Mau is Burning…

When I was young, our house at the time had a view to the hills so many miles away. These were those days in the year when we would see red at the horizon reminiscent of the setting sun. But since this re glow at the horizon lasted whole nights, our young brains at the time thought that this was the sun taking its time setting. The scene was just beautiful, if you have an idea of what the sun setting on a cloudy day, down a hilly horizon looks like. You can therefore imagine the shock and horror that visited me when my mum told us that what we were seeing was the forest burning. Even though this was happening miles and miles away from out house, nobody could convince my young mind that the fire would not reach us. So many were the days that the forests burned and consequently many were the days that I dreaded to go to sleep because of fear that the fire might engulf our house. Now that I look back, I realize that I was right to be worried but less about the fire burning us and more about the effects of the clearing of forest land that was taking place at the time; forest land that the Moi Government gave to its loyalists without shame or foresight. Today we are suffering. In a sense, the fire that burned down the biggest water catchments area in the country has caught up with us.

I understand that I was too young to understand some things even way into the ‘90s. There was no way that I would have added up forest burning and political greed to get global warming. The story that we had been taught is school about trees bringing water was still up there with Santa Claus, tooth fairy’s, and peter pan, make believe things that made us feel good. And even though we all knew that most of the things we were taught in school was just air, as far as the environment went, me and my brothers were on a tight leash. My mum has worked at Kenya Wildlife Service all her life and she has inculcated in us the need to appreciate nature. Today when we are all grown up, we together condemn what is happening with our forests and the politics around it. I remember when we were younger; she was the one on the other side, threatening us that she would report us to the KWS rangers because we had killed a bird to eat it or something like that.

Ignorance really is bliss. The last time that I was truly without a worry in the world was the time that I paid no attention whatsoever to the news of the day, political or otherwise. Unfortunately, my brain out of the blues had too much capacity that needed to be filled with something and so I read. With that went my childhood account of all that was going on around the country and this was replaced with the dirty truth, the Kenyan reality that can suck all the life out of a soul, even my mum’s. She sometimes helplessly sighs at the new lows that we sink to as a country. I had heard that land was the biggest issue in the country but had to read it to confirm it. I wrote that few books have ever addressed the true picture of our history and if you have an idea of any that do, please leave me a name and a link to them. Kenya’s history has been a history of leaders who are robbers and paupers who were easily divided through tribalism and ruled by tyrants, traitors to the very country they were supposed to patriots of.

So here I am, all grown up and feeling bad as hell on so many levels. First because I grew up in Nakuru and knowing now that all those fires that I saw when I was young were leading up to this moment that we are in now with the Mau Forest and the drying Lake Nakuru. Secondly because I now understand the politics behind forest land and more so because everything political in Kenya ends badly. Thirdly because the mainstream media is fueling tribalism through reckless journalism by generalizing what a few political loud mouths are yapping about to a whole tribe? When did a politician in Kenya ever speak for anybody other than themselves?

Ignorance on my part about everything that went on in Kenya did not help anything because whether you know something or not, it doesn’t stop it from happening. While I drowned in my bliss, forest and parastatal land was being dished by the Moi regime to political cronies, poor families were being sold these lands by these politicians, and these very politicians were making a kill because to be grand in corruption was a must have in the resume for anybody to be considered for a cabinet position – a tradition that goes on to date.

I have an uncle who bought land in Transnzoia District and planted maize there for a few seasons before rumours that this was a forest area began to erupt. Keep in mind that this land was sold to them by a Government body. Soon enough, the rumours turned true when my uncle and everybody else who had bought land in that area were chased from their farms and the land reverted back to the Government. My uncle and the rest of the people who were chased from this land were not compensated. Hell, they were chased like thieves. He left, worked hard and bought land some place else where he now lives with his young family. I am not sure of the fate of the land that they left behind. All I know is that given the track record of Kenyan Government, some rogue civil servant (most are) may have sold it again with orders from above. But the point is that these people were chased from these farms so as to protect the forest area and encourage reforestation.

