Still Proud to be Kenyan.

I have just come back to edit this top part and the title of the blog. First, I have to say that following the revelation in the news just now, I am sickened though not surprised. I got over being surprised in this country a long time ago. 5 members of the KACC board, instead of their scheduled meeting were caught in the act meeting with Ringera (tunda mbovu) at a city hotel and ran after the cameras caught up with them. COMPROMISED is what the police call it when one of their own is sleeping with the enemy.

The same Advisory board to the KACC which yesterday condemned the appointment of Ringera today skipped their much hyped meeting to meet Ringera at a secret Rendezvous point.  While I will not blanketly condemn the whole board, it is sad that the very board whose powers were usurped by the president have now softened their stand and are playing the tune of  the president. Though I expected behind the scenes armtwisting to take place so that Ringera is accepted, I did not expect it to be this soon and with the Board Chairman sneaking around like a cheating husband.

Below is the blog I had written earlier in the day.

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This has been a difficult past few months for Kenyans. First we were told that there was no food, and then there was no water, and when energy went, I honestly thought that we could in no way sink further than this. But apparently I was wrong. We have sunk and this came in the way of our mad president who reappointed Ringera as the Anti-corruption czar.

From a distance, you may think that this appointment has nothing to do with the water, food and energy crisis. Look closer. Is the big picture getting clearer? If it isn’t, I will educate you.

For starters, we have no water in the country. Blame the gods all you want but we all know that we had a big hand in all of this. Since independence, our shameless leaders have been handing away land to their families and friends like lollipops. These are not lands situated in Kitui, or Samburu, or in North Eastern but rather are prime land inside our then forests, now ranches. From Aberdare, through Mount Elgon to Mau, forests were felled to make way for farm land and this is going on to date. These were our water catchment areas and they have run dry. The acquisition of these forest lands were in no way legal. Furthermore, there were those illegal connections redirecting water from needy Kenyans to some influential affluent personalities’ homes. These were corrupt deals by the various regimes and hence the work of the anti-corruption commission which Ringera headed.

Then the food crisis came and we had a thousand reasons for it. We blamed it on the post election violence, and then the drought, and finally the funny dealings by our leading politicians in the name of Ruto and some relation of the Prime minister. The result has been the starvation of nearly 10 million Kenyans. Those that did not starve would have been given poisoned maize had alarm not been raised. Yes, for people to starve the way they are now, some people are making good money trading on this bad fortune of “shortage.” When people could not relent in demanding accountability because they did not take lightly people trading on their livelihoods, there was questioning of these leading figures by the anti-corruption commission which Ringera headed.

On the energy crisis, I do not where to begin. We can say that the water which ran dry because the forest cover land illegally allocated to influential figures has effectively killed the water catchment areas is to blame. But then again you have to question why a power generating plant has taken close to two decades to be completed. But then again you could look at the president commissioning that energy project way before it was ready as the reason two decades would pass before something gets done. There was also that guy who caused a loss of close to KES 8 billion and then was handed a one way ticket India. These are all corruption cases because somebody did something that they should not have and which have put us in the crisis we are in today. Ringera who headed the anti-corruption commission had his men look into this I think.

For clarity, I am saying he headed because I hoping and others are praying that with legality of his reappointment being an issue, he will not see the inside of the KACC unless he is the one now being questioned by a more competent less partisan, correctly vetted, and legally appointed Director.

So there you have it. The entire crises we are facing as a country have a corruption bearing and to avert future crisis, it is important that this institution that is called KACC is headed by a competent and impartial person. Under Section 8, sub-section 3 of the Act of parliament that set up the KACC, the advisory board is supposed to the recommend the names of the director and his assistants to the national assembly and once approved they go the executive who can the sign off on them. The wisdom of those who coined that clause sought to ensure that what the president has just done could not be done, legally. It also sought to ensure that a competent and impartial person would survive the vetting process and lead this important institution. This appointment therefore represents another crisis for the country, one which should not be swept under the carpet because there is already too much garbage there is no longer any space under there.

