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WHAT IS IT WITH LAND HAKI?
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By Tony Chirah – March ’19
Masikio, kama vile macho pia hayana pasia.
I had taken the unlikely decision to sit an an odd 3rd floor tiny chai joint only able to set two tables and a bar along the wall, the way we used to know Luthuli Chips back in the day; only here there were ‘sina tabu’ high stools so I had somewhere to sit. I was waiting for a call for an engagement I had earlier scheduled, for which my contact would be an hour or so late. So I asked for some chai black (strong tea), lemons and eggs, the only ‘escort’ I could see being fixed.
I just went about my waiting business.
A man and a woman, after discussing corruption and how Kinoti was now a global sensation having been elevated without it being announced to the public had just walked out. The woman had been doing most of the listening and only made sounds in affirmation to the loudmouthed man, who seemed to know everything about scandals and how DCI and ODPP would slay the corruption dragon this time round. I liked the optimism.
They must have been done with their business as I had heard the man conclude, “…ikiwa hivyo ni sawa” “…this way it’s ok” as they walked out.
I didn’t notice a team of three walk in to replace the two, but when the talk about land begun, I got interested, only because the other table had 3 men all discussing the same subject. It had gone on for a while and I could pick the lamentations, comparisons, envy and plans. The part of plans is what got me interested most, not from the three ‘wisemen’ but the new team.
Long story short, call were made, more meetings were scheduled for a family member who would as a must demand some impossible amount of money from the dad, threats included. Before that, a company by the three would be registered, the men would handle this.
The dad would then be compelled to sell the land and the company would be the one to buy. The family would then be evicted effectively dispossessing them of their home. God!!!!.
Sijui….! I din’t know whether the duo of elderly men close to their 60s had a victim in their grip or who would end up with the wrong end of the cane… but I was dazed.
It had been seven minutes into my call, but had to wait up a little to hear that conclusion of the plot. To date, I still wonder why, when, who, where this was to happen. I keep wondering if I should have gone back there on the Monday that followed at 2pm.
~ Tony Chirah – March ’19
SMOKELESS FIRE (Pt II)
SMOKELESS FIRE (Pt II)
By Tony Chirah, January 2019.
THE THREAD
I had given up hope on night-life after discovering that taking any form of liquid any time after 6.30pm would translate into a wet night. Don’t get it twisted now, I don’t mean wet of the wet dream kind of wet, but the wet of the wet bed kind. Sadly though, that cup of night tea my mum would always make to “ touch her bones” was everyone’s delight, a temptation I had unsuccessfully fallen for and made no repentance for. I don’t know whether it was the sugar, water, tea leaves or what, but I can assure you it wasn’t the milk in it. How yet you could clearly see Eastleigh from Bahati through it in the dark as it poured from the aluminum kettle into the metal cups we used in our rural home back in the day. Plastic hadn’t taken over yet.
But I needed a thread….
_*In case you missed (Pt I) read it here*… https://kmftalent.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/smokeless-fire-pt-i/_
I was determined to put a stop to this life of nocturnal misery I had endured for long. Ideally, the woolen yarns used to knit sweaters would have been great but around this time, I hadn’t found an old one from which I could get me a piece, so I resigned to using the cousin, the thin sewing thread.
At around 4pm, I had confidently secured a piece of thread from my mum’s “Singer” sewing machine and placed it by the headboard of my bed. Then I had called in my younger brother at around 6.pm shortly after I had returned my mattress back to bed after drying it in the day’s sun, from the previous night’s dream showers of urine. Same way any creative would do, even an engineer would pop a prototype piece of their new invention, put it on trial, and so I did. And it worked. My brother must have thought I was a genius because it also worked well on him, after all, he too had a few random shower nights. So I was confident with my plan.
MINE BROTHER
We had our dinner after listening to Cūcū (our grandma) narrate stories us. We had laughed, roasted each other, played pranks on each other and told on each other. Then mum’s tea for “touching the bones” was served and as usual, my kid bro had fallen asleep and lay limp on the earthen floor of our village kitchen. I didn’t mind it because I was going to have a little more tea in my cup than if he was up. However, there was a problem. Many a times after dinner, my bro would doze off until he couldn’t hold himself in a sitting position any longer and would eventually drop limp.
This was not the main concern. The concern was that it had been made my responsibility to ensure he remained awake till it was time to go to bed, or else I’d be forced to carry him.
He always disappointed me.
You see I was a feeble elder bro, or is it an older skinny bro, barely two years older than he was. Carrying him was a tall order. I’d seek my elder sister’s help, who I’d owe favors in return for her kindness in perpetuity. On a good night though, my mum would dispense the instant solution, that only she had rights to it. Calabash in hand, she would call him out twice and instruct him to wake up. I frantically shake him simultaneously but of course as usual, he wouldn’t open his eyes nor even attempt to move a bone. Mum would splash cold water across his face, instantaneously jolting him to a midday attention, but not without the accompaniment of a shrieking scream that would momentarily make all of us imagine ‘death by cold water at night’.
