AWAY WITH IMPUNITY IN OUR HIGHWAYS

This ugly monster of corruption and impunity will not just go away, simply because the common citizen has made a decision to banish it as much as possible verbally and tame it as much,action-wise,talk about the proverbial old woman who decided to hide leopard fleeing from hunters in her cloak, and later the leopard ate her. The highway police, despite constant exposures by the media,wont just stop taking bribes from corrupt conductors and drivers, at the expense of the life’s of innocent commuters, but the moment the vehicle leaves and nobody raises any question concerning the illegal transaction that has just happened to sell their lives everybody, including the commuters becomes as guilty, of corruption

Is it too hard for KACC to plant their officers in matatus and arrest the culprits of this annoying habit on the spot? Or for the passengers to pounce on the police and the conductor and frog-march to a police station, remember that case in which search an incidence occurred in 2005?is it too hard for Kenyans to say to the police they are not ready to part with bribes they are ready to face the judge? Is it too hard a task for the Kenyan police officers to say they don’t want any bribe, that is equivalent to buying the lives of fellow Kenyans at a mere fifty shillings!

Kenyans should start the fight on corruption from grass root level and that starts with individuals, they should raise alarm at the slightest suggestion that they part with a bribe. Integrity in the police force must be restored and impunity nabbed at the bud from our Kenyan roads and the careless loss of lives will end.

THE PRETENCES AND INJUSTICES WE LAY ON STREET CHILDREN..

As Kenyans go raving and ranting on the much publicized drought, I beg to direct their sense of philanthropic nature closer to their homes. There has been a crop of Kenyans that have been neglected for so long, we intentionally carpet the cracks on the wall for the sake of international relations and public relations when we ignore the street children starving due to lack of not only food but also the gross famine of lack of love which mother Teresa at one time said was the worst kind of famine affecting the world citizens.

It beats logic to donate a lot of money to the cause,(which is okay)and go bragging to your drinking pals by showing the transaction you sent, while on your way out of the pub, you spit or curse the street child who weakly begs you for a cup of tea or a meal which would cost less than a quarter of the drinks one has been handling and buying to faceless strangers just because your cars are sharing a slot in the parking lot, many don’t have any idea that the child could have been a result of that one stand during your crazy campus parties!!

In short my fellow Kenyans, street life is dirty, violent and short. The street children’s rights are constantly violated by the same adults who are supposed to be their custodians, they are subject to sexual exploitation in return for food or clothes, they are beaten by police and detained without concrete reasons, just as we have held hands up together for those affected by the drought, how about we pull a list on the next initiatives starting with a quick one titled, ‘KENYANS FOR KENYAN STREET CHILDREN!!”

NAROK:THE RICHEST,DIRTIEST AND POOREST TOURIST TOWN IN KENYA!!!!

Statistics show that Narok town,located in the  north of Great Rift valley in the Narok county,is easily the town with the highest circulation of money per day in the entire Africa.To many this sounds like a myth but its not as the town boasts of lying in the richest county in Kenya.It is a tourist destination as the county hosts the 8th wonder of the world:the wildebeest migration from the Masai Mara national reserve to Tanzania.Wheat farming is a lucrative trade in the area,and that mixed with the area being a tourism hub,especially in this peak season,places the town way ahead of other towns in economic terms.But a close look at the life of the residents reveal a sad state of life which they live.The town has the worst possible drainage in the whole country,with large and open sewer drainage flowing all over.During the last rainy season,the town experienced serious flooding and a life was lost and it was not the first one,the open sewer drainage overflowed posing risk of spreading cholera to the residents and they pose so much dangers to the young children who play around the dusty town.the roads  are in such a pathetic state,this contributes to give our tourists a very negative picture of our country leave alone the thousand and one scandals from famine to corruption which they probably see on the foreign news channels in the comfort of their overseas homes,but when they come to Africa,especially to Narok,they experience the said claims first hand thus giving us a bad name.the town hosts a university college which offers courses on wildlife management,hotel industry management,and several tourism related diploma courses in a bid to try and boost the local community and take advantage of the well over a multi-million tourism industry,but it seems that the most common and most visible areas of attraction have been neglected:the roads,the drainage,the people who should be reaping from the resources aforementioned,over to you;the county council of Narok.

