TIGblogs TIG | TIGblogs GROUP TIGBLOGS LOGIN SIGNUP
dave's Blog
dave's Blog
« previous 5


The Unheard Voices
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

It is not the big dramatic things that press me to write about this in the middle of the night but just trying to make sense of it. It is like a reflection of twisted feelings or some kind of guilt. What could I have done? It is probably the ghastly wind and welled up skies that made me feel a tingly feeling like something was going to happen that day. Walking down the Tom Mboya backstreet I suddenly found myself between them. The still gazing crowd and a drama of city council officers dragging an old man away from his sleeping sacks. It was not the anguish in his voice that drew me close to the saga, but just being an old man, a squalor being looked down upon. He was guilty of the ‘crime’ of scavenging and illegal logging in the supermarkets garbage bins. Though the numb onlookers did nothing their scorn was clearly reflected even on their polished shining shoes and crisped suits. I couldn’t keep my eyes of the old man even after saving him from the beatings and getting a share myself of the batons kicks. To escape from the scornful and judging eyes I helped him up and we dodged into a nearby hotel. After ordering some food for both of us, my head pondered ‘why does that have to happen?’ who is this old man? And why is he like this? Short while like he read my mind he spoke over his food slowly “why did you do that? I replied “did what? … Those people could have killed you”. He then continued to narrate to me how he lost his job as a bank manager after a rape allegation set up to create a space for the CEO’s girlfriend, then his properties to auctioneers and then his wife who could not live with a “potential rapist”. For sometimes he just gazed directly at me and said ‘the question you are asking yourself son is the same question I have asked myself for a long time, I have not yet found the answer too, the question is why? Why did it have to happen to me? Why did I end up like this? Why?
In the old days he said “ I made a name for myself with generosity and hard work” but now he have nothing to be generous with, no job no money just his sleeping sacks and tattered clothes. I choked with empathy and felt sorry for him but curiously felt sorrier for us. As we dance on the same tight ropes over the abyss in which the old man felled in. I pondered and wrestled with thought to understand why the past mistakes or factors beyond control should deny one a voice or visibility and validity in the society. And why should people who matters most like a family shun someone when I thought the bonds could even make us follow another even into a ditch. I suddenly realized I was not any better than him though I had a lot to thank God for; we were in the same boat sailing in a vast ocean of fate only with determination and pads of faith. I reflected myself complaining of the big grandiose properties I don’t have, while the old man desperately searched for the ‘safest’ garbage bin just to appear invisible and rest overnight. Although it is absurd to compare both of us the memory trigged a rush of recognition that the old mans arrogant assumption “tomorrow I will get myself a house” saved him a lot of pain. His faith “just seeing another day makes me wait for the Lord to restore me” and that struggle for his sleeping sacks (the only thing he had) makes me feel inclined to accept his theory of life “integrity should not end with money”.
I went to see him again but after a couple of visits he disappeared from the area. I still hope to see him again just to be sure he is okay, however as I pass the place now my heart beat, pumping, my mind stamped by his, vibrating from each corners with echoes of courage and faith. Inwardly wishing I had done something more for him. But what could I do? I just appreciated and listened to his wise unheard voice.

October 29, 2009 | 10:37 AM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


It Is Never Over Until You Say It is Done

It is a macho thing for a guy to be able to handle his thoughts and fears. Still, every once in a while fear gets to each one of us. No matter how tough. Hard times come like blows in a Karate tournament, wiping one from feet like a knock out punch. Every time I go in for a tournament my mind counterbalances two beliefs, “ I am not afraid” while other retorts that “ hold on Dave! Hold on, I slight fear is normal, you are a human being”. In the dojo (the ring) and amidst curious cheering crowds the world seems tense and everything else seems not to exist, toe to toe with the opponent and facing each other and I can help feeling a tickle sensation while sizing up the opponent’s mocking grin. Then the blows rains after the bell ring, punches, kicking, blocking, counterattacks and outwitting tense wobble dance around the ring are greeted with cheers from what I now hear like afar crowds of people. Then a big blow always come and I always feels it instinctively like the world halts for a millisecond then the body tingly meets the punch and world start spinning again this time I am going down really fast with a thud! I don’t feel pain but eyes are blurred and voices of crowd’s awe drones in my head like confused rock and roll band. But when I am down there a strong voice shakes me from the confusion “get up Dave, you can do it… it is not over until you say it is done!! Get up” so I start to rise up on my feet thinking about my honor and respect. A fighter’s spirit gives me more strength and my heart pounds heavily with new crazy and furious vigor. I can hear the coach clearly now “it doesn’t matter the beating you have taken what matters is how much beatings you can take and move on till the end”.

