You and Drugs

Hey guys, how are you doing? Hope you are all fine. Long time eyy?
Well, drug trafficking/smuggling has become an issue of concern, over the last like 5 months. That is, here in the Land Down Under.

Remember before you left for your respective host countries…
Mum: Make sure you lock your luggage. Make sure you keep your luggage with you at all times. Don’t trust anyone you meet at the airport.
You: (thinking) what is she rambling on about. Yeah Yeah Yeah... (You say)
Mum: Listen…
You: Ahh. I heard you the first time, wacha kunisumbua.
Mum: (mumbling) Asiyefunzwa na mamaye, hufunzwa na ulimwengu.
You: What?
Mum: Nothing. Sitaki kukusumbua.

Consider the following scenarios:
Scenario I
You’ve been in your host country for a couple of years, and you decide to go home for the holidays. Then, the holidays are up and you are back in JKIA returning to your host country. You have problems both at home and in the host country. A well-dressed man walks up to you…
Man: Is everything ok?
You: No, not really. Don’t want to talk about it.
Man: Come on get if off your chest.
You: I have so many problems.
Man: Well, I can solve your problems.
You: Am listening…
Man: I will give you $ 1 million right now, if you carry ‘this’ to your destination.
You: (thinking) AUD$ 1M almost Ksh 60M. What do I do? My rent is overdue. I have been unable to finish paying fees. My granny is sick in hospital and there is no money to pay for her much needed operation. My parents are broke… etc
WHAT DO YOU DO?

Scenario 2
You are in the airport. Right then (for the men) you see a well endowed tall blonde, short skirt, full red lips and legs reaching Korogocho. (For the ladies) You see a tall, dark and well handsome guy. Large green-grey eyes, very dark medium length locks, lean but muscular, 5 o’clock shadow beard… Is it getting hot here ama it’s just me. (Let me turn on the fan, setting no. 2.) Ok, they see you staring at them like a person who has the biggest eyes without eyelids. They have seen their prey.
The Hotties: Can sit here?
You: Yes Yes!
After a few niceties here, chit chats there and giggles, guffaws and snorts everywhere…
The Hotties: (smiling sexily) its hot in herrrre right? (the chic- undoes one button and pulls the skirt a little bit higher. A kabead of sweat drips into her cleavage) (the guy- he undoes 2 buttons, his chest is just there staring at you)
You: (drooling bucketfuls of saliva) Yeah very hot indeed….
Your bladder: Hey you? Empty me, empty me!!!
You: Shut up you whinger! WAIT UNTIL WE GET INTO THE PLANE. CAN”T YOU SEE AM ABOUT TO GET LUCKY!
Your bladder: Geez, you don’t have to be such a yeller. I’ll wait then.
While you are debating with your bladder, the Hotties see your legs fidgeting.
The Hotties: Is everything ok? You seem pressed. Maybe you should go to the ladies/gents. I’ll look after your luggage.
You: OK
You bladder and brain: No, maybe you shouldn’t, not without your luggage.
You: SHUT UP!
And you go. When you get back from the ladies/gents, your hottie suddenly wants to make a call or get a sandwich. Last time to see them.
When you reach your host country, you’re caught with drugs. ‘They are not mine.’ You say. You've been duped by your hottie.
WHO WILL BELIEVE YOU?

Scenario 3
You and your so-called trusted friend are going for a holiday. What you know about your ‘friend’- such a wonderful friend. What you don’t know- They loathe and detest you because you have it all together. They want to be better than you. How do they do this- ruin your life by putting an illegal substance in your luggage. For example, Bridget Jones’ Diary: Edge of Reason- Bridget was caught with drugs in Bangkok Airport and her friend left her at the time of greatest need. Now if you do not have a BF or GF who is a high-flying international human rights lawyer, to get you out of jail like Mark Darcy/Dashing Mr. Darcy/Colin Firth, you will die and rot for sure. (Hey Colin, if you are reading this blog, post a comment and include your number…) Ohhh Colin (Fan setting no. 4)
Sorry for the brief detour, I was imagining Colin…mmm (sigh) Anyway back to the blog.

• A number of Aussies have been caught drug trafficking in Bali-Indonesia. They all claim that they are innocent. The first one to be arrested was student Shappelle Corby. On arrival, customs asked to open her body bag, she refused. She admitted that she had drugs, which were not there when she had left Australia. The Aus govt. suspects that baggage handlers put drugs into the body bag. Her sentencing options were the Death Penalty or Mandatory Life Imprisonment. Luckily, she escaped the Death Penalty. We hope that she will also be able to escape the life sentence as well. The final sentence will be handed down by the end of this month.
  
