Make Your Own Breaks - Points to Ponder

The thing with taking some leave days is that on the first day you decide to sort out all your documents that have been lying all over for the whole year. Well I finally started my long awaited 2 weeks leave days and figured out, "let me deal with my clutter!". In the process I came across these notes I made about 12 years ago and decided to share them as I found them so relevant to my life today. This is about making my own breaks, from Tom Morris' book "True Success: A New Philosophy of Excellence

1. Define your goals - the quest for success always begins with a target

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2. Seek out those who know more than you - plan to network with those who know more than you

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3. Pursue your vision with stubborn consistency - the biggest difference between people who succeed and those who do not is not usually talent but persistence

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4. Make an emotional commitment - without a deep commitment, it is difficult to pursue a dream

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5. Review and renew your goals

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Do these make sense or is it just one of those so called wisdoms that are spewed at us by motivational speakers and writers?

Hitting Her, Again...And Again

Over the weekend, a story developed in which a television journalist, Wambui Kabiru, was found murdered in her home. It is widely suspected that it is her husband who killed her and now he has gone missing and the police are looking for him (by the time I am writing this). I know a lot has been written and said about domestic violence, and gruesome pictures have been posted to warn or shock women into getting out of abusive relationship so I will not say much about it. Neither will I condemn her husband as I, like many other people, don't really know what went behind closed doors so everything is speculation for now. However what I ask myself is what drives men to hit their spouses?

I have heard bar talk of men boasting that you must hit your wife/girlfriend occassionaly just to establish who is the "man" in the relationship. I have heard stories of women who believe that being hit by their man is a show of affection. But as a man, when you are all alone with your private thoughts, how do you feel knowing that you repeatedly hit your spouse? Even if it is only once?

Some years back, I was involved in organizing an art/performance event in which my wife belonged to a team that was due to perform. She was extremely late and the order of events kept changing because of their no show. When she finally showed up, I met her at the entrance, and she correctly judged that I was livid with her. I stretched out my hand to grab her, my intention being to quickly usher her inside so that they could get going. She cringed backwards, thinking that I was going to lash at her. I was so scandalized that such a thought even crossed her mind, given that I have never hit her.

I tell friends, if someone hits you once, they will most likely do it again. For me, meting out violence on your spouse is the lowest level a man can get to. It is actually lower than the lowest level!

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(image from http://www.zazzle.com/ )

"There is a subconscious way of taking violence as a way of expression, as a normality, and it has a lot of effects in the youth in the way they absorb education and what they hope to get out of life."
– Salma Hayek

"Long term domestic violence: Being abused in this manner is like being kidnapped and tortured for ransom but you will never have enough to pay off the kidnapper".
Rebecca J. Burns ...TheLastStraw - support in the aftermath and during abuse

“If the numbers we see in domestic violence were applied to terrorism or gang violence, the entire country (US) would be up in arms, and it would be the lead story on the news every night.”
– Rep. Mark Green

Found Photos: Haiti

Going through photos in my computer and I find these. Then I realise it has been a year since I was in Haiti. It was a very intense experience for me, going there just after the earthquake and seeing the people struggle to rebuild their lives. I wrote a post about my experience here , here and here.

So for now I leave you with some more pics of what I saw there!

Port Au Prince, people struggling to rebuild their lives

Public transport in Haiti, equivalent to what in Kenya we refer to as matatus. Here they are called tap tap, apparently from the noise the tout makes by tapping a coin to the body of the bus as they signal the driver to stop

The Sri Lankan UN soldiers that manned Jacmel. I became good friends with the commander as he loaned us a truck for the film screenings

Yes, space for putting up tents was at a minimum, so some put up tents in the middle of the road!

Jacmel

Port Au Prince

FilmAid screenings

Of Weddings And How I Got Married (Or Was Married Off)

Ok, this is how it works here: Boy meets girl and soon proposes to her. He is either rejected or accepted. If accepted, girl insists on a memorable wedding ceremony. My phone rings and I am informed that a committee is being put in place to organize the wedding. As a committee member, you are committed to contribute a certain fixed figure, let's say 10,000 shillings. You can even be compelled to spend a certain amount of money on the attire to wear that day. You are also required to mobilize friends to contribute to this wedding on top of being assigned some work, like organizing transport for all and sundry, making sure food and refreshments are catered for etc. By the time the wedding is done, you have spent unquantifiable amount of time on this wedding, not to mention a fortune. And because you will have fallen short of the money required to pull it off, the bride and groom could have borrowed money to finance the shortfall. When back from their honeymoon, they will be scratching their heads on how to deal with the debts.

This is a typical scenario of weddings in this country. Except the part where I receive a call to be a committee member. This is because my relatives and friends know better than to call me to be part of a wedding committee. They all know that I will either decline, or if forcefully prevailed upon, I will simply go awol/mia. And I normally have my standard line: I have not had a wedding ceremony, not because I don't want to but because I cannot afford, so why pay for someone else' wedding? Of course even if I could afford to I would not want to (but my wife does not know this). It is a discussion that I have agreed to disagree on with many friends but my position is that one should organize a wedding that they can afford. I have never seen the need to burden everybody else with the cost of a lavish wedding if you cannot afford it.

A lavish wedding does not necessarily make a marriage. But all the glitzy images of weddings on TV are making all the women yearn for the same, not necessarily knowing that those are either the filthy rich or it is just a soap opera set. I know most of the women will vehemently disagree with me, but my wife will not. She will look at that budget and tell me, why don't we buy a piece of land and build a house? I did not need to have a lavish wedding to marry my wife. I did not even go down on my knees to propose. None of us wears a wedding ring.

After going out with her for sometimes, I simply told her that if it too late to get back to her place she could spend the night at my place (with some selfish intentions I must admit). But because she did not want the rest of the people at her place to know she had spent the night at my place, she would get up to go home very early in the morning. The only hitch with this arrangement was that I did not have the keys to the compound gate and because we did not want to wake up the rest of the people we shared the compound with, she had to jump over the fence. I think she got tired of jumping over the fence every weekend so she eventually just moved in. And then I was forced to explain to her folks why she was living at my place. And here we are many years later. With two kids (my first born came as a result of the fence jumping episodes).

This weekend I attended the wedding of a dear cousin. All I did was show up at the wedding and enjoy. She did not invite me to be in the committee, which was a good thing as I might not have had the guts to say no given that I hold her in high esteem. I wish her all the best

I would be interested in hearing your take on weddings...

Kris & Rita: Fallen Angels

I recently came across this video. When I was a kid I liked this song, we had a cassette album of the UNICEF concert and this was my favorite song in it. Now it sounds a bit cheesy because I am older but anyway, I just thought I would share it



And for those who love to sing along, below are the lyrics as well!

Fallen Angels

It's sad to see we may never be the way we were before
We don't believe in the magic of the music anymore
And everything's older now and colder and grey
Oh darling I believe there's got to be a better way
It seems to me we've forgotten how to let our feelings show
We seem to be so much farther from the dreams we used to know
And too many more my friends are dying today
Oh darling I believe there's got to be a better way
Listen to the fallen angels learning how to spread their wings
Now will they make it all alone
Look into the children's laughter tell me what tomorrw brings
For those so far away from home
I can say I'm not sorry for the things we tried to be
But I'm afraid what we're headin' toward is up to you and me
(Cause we got a choice) the future is ours to see
(We got a chance) to change today
Oh darling don't you believe there's got to be a better way
Cause we got a choice (the future is ours to see)
We got a chance to change today
Oh I believe together there can be a better way
Oh if we believe together there can be a better way