Dispatch from Mombasa

On December 1st the world will be marking the world Aids day. Much of it will be lost in pomp and fanfare organized by civil society activists, non-governmental organizations and government fat cats all of whom will be having one thing in common, that at the end of the day they will make a quick buck at the expense of remembering all those who have been felled by the HIV Aids scourge. They will also line up school children to vigorously wave flags at no one in particular ostensibly in passing the message that Aids is a killer. For the adult women they will ensure that the red ribbon is pinned at the farthest tip of their breasts so that it stands out clear and sends the message that aids is real. For me the world aids day will be different, it is a time that I want to dedicate to two most important people that fell because of these cruel disease whose origin has remained a matter of conjecture and blame game between the west and Africa over who is really responsible with its origin....

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In my neighborhood, we live at the mercy of petty drug addicts who are called “Teja ” Now a Teja is a person who is so addicted to hard drugs like bhang and heroin and will do anything to ensure that they get a fix of the substances. And their modus operandi is in a way simple yet lethal and has left tears in many a woman.   What they usually do is lay about on matatu stages just like any other customer. Mostly they will hang near the window of a vehicle and when it is just about to move, they will grab a woman’s purse and disappear mainly in the labyrinth of alleys that is characteristic of Mombasa.   Usually they work in a hunting pack and when a person shouts thief, the rest of the team will join in shouting thief in a way aimed at providing a decoy more than helping capture the thief. When they raid people’s homes they will steal small things like sufurias and spoons, irons and DVD players. If you get one in the cookie jar he will tell you he was just trying to see if...

Dunga must be wondering what hit the Samba boys. The first time that a goal has been scored against them is also the first time that the team packs its bags and leaves South Africa. Dunga must be wondering what went wrong. At a time when his team had everything going, the Dutch with their bald heads overturned everything. And  as if that is not enough Phillipe Mello was red-carded for a hard tackle on Brazilians Arjen Rorben. But anyway, Dunga should take heart. This is Africa and it is proving to be the graveyard for big teams. He should be counting himself lucky he did not leave at the preliminary stages. He should at least pat himself on the shoulder for having done exceedingly well above England, Portugal and the defending champions Italy. His star players like Kaka, Robinho Lucio and goalkeeper Julio Ceaser must be wondering what their so called superior close knitted game gave them. Balderdash!!! Well it is not fair to punish a man who is already down, but truth be sa...

You have heard about the story of the pied piper of hammelin. He who asked to be paid to clear rats from the city of Hammelin. At the end of the story we are told that he who pays the piper calls for the tune. And none other than the Prime Minister Jakom Raila Odinga has said that MPs are being paid to ask questions in parliament. It is not a new thing, we have heard about it before. We have heard how multinationals would foot the bill for first class flights to beach resorts and also pay hefty allowances to the not so honourable members to ensure that bills that would curtail their profits do not see the light of the day. They would also ensure that if they see, it is in an empty chamber where a quorum can't be raised. My concern is have we become a nation of hirilings dancing to many tunes of the people paying us? If it is not Mps who are being hired to ask questions for pay it is the journalists who will be writing stories for pay. They will be penning stories that fav...

There are times when I have been accused of being too pessimistic. A person who never sees anything positive in the future, but who is forever lost in the glory of the past. They say this because whenever I begin to tell of a story I will begin by quoting the good times of the past. How things used to be easy, how then it was a small task to bring down a girl for a quick lay etc. etc. And now that I have grown old and bald I seem to have been caught up in that past and any attempt to move out of it seems to be a mountainous task. Take heart for I am not alone. I can at least boast of contemporaries like the Cameroon’s soccer team the Indomitable Lions, France National team Les Blues and England’s national team . The way they have performed at the SWC 2010 leaves a lot to be desired. Is Cameroon really the Indomitable Lions or tail between the legs rained-on old lions whose past is now a shadow? Roger Miller must be nursing heartaches remembering the good old times when Cameroon was a ...

Where I come from, we rarely talk about hens. The only time a hen counts is when it has laid an egg or when it has hatched chicks. And in the chicks what gets noticed early is how many among them will grow up to become full blown cocks, to engage in the favourite past time of chasing hens for a quick lay. Yet even as the chicks grow, there is always the fear of the eagle. The patient, sharp eyed and calculated bird that feeds on chicks. Many chicken keepers will tell you that the eagle is the ultimate enemy in chicken farming. Why all this chicken crap? Watching the Nigerian super eagles play I was left wondering whether they were really eagles or domestic fowls. I really did not know whether the roles had been reversed and the eagles had become chicken to the Greeks. Things were not any better when Sam Kaita was sent off for a stupid stud kick on Greece's Vassilis Torosidis and I guess that is when things hit a rock. Disjointed and unco-ordinated football became the norm as t...

