Kenya Thumbs up or Kenya Thumbs down

Today is one of those days that I work less but end up learning more.

Being the nice girl that I am not, I volunteered to fax some documents on behalf of Nate at the nearest Fedex Kinkos. For my peeps in Kenya who have no idea what Kinkos is,
it's like a cyber cafe with computers that do not work, fax machines that seem to understand this sentence only - 'press the keys with your fist as if you were punching cement bags in your local gym', printers that give you such errors>>>

and after all that you pay no less than Kshs. 100 regardless of what you went in there to do, including sending a one page fax. Anyway, while battling my own fax demons, some guy was battling the customer service lady at the main counter.  The conversation went like this. I will call the man A Stupid Sucker Has Overtaken Lovely Earth (A.s.s.h.o.l.e or A for short) and the Kinkos Girl...lets just call her Girl

A: I need a sharpener.
Girl :  Sure, there are right next to the fax machines ( where I was standing)
A: Are they for sale?
Girl: Yes, they are sir
A: Why?

At this point, me and several other customers looked up. If the guy looked like the pic on the left,
I would understand the basis of that question, and perhaps event take time off my faxing that I had already been working on for 10 minutes (2 pages!!), and explain to him the concept of selling and buying. But he did not, instead, he looked a like a very respectable middle aged man whose faculties were still intact.

And so went on the conversation:
A: Why are they not free?
Girl: I'm sorry sir, but we provide pens, paper, and other writing materials. But we do not provide sharpeners.
A: That is unacceptable. A whole store cannot supply sharpeners to its clients? What kind of business is that? I brought my own pencil. The least you could do is give me a sharpener.
Girl: I'm sorry sir, but you will have to purchase on from the store.
A: Will providing me with a sharpener put you out of business? I bet they only cost a dollar.

Now, I think if Girl was the owner of Kinkos, she would have explained why she has not made them free yet. In A's eyes however, it was her responsibility explain to him macroeconomics, profit and loss and what have you. Even maybe give him a presentation on how Kinkos sets their prices? But seeing as Girl is hired to serve clients...

At this point I was thinking, then why don't you buy it then if 'they only cost a dollar?' Oh, but he did not! He went on and on about how the store should give free sharpeners and how all the other Kinkos he has been to had 1,2,3 free stuff for use by clients... and the Girl, the Girl kept calling him SIR! Now, me, I am not made for retail business. I would have dropped the SIR in the second sentence. And what would have followed would have had me fired because of a stupid sharpener. Girl finally walked over to where the sharpeners were, picked one and brought it over.  How much is it? A barks.It was about $1.49 (rip off, yes, but you did go to Kinkos, so suck it up!). Again, he went on and on. Calmly, Girl opens up the sharpener and even sharpens the pencil for him. WHAT? I would have stuck that sharpener and pencil where the sun never shineth, pulled them up, stuck them in again, and added Tabasco on top!

Reminds of a time I had to pick up a package from Posta at GPO. I walk in, wait for hours then finally get attended. The package is addressed to my company. She asks me if I have permission to prove that I am authorized to pick the package on behalf of the company. I say yes, its my company.  She tells me she needs proof. I give her my Passport (me no have no national ID). She says its not sufficient. Do I have a business card? As fate would have it, I had just given out the last of my business cards. I could not prove that I own my company! I tel her she can call the company, which is listed in the yellow pages, and ask who the boss is? She tells meno. I tell her I can open my laptop and show her my email signature. Nah-ah. I ask her, so what do I need to do to prove it? She says to get  a letter from the boss instructing me to pick the package. But I am the boss, I say.  "Msichana, nimesema kama hauna proof sikupei package!" meaning - Young girl, I said without proof i am not giving you the package. with that she turns around and disappears into whatever world Posta and other government officials disappear to when they are tired of serving you.

Armed with my laptop, i start scouring the streets of Nairobi for a place where I can print. The first shop (actually, a stall that cannot fit two people, equipped with a photocopier that occupies the whole room, a PC that I swear still uses floppy drives and a bored attendant who look at me as if i am trespassing), does not have coloured printer. I don't know why I chose this time to be particular.  I am stubborn like that, even to myself! Our logo has red gold and black. Why I did not just print an effing b/w copy, I have no idea! So I walk and walk and walk. It was stupid to drive into the Central Business District as trying to get parking would have been another ordeal. I find a row of stalls, much like the first one, with even sour attendants, one tells me she does not know how to print, she is shop-sitting for her pal, I tell her i know how print, and I can do it myself. She says she is not allowed to touch anything... aaarrgh! Finally, I get one that looks promising,  I type a letter on my company letterhead giving myself the permission to pick the package, ( I'm serious!), BUT I forget I have no flash drive (its in the car) so I will have to connect my laptop directly to their printer.. oh wait I have a MAC, need to install software and at this point i say Eff the package, it could be anthrax for all I know. Good Samaritan offers a flash drive, I save the letter, connect the flash to their PC, anti-virus goes bonkers, and suddenly the we cannot see any of the documents on the flash. Good Samaritan is angry about all his documents being lost, attendant is worried about virus, I've had it to my neck and I want to go home and never receive a package through Kenya Posta... I ask the attendant to get off the chair. I sit and do my IT nonsense troubleshooting that now and then makes me thankful I took IT before I saw the light and voila, I am able to print my document. Go back to the Post Office, hand the my own permission letter, she does not even ask me for an ID, and gives me the package. I swear I wanted to reach over and...