THERE IS MORE TO RELATIONSHIPS THAN MEETS THE EYE....ON MIPANGO YA KANDO AND MISTRESSES.

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I've got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.   Suddenly I didn't know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn't seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?   I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn't talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn't love her anymore. I just pitied her!   With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.   The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn't have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane.   When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.   In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn't want anything from me, but needed a month's notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month's time and she didn't want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.   This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month's duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.   I told Jane about my wife's divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.   My wife and I hadn't had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don't tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outsidethe door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.   On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn't looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.   On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn't tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.   She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.   Suddenly it hit me... she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.   Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it's time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.   But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn't noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to office.... jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind...I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.   She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won't divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn't value the details of our lives, not because we didn't love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.   At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I'll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.   That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed - dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push thru with the divorce.-- At least, in the eyes of our son--- I'm a loving husband....   The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse's friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!   If you don't share this, nothing will happen to you.   If you do, you just might save a marriage. Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up....HAVE SHARED THIS STORY TO HELP SAVE A MARRIAGE OR TWO,SHARE IT ON THIS LINK COZ A BROKEN FAMILY IS SO PAINFUL.AND LETS STAY TRUE TO WHOEVER WE LOVE OR WHOEVER LOVES US.

DON’T BE TOO QUICK TO POINT FINGERS AT THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS (MIS)DEEDS.

Have been following closely and keenly the drama and the hula boo that has sparked for the last two weeks following the death of my fellow comrade mercy keino,albeit from a different cumpus.may her young soul rest in peace.words have been exchanged, just as im sure money has changed hands too, fingers has been pointed in every direction ,from a certain member of the parliament, to the police, and since the aforementioned seem immune to the accussions the blame has lastly in away that is final, been shifted on the most vulnerable; the student.

Before you cast the first stone, as the society, including parents, do you ever self-examine the environment your child grew up on? if when the dad was on business trips you paid illegal visits by strange(uncles),and yet you shared the house with your teenage daughter or sons, what do you expect of them? They will definitely try the same stuff, and every kids ambition is to be better than their parents in everything,

The dad, what do you expect of you sons, when on their teen birthdays, you take them to stripper joints all in the name of partying? he later starts seeing every female graduate as a potential stripper. If you drink like a fish what should worry your wayward son from trying to drink like a whale!so,sometimes it’s a culture that is ignorantly or arrogantly spread by parents that leads to eventual destruction of their own children whom they have placed very high expectations on.

What about the lecturers who come to the class drunk? He rides a nice car, lives in a leafy suburb, owns a relatively well doing business and is a sharp dresser? He goes ahead to tell students how they will never get to enjoy life if they don’t do that at the university (by the way, how true is that?)he will never get tired of narrating his campus days (s)excapades.what will stop students from trying to follow in his ways, all the same he seems like a man who has made it in life, but if closely examined, he may be a troubled man,a broken family, heavy into debts,a chain of nagging mistresses, among them a HIV positive one, and the man might be enjoying his last days on earth, but indirectly left a lot of students infected.

Sometimes when one goes out, especially with the who is who in high ranking members of society, all that university student is thinking about is not sex,its about networking and gaining exposure to future employers. They  get to meet people from the field they are majoring on to be mentored but they end up taking advantage of the students if they are of the opposite sex.

Lastly, sometimes once some students go to the university, they assume the role of breadwinners in their families. Too much is expected from them and its often not a wonder when some of them use all their HELB loans to offset family financial obligations. Such a student is left with no money to cater for their needs and in most cases they may use any method to survive, though forced by circumstances. So it is good to also take note of responsible students at the university who toil honestly and have a hope of changing their families and this country, so would you give them peace and stop the mad-tongue lashing of the university students, including some lousy touts who never went beyond the matatu doors or worse still, those who  have never set foot in a classroom!

*editors foot-note*I’m in not trying to justify  the actions of students but just passing a factual judgment in my court..but this time, the fierily judge, calls for speedy investigations for killers of mercy keino.for they are known, throw them into cells and im waiting to serve judgment on them.

