathi maber moromo manyo"...where did you go, and the beautiful one is worth searching for....

I have always had this impression that Luo men do not value their women a lot, going by the way they are treated, widows having their property grabbed, the fact that we have no permanent places in our own homes - that if a young girl or woman dies, she has to be buried outside the home and even the fact that we don't traditionally inherit land.

But not in music! As long as Luo music continues picturing the woman as a powerful force who the musician can't live with, i will continue loving it.

I leave you with this link of Aluoch Jamaranda's song, which I only love the first part! (the Agutu nyathi maber...not the Malo malo)

Wambui Otieno

It seems Mrs Wambui Otieno Mbugua is still fighting battles even in death. I could not believe my eyes when I read in the press that the Umira Kager clan is actually trying to bury her in Nyalgunga! What the ....! But again I could see from the TV footage that somehow she anticipated this. What with her grave already dug and her wishes clearly spelled out in black and white?

One thing I do admire about her though, is her guts. Her daring acts did indeed expand the space for Kenyan women to do some things they never thought they would do. Even though I was just a little girl at the time she fought a court battle with Joka Umira Kager over the burial place of her late husband, it was a lesson that a woman can indeed fight for what she thinks is right.

Growing up in a house where I heard my dad almost everyday, telling my brother "Otieno ae jikon" urging him to get out of the woman's space, in a way, claiming sons like "Otieno" my brother who shares the same name as Wambui's late husband, had more important things to do than hanging around the kitchen with girls and their mothers, kind of reinforced the idea that they are of a superiour breed. But the SM case, kept one woman in the headlines for a long time. Yes, I realised, our issues also do matter in the national press.

Being in the headlines, Wambui was a reminder that yes, even though you fight for what you want and don't get it, you can always keep your head up.

I loved her marriage to Mbugua. It went to show that women don't need to hide behind the veils that society creates for them. After her marriage that shocked many Kenyans, it soon became normal as many women went public with their marriages to younger men. I remember once when I was an intern reporter, some angry men called my workplace, wanting reporters to go and see a case where an old woman had apparently bewitched a young man to be her lover. They were ready to lynch her and she was held at a local chief's camp in Githurai. As I investigated, I found out both parties were adults, over 25 years old...it was a non story, save to advise the local community that there was nothing wrong if the two were consenting adults....just like Wambui Otieno.

Wambui might not know it, but she was a role model to many people. may she rest in peace.

A day in a woman's life

Oh how time flies....I stopped blogging as new things happened in my life, a new job, a new baby, a new life of being semi married....these responsibilities have kept me off my laptop. Not to forget, our baby, nicknamed Kaduve, does not allow me to move close to the computer when I'm home.

I wrote this little post (see below) last April, and I'm just glad the boy has allowed me to touch my laptop this evening, so I can share some of my views ( and keep my mind busy analyzing non important issues).

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April. The month when we are still feeling very much like a woman loved...Valentines day was just the other day and we are yet to recover from the pampering we received during the International Womens' day that was marked in March. But lest we forget...there is still a long path waiting to be troden.

I was just thinking about the writer Simon de Beauvoir. How she dissected the woman's role, the woman as the mother and the woman as the wife...some of the gems from this lady, that women are actually made...not born. we are socialised to accept certain roles and we end up being the so called 'weaker sex'.
One thing i learned while growing up though, there were far more women surviving in old age than men...and if life is the survival of the fittest, then your guess can be as good as mine.

Look at the animal kingdom, the lion is considered a king, but I've seen lionesses lead hunts ...that should indeed leave them being considered as the Kings.

As I look all around me, women are still in most instances paid less than their male counterparts for doing the same job.

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This is as far as I wrote on this particular day, since I was rudely interrupted by a toddler seeking attention from his mom. Should I say, to be continued....about six years later when Kaduve is in school!

Questions the Media have refused to ask

Many people have died alongside Ainamoi MP David Kimutai Too as violent demonstrations rocked several towns in Kenya.

As a smiling Andrew Muache was being led in and out of the courtroom, several questions remain unasked as the Fourth Estate shows its obvious bias and intent to black out some voices.

