By Silas Nyanchwani
#AFewThingsThisMorning
1. I missed yesterday’s debate, but seems like there is nothing big I missed. From your pretentious reactions, I can see all of a sudden everyone is a genius for stating the obvious. I mean, Sonko will always have problems expressing himself in English and people like him not because of his qualifications, but in spite of them.
Kidero was cheeky and very lethal incumbent he always is. Miguna is superlatively arrogant, and totally unqualified to run even a cattle-dip, much less a sheep insemination centre. Guys always desist from anyone with the “only me can do this” attitude. I loathe his attitude and at his age, he acts like a rowdy and charged teenager. But like big talkers, he will not perform. Miguna is the big talker in the bar. You damn sure he is not going to throw around, but will regale you with his exploits, and will always be the first one to call you to go out. Desist.
Had Peter Kenneth remained consistent since 2013, criticizing the government where necessary, remaining steadfast in his commitment to a better Kenya, he would have been our governor. But he listened to the higher calling to be tribal. In other words, he became Kenyan. He did what Anyang’ Nyong’o, James Aggrey Orengo and other Luos stalwarts did in 2002. Sometimes political expediency is necessary.
I still think of the terrible choices we have, he is the one with a slight clue and may transform Nairobi a bit. But if we vote Kidero or Sonko in defiance, we are stuck with the mediocrity, and it can only get worse. No sane person should vote for Kidero or Sonko. Miguna is just impossible. Just saying.
2. I missed on the Ndii interview with Ann Kiguta. Most of our journalist, mostly due to poor training, tend to be openly biased even when they should be professional. It is the same thing that CNN is suffering from where they are only concerned with Trump’s misdeeds and slower to point out that he has injected a sense of optimism to American businessmen and may be, there are more jobs to those who elected him.
In Kenya specifically, our journalists are not properly trained and specialised in specific fields that they can take the specialists on. You just don’t give Ann Kiguta and a few structured questions to take on David Ndii, possibly Africa’s best left-leaning economist. You just don’t. She will trivialize the significance of the moment. She will not do justice.
I still insist that our journalism schools ought to take some of the best brains that can be trained to be journalists. We can also encourage specialists in different fields such as political science, economics, science, environment and such to take up some one year or one and half post-graduate training in journalism. With such a background, they will be able to steer a conversation in a more objective way, not the sound-byte seeking madness.
Also, I do acknowledge that that journalists are human and will always be biased, but in somethings, some element of objectivity need be seen.
Media houses and universities should sit down, device a course that is not unnecessarily dense, or too academic, but something that can equip journalists with proper skills for the job.
3. There is a class of women that always intrigues me: the forthright type.
This morning, at 6.37 to be precise, I was standing on the verandah of those vibandas near the Shell next to ABC Place on Waiyaki Way. The weather, foul. Rattling. I could step into the nearby Java, but Java Tea is the worst thing to happen to us since Ruto. And it is scandalously overpriced. I could sit on those vibandas, but I thought may be that is where some of my female friends pass by as they go to work and they may see me and my life will change, for worse.
The man in the nearby kibanda is making chapatis with such enviable dexterity, and he already has pile of the chapatis going up, like the Tower of Babel. He seemed to be enjoying his work. And man, those chapatis were those razor-thin, well-burnt that are so outrageously delectable you can eat like eight of them before deciding how many you want to eat. The type, if a girl made them, you propose to her and marry her on the spot. The type that binds many marriages together. The type that makes husbands sneak from the local watching a Man U-Liverpool game to go and kill like 7 of them before sneaking back. The type that holds together our nationhood.
So this girl, in a short, thick, black skirt with black stockings and a red-buttoned sweater comes and on looking at the man, she goes like,
“Na hizi chapatti si unajua kuunda, UMEOA?”
She asks. She sounds more serious than curious.
I think the man said NO.
“Na si UNIOE?” It was a command. And the man was shy at the compliment and how upfront the lady was. I noticed she had dreadlocks on.
Men are poor at soaking in compliments. I heard him tell someone in the shop,
“Nimepata bibi,” but it was so feeble and by then the lady had picked his one chapatti and disappeared into her space to contribute in nation building.
It reminded me of the day, I was coming out of Reinsurance Plaza only to be met with the heaviest downpour since May 1997. So stormy outside, so I joined the Kenyans huddled on the ground floor, hapless and helpless at the rains. The rains always remind us how vulnerable we are as a city.
Standing next to me was this pretty and petite girl, rather too short for my gigantic height. From the word go, I knew she was impressed. I caught looking at me, more than seven times, and she just couldn’t hold it in.
“You so tall, oh, my gosh!”
I smiled. And replied, “I’m tall everywhere?”
“Really!” she blurted out. And then laughed when she noticed I was just horsing. But she is among the many women who approach strangers in public spaces and compliment them, and if in a bar or a night club, can lead you on, and before you know it, it is a one-night-stand, a short-lived relationship. I do know at least three marriages that started this way. Two are still intact.
Guys, have a good day.
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