25/11/2014

Habari za jioni,
it’s a lazy evening, Wednesday, November 26. The sky is slightly cloudy with lonely shooting stars cutting across the night. Meanwhile breaking news from Kenya:

Saturday, 22/11/2014

Al-Shabaab strikes back and kills 28 passengers of a bus near the town of Mandera near Kenya’s border with Somalia

I've just gotten an offer from Marczak Intergalactic Broadcasting Corporation to present the evening news. Good times for bad people, precariat is growing in numbers, another global economic crises is lurking just round the corner of some Broken-Wall Street and one has to make a living. Just in case you accuse me of betraying my ideals and selling myself to a corporation.

Let me now comment on what’s happened lately in Kenya.

The issue with al-Shabaab’s attacks in Kenya literally exploded in late 2011 after Kenyan military joined Somalian troops in the mission known as Operation Linda Nchi. The operation was officially aimed in fighting the Islamist insurgency in South Somalia. Since then, the group which fights the Somali government and allied forces in Somalia, conducted terrorist attacks across Kenya, especially in North Eastern Province bordering Somalia, in Mombasa and in Nairobi.

In the wake of the attacks well over hundred people lost their lives. Radicals from al-Shabaab are the ones to blame for the Westgate shopping mall attack in September 2013 whose aftermath found at least 67 people dead as well as dozens of smaller-scale assassinations including attacks in Garissa in July 2012 in which 17 were killed and 60 injured.

I asked young Somali-Kenyan women from my neighbourhood abut their opinion on what happened in Mandera. However, Amina, Qani and Haldhaa were initially a bit reluctant to discuss the matter, eventually they declared to be thoroughly against lunatics from al-Shabab . What is more they made an allegation that the attackers are plain murderers who dare say they are Muslim while they don’t have any religion at all and if they believe in something, it is certainly not Islam.

Al-Shabaab claims it is fighting for the rights of Muslims whereas it simply puts the Muslim minority (and first of all Somali refugees in Kenya) in more and more trouble. Kenya is a host for approximately 500 000 Somali refugees, many of whom have been subjected to rising discrimination and brutal reprisals, also from country’s officials. As noted in the latest Human Rights Watch report: “Police have been implicated in the torture, disappearance, and unlawful killing of alleged terrorism suspects and individuals of Somali origin, and Somali refugees in Mombasa, Nairobi, North Eastern region, and other parts of Kenya.” The same report concludes: “The Kenyan government increased its hostile rhetoric against Somali refugees in 2013, calling for the refugee camps to be closed and for Somalis to return to Somalia, despite the ongoing conflict and insecurity in Somalia.” From my point of view, this policy perpetuates the conflict and creates an exemplary catch-22 situation.

It is believed that modern terrorism took shape by the turn of the 20th century. It has at once turned into major international problem as hardly a week goes by without innocent people being killed in an act of terrorism. Even though the budgets to tackle terrorism are growing, terrorism, on the contrary, is constantly on the rise. According to the 2014 Global Terrorism Index Report, last year 61% more people were killed in terrorist attacks than the previous year. Institute of Economics and Peace analised global data on terrorism to indicate that a fivefold increase in the number of terror-related deaths occurred since year 2000. To ease your mind, most of the attacks were carried out in only five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria). Anyway, isn’t the rise of terrorism a suggestion to change the way it is fought?

Picture of the Mandera attack casualties retrieved from http://www.nation.co.ke/photo/-/1951220/2532988/-/dl5la2/-/index.html

17/11/2014

I’ve spent too much time in Nairobi’s heavy congestion. Try yourself to make your way through its mind map. Coming from the Meru County, I entered the gridlock from the North-East, I recommend you do the same.

The developing world is coping the solutions from the developed countries. Speaking of Poland or Europe in general, having ourselves huge problems with heavy traffic, we should not expect any better from where things appear in distorting mirror.