There is a water crisis in the country and the rivers from catchments areas are running dry. In a country where energy production is heavily reliant on water, the rivers are running dry and energy production is waning. People are starting to put 2 and 2 together but the correct answer is still hard to come by. What we are getting as country are answers of 3 and 5; but at least we have started to add things up. To get it right will take some time. Earlier, we were acting like unsafe sex will not lead to HIV AIDS, that pot holes do not cause accidents, that corruption is not the cause of most of our problems, that our politicians are actually leaders. We are waking up from this slumber and that is always a good thing.

Here is where I get into a fight with the mainstream media.

Whereas I have commended the Kenya Media before for their acquired boldness, I have to condemn them heavily for acting as if other people save for politicians are zombies who are brain dead and without any capacity to deliver dissenting opinions from politicians. To me, that Mau saga is a no-brainer. What we have here are politicians and well placed personalities who benefited heavily from the Moi regimes nocuous handing over of forest land. These are people who shamelessly own thousands of acres of land in a place that was once a forest. If you ask me, I would advice the government to not only get that land back but also force them to plant all the trees that they cut down. But selfish politicians will never go down without a dirty fight. They say that they are fighting for their people go on using tribe as a front and votes as blackmail. What really gets me is that the media buys this hook, line and sinker. What the fcuk happened to skepticism in the media? I got to ask. These politicians never think two minutes ahead, they never have any idea what they are going to say once they reach the podium, and again I ask, what the hell is the media doing airing the views of these incorrigible bastards as if they speak for a whole community? We all know that they are the ones who own all the farms in the forest so why not call them out and expose them for what they truly are?

I have said it here before and I will say it again. Just because my name is Kibet does not mean that Ruto, the other Ruto, Moi, and all his son’s, that other young leader with a loose tongue that ought to be cut, or any other leader from the Kalenjin community speak for me. I am my own person, with a brain that works better than most, and now with a very heavy heart. My mum always told me to guard my mouth and watch my tongue, advice that has served me well. I watch the news as all these politicians speak and get angry and embarrassed at how careless with their tongues they are. Given the chance, I would be first one to kick them the hell out of the forest. But my heart sinks when the news anchors from all these channels make that ultimate mistake again and again. They attribute every word that these politicians say to a whole tribe. If that is not stupidity of the highest order, I do not know what is. I cringe every time I hear this because with every mention of these generalized remarks, it is one more step into tribal stereotyping. Do they have an idea that Kenyans regardless of tribe want people off the Mau?

If you are from any main stream media in the country and are reading this, do me, my mum and the rest of my family and a favour. DO NOT PORTRAY IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER THAT A POLITICIAN SPEAKS FOR HIS/HER TRIBE. You should more sense than what you have shown over the past few weeks. Isolate these bastards and go for them with all that you have at your disposal. By acting as if they have a following and you buying this mirage is what’s keeping them talking big and increasingly carelessly. If I was you, I would give all of them media blackout until the day they are chased out of the forest.

Finally, I have to say that I am tired. I say that nobody will ever engage me to discuss tribe or party but here I am abhorred that I have to tell the mainstream media how perceptions can be deceptive. Skepticism is a Journalistic Ideal. People lie, cheat, deceive whether on or off camera. Taking these views and presenting them the way you do should be criminal. There is only one media personality who I have to admit has managed to remain miles ahead when it comes to dealing with politicians. Louis Otieno is the man. Politicians snub his talk shows because he asks the hardest questions and he is too smart to be content with the gibberish that politicians murmur in the face of hard questions. He won’t let it go either. He is the one person that is doing anything right as far as the Media goes. I give him the props that he deserves.

Let’s save our forests people. Kick everybody out yesterday or the politcis of if will consume us all.

Classical Music, My Sweet Old Grandma and the Business Plan.

I just realized that I am not as old as I tend to carry myself. I just thought back a couple of years and realized that I was a teenager just a few years ago. Not too few though.

