A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHT

The person who claims to be a man is also our governor. Claim? Yes claim. I am usually in the small clique of individuals who choose not to believe until we touch the scars on your hands. So claim it is.

You see, he is almost 200kg of fat, bones and thin muscles. If he had a brain he would probably be 201kg. As a result of this superfluous endowment, this ‘man’ has real boobs and buttocks that stretch his trousers furthest north and furthest south while walking. His boobs look silicon, dolly-patoning with every slight movement even a sigh.

His belly is the pink elephant in whatever room he enters. Elephant. Quite literary. Literal in the sense that it can both harbor an elephant to full gestation and well, because it is elephant.

So he paid a visit to our hospital and found us sitting on the usual benches. Ours is a 40 bed capacity ward.

“Karibu, mheshimiwa…errrr excellency.” The nurse in charge chuckled, trying to maintain political correctness. She has to, she must keep her job. You see she took a 80,000kes loan that she has been paying for the last 3 years, she has to keep her job. If she doesn’t the bank would auction her house but still 

that would not be enough.

The rest of us tried to hide under the transparent guise of thin air.

“I can see, your ward is full… you have 40 patients?” the governor asked. Looking all in control.  High-fiving himself that he could construct such a sentence, and that he knew a few medical jargons like ‘patient’ and 

‘ward’.

I could see his heart smile.

“Yes sir,” the nurse in charge responded. And as if trying to be in her best behavior added, “We actually have 102 patients sir”

The governor looked at her. Trying to instruct her to give more information, without wanting go through the trouble of constructing another English sentence.

“The rest are under the beds” the nurse continued.

The governor thought of bending to wave to the under-the-bed patients or at least show his face for the benefit of the next elections.

Wise counsel presided upon him not to bend. A man that endowed cannot bend and leave the median strip of his already tight trousers intact. I was catching my breadth, all too eager to hear the unzipping sound of his trousers being ripped into two by his down-to- earth gesture of bending.

I almost chuckled. I doubt he had any underwear. None would fit him, I bet. So you can imagine the rib cracking scene of the ‘governor who bent, only to rise up and have to hide his scaly scrotum in his hands’. All this was playing in my mind. The little pleasures of my life. My entertainment ‘allowance’.

Just as he was walking out, the tall, thin consultant doctor walked in. unkempt hair, in the same shirt he had two days ago. A man of his stature is also not allowed by standards to ‘rewind’ clothes so he had two shirts to confuse his overindulgence of the 5year old green trousers he has never found a substitute for. This trouser had tales to tell. You could see the ferocious marks of the charcoal iron box at its hem. These were due to frantic efforts at attempting to dry it the night before, every night before.

The doctor was talking to himself. Doing his mental sums. A holy soliloquy.

I heard later that the governor had promised to paint our ward. He had also passed by the emergency area and found patients waiting for their relatives who had gone across the road to buy drugs for them to be attended with. He was a good man. He bought them half litre soda (madiaba) and half a loaf of bread. Each. Great. Just as he was leaving an asthmatic patient who had been sent to buy an oxygen cylinder( for the hospital oxygen had run out)  arrived, panting out of breadth. He too got a loaf of bread for the trouble.

Later that night as I was watching news at my neighbor’s  I saw the first lady of the land doing some exercises outside of statehouse. In an  ill-fitting track suit. Running like she wanted to catch grass hoppers. And eat them. She was planning to attend the London Marathon to raise funds to improve maternal healthcare. She had a task at hand. You see, to raise funds to bring any meaningful change in maternal mortalities that stood at 488/100000 you needed to sprint round the solar system a thousand times. But maybe she will make it. Who am I to judge. Kila mtu anajua strong holds zake.

Then there was some other news. Other governors were taxing chicken. This nauseated my hungry self. How do you tax mboga? How how how can you suggest to tax my chicken? Considering I have a pet chicken called Florence back in Kakamega, this idea gave me ulcers. And high blood pressure. I just hope they will 

not confiscate my Florence. She is the only asset I got.