ONE-ON-ONE WITH DEVIL WORSHIPPING STUDENTS ON A KENYAN HIGH SCHOOL…..

On setting foot on the gate of Jude girls high school, I never suspected that what I had envisioned as good opportunity and a chance to mould young proud, cheeky and giggly girls into responsible mothers and career women, would turn out to be an eerie adventure of dealing and dodging the dark powers! Trust you me, am not your typical preacher,im  an ordinary guy who forgets to say his daily prayers in the comfort that my eve-r praying mum has got me covered on her many conversations with the Old Man upstairs.

So, having, had  cleared my form four and passed with  flying colours(PARDON THE CLICHÉ)  and after fooling around going for computer classes in some ‘kiosk computer college’ guess its among the ones scabbed recently by ministry of education(boy, were  you to see the proprietor who would answer the Motorola  C118 phone and say, “director and the CEO smart kid computer college on line, how can I help you?”never mind was speaking to his village cronies!!i had learnt enough to graduate after one month and then I had the whole two years to fool to fool around before joining campus(pity those affected by the double intake program)they will not get enough time to be out of school and learn  the ABC;s of hussling!the chaps will never go broke see? Direct from pocket money to the HELB loan! The lucky ba##$%^*&!!!!

So it’s over this period of that I decided to hustle by going to teach at some provincial girls high school that my nightmare begun..and nay,im not talking about the nightmare of a young man teaching some young girls locked in some far away boarding with raging adolescent hormones at their pick,im talking not about the several temptations you get accosted to, especially if you abode around the school compound, no it’s the nightmare of DEVIL WORSHIP!

Generally being a doubting Thomas and a very skeptic person, I thought that djinns don’t exist and up to today, I have never  believed in,or that,witchcraft does exist,but for the djinns..Excuse me!!so, after my good old uncle dropped me  at the school in his jalopy,(he would kill me for  calling it  that)but im least worried because a person who has shunned owning a mobile phone handset up to today because he thinks is a form of modern colonization  has zero chances of accessing the internet to read this article!so,he took me round the school compound you would think he was the outgoing BOG chairman, but he being a daily dairy farmer, as we made rounds on the new job place for his nephew, all I could hear him exclaim from time to time as we made our rounds was “what a great cow over there!wow!what a togen goat,!goodness!,what  nicely wooly merino,!goodness,what a bull,if only he could mate my jersy,,he would then shake his head so sadly and  say,however they have miserably failed in controlling the soil erosion! all this time I pretended to be at par with him whereas the truth is that I least cared about the silly goats bleating foolishly in  the nearby fields.all along  I had better things to worry about like whether there was a club nearby where I would go to appreciate my body once in a while,whether there was a place where I would go to watch dstv and such other better things

Soon it was time to escort the old man(Said it was way past his milking hours or something to that effect)and all he said to me was ,”this is a nice place kid, you can even get to rear some grade cows or  even get out of here with a wife!”so, in a crowd of smoke the fellow was gone and it was me to find my way round the compound without paying attention to the sleepy cows!!

First I went to the administration block where I found a short, bead-eyed man with kinky hair cleaning and handling  copious amount of tea from a large plastic mug, guessed it was his territory now that the teachers seemed to be gone, I noticed the torn sofa sets and saw no t.v,the man was cleaning and on asking whether the principal was around he  literary gnarled at me  and in the dimly lit corridor, I thought of  vampire,he told me that it was way past office hours in a very disinterested  way and continued painting the floor reddish- brown in the name of cleaning. In no uncertain terms that I was now a “teacher” and he relaxed and welcomed me with the most rough handshake have ever got in history!

And so I enquired whether he would give me the key to my house, and he smiled in a weird way and told me that the house was not locked,what!and he directed me to the house and true to his word, the house was not locked but that was just the start of the problems, the mabati house I fond as we made rounds with my uncle and he had murmured that they might be for the calves or some feed stores were now my plot  base,. later I learnt they were meant to host young turks,as the untrained teachers were refered to.in other words the civilized word for “kazi kwa vijana initiative”.or academic vijana wa mkono.

