And The Monkeys Return to the Forest

So Martha Karua threw her weight behind the son of Jomo, big deal. Did you really expect her to part the heavens, climbs the hills and cross the seas for Tinga? You’s crazy fam. In case you have made your residence in some obscure cave somewhere on the border of Kenya and Uganda, our politics are kind of tribal. It would be an impossible task to make headway politically without endorsing and supporting the perceived political kingpin of the region you see to run, and just in case you are wondering, that is the son of Jomo for you in Central Kenya. Political calculations being made left right and center and certain people are not very happy with the upset those calculations are causing, but hey, there is no loyalty in Kenyan politics, absolutely none, and if some quarters were banking of the loyalty of Karua just because she’d blurted her eyes at them then they only have themselves to blame for the colossal disappointment they now wade in.
Let’s not pretend like this is shocking and unbelievable, it’s really not. Just the other day some guy poached from ODM by Jubilee wailed and cried and rend his garments to get baba’s forgiveness and be welcomed back into his fold, he was eventually. Let’s also not forget the lesson Orengo and baba Lupita learnt when they crossed baba. I mean, talk of a lesson learnt. Politicians are heartless things that writhe and move in certain ways that add up to their own selfish satisfaction. If you haven’t figured that out yet then you are living in your own alternate existence where Raila and the son of Jomo play hide and seek in fields of lilies, drinking from springs of milk sweetened with honey.
Loyalty in our political systems is something that we grapple with. Loyalty in our country is to individuals rather than political parties. Imagine vying for a seat in Luo Nyanza on a Jubilee ticket, I mean, how absurd do you have to be. Before getting a vote or two you’ll have gone through such a tumult that you’ll denounce even your wife if that’s what it takes. The perfect should not be enemies of the good.  Politics in our country is very lopsided. What works for Karua may not work for Kajwang or Joho. That is the nature of our politics and those who say otherwise are not being true to themselves and to us quite frankly. So there is nothing new in what Karua has done, there is nothing shocking, to warrant outcry, its monkeys returning to the forest they had left, temporarily though.
Mwangi Dennis

The FLOTUS Flop

Michelle Obama, who doesn’t love Michelle Obama? A friend intimated that there could be strangers whose love for Michelle Obama could rival that of Barrack. That is of course debatable but somehow believable. She has for the last eight years been able to command respect and inspire confidence in people from the entire globe. Some quarters suggest that she is loved and liked more than Obama himself. Michelle is a Harvard trained lawyer, who has risen through the ranks in the legal profession to the position of Associate Dean at the University of Chicago. She has held quite a number of public posts that have squarely put her in the path of helping people and service to the community. She is arguably the most notable first lady in the history of the US. There are those calling her to run for president come 2020 and my honest opinion is that she would floor her opponent, whoever that may be. On the other hand, Melania Trump, the incoming first lady of the United States, is a far cry from Michelle Obama. She has given quite a few speeches since her husband announced his decision to run and two of them were plagiarized.
How do you reconcile these two figures, how do you go from Michelle to Melania? I have tried to rationalize this but after a few attempts at this my head actually hurts. She is a former model who has graced the cover of popular magazines albeit bikini clad others, in almost complete nudity and now she will be tasked with inspiring confidence in little girls and boys out there to make sound careers choices, as Michelle did with her quest to have girls get educated all over the world. If her actions in the recent past are anything to go by, I wager shell follow in the steps of Michelle Obama, and literally so to a fault. Perhaps she’ll even pose with a placard written #BringBackOurGirls ignorant of the fact that the girls are home with their families. But judging a book by its cover, or in this instance, by the magazine cover may be in bad faith.
 To throw the spanner in the works, how will the Whitehouse dinners be like? I have been pondering on this since Trump was declared president elect and I tell you, it not pretty, or is, depending on tastes. America now will have a first lady whose profession involved stripping down to her undergarments and posing for pictures in rather obscene ways and now she will be tasked with planning Whitehouse dinners. I suppose the likes of Amber Rose and the Kardashian clan will be helping her plan the dinners, you know, what goes where, which tattooed goliath of a man sits where, which see through dress to wear and which Russian oligarch to entertain for the night, the perfect Whitehouse dinner. How exciting.
Mwangi Dennis.

