A Dreamer's Dream

I watched this video, A Dreamer's Dream from Tyrese Gibson (with Blair Underwood and Jill Scott) and it gave me hope. Hope that there are still people who care about problems facing mankind. Are we still being judged by the color of our skin not the content of our character? Are we still filling up jails and making people millionaires? Are we still fighting each other and breaking down our marriages? Are we still complacent, waiting for someone else to fix what's wrong? What can we do to change it? It's things like standing for what is right amidst adversity, paying teachers well, justice systems that actually work or simply showing up to VOTE. Although this is a video drawing from Martin Luther King, Jr and from an American history perspective, the message is the same for any country. This message rings true for my country, Kenya. The message is the same, we are not each other's enemy!

KENYANS, what legacy can we leave for future generations? Do we still want to squabble between which tribe(s) are best suited for top government positions? Do we want someone from our own tribe as the President OR do we want a motivated President, a VISIONARY, someone who will build this country's infrastructure, make us a force to be reckoned with?  My vote is for the person who delivers that...I really don't care about the color, tribe, or sex.  Those are blinders that make us fail to see a person's character!


What dream are YOU dreaming?  I leave you with these words as spoken in the video...

"Staying home as a person of integrity on election day in 2012 is as much of an insult to Jimmy Lee as it is to your existing and unborn children who will ask you in a not too distant future, 'mother or father why didn't you show up for me?' "

It's Time We Broke Up...

I've decided to break up with my bank.  "The Listening, Caring Financial Partner" is how Equity Bank touts itself and frankly, I can't believe how these idiots are able to post positive comps every year!  My issues with Equity are that they make the customer really work to put money into their bank.  I first signed up with Equity because my employer pays our salaries through the bank so of course I was left with no choice but to open an account.  To open an account, you need someone to introduce you, as in vouch for you (If you don't have any friends to do that sorry for you, you can use the under mattress banking system).  Then, if you need an ATM/Visa Card,  Check Books etc you wait until they send a text you for pickup at the branch where you opened the account.  That's fine with me but, it's the process after that I have a problem with.  When you get to the bank, there are a million people in the banking hall.  You make the line to collect your card, then once you are done you make another line where they give you your PIN number in one of those perforated secret envelopes.  At each of these lines, they have a humongous ledger book that you have to sign.  This thing is so big that they have to switch it on its side so that it can fit on their desks (remember what was used before computers?).  Anyway, so say then that you have some other business to do at the bank, you need to make a line for each item because the tellers are only trained for their ONE duty. Can we say inefficiency?  Why can't they just cross-train their tellers so that if you make the one line, you can get all your banking issues sorted at the one window?

Rolling In The Deep

Adele - I am loving this lady right now...her voice is hauntingly amazing. How could this voice belong to a 22-year old? This is insane! What's insane is how I missed her for 3 years - what the hell was I listening to?  Now that I have woken up from the deep music slumber that I've been in, I'm not gonna let go.  I found out that she went to the same performing arts school with another one of my Brit fascinations, Leona Lewis. These Brits are beginning to prove me wrong about their musical talents:-) Take a listen and imagine yourself alive in the 30s in some backwater juke joint with some sequined diva belting out this rhythm...

Stand for Kenya!

It's been a while since I posted anything on my blog but I am revived today and think this is a worthy cause to come out of my self-inflicted hiatus! Lately, I've been seeing the Feb 28 avatar on some people's Face book profile pics and I Googled it to find out what was happening on that date. Someone came up with the great idea to unite all Kenyans on February 28 by participating in something as simple as singing our National Anthem wherever we are. While I call the idea "simple" it's impact should be felt all across the country and hopefully across the diaspora!!  This comes at a time when our news is filled with political rhetoric and bickering from mediocre leaders.  I think it is time that Kenyans who want to stand TOGETHER, under one nation, do so! That is what this Feb 28 effort means to me. I wish we could get some choppers in the air that day to film this historic event...what I would give to be a bird on that day!