Ringera is not a toothless tiger; he is not even a wolf in sheep clothing, no! He is a chameleon in a plain lizard’s clothing. Five years ago, I gave him the benefit of doubt and looking back at his record, no more attaching benefits to my doubts. If I doubt you, prove first that you are beyond reproach and then the benefits come without the baggage of doubt. Ringera was at the helm when KACC when the Angloleasing scandal came calling but he refused to answer to his call of duty. Instead, according to Michela Wrong’s book, he accompanied Kimunya to London to try and convince the only man who answered the call and exposed this scandal, Mr. Githongo, to put a seal on it. I do not know about you but when you hire a hyena to guard the hen house, that is exactly what you get. This is a whole anti-corruption chief who was involved in the cover up of a scandal regarding his relations. And then he is put in charge for a second term! We all know what that means, right.

Kibaki is a man of many hats which have made him hard of hearing. Before he started acting funny, I was his staunchest supporter. Now, I am his biggest critic and I let that known from the onset and if I were to have a one on one with him, guest what I will call him to his face. Over the years, I have learned that I sleep better at night when I say what needs to be said without beating around the bush. So here goes… Kibaki stole the elections felt nothing. He in fact went into state house and slept for two months as the country burned. Then he came out and acted surprised, wondering what all the fuss was all about. It is said that we will complain all day and night for even a month and he will not do shit about the appointment. He will not even react to all these words against him. Then when we keep quiet, he will have had his way. True. That is how he has survived to date. And that is why I support the Imanyara motion which strips his ass off immunity. We’ll then see whether he will choose to keep quite when he has charges to answer to.

Ringera is the only man Kibaki trusts to cover his ass. He has done that successfully for five years and Kibaki needs a man of Ringera’s moral aloofness to protect him and his cronies. I have heard LSK and Human Rights bodies claim that they will head to court to protest this appointment. I wish them luck. But given that the head of the Judiciary donned his official gear on a Sunday and swore in the president at night without as much as the national anthem playing, I doubt these legal efforts will go far. If this guy can turn a blind eye to the constitution of Kenya, he won’t even have to turn not to notice a mere legal order by a judge that he appointed and hurriedly swore in while his justice minister (the one that resigned in protest) was out of the country. Again, I do not know about you but I am keeping count of all the affronts that this guy is doing against my beloved country. When the immunity goes, I am moving in. These people must learn to respect the rule of the law. The law may be an ass but it should be an ass to all of us on equal measure. I hear Moi now coming out of the woodwork. He may be right on some issues but if I were Kibaki, his ass would be in Kamiti or his land and that of his project in the hands of squatters.

But since Kibaki is now our (this generation’s) problem, he should pray that he dies before this country gets better otherwise, he will wish Ocampo would have come for him and taken him to those fancy jails out there.

I will confess again that Mutahi Ngunyi may have been right when he said that the legacy of Kibaki may be to sink this country so low that we cannot sink any lower. The only other way would be up. I am hoping that this Ringera appointment is rock bottom but knowing this man, he has his henchmen digging day and night for a new low and he might soon declare Jimmy his project.

Do you get the feeling that Iran might just be better than Kenya as far as the various Human and Civil Rights go? Although we could be similar as far as corruption, vote rigging, media bans, and the blame game go too, they seem more tolerant of peaceful dissent than we are.

I must say I was impressed to see women for the first time getting involved in active campaigning during the electoral process in Iran. The leading lady who was involved in the campaign process was in the person of Mrs. Mousavi. And that was not all, not only were women active in the campaign process, they are now more than ever vocal, vociferous and no longer victims as has been the case in most Muslim countries that see women as second tier citizens. I had this big smile on my face as I saw these young, gorgeous, educated and eloquent ladies making their case in front of the camera, with men behind them, nodding. Better still, the anchor went ahead to say that there were more women in Tehran Universities than there were men… no wonder the men were behind the women, nodding. And that was a great thing to see, first because it crashed the view that all Muslim women are the sat on, submissive, illiterate, uneducated, subjugated type, and second because it showed that women are on the path to something greater no only in Iran but in the greater Islamic faith.

Iranians were organized in their pre election campaigns, with debates, rallies and as expected in most democracies, there was also mud slinging and all other underhand tactics that opponents use to get an edge over their counterparts. But the mostly used, illegal, yet most preferred by incumbent regimes has been vote rigging using state machinery and influence. We saw it happen in Kenya in the 2007 elections and it is claimed to have happened in the Iranian elections last Friday. If you have read this blog for a while now, you will know that I don’t think much of Kibaki; and neither will our history. If it were not for the part of learning from history bit that people are always encouraged to do, I would have preferred a blank be put in the years that this guy was and will be president. That said; Iran is now going through the same problem we did when Kibaki rigged his way into office, though various differences emerge and which define both the similarities and differences in Human and Civil Rights issues of both countries.