The Tribe Card

Let me start of by saying that I am Kikuyu or ‘okuyu as my friends from the lake side like to call me. I am proud of being kikuyu, and given the chance, I don’t think I would prefer being born any other tribe, I don’t think anyone would, even you reading this. Tribes are a beautiful thing, they give you a deeper sense of belonging as opposed to just being Kenyan. Tribal life, according to the west is romanticized with notions of being close to nature and ingrained with closer personal connections to persons of a similar tribe. While this is true, the idea of identity, for me is the biggest gain from being part of a tribe. I find those who want to dissociate themselves from tribes pretentious and dull, purveyors of lies and add on to that, a holier than though attitude. This is not to say that their allegations on the evils of tribes are ill-founded, no, they should not be faulted for their beliefs and distrust of tribal affiliations, it is their attitude towards the notion of tribe that I find unpalatable and highly obnoxious.
It is not in contention that tribes have been used to divide and cause rifts between us as Kenyans. This, especially, by our politicians. If we harbored this resentment and attitudes we have against what tribe has been used to do to us and channeled it at those who have made such strides as to divide us along those tribal lines, then I believe we would make significant grounds in getting rid of tribalism. It weighs heavy on my heart, seeing the vitriol being spewed on social media by educated, smart, working class citizens of this country against their peers, just because they are of a different tribe, or because they support a certain politician as opposed to another. Granted we are a young country grappling with what has been termed by some as hormonal imbalances of a teenage country, nevertheless other countries have been able to alleviate the intolerable burden of negative ethnicity. Ethnicity has burgeoned into the green eyed monster, so to speak, of this country and this so propagated by shameful politicians who have identified our weakness as a country and are poised on exploiting this weakness for their own gain, and us, hapless citizens who have feigned ignorance and naivety when 'our' big man says uncouth, unconscionable things about another tribe or persons of other tribes.
We have allowed ourselves to be trodden down by the yoke of ethnicity, put on us by our leaders who seem to find joy and power in our desolate state of divisiveness. Woe betides us if we do not take steps to rekindle that unity we exhibited after Nyayo and KANU fell to the winds of democracy. We were one nation then, unity was palpable, but now, only a shell of it remains, feasted on by the big man to secure power and riches beyond measure. Our actions in the 2007/2008 post elections violence should have shocked our conscience, but it seems to have been swept under the rug, water under the bridge they call it. I weep for my country.

This Man Samoei

So, those conversations i have with mother, had one recently about the Kenyatta days. No, not this Kenyatta we have today. The late Mzee, the tough talking no nonsense founding father of this great nation that is Kenya. The guy who once attended an opening ceremony of I think a hospital in Nairobi in a perfectly trimmed pinstriped suit, his animal skin hat, fly-whisk in one hand, and on his feet, open shoes. He had socks on though. And this was the seventies, the open shoes were nothing like what we have today, no, a fat sole and laces that go round the foot from one side to the other. But he was Jomo! He could get away with anything, and everything. I mean, he was like a god in a world of men, feared and loved in equal measure, perhaps even worshiped. The kind of person whose stern look into the eyes of someone was enough to suck the life out of that person, literally. (sorry, I have read too much about Jomo, ha). Mother told me about this time that Idi Amin Dada, the Ugandan dictator tried to take Kenyan land up to Naivasha. First of all, its one thing to be a dictator, it's another thing to be foolish, but to be a foolish dictator, I've got to give it up to Amin, he was a special case, one in a million, quite literally. When you let ignorance govern knowledge, you get Amin. I would compare Amin to the big bully in school who always picks a fight with everyone because of his size, but is brought to his knees by the smallest boy in class. So mother tells me, that Jomo, in his cavalier way of doing things, told Amin to try taking even a drop of Kenyan water, and face his wrath! Kenyatta had even ordered tanks to proceed to the Kenyan-Ugandan border. Jomo was serious in his threat, a threat he probably issued while at a statehouse barbecue, young Muigai running a round in shorts pretending to drive some imaginary car, with a bucket lid as his steering, or perhaps pushing his 'mufara', you know, that car tyre boys push with two big sticks with water lubrication, perhaps a tyre from his father's state limousine. I digress.

I cant shake this feeling, that I see this character in The son of Samoei. Ruto has this no nonsense look about him. The son of Jomo is very diplomatic, never wants confrontation, a great schemer I would say, but not confrontational. He is the guy you see in movies who retreats, not to be heard from for so some time, then when he comes back, he owns everything his enemy had, everything. A great schemer. But Ruto, he looks like the guy you cross, and after a long day in the office, you find him preparing dinner for your wife and children, with this eerie look. That would scare the shit out of me. He looks like the kind of guy who would go to Migingo, put an army base there and make Uganda pay for its cost, go to the Kenyan-Ethiopian border, get those Merile brutes and force them to man the border.

