Going Out

When I was reading about the fiasco with Florida (Madhouse)

I was engulfed by the nostalgia of back when going out was just.....different. The sprucing up, the anticipation, the courting and the bitter sweet sepatration and longing for the next jaunt. This was men and women in thier finery, smelling their best, enjoying each other, the atmosphere and the music...

Today the proliferation of "Joints" and "Locals" combined with the triviality of the whole going out thing has made the "hang" loose its color. Everything is easy booze, women, men, sex, drugs et al.

I particulary find disturbing the whole concept where boys and girls each separately guzzle themselves to near oblivion then in the dead of the night try to get together with one intention, to get each other in the sack. No preambles...if this one won't do...scroll down on the phone. I'm sure the phone companies wonder what these spikes of call and sms in the dead of the night are all about.

My nostalgia goes back to the late DJ Alois' Tropical Nights at Club Visions, the pulsating sounds of DJ Perez at he Ainsworth, not forgeting the scents and sounds of the Carnivore.

Yes, I know this sounds like some middle aged bat ruminating about his more potent days...but lets face it. We now have a few "Lounges" in the city that just charge you twice the price of any other place for your poison because you get to sit on a sofa, then there is the "Bistros" (always thought that was a caf'e) who will double that to keep the rif raf away ? Where do you get to shake a leg ?

Everything below the lounge is your standard squeezed bar, with loud music from a dime-a-dozen DJ (who will probable change next week), ring fenced by half a dozen TVs showing Premier Leage soccer or a croc being disected (NatGeoWILD). This or the place is in Westie.

Maybe I'm not the man about town, but where would one get dressed up and go dancing with his or her better half and enjoy a couple of slow numbers ??

This will obviously get worse with the World Cup, I offer my condolences to the football "widows", mainly because I'm not sure what I will do myself not being a fan of football, but I guess we shall survive.

The Joneses

DAD, tell M to stop giving me pressure!

I was OK until I opened my eyes and mouth. The latter felt and smelt like I had been breeding hyenas in there…. and this guy, he kept trying to cut the hair on the back of my head with a meat cleaver.
I know my mouth moved, but I was so dehydrated my larynx was as flexible as MDF, and all that came out was a guttral sound, so I made gestures to the two ladies in my life, M & W to give me some space.

While undergoing the usual decontamination processes, hot and cold water; hot on the body and cold in the body; painkillers on an empty stomach, I tried to recall why I was in such a state.

Bob. (Obviously not his real name).

The images were flashing through my mind, akin to 24 where the screen is split into 4 only here I was present in each one of them, so they could not have been happening at the same time, finally I got the chronological order right.

It had started with Bob calling me on Friday just after lunch and asking me if I was able to “tee off” then. The closest I have come to playing golf is drinking Johnnie Walker (Mtembezi) which I understand sponsors golf… or sumthn. So teeing off in this case is having the first drink usually on Friday or Saturday.

So we meet at the usual (Brio’s) and Bob asks me why I did not show up at our mutual buddy’s (Jones) house warming party. Told him W had a birthday party, wife was busy, so did not do the bash.

Bob sighs and tells me I was lucky as that bash will be his undoing. He then goes silent, at least on the subject.

As various regulars come in to “tee off”; the difference here being like golf we all tee off at the same spot however in this case once you do, you hardly move; the discussion was the same as in most pubs. Politics, money…Football, cash…Women, chumes….Family/Kids, mullah.

Somewhere on the third half of Mtembezi, Bob goes… the bash was excellent, Jones has a great pad somewhere in the leafier suburbs of the city; he even has a thingira (gazebo type structure) somewhere on the compound where with time the age old separation came into play with the gents withdrawing outside to discuss matters of grave import (see above) and the ladies in the comfort of the living rooms discussing um.. God knows what.

The weather closed the bash early; it’s chilly in the leafy ‘burbs; and all was well for Bob until the next day.

Bob’s rib (wifey) asks “So you were in school with Jones?” Bob replies “Yup”,

Rib: “And you have known him all along, have you guys been close?”
Bob: “Yup…Yup” and he wonders what’s with this the line of questioning; ribs have no interest in their hubbies’ buddies except who to call when they (hubbies) go missing under circumstances mysterious or otherwise.
Rib: “So, what does he do?”
Bob: “Stuff…business”.

Rib understands that this line of questioning will not lead anywhere, however Bob understands the underlying question “So what is Jones doing that you are not?”.

Later that day Bob’s rib mentions that CMC has unleashed a new Polo and details the various features and “benefits” this car has. Bob is wondering “unleashed?” and has the girl been on the net… but he finally understands, and the next day while driving to work all the posters and billboards with words like “unsecured” and “100% finance” and “because we are you” seem burn his minds eye.

So… Bob tells me, I went to CMC and got the lady a red one, I can’t afford it but she seems to think I can. What could I do?

I shrug and look around, Wairimu is close bye so I gesture to her to bring along another half of Mtembezi.

The Afghan

Just completed “The Afghan” by Frederick Forsyth of “The Day of the Jackal” fame.

An excellent book, I just love spy / crime thrillers. I particularly liked this one because the “star” is more human, not the usual chaps who have mastered eight martial arts and can kill you in three different ways with a table tennis ball and chewing gum.
I particularly liked how it starts “If the young Talib bodyguard had known that making the cell phone call would kill him, he would not have made it, but he didn’t, so he did and it did”. The end is however sad.

