Dispatch from Mombasa

Today is not what you would particularly call a good day. It began with me visiting a client whom I had to deliver a project to only to be told that the client was in Nairobi. What made it worse was that I had spent the whole of yesterday frantically trying to reach the said client but she declined to pick my calls. At one time she told me she was going to call but never did it. So when I woke up early to deliver a job that I have been working for a whole week, I was told that she had travelled, I felt wasted. So as I am nursing the wounds of rejection and being ignored, there is this other client who is supposed to MPESA me pap. I even talk to the guy and he tells me that he is in the middle of something and that I should just chill. Just let him finish what he is up to and he will sort me out. My eyes therefore become permanently glued to the phone and just waiting for that crucial MPESA message alert. As I am licking my lips and thinking how I am going to at least and for...

Chikoo Guantai, though shabbily dressed moved on the silver screen with the grace of a cat. I noticed that her hair was not completely kempt and in my mind I was telling myself that during my heydays I would not have wanted to date her.  I was still doing an analysis of her looks in my mind when I was woken up from my reverie when she announced my name.  “Today’s winner in our continuing Tazama Chapaa 8028 is ….” You win yourself Kshs 500,000 I was not sure that I had heard her clearly and wanted to confirm that it was me. “She just mentioned your name…” my wife told with a girlish look in her eyes. “Okay, Okay, let’s wait and confirm that it’s me, there could be other me’s out there. The winning telephone number is 0 7 2 xxxx Yes that’s mine, “xx,” “ Ngai namba iyo nita yakwa ”, “x” By now my heart was pumping in my ears. I could hear the drums rolling in my stomach and every muscle was tense and twitching as I waited for the final confirmation. “”...

Okay, I have just decided to put everything else aside so that I can do two things. One, is to reconnect with  my writing which for the last four months has suffered such a beating. Never worry, it has been for such a good personal cause.  Secondly, it is to express what I have been going through with the hope that it might just uplift someone's spirit. Well I sought to pursue an advanced course Communications in Daystar University without enough money for fees. At the beginning, the fees looked such a  mountain to climb and  I was not sure that I would be able to pay. I was given a contract to sign in which I committed myself to pay in three equal installments. I, like any other Kenyan, quickly appended my signature on the dotted line not sure if I would meet the obligations and the journey began. It has been a ride full of mountains, potholes and valleys given that there are many people whose mouths are wide open waiting for me to fill in something. Ut...

Once a journalist; always a journalist. So Joe Khamisi a veteran journalist has decided put pen on paper and blow the whistle about what he calls the politics of Betrayal in Kenya: Diary of a Kenyan legislator. I have not had a chance to read the book but I guess the whole thing smacks of sensationalization of betrayal by a betrayer. But, again, are we not all betrayers at one time or another? I know that by writing this piece I am bound to be accused as a betrayer to Khamisi’s betrayal of the betraying political class. I first came to know Khamisi while serving as a junior information officer with the Ministry of Information and Communication at the Mombasa Provincial Information Offices which are housed at the Kenya Broadcasting corporation Mombasa offices. Khamisi was then the Managing Director of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. Most of the employees working for KBC felt betrayed by Khamisi who was supposed to be their key to Canaan. Under his non betraying ey...

Early Saturday morning as I did my health jog in a field near where I live I took a fall that nearly hurt my knee. It is at this area where there is a stone on the track which nobody has ever bothered to clear from the way. Of course it has not been my first time to stumble at this stone. I have done it before but told myself that I will not let that stone stumble my path again, promised myself to be more careful. But anyway, Shit happens and I had only done two rounds of the track and deep down I still felt that I had the energy to do more. I actually intended to do more- say ten when I fell down in a sack like thud that left my legs lifted high up in the air and my eyes looking into the heavens wondering, wow how did it happen? The few people who had come to the field early were dying with laughter and wondering how on earth did he fall that way. I mean he could not have seen the imminent fall and taken care. You mean that is how adult men hit the ground? And a host of other una...

Life is full of stress and the television news scene does not help make matters easier either. This is because our news is almost predictable to a point. Raila will attack Kalonzo, Ruto and his folk will attack Raila and Raila’s supporting politicians will respond with even more lethal salvos. But I think I have a suggestion that could be a solution to our boring way of predictable politics. It would save us from the wind driven politics of the Prime Minister. It would also save us from the politics of Kalonzo Musyoka who doesn’t care whether the wind blows or not as long there is a central route. But these can only change if we borrowed our politics from the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and South African President Jacob Zuma. We would be saved the agony of the dullness of having to deny positions that we have defended in the past for the sake of a headline. It would help us avoid the monotony of seeing colorless politicians who think that audiences car...

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....