First of all, I have not heard that much about how the alleged rigging took place. It probably did and if so, it was the slick kind of rigging that Moi had perfected where ballots get lost without a trace. Kibaki was crude in his rigging; in fact, the crudeness of his rigging defines his leadership style and subsequently the mess after mess after me that we continuously find ourselves in. This guy was so crude that in his defense, he became childlike saying, “the others also did it”. Do you remember when you were a kid and you got caught red handed doing something you wasn’t supposed to be doing, your first cause of action would be dropping dime on your siblings hoping it would lessen the punishment you would receive or thinking it suddenly made things right if the others did it too. So Iran is stuck with claims of rigging and the President is having a rough time settling into office as opposition organizes rally after rally after rally, demanding a rerun. In retrospect, do you find it curious that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Kenya prior to the elections? He might have been taking advice on the do’s and don’ts of the rigging process and the aftermath.

It is no wonder that Cartoonists are having such a field day comparing the Iranian post election debacle with Kenya’s and there was one actually showing Ahmadinejad wondering whether to call Kibaki, Raila, Mugabe, or Tsvangirai for advice.

After Kibaki stole the elections here, I was furious. It was my first time to vote and to have my vote violated like that destroyed something in me. “Have you no shame?” are the words of my high school principal which came to mind every time I saw that man on TV. Our principal used to ask us that whenever we had done those things that cannot be mentioned during the day. Here I found myself wondering; what makes a man drive a country to the precipice and yet feel not even an ounce shame? Iranians now say their election was stolen and are demanding a rerun and not a recount because as was the case here, a recount will do nothing to make right the wrongs of a flawed process. But unlike Iran, we had a tougher time dealing with Kibaki and his henchmen for they had a greater motivation to protect their turf; greed and delusions of grandeur. Rarely before had the Civil Society in this country been that active. Their demands that the Government acknowledge our Human and Civil rights automatically made them enemies of the state. This was like a thief stealing from you and then going ahead to block your only road to the courts to seek justice.

“Where is my vote?” so read (and rightly so) the placard of a young Iranian woman who is one of the many people who have been protesting the flawed reelection of Ahmadinejad.

Kenyans like me whose votes meant nothing since the race had been decided way before it started also wondered, “where were our votes?” but unlike Iranians, we did not have the luxury of protesting. I wanted to but too many people were getting shot and killed. As I said, I was really angry because my first time to vote saw my vote not count. Rigging is the worst thing you can do in a democracy because it kills the faith in the whole process and when people lose faith, chaos and anarchy reign because fear becomes the next avenue of consolidating power – which is what is happening now if you unveil the Mungiki, the extra judicial killings, the assassinations, and the appointments to crucial positions in the country. Though these appointments, alignments and positioning usually come up to ward off any attacks, they have instead, on the contrary, become the launch pads of attacks themselves. But I digress.

Because of the rigging, I felt this urge to go out to the streets to look for my vote. I felt this deep compulsion to put the president to task, and ask him where the hell my vote was. I felt compelled to do my best, in my small way, to make this president’s stay in office the worst ever, beginning with continuous demonstrations reminiscent of the ones in Thailand. But I did not get to do any of those things because the Government did not let me. My right to free speech, right to assembly, and most of my other fundamental human rights were suspended though a presidential decree because my exercising them would not augur well for any illegitimate Government. Of those who dared demonstrate, over 400 died from police bullets. And as far as I am concerned, this government still owes me a demonstration that I should have gone to when Kibaki stole the elections.

I expected Iran to ban demonstrations like Kenya did which it did; I also expected them to reign in on the media, which it also did but went further to also block many social networking sites and other popular sites that can be used to disseminate information. That is in many respects similar to what happened here after the elections. But there is also a marked difference in the way that those dissenting with the ban were dealt with. Similar to Kenya, opposition supporters still went to the streets daily since the elections, and will probably continue to do for the foreseeable future. The ban is still outstanding, and in the first days of the demonstrations, there were 7 deaths (now said to have risen to 15) reported and fewer or none thereafter; it is bad but at least the number is not over 400 as was the case in Kenya when the police shot and killed demonstrators. There was dissent in both places yet there were more deaths here.