• 3-4 weeks ago, 8 men and 1 woman (btn ages 19-29) were caught in Bali Airport, the drugs strapped to their bodies. One of the guys is thought to be the god-father. He is currently in a separate jail-cell, because it is thought that he has threatened to harm the families of his mates, if they fail to maintain silence. They may face life imprisonment.
  
• Two days ago, a guy (probably in his mid-30s-early 40s) was caught with hashish. He says it’s for personal use, but he is facing the prospect of a 10 year jail sentence.
  

The moral of this long winding blog is: Be careful. Don’t be a know it all. Lock your luggage and be with your luggage at all times. Don’t trust anyone at the airport and choose your friends wisely.

Hip Hop Colony

This is a siiiiick website - Hip Hop Colony..Recently discovered via MsaniiXL's blog ..man everything about it is jus slick..havent got this excited about anything as kenyan hip-hoppy as this since my first listen of E'sir's Nimefika.

Still im old school at heart..no one in kenyan is making hip hop like they used to...ama its me who became Mainstream listening to too much hova, Naz and Game? The hard core 'Tafsiri hii's' and the K-south classics like 'watu wengine wana Tabia Mbaya' etc.

can they release this movie chepchep..

Bravo: Kenyan Researchers !

Its no news that Im a news junkie - it is morphing into an ADD of sorts that doesnt allow me to read books - but i digress.. in todays 'hit' i was pleased to find
Kenyan Researchers have developed an animal model for HIV research, significantly cutting costs and research time down.

A cure beckons...(though my mom would disagree..she is sure HIV is the modern day plague and a sign of the end times....)

Beat me a picture...

Stumbled accross this photoblog and thought i should share...

gotta love jungus with their obsessive travel photography...and some interesting captions.

I want to travel!!!!

Of Lucy, Feminism, and objectivity

While it is commendable that MJY & Memoire in their recent Lucy posts have attempted to attack the 'real issues' I feel that both posts had too little objectivity in them and was marred (in self admission) to their knee jerk support for the quote unquote underdog. Not to label anyone, I feel like 'feminists' are hijacking this issue and masquerading as 'victim' on behalf of Mrs kibaki, following the public backlash after her actions, in a very inappropriate and unconvincing manner.

I chose Memoire's post as the base of my rebuttal as it was most recent and captured most of what i thought was wrong; keep in mind this opinion holds for other blog posts I have read.

The real issues, in my view, in respective rebuttal sequence are:

1) Lucy demands that music be turned off :
No big deal? The big deal is in how she carried herself as first lady. She has every right to be mad, but to storm in the way she did, say the things she did, and even try disconnect the sound is inexcusable for a person of her stature. 'decency' & respect in the way you approach a situation is not a western concept here - The story claims Diop Called State house to inquire if the party could go on, and he get the green light. When your own children are trying to calm you down, i think the term hysteria can be appropriated. Real issue: Manner of conflict resolution in times of anger.

"I say to Diop: a woman is equal to a man, tell her about the party if she lives next door."

This assumption that Diop failed to tell Mrs Kibaki of the party because she is not a man. I mean this is tantamount to reading the guys mind!

"oh how I wish I had bodyguards, I would do what Lucy did."

A fine specimen of what is fundamentally wrong with our politicians in Kenya once they get into power. With great power, comes great responsibility. irresponsibility is when those in power, ABUSE it, just by virtue of the fact that it is at their disposal and because they cannot be held accountable. Memoire, lets hope you dont become Mrs Kibaki anytime soon. And we are certainly holding you accountable Mrs Kibaki.

2) Lucy 'Storming' into Nation Centre

"I dont give a damn kind of women"

Ur kidding me right? The only reason Lucy was able to orchestrate her shenanigens @ the NC are becuase she is the wife of the most powerful man in Kenya. Period. You try and go hijack the nation in your free time and see how long it takes u before your thrown out by security. Real issue here is : ABUSE OF POWER, and disregard for protocol.

3) Lucy and feminism:
This one i dont know where to even begin. Not to get too far into this ensuing feminist debate, I will say that this statement betrays the lack of objectivity yet again:

"where are the real feminists?f Lucy wants to be bad tempered, outspoken, adamant, she has every right to be, as does every human. Diop abused his capacity as a tenant and he thought that being a world-bank bigshot gave him immunity."

