ANTHROPOLOGICAL BEHAVIOURS???

Today I had very interesting encounters that have really made my day. One which I would call a well thought conversation with one of close friends. He had very intelligent ideas as to how the weather patterns have subsequently changed from the regular to irregular patterns to what scientists are calling global warming. I call them intelligent because they got me thinking of it as a possibility of what could be happening to our sudden change of weather patterns. Well, to him its an abnormal behaviour of the weather which is caused by some of the way human being are behaving, let baptise them anthropological behaviour for now. By the way, that title may as well be as permanent since his explanation will get your mind thinking as well.

Long time ago our forefathers had a very simple lifestyle, where women knew their roles and men were so much more responsible. I am not going to tell you how we have such unequal distribution of work or roles to the extent that I want women to be equal to men. Let’s face it, women will never be equal with men…ask me how; I will tell you that in a different forum. Back to the point, now let’s psycho-analyse the era then and now…..well am not criticizing anything trending in fashion right now but let’s try and trace back where the rains started beating us. Women dressed decently and while our parents never saw the era of men trending the sagging style and wearing Mohawks and women wearing unfinished dresses, we are seeing a lot of these in our generation. This generation Y…please note that am from generation X. Apart from the fact that some traditional cultural practises and taboos, it was a curse for a women to reveal anything that was termed as Holy to her surrounding and especially during the day. Take for example, in Europe where the climate….global warming began being noticed….look at the trends…except in the really cold winters…everything is left for nature to evaluate….and that is the reason why you will find that it has been taken normal to not fully dress up while leaving the house and entering a public domain.

Now spin the bottle and set foot in Africa….evaluation is being done for areas where no rain or even signs of rain appear….like where we have recently found oil, the coastline and especially there. You will find that these are areas which are like the Summer holidays in Europe…and don’t take me wrong but let’s assume the weather takes note and automatically notes the sudden changes of dress codes….if the sun sees and notes that human beings are enjoying basking in its glory and that we curse the rain every time its blesses us…is it supposed to hide its face behind the clouds, or smile even more and scorch some of us?

Well, in some Kenyan cultures as mentioned, revealing some of the parts of human body was and is still a taboo, it was a curse…am not sure for what exactly, but in my friends case, it is a curse to the environment and the weather to be precise such that its keeping the rain away.

Now I made two promises to him:
• To try and get opinions from the rest of the team
• To try and get the female species especially to completely dress up and stop scaring the rain away

The above EXCEPT the two promises were not my words, I was just trying to put myself in my friends shoes….but honestly, I cannot make head or tail of his conversation but come to think of it…it might just be true…your views?

Diary of a Single Mother: Some character traits unexplained?

Diary of a Single Mother: Some character traits unexplained?: As you drive around Nairobi, there are a lot of things you can chose to site see, not that you would like to but at times the traffic is jus...

Some character traits unexplained?

As you drive around Nairobi, there are a lot of things you can chose to site see, not that you would like to but at times the traffic is just too much and keep yourself busy, you could either be updating your Facebook Status of how frustrated you are because you have been moving a distance of 5cm per half hour or how a certain crazy Matatu has decided to pull a double overlapping stunt! Double because at that particular time, they would be already overlapping and this particular one would just be adding to chaotic nature of the so called normal traffic hours.Or at times, this would be the best time to tune into your favorite station so as to listen to busted or at times even be tempted to call in and pause as the lady or guy being played by your spouse so as to generate a discussion. That is just how crazy traffic can generate and create innovative people.

Personally, I always choose to do one very interesting thing, look around me.....and trust me, there ae a lot of interesting things I get to see! Some interesting some very sad...some a pity to look at, really a true pity. Ideally, I should be using Thika road when heading to the Ruaraka office but at times one would like to just cut traffic by using the joining estate roads and this is where the trouble or entertainment begins. Take for example the section between Pangani's Juja road and the Outering Junction...this is one section that passes through 3 sets of lifestyle, the extremely rich to the extremely poor in a spun of 5 mins when the road is clear and 2 hours when there is a bad traffic. Of interest was this lady, who had a little baby tied to her back. When I first looked in her direction she looked like a drunk mama, trying to carry her child and I immediately though to myself, how a mother could carry her child around while going to her drinking sprees. In my head, I imagined all sorts of bad things about her...while she walked towards my direction, I realised that I had not only judged her wrongly but she was actually from the special talented group of people. Automatically, my heart melted with pity, thinking of how in her condition she still carried her child around, a child of breastfeeding age and she confidently did it. It is amazing how motherly love and instincts are the same for everyone, whether specially talented, a street child, you or I. It made me think twice at how many opportunities we miss out as parents by not being there for our children.