Anyway, so we as usual, we stopped briefly to empty our bladders somewhere there outside…no further details. I’d hold up my sleep-drunk brother to his feet and shout him to do the needful quickly before Kívutavuti (an imaginary ogre, ghost or something) surfaced from the dark night shadows and took one or all of us. We managed and off we went to our bedroom in the main house.
THE RITUAL
I quickly did the ritual, on him first. Satisfied he was ok, I put him to bed and turned on myself and did to myself, and slept, a smile on my face. I knew my invention was tight, literally.
To date, I’ve never figured out what time hell broke loose but it did because when I woke up, I was staring death in the eye, never mind the darkness. There was fire all over me. All lights were out, I couldn’t smell any smoke or think of what would have caused any at night in the bedroom. There was this intense heat I couldn’t tell was from where, but one thing is for sure; I was in some serious trouble.
In the sleep, into which I’d fallen with a smile, I had been having another of those usual beautiful dreams derived from the day’s joys. This one however seemed to have taken a rather hot direction. Ordinarily, in the dreams, we would all get somewhere and side-step with other boys to relieve ourselves and have the usual contest about whose urine jet would go the furthest, highest or last longest. Well, I’d suddenly wake up wet, having wet the bed, and assume my new sorry position on the edge of the bed near the wood, where it would be dry. My misery would begin, and that was the life. This particular night came with a different script.
MY “DUDU”
I crawled out of my bed in anguish and leaned over as I picked scent of where the heat was emanating from. There was a weight down my loins which I wasn’t previously familiar with. I hurriedly ran my hand down till I landed what felt like a hot club. My “Dudu” was a rungu moto, weighing me down with a near-bursting hard balloon of urine, hot, getting hotter and threatening to explode from the inside. I felt as if the shaft inside was slowly disengaging from its outer skin backwards. It was then that I remembered the ritual I had conducted just before I slept.
“NOBODY CAN STOP REGGAE”.
A Mbeere saying goes “ You can’t stop a sheep with your hands, when it’s time to give birth has come” ….quite like the Mzungu and political quote that “you cannot stop an idea whose time has come”. I frantically searched for the end of the thread, where I had created the loop from where I could effectively untie the knot but all was in vain. In the dark, under the now newly changed anatomy, coupled with the rising heat, pain and the building pressure from the more urine that my bladder could not hold any more, and the fear, shame and the embarrassment of attracting attention from ‘others’, I just couldn’t hack it. Every second counted and things were getting very bad.
My eyes had welled up full as I tried to locate the thread unsuccessfully.
Frustrated and now staring at death open its mouth in the dark to consume me beginning from my future source of life, I burst out, unleashing a loud screeching scream that woke everyone, including not only our neighbors’ dogs, but also the chickens of the entire sub location. The chickens must have thought there was a coordinated mongoose attack. Chickens fear mongooses a lot.
I followed up with a quick second scream, this time louder that it sent a more effective message to my brother than my mum’s cold water wake up alarm on his sleepy face. He shot out of his bed and joined me in screaming. My sisters followed suit. I still wonder what they were screaming for; but in darkness, many things can happen, especially in shagz.
THIS MY MUM
My mum flew in, lantern in hand, asking what was happening and found my mouth wide open as I unleashed the third mega scream. I couldn’t speak so I just pointed south. She looked at my “Dudu”. It was easy to trace from it terrifying abnormal size and shape and that anyway as just as now, I don’t sleep in clothes, or pajamas as you call them. She set off immediately as she sought to know what had happened. My sisters had joined my brother on the other side, horrified at what was going on as my mum went clinical, carefully inspecteing this genius project, an invention gone wrong, that was getting worse by the second.
Suddenly, my brother (God bless him) took a swift position of the official company spokesperson to tell all and sundry what I had invented, and even went ahead to show his own side of the story. Lucky for him, he had missed the tea in his sleep, therefore he had no yield in his pouch. He however gave my predicament some directions for a solution.
You all know Mutura right? We know it as Mútura in Mbeere. Nah! I don’t mean the long even sized coiling one, I mean the one always on the side that is short and stout (or is it brief), with one side that’s fat and full and has a thinner normal size side. It is actually called “Ngerima” or something like that. You do know how “Mtura” is tied at the ends to keep the contents inside, more like a Choma sausage right? That’s exactly what I had used the thread to do to keep urine inside, in case I had that popular evil dream on this night.
“Never underestimate the effects of underestimating.”
Tony Chirah
January 2019
MODELS, MODELLERS OR MODELISTS
WHAT MODELS, MODELLERS, MODELISTS??
The problem I see with the current breed of rather youthful too loud and over-energized modeling industry players is complacency.
They are made with lack of knowledge, capacity, aptitude coupled with mediocrity, vengeance, frustration and uncalled for hatred and are too arrogant to be guided yet lazy to seek information.
