DEATH OF THE HAPPY ENDING?

Fresh from reading an excerpt of Ted Kennedy's letter to the Pope prior to his death, I was struck by the frailty of the human spirit. Here was a man powerful enough to have the leader of the free world hand-deliver a letter to the leader of one of the biggest religious institution in the world.The full text can be found here.

This isn't a eulogy to the life and times of Ted Kennedy but rather the humility which his letter shows. A man with power. A family that was seen to carry the hopes and imagination of a generation that believed in dreams. Here was a family that was linked to Camelot, the legendary kingdom led by Arthur. And with his death is the question posed; is the happy ending dying? Are we as a human race losing faith in the ability to be dreamers and be happy?

Pessimism is slowly creeping into our collective consciousness cleverly disguised as realism. If you expect the worst then there's no way you'll ever be disappointed, right? This culture has gone through every facet of our lives and is best illustrated in the popular media. Remember the days when the end of the movie invariably constituted a happy albeit metaphorical walk into the sunset? If Cinderella was adapted to a feature length movie then it would probably end with her being sent to work in a sweat shop somewhere in a East Asia.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

We know they know.......

It's been a weird couple of weeks for the country when it comes to the international media. If you are wondering what I am talking about then you need to quit hitting the snooze button and wake the hell up. Firstly, the Daily Mail went berserk with creepy descriptions of Langata. It felt like a script straight out of Hollywood. The story was that Charlie Grieves-Cook basically sent death a personal invitation the minute he set foot on Langata Road. The descriptions, which were apparently sourced from British expats, made you wonder why any of us are still alive in this country where apparently death stalks us around every corner. Read that here...

A few days later, CNN hopped onto the crappy journalism bandwagon by implying that we were busy hacking each other to death since that's what us Kenyans are famous for. Well apart from that whole running side gig thing that we do to get lunch money. We all then got pissed off and patriotic and went into a crazy diatribe on social media demanding an apology for being described as animals. Then it took an ironic racist tone but that will be a topic for later.

So I wanna broker a peace deal and go all Koffi Annan and bring both sides to the table. The ignorant idiotic news conglomerate and Wanjiku. Think of it as therapy. Chicken soup for the troubled marriage.It's pretty simple really. All we need here is to open up the communication lines. So what I will do is provide a translator for both parties. So you will understand what is happening and nothing gets lost in translation. Since Wanjiku is the aggrieved party lets do this from her perspective. The first part is said by Wanjiku and the second is the translation by the international media.

ELECTIONS:'JOHNY KANGE WA 44' NEW FRONT RUNNER

The political world has been turned upside down with the news of the most recent opinion polls released just yesterday. In their most recent findings, opinion polls have listed 'Johny yule kange wa 44' as the man to beat in the upcoming general elections. Yes you heard right. The Kenyan political scene has completed shifted. The poll released by a cross-section of research and polling firms under the banner of 'Who Cares Who Rules This Country Anymore?- Initiative' released the results to a room full of people who we are assuming were journalists.(since they had pens and stuff)

This new entrant into the political scene has taken the country by storm and yet so little is known of him even as we went to press. In fact by the time of publishing this article, most journalists were still trying to find his facebook page which was proving hard due to the fact that no one can figure out his second name. In fact most political pundits are even doubting that his first name is Johny. But that said, he is leading the polls with 68% of the vote followed by Bikoli Wafoli with 3% and the rest shared evenly between the other guys who have been running around on telly.

Artist Rendition Of Johny

Johny (if that is even your real name) has been described as a nice kange who"always remembers to give me back my change." This was from some guy who was standing next to a 44 matatu. A woman standing next to the same matatu said he usually gives her rides for free and sometimes they are even in the matatu. His physical description has been said to be 'big but small when you see him from far' and 'funny if you are quite drunk'. He is rumoured to be about 23 or 57 years old depending on who you ask and is said to speak fluently in sheng only. (We have been asked to confirm that it's not Rapho-type sheng). Johny is also said to have a limp but only when he is not walking and a British accent when he is asleep.

KBC:KENYA'S BEEN WATCHING!

When I was a kid (And no this isn't a story from last week), we could tell the time based on what time tv started. I just saw the younger generation pass out from confusion about the very notion that tv had an 'end' and a 'beginning'. Back in those days we actually used to play outside because video games and social media hadn't been invented. In a way, neither had tv. Then 4 o'clock would come around and KBC would start up and the entertainment would last till midnight. On weekends, the fun started at noon. The national anthem signaled both the beginning and end.