Doesn't Diop have the right to hold a gathering in his house and make merry? Ama Lucy's right to be downright rude is of more pertinence & convenience to the feminist movement? I mean she is asking this guy who his mother is!?!? Lets be real. there's a difference to being outspoken and downright abrasive. The sad thing is, as mentioned by many other bloggers, that no one can particularly blame her as it appears to me a medical condition gone worse.

And the call to feminists to justify her obstinate behavior - i mean..this one lathers me with ire - is this what feminists are all about? Do you speak on their behalf? If there are any feminists reading this, please come correct, because this statement may have you grossly misrepresented.

I find that women in the diaspora especially get so detached from african culture that they fail to see how the distinct roles of a man and a woman in african home can live in harmony. This is the reason perhaps phrases like 'head of the home" or 'control the family' are sure to rattle the cages of many a feminist - but i digress. The real issue here is that Kibaki is expected to CONTROL his own household because it is is OUT OF CONTROL and because Lucy is in the centre of this hurricane...Not because he is a man, something feminists were incredibly quick to jump on. If Kibaki was the one going bananas, many including myself would expect LUCY to take control of her family.

This is a case of, as Mato from Bullets and Honey would say, delicious irony;Kibaki's family is perhaps the perfect microcosm of Kenya. He is the head of the family. Something that might be a bitter pill to swallow, but he really is. This is a debate of its own. He is also the President of the republic. Questions of Leadership in both areas, or lack thereof, are unsurprisingly abound.

"I say: be gone, world-bank bigshot, be gone, the world bank is only plundering and looting and pillaging our continent."

Hate or love the WB, one needs to hear Diop's take on the economy to give this man some due respect. I watched him on 'up close and candid' and was impressed - kenya should feel a sense of loss IMO...however that is neither here nor there.

Real issue here: far too many to enlist..will save for another post.

4) Lucy's mistakes:

"media doesn’t seem to understand that their representations of women are backward and chauvinistic."

Perhaps you need to watch the video again. I and many others are basing all arguments on what I SAW. A lady assaulting , yes assaulting, a poor Camera man DOING HIS JOB. If anything he should be commended for such bravery. Assault is Backward, and uncouth. Anywhere else in the world, this woman would not be chekaing at the implications of that action. I mean we are talking some serious litigation here.
A woman Hijacking a the largest media house in the country..Laughable and yes, backward - you should read some of the posts non-kenyans have been writing about this.

With the media nitpicking her style of dress and manner of speech - (which i didn't personally find overemphasized) perhaps you are correct. My feeling is that this and past generations of Kenyans have forgotten what it feels like to 'have' a first lady, and that their images of a first lady construed in their minds don't quite match that of the Lucy persona. And lets not be naive..The media is in the business of selling papers..so when a story of such sensationalist nature literally brings itself into the publishing house, it is hard to imagine that the Publishing house would ignore Lucy's insistence on 'bikini's'. Real issue here: First lady is accountable to the public for the persona she projects as she is a public figure. The media is in the business of holding the figures accountable. So either dance the dance or face the consequences.

5) Kenyan journalism :
I choose to look at the glass as far more than half full. Kenya's media enjoys some amazing talent that has been globally recognized.I watched with great zeal as Kenyan journalists swept the CNN sponsored African journalist of the year awards in south africa Last summer. Political analysis is stellar, but perhaps tainted at times. And no they were not freelance.

Spend some time watching Fox News, and you will begin to be grateful at the quality and debatable objectivity of the kenyan media (not just publishing houses). Relative to other countries in africa I would say that Kenya is a shining star in terms of the great leaps taken freedoms allowed to journalists and presentation of content. Something that is manifest in the selection of Nairobi to host this years CNN African Journalist awards

While the there has been some display of shoddy journalism (see Thinkers room plagiarized), I think we ought to take some time to honor the Lucy Oriang's , the Linus Kaikai's, Farida Karonei's ,Kwendo Opanga's and even the Immanuel Juma's . I was extremely active in my high school newspaper and I can tell you the little I know of true journalism is that it is a dedication like no other...
Real issue here: Blanket standards for the entire kenyan media: they are not productive.

So much more to say, but my summary skills leave much to be desired, so I will give it a rest here for now.