They thus hate competition and in it’s place ‘compete’ not for value but prove unknown points for useless scores at the expense of quality, which is lost as they manipulate standards, in the name of hustling and fitting in.
This is exactly what has lead to the apparent glut of models in Kenya. Heard them say if you throw a stone in Nairobi CBD it will most likely hit a model? There is no glut. The many claiming to be models are actually the unfortunate ‘product of the combination’ of what our quark industry players are.
Ask them “who is a model” and they cannot define who or what they are because their ‘makers’ did not tell them because even they cannot define it in a concise manner that makes practical sense.
Pageants are a large dam with a gateway that releases huge numbers of modeling talent into the industry. They have been abused through manipulation of standards, by scouts, agents and pageant directors… and we continue complaining.
That absence of structures to vet the players above has the ripple effect of diminishing and lost confidence by otherwise willing sponsors hence the felt collapse in the sector.
What do you stand for? Standards and ethics?
If you are willing to corrupt systems even just by ethics through loopholes and complacency then do not expect sustainable vertical growth nor improved economic gains which is the bedrock of any investment.
Instead, expect the same product (models) to come back and bite you in the a** for not giving or being what they ‘illegally and undeservedly’ expect.
Tony Chirah
Talent/Image & Concept Consultant_
KMF TALENT BUREAU (Kmftalent Bureau)
Photographer
T O N Y C H I R a H S T U D I O S
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SMOKELESS FIRE (Pt. I)
SMOKELESS FIRE (Pt I).
– By Tony Chirah, Jan 2019
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‘Where there is smoke there is fire” the axiom goes; and by me, where there is fire there is heat. But what about sweat?
I had reached the big boy age because I knew wetting the bed was for the small children.
For many years, my daily program including Sundays comprised of tripping down the edge of the bed sometimes landing on the knees, pulling off the blankets from the bed, dazing out the house with half open eyes straight to the sagging hanging line, cursing the cold dew on the grass for fully getting my eyes open, struggling to have the blanket up and walking back for the mattress.
It was upon return that you easily picked the different environmental status of the out of the house and inside the house, but more importantly, our bedroom. That pong!
You see, life can be really stressful. How does a child below age 10 years begin a day like that and still have a good day? How? How would you brave a night of bitter sweet sleep that ends up with you spending the climax moments of the night holding to the edge of the bed next to the wood, avoiding slipping to the center because it was urine wet and night cold? How?
You see, after a very exciting afternoon of all play for those of us in lower primary school followed a series of very exciting dreams in which I replayed all the known and guessed village games and even occasionally invented some. The hallmark of the dreams in always emerging the winner in the competitive ones. Being the all able Vava (Baba if you like) in the “cha mama na cha baba” village edition put the ego straight in a professional massage room bed. Then came the challenge games like climbing trees including the tall old “Kiambuu” banana stalks; I wonder where that breed of banana came from sijui Kiambu County or what… and I don’t know where it went! But it was the only breed of banana that did well in our semi-arid Mbeere motherland. Little water at planting the plant would defy the sun and heat, soldier on till it produced fruits that resembled the sweet bananas of Meru, the only difference being that Kiambuu bananas were, well, also sweet, but bigger, sticky, rather slimy and funny flexible. If you had to share a Kiambuu banana, you would have had to cut off the part you will have with your teeth, then give the other part coz it would just bend this way and that way till you are found by the owner… well they were mostly stolen from neighbours. Anyway, so we climbed even thorny acacia and Micemeeri just to show prowess, but I would be the perpetual hero who even flew from tree to tree? *Goddamnit, those dreams*.
It was between those dreams I excused myself to take a leak and as it was practice, others would always also join you. Happens even to date, especially with ladies, though I suspect the motive is different.
So out there then, a ‘manhood’ contest would naturally ensue. The man would be the one who jetted their pee farthest and I remember on occasions suggesting that we also judge based on whose would jet would rise highest, and in other times who would last longest without breaking, with of course obnoxious cheats pressing tight the nozzle so as to thin their jet and last longer… hell bound twats. I did it a couple of times. It taught me some endurance nevertheless.
So, then after dragging the drenched 1 inch mattress still dripping drops of urine after an all-night wash, it was time to kujipaka maji hurriedly, applying Rexona soap on hands, feet and where I’d reach on my body, wear my uniform, dash to the kitchen, scoop some githeri, throw salt over it, shake it as if winnowing rice, eat quickly while aiding the swallowing with a cup of tea, avoiding choking as my mum reminded me of the previous day’s caning she was reported to about for being late.
I thank God, this is now a decades old recount of a life not only lived by me but many of us, most too shy to share.
I’d grab my book bag, brooms jerry can of water for our dusty classrooms and dash off, only stopping briefly to cut a twig from the Mucee shrub which was the toothbrush, at least to remove a potential resistant bean coating that had tendencies to stick on teeth, and the rest of the day would be a story for another day. I was tired. I had grown tired of this life. I needed something to change. I was a big boy now. Big boys needed a smoother night, a dry night’s sleep, warm and spent at the center of the bed. This boy needed to hatch a plan, and a plan he did.