To obtain the information for the mind map and the comment, I used my personal observations, conclusions drawn from conversations with Kenyan drivers as well the following sources:

• Chonghaile, C. N. (2012). Kenya's techies take on mission impossible: ending Nairobi's traffic anarchy. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/22/nairobi-smart-traffic-light-congestion
• Flint, S. (2013). Living in great cities for public transport. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20130416-living-in-great-cities-for-public-transport/1
• IBM Global Commuter Pain Survey: Traffic Congestion Down, Pain Way Up (2011). Retrieved from http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/35359.wss#release
• Kenya Demographics Profile 2014. Retrieved from http://www.indexmundi.com/kenya/demographics_profile.html
• Kinney, P. L., Gichuru, M. G., Volavka-Close, N., Ngo, N., Ndiba, P. K., Law, A., Gachanja, A., Gaita, S. M., Chillrud, S. N. & Sclar, E. (2011). Traffc Impacts on PM2.5 Air Quality in Nairobi, Kenya. Environmental Science Policy, 14 (4), 369-378
• Kushner, J. (2014). Seeking Frugal Tech Solutions For Nairobi's Jammed Traffic. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/09/23/350253589/nairobi-traffic-report-when-texting-and-driving-is-a-good-thing
• Meredith, M. (2011). The State of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence [Kindle 4 version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
• McGregor, S. & Doya, D. M. (2014). Traffic Costs Nairobi $570,000 a Day as No. 2 Africa Hub Clogs. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/nairobi-traffic-loses-570-000-a-day-as-no-2-africa-hub.html
• Nessien, A. (2014). Europe's cycling economy has created 650,000 jobs. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/12/europes-cycling-economy-has-created-650000-jobs
• Normand, J. M. (2014). France falls out of love with the car. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/09/france-car-ownership-sales-downturn
• Odero, W., Khayesi, M. & Heda, P. M. (2003). Road traffic injuries in Kenya: Magnitude causes and status of intervention. Injury Control and Safety Promotion, 1-2 (10), 53-61
• Omwenga, M. (2011). Integrated Transport System for Liveable City Environment: A Case Study of Nairobi Kenya. Retrieved from: http://www.isocarp.net/data/case_studies/2022.pdf

10/11/2014

I fell asleep easily. I only made sure that the mosquito net was in order, placed my heavy head on the pillow and here I was: sleeping like a log.

There’s something unidentified in the African night which makes it dreamful. Let’s analyse. The dusk comes precisely at 6 and the dawn follows 12 hours later. Rains are the heaviest around 9 p.m. and at the precarious time between night and day, sometime around 5 a.m. Besides these hours, if you look on the night sky, it intimidates you with its brightness and abundance of alien constellations. What is more, the night is chilly. And it is not soundless - it squeaks its rats on the roofs, chirps its giant flying beetles and whirrs its lonely night-riders’ motorbikes on the empty road in the distance. One could see the ambiguity of the African night - it is a relief from the big Sun’s heat, it covers the dirt and dust of the day with the dark veil of magic and mystery while at the same time there is something deeply unfriendly in darkness that falls fast and unhesitatingly to rule with a starry hand.

I dreamt of different strange events which only made sense in the watertight logic of the dream. In the heart of a weird timespace dreamt by my head, from a delta waves storm produced by the ever-active neurons, I suddenly realised I was dreaming of a huge thin brown spider. A sudden dreadfulness of this repulsive creature awoke me into certain anxiety. Lying on the side, I opened my eyes wide only to notice a big flat spider on the wall at the height of my head, just outside the mosquito net. It was almost as if it was looking me in the eyes. I considered this situation unacceptable as it violated the contract we’ve had from the very beginning. The “don’t ask - don’t tell” rule, the “let’s pretend we don’t see each other rule”.

I’ve been studying psychology for 4 long years which was an endavour to figure out the riddles and mysteries behind the psyche. I have sure learnt about different laws that guide human behaviour and read about correlations of different traits. Many of the first steps in history of the discipline were taken by courtesy of various animals ranging from rats, through dogs and horses, to our closest relatives: apes. No-one, though, has ever researched the psyche of spiders. I was left alone in my bed literally facing a spider of considerable size and had no idea what the spider was up to. I knew neither the sex of the specimen nor its age. The customs of this particular species were alien to me as it was it’s way of thinking.

Whatever I was going to do, I could expect any reaction from the eight-legged arthropod on my wall. I was petrified indeed even though I had never considered myself a case of any arachnophobia. In the fight-or-flight mode my body turned me to, I chose the latter and it was rather rampant. Shortly after my exodus, I realised a need to go back to sleep as the clock shown some middle of the night. Also, the stalking behaviour of the spider was not to be accepted on my terrain. No dice. So, it was either it or I. I grabbed the MORTEIN ABSOLUTE INSECT KILLER spray and marched towards my room.

By that time, the enemy has successfully retreated to an unknown place (most likely to improve its stalking techniques). I cautiously sprayed MORTEIN under the bed, over the bed and just in case all around the bed. Then I sneaked into the sheets with my heart in my mouth, all body in goose-flesh. The fumes of MORTEIN floating in the air anesthetized my fears and I fell asleep again.