For the past three days, I have been sitting in this very chair that I am sitting at as I type this, reading a lot and writing bits and pieces of my business plan. Based on the research that I have done and the knowledge I have ingested so far, I strongly believe that I am investing in a good thing. To the part that am at, it has gone quite well so far. I even, finally, got the name for my company to be and was quite elated. I had some problem sleeping yesterday night and that was when the name came to me. I woke up, wrote it down on my small note book and went back to sleep. I am now thinking of the appropriate logo to go with it and then I will have my small bro Kevin who is getting better and better in design do his thing. He has too many design softwares on his comp and I am sure one of them can produce what I am looking for. And although I do not know what that will be yet, I bet you that I will know it when I see it.

I am eating yester night’s leftover food from the Sufuria as I type this because it is 2 PM and I am too tired to cook. I haven’t washed the dishes yet because my head was on its thinking spree and I have learned to make use of it when it does that because, too often, I have lost many a good an idea to memory loss merely because I did not write them down as they came. So these days, whenever a Eureka moment hits me, I write it down and then much later go over my small notebook that I always carry with me. I am usually surprised at what I find in there.

Anyway, I thought about my grandma today. She is a sweet old lady with a tough heart of gold. I saw her last a couple of years ago when I was there to burry her husband, my grandpa, a man I barely knew. I will dedicate a whole blog post to my grandma someday just to share with you what a wonderful soul she is. But today, I will tell you what she once told me and which just leaves me puzzled every time I think about it, like today.

I had gone to see her and help with the harvesting because it was that season yet again. She lives in the breadbasket of Kenya. The harvesting was cool and my stay there relaxing. But on the day that I was leaving, she walked by my side up to the gate and that is a big deal given the problems she has with her legs. I think its Arthritis though I have never heard my mum call it that. I gave her hug and as I left, she called me back, pulled my head down since she is short so that she could speak into my ears. Then she told me, “ukiwa na hawa wasichana, tumia mpira” translation “whenever you are with these girls, always use a condom.” I nodded but in my head I was thinking, “Where the hell did that come from?” You see, my eye did not wander while I was there. I am sure of that first because the bigger farm was where I spent most of the day time was really far from where she was staying and there were no beauties there, just men at work. Secondly because I am very specific about the kind women I date and that was not the place you would find them.

I wondered whether she thought of me a sly dog. I get that sometimes. I am not much of a talker and so usually say the right words when I speak. That can get you far in some quarters. I should know. Earlier during my stay, I was basking in the sunlight when she came out of her house and sat at her strategic sitting place. She was the manager of the place and from that point; she had an eye-line to all the houses in the homestead. She was sitting around 10 metres away from me and that was when she decided to give some grandmotherly advice. She doesn’t speak English but she will occasionally surprise you with word or two and sometimes sentence. That time. She spoke to me in Swahili, which she speaks immaculately. She was theatrical with her advice and people would stop and stare and laugh. She told me that when she was younger, she was very hard working. She would toil the land from morning till evening without breaking a sweat and that was the kind of girl that men were looking for. But the problem was that, as per traditions, she could not get married before her elders sisters were married off. And if you had sisters who were lazy bums, you would not get married in time.

I remember feeling embarrassed and looking for salvation when she told me things that mothers are no longer telling their sons because of shame or whatever. She said that girls would wait until their elder sisters were married off regardless of the number of suitors who showed interest in them. And for others, that was too long. This was the time she put her hands on her breasts and said, “wewe unafikiri kuna mwanaume angenioa kama matiti yangu imelala hivi?” translation “Do you think any man would have married me if my breasts were as flat as this?” She was shouting because of the distance and so everybody, even passersby were privy to our little chit chat. I remember people laughing out loud as they walked by. She was lucky that her elder sisters got married off quickly and that she soon followed suit and went ahead to have 11 children, the eldest being my dear mother. My mum is in many ways like her mother, but quieter. But the point had gone home; marry a girl who can toil the land from morning to evening without breaking a sweat, or complaining.