• It has been claimed by the police commish that the killer and the second victim whose name has been given as Eunice* went to the same police college, who were their friends there? Who knew them? Where they lovers?
• Where is the family of the so called Eunice. Did they know Andrew?
• What about the MPs wife, did she know if her husband had an affair?

I just need to know....otherwise the doubts will linger on forever as the Kemilio seeks to murder people and justify its habit of changing colours.

Every day is a gift

I don't know what information to trust following the Killing of the Ainamoi MP.

The newspaper i read did not quote the murdered MP's parents or siblings or anyone else giving their side of the story.

Neither did i hear from the media any interviews with any relatives or friends of the woman who was with this MP, and who later succumbed to injuries at an Eldoret hospital.

I don't know if this is government propaganda.

I have decided to spend my days like every day is a gift, and it could be my last day on earth.

There is violence all around me, all i can do is thank God for the gift of my life.

Naivasha

Naivasha is the place where i went for holiday last Christmas.

It was the best Christmas i have had in years. For the first time i was not sitting at the news desk waiting for non-existent happenings.

I took a boat ride on the scening lake Naivasha and i was divine. I slept on a campsite near the lake and felt some form of almost heavenly bliss....



My friend Ayoo drove us from Nairobi in less than an hour.

I cant go to Naivasha anymore. Neither can Ayoo. We would be dead meat once spotted anywhere near there.

Why are you digging your own grave?

I have been reading other people’s blogs, and I am amazed at our collective ability to throw words around irresponsibly...not thinking sometimes the things we "think" might just come true.

Most bloggers are probably writing from the comfort of western cities, not like me here, who watches out in case somebody gets to my building and flushes me out, or burns me as I sleep, God forbid.

The night before we went to the polls I had a strange dream….

My aunt Pilpina was asking me in the dream, “Why are you digging your own grave…?”

And then I looked closely at myself in the dream. I was wearing overalls and in the process of constructing a road, at the far end there was a freshly dug grave. It was labelled with my full names on it.

I have never constructed a road before. In that dream I was carrying heavy rocks and building a road, I don’t know where. The only heavy manual work I have ever done is dig my garden of sukuma wiki and nyanya at Imara Daima estate.

I wondered to myself what this dream meant. I still wonder.

I wonder more because my aunt Pilpina is dead. She died last week in Bondo in a road accident. And to make matters worse, I cannot even dare go to her funeral this weekend.

I could also not go to my cousin Tony's funeral. I remember sitting at the News Desk when my dad called. He told me Tony had been shot in Kisumu by police as the town erupted following the illegal declaration of Kemilio as the president. at that time, insensitive souls were cheering on as they watched TV footage of people being shot at, in Kisumu. One lady, whom i shall not name, went on shouting, "They are all thugs."

Is everyone in Kisumu a thug?

I can confirm that Tony was not a thug. His only crime was being at the bus stop trying to get transport back to Nairobi after fulfilling his civic duties of casting his vote.

And then again, one polarised journalist at my workplace agreed with the police spokesman that the two guys caught on camera being shot dead was fiction. He argued with me endlessly that the recording had been "doctored."

I am not amused. Neither am i blind.

Am I digging my own grave? Are Kenyans digging their own graves?

Marauding gangs have blocked all roads. I don’t think I can travel beyond Uthiru.

These days the dreams are different.

I always dream I am at my workplace, updating the websites with gory stories of death and murder.

It is haunting.

Open Letter to Kivuitu

This letter hit my inbox earlier today. I do share the sentiments of the authour, that's why i am reproducing it here.

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AN OPEN LETTER TO SAMUEL KIVUITU, CHAIR OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF KENYA

Mr. Kivuitu,
We've never met. It's unlikely we ever will. But, like every other Kenyan, I will remember you for the rest of my life. The nausea I feel at the mention of your name may recede. The bitterness and grief will not.
You had a mandate, Mr. Kivuitu. To deliver a free, fair and transparent election to the people of Kenya . You and your commission had 5 years to prepare. You had a tremendous pool of resources, skills, technical support, to draw on, including the experience and advice of your peers in the field - leaders and experts in governance, human rights, electoral process and constitutional law. You had the trust of 37 million Kenyans.