Others were taxing the dead. I imagined, with the creativity of Kenyans, our people will deny they buried a dead person. Perharps they will argue and say “huyo  mtu hajakufa, tumemuweka tu hapo ndio apigwe na upepo, hapo chini ya mchanga”

Next I know another one will tax anyone walking around with a penis. After all it has the potential of increasing our population. If it’s erect my friend, you are doomed. Double taxation will hit your sorry ass. You see a man walking around with an erect penis makes the county government go through the extra cost of providing security; rape issues my friend, rape issues. A man walking around with an erect something something is a threat to the security of our sisters. Maybe they will suggest an 'erection zone' more like the 'smoking zones'. Where you go sit until it goes away, then after confirmation, you are released to the streets to drop your job applications.We are a proactive society.

All was cool but for one suggestion I had. Why wouldn’t the first lady do a marathon to raise money to build the railway and we use that ‘borrowed’ money from the Chinese to keep our mothers alive?

I have a bank loan too, I choose to keep quiet and be in my good behaviors. I need my job. Hapo ndio devolution imetufikisha.

DIMINISHING PETAL

When she was here we planned earnestly for tomorrow. We, like you, viewed death as an alien. We were trying our best; she was giving her all. What better combination would a doctor want? The litany of body errors had slowed her down a little.

Her once voluptuous rounded waist was now a framework of unpleasant bones buried deep in scaly sagging skin. Her once fitting skirt sagging generously to her knees just to cover them but revealing legs thin like the reeds that hold papyrus. Well-oiled though as if to emphasize her will to get her groove back and turn heads once again.

Up her face, it required a poet’s complex mind to fix her now desolate look to the beauty in one of the snaps she keeps showing to those who cared to lend her a minute. The snaps a constant reminder of her goal.

Her chest no more than a loose blouse worn over the loose skin that was once the mark of her beauty.

She was supporting herself with a walking stick. She was 25 years old. She hoped to live for 65 more years, like her grand papa, she said.

Before the thunder of an unforgiving infection rendered her hospital-chained, Maliya was a student and a single mother to a dotting angel; Angel being her real name.

When she was here we planned each day for tomorrow. We looked forward to her discharge from the boring hospital ceiling. Her daughter needed her more than we did. Of course. For good measure, she needed to fulfill her dreams. The first university graduate in her entire family, she would have been.

“When I get out of here, I swear I will buy a whole sack of mangoes hide in my room and eat them one by one.” She said, interrupting her croaky voice with an equally croaky laughter.

So as I sighed out of relief, my legs up after a long day’s work. My phone rang. It was the hospital. It’s never a good sign. And I heard the narration.

While Maliya groaned in need of attention, the ward nurse was too busy writing in those books they have and when she finally came and realized things ‘were not so good’, she called the doctor. The doctor answered in a lazy tone, that which says without saying it, that a bother is not welcome. “I will come!” the doctors finally said and hang up. He was a good man though, he showed up. Two hours later. Eyes a little too red. Maybe he was glad then that there was no work left. God had done it. The lifeless body lay in bed, mouth open to betray the ignored cries for help.

Without uttering a word, he picked his pen and wrote “pupils fixed and not reacting to light, no cardiopulmonary activity. Patient certified dead” signed. And left. To continue. Yes to continue watching the series he had been interrupted watching. What’s the big deal peeps. That’s life man. Man up.

In as much as we grumble about poor working conditions and poor pay and lack of equipment, what really is our attitude and contribution to needless deaths. Did you play your role in treating another human being like a human being?

I hope Maliya’s baby Angel will grow up to understand the meaning of the words “pupils fixed.” As for now, the clouds have invited a dark night, and I guess it’s time to sleep. Good night peeps, but do wake up when you are needed. And do remember what someone else needs could be as simple as to get to eat a sack of mangoes.

#Someone should hug little Angel really tight for all of us :)

DEMOCRACY IS NOT THE PANACEA; WE NEED GOOD LEADERSHIP WHICHEVER WAY IT COMES

The picture painted by those democratically elected to our leaders portrays the end of democracy as an illusion that we will never get to touch. While we thought that democracy and its anticipated end should serve to offer if not better lives then lives desirable by the citizens, it has not been further from reality.