And what I have been leading to, I came across is this website that allows you to compare your country and another. So I picked USA and Kenya and this is what I got:

What would you choose. I chose Thumbs up. Why?
1. Because I do not have HIV
2. I did not die in Infancy
3. I am not unemployed
4.I do not have more babies
5.I did not die at 19
6.I do use less electricity when in Kenya
7.I do consume less oil when in Kenya
8.I do not care how less / more money I make
9.I do spend less on healthcare
10.I do not feel the class divide.

Now, that is not to say that the above does not happen, but the fact that there is someone in the USA who will do the same comparison and make conclusions about how badly off my lovely country Kenya is.  The fact that we will use statistics to give countries thumbs up and thumbs down, and ask people if they would love to live there,  is disgusting to me. Pick any country, say Somalia. To the people outside Somalia, they see nothing but war, hunger and pain. I have never met more fiercely patriotic people than the Somalis. so much so, that some are of Somali origin born in Kenya or USA, never been to Somalia but defend it as if they spent years there. With all the problems that Kenya might or might not have, I love it, I would live there over and over and if you'd  rather not live there, good for us, the more of our country we have.

Where are all the good sides? Where is ' In Kenya...' you will less likely die from all the chemicals in your food, ...you will take in a deep breath and take in the smell of the land, pure soil and fresh air and not smog,...you will see beautiful animals in the natural habitat and not in cages,...you will, within 1 hour in any direction from Nairobi, see almost all the geographical features you are likely to find all over the world,...you will walk to your neighbors house and borrow salt / sugar,...you will have strangers who will treat you like family,...you will have the whole village come together to assist you,..you will eat tropical fruits  for almost nothing that you will spend hundreds of dollars per month on....I could go on and on, but that was not the point they wanted to prove, was it?

Maybe they had another intention, but taking it from an ignorant American point of view, it just downright makes Kenya a really horrible place to be  in!

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Finding my mojo. Again

When I first started blogging, it was on MySpace. I blogged every two hours. That might be a gross over-exaggeration, but I blogged several times a day. And I am not talking about the - I am now eating breakfast, I am now cleaning the dishes, I am now bored- kind of blogs. It was deep stuff. It was about my angst, about my love life (or lack of thereof), about humanity, about politics, religion, name it.

I was 22 and had just gotten a new real job in the film industry. My working experience dates back to when I was 18, which is something if you grew up in Kenya where we don't have part time jobs when you are in high school or still in school for that matter. I graduated high school early, and was stuck in an awkward position where I couldn't work and I couldn't go to University as yet. So I went to an IT college and in 3 months, I was done. Back to that awkward place again. I went to my college and asked if I could teach the beginners. I got hired and that was my first job. Then came a series of insignificant jobs that I have recently stopped putting in my CV, then the move to the big Nairobi city all by myself. More college, more insignificant jobs in TV stations, then finally the real job. There was something going on in my life then. I was beginning to understand responsibility on a whole new level. I had responsibility back home, being the firstborn and all, but this was different. I was aware of the world around me, of life, of money and career, of growing up, of being a woman.

I was no longer a clueless girl drifting in life, I was becoming a woman immersed in life. I was being opened to a world where my thoughts mattered and my actions held consequences for me, my work and my colleagues. I was part of a team. This was a new feeling. I went to an all girl boarding high school which is in itself a 'team' teaching experience, but for some reason, it never stuck on me then. I needed an outlet. A blog offered that. In the coming years, I would move my blog here and even write some more. I got followers, I even became real life friends with my readers. I joined blog groups, and discussed my blog posts with complete strangers. Then, I started withholding. I became aware of how much of my life I was sharing and suddenly, I felt open, vulnerable even. I started agonizing how much was too much, who was reading my blog and what they thought about me. I became conscious, a feeling that was foreign to me. You see, I never cared what people though about me before and now that I was thinking about it, I stopped writing. I would open my laptop, log in to my blog and type in a whole post. I would click save and shut the computer. It felt good to write, but to have it sit in my drafts left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction. A quest not complete.

Something else was happening. My career was taking off, I was doing more with my life, I was traveling more. That became my new reason for not blogging. I was busy. And I worked so hard at convincing myself that. It worked...for a while.

I used to be a storyteller. I was known as the writing-novel-reading girl in school. I was not reading anymore, I was writing even less. It has made me different. I have been feeling cramped, suffocated, constricted. Then my boyfriend ( feels like we are too old to be calling each other boy/girlfriend) bought me a moleskin. You see, he writes. A lot. We went to his home in Northern California to pick up some of his old stuff and boy, does he have a lot of journals. He is a film director and his journals are a cross between his creative thoughts and personal rants. I digress. Do that a lot nowadays.