We believed it was going to happen. On December 27th, a record 65% of registered Kenyan voters rose as early as 4am to vote. Stood in lines for up to 10 hours, in the sun, without food, drink, toilet facilities. As the results came in, we cheered when minister after powerful minister lost their parliamentary seats. When the voters of Rift Valley categorically rejected the three sons of Daniel Arap Moi, the despot who looted Kenya for 24 years. The country spoke through the ballot, en masse, against the mindblowing greed, corruption, human rights abuses, callous dismissal of Kenya 's poor, that have characterised the Kibaki administration.

But Kibaki wasn't going to go. When it became clear that you were announcing vote tallies that differed from those counted and confirmed in the constituencies, there was a sudden power blackout at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, where the returns were being announced. Hundreds of GSU (General Service Unit) paramilitaries suddenly marched in. Ejected all media except the government mouthpiece Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.

Fifteen minutes later, we watched, dumbfounded, as you declared Kibaki the winner. 30 minutes later, we watched in sickened disbelief and outrage, as you handed the announcement to Kibaki on the lawns of State House. Where the Chief Justice, strangely enough, had already arrived. Was waiting, fully robed, to hurriedly swear him in.

You betrayed us. Perhaps we'll never know when, or why, you made that decision. One rumor claims you were threatened with the execution of your entire family if you did not name Kibaki as presidential victor. When I heard it, I hoped it was true. Because at least then I could understand why you chose instead to plunge our country into civil war.

I don't believe that rumor any more. Not since you appeared on TV, looking tormented, sounding confused, contradicting yourself. Saying, among other things, that you did not resign because you "did not want the country to call me a coward", but you "cannot state with certainty that Kibaki won the election". Following that with the baffling statement "there are those around him [Kibaki] who should never have been born." The camera operator had a sense of irony - the camera shifted several times to the scroll on your wall that read: "Help Me, Jesus."

As the Kenya Chapter of the International Commission of Jurists rescinds the Jurist of the Year award they bestowed on you, as the Law Society of Kenya strikes you from their Roll of Honour and disbars you, I wonder what goes through your mind these days.

Do you think of the 300,000 Kenyans displaced from their homes, their lives? Of the thousands still trapped in police stations, churches, any refuge they can find, across the country? Without food, water, toilets, blankets? Of fields ready for harvest, razed to the ground? Of granaries filled with rotting grain, because no one can get to them? Of the Nairobi slum residents of Kibera, Mathare, Huruma, Dandora, ringed by GSU and police, denied exit, or access to medical treatment and emergency relief, for the crime of being poor in Kenya ?

I bet you haven't made it to Jamhuri Park yet. But I'm sure you saw the news pictures of poor Americans, packed like battery chickens into their stadiums, when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana . Imagine that here in Nairobi , Mr. Kivuitu. 75,000 Kenyans, crammed into a giant makeshift refugee camp. Our own Hurricane Kivuitu-Kibaki, driven by fire, rather than floods. By organized militia rather than crumbling levees. But the same root cause - the deep, colossal contempt of a tiny ruling class for the rest of humanity. Over 60% of our internal refugees are children. The human collateral damage of your decision.

And now, imagine grief, Mr. Kivuitu. Grief so fierce, so deep, it shreds the muscle fibres of your heart. Violation so terrible, it grinds down the very organs of your body, forces the remnants through your kidneys, for you to piss out in red water. Multiply that feeling by every Kenyan who has watched a loved one slashed to death in the past week. Every parent whose child lies, killed by police bullets, in the mortuaries of Nairobi , Kisumu, Eldoret. Everyone who has run sobbing from a burning home or church, hearing the screams of those left behind. Every woman, girl, gang-raped.

Do you sleep well these days, Mr. Kivuitu? I don't. I have nightmares. I wake with my heart pounding, slow tears trickling from the corners of my eyes, random phrases running through my head:
Remember how we felt in 2002? It's all gone. (Muthoni Wanyeki, ED of Kenya Human Rights Commission, on the night of December 30th, 2007, after Kibaki was illegally sworn in as president).