The best shows from our childhood were things like Derrick, The Littlest Hobo, Due South and Star Trek. Back then wrestling was a family affair. Tuesday night. When guys were Rowdy Rowdy Piper & Hacksaw Jim Dugan (sp?) ruled the ring. That was before we knew it was all choreographed so everything was just madly real. The undertaker would give us sleepless nights while some in my family would wonder why we were watching this saitan.

 Remember Nguata Francis posting the weather at the end of every news cast? The weather forecast was awesome. The little symbols would fall off and he would have to pick them up and stick them back to the Kenyan map.That really had me confused for so many reasons. First Kisumu always had the same weather. It was always 'vipindi vya jua' in the morning and 'ngurumo za radi' in the afternoon. Secondly, it was the picha ya satellite. To a young kid, it made absolutely no sense. It resembled one of those fuzzy sonogram images where you can't tell if you are looking at the kid's eye or big toe. To make things worse, I grew up in Riruta Satellite so I was pretty sure as a kid that every hood had it own picha hence:

OUR LEGACY:WE MUST NOT FORGET.

In the months leading up to the elections, cracks are showing up again based on political ideologies. Wait a minute, I will rephrase that. In the lead up to the elections, cracks are showing up in the Kenyan social fabric based on political PERSONALITIES. The first sentence assumed that Kenyan politics is evolved enough to sustain ideologies. The closest you would have to look to understand this is the fact that each election cycle will always see the conception and birth of new political outfits and alliances. Go on. Think about it. Who are you supporting? And what are you basing it on?

Anyway back to the cracks. The amount of rhetoric hitting the airwaves has me so worried. The question continuously posed is whether or not things will be as bad as they were last time. And more and more people seem confident that we know better. I keep hearing how we know better and that we will never be divided as a country again. But still the vitriol is poured and the bile continues to affect us as a nation.

I think the lessons that we learnt in 2007/8 are being forgotten. I watched 'Kenya's Darkest Hour' the other day and I honestly couldn't believe that that was the same country I call home. I had forgotten all the stuff that had taken place. The screams, blood and tears. My baby niece should be a constant reminder of that though. She was born just before that period. The offspring of a Luo mother and a Kikuyu father. The drive to the hospital was fraught with anxiety as we tried to figure out who would be a victim of the gangs patrolling the streets. Thankfully we encountered no such gangs.


This morning someone said something really profound. He said as Kenyans we confuse activity for achievement. Think about it. I was blown away. From a personal standpoint I think this makes immense sense.How so? Scour social media today for all the pages and groups that purport to bring Kenyans together. They are there by the dozens. Well meaning individuals who bring people together to talk about how awesome it is to be Kenyan. That is the activity and there is a lot of it. We are so far from achievement.

HOW TO MEET SERIAL KILLERS.....

Articles, blogposts and prayers have been written about how social media has changed the very face of dating. That is as obvious as the fact that Njuguna Ndung'u is a deer caught in mathematical headlights. (Slight deviation here: WORST CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR IN AFRICA? Really? Wow. That must really suck. How do you get worse ratings than Zimbabwe? Do they even have a Central bank or there's some random dude in a basement who gets up and guesses whichever exchange rate they are going to use? Egyptian CB governor was dodging bullets and still did better than you? Oh well.)

So now relationships begin on the web as opposed to in clubs after bacchanalian sprees.(look it up. Usiguess ati unafikiria unajua ni nini nimesema.) I miss the good old days when you'd hit on a girl simply because she lived next door to you hence you had no choice. She was the closest thing so you had to make do. Despite the overbite that would make it possible for her to eat stuff in the kitchen from the comfort of the living room. It was a far simpler time. You knew what you were getting yourself into.

But it's all new now. The worst bit? Everyone is a veritable celeb in some corner of the planet. You know what they say about everyone having someone? Social media has kinda made that true. Evidence? Remember that girl with the overbite? Check her pics on fb now. There are hundreds of guys drooling after her. Whispering creepy nothings and telling her how she's God's gift to the scorched savannah. It happens. Beauty is in the eye of the cross-eyed beholder.


Ok so you have talked for weeks and in that time he/she has charmed your socks off. And now you have no socks on and you are planning that first meeting. After late nights of chat and whispered conversations on the phone, it's finally that time to put your money where your mouth is. You are curious about whether she looks like her voice or whether she smells like her words (flowery words jameni) etc etc. Here's a simple guide about that first meeting.

1. Meet somewhere really dark and isolated. Why? So you can get your head hacked off and your guts harvested by some random collector. (I really have to stop watching some of these college-based horror movies). But for real. Make it a wide open space. Why? So you can get a whole lot of space to practice the martial arts move you saw on telly.