Nevertheless I was determined to make some bucks to avoid an outing or anything to keep a young man going so I never really minded.I thought that with time when I would be promoted and move to a better house, being ambitious to the point of hoping for a promotion without being trained.

I got inside the mabati houses;and  true to the word of madam principal, the house had a bedroom, a tableroom,a bathroom, a kitchennete,and a visitors room. The house was so spacious and the room she  said were there not a single room that lacked, albeit full of dust and ants infested wood and timber at every corner.i noticed the bed was just a part of bed cut from a double -Decker to form two very small beds one placed in my room and the other in the so called guest room. The beds were very small and squeaky making any future business  impossible,!(no pun intended)my main concern was light and I had been promised that they would be fixed in due time which even up to today I understand  is yet to come, seems like due time is within the limits of forever. After I had cleaned and settled in the house as I lay on my bed I realized that it was so quiet and eerie in the house not mentioning the pitch darkness which was now crawling in stealthly.i had to make some quick arrangements to get the candles or some form of light,im not cowardly but I just don’t get along too well with darkness. My efforts to get a candle from a nearby shop failed miserably and I had to survive that night.

The first night, I got some comfort in knowing  that I had some neighbours,there were three young men, principals sons and they were quite well outgoing learnt that the next house belonged to the deputy’s son and the furthest belonged to  a miss Gloria,.I was comforted in the spirit of group mentality for a while, was later to disapprove my self sense of security that night,. as I settled  to sleep, I opened the door to the house and I swear I could feel some prodding eyes watching me from a place in the house. The crickets went silent for a moment and the dim illumination from my phone went off. There was the smell of evil in t he house and some kind of creepy wind blew at my hands as I fumbled to find my way inside the haunted house, I thought of calling the boys in the next house but I thought otherwise as I did not want them to think of me as cowardly. Lastly I got to the bed and that’s when the real nightmare  begun

As I lay on my bed and tried to access the common networking site from my phone,facebook so that it could at least distract my thoughts for a while, I was in for a rude shock on realizing that there was no network coverage tried to play a game I loved but all maybe hands could do was shake and its so uncharacteristic of me to shake hands gave up on the phone and all the horror stories I had ever heard cold not stop haunting my brain, it was during that time, I remember to be precisely around 1236 AM that I felt my body go numb. I felt so tired and could not move my body felt something like two heavy drops of some fluid fall into my ear..almost directly inside my Eustachian tube (at least have not forgotten the biology lessons especially on body parts as I formatted my mind free of complex useless mathematical formulas)!i immediately moved my finger to touch it only for another more heavy and warmer drop to fall on my hand  tried to use my phone to illuminate so as to give me light to access the fluid but the damned handset could not light yet the battery was fully charged, how strange thought as  I smelled the drop of warm fluid to establish what it was. It smelled of fresh  blood and  some cheap spray common with some coastal Swahili women, all I remember from there is my drifting into sudden very deep sleep,I could see a dark figure approach me and laugh hysterically shouting “tumemueza,,ameshindwa!”it was a very wicked and far-fetched dry laugh that rebounced as a weird echo. The following morning I woke up so tired and confused, I was minus one blanket,(found it on the farthest corner of the room, and it smelt so stuffy,)I  comforted myself in the thought that that was just a very bad nightmare which will never happen again and that I was probably suffering from very serious malaria,however,deep inside me.,I felt that something was not okay.

Being a naturally nosy person, that morning, as the classes had not fully commenced as the schools had just opened, I got to talk to some elderly and friendly watchman in a cunning way such that he could not understand that I was suggesting there was some evil spirits in the school and  asked several other people about the history of the school and  it was evident that something was amiss; the very old claimed that the school was  built on a ground that was an ancient cemetery,others claimed that the school  was built on a ground that was earmarked for building a morgue, it was however the confessions of a straight-talking female teacher that got my heart racing. She openly told me that the reason that the school was half empty, that is,to the point of  having a whole four empty claasrooms,it was once a double streamed school, was the massive transfer of students and teachers alike because of constant attack by the djinns.she went ahead to claim that several girls got raped over that period of time. She continued to prob me about where I was sleeping and after telling her the house, she made me fear the more by her telling me,”utaona kile kitakutoa huko iwas once in that same house but you can’t understand till you get strangled….boy!, was I scared”