There is a crime here that goes beyond recrimination. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolise. (John Steinbeck, American writer, on the betrayal of internally displaced Americans, in The Grapes of Wrath)
Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi....kila siku tuwe na shukrani ("Justice be our shield and defender....every day filled with thanksgiving" Lines from Kenya 's national anthem)

I soothe myself back to patchy sleep with my mantra in these terrible days, as our country burns and disintegrates around us:
Courage. Courage comes. Courage comes from cultivating. Courage comes from cultivating the habit. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions. (Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner).

I wake with a sense of unbearable sadness. Please let it not be true.....
Meanwhile, the man you named President cowers in the State House, surrounded by a cabal of hardline power brokers, and a bevy of sycophantic unseated Ministers and MPs, who jostle for position and succession. Who fuel the fires by any means they can, to keep themselves important, powerful, necessary. The smoke continues to rise from the torched swathes of Rift Valley, the gutted city of Kisumu , the slums of Nairobi and Mombasa . The Red Cross warns of an imminent cholera epidemic in Nyanza and Western Kenya , deprived for days now of electricity and water. Containers pile up at the Port of Mombasa , as ships, unable to unload cargo, leave still loaded. Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi , Southern Sudan , the DRC, all dependent on Kenyan transit for fuel and vital supplies, grind to a halt.

A repressive regime rolls out its panoply of oppression against legitimate dissent. Who knew our police force had so many sleek, muscled, excellently-trained horses, to mow down protestors? Who guessed that in a city of perennial water shortages, we had high-powered water cannons to terrorize Kenyans off the streets?

I am among the most fortunate of the fortunate. Not only am I still whole, alive, healthy, mobile; not only do I have food, shelter, transport, the safety of those I love; I have the gift of work. I have the privilege to be in the company of the most brilliant, principled, brave, resilient Kenyans of my generation. To contribute whatever I can as we organize, strategize, mobilize, draw on everything we know and can do, to save our country. I marvel at the sheer collective volume of trained intelligence, of skill, expertise, experience, in our meetings. At the ability to rise above personal tragedy - families still hostage in war zones, friends killed, homes overflowing with displaced relatives - to focus on the larger picture and envisage a solution. I listen to lawyers, economists, youth activists, humanitarians; experts on conflict, human rights, governance, disaster relief; to Kenyans across every sector and ethnicity, and I think:

Is this what we have trained all our lives for? To confront this epic catastrophe, caused by a group of old men who have already sucked everything they possibly can out of Kenya , yet will cling until they die to their absolute power?

You know these people too, Mr. Kivuitu. The principled, brave, resilient, brilliant Kenyans. The idealists who took seriously the words we sang as schoolchildren, about building the nation. Some of them worked closely with you, right through the election. Some called you friend. You don't even have the excuse that Kibaki, or his henchmen, might offer - that of inhabiting a world so removed from ours that they cannot fathom the reality of ordinary Kenyans. You know of the decades of struggle, bloodshed, faith and suffering that went into creating this fragile beautiful thing we called the "democratic space in Kenya ." So you can imagine the ways in which we engage with the unimaginable. We coin new similes:
lie low like a 16A (the electoral tally form returned by each constituency, many of which were altered or missing in the final count)

We joke about the Kivuitu effect - which turns internationalists, pan-Africanists, fervent advocates for the dissolution of borders, into nationalists who cry at the first verse of the national anthem .

Ee Mungu nguvu yetu
Ilete baraka kwetu
Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi
Natukae na undugu
Amani na uhuru
Raha tupate na ustawi.

O God of all creation
Bless this our land and nation
Justice be our shield and defender
May we dwell in unity
Peace and liberty
Plenty be found within our borders.

Rarely do we allow ourselves pauses, to absorb the enormity of our country shattered, in 7 days. We cry, I think, in private. At least I do. In public, we mourn through irony, persistent humor, and action. Through the exercise of patience, stamina, fortitude, generosity, that humble me to witness. Through the fierce relentless focus of our best energies towards challenges of stomach-churning magnitude. We tell the stories that aren't making it into the press: the retired general in Rift Valley sheltering 200 displaced families on his farm, the Muslim Medical Professionals offering free treatment to anyone injured in political protest. We challenge, over and over again, with increasing weariness, the international media coverage that presents this as "tribal warfare", "ethnic conflict", for an audience that visualises Africa through Hollywood : Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland, Blood Diamond.

