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!

Soap Operas

I find myself watching Mexican Soaps despite the fact that i have quit them over and over again. When i am not obsessive about them, i do find myself entangled in the drama. For starters, they are all over our TV stations. For a while, i predicted rather wrongly that there would be Mexican Soap fatigue. I guess not. You have to agree with me, just like the outrageous Naija movies showing all day, the night belongs to the Mexican soaps.

I have wondered why our script writers do not manage to capture the same kind of grip on their viewers.

Currently i only with dedication watch Changing Times which comes on KTN on Tuesdays 8.30 p.m. and sometimes catch the Mother in Law on Citizen TV on Sundays. I catch Machachari a few times too on Wednesday on Citizen TV. I stopped watching Makutano Junction (another former favourite), either i lost the plot or they did.

After self introspection, i have come to the sad realization that this among many other things is the reasons i am enamoured and several of others with these soaps and others with Naija movies. Maybe our local scriptwriters/producers or whoever comes up with all those shady scripts can learn;


Creation of extreme emotions of love and pain.

The writers of Mexican soaps/Naija movies are ruthless! They can give a character so much pain. And where there is love, there is abundance! Then, there is the hot guy who is brilliant (successful) and hot and hot and the extremely poor girl who must go through extreme pain to get to her man.Rich man, poor gal. Same story over and over again, executed with ruthlessness and brilliance!

The two things that we as human beings attract and avoid

It is said that human beings avoid pain at all cost. They have know to tell the story that all pain must come to an end and is replaced by the blissful marriage that happens at the end of the story line. They know that the poor gal must marry the Rich boy. The cruel never goes unpunished. That is the essence of every human hope. That you cannot get away with evil. They satisfy the human spirit always. I know there are many people who do not watch Changing Times but there was this love triangle when Patricia was fighting with Lisa over Arnold. Patricia managed to scheme her way into the man's life, then WON! When the day came to choose, Arnold chose the master lying schemer. How now? That for me was the anti-climax of a love triangle! How boring.


Stretching the characters either as a victim or villain

Our script writers are lazy/boring. Take for example (another one) Changing Times where one character can go missing for even 3 episodes, you can't even tell who are the lead characters. In Mexican Soaps, the lead characters, lead the program. Every other character is related to them in a way. T



Creating beauty and ugliness with equal measure

If there is anything to notice is the fashion and beauty of the characters. Lots of make up and jewellery. The characters must look out of this world otherwise they would just be like the rest of us.

Exploiting poverty and opulence

The victim usually the poor girl must lead a life of deep pain and sometimes abject poverty. She must probably been abandoned on birth and raised in a humble background. The guy on the other hand always has an opulent life. It is the houses, the cars, the clothes that make the difference.

Creating culture

By watching a Naija movie, you can tell that the Nigerians believe in culture, in their exaggerated outfits, big houses, witchcraft, you cannot fail to tell that art imitates life. What culture is there to be told in Kenyan soaps? You can tell by watching the Mexican soaps that catholicism is a major deal and of course serenading your woman!

I remember a proggie way back in the early nineties called Tausi that kept everyone glued to their TV or their neighbours. Do you?

Remember this song? Enjoy

Honoring the late Professor Wangari Maathai

I think it can generally be said that you will never know how great you were until you die..

Everyone is shocked to learn that the Great Prof. took her last bow on 25th Sep 2011. I felt very heartbroken! Not that i knew her in person just the realization that the Nation had lost someone great. Who will defend our environment was the first question in my mind.

This is to ask anyone who can come out and honor the late Prof to do so on Saturday October 1st, 2011. She deserves it. It doesn't really matter what you think, your actions that day will count. Never mind you never planted any tree before, she is no longer here to do it for you! So get out, get your shovel and watering can and plant a tree, heck even 30!

Go to these links for more information!

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=293149220701311

http://akenyangirl.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/wangaritrees-update/#comments

The Kenyan Tweep

Ya'll know the Kenya online movement started with the bloggers, then facebook and now the almighty www.twitter.com

The Kenyan tweep is someone who although on facebook, will repeatedly tweet "facebook is a village">

Will hold out tweeting about Churchill Live until someone does then R/T (retweet) because they must check out if it's cool to like or hate. If someone says bleh then bleh it is. If someone tweets a joke, then it's a joke already! Common though is the Kenyan tweep hates tribal jokes (no pun). i don't think more about the tribal joke apart from the funny part of it. Look here, tribalism is as old as racism and as new as racism. To mean, it is really not going anywhere.

The Kenyan tweep attends the IT focused kind of events. I see things like i hub, TedX and furiously tweet during the event. So if you are not so inclined, skip on this one or you just won't understand:)

The .ke tweep will celebrate if a Kenyan topic is trending on the world timeline. It's almost as having a Kenyan on the elusive Forbes list. Just type #promulgation on twitter.

Nearly most of the world doesn't understand twitter. And for those who do, they remain the so cool that can't be on facebook of course unless twitter is down.

The country i belong

The debate started here;

http://lovelymoney.blogspot.com/2009/08/diasporans-giving-up-on-kenya.html

 

Then moved here;

 

http://grainsofmasala.blogspot.com/2009/08/giving-up-is-not-option.html

Well i read and re-read the original post and the comments.

 

Some feelings came over me because i did not know who to direct my angst at. The writer of the blog, the thieves, KPLC & Kengen, the buggers on the list of Mau, our politicians,God for not letting it rain Isaac & William Ruto, Moi, Kibaki, Eddie Njoroge, Raila, the people who caused post election violence, the police who tortured people during post election violence, the careless politicians who issued haterade during post election violence, Kiraitu Murungi, the people who trashed MOU, Kivuitu, the US and the foreign countries who have refused to trade with Africa and instead ask us for proper governance, Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, the US & even the UK for colonizing and patronizing Africa (thus Kenya) and even China for dumping their cheap imports on us poor Africans!....