If you haven't been to the website, you can read about it at http://28feb.co.ke/ and decide for yourself whether you want to participate in it or not.  Don't ask what "singing our anthem will do to our situation" just do it for the simple fact that you are a Kenyan. That you care about your country.  That you want to pray for your country.  There is no reward in efforts like this but trust me, when a people decide to do something TOGETHER, it counts for something.  That's the underlying basis of most revolts in past history (think American Civil Rights Sit-Ins led by Martin Luther King) or current events (Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain).

However, the most poignant example of a similar effort is the march for immigrant rights in the US in 2006 aka "A Day Without Immigrants." It was great, as an immigrant myself, to watch how by mere word of mouth, all Latinos across the US decided to march in their respective cities wearing white T-Shirts on May 1.  Although the general feeling was that the impact was not great...trust me, it was felt that day - Latino businesses remained closed and that would be restaurants, construction, yard companies, car washes etc.

So, in the same spirit, that is why I will be singing my national anthem on Feb 28 at 1:00pm.

I've taken the following from the Feb28 page that reads "Stand For Kenya!"

We are extremely proud to be Kenyan!
We are proud of our beautiful country!
We are proud of our diversity cultures and traditions!
We are proud of our heroes!
We are proud of our high achievers!
We are proud of being hustlers!
We are proud of our hoods!
We are proud of our tribes and twengs!
We are proud of our kanges and our mats!
We are proud of our artists and musicians!
We are proud of our industries and farms!
We are proud of our sports teams!

On the 28th of February 2011 at 1pm, wherever you are, at work, in the supermarket, in traffic, in school, on campus, in hospitals, in churches, in mosques, in temples, in synagogues, on sports pitches, in court, on your farm, at police stations, at armed forces barracks, in matatus, in buses, on the beach, in the game parks, at the airport, in parliament, in State House, in your homes ...

On the 28th of February 2011 at 1pm, we stand
On the 28th of February 2011 at 1pm, we unite
On the 28th of February 2011 at 1pm, we shall speak in one voice.

On the 28th of February 2011 at 1pm, let’s sing our beautiful and powerful National Anthem, all three verses.
On the 28th February 2011 the world will watch as Kenyans stand UNITED;
1pm, 1 nation, 1 people, 1 anthem, united in 1 prayer for 1 Kenya
We are Kenya!"

Time Out

This year for our Virgo birthdays, we decided to go away for a weekend of rejuvenation.  Jonathan has been working so hard and he's also still trying to come to terms with his sister's death.  So with that, we decided to go to a place that had little to no distractions so that he could get a lot of rest.  My job was to find a place that we could enjoy solitude and be still for a moment.  I did my research and found the ultimate destination and knew that he would be really psyched at the choice of lodge/camp I picked.  I sent him off to make the payment the day prior to our departure and guess what?  The tour agent had mistakenly booked us in for the weekend after! I was livid and told Jonathan to do whatever he could to get us in there but unfortunately the camp was fully booked.  The tour agent told us about this other place and said that we would have just as much fun and seclusion there so we decided to go with her recommendation - Mbweha Camp.

Matatu Shenanigans

Image via Wikipedia

I live in Nairobi and work in Thika, which is 26 miles away (43km).  It doesn't seem like a long journey but this is Kenya and the infrastructure hasn't been developed until recently so that sends commute times through the roof!  However, the highway from Nairobi to Thika is currently under construction by the Chinese (thank you Jesus!) so the long and tedious commutes will be a thing of the past! Until then, I am one of the millions of Kenyans that take public transport every day and that usually means boarding a "matatu".  A matatu is a van that carries between 10-15 passengers and picks up and drops off passengers at bus stops that are simply known as "stage" or by a landmark feature in the area (i.e Shell gas station!) .  The origins of the word matatu are attributed to the Swahili word for three: "tatu" and also the 30 cents fare that was paid when matatus first appeared in the 60s.