I wish you'd thought of those people, when you made the choice to betray them. I wish you'd drawn on their courage, their integrity, their clarity, when your own failed you. I wish you'd had the imagination to enter into the lives, the dreams, of 37 million Kenyans.

But, as you've probably guessed by now, Mr. Kivuitu, this isn't really a letter to you at all. This is an attempt to put words to what cannot be expressed in words. To mourn what is too immense to mourn. A clumsy groping for something beyond the word 'heartbreak'. A futile attempt to communicate what can only be lived, moment by moment. This is a howl of anguish and rage. This is a love letter to a nation. This is a long low keening for my country.

A VERY DISSAPPOINTED KENYAN CITIZEN – Ogubi Hudson.

Losing my sleep over my country

Last night i didnt' get to sleep at all. No. I tried but it was just a waste of time. It's difficult to sleep at such times. Not with that image of an unarmed protester shot in cold blood that was aired on KTN news replaying itself on my mind. Why are Kenyans not being allowed to protest? Clearly, KTN showed images of a peaceful demo in Eldoret town earlier, and all hell broke loose as soon as the GSU arrived. In Central province, processions and prayers were held and nobody was arrested or dispersed for unlawful assembly. There were no deaths, and no casualties. But why, oh why is this 'law' on public gatherings being given double standards? Why cant ODM supporters be left to demonstrate! Is it not a human right? Ordinary Kenyans like me have nothing else to do. I cannot attempt to demonstrate because i cannot run faster than the police. No body wants to hear my voice. I can only pray, and ask my fellow muslims to invoke the 'halbadiri'. I hope one person will drop down dead as a result of my prayers. That person is one 'Kemilio'. As Ali Kiba sings in his hit song "cinderella" 'Hakuna aujuaye rangi ya Kinyonga ila yeye na muumba..." for now "rangi ya Kemilio ni nyekundu...imepakwa na damu ya wakenya".

We must protest, but who will teach us to do it peacefully?

A majority of Kenyans are feeling wronged. They are feeling wasted, abused and denied their democratic right.

Many people are feeling wasted because they spent lots of hours queuing to cast their votes, and yet, apparently to them, it was not a transparent process. They felt all their efforts came to nothing and now, they are angry.

That anger can clearly be seen in the outburst of violence that broke immediately after the announcement of the presidential results. The burning of homes and the Eldoret church massacre are just some of these instances. These are clearly things which are not ‘Kenyan.’

I felt the outburst of anger from the comfort of my office chair on the same day the president was re-elected and sworn in.

I received a distress call from a brother. He said his neighbourhood was on fire. Marauding gangs from the neighbouring Kibera had moved into Olympic estate and were stealing and setting houses on fire. His house was spared, at least for some time, because he could speak the same ethnic language as the attackers and pleaded with them not to loot.

Later on, he called to tell me the looters were stealing everything from the houses in his estate, including the doors and gates! Apparently, they were ripping houses apart, removing the plumbing fittings and destroying anything they could.

Many days later, one could see the protesters’ anger by looking at the remnants of that estate. And the anger is visible when one looks at Kisumu, now a shadow of its former self. Eldoret and Kericho, with their overhelming numbers of displaced people and looted shops in Mombasa and of course, several grieving families.

I also felt that anger when I sat at a café in town, sipping coffee. When it was news time, a big TV was switched on and everyone milled around to catch the latest happenings. As new ministers were being sworn in, two men moved to my table to catch a better glimpse of the goings-on. And then I heard shattering remarks. The men claimed Kambas were going to be the next in line to be killed, because their leaders had apparently moved to the “wrong” political divide.

The problem with most Kenyans, o is that they don’t know how to protest. That is why we have seen a scenario of people burnt up in a church, because their aggressors saw no better way to express their anger than kill, maim and loot from people who share something they consider to be in common with their enemy – ethnic origin.