On this occasion, I had learned to use most of the features from my mother’s Singer sewing machine. The only challenge was my height as I wouldn’t reach the pedals and complete the foot press exchange. But I wasn’t sewing anything on this day, no. That’s not what took me to the sewing machine. I needed something else. The thread.
Only the T H R E A D!!!
_*…TO BE CONTINUED.*_
Tony Chirah
Jan ’19
Talent Mentor, Photographer, Image/Modeling Expert.
DRUNK, BROKEN FAMILY UNIT
*DRUNK, BROKEN FAMILY UNIT*
_By Tony Chirah, Jan 2019._
Allow me to throw a spanner into some wax. It’s 2019 and we have a year to blame each other for failures. Blame someone because we are unable to take responsibility for consequences of the choices we have made, over time, recently, currently and about to.
In my growing up days, child discipline was the reserve of my mother who was the immediate parent available to us throughout, by design.
In Mūmīnjī, my mother allocated duties and supervised our performance, rewarded efforts and accorded privileges based on merits. She also recommended who gets that all important one week trip to the city over the holiday.
My mother bathed us in turns, one after the other. Never mind that the water was fetched from down the stream, sometimes from a far away well during the dry spell, which happens even today, 50 years after independence…yet we have a devolved system but my County won’t prioritize water even for the sake of MDGs quest. Anyway, while some were big enough to bathe ourselves, she would still scrub our underfeet with that black stone, wiped dry our bodies and applied vaseline.
*CHURCH*
My mum chose our daily wardrobe which she ensured was well organized from the previous week be it school uniform or home clothes. She made us breakfast and send us off to Sunday School after giving each of us “kalegesheni” (collection or church offering if you like). Our ages determined who gets how much.
She would come for the big people’s church service later. Big sister would then take charge, to ensure we got back home and did not stop at the market, went home to get our uniforms ready, books, jerry cans and shrub brooms for the next day at school. Big sister would with our sister cousins go to collect firewood for the week. Our Sunday afternoon was thus taken.
We did our chores, took responsibility and strived to get the privileges.
*SCHOOL*
In the week, early evenings we would wait for the cows and goats to come home from herding, it was our boy-duty. Sometimes, we went to “meet” the herd, just to ensure no goat got mischievous to stray into some neighbor’s shamba. At home, my mum would be waiting with the tethered calf to milk the cow, so that there was milk for the following morning’s breakfast. In the kitchen, occasional bellowing smoke would rise up the roof as she blew the fire to flames to ensure the food we would have for dinner and also carry to school for lunch the next day was cooking well and in time. We’d then listen to Cūcū (I hear them called Shosh nowadays) as she told us stories of ogres, the hunchback, little sweet bird that saved the community, etc… each story well narrated with a moral lesson. We all wanted to be the hunchback, little bird, the dove, the mono-eye, etc…that less privileged character in her many stories that had the magic that saved the community.
That was my mother’s part of fulltime engagement as the skilled CEO at home.
Where was dad?
*BREADWINNING*
My dad was in Nairobi. Like all my grown up uncles, he was away from home making the money to pay school fees, buy uniform, sugar, cooking fat, soap, clothes in December, pay fundis building things in the the homestead and those repairing and fencing our shambas, paying the herderman, clearing my mum’s obligations to the women group she belonged to, providing the cash that would become church “kalegesheni” and saving up for the “Kumanyoko” breads he bought from Pangani when he visited, that would reach almost every homestead of the larger family. Generally, my dad handled any and all financial matters.
But that’s not all.
My dad would be formally presented with our school report forms by my mum, one after the other. I remember his official outdoor chair that he sat on as he was taken through our academic performances as we sat down taking notes of everything everyone was told. We learned.. He would then do the necessary counsel, encouragement, promise rewards, etc, accordingly.
My mum would be by the side, adding voice.
In school, teachers had less headaches, as all begun at home… early rising, timely arrival in school, done assignments, etc, so they had peace while teaching, only occasionally referring to what we had also learned from church when need arose.
Call it division labor or division of parenting… it worked perfectly well, we turned out well.
*DRUNK*
Today, after gender matters protagonists bore the “sheroic” gender equality push through women empowerment, equal opportunities, girl-child affairs, etc, the divide no longer exists. She assumed cross-responsibilities, the man unpacked some of his without assumption of others from the woman. The already full hands of the woman got more and the burden has now become too much to bear.
The society is drunk. Drunk with an insatiable need to succeed. In pursuit of a perceived *perfect life*, a ‘Made in Kenya Television soap operas lifestyle’ comprised of a crazy search for ‘the best’.
Best house, best clothes, best car, best schools, best foods, best friends…or is it best friends for ever, best TV, best TV Shows …even best Church and best Pastors and best parent ….SMH. The craze has turned both parents into competitors competing against each other, against neighbor, against colleagues, against everyone indeed against life in a world of vanity fantasy.