This post is nothing without the feedback, so let it come raining in.

Eating Ethiopias Dust

The launch of Broadband makes Ethiopia's lead in African ICT all clear cut black and white.....

I love to see the phoenix rise!!! Look out for Africa - this is a significant but subtle stepping stone. Kenya just needs to get ORGANIZED. I dont see any particulary reason why we were not in a position to pioneer this feat, apart from the shenanigans Tuju has been so embroilled in, a major hindrance in getting anything done.

It is interesting to note that Ethiopia is the only country that was never colonised (a fact that they will never fial to mention) . My brother and Sister in law passed by Addis ababa on their way home last summer, and apparently their Airport puts JKIA to unbridled ridicule. It is sophisticated in a way that is almost incongrous of what we know as 'Africans'.

Kenya Times 2.0 sneak preview

Stumbled across this from the the web..the artifact
was designed I believe by an final year journalism student @ Rhodes university...Not sure if this was a contract job...lakini Outsourcing web design hapana. kenya times... it is nicely done..so i cant complain toooo much.

Slight domain confusion

With this Roocy bonanza going on..(I mean the hits jus keep on coming!!) I have been eager to hear what everyones take on this craziness is at a glance:

I apologise profusely for the downtime we have faced leo: please visit the daily through this link for now:
Nchi Yetu Daily

The link is slightly harder to remember i apologise..the easy to to remember daily.nchiyetu.com will be back up soon I promise!

Thinker is unusually quiet on this one....I smell a bomb cookin....

New Wave In V.I.

How did you beat me to it soulsystah... I was itching to be the first to break the breaking news.

Oh well you said it. Its kinda embarassing. But it doesn't get better than actually being in Kenya and listening to this unfold as it unfolds. What do we say what do we do. I have been unable to do much work since I got to the office as we all tallk about the current situation. I will hold up my opinion till I get all the facts right.

You jua I'm one for avoiding drama who knows the next headline may well be. First lady Lucy storms Virtual Insanity!!!!


Enjoy your day and stay real....It could happen to you..

its abit tooooo much now

k, so at first i thought it was hilarious that Mama Lucy had become Muthaiga's official noise patrol, but after reading todays news about her storming of the Nation Centre , something just doesnt seem right, funny as the whole situation may still appear to be.The paranoia, the demands, the abuse and the petty complaints....not too mention the melodrama of wanting to carry out a hunger strike, are merely symptoms of what i fear is a much larger concern.

Its kind of embarassing actually, for me as a female who hopes to one day be involved in our nation's political landscape, that a woman in such a high position (albeit by virtue of her hubby's role) would be so rowdy, undiplomatic and quite frankly, a drama queen.
However, perhaps what is even more concerning, is the fact that Papa Emilio, is not doing anything to calm Lucy and her actions down. What sort of a president allows their spouse to run amock and embarass herself, and him, and the entire nation in general?

From literally holding the Nation Centre hostage with her body guards, to physically abusing a camera man, and imsulting what has been the country's forerunning media house, this mama has just done it all , and frankly if u ask me....its really time she stopped.

forget the cops...call Lucy

So....sii normally its the cops who come to bust and break up parties, like the one we had last night at my pals!
NOT in NAI!!!!!
apparently, the new jeshi is Mama Lucy herself, coz she doesnt like dignitaries to have farewell parties in her compound. shes not one of my favourite people, but for real thanks to her, this presidency has been one of the most entertaining ones ive ever seen!!!
maoni?

Rape in Kenya

This daily Nation piece reports of some eye popping stats: to quote 1

one out of every five people interviewed randomly in 14 urban centres in Kenya claimed they knew someone who had been raped in the past three months.

What this translates into is that women in Kenya are living in trememndous fear. Are there any women from Kenya reading this that can affirm this feeling? Kindly tell us your thoughts. I surely hope I am wrong.

trouble house hunting??

WOW again. Saw this on Google's blog and was blown away from a software development perspective. Brilliant. Your Apartment hunting just got THAT much easier thanks to a fusion of Craiglist real estate & Google Maps both of which are brilliant on their own.

well that is ofcourse..if ur in North America. Kenya needs to get its act together in a Adressing system that WORKS and gets them on the same page as everyone else!! So our streets and avenues werent built with this in mind, but theres thou innovative minds out there to cook somehting up! Urban planners what are you so busy doing??? I feel like even with the wave of Technology hitting growth markets such as Asia and Africa, we will miss out on most useful technologies as we have no infrastructure to build on!

