This year, the focus of the Amnesty International Demand Dignity Campaign will focus on the following three theme:

1. Slums
2. Maternal Mortality
3. Corporate Accountability

Over the next few days, weeks and months, expect posts on this blog to focus on the above theme with a very strong bias to the Kenyan situation as concerns them.

So last year I decided not to look for employment ever. Big decision for a young person just out of campus and broke. But there is more where that came from. Earlier when I was at the University, I had always proclaimed that immediately after campus, I would work for two years straight and then quit to start my business – regardless of the salary I was earning. But a year after campus, I was still deep into books reading to improve my chances of getting employed in one of these financial institutions. No need to say that things were not going according to plan.

Then the idea came and I turned it inside out in my head and finally thought – this could actually work. But for it work, I needed to dedicate a lot of time to it and for me to do that, I had to make yet another resolution – never to waste my time looking for job. This resolution ensured that I also could not afford to fail at making this idea a reality.

With that out of the way, I went back to an entrepreneurship booklet I had gotten while at the university and which I thought would come in handy when I went out on my own. I had printed it out – the 65 pages of it – bound it and kept it someway I could come across it almost on a daily basis so that it could remind me of my plans for it. I opened the booklet and letting it be my guiding light wrote my business plan from the executive summary to the budget and projections, never missing anything in between. It was an eye opener in terms of forcing me to take into consideration parameters I would have other wise ignored.

After three months of intense research and writing day in day out, my business proposal was ready and so was I to hit the Banks with it to get a loan for the initial capital I needed. But before I could start, a friend who I had met while I was at the university was in town and while exchanging courtesies after he asked me what I was up to, the very idea I had crafted my business idea around was what he was looking for. So I got my first client and a month later I was paid. This payment covered part of my initial costs which included the cost of putting up a website.

Throughout this period, I had been experimenting on the layout of my website which was then locally hosted as I played around with the codes. Note however that I never went to a computer school to learn the basics when it was the norm for everybody after school. I taught myself everything and that includes how to develop a descent website. That meant incurring costs of website development was not in my budget. Also during this period, I was writing content for the site and had quite a number of blogs ready for the site. So after the cheque cleared in late December, I decided to launch the website. But issues kept coming up such that by 30th December 2009, the website was not up. But I was not going to be denied and on 31st night, at 11 pm, the website in its most basic form went up and so did my first blog for my business.

Today, my website Socialight Media Kenya stands very strong with traffic steadily streaming in and inquiries about the services I offer slowly trickling in.

The past two months have been fraught with all those teething problems that I guess all businesses go through as they struggle to get steady footing. There have been mistakes on my part, near misses where I almost got big accounts but did not quite have a firm enough grasp. But still I soldiered on because failure is not an option. I sleep late and wake early every single day to ensure that all foundations of my business are strong. Online, I am busy creating a name for myself in this industry by writing in increasing depth about social media use organizations.

I have not earned enough yet to cover all my initial costs but I am close.I threw the idea of a loan out of the window and will not revisit it again until maybe my next project which I have plans of putting in place in the next 6 -12 months God willing.

But as I become busy with business, I am beginning to have issues with her. A couple of times I have postponed seeing her when I am in the city because of other business commitments. Sometimes she hides that she is pissed but she knows she will use those moments as ammunition  when we get into a fight. But what choice do I have? I cannot fore-go a business opportunity to take my broke ass to her! Can I? That is not me and I tell her that this is that time in the business where I must breath, eat and sleep business because my business is me and it cannot breath on its own yet. Soon it will but for now, I am the support mechanism, the air it breathes and the blood running through its veins. She understands that sometimes but sometimes she refuses to because she needs to fight or blame.

That aside, I am doing good. And feel free to visit my business website and putting links to it in your respective blogs or recommending people my way when they need any services that have to do with new/social media.

And when I am not here, I am there making ends meet.

The Story

Al Faisal is Muslim of Jamaican descent. Due to his known pronunciations and associations with people calling for death to “Infidels”, no country wants to be associated with him certainly no plane is willing to fly him anywhere. So the poor bastard who got into Kenya through our porous borders, legally, was arrested and has been wailing in detention as the Government frantically tries to find ways and means to deport him either to Gambia or Jamaica. The Government sees this man as a threat to security and will therefore not allow him to roam around freely like the tourist that he claims to be.