I have witnessed another of the same group being hit by a matatu,those who want to just drive and not even give way to students just around St. Teresa's girls...and they never burt an eyelid when they do these, a great shame in deed! I have learnt to look around me, since one never knows and the comparison you get when you drive aroung Nairobi. Each area has a juxaposition of its own, set in the same environment and using the same resource only perhaps others would have exploited it e.g tapping of electricity for the simple reason that they cannot afford it hence have to get it anyway. Life teaches you a few things when you look around you. It is not necessariry that one has to be taken to a classroom to be able to learn what is going on around us, but by seeing, we learn and by learning we gain experience and wisdom and by these we appreciate each other and learn to live and accomodate one another.

Anyway, on a lighter note, I have also watched the Naivasha baboons opening up those yoghurt packets and actually drinking the remnants or using their fingers to lick out the remnants in the pack! They behave like human being sometimes I tend to believe the scientists who decided that man evolved from Monkeys...lol..

I have seen Zebra crossing the highway, and now I understand why the pedestrarian crossing points are called Zebra crossing. These are some of the brighest animals I have seen.It is on a rare occasion that you will get a Zebra has been hit by a vehicle? Reason: In a pack, they always have a leader, the leader will always head to the road and stand close to it but far enough to avoid being hit...the rest of the pack will join her/ him and will not cross until s/he signals them to do sO. If there are any on coming vehicles, the leader Zebra will block its pack from cross by moving up and down where there have stopped to cross the road...

My advice....lets learn from our environment, we learn by looking...God gave us a pair of eyes and ears so that we can see and listen twice at any one time :-)

Any comments? Post them here... I will glad if you shared your experiences too..

Airtel.....

The only way I can keep tabs with the rest of the world right now is through my Airtel number, yes Airtel now I think its Bhati airtel, but as it I feel like I want to sue them. It all started last week, the network went haywire, neither have they explained to us, their customers, what happened, nor even taken the initiative to try and apologize even if its in those 10cm by 2.5cm piece of advert at the back page of the Newspaper unless am worng, someone kindly update.

I am one very frustrated mother right now, I cant even communicate to my son!! Reason, the Airtel number am using to roam right now has been on and off for the past say four days since I landed in this part of Africa...and by the way, its a one network country. So, what am I supposed to do? Okay I had to purchase a local number which I am currently using and neither is it cheap for me to call or even my family to call me on!! Airtel, what is happening to you? Is this speculation for another potential change of ownership? Just asking? I have noted its a trend when you're about to experience a change ownership!!!

Out of the same frustration I am now about to explore other potential roaming networks...perhaps a move to Orange, yes Orange since I have noted I can now receive texts so am assuming even I can...problem is, I am not sure which top up card to use to update my account so as to be able to receive better services...Right now I am one frustrated mother on this International Women's day....

Please do not advice me to move to Safaricom...these guys, charge a fortune not only to receive but to make calls....and as much as I am not from the saving dime protogeny...Ill just not agree to be exploited!!

Airtel, Bhati Airtel!!!! Why oh why!!!!!You were one of my best networks....what is happening??

Getting my act together.....

The past few weeks have seen me toss and turn at night, over the issues I had raised last on me moving on. For one at least I have managed to get a few skeletons out of my closet...literally. First thing fast...I managed to delete some numbers out of my phone books and de-friend some Facebook friends...reason you may ask? I noticed they were a number of people who have this negative energy on me, trying to drag me down, even when they didnt know yet they did just by me flipping through my phone and seeing their number. Others, especially on FB, were those that are always posting about what they are not, putting me in that questioning mode of what hypocrisy people live in, lives that they dont have or lives that they are trying and struggling so hard to have.

Secondly, I blocked some few characters who were not adding value to my life by calling me every other day...I am the type that will receive your call but hey, the silence and me hearing you doesnt mean am listening, does it? Well I just realized that I cannot keep hearing the same noise every day??? I just had to block them...and trust me it helped. I thank God for giving a human being the brain to have made phones that can block numbers. It really does help.