It is weird feeling being on the edge and knowing there is nothing you can do but just to hang on and kick it with the last breath. You can’t just turn to the referee and say “hey! I need a break to catch my breath, this guy is not human”. So I do the macho man thing i.e. suffer quietly and “play it to the bone” until it is over and it really works. Though the truth is that sometimes I win sometimes I lose.
To me that is how life should be. I mean, I have gone through a lot of struggle becoming a man. Any guy who would tell you he’s never wanted to be honored and respected like a man would either be lying or telling you the sad truth. Sad truth is that at some point along the way he gave up after trying or never tried just like that.

There are of course few desperate, fleeting moments I feel like giving up, like when world comes crumbling down on me or when life seems like a tall forted prisons wall. Scaling up such walls seems like next to impossibility. Yet time again and again I am amazed by the strength and the heart I got. Not to mention the wise word of my grandma to me “you have to take a heart to be a man” and that “you don’t climb a tree from the top but from the bottom”. Imagining me taking life in each stride step by step is like climbing that tree from the bottom. It gives me patience and the will. And the thought of rising up to the feet from a beating gives me the heart to face setbacks time again and again against all odds. When that fears of tomorrow weigh heavily on my heart I get calmed by music. I listen to a same song. Lucky Dube tune “Crazy world” His voice so clean it sounds in my head like he next to me patting my shoulders….
“But we don’t know what tomorrow brings
In this crazy world!
So I lie myself to down sleep
And pray that Lord my soul to keep”
When I listen to that tune I calm down and pray. This song reminds me of the struggles that I go though becoming a man of honor and trustworthy. It makes me think of my life, my family, my friends and the youths. Tears of hope and fears well on my eyes and I wipe them, get to bed and think even harder. Yes! It should not be over until you say it is done!!

October 13, 2009 | 3:32 AM Comments  1 comments

Tags:


Growing in up country
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Things have changed in modern society for sure, some times it strike me whether the globalization is ‘where we are supposed to be rather that where we were’ or that maybe I get confused because I haven’t changed much as the changes dictate. I grew up in upcountry of central Kenya. Until I moved to work and study in urban, vast green fields, natural reserves and communal life where anybody dared to mind others business was what I knew. Though the family and neighbors were not a ‘haven from selfish mankind’ the love and care of others was radiant, when a bride got married we had a share of the dowry and when one departure from us we shared the tears too. The legends of brave humane and patriotic ran from one generation to the others, passed to us through the music, dances, storytelling and riddles. I remember for instance the legends of Mugo Wa Kibiro, he prophesied of long smoking iron snake sleeking through our motherlands which later came true in the name of railways. As a boy I could never get enough about the legends of men who left their wives or young warriors who sworn patriotism and fought for our independence. I wished to be one of them and spent awesome time daydreaming about that. All this legend rings though my head everyday fresh as I listened to my grandmother who I lived with.

Living in upcountry I was never depilated of luxury which came in terms of freedom of exploration and experiences. Though there were no malls, cinemas or kid’s playgrounds filled with toys and bouncing castles, we run bare footed across and deep into the jungle. We were wild and free. Hunting for hares and gazelles with our miniature bows and arrows and dogs. I remember one dog ‘Chita’ coined from cheetah, he was strong and brave, I even thought I saw bravery in his eyes. We swam in the rocky rivers, gathered wild fruits and cooked sweet potatoes in the fields. One time I took a young buck home but after two days, it was so sick and looked out of place. I could tell from it watered eyes and meek bleat. It was out of place just like I feel here in the polluted and crowded urban.

My family was typically humble just like others so we lived in an imminent tension of bad harvest, school fees, hospital bill and that stuff people take for granted. But my parents always found money for my school fees, class trips and Christmas clothes- not having a Christmas new shoe or pants was so demoralizing just like Christmas without night vigil mass in the village.