Just kicked off with Ludlum’s “Prometheus Deception”. Unputdownable…

Beirut or Bust.

A while back Muzungu Chick suggested I should travel, and lo and behold I took a trip on the 28th Feb.
One of the effects of the PEV (Post Election Violence) was that people did not want to visit our beloved country… of course, but would you believe, we had some software engineers coming over from Beirut who would not show.

Yes!! Beirut, Lebanon, Middle East.

They advised us in the nicest way possible that they considered the situation in the country to be too dangerous for them to come and convert our company’s requirements into binary digits and algorithmic sequences. I guess some people see the difference between personalized death by machete and that by being pulverized by a missile or suicide bomber.

So our techies suggested that we should pack our bags and bring our requirements over to Beirut.

I kid you not. We had a schedule to keep and the bosses (who were not coming with us) were feeling the pinch of opportunity losses, so we went.

Night flight from our very own JKIA (which is a shame, but that’s a story for another blog), via Dubai and onto Beirut. Arrival 9.30am, generally new airport that can hold approx. 21 large passenger planes, however I believe there may have been only three or so. Who goes to Beirut?

While we were queuing at Passport Control this guy, obviously a senior Immigration chap, from his uniform, colorful ribbons and medals singles me and my comrade (let’s call him Vick) out and requests for our passports.
This guy looks like General Alcazar of Tintin fame complete with a cigar (the airport is non smoking).













He asks “Where going?” I assume he needs to know where in Beirut we will be staying.
Me: “Oh well, we came from Kenya as you can see on the Passports, we will be staying at blah blah blah…”
General: “You are going to Beirut”
Me: (Looking around just in case we were in the wrong airport) “Yes”
General: “Visa?”
Me: (Now understanding the need for lack of drawn out explanations) “In passport”
General: “You wait…there (pointing)”
Vick: “Sir, is there a problem”
General: “Yes, you also, you wait…there (pointing at the same spot)”

So we waited, there, wondering what the problem could be. Finally we decided to visit the General in his (lair) office.
There he was cigar still in place looking surprised to see us. We asked him what the problem could be and if he would be kind enough to explain the same to us.

He advised us that we should do as he says and wait, we kind of insisted and after learning that his English was pretty limited we however managed to garner that:-

1. Lebanese consulates like we have in Kenya should confirm Visas on issuance with their country’s immigration, this had not been done and we had not been advised locally.
2. Visas can be issued at the airport at a fee of US$50; however he did not “feel” like issuing us with one.
3. He did not care that we were bringing in about US$ 1M in sales to the country (Software costs a heck of a lot)
4. For some reason this guy did not like our posteriors.

So finally the General asks if we have return tickets. Good thing the floor was clean because my tongue rolled out when my jaw hit the floor.
Me: “Sir, can we make a phone call to our hosts.” (For some reason my roaming facility was not working here).
General: “No. No phone. You have battery phone, you telephone”
Here I made the assumption that he was referring to a mobile phone, so I stuck mine in his face and showed him there was no network.
General: (Grinning) “So you go back, I move you to transit.”
Vick: (Proffering the business card of our hosts) “Sir, please call them on our behalf, I’m sure they have a person here at the airport waiting for us.”
General: “No… No Visa you go back…. Now you go to transit” (Beginning to look somewhat agitated)

So we were escorted to the baggage claim area where we retrieved our luggage and were moved on to the transit area. Our escort carried our passports and asked for our tickets which we handed over.
When we got to the transit area we noticed some phone booths, so we asked if we can use these to call. Our escort, who was not previously in the General’s office, was very helpful and showed us where we can buy call cards and how much the call would be.

We placed a call to our hosts, who were very mortified by what had happened to us and promised to deal with it immediately. They called someone, who called the General and the General called someone who countermanded the previous guy etc.

To cut a long story short the General seemed to be more connected in matters Immigration and so after 24 hours, bleary eyed from lack of sleep (I can’t sleep on planes) we arrived back at JKIA.

I still do not know why we were denied entry into Beirut; however we will be travelling back there sometime this week. Our hosts were very apologetic and decided to compensate our tickets with business class return and a week holiday at one of their spots.

I pray none of the elements in the Middle East is currently planning to nuke the place because I plan to enjoy myself. Will post photos right here.

The First

Having surfed through great blogs, the likes of Thinkers (M) and the Lost White Kenyan Chick (MC) I was finally swayed into the blog sphere.
This first post comes at a significant time in Kenya's history where we will have created another loop-hole for corruption and mismanagement of the Mwananchi's funds called the PM. These new offices will cost the Kenyans enough cash to build a few secondary schools every year and provide new and improved avenues to get politicians fingers into the country's coffers.
Don't get me wrong, I want peace to prevail in this country and if that what it takes, so be it.
OK, that's crap... we all know the Kenyan problem execution, completion and finishing.
We all look for solutions to crisis and problems and we are good at this excellent, however implementing these solutions is always a bummer. What am I saying, Its all good that various sections of the constitution et al will be amended and the whole issue of the elections will be resolved etc etc. But what about the underlying major problems of the IDPs and the reason we have IDPs in the first place. The government agreed to assist people resettle in the areas from where they came from, but what about the root cause of this problem?
We all know the Rift Valley problem was not as a result of PEV (notice how people like to use acronyms to soften hard issues), the government should provide a comprehensive plan on how to tackle this issue and IMPLEMENT !!!