All this talk about roads is great, but an infrastucture is more than just interconnecting barabaras. Postage system and Real-estaate stand to gain the most out of a redefined metric/standard for the purposes mapping out the layout of Nairobi (begin with the most daunting city?). However think of how Business to Consumer Commerce will BOOM if there exists a neat way to LOCATE consumers at minimal costs. Even with all the Software and ICT magic in the world, if this chasm is not bridged - reaching the consumer will remain a task that will continue to keep Markets in africa at snail speed since there will be no marginal utility achievable by the 'goods economy'.

So in as much as ICT is hailed as the future of Africa, i still think there are a lot of fundamental steps needed for us to reap the true benefits of such technologies. At the same time ICT is rendering some of these infrastuctures useless (fixed line telephones for example), but this is not the case for ALL infrastructures.

These steps are not impossile, I think they've just been ignored. Any urban planners (or wannabe urban planners) care to comment?

OK

A forward I bothered to read..enjoy


A couple was invited to a swanky family masked fancy dress Halloween party.

The wife got a terrible headache and told her husband to go to the party alone.

He, being a devoted husband, protested,but she argued and said she was going to take some aspirin and go to bed, and there was no need for his good time to be spoiled by not going.

So he took his costume and away he went. The wife, after sleeping soundly for about an hour, awakened without pain, and, as it was still early, decided to go to the party.

In as much as her husband did not know what her costume was, she thought she would have some fun by watching her husband to see how he acted when she was not with him.

So she joined the party and soon spotted her husband cavorting around on the dance floor, dancing with every nice chick he could and groping a little feel here and a little kiss there.

His wife went up to him and being a rather seductive babe herself,he left his new partner high and dry and devoted his time to her. She let him go as far as he wished, naturally, since he was her husband.

After some more to drink he finally he whispered a little proposition in her ear and she agreed, so off they went to one of the cars and had a quickie in the back seat. Just before unmasking at midnight, she slipped away and went home and put the costume away and got into bed, wondering what kind of explanation he would make up for his outrageous behaviour.

She was sitting up reading when he came in, so she asked what kind of time he had. "Oh, the same old thing. You know I never have a good time when you're not there." Then she asked, "Did you dance much?" He replied, "I'll tell you, I never even danced one dance.

When I got there, I met Pete,Bill, Brown and some other guys, so we went into the spare room and played poker all evening." "You must have looked really silly wearing that costume playing poker all night!" she said with unashamed sarcasm. to which the husband said 'actually I lent my costume to your Dad.Apparently he had a whale of a time."

High School

Denis I must congratulate u...i dont know if I did before....for attending one of the most prestigious institutions in the world.Truly a remarkable achievement.
My high sch also did the same for me. As a rubble u are in awe everytime the history of AHS is mentioned. 2nd form, and all you wanna do is wil'out. Come 3rd and all that sounds like hot air, as u have carved a niche for yourself in a BadBoy crew. In 4th it hits you, "what if am not good enough?"
I always look up to my fellow old boys eg. Amos Wako, Makatiani, Eng. Wanjohi just to mention a few. They were under the tutelage of the one and only Edward Carey Francis, world acclaimed. I know i will never achieve what this grand folks have managed. but am to cut my own path in the great savannah of life. But I fear i may never apply th great teachings that were instilled, whether willingly or otherwise, or many of the things i took for granted.
Both MKA and AHS have contributed a lot to my moulding. I managed to keep control of things, where my colleagues fell on the wayside. I shudder at the thought of what i'd be today if I stayed in Nairobi South B Primary School, where i was preoccupied with being 1st body. Cowi am sure u know where it is.
For this, my eternal gratitude and thanks to my wonderful and supportive parents (all of ours) for they take alot of crap from us. Thank God for your life, many would aspire for it.

Nchi Yetu Daily .::. Unleashed

About a month ago when the explosion of kenyan blogs began, i found myself unable to keep up with the size of my growing blogroll, and the sheer amount of content that was being published daily.

Whats worse is, that being the blog junkie that i've become, I had this insatiable hunger to read every single blog of interest, every single day. Needless to say this was becoming an impossible task. I do have a life beyond VI. Really.