I lost my mojo. Even began to question my ability as a writer. I have recently moved to a new town, a new continent, a new culture. And I am getting that itch. I have a little bit of time on my hands. But I have already come to terms with the fact that 'busy' was a concept I invented to excuse my fear of revealing too much. Maybe I should keep my blogposts less personal? But then, wouldn't that make me a hypocritical blogger? Isn't writing about letting the words flow from your mind, unhampered, down to your fingertips? If they have to go through a filtering system, that would mean I was being...phoney.

So I am starting again. I cannot deny the fear is there, but I can admit that I am loosing apart of me when I do not write. So here's to finding my mojo. Again.

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When they grow up

I am sitting at the Filmmakers Lounge at Le Merigot Hotel in Santa Monica, open in front of me catalogs from film distributors, Entourage mailbox showing me I have 100+ unread emails, my diary next to me with meetings to make, confirm, get out of...and nothing matters right now than the video I have just watched.

A year ago, August 2009 to be precise, we opened the Kibera Film School. All the students needed to attend the school was a passion for film making and talent. It did not matter the background, educational or social. Open only to the youth of Kibera. The students from Class of 2009 graduated in March of this year. One of the programs that came out from that Class was Kibera TV. It was not an easy thing to get going. These young people were going to go out in their community, Kibera, collect stories, edit them and upload them to the internet. They had to figure out how to do stories that were captivating, interesting, moving... ans they had to do them frequently. And they have.

Less than 1 year of Kibera Tv being online, they have told stories that would have otherwise never seen the light of day. They have covered issues that matter to them, highlighted successes, failures, ambitions, dreams...and they have made it their own.

They uploaded a video on Facebook today and tagged me. They have told the story of Kibera TV, what they do, why they do it and how they do it. It made me cry. It was not sad...it was moving. For me, to have watched them come this far, to see the work they are doing right now tugged at my heart strings. It is liking watching your child grow, take the first steps, then run.

It is the knowing that I have had something to do with that, that my efforts have enabled someone be able to be all they can be and even way better. It is the knowing that from now on, you can take away everything from those youth but you can never take the knowledge, the passion and the talent that they have.

They are holding up the middle finger to the world and saying...You thought you forgot me? I'm here b*^ch!

Go Kibera TV!!

This is the video i am talking about:

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Though shall (n't)get busted!

There is a radio show in Kenya called busted. It works like this. Partner A suspects Partner B is cheating. A calls the radio station and explains the situation to the presenter.  The presenter comes up with a 'story' and calls up partner B. Usually, B will say something stupid that will lead to her/him being caught cheating.

In this particular show, a man suspects that his wife is cheating on him with her boss. The wife has been 'working late' a lot and he is beginning to doubt any work  is getting done at that time of the night. He  calls the radio show asking for help. In this episode, the presenter pretends to be the wife to the boss... listen on..

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More from Vancouver

Vancouver Beach

Me at Stanley Park

Nate at Stanley Park

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Around the world - Vancouver

A few weeks ago, Nate and I left for Vancouver.  After the culture shock ( we were staying on Davie Street, Google it), we settled in quickly. We were busy, not much to sight see, but we did manage a visit to Stanley Park and the seaside (or their version of the beach).  See, for me, if the beach does not look like this-- basically, miles and miles of white sand and blue water, then it doesn't count as a beach.

We also got to eat the best hot-dogs i have ever tasted by the sea side, right next to these people:

The are the most amazing (hilarious thing). A little info about them -

Yue Minjun uses his own iconic face in a state of hysterical laughter as a signature trademark. Recognized universally as a sign of happiness, the smile raises questions of intent and interpretation. One of the most influential contemporary artists in China, Yue Minjun represents the new wave of Chinese artistic freedom.
A-Mazing Laughter marks Yue Minjun’s Canadian debut. 

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Random unoriginal notes

 Saw this a while back, then saw it again today on another blog. Just thought I'd spread my un-originality.

The Geography of a Woman
————————
Between the ages of 18 – 21 a woman is like Africa or Australia. She is half discovered, half wild and naturally beautiful with bushland around the fertile deltas.

Between the ages of 21 – 30 a woman is like America or Japan. Completely discovered, very well developed and open to trade especially with countries with cash or cars.

Between the ages of 30 – 35, she is like India or Spain. Very hot, relaxed and convinced of its own beauty.

Between the ages of 35 – 40 a woman is like France or Argentina. She may have been half destroyed during the war but can still be a warm and desirable place to visit.

Between the ages of 40 – 50 she is like Yugoslavia or Iraq. She lost the war and is haunted by past mistakes. Massive reconstruction is now necessary.

Between the ages of 50 – 60 she is like Russia or Canada. Very wide, quiet and the borders are practically unpatrolled but the frigid climate keeps people away.

Between the ages of 60 – 70 a woman is like England or Mongolia. With a glorious and all conquering past but alas no future (a bit like Tony Blair, maybe Blair’s a women really).

After 70, they become Albania or Afghanistan. Everyone knows where it is, but no one wants to go there.
My note - Add Australia here :-)

The Geography of a Man
————————
Between the ages of 15 – 70 a man is like Zimbabwe – ruled by a d***

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