The only problem was that land as yardstick was no longer relevant in this day and age. In retrospect, I think I took to heart what she said more than I consciously knew. All the girls that I have dated to date first had to be respected in their own right by their peers. At times I wouldn’t know this until I was already in too deep but it has always been the case. I do not need them to toil any land but they have to have made headways, even if it is personal, to be their own person, set in most of their ways, knowing what they want from life, with life. It was as I thought of the things we had talked about in my stay there that I later realized where her advice came from. She knew that my being in town and later heading to campus and her understanding that townsfolk always test many waters before taking a dip into marriage meant that we were most at risk. At least I hope that was the reason. She might still be thinking that I am sly dog looking for bones. Whatever the case, it was strange but good to hear her at her age telling me about condoms. The Pope should be ashamed. Even mums had never told me that and she has never needed to.

But that aside, I have been able to read and write with relative ease these pat few days. I have grown tired of applying for jobs whereas I have a good head on my shoulder that I can make good use of and make some good money. I got an idea a while back, widely researched on it, and I am now learning the ropes of the business as I read and write the various aspects of how it will manifest itself in the end. I can credit my ease in doing this to the mellow neosoul music that I have been playing in the background. It has been good.

Today, I am playing classical music in the background and it just as beautiful. I can’t tell which is which from their names but there is something magical in classical music. I can see Gustav Mahler, Johann Sebastian Bach, Beethoven, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Mozart, Samuel Osborne, Ave Maria and Carmina Burana among others in the playlist. They were the best in the business. It has been a smooth ride because I have accomplished quite some workload until now. Now, the neighbour’s kid who is not really a kid but sometimes acts like one has put on the radio with crazy high volume, effectively destroying my mojo (do people still say that?) The volume is so loud that my door and windows are vibrating with the beats. He is playing that crazy kind of hip-hop in which all kinds of words that rhyme but do not make sense are given some beat and then sold to idiots who blindly blast it around like it can save a life.

I feel like walking there and punching his face in.

I don’t get what these fat ladies in the Orchestras are saying either but here I am listening to every magical sound that they are producing and feeling no need whatsoever to even look for a translation of what they are beautifully screaming about. What I get out it is enough for me and I do not go around playing it out loud for all to hear as if I am in recruitment campaign. That said, you got to love classical music. The violin, trumpets, drums, voices, and the way they take it up, bring it down, go silent, and the climax is yet to come. That is what I am listening to right now. I was told that it does some good to the brain. I do not about that. I may do an IQ test after listening to one and see whether there is any change in scores.

Hey! the bad hip-hop has stopped. I better get back to my Business Plan writing. And talking of the business plan and the nature of the business itself, I feel I should share with you a few lines of a document a friend sent me sometime back that is now proving invaluable to me today. On the last page, it says:

You see a gorgeous girl at a party and you say to her, “I am very Rich. Marry me!” That is direct marketing.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party and you get her telephone number. The next day, you call her and say, I am very Rich. Marry me! That is telemarketing.

You are at a party and see a gorgeous girl. She walks to you and says, “You are very Rich. Marry me!” That is Brand recognition.

You see a gorgeous girl and a party and say to her, “I am very Rich. Marry me!” She slaps you on the face. That is customer feedback.

And in that spirit, I felt compelled to add mine…

You see a gorgeous girl at a party. She picks up her phone and writes on her facebook and twitter profiles, “He is Very Rich.” And all her friends reply saying “Marry him!” That is Social Media Marketing.

My CFA Story.

Years back, I heard of CFA and I was elated because it was just the thing that I was looking for. I had defiantly refused to study the course that everybody else was doing (CPA) and peddling at the time. I am a proud man and CPA was not something I would be proud to have in my itinerary. I also hated the idea of accounting for other people’s money when I could be making mine. CFA was therefore the course that would give me the inroads to Millionaire status.

I decided to study CFA and went ahead to look for more information on it. I asked friends, surfed the net and eventually got a place where I could apply for it with ease. I was told to head over to the second floor of the Nation Building where those who offered the course here in Kenya were based. I remember thinking that this must definitely be the place after realizing that it was on the same floor as NSE.

I got the prospectus but became very skeptical after reading through it, more so because of the fees than anything else. The fees were similar or slightly less than that paid by those who were studying CPA at the time. That to me was a Red Flag. CFA had been touted as the greatest hurdle towards being an investment practitioner and one that took lots from one but whose rewards were equally satisfying. I was therefore curious when I saw the price tag.