The following day I promised the spider a revenge. Equipped in Sevin DuDu Dust Insect Killing Powder and MORTEIN spray I entered the room. Thick fleece gloves on my hands, jogging shoes, long trousers ending up in thick socks on my legs, rain jacket with tight sleeves - I was ready to face the monster again and I decreased the likelihood of being beaten by it to the minimum. I spread the DuDu all over the place along the walls and under the bed. Then, I rolled the curtain to the side and here it was. The spider. It started running away but I was quciker - I sprayed a deadly dose of MORTEIN on the enemy and giggled out of the certainty of annihilating the monster. To my surprise, the spider turned out to be at least partially MORTEIN repellent. It just quickly disappeared in an inaccessible spot behind the wardrobe. I spayed some substantial amount of my chemical weapon of hopeful mass destruction of spiders into gaps under the wardrobe and left dissatisfied.

...

Afterword: Apparently no animals were hurt during the actions undertaken in the description above. I saw the spider on the floor under my bed the other day, chilling out as if nothing had ever happened between us two. I ran to get the MORTEIN only to find him gone again. Intact.

It seems that fighting the enemy might require more effort than I have initially assumed. I swear, Spider, next time I'll be ready and waiting for you. The preparations for our next rendez-vous have already begun (recommended soundtrack to the following pictures: Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger):

pictures of me as Rocky Balboa taken by the skillful hand of Agata Groyecka

3/11/2014

November has come, the month of school holiday in Kenya and the host of the main part of the rainy season. November is no less wet season in Europe, only that rain falls anytime and it’s usually cold outside and rather unpleasant. Here it only pours at night whereas days come all sunny and hot. I doubt anyone unaware of the presence of the wet season would expect walls of rain hitting the tin roof of their bungalow at night.

Since the monsoon rains came, the landscape have gotten greener and greener. Trees on slopes of the hills have exploded with different shades of green, flowers started to bloom irresistibly presenting their vivid colours and clouds of different shapes grow from the very line of the horizon which lies along the contour of the hills.

There seems to be no danger of any autumn blues. One’s good mood is protected by sounds of soft African guitars which seep from huge old speakers in every second shop and every second car, even from the so-called picky-pickies (motorbikes which usually carry roughly five persons). The music is loud and played from early morning until late at night. It makes no sense to be down in the dumps when getting ripe fresh straight-from-the-tree bananas, mangoes, papayas, avocados, passion fruits etc. takes a two minute walk to the nearest road where women in bright dresses offer for sale the fruity treasures of their yards. The weather allows people to lie on the grass or just sit by the side of the road, preferably in the shadow, and wait for another day to come (which most likely will be filled with the same kind of blissful time-flying).

Some decide to actually break the laziness imposed by the heavy hot air. When they do, they play football.

There are several teams around my town consisting of men aged 16 to well over 30. They have a league where they compete for the annual trophy. I was a spectator during one of the final matches. I wrote “one of the final matches” as nobody really knew what kind of game it was.

First of all, I heard that it was the very final match that had to be repeated due to some violations during the previous final game. Again, nobody really knew what kind of violations the team that won was accused of, everybody knew, however, that it was the winning team to be blamed. The winners, facing plenty of random potential accusations followed only one line of defense: they were sticking to the international FIFA rules while playing. Through different conversations with spectators as well as members of football teams I leaped to the conclusion that it must have been the board of the league that messed around. It turned out that the coach of the winning team was also a politician who was at odds with another politician who happened to be the executive and sponsor of the league. Whatever the reason, the final game was to be played again.

The match was supposed to start at 3. Yet at 4, when I appeared at school’s sports field, people had only started to turn up. A quarter later a friend of mine came. He was a member of the team which theoretically won the final. Dressed up smartly in an ironed shirt and shiny pumps, he laughed his head off at my question concerning him playing in the repeated final. Nobody was actually sure whether the match was going to be played. And every minute doubts rose. And then, out of the blue, another team arrived on site. Skinny teenagers hastily removed stones and larger pieces of trash from the football pitch and so the whistle announced that the game was on.

Since I am not a football buff, I didn’t make it to see the whole game. I heard the next day that the mysterious team came to win and was awarded the trophy. Congratulation guys. To be honest, I chose slackline over football and happened to preserve some parts of this wonderful Sunday evening slackline session on the pictures presented below.