Masai Money.

My mother once told me a story about her experience in a bank when Masai's walked in. My mother used to bank with KCB, now she takes her money to 'Mwagi wa ekwiti'! That was a while ago, I think around the time when I was learning that the ka dream you have of you in the toilet taking a piss only to be woken up by a warm, wet sensation is really a trap sent by the devil that I fell for every time...I digress. Back to the Masai story, this was when banks didn't have those machines that count money faster than you can blink. From the story I gathered that the Masai's had a liking for KCB, perhaps the lion logo was that alluring, who knows. Again, I digress. She told me that if a Masai was in front of you in the queue, you'd be better off taking a seat and getting a bottle of water because you were going to be there for a while, worse if they were two of them or more, then perhaps you come the following day and hope not to find a Masai ahead of you. You see, they came in with a lot of money, and I mean a lot. Not in fancy briefcases or bags or even large envelopes, no. You remember those large plastic bags with some picture of a cowboy on a horse? Yes, those paper bags, full of bundles of money, no doubt from selling cows or wheat or something.
They guy would not even be in fancy clothes or something of the sort. He would graciously make his way into the bank in those Masai shukas, akala shoes, you know, those made from tyres, they'd probably have to leave the njora with the guard but the club would most definitely be hanging on the guy's waist, without a care in the world that he looks dirty, and with his discoloured teeth and heavy accent he gives the cashier the bag and the count begins. Why would he care about holding up the line for probably several hours, why would he bother himself with trivial matters of mortal men, when he, the unbothered Masai, someone you would other wise sneer at if he greated you, is here depositing perhaps millions. You are there probably to enquire whether the 30k salary has been deposited. These guys have money, just because they don't look like it doesn't mean they don't. Be careful how you treat people, they might be capable of buying you and your entire lineage.

The Old Man to My Ten O'clock.

Recently I was in this matatu, headed to the city for some business. If you must know I was headed to AON, the insurer to sort out some issues, see, I am Manchester United blood and flesh, ha! The safari was okay, sane driver, sane passengers save for this guy that was behind me, to my 4 o’clock exactly. I blame him for my tribulations today, this cold is killing me. His cough would reverberate through the matatu, I mean, it’s as if he would search deep into his chest and find a bulky hulk of a cough, you know, the “jitu la miraba mine lenye umbo wa jirim jirim” kind of cough and set it free in the matatu, to devour us, now I’m at home, blowing my nose every few mitutes and coughing in a way that is causing me pain. It seemed quite histrionic how he coughed, like he knew what he was doing. Damn you stranger who caused me all this, hell has a special place for people like you. I digress. This matatu I was in, at my ten o’clock was this old mzee, probably in his 60’s, who seemed quite respectable, you know, those innocuous old mzees who are sought after for their wisdom. Those old mzees you have a chat with and you suddenly have an epiphany as their words sink into the depth of your soul.
 By the way, don’t you just hate it when total strangers in a matatu strike up a conversation with you as though they know you? And especially women, ya’ll like doing that shit, baiting men with your perfectly white teeth and a face, eyes and smiles that would make angels themselves sin. Huh, come to think of it you lot actually made angels, from heaven, I mean goddamn angels leave their heavenly comfort to this despicable piece of crap called earth to lay with you guys. How are we, mortal men of flesh and bone supposed to resist your charms. And you reprimand us when you find that you are one among a few…please!
 I digress, so this old mzee to my ten o’clock, I saw him look out his window quite intently, like he had seen some once in a life time thing. He had. Have you ever seen a woman with a behind so fine, that common sense evades you completely for a few minutes. A behind you can bounce a forty bob coin off of. Those behinds that tease you as the lady passes by, that disorients you completely, that is what this old mzee was staring at, so keenly and so intently, as if studying the behind, taking notes in his mind, admiring maybe, or perhaps it was reminiscent of his youth, the fountain of youth in his soul, not visible to the naked eye though.
The mzee, with what seemed like complete satisfaction, then sank back into his seat, into those seats that can be sank into, those that seem curved in a way as though to hug you, and he suddenly became quite self-conscious and did a quick sweep with his eyes to see who was looking at him and then he met my eyes. I was holding in a smile and he quickly looked forward, but he knew. He knew that I knew what he had done, and without a care in the world, the crossed his arms and drifted off to sleep.