So I decided nuffs enuff, I would make the news come to me, By any means Neccessary! Its been an on and off lil thing that many in the blog ring have stumbled accross now and then, but what with my final semester drawing to a close i had to give it a rest. This is where it left off, and really the goal was simple:

Nchi Yetu Daily was built to find out in one stop, what was going on in the neighbourhood.

So what it does is essentially find all the most recent posts published on the kenyan blogosphere, and randomly picks a headline. That way i can always get a 'global' view of whos written what when. The linked posts link directly onto the authors blog, that way readers can leave comments there.

I have been intrigued with the popularity of Meme's in the kenyan blogospere particularly. The spread in inordinate spead and wildfire fashion, and are able to generate feedback and response in a process that is so unique to surveys, and other means of web-communication. One definition that captures this phenomena well is

A unit of cultural information that represents a basic idea that can be transferred from one individual to another, and subjected to MUTATION, CROSSOVER, and ADAPTATION

. Its like a useful harness of the broken telephone process. Ideas morph in transition while moulded by a cultural pipe. My next post will try to illustrate somewhat this trail of meme footprints. This was MEME's are also left OPTIONAL (if we avoid the dispatch mechanism) , that was no one has to feel obliged to do the meme coz someone else publicly recommended that the do it. Meme's work on assumptions, as mentioned in Pen-Elayne's post [via Mama Junkyard post], but isnt that what all of culture is? The shared basic assumptions of a group of people? I feel that trying to uncover whats hidden behind these assumptions, through meme's, are the most effective way of finding out what a certain culture is all about. Again, i will try illustrate with my next post.

My vision was for NCHI YETU DAILY to play a greater role in utilizing meme's and building upon their essence of information elicitation: rather than relying on the circular fashion in which Meme's circulate now, a reader/blog owner could go ino NYD, 'start a meme' , define their questions, and who they want an, slowswering them. A form of dispatch would be sent to these members, but more significantly this new meme would be listed/linked in NYD for ayone else with a Blog listed on NYD who felt like participating in the meme. Because the MOST RECENT POSTS are displayed on NYD, a initator of a meme ca , with greater ease, track whos done the meme, and enjoy their responses by simply clicking on the link to the post. So much more can be done to aide, simplify, enhance the process, but i want t take it mosmos as i further understand why meme's are so intriguing and work the way that they do.

In the grand scheme of things, I think this is a great way to get non-bloggers to quickly catch up with some of the wicked content that is getting published by kenyan bloggers. I am spreading the word through every avenue possible, so that people can get an idea of whats being published out there. I believe there is a incredible force that will come with numbers when all kenyan bloggers are on the same page.

if your not listed , email me I will ongeza u one time.

So Go take a look already, tell me what you think. Disclaimer: style/page design has never been my forte. Add it to your blogs tafadhali so i can see if its robust enough with the traffic.

http://daily.nchiyetu.com

Cheers,
Denis.

Stareheans on the Net - Learning how to lead Starehe-style

I often take for granted what priviledge it was attending 4 years of Starehe. Foramtive as they were, one often gets caught up in trying to nyakua the future than by constantly dwelling on the past... so when i come accross articles like this one on
Learning how to lead Starehe-style , I am struck by How much my past has contributed to where I am today as a person.

With Starehe coming TOPS again in the high school academic charts again with a clear distinction (grade point average & weight of Number of students) , it is undeniable that Starehe is one of the most remarkable schools in the world. yeah, i said it. WORLD. I had began this post thinking 'best school in Africa' but notice how both the superlative and frame of comparison have changed. Remarkable is more apt, because it attempts to quantify & aggregate intellectual horsepower, creativity, contribution to society, contribution to character development, management, student empowerment, faculty, extra-curricular dvp, student population diversity among other yardsticks.

As meek rabbles we were always in amazement Fridays at visiting heads who had toured the school all day showered us with compliments during the extended assembly. As Rowdy 2nd formers, the lavish praise was beginning to get redundant, by third form i think we had gotten so deep into the systemic culture that we wondered what was so hard to figure out about running a school well. By fourth form the shared basic assumptions deeply entrenched dictated that most of us (atleast for me) completely took for granted some of the reasons Starehe was such a brilliant environment for success.