 

As you can see I have a lot of people to blame for our sordid, sorry condition.

 

Once in a while i have fleeting thoughts of permanently moving out of my country to go and look for greener pastures. Then i came to this sad conclusion, it is easier to make a life ( not necessarily a living) in Kenya than any other place in the world.

 

Yes, i know everytime i watch news, somebody will have been jacked, Isaac Ruto will have said a statement that will make you wonder whether to smack him or just send that hangman right to his house or something will be terribly wrong. That is conveyed in less than hour, and yet strong enough to convince someone never to come back to Kenya, the land of their birth. In short, these are trying times. And yes i know every morning i have to wake up before 6 to ensure a hot shower, assuming that the water will be available:(. And yet, everyday, each day in Kenya is not as horrid as it is made to be.

 

I have the joy of living in my mother land. A country nobody thinks less of me because my skin is black. A country i can walk head high, shoulders even higher because it is home. A place i can travel to the country side and catch the smell of cow's dung in the morning. And truly breath fresh air. A place where food is food, not manufactured food. Nobody sells to me "organic" or is it "Superfoods"?.

 

Where the weather never truly changes and i don't know the meaning of sweltering heat nor snow.

 

What more in life can one ask for?

 

I know the despair that comes with a really corrupt citizenry (ooh don't blame a few) or even our wanton neglect of existing laws (Traffic jams anyone?) or even our utter selfishness and grabbing everything in sight.

 

But when all modernity is taken, all tall buildings, subways, highways that defy nature or the greatest architectural buildings or even greater and faster service that other nations boast of. The warmth and humanity of Kenyans is beyond reproach.

 

I have had clients from developed nations refuse to go back to their lands. Here, they say they have met with people with a genuine touch and focus on making a living while at the same time making a life. I would hell hate to stay in a place where time is never enough, that i could never stop a chit chat with someone i call my friend because i need to be at the work place to serve other people (hello exemplary service). Where people are governed by clocks to make MORE MONEY.

 

I love money no doubt for the things i can do with it, but i will not not look after my ailing aging parents, prefering to dump them in homes for the aged (where by the way they will be looked after by the illegal immigrants from a country that they think is in South Africa)

 

After all we have something to sell. Being Human. That is what Kenyans are and always remain.

 

 

Speak

When you speak; speak for your country not for individuals.

When i read many people's sentiments i amaze at just how we have made individuals godly. In the sense that even knowing what we know about these politicians we still want to associate with change and deliverance. Further from the truth we cannot be.

I refuse to fight for people whose reputation and integrity is at question. I refuse to fight for people who have no real agenda apart from assuming power. We know Ruto, we know Raila, we know Kibaki, we know Michuki et al, why do we then behave like we don't?

When you write a comment on my blog and tell me Kenyans were denied change, revolution, etc what do you know? And tell me mass action must continue because this is the only way you can get what you want? I know i would fight but for the right reasons.

I do believe in many things but i don't believe we can destroy a whole country to defend people we so know well.

We know they are not clean, we know they have never been clean. We most definitely know they are not Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela because those two would never allow the kind of madness that has happened in this country. I am sure they must be sick in their belly just to imagine what has gone down and accountability is not forthcoming.

Martin Luther had a mission, Nelson Mandela had a mission, just what are the mission of our country destroyers?

Why do they evoke such negative feelings in the people that they would say something as unspeakable as "we would rather go the Ivory Coast way? And for what?

The law is clear remains to be clear of which i have been searching, an election dispute can only be determined by a High court,  we have no provisions for an interim Govt. Why the turmoils?

Quite a number of Kenyans support R.O., quite of them support MK, and others supported KM, so when someone stands up and says "Kenyans" will. Which Kenyans do you refer to? Which will of Kenyans because we are so fucking equal and no grievances, theatrics, mass actions will solve an election dispute.

Kenyans are living in morbid fear countrywide, you should see their scary faces every time there is a sound however innocent. We have police on the streets, something i had only seen when international news of Sierra Leone, Somalia were aired on TV.  But are the police in the streets in vain, towns have been brought to ashes, people's lives are in constant danger, and you blame the police? The whole of Kenya belongs to any Kenyan, as until now, if Kisumu town is destroyed, a part of Kenya has been destroyed and thats a loss to every Kenyan.

Speak for Kenya.


Now this is better but the worst joke i have heard. Boycott

FANTASTIC KENYANS

For some reasons i decided to put every Kenyan from under Fantastic!

I forget they are the most tribal people around East Africa. Infact they are so fantastic that every time some other tribe person hears my name i am warned of the repercussions come next year when the "said" people will come into power. That is the one hot day in hell when they will.

I have even forgotten they keep on shoving me on the streets, i mutter to myself that maybe they are in such a hurry that in the next one minute they could lose all and peace comes to mind. Maybe i should learn to body bump them too.

And even when they assume i should pay a bribe or two to do the work someone has been employed to do. I think its all fantastic after all why not, they are poorly paid civil servants who deserve extra coins.

Keep driving at 180km/hr and then blame the transport minister. The Fantastic matatu/personal drivers. how can you even tell the difference anymore? We have to get home drunk/sober at 80km/hr or 180km/hr and even when we cause accidents it is because of the transport ministry. I totally AGREE, its the ministry.

I would imagine a situation when i did not have anyone to blame. It would make me uncool.

I have nothing for the things they do to make my life easier like not keep the queues if no one is supervising. How else? Jumping the queue is totally cool, why wait when you can jump?

and also even if nobody can understand your mother tongue, why bother to talk in English or Swahili?