Anyway, that has been me for the past few weeks and I feel rejuvinated..really I do..or perhaps I am trying to convince myself that I am..lol...

You know the best thing about the few things that I did, at the end of the day, I felt a really new person and ready to move on...to a next new level...and I hope I keep that way...I promised myself to never be a sucker for some things...was it my new year's resolution? Hmmmm.....let me wait and see how it turns out...

Another one of those days....

My son does not stay with me, typically because I travel a lot and it may not be very ideal to leave him in the house alone or in the care of a house help. I actually discussed with my parents and it seemed more logical for him to stay with them.

I find time when I am around to visit him while working, every once a month. So last week I took the opportunity of seeing him. It had been a while since the 1st of January, therefore approximately 29 days since I had last seen him. Being the apple of my eye does not make things easier for me since sometimes when I get a chance to see him, I sort of re-evaluate why am working and it makes me feel like quiting my job and being a fulltime mother, just to take care of him and cook for him, tuck him, read or tell him a story and kiss him every day before he . Sometimes it is really agonizing knowing that the only way you can provide for your child is the one source of income that you have.

It got me really thinking, I want to go back to school and do my Masters...in something rare, something that is sort after so that I can only work as a lecturer and/ or a consultant and have more time for my little boy, who by the way will not be little any more come two years from now.

It puts me in an awkward situation sometimes when he has to ask me to stay on with him. I have to explain to him always that I cant otherwise he might not have the holidays that he may want with me....but I know what every one of you will say, that he is right, he is right yes, but would it be fair to deny him the lifestyle that he has already? Would it be also just to be an idle mother and not get some work experience and exposure? Would it be worth it just to wake up one day and quit my only source of revenue and seek other avenue which by the way may just take a little effort to grow? Would it be?

Sometimes I just wonder....but wonder is all that it can be...

Let me know your thoughts :)

Some questions I may not answer…as yet??

Schools close and I am excited just like any other parent to have my son at home, knowing the kind of schedule I have normally, this is a time I take off and make sure there is no travelling and that I will be spending time with him no matter what even if it means taking him to some of my field trips…for him it would be a trip so see Kenya and around Kenya.

This particular holiday was not an easy one, August school holidays, I didn’t have any special arrangements for him to go out but had ensured a visit by my niece who together with my son, are quite a pair to handle. Keeping in mind both of them are the only children, they can only consider each other as a brother and a sister, something that they have always said, my son being the elder and my niece the younger one. At some point when am out with them, I always introduce them as my children :-) Well back to today’s agenda….the questions that popped up last Holidays were those I had been fearing in quite a long time, I knew that time would come and I would have to answer some questions however difficult they may be.

Well, it was one of those days when you have a great day and that you ensure you have made all the necessary arrangements to ensure that the two are comfortable. Come evening, as I come from work….I find my son has not taken his usual birth and is insisting that I have to bath him…”for heaven’s sake your ten!”.. I quip. This did not deter him from insitisting that I am his mother and that as his mother once in a while he needs me to bath him…Okay, I of course throw in the towel not knowing the agenda….in the process this are some of the questions I have to encounter?

“Why don’t I have a brother or a sister?” “ Can’t you get another sister or brother so that I can have someone to play with? You know I get bored”….Okay Okay….I have to think quickly… “think think think…..” And voila…. “ You will get a brother or a sister when God’s time is right for you to get one…if He plans that you stay as an only child then so be it, ” What did I just say? In my head I am thinking hard if he bought that story or if will be pop up at some point!! Its scary..really it is.

I have actually thought of adopting a child so that he can have a playmate…honestly I have, but again, would it be fair to adopt a child who I may not be there for? And again what am I looking for when I adopt a child? Will my son take that child as their own brother? Then the “what ifs” on my side…start building….Am I just one scared mother trying to seek an exit strategy in the business of giving birth to my own children? Like really? Would it be worth it to lessen, even if by one, the number of homeless children who will be more than glad to have a parent to take care of them…..And in reality, that story I told him about God's timing, he didnt buy it, since that question still keeps popping up :-(

Unanswered questions…..many unanswered questions…just to mention but a few…there are worse I have had to deal with...and I can only spare them for another day..gotta rush, and tuck him to sleep...a routine we have since formed when he is around or when I go and visit him :-)