The woman of today, just like the man of the old now, in what is popularly known as treating oneself well, ‘needs’ to dust off, tell herself “pole” or “jirudishia shukran” with a glass of some “water” known as wine which preciously wouldn’t get her drunk until it did, just a shot of Tequila until is several rounds, some rum, or well, just a gin and tonic to ease things off and give her a sexy kick by the time she gets home …to her solitary bed’s sleep because …hey, she is single suddenly.
*BROKEN*
The man lost the fight. He walked out of the competition fighting his wife’s approval. Fighting to win the kids’ approvals, his wife’s best friend’s approvals, the chama women’s approvals, the wife’s workmate’s approvals, the neighbor’s approval.
He gave up.
Debts crashed his ego. You see, to cover up for what the new society demanded from him, he borrowed from Tala, friends, sought bank loans, the worst being the absurd Mortgage arrangement he was forced to because their best couple just bought a house in Nyayo Estate.
But the demands overwhelmed him and upon seeking support from the wife, she scolded him, dismissing him and telling him to go be like “other men” she knows.
Well, so, he got an auction notice. The wife left. With (her) children ostensibly to avoid the embarrassment in front of the children… and shortly later he got court served for child support… or it’s heading there.
So.
*BLAME*
Boys are now playing cattie, watching Hanna Montana, combing fluffy the toy’s fur, cooking kalongolongo, walking the little white dog, trying their mother’s blonde wig, carrying his best friend’s kibeti (she happens to be a girl with no benefits, after all she is like a sister coz she is his mother’s BFF’s daughter whom they’ve grown together with) na hizo story zingine zote mnajua.
In the meantime, girl-child still gets her attention and share of care… including that soft slap on the arm when she comes home late from a ‘youth picnic’ where some cans of Guarana happened and she thought they were like Redbull, then the mat was caught up in some mad traffic and they had to use the other route through Eastleigh. Dare you hurt her and a Children’s Officer will be at your doorstep courtesy of the ever present nosy neighbor who has all rescue center numbers including those of police and estate security firm plus red cross and a lawyer.
So, tipsy girl, who came from a secret sex party in the next estate and will soon be pregnant gets away with only some mouth lashing from her tipsy mother, a single parent.
On the other side, a tired tipsy other mother is waiting for the dad to return, but is watching Arsenal get torn apart by Man-U or Chelsea at the local joint with his friends because he can’t sit home. Apart from the constant ego-battering from the ever complaining wife, the TV has it’s owners. He doesn’t have a home. He will thus return late when all are asleep, drenched in few brownies or some JD or JW or some Cane. Next morning it’s business as usual, both rush out to work, girl will go to school, to college or to wherever she does after waking up at noon, having watched a Netflix series all night… she couldn’t even shower to bed. Won’t she do it again?
You looking for who to blame?
*DONE*
The family unit is broken. The new modern family set up with equal parents that are each the boss, where the two centers of power share the responsibility for the successful upbringing of their children yet they are in destructive desperate competition against each other for self actualization individually is responsible. Can the steps be retraced? Well, I’m just a backward oriented observer whose thoughts have been overtaken by the modern thinker, thus should perhaps go back to the village and find an uneducated woman to make the family of my old imagination.
Leteni maoni sasa.
*Tony Chirah ~ Jan ’19*
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CIVILIAN BRUTALITY?
CIVILIAN BRUTALITY?
Allow me to pour my heart out to you and those that care to read. Sobriety called for. You can share.
One day a cop narrated to me how a gun, in the hands of a wanted violent robber jammed while aimed right at his temple.
His foot-chase had reached an abrupt end when his fleeing subject reached a wall he couldn’t scale, in one of the city’s Eastlands estates. Apparently, no sane human wants to kill another, just like that. The cornered robber didn’t want to kill the cop, though armed, to save his life had chosen to run when he was accosted by the cop, responding to distress calls by victims of a violent breakage.
Fearing arrest, and with no place to run, he opted for the last option he had, to shoot the cop, preserve his life and freedom so as to continue robbing or maybe, just maybe, find Jesus Christ, repent and get saved down the line.
“It is on this day that I died”
The cop told me.
“I had frozen right in front of him as I watched him quickly squeeze the trigger twice and a third last time, pushing a “Kumamayo” kind of look in his face with each attempt. I felt life leave me and the void instantaneously replaced by a cloudy airborne floating misty mix of cold and extreme heat.” He said to me.
“I was numb and heard a cacophony of sounds that seemed to release my head into millions of twirls, each with quick flashes of my life’s events right from days I suckled on my mum’s breasts to the day I got circumcized, the day I was reposted back to Nairobi from the God-forsaken North Eastern recruits first posting challenges, among many landmarks of my ‘lost life’. I felt a strange taste in my mouth and the smell of something I up to date have no idea what it was, filled my mouth.” He continued as I looked at him in doubt, briefly wondering what he meant by “smelling taste in his mouth”. He must have figured out I needed some explanation.