When i look back, i find personally the best thing about it was the unbridled exposure with other individuals who were
1) Far Far less fortunate than I
2) Far far Smarter than I was (when u get in first form u think u are such hot shit..until the first set of form-wide exam results are out)
3) Both 1&2

A certain humility about my position in life settled in(not so comfortably as well i assure you - sometimes I felt like I would like to trade places just so that i didnt feel like everything had been handed down to me on a silver platter..the guilt of being 'priviledged' was sometimes hard to throw off). when u find a jamaa throughly enjoying the murram in the Dining hall becuase he has nothing better to look forward to, your frame of reference has to change at some point.

Anyway long story short, this is always my argument in favour of Boarding schools. Moreso boarding schools that dont have a status quo, or entirely uniform, rigid mental models. I have had interesting discourses with a friend of mine on why he would NOT want to attend Havard Business School given the chance. He feels there is a certain culture of distasteful superiority that one acquires there knowingly or unknowingly. Or why some people attest the same 'who do these folks think they are' after their first acquataince with McKinsey & Company employees. Anyway if there is anything I would want for my kids, it is to learn more than they can at home with me and see as many perspectives as they can as they find themselves and prepare themselves for the real world. Starehe managed to do both for me and I am grateful.

What did high school do in shaping the person you are today? Good? Bad? What would you change if you could go back?

Retrogressive

Just read on Kenyan Pundit about the fate of our creative high school Friend from Harrison 'third wright brother' Etyang. The inital article is here incase you didnt pick up on my prvious post on him.

Very sad to hear. The ban seems to make sense from a safety point of view, but there really have got to funnel his creativity to something meaningful. To quote one of my fav movie speeches [ Al Pacino: Scent of a Woman ]

"... Ive seen arms cut and legs torn off.. but theres nothing..NOTHING like the sight of an amputated spirit"

Almost over

Lenny Kravitz said it better than i can...it aint over baby till its ooooover.

Indeed. I have to say that this morning 1030am marks a feeling that i hope persists and stays with me for a looong time to come. It is a feeling that is the palpable translation of "hard work and faith and preparation really do pay off".

At 1031am me and young startup team left the plush, glossy offices of a venture capital seed funding group in the heart of Montreal's concrete jungle, with our heads raised high, feeling a sense of accomplishment that was very much unexpected by the 75 percent of this 4 person group. (I was the quiet naive optimist)

This is for the first time, really, I have ever PUSHED 120 percent for something I really believed in. What is so satisfying about this feeling is not really that we really may score funding for this seemingly makeshift venture of 4 graduating undergrad engineers. Not the fact that we impressed the socks off our professor who is doing this 'live business plan' experiement for the first time. Not the fact that everyone thinks what we have is a great idea and wonders why no one has pursued this before. None if this. Todays feeling at 1030 am was an internal one.

It was one of those transitions where you felt that had changed your perspective and approach of things in life even if at that very moment, you didnt grasp exactly how. All future goals suddenly seemed that much closer and that much more attainable, that much withing your grasp, with just a lil hard work, faith, and preparation. Dont want to come down on you with the 'pep talk' been-there-done-that attitude at all. Just that it occured to me as we left that presentation that dreams, even daydreams, are really closer than we think - and only after times & situations of intense pressure and challenge and does this realisation really come out. We are moulded by these experiences. to put this into perspective - 2 days agao I was sick of this venture and all the preparation for it: it was eating me alive.

However you have to throw yourself in there, and litereally FIND out what youve got. Yaani if that makes no sense.."lose yourself" as eminem would so succinctly put it.Each shot is potentially your last!

So while i can draw some pride out of having delivered a convincing, thorough seed funding proposition to mean , vicious stereotypical Venture capitalists at 22 - I dont think it will help me much if I fail my elective course on 'wold of chemistry' tommorow and consequently NOT be able to graduate. On that note, lemme get cracking on those notes.

the good, the bad and the ugly

We all know the stereotype that Africa is this forbidden region, that you step one foot into and you get...well, Aids. Apparently, that seems not so far from the truth (Wambui, are you really african !??!). I can accross this article about this girl trying to do justice unto herself. How low can you go, I ask. Though I think I heard I about it already as have many I presuming, it made headlines! Men, be VEEEERRRY careful .....

On a lighter note, this may interest you enterprenures out there planning on putting a dent on improving the image of home. Did you know:-
a) Kenya is currently the #1 tea exporter in the world
b)the Bostwana government funds all its citizens' college education abroad for them to utilize it on returning home
Yeah..I think Africa can and has been doing better for itself , unfortunately, distaster and tragedy make for better media coverage, apparently. Wasn't there a phrase " .....ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you ............."