It is hard to explain in words what I went through when I saw Bafana Bafana being wallowed in goals. Someone might just say that they are not our people neither are they our relatives, so why bother. But truth be told their loss was my loss. Of course, the Paraguayans were the better team. They made Bafana Bafana look like a village team used to play mpira wa makaratasi and had just been introduced to a real football. They ran rings around them and at the end of the day, they whipped them with three goals. I can't say that I enjoyed the game and especially when they absorbed so many goals. I really hurt inside me. I really wanted Carlos Alberto Pareira to do some magic and make the team tick . But that only happened in my mind. He never did that and to add insult to injury, the goalie was sent off for a tackle that I am not sure was not a professional jump from the Paraguan. The question is how many of the african coaches are aware that they do not have their teams and countries b...

The debate for a new constitution has gained momentum and just like a wave in the ocean nothing seems to stand on its way. To me it all seems like the document has been passed and what remains is to see what will happen in trying to implement what many have called a very ambitious document. My concern is that we in the media have not taken our positions. We have instead fallen in love with the proponents of the new constitution while shoving aside the opponents of the proposal. We have actually glorified the document and bought claims that 90 percent of the document is good while forgotting to listen to what the opponents are saying. Are they for example justified in expressing their fears about land? Do they have a ponit when they say that the government will take away people's land? Are the clerics having it right when they say that the proposed constitution allows abortion and provides for gay marriages? Are they just making noise when they say that the draft gives one religio...

The Kenyan Government has deported four people of Arabian descent who were arrested at the Moi International airport shortly after arrival from Dubai yesterday. The four men were arrested shortly after disembarking from an Ethiopian airline that had flown from Dubai. Sources say that the four were questioned by the dreaded anti-terror police unit for much of Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning before Government officials decided to deport them. Sources told Mombasa Dispatch that the four had first been taken to the Regional Immigration offices under tight security where they were interrogated before being locked up at the Coast provincial police headquarters. The arrest and subsequent deportation of the four comes in the wake of Kenya heightened war against terrorism. The suspects lawyer Hamza Adam said that the suspects were innocent and were merely tourists who wanted to enjoy the coast environment. He said that he would file a suit against the state for the illegal deportation of...

So I hear that the Captain Raila Amollo Odinga has declared that its Hassan Mwanyoha for Matuga. That Mwanyoha has been crying too much for that seat and now its pay back time. Addressing delegates from Matuga in a nocturnal meeting held at a Mombasa Hotel the Captain Raila Amollo Odinga said that the seat was Mwanyoha’s for the taking. Dispatch has it that the move to endorse Mwanyoha was precipitated by the fact that the former immediate MP and Minister Dzipapa Dzipapa Ali Chirau Mwakwere was sponsoring candidates to oppose him, a move that would see ODM’s vote weakened. The Captain who was in Mombasa to open a Group of African Member Associations International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) meeting also touched base with the Matuga parliamentary seat contest. How likely is it that ODM will win the seat? Well, ODM still enjoys majority support in the province and especially given that the province overwhelmingly voted for ODM in the 2005 referendum and during the controve...

I am told that people who ate the grave are covenening at a Mombasa hotel to discuss ways of keeping vision 2030 alive. While I am not sure how they did it, Dispatch has it that the Major grave santcher who also goes by the name of Musalia Mudavadi will be opening the forum. Dispatch has also gathered that the City Undertaker one Geoffrey Ma-jiwa will also be attending to at least give tips to Mayors and other town council chairmen on how to eat from the grave. But what Dispatch has established is that eating from the grave is not as easy as eating maize and drinking Triton oil as one William Ruto and Kiraitu Murungi will attest. The contents of the grave stink to high heavens and Musalia will tell you that he has been stinking since he was mentioned by KACC without much of a reference. But, Geoffrey Majiwa the undertaker of Nairobi City Council says although he was found with the loot in his mouth, he had done nothing wrong. He argues that his non-existent name was soiled and he wan...

Hurray. Welcome to dispatches from Mombasa. Here we will dispatch to you what is happening particularly in Mombasa and the whole country in general, but more so, we will be focussing on issues and problems that affect the town and how how we can improve the town. Karibu sana. Dispatcher