Some of you will argue that the demonstrations were banned for national security, BULLSHIT! Once again, this was a lame excuse to deny Kenyans their fundamental rights and freedoms, both of which are guaranteed in our constitution. The opposition in Iran has defied the order banning demonstrations and went ahead to organize theirs, everyday of the week since the elections. That presents us with another marked difference. I wanted to carry a placard asking where my vote was because like many Kenyans who have since swore not to vote ever again; I felt aggrieved by some insolent corrupt old men in office who stole my democratic right using government machinery. I may have voted for them but the whole point of democracy is for the majority to have their way and for the minority to have their say. But when the minority have their say and then force their way; hegemony, autarchy, oligarchy, are the words and not democracy. Iranians defied the ban and yet I do not see the chaos that Kibaki foresaw when he banned demonstrations here and his force killed over 400 people in the crack down on dissenting demonstrators. I only see swarms of people, marching silently in the streets of Tehran, having their say. Was that so much to ask for?

This is usually the point where most Kenyans start taking sides, labeling me as a sympathizer or hater of one party or tribe or another. Put that aside for a while and consider this. Kibaki stole the elections (no arguments there) and got sworn in under the cover of darkness; which was as good as stamping his face with a GUILTY sign. Come the next elections, the next party will as easily rig itself into power and nobody will have the moral authority to question them because, “hey! You did it too” seems to do as a valid justification. You’ve got to make a stand somewhere, and since this was my first time to vote, and my vote did not count, I will make an example out of Kibaki, the culprit who in this case stole my vote and not in the way that a girl steals my heart.

Iran has banned the media from broadcasting the protest but as I have come to see, Iranians are a resourceful lot. They have found ways of accessing the banned websites using proxies. I heard of a program called TOR that people in those countries that block access to certain websites can use to access those very sites. This program tricks the system that those accessing the sites are doing so from beyond the borders yet they are in those very countries and cannot be detected, thus the proxy bit. In this information age, it is almost futile to try and stop or suppress the flow of information whether by bullet or by bans. It is this blockage that ignited fears of rigging in the first place in Iran. During the Election Day, the opposition could not communicate because their primary communication channels were jammed with help from the Incumbent, effectively preventing coordination and communication from the different voting centres across the country. In a democracy, elections should not only be fair but must also be seen to be fair; a point that most Kenyans seems to miss as they consistently argue about who was right and who was wrong.

I was watching ‘Freedom of Speech,’ a stand up comedy by Eddie Griffin where he talked about the fight between Christianity and Islam about who the messenger was between Jesus and Mohammed. To which he said with finality, “Fcuk who the messenger was! The question is; did you get the message.” That is the whole point that I am trying to make with regard to democracy in Kenya. Fcuk who won the election! The question is; was it free and fair?

The ban on the media in Iran showed me something else about Iran. There are close to 23 million internet users in Iran. It gets better. Iran has the highest per capita bloggers in the World. It is said that there are over 60,000 bloggers in Iran. These are like 60,000 media houses. Try banning them or controlling what they write; it is migraine making affair. As luck would have it, most of these bloggers support the opposition and they are active as ever having their say and the world is watching, reading, and tuning in. In comparison, there are relatively very few bloggers in Kenya and our internet penetrations levels are abysmal to say the least. But the potential is there and that is what counts. I myself love blogs because of their interactive nature as merits and demerits of a post are dissected but more so because it is the purest form of unrestricted freedom of speech. Here, I will have my say regardless of a ban, the threat of a bullet, and I can do it from a bunker. I was not a blogger yet when my vote went MIA but I am now and I will make sure I write until words fail me.

I hate being made a fool of especially by fools. It is not that the fools lied and I bought it, rather, it was that the fools lied, cheated, stole, and they made sure that there was nothing I could do about it without having a having bullet through me. This country owes me a demonstration through which I would have demanded that my vote not only be counted but also must also count. This country owes me a placard that should have read, WHERE IS MY VOTE? This country owes me and every other right thinking Kenyan who never got the chance to express their disappointment, discontent and utter disgust of the electoral process an avenue to finally vent these out through our guaranteed rights to assemble. And for every peaceful protest that the opposition in Iran go for, this country owes me a chance to prove that all I wanted was to walk, demonstrate for my vote, dissent peacefully, carrying my placard, having my say, and then going back home. This country owes me that and I swear I will have my say, one day, and not just in this blog but also in Uhuru park which Ironically means Freedom, that many Kenyans were denied.