The world over, the unaudited claim of democracy is that which makes the people get leaders they desire. The end of this is supposed to be an acute translation of services and leadership as fairy as it should be.

Like the bad proverbial mother that eats up her own children, our kind of democracy is proving to be our Achilles heel.  It is, day by day confirming that it is an extra burden with no transposed results to the ordinary mwananchi. How be it that the leaders you stood in long spiraling queues to elect turn your back against you the very moment you cast your vote? The ink still wet and the brow still drowned in sweat.

The first thing the members of the lower house ganged up to do was to unceremoniously coerce the structures of the country to increase their pay. Never mind not a single bill had been passed as yet. Concurrently, the county governments; meant to bring services closer to the people resulted to join in the financial gymnastics and the governors too were not left behind.

Further gapping the already eclectic poor-rich divide while being hopelessly clueless on real issues that concern the people.  In a good country (and that’s probably Wonderland where Alice lives) we would expect that the penultimate leadership would play tough ball and direct the coterie of leaders who hide under mass impunity and bring them back on track. What happened was that they chose to handle them with kid’s glove and opened a further Pandora’s Box that is now spiraling out of control. If our leaders can be allowed to dip their fingers in the honey jar then everyone else must be allowed to do it. As a representation of the general population, they ought to be a reflection of what we are. What they want and need should extrapolate what we want and need. There should be no doubling of standards.

Teachers were the streets for three weeks, putting a not-so-enviable focus on the prospects of education in our country. An education system characterized by uncertainty and poor stewardship breeds youths that are uncanny and unnecessarily abrasive. These, while our peers are embracing the dancing lights of modernization.

Nurses and doctors might also be sitting on the edge, waiting for their turn to pounce. Characterized by poor pay in a sector that is as hazardous to work in as was the battlefield of World War 2, we are left with few probable guesses.

The most nauseating thing however is not our leaders’ unfairness but their indifference. As it is said, you would rather an unjust god than an indifferent one. They chose to almost deliberately ignore the obvious displeasure of the people and chose to with religious discipline adorn political correctness as a means to their selfish ends.

In all these confusion, the obvious question becomes ‘what is it that they claimed was the magic in the wand of democracy?’ Why should those who embrace it be glorified and those who think against it be castigated.

In a population where many people live miserably below the benchmark of poverty, it would be wise to guide democracy into its right path. We have to get back into the lane. Define astutely what it is that we need as a country and brand our own path to get there. 

UNDERSTANDING THE PROSPECTS OF FREE HEALTHCARE IN KENYA

President Uhuru Kenyatta made a promise that there will be free health services in all Health centers and Dispensaries. In addition to this, he made a further undertaking to scrap off user fees for maternal and child health care.

I AM PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT SOON YOU WILL BE KILLED TOGETHER WITH YOUR FAMILY

In my line of calling, I meet many deaths. I am surrounded by death. Everyone who comes to ask for my rituals is usually trying to reschedule this inevitable reality. Some die sooner, some die before I get to see them. Some just die anyway.

THE ‘HEALTH PROMISE’ MUST BE KEPT; THE 100 DAYS COUNTDOWN BEGINS

Russian - American novelist Ayn Rand remarked "You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality."

SHE KNEW WAS GOING TO DIE IN LESS THAN 9 MONTHS, ALL SHE WANTED WAS TO BE ABLE TO SWALLOW HER FOOD UNTIL THEN

.

As the door to the operation theatre slummed shut on *Jane, I could feel the devastation in her world. The world outside had shut its doors. Her sun was setting. Setting to allow a sky dark as soot to take charge. No twinkling night stars. Even if there would be a few of them, the tears in her eyes would not let her see them. A daughter. A sister. A mother of three. To some of us a patient. To our leaders in healthcare and country at large another statistic. 

ONLY THE COUP PROPHECY IS YET TO BE FULFILLED IN ACHEBE’S PREMONITIONS

" You died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest -- without asking to be paid."  Says Chinua Achebe in his satirical novel “A Man of the People”