That same evening, I experienced more of the harassing and I felt so powerless at the presence of some gigantic force that could not stop  hovering over me.i consulted the prayerful lady teacher(she was the Christian union  patron and she told me that she had received the same kind of complaints from students and we would pray together, I informed another prayer worrior:my mum, but on a light note as I did not want to hurt  her.

By now, I had become a daily prayer warrior and I could pray almost four times in a single day! But still I got harassed, I had started to socialize with students by then,.some,as expected had tried to get so close to me to the extent that they would go bragging to their friends that I was there boyfriend to be and once one girl got so dangerously close to me to the extent of sitting at the front of the class and winking at me I had to forward her to the headmistress to discourage the others, she was given some serious thrashing and threaten with expulsion and once I called her aside after that to warn her about coming to the staffroom at night alone while I was there(I had started to over stay in the staffroom at night as I feared going down to the haunted house, I just tried to ensure that by the time I got inside there I was so tired and fell asleep  immediately)she grumbled n told “me,mr munene I conquered you since your first night in this compound!!we will still meet down there at your house.”i was so scared and I just left her there and walked away, I felt that for sure she wielded some kind of a weird power over me,I tried to share with my colleagues over evening cup of tea but I would not bring myself to say it.i later learnt that it was the same girl who would claim that once the teachers entered the classroom she would see them naked. She would also talk  to invisible friends

It was during my secret investigation that I found out more about the girl and the funny things that would happen to her foes and those that tried to compete with her group of girlfriends. One girl who had reported her to the administration claimed to have almost been raped by unkowm people that night as  she went back to the dorm after having gone to the loos,she heard foot steps rapidly following her and some giggles and once she started running she was chased and on reaching her bed, her night dress was torn to pieces and warned to scream not, all the time,the girl in question was awake and gossiping in a language nobody could not understand with her weird girl friends. Asking her why she had never reported the matter  to the adminstration,she said she tried several time but eery time she neater d the office some invisible force would warn her not to try ikt

Every night when I would get inside the house, I would feel some intimidating powerful force hovering above me. But I continued to pray together with my friend the c.u teacher until the feeling stopped. It was a welcome relieve when I was requested  to  host another young turk,a certain mr.muturi straight from college.we got along immediately and especially because of his raunchy and lacy stories about the times he was a tout, and his college escapades with ladies from various tribes, save for his worst drinking habit to the extent of coming so high on some cheap brew and calling me, “let me tell you little brother,those girls are temptations, keep off them, and remember am older than you and most importantly,im qualified and trained teacher!!he would say proudly before staggering to the kitchen and trying to boil eggs on the meko gas cooker using my  plastic jug.!!

It was however that night that however mr muturi woke up screaming”shindwe!ngai fafa!hamuniwezi nyinyi pepo mbaya and endless praise the lord Nesh!!that I almost died of fear and laughter at the same time. He confessed to me how for the last one week especially on nights he was not drunk, he would get terrorized by unseen forces was happy that at least the nightmare was being away from me  for a while and on giving my version of story to mr muturi,he stared swearing that he would bring a good pastor who was his friend to anoint the room with holy oil, and were he not available, he would hung the largest bone from pork that anybody had ever seen in the house,see?its said that the devil and pork don’t get along(thats story for another day)

Though I have since left the school to further my studies (and I emphasize)not to be a teacher lest am posted there),I hear mr mutri has since left the school too, “refer to his anti-mututholic behavior, the thought of mr muturi who would not even go anywhere near the c.u  door or even close eyes if not bow his head as we prayed for lunch, turning to an instant nighttime preacher doesn’t stop from leaving me in stitches,boy!he was casting the demons out in a manner pastor pius muiru would envy,!!!!

                    *Editors note

*Name of the school and those of people change to conceal identity because this is a story based on a real life experience.