I am in my mid twenties and I have many principles that are already cast in stone, one of them being “cheap is dangerous.” Quality is expensive and I don’t mind paying for it. I therefore looked deeper and came across the real CFA, offered by the CFA institute. I was disappointed that I had to wait until I was in my fourth year of campus before I could enroll for the exam but quality is also worth the wait; especially when your career is contingent on it.

I decided to use the little money that I had then to enjoy my time in campus but also to buy shares in the then many IPO’s and then use them later on when I enrolled for CFA since it does not come cheap. So I read every financial magazine I could lay my hands on, collected many more all in an attempt to get my head around the investment atmosphere in the country. This proved very useful on so many fronts.

Later on when I was in fourth year, I did not apply for CFA as I had planned to because of so many issues here and there. The most significant impediment was that I had locked all the money I had in applying for the biggest IPO in the country earlier in the year. I figured that there was enough time for me to apply for CFA after all and that applying while in my fourth was me exerting extra pressure on me.

The listing came and suddenly the IPO was not worth all the time and money I put into it. In retrospect, if I had studied CFA prior to this Safaricom IPO, I would not have bought the shares to begin with since all the evidence pointed the other way i.e. not buying was there for all to see but for few to comprehend. Anyway, I realized, albeit too late, that I had made a mistake in locking up my money in this IPO whose returns would be too negligible in the short run especially for individual investors like me.

I cleared campus in June last year, and decided that my first course of action would be to enroll for the June 2009 CFA exams. The first deadline was in September, the second in February and the third in March. With each deadline, the fees went up from USD 990, to USD1080 and lastly USD 1480 on the last deadline.

As the first deadline approached, the Kenyan shilling was exchanging at 62 KES to the USD. That meant that my fee was about 63,000 KES excluding the wiring fee. I was good to go but delayed going to the bank for no good reason. By the time I went, the rates had jumped a bit and I needed 70,000 instead to cover the same 990 USD. That I was pissed was an understatement. I was furious both at me and the guy dealing with me at the bank for the exchange rate problems.

Then I made the worst mistake ever. I asked this guy if it was possible for me to shop around for better rates and then get me those dollars so that I could deposit them. He wished me luck and off I went to every forex bureaus in town. After shopping around for a while, I found this place that gave me the best rates such that I was only 5 dollars shot. I told myself that I would deposit the 985 USD and then buy the remaining the 5 USD at the bank regardless of the rate.

Happy with what I had accomplished, I went back to the bank the next day. I told this guy that I had succeeded and I went on to reach in my pocket to remove my wallet. This surprised him because he wondered how the hell I had managed to squeeze 72 notes of 1000 KES denominations into a wallet. To his surprise, and thereafter mine, I pulled out 9 crisp 100 dollar bills , a few 20 dollar bills, a couple of 10’s and a 5, all totaling to USD 985. This guy did not have to say shit; I knew I was in deep shit the moment I saw something in his face change. “What! Don’t tell me I am in trouble…” I jumped in without him saying a word.

He nodded and I knew I was finished. This was the only day I could wire the money for it to arrive in time on the other end. He went on to tell me that I could not deposit dollars; apparently, the only way I could deposit dollars was if I had a dollar account or for them to buy my KES using their crappy rates. That meant that my dollars were no good to me. But before I put them in my pocket, I turned on this guy, got into his face about him encouraging me to go ahead and even wished me luck whereas he knew too well that I was digging my own grave. He tried to explain what he meant but I did not buy it.

In the end, I spent KES 100,000 on this exam because the rates went over the roof.

–

Anyway, I have been too busy trying set up my own thing over here and could not finish this CFA story of mine. All I can say is that it got worse before it got better. The results are coming out at the end of this month and depending on whether I pass or fail, I will either continue with this peice or leave it at that. But I sincerely do hope that I aced this thing. Things went down to the wire on this one and I am not as confident as I normally would be on such things.