“Yes, the smell was in my mouth” He reiterated. I nodded in understanding, trying to smell something in my own mouth… unsuccessfully.
“Then finally came the blast… AND I DIED”.
I secretly pinched myself to confirm I was up and alright, so as to believe I was speaking to a person and not a ghost and that I was not sleeping therefore perhaps having a dream. It was a true moment true story. I looked at him harder.
“I did not move consciously but somehow did.” He continued.
I don’t know by how far but the bullet missed”
“Huh?” I asked.
“Yeah. The bullet missed my head but hit my spirit and I died at that very moment. Everything else was never the me, has never been even when I speak to my inner self”. He said as his eyes disappeared into a distance, apparently far through the wall, less than four meters from where he was sitting.
“I am human in flesh, but the spirit left with the robber’s gun shot. Today, when I pray to God and during worship, it is in a different realm, far from what I knew before that day when I died. It is a closeness to God beyond what anyone I know understands. It connects my job to the call to serve God protecting His people and their hard earned properties especially in our struggling times.” He concluded as he reached for a the cup of tea he had not sipped in a long while, as I took a sip my own, as if to say “Amen!” to the spiritual intercourse I just had.
As I watch the venom spewed against cops over the past I ask myself… Have forgotten Westgate already? Mandera, Lamu, Kapedo, etc,?
Who can relate as I do with the difficulties of a cop that has to strike the balance between saving his own life (which he might not have anyway), keeping his job, immobilizing a determined killer with intent and means to at least maime if not kill?
Who pities as I do all cops and their families that have been hit in the line of duty?
Who recognizes that no police officer is at their duty station hunting for civilians to shoot?
Who appreciates that intelligence is always solid of the potent danger that looms not only to them but also the civilians they are hired, trained and expected to protect, from criminal elements that hide in the neighborhoods and such events as have turned out violent?
On the other hand, who cares that criminals are their adversaries, who are driven by greed and ill-will to harm, steal and cause damage, and who for their mission to be achieved as per intent, have to get the cops out of their way?
Who is the first offender that we should all condemn?
How much have we talked about the victim cops slain while escorting exam papers, buses in bandit prone areas, pursing cattle rustlers, protecting civilian property during irrational demonstrations? (I say irrational because when teachers, doctors, nurses and factory workers demonstrate I see no burning tires, rocks, bloodstained knives, slings, metal bars, wooden staffs, machetes and nakedness, all weapons I’d hate to get face to face with a wielder, especially if intended to a harmless other)
I have pain, a lot of it as a parent, for the parents of kids that have lost lives in the senseless political season, but not just for the kids. I hurt for the youth and old that have died too…and cops. They are humans and none is any less valuable. None is supposed to die be it on the streets, a balcony or even in their houses, from any weapon, crude or otherwise, especially in the wrong hands. Simply, all lives are important.
Let us apportion blame to and demand responsibility from the mobilizers of the events that attract criminal situations and elements that jeopardize safety of ordinary citizens. Any demonstrations where crude weapons happen to be in the hands of demonstrators is clearly telling of it’s intent.
While I have no idea what transpired at Pipeline, I know Donholm is a sure distant estate apart. If there were riots in the two areas, running battles, teargas, stone throwing and what have you that has characterized what we have come to know as resistance rallies, I doubt any child or well meaning adult, since it all begun, back then, now or in future would be ‘playing’ at their balconies or hanging around in the streets.
Something ain’t adding up, somewhere.
“BY ANY MEANS NExExARY”
You know the adage that “People living in glass houses should not throw stones”. Maybe. But we probably need to live in those houses and throw stones so we really know by experience what it means. Through the lens, I see we as a products of our environment, an environment largely polluted by corruption, so bad so that no one seems to care about another, brother to another, friend to another, wife to a husband, colleague to another and even bedfellows. Everyone, without necessarily seeking the other’s downfall will step on the other in an attempt to attain that (imagined) coveted point of self actualization. I seek your indulgence as I delve into my view of where the rain started beating us, where we are dripping wet and where we need to redraw the lines.
Corruption is fanned by a mental indoctrination I refer to as “By Any Means Necessary” or if you are a Pre-Matiang’i byproduct “By Any Means Nexexary” mentality.
Colonialization and eventual liberalization opened us up for integration of cultures, business, politics and what have you. Few then noticed that it came as a package containing everything including one rather ‘sweet’ goodie in the name of “the better life” which our government translated to “better living standards” that further NGOs and rights bodies started clamoring for as “basic_human_rights” that every Kenyan is entitled to. We dug right in to unpack it and relished fishing out democracy and slid the way down to even boldly promulgate a new constitution for ourselves. Never mind we never tested the capacity of our national patriotism skeleton to hold its weight nor our cultural muscles to hold it.
