Friday, August 31, 2012

Reasons why Africa is poor according to me

Disclaimer: I have not done any research.

1. The standards of being rich changed

Africans riches were measured by number of cows, number of children, being an elder and things that mattered like those. This has changed over they years. You are rich if you can grab yourself the best land, have the most money and such other inconsequential things.

2. Urbanization (include modernity and its variations here)


Africans lived in villages. They moved when the season changed. God knows where we would be by now. Look at how bright we were to avoid summer and winter! 

3. Africans food their own food, fruits grew on trees and we hunted the rest


Seriously, when i was growing up strawberries and blueberries were fruits that we just plucked on the trees as we ran and played. You just need to go to the supermarket and get shoked by the price of these fruits. We grew our food by the river streams. In short,  food was in great supply! I imagine at a point my ancestors just went out and shot the animals and brought home food. Now it would be considered animal cruelty. Ahem.

4. Cars, trains, railways and all other things that require fuel

Kenya spends (let me google that) I cannot get the real figures but i believe in billions in importing oil. Money that could be used on other essentials like basic human needs, food, water, health, dignity.

5. Monogamy

I am a Christian (no stones here) but monogamy is one of the practices that has brought problems to African children.  No wonder we have so many on the street because a man can only marry the only woman he wants to live with. It didn't matter in the past, he married the one with his child and he was free to marry others as well. African children were brought up by the village.

6. Land ownership

Land was communal. Now we have people who own land, huge tracts of land causing all manner of problems to the community.

And now i remember that we also had traditional medicine healers, midwives who were all dismissed.

I am tempted to see in the face of modernity what we can do to solve our problems in the traditional way. Again no research will be done.



Thursday, August 02, 2012

Kenyans at the Olympics 2012

I really just wanted to find out about the Kenyans participating in Olympics 2012!

The Brand Kenya team is doing well with the  online publicity and Social Media during the Olympics. I would like to know the end result of this! I must congratulate Brand Kenya for this extremely well thought out online strategy.

First there is the Kenya House from where Ms. Julie Gichuru has been reporting Live on Citizen! You can even take a Virtual Tour

http://www.kenyahouse.or.ke/

They are requesting for people to use Google Hangouts, signing up for a few myself to experience.

The country has a Wikipedia Page dedicated to Kenyans participating in the 2012 London Olympics which is also great! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics

Not to mention the Flash Mob You Tube Video created by DSTV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=worZ21sXR3w



We wish the Kenya Olympic Team the best. Bring on the Medals!