The Side-Story

Some of our Muslim brothers believe that is a human rights issue and that the Government is acting Guantanamo Bayish. Detention without trial is frowned upon in Human Rights circles and because of that, these Muslim brothers of us have been telling anybody who cares to listen that Al Faisal should either be released or deported. They claim that this man has done no wrong and detention without any charges leveled against him is just wrong. Frankly, they have a humans rights as well as a legal case. But does it hold water when we consider Al Faisal the man.

The Dilemma

This might be what you call a catch 22 situation. The Government cannot let a man with terrorist inclinations roam around freely, even with a tourist visa. In addition, it known the world over that Al Faisal is in Kenya and hence deniability as an excuse (which Kenya does quite well) has been quashed as an option. Third, Al Shabaab is becoming a household name in Kenya and given the war of words and threats of attack Al Shabaab, detention without trial of a terrorist sympathizer of theirs sound about right. The Muslim brothers fighting on behalf of Al Faisal refuse to see it as a security issue and choose to see it as a profiling of sorts. The Government has already shown its willingness to deport this guy but no country, even Nigeria, is willing to give this guy a mere transit visa to Gambia. The Government on that end cannot be blamed for not trying but still supporter of Al Faisal insist on his release or deportation. Frankly, that there are problems getting him to a destination outside Kenya is a problem of Al Faisal’s own making and he should share the bulk of the blame.

The Stupid

I am all for freedom of speech and human rights. But whereas freedom of speech should not be impeded in any way, the same leeway should not and cannot be extended to action. If Osama or any of his murderous colleagues make your day, you have the right to sing hymns in his praise or defense. But when it comes to acting on his murderous tendencies; that is where we draw the line. Some of our Muslim brothers who felt afflicted by Al Faisal’s incarceration had the right to march peacefully, but turning it into a violent stone throwing fiasco, that was uncalled for and just stupid. The Kenyan Government is also to blame (as always) because any rally, unless Government sanctioned ones by the politically correct people, rarely are allowed. So trouble was scheduled to brew when the under orders teargas wielding live bullets packing police and stone wielding young misguided Muslim protesters met.

The Preposterous

As if we always have a knack for reinventing new lows, the police response to the stupid was just preposterous. Teargas and live bullets are the usual suspects when it comes to crushing protests in Kenya. But this protest was different because in addition to the two usual suspects, there was a third element in the form of young stone throwing non-Muslim Kenyans. It was shameful to see the Police side by side with these non-Muslim Kenyans attacking the Muslim protestors. The Police is mandated to protect and serve and here they were attacking Muslims protestors and even at one point standing aside as these young non-Muslim Kenyans attacked the Muslim Protestors. We have only just come out of a bitter tribal warfare and here we had the police aiding and abetting what could be construed as a religious warfare. How dare they take sides when both parties were squarely in the wrong?

The Scary

The scary bit in all these is the speed at which people stopped whatever they were doing to start stoning the Muslim Protestors. If this is how quickly it takes for one party to attack another on religious difference grounds, are we really safe from each other on the tribal front. I am scared that being this quick to pick up a stone against someone of a different religion means that it will not take much for a politician to incite yet another tribal bloodshed for political capital. And more worrying is the police response because if they were comfortable to retreat or fight side by side with non-Muslim Kenyans against the protestors, what is to stop them from withdrawing into their tribal cocoons and exacerbating murders committed by people in their cocoon? And at a time when we have barely reconciled our tribal differences, why the hell would we want to exacerbate religious differences? Can we really survive a tribal and a religious one as well?

The Ridiculous

What I found ridiculous was the Minister for Internal Security and the Government Mouthpiece. The Minister in his characteristic way claimed that the buck does not stop with him. He further insinuated that this was the work of the Al Shabaab Militia and the hence the reason it got out of control. But these are excuses that are aimed at directing the heat away from those responsible to those willing to take the Blame like the Al Shabaab.

But let’s face it; these guys were not the Al Shabaab Militia, they were Kenyans. The Al Shabaab Militia are a murderous lot whose tools of trade include machine guns, RPG’s and other forms of Rocket Launchers, Grenades and Suicide bombers. Does the minister really think that the battle hardened militia would leave their tools of trade behind to come and throw stones in Nairobi?

If the Al Shabaab Militia were present, we would be talking a different story in terms of the dead and injured.

That’s just my two cents.

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.

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 9^th of December and the last born on the 10^th 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)