We have thus walked bowed and in pain, yet ironically chest thumping that “yes we can” but knowing too well that we mourn the death of our traditional values of family, friendship, collective responsibility, sensitivity, patience and interest in each other’s welfare, just to mention a few, values previously passed down to us from our foreparents without the need for any political nor religious intervention.
Slightly into the era right after the attainment of independence, all of a sudden, the world burst right in front of us and our minds were sent into a wild spin.
We discovered “expensive” as the new “high” and it became the measure of success. What you eat, where you eat, how you eat, with whom you eat, why you eat it and when… was scaled against the ‘value’ it came at. The same was applied in virtually all other aspects of our lives including drink, work, read, talk, smell, travel, wear, sleep, shop, relax, taste …EVERYTHING!
The line dividing needs and wants was stolen; removed from visibility by cunning ‘technocrats’ that introduced a new wealth acquisition order called “smart solutions”. In practice, it meant circumventing “effortology” to employing tactics that would ensure that one earns multiple returns for the effort equal to one unit of investment. “Work smart” they called it… so we all set out to “work smart”.
Education became (overrated) as the KEY TO A GOOD LIFE. Parents demanded from the already too willing teachers, some “work smart” and in turn the teachers demanded from the already too willing students some “work smart” and the chain found a flow. “Work smart” for pupils and students meant completing homework the earliest, using the easiest way possible even if it meant having your bigger siblings, house help/boy or parent doing it, or waiting for the bright chap in class to do the heavy lifting the night prior then you ‘smart-carbon-copy-it’ in the morning preps, before teacher arrives. The culture of “by any means necessary” was born.
The teacher was happy and so were the students. The happiness had to be transferred to the report forms and eventual certificates, to appease the parent who would otherwise pay a rather unwelcome visit to the school, hoe in hand and not in a good mood, and certainly not there to cultivate knowledge. So, to ensure the hoe worked in the shamba, the teacher employed any means necessary to give the pupil/student a good report by making them”pass” exams. “Working smart” meant obtaining the examination to be sat for and present it as a mock examination, CAT or trial tests… and teaching on “trapping examinations” by looking only around areas where questions are likely to come from. Then came the eventual Pre-Matiang’i exam cheating, we have been treated to for the last two or so decades.
We have a country ran by cheater professionals, politicians, clergy, etc…
Cheater doctors, most of whom are currently striking after killing our family members on the theatre beds, misdiagnosis, negligence and you know how, roam freely. Cheater engineers that have killed our people with disingenuous structures in the name of houses are still drawing up our next mega project, bigger than Thika Super Highway and Standard Gauge Railway combined. Cheater businessmen that have killed our populations with substandard imports, all aimed at maximizing on the profit margin just landed hundreds of tonnes of consumables through some unscrupulous deal… and more cheaters.
Same medics became commerce professionals and are now “businedoctors“ running private clinics. Same engineers became “engienderpreneurs“ shuttling from town to town, County to County bidding as contractors. And the businessmen became “busipoliticians” to make laws that would enable them break older law for their interests to be safe… etc.
Interests are safe, we are not.
The line that previously indicated where satisfaction begun has since been erased. We are all a hungry mass of a third world a.k.a. developing nation. Hungry for the good life. We all want that good food so and so ate, that wedding so and so had (as we saw in a TV drama series), we want that husband so and so has that has that car and job, we even want that young clande so and so has to call bae… (Saitan!!!!) or that octogenarian sponsor or blesser so and so entertains to call sijui who…. Shindwe milele pepo mbofff!!!!. You want the latest phone, the latest car, the largest latest TV screen and to watch from the latest technology movie theatres or to drink the most expensive liquor in the most expensive clubs, take your kids to the highest cost international schools, (where they become lazy bones and drug junkies coz of too much freedom and access), etc…
May the good LORD have mercy on our souls. Amen!
We need to redraw the lines so that more of us can find contentment with rewards equal to the amount of our true efforts.
I count on the need for honesty and honesty itself to prevail as a means towards restoring our dear old true values.
We need to redefine the measure of success in scales different from those that are hinged on material wealth, which we can hardly ever manage well when we acquire it because it comes through systemic/endemic corrupt ways.
We need to redefine the measure of success on a scale different from that which is hinged on husbands we cannot sustain because they are ill-gotten; gotten not for love (if it ever exists) but the depths of their two wallets or perceived status in society.
We need to redefine the measure of success on a scale different from that which is hinged on the wives we can no longer tolerate because we finally discovered that all that was makeup, bleaching, fake hair, a make believe good attitude and that it has been a child or a few later, since that next day when she refused to leave, after the road trip date, when we spoilt them rotten on on a decade’s savings.
We need to redefine the measure of success on a scale different from that which is hinged on plum jobs we cannot maintain because we never deliver and are busy threatening and sucking our juniors’ blood since the day we presented that fake paper.
