ICT FOR YOUR COUNCIL
Your Environment and Copenhagen
Cpenhagen Meeting - Pic courtesy of the Time Magazine
So this is the big news this week. All the channels are focusing on the environment is one way or another. Many environmental lawyers are on call to give insight on what the Copenhagen meeting will mean for Africa and as was expected, many politicians who have never added any value even to their constituents have made their way to Copenhagen. For what reason, I do not know but what I know is that we are paying their allowance which again, is slated for a hike if it has not happened already.
So here is the deal. You do not need Copenhagen to start doing things right. Where I worked at last, I was privileged enough to get into meetings where the agenda on the table was the environment. My home town, Nakuru, was once the cleanest place in East Africa. It no longer is and can be described as dilapidated on various fronts. The motto for Nakuru Business Association was about restoring Nakuru’s lost glory. In these meeting, we usually had the councilors present, representatives of NEMA, a few members from the NGO sector, the Private sector etc. The interesting thing is that whatever we discuss then and which was to be implemented has never come to fruition.
And that is my point exactly here especially to the Kenyan Government and any Kenyan reading this blog.
When I have something I need to throw away, I walk with it in my hand until I find a dustbin and then dispose of it. When I am in car drinking my water or soda, when I am done, I do not open the window and throw the tin out. I leave it in the car until I reach my destination and throw it away. Sometime I leave it in the car trusting the driver will clean his car and dispose of the trash accordingly. When I see a tap running, I walk to it and shut it. It is about each of us doing our small part with regard to our immediate environment. And that means individuals cleaning after themselves, the council picking up where we leave it off, and the national government doing it part in ensuring that this becomes a national policy.
I was with my dad a couple of weeks ago and he was pissed. There are many shops and vibandas on the main road. The tragedy is that all these shop keepers, vibanda men and women, car wash guys and every other person with a premise along this road throw their trash into the drainage system just in front of their premises. And what we have there is an eyesore to behold. It is dirty green-blue boiling like muddy water with plastic bottles, plastic bags, vegetable leaves and all manner of trash in it. And they all say that the government is to blame for all of that.
The Government is to blame but for something totally different.
My dad had a very simple solution to all this mess. He said that if it were him in charge, he would tell everybody on that road to either clean up the front of their premise or the shop gets closed down. And that solves it all. You either keep your premises clean (including the front of your shop) or you will have no business. And this will work because you are tying someone’s livelihood to it. And if someone else passes by those shops and decides to recklessly dispose of his trash, they will call him/her out and categorically tell them to pick that trash. Why, because that trash is a threat to their livelihood.
You would think that we should already know that. But I guess it is easier to blame it on someone else than lifting a finger to do something about it. But what is easier and actually a better place is to be is to do all that you can and then pointing a finger at the council, the government, and ultimately at those people at Copenhagen demanding that they do their jobs.
Days and Meanings
From where and how I grew up, every day was like any other day; with equal importance or lack thereof. But then again, not really; here is how I grew up.
How we perceived days back then was not from tradition which was handed down from our parents and them from their parents. No! Everyday had its own meaning as it came up and on the basis of how we experienced those days; we would associate good nostalgic or bad wish-it-never-happened or zero memories to them. And this went for every other day of the year. We gave importance to the days that we had the most fun, the days that something totally crazy happened, seasons where we played certain games etc. The point is, whatever day we considered important to us, it was because it meant something real and tangible to us.
But then it hit me really hard that these days actually meant nothing to people just a few estates away from us leave alone in a different country (not that I had ever thought of a country beside Kenya at that age). All I needed to see this was change schools. I moved from this local school to a more elite school and the culture shock slapped me upside my head.
Where we grew up, we made our own toys. We would scout trash cans, pick up the Kimbo and Blueband mkebes and bottle tops, came back with them, sat down (and I am talking about a dozen or so kids each sitting on the dusty ground, creating) draw the kind of cars we wanted to make, cut them out using some crude ingenious creation of ours, tie the pieces up using wires and after a while, we had our cars up and running. And if I have to say so myself; we made some pretty good stuff. And this went for any other toy we wanted. And we could make them from anything including boxes, wires, mkebes, you name it. This would be a whole season of creating usually during the mid year holidays. But this new school I went to had kids who had ready made plastic toys. What the hell did they do during the holiday seasons was my question.
But as it turns out, they had their own things, ready made things; including seasons. For fun activity, my vocabulary became extensive with imported words like Halloween. And because we moved houses too into another neighborhood, I had to get with the program or risk getting left behind.
But in this life, everything has a significant meaning to somebody somewhere.
Fast approaching is the Christmas season and those tiring theme songs and pathetic carols are already in the air. For me, other than the inglorious eating that we did and which I enjoyed very much during Christmas, there was no other significance to Christmas. And because the eating soon did not appeal as much to me in my older age than in my younger ones, I lost the little positive attribution to Christmas that I had. I have made many people uncomfortable because I do not feel sh*t for this day. I do not feel like buying new clothes, going to Church and singing the same old carols (God I hate Christmas songs!), and smiling and saying merry Christmas to every single smiling soul that passes me by with this grin on their face.
Some lady friends who cherish this day, after cursing me for dissing this day as too much ado about nothing have tried to explain the meaning of it all to me. They have told me that we are celebrating the Birthday of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior. And that is cool. But for a guy who thinks sh*t of his own birthday, you cannot blame him for not caring about another person’s birthday, Right? Wong!
Ok, years back, when I got my first girlfriend, one of the first things she wanted to know was my birthday. I had to look it up to confirm. In our house and estate in general, there was nothing like birthday parties. Our birthdays came and went the way Mondays come and go. But then this young love I had as a girlfriend changed it all. She expressly said that she needed to know my birthday and me hers so that we could celebrate them. So the first time I received a gift during my birthday was not from a family member but from this puppy love of mine. And now I had to remember her birthday in return. I did and gave her a gift too. It was kind of nice giving and receiving gifts. So from the then henceforth, I made a point of remembering the birthdays of close friends and at the very least wishing them a good one on that day and a better year ahead.
The irony is that nobody in our family remembers each others birthdays. And that’s cool because we do not give a sh*t, never have and probably never will. My twin brothers were born on the 9th of December and the last born on the 10th of December. Apart from the wishes one of them got on Facebook (I saw them days later when I visited his wall), the other two have no idea that their birthdays came and went. This is us, classic and it does not bother us at all. But when it comes to others who care for their birthdays, we have to pull up our socks and tell them we care too by buying them something small, giving them a hug, and saying something nice.
So this Christmas, I have made a conscious decision not to tell anybody what I really think about this day. I will let people be, let them enjoy this day because they have good memories attributed to this day. I owe them that. And when they say merry Christmas to me, I will smile and say it back to them because this matter to them. But one thing I will strive to avoid are the carols. If I have it within my powers, none will play near me and nobody will watch those goofy Christmas themed movies in my presence.
I hope that I will be working through these days. I am trying to get several accounts which will keep me busy during this season. That is the only way I will be happy because I will gauge the success of this day by the amount of work I will get done.
And talking of days that meant nothing to me, Imagine my shock when I realized that February 14 had a significant meaning to some people. I got into trouble over this is all I can for now. How could you forget was her question? How do I forget what I do not know was my retort? How the hell can you not know? How the hell was I supposed to know was my defense? Now I know. I do not care much for the day either, but I do it for love… 
(I DID NOT JUST WRITE THAT)