And peace makers have been preaching on televisions urging people to be peaceful. They are saying, do not kill your neighbour, do not burn your neighbours’ house and lots of other things. And yet they are not telling people who are feeling deeply aggrieved how to release their anger.

From the International non-violence protest movement, we have seen many examples of peaceful protest. Demonstrations, Sit-ins and sit-downs – where the aggrieved parties move to certain areas for a period of time to express their anger, “haunting” the powers that be, by using volunteers to follow and haunt particular officials until they get tired and listen to one’s cause are just but few of these methods. And from our own traditions, we saw how Uhuru Park was safeguarded in the early 1990s as women striped naked in protest.

If only Mahatma Gandhi was here to preach non-violence methods of protest to Kenyans!

Unfortunately for our society, we seem to be unkind to such types of protests. It was only last year that a group of disabled hawkers kept vigil while on a hunger strike outside the building where I work for almost a month and nobody seemed to care.

It is heart wrenching for me to see my fellow women-folk, peacefully demonstrating, being dispersed by police and tear gas. I suppose if the police just left protesters to march and march until they got tired, their anger would be a little bit soothed.

As long as the root causes of people’s anger is not satisfied, or at least seen to be satisfied, then our people might continue resorting to unorthodox means of protest, with devastating consequences.

Damn those pictures in my head.

Something extremely annoying sometimes happens to me. I open the shower and as the cold water trickles to my back and triggers the singing bug....moments later i shut up, a sudden curse forming on my lips.

How could i? How could i be singing one of those annoying songs...ati tawala Kenya, tawala...tawala what! I realise i am actually worse than Pavlov’s dog. Somebody must have read his works and instructed my teachers, way back in primary school, how to ensure we never forget some stuff.

The teachers made us sing, as we lined up by the roadside to welcome that man who used to be the head of state. And these mental images stick in our heads and just refuse to go away.

I remember that era. I remember politicians and adults who discussed ‘debt burden’. I remember how prices went up. I remember the 1990s. As teenagers, we had to work hard to earn pocket money. Our civil servant parent’s earnings was not always enough for all our needs.

As a university student, i came to understand public policy better. By then, Goldenberg had happened. Our parents had been retrenched. University fees had been introduced and jobs were extremely hard to come by. Any hopes for my kid brother drinking milk in school as we ever did remained just that: hope.

Oh the pictures in my head. I remember how nobody could talk politics just anyhow. Then one day, i heard Jaramogi, the old man who we only used to hear myths about, started talking. Exchanging words with a certain man others preferred to call ‘the man from sacho’. The men in the estate only whispered about it.

Then there was a day a certain section 2A was repealed, mugumo trees and razor blades not withstanding. Everyone started talking about it. I could hear their discussions as they walked along the Amasya crescent – that road that our backyard faced. It was loud enough for me to hear all they said, and nobody arrested anyone. Something different had surely happened.

Oh the pictures in my head. They refuse to go away, even though i try to erase them. When the local chief made us line up along the road and chant ‘Nyayo’ we retorted by chanting ‘Nyoyo’. ‘Nyoyo’ is one of my favourite dishes. It is a mixture of maize and beans. Another community calls it ‘Githeri’. We also sang ‘Twa-ha-ra Kenya... so that we dont have to say ‘Tawala Kenya’. Those afternoons used to chant ‘Nyayo’ could have been aptly spent analysing that poem called ‘the empty head’ and relating it to policy makers of that time.

They were interesting times. They proved to me that those politicians were not out to better our lot. They had no idea of how best public policy should be formulated for our benefits. They blindly agreed to Structural Adjustment Programs, because they knew they had stolen the cash with their left hand....and with their bad management, and the rest of the population suffered the consequences.

I hate to remember what we went through. I personally think anybody who was remotely involved in any role in government, anybody (including the ones who want Kurudi Tena he was VP for almost a decade!)who was involved in enacting public policy, anybody who agreed to any loans that we are now paying.....that person surely does not deserve to be anywhere in government ever again.

Outlaw politics from the daily papers!

Politics, politics and more politics. I hate it.

And yet it appears it is the stuff that appeals the most to our newspaper editors.