In retrospect, can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been for the Government to expect utter chaos but like Iran today, only get hundreds of thousands of people, walking silently, dissenting peacefully? It is my belief that the police were put in place to bring the chaos so that the Government can have yet another excuse to reign in on peoples rights and freedoms.

Iranians are better off than Kenyans in as far as they have handled themselves after their election. Similar yet so different, wouldn’t you agree?

“We are corrupt because we are Africans!” that was the retort by our immediate former mayor when cornered about the rampant corruption in the council. And to imagine that this guy, our mayor, said this in his defense to the corruption charges laid against him and his council is what finally did me in. What he implied by his callous remarks was that corruption was beyond Africans to curb. I swear I could have punched him.

This was our mayor. The setting was that which most African states have become used to, and continuously relied on even after independence: on the one end of the table, an expatriate(s) with access to donor funding from either the EU, World Bank, IFC, or other large donor foundations like Danida and Sida, while on the other end are the stakeholders, representatives from the “affected” community. These stakeholders are usually led by their local “leaders” in the begging procession. The projects are usually many and on the most part well intentioned – read – doing what our leaders should have done.) It was in one such meeting with a few foreigners in the mix when this now former mayor made those remarks.

Earlier on in the year, I had had several interactions in various meetings with this mayor and also with some of the councilors in other meetings that I will talk about further on. In one such meeting, this mayor was the Guest Speaker, more because the sole beneficiary of the project was the council itself and less because he would have made a good guest speaker. Hell! Average was too much to expect from him. Suffice to say he made a fool of himself, and with that spoilt what would have been an otherwise exceptional seminar. He couldn’t even read the speech that he came with. From my usual back seat, I saw many businessmen from the town who were in attendance look away, down, back, anywhere but the front, in shame at every ignorant statement and bushisms that this mayor made…

That was just our mayor… While the councilors who elected him were not as stupid, they were corrupt to the core, shameless in their every action, and hypocritical in their every utterance. I went to these invitation only meetings, seminars, and conferences while I was still in campus. I was close to the one person who had the ticket to all these meetings and who saw me as an apprentice (still does) and hence let me into the thick and thin of things in town. I got to know the politics in the business community here, understood the subtle workings of businesses that are usually not obvious to those without the right leverage. The mayor did not attend most of these meetings and instead councilors came and councilors are another thing altogether. Before you get councilors to come on the table for any constructive meeting, there must be something in it for them – allowances or trips to plush hotels in other towns are almost a must these days, on top of the free lunch that they have been used to.

Talking of lunch… there was one particular meeting at classy hotel in which we had called the councilors to discuss the launch of a project, done by others, for them. After the meeting was done, some minutes before lunch, people started heading off, but not the councilors. Instead of launch, they had heard LUNCH, and wanted us to foot the bill. No wonder they came!!!

Finally to what I set off to write about today, LAND…

Last year, while still in campus, I was privy to attend a stakeholders meeting between the World Bank consultants, the Council, the business community (which I represented) and the larger community. In this meeting, we sought to discuss the interim report by the World Bank consultants, which they had done to determine what projects were feasible, and to what extent they needed funding, and more importantly how the funds will be effectively allocated and spent. Anyway, in this meeting, several issues came up that rocked me to the core as far as land is concerned. Land came up in the first place because Nakuru town is boxed up – prevented from expanding by the Lake on one end, and the Menengai crater on the other end. As we threw in ideas on how best to expand, land issues emerged.

The councilor seated next to me said that we could not expand because there was no space to expand to. I asked if the estates nearby could be reconverted from residential areas and the have investors build offices there, the way it happened with Upper-hill in Nairobi. Nothing!!! The same councilor responded by saying that there was nothing that they could do about it when the question of a road that had been grabbed arose. This is a whole council that had given in, saying they could do nothing when public land, that they need to Ok before any transaction takes place, is grabbed. Taking land grabbers to court is the most obvious recourse, but which was still suggested so as not to leave any stone unturned. You can never know what incompetence will overlook. When we pressed that those who have grabbed the council’s land should be taken to court, yet another surprise was in the offing…

“We have never won a case in court.” I do not know whether he was exaggerating when he said this, but that was what one of the councilors said. Since this country got its independence, this council has never won a case in court. Land grabbers have come and stayed, and the council is almost running out of land to be grabbed… From what I gathered, the only piece of land that the council owned was a small plot at the edge of town. It has since been developed so I guess someone got to it, eventually.