It is then …and only then will our politics put the people first, businesses put consumers first, academics put knowledge first, construction put safety first, families put union first, etc.We need to get there, even if it is by any means necessary.
You read it from a humble, deep, dreamer, an Image, Concept & Talent Consultant and Photographer, free to think, create and share. Please leave a comment.
Tony Chirah
T O N Y C H I R A H S T U D I O S / KMF TALENT BUREAU
Philadelphia House next to Afya Centre
Fourth Floor, Wing B.
MIGHT YOU BE DYSLEXIC?
…OR KNOW SOMEONE, CHILD OR ADULT THAT IS…? Have you encountered kids that write letter (d) as (b) and vise versa, or number (9) appearing as (p)?
Recently I was invited by a friend to be the Guest Speaker at RARE GEM TALENT SCHOOL in Kitengela. I became curious to know why a school would need a Guest Speaker on visiting day, so on the phone I asked him what I would be required to speak about.
He told me that I would be expected to encourage Class 8 candidates who are about to sit their KCPE and while I would be okay with I immediately thought of the tough Education CS Matiang’i rules and wondered if we would not be arrested.
I was distracted when he told me that you would also need to encourage and motivate the parents since the school caters for children with Dyslexia, and hosts Kenya Dyslexia Organization. I got lost. He also added that as a Talent Consultant, I was well placed to make sense to the institution.
Considering this was via a phone conversation, I confessed I had not got that word he had said twice “Dys….” so I asked him to text me the word then I’d return with a response. When he did, it was the first time in my forty years I was seeing it.
I went to reading and it hit that hey, there could be so many people with dyslexia.
Read on…
In pageantry, we judge Beauty, Character and Intelligence. This last item here has never featured more clearly as it did when I read about this condition.
INTELLIGENCE is the ability to perceive information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.
I did finally confirm I’d take up the invitation, but that was after discovering that it turns out that between 15 and 20 percent of the population have symptoms of dyslexia, according to the International Dyslexia Association.
When Saturday 15th October 2016 my friend and I visited Rare Gem Talent School – Kitengela, I was met with lush green vegetables grown in recycled plastic water bottles and decorated worn out car tyres lining up walls in nicely arranged patterns by the talented pupils living with #dyslexia.
The symptoms include slow or inaccurate reading, poor spelling or writing skills, learning disorders that can prove extremely difficult and frustrating for both children and even grown adults. Dyslexia can lead to low self-esteem.
There is nothing physically telling about people with Dyslexia as they are just as intelligent and even go ahead to achieve highly personally and professionally.
Check this out…
Steve Jobs, Apple founder and CEO had learning disorders. Reachers also suggest that famous artists Leonardo da Vinci and Pablo Picasso may have also suffered from the same.
It may shock you to discover some renowned Hollywood celebrities and stars that have the condition. Many have spoken out to create awareness and to also inspire others struggling with dyslexia, having struggled in school with learning and attention issues.
Whoopi Goldberg: Comedian and talk-show host—and one of only about a dozen people to have won a Grammy, an Academy Award, an Emmy and a Tony Award.
Steven Spielberg: A legendary award winning film director behind Jaws, Jurassic Park, among others. 
Justin Timberlake: Successful singer-songwriter, actor and entrepreneur.
Daniel Radcliffe: The star of the Harry Potter movies.
It is possible to be in the fifth of the world’s population that exhibits some of the symptoms of dyslexia. Dr. Stefani Hines, an expert in the disorder at Beaumont Hospitals in Royal Oaks, Michigan, told ABCNews.com that:
“It’s extremely inspiring for youngsters who struggle with dyslexia to see people like Steven Spielberg, who not only succeed but succeed well”
Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that makes it difficult to turn printed words into sound and primarily shows up in reading. It manifests via slow or inaccurate reading as well as trouble with pronunciation and comprehension, but has nothing to do with intelligence.
Incidentally, individuals with dyslexia tend to have strengths in other areas especially in creativity and imagination. They tend to “think outside the box” according to Hines.
Henry Winkler: One of television’s most iconic characters whose character jacket now hangs at the Smithsonian.
Tom Cruise: Needs no introduction from his star roles in blockbuster movies.
Says he left high school a “functional illiterate.” He say he got through school and the early years of his career by “sheer will”
Keira Knightley: The “Pirates of the Caribbean” actress.
Patrick Dempsey: Plays “McDreamy” on “Grey’s Anatomy and neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd on the hit ABC series .”
Diagnosed with dyslexia at 12. Says he has never given up but still struggles with reading scripts.
Wako wengi, in Kenya a practicing Doctor and Lawyer are among the champions of the recognition campaign. The government is yet to recognize the condition alongside other forms of difficult conditions. Dyslexics just learn in a different way, need more time, a different font with more spaced out words, among other aids. If you know anyone you suspect may need help on dyslexia, ask them to get in touch with me or contact:
Antony Muverethi
Email: muverethinjiru70@gmail.com
Cell:+254 722 316494
TONY CHIRAH'S WORLD 