ON a day when a blueprint for the economic advancement of our country has been launched, some old school editors still prefer to make Kanu - a dying cockerel- the main news item of the day in our leading daily.

Will they ever get it right! That is what I think. But again maybe I am influenced by “Development communication scholars..” and maybe I just want to see development focused news in the media…still, I do not understand how a country that needs to develop a lot like ours would be living politics, eating politics and sleeping politics!

I guess we need to get rich first before we can decide to engage in the luxury of talking, talking and more talking.

What we need is actually a ban of politics from all newspapers.

Who Edits These Voices?

We rarely hear them. But a few times we see them. Dancing. Or standing nearby, mute, as their male counterparts talk the talk at press conferences. Until Ngilu brought them back. The subject? A dance.


Why did Ngilu bring them back? To fight a political war?

Michuki rattled. And Ngilu rose to the occasion, to remind us of the existence of these silent voices.

Michuki was criticising the way women dance. While the attack was particularly aimed at Ngilu, it remains for a fact that all we ever see of women when it comes to politics, is dance.

Women in the political arena are rarely heard. And their issues sometimes appear to be trivialised, to such an extent that they are always dumped together with those of children and youth.

Women are always silent on the political front. The few of them who manage to appear at press conferences with certain “luminaries” are always silent. The face of one Julia Ojiambo at ODM meetings is very common. But I haven’t heard her voice in a long time I wonder how it sounds….And the name Jael Mbogo sounds familiar. At one point I thought it was a man…until Lifestyle demystified the face behind the name last week. I have never heard her voice! Not to forget Mumbi Ngaru. She was vocal as a mayor at Thika. When she lost the position, her voice disappeared. Although those who know her would recognise her face at LDP press conferences. Even local comedians know how to imitate politicians in their ridiculous moments. None imitates a woman politician.

Women now appear to be flowers to make press conferences more beautiful. And of course, dancers. And now, the dance is being criticised. Do they want to take away the little role that is left for the women to play?

Women in politics in Kenya seem to be under threat. And the women’s movement seems to be lacking an ideology. Women have the numbers. But these numbers have failed considerably to turn into more female representation through elected positions. While neighbouring countries like Tanzania and Uganda seem to be increasing the numbers of their political representatives, in Kenya the numbers seem to be decreasing. The few women in politics seem to be more interested in jostling for the few parliamentary nominations.

And now they are regrouping. At least going by the past weeks event. We are now seeing responses to an issue they consider “theirs.”

At a recent round table discussion on women’s issues, participants wondered whether women folk are better of 21 years after the phenomenal Nairobi 1985 meeting. The 1985 meeting aimed to see women on an equal footing with men, and its main agenda was inspired by the fact that women’s reproductive and productive roles were closely linked to the political, economic, social, cultural, legal, educational and religious conditions that constrained their advancement. It was seen that factors intensifying the economic exploitation, marginalization and oppression of women stemmed from chronic inequalities, injustices and exploitative conditions at the family, community, national, subregional, regional and international levels.

The Nairobi meeting aimed for full integration of women in the total development effort and to eliminate the structural imbalances that compounded and perpetuated women's disadvantages in society

Yet, as we ask ourselves, have the past 21 years seen an increase in participation of women in the economic and social development of those countries?

There are days when a husband would castigate his wife saying, “…who wears the trousers in this house” whenever she perceived her to be threatening his power position. Now we are all wearing trousers, and equality in homes seems to be increasing. More women are working and more and more of them are getting financially secure. Yet in the political arena, women seem to be missing out.


In many work places, it is common to find women doing the same job as men and being paid less.

What is the women’s movement planning in 2007?

Have they already started on their agenda? Dance? Approved styles and disapproved styles? Perhaps we will see another Sierra Leone, another Johnson Sirleaf?

Are we seeing a renaissance from the 1985 Nairobi conference and the years after… when ‘Beijing’was on the lips of everyone and empowered women were said to have gone to Beijing even if they have never set foot outside the borders of the country?

Kenyan women’s movement is still weeping from the losses that could have been earned in the draft constitution, which promised to give a legal framework for their participation in elective politics.