And the questions to be asked and whose answers we will not like are these?

• If a whole council cannot win a case against well connected, well oiled, land grabbers in this country, can an individual get Justice?
• If councilors shy away from accosting land grabbers for fear of their lives (one actually said this), what does it mean for you if your land gets grabbed next?
• If your councilor, the one you elected, cannot do shit for you when your land is grabbed, what can you do for you and more importantly, of what use is your councilor?
• If these land grabbers get away with their less that honourable deals because they are well connected, who are they connected to? And what does that say about the morality of our leaders.
• Does a title deed mean anything anymore when people with genuine title deeds are chased from their prime land by well connected people with fake title deeds forged in shady River Road offices ran by Government officials?

(Well connected clearly means that they know powerful people in Government – both executive and Judiciary – and thugs for hire too. Both ways, Justice is not served, and your land walks. People are not well connected if the people they can access are also accessible to the rest of the public, and who lend an ear to all and sundry.)

I am currently studying CFA and this is what I came across one volume back…

This particular paragraph dealt with equality of opportunity. The topic clearly read that, “It’s not Fair if the Rules aren’t Fair.” A philosopher, Robert Nozick in a book entitled Anarchy, State, and Utopia – 1974 is quoted. Nozick argues that fairness must be based on the fairness of the rules. He suggests that fairness obeys tow rules:

1. The state must enforce laws that establish and protect private property.
2. Private property may be transferred from one person to another only by voluntary exchange.

Kenya fairs badly on both accounts. We have a state yes, but it is the agents of the state that instead of enforcing laws that protect private property, do the exact opposite by violating the second rule above. If you are the owner of prime land, voluntary exchange is not at play here since people will make deals behind your back, go above you to ensure that those you can run to can’t or won’t help you, and then come back and kick you and your genuine title deed to the kerb. Do you remember that chief (a government official) in Eastliegh whose container of an office was pushed to the side of the road like a kiosk after the land it was standing in was grabbed? Like the councilor above, he has come to understand that even the government, local or otherwise can be victim of land grabbing, usually aided and abetted by the more powerful arms of the same government.

I cannot forget to mention the Mau Forest when I talk about land in Kenya. Mau forest has undergone systematic destruction since the Moi regime to date. Having ran out of parastatal land to dish out, the then President allocated forest land to his loyalists who are today running huge ranches up there to the detriment of the rest of us who are living down here with the Flamingoes. These people claim that they bought that land which is beside the point. My uncle, a man I respect a lot, bought land in a place called Saboti in Trans Nzoia district, the bread basket of the country. This land (you simply couldn’t tell) was allegedly once a forested area. But since my uncle and his neighbours are not politically connected like those people who are cutting down the Mau to establish massive ranches, the government simply moved in and kicked everybody out – no refunds, no nothing. There was no this nonsense of establishing committees to find out who is in the Mau “legally?” My uncle bought his land too, but he was all the same kicked out because it was once a forest land… Do not negotiate with these guys; just kick the whole lot out, yesterday!

My mum just told me that the manager of one of the hotels in the National Park where she works just bought land for the IDP’s that have been living in camps for the past one year. While ordinary Kenyans with average incomes sacrifice their money to buy others land, there are politicians who are running around complaining that there are IDP’s all over the place yet they themselves own districts of land (stolen by their fathers) and who have not even housed a single squatter or displaced family. If you open your eyes, you will notice these wretched lot too and deny them your votes come the next election. If a man with a land so big that you have to travel by car from one district to the other just to get to the other end cannot give an acre to the squatters and displaced persons of this country, do you think that he will do anything for you if ever he is elected president? Some things like the urge to help people in need are intrinsic, but so is selfishness and hence the status quo that exists today.

I know that land might sometime in the future loose that value that it now has. I was hoping to build my house in a nice place, with trees, nice grass, a garden, a good enough view if not great, and like the woman I will marry, without nasty baggage, but such places are few and far between and almost always come with baggage. Before I find such a place, if ever, apartments will have to do.