Life was cool; we didn’t live in total depravity or crime prone neighborhoods. Respect, wisdom and generosity was what made name for a person though today manicures, pedicures, bar fights and flashy wallets determines a man success. And sometimes I feel like pity for them or probably more pity for our country. Working in fields’ enhanced hardworking and prepared us to face the adulthood responsibilities, failure to finish ones chores meant a half ration or no supper. “A lazy man can’t stand eating as it is work too’. After day work we all gathered around the fire place inside a smoky hut, cousins, friends and neighbors and then my grand ma sitting at her place like a goddess telling us stories, folks and riddles. Her marvelous smooth and wise voice taking us to that world of reality show, the cracking firewood, glinting crickets, choirs of frogs in nearby stream sounded from dark silent night, resonating and rhyming with her voice like a musical background.

At high school that is when I started to drift from home. With students from different backgrounds it was a ground of diversity and problems too. Though I’m okay with all people and respect the same, I sometimes gave a timid bow to peer pressure but would snap back to myself. See! I couldn’t forget where I came from because I wanted to keep my Identity and values. I couldn’t stand letting down my folks neither could the family accept a heir who couldn’t make own legends. I see it now; they wanted us to have better lives than they had.

Growing up there gave me a different perspective of life. It was full of teachings and acknowledgement of realities that I could probably never had learnt. The urban new environment presents me with better options, chances as well as more challenges and obstacles. I have to live on ‘my self’s’ like most of others alone fight or flight from problems while still keeping my head high enough to see beyond the horizons. I’m not ashamed or full of regret about my past. Instead the past give me strength to move a step forward. Well! Living in a small house, not driving a fancy car or wearing trendy fashions like my age mates used to give me ulcers. But when I look back and then beyond the horizons, I see so much work to do, think about the disorganized society, culturally uprooted as my grand ma says ‘ trees lives by their own roots’, and then I realize that it will take courage and suffering to make my own legends. Though I feel comfortable in the urban, I still feel like should do something more to fit and make it right, like I must go an extra mile to prove I can belong here as well as be myself. Though I must change some of my past, I have pride to say that past has much to do with who I am today.

September 7, 2008 | 11:47 AM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


WHERE DO BROKEN HEARTS GOES?
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

It is heartbreaking to write on a phenomenon that I find both bizarre and altogether mysterious. But I couldn’t help wondering why and how it happens. It is easy to regard with contempt or even condemn people doing crazy things, fusing in desperation or becoming retreatists of the society, this is what we learnt to label psychotics and neurotics, like people walking half naked, puffing their lives into world of hallucinations with drugs or even committing suicide. It gives me nightmares like I saw it coming but did nothing. When it all started we the society turned against the guy like a plague and watched in indolent silence gaped like our mouths saw well than the eyes. My friend took his own life, oh yah! Committed suicide, so young to die! Could we have done something to avoid this? Or did we desert him when he reached out for us and needed us most.

Love and affection! It is necessity of life, that what we never understood he needed. Because everyone needs a meaningful contact or connection with others. It is through interpersonal relationship that we reach out for others in an attempt to meet each others social life and support through the many curves of life. The need for contact and inclusion is so evident that currently there are more than 10,000 social websites including facebook, TIG, tagged, friendster you name them. With the globalization the mobile technologies, internet and media the interpersonal relationship have gone to a new level, almost heading to an autistic society where the technologies is overtaking face to face relationships.

The inclusion has all to do with the varying degree by which we need to establish and maintain a feeling of mutual interest with other people. We want others to pay attention to us, take time to understand us and be considered normal like others people. Have you ever experienced how it feels to be invited last in a team? Or been ignored in a friends group and conversations? The feeling of rejection critically demoralize our perception of who we are or the self concept. To have a false consciousness that one is unlovable and unfitting leads to personality inferiority complex. That why people will do crazy things just to prove that they are not zombies and that they need attention too, like getting into drugs, aggression or even anti social behaviors, clothing and styles. These are just a few of attention seeking behaviors. The unsatisfying interpersonal relationship leads to loneliness and then depression.

Every human needs to establish and maintain a satisfactory influence and power in any relationship, when the control need is unmet then we feels like the other person doesn’t respect or value our abilities, that they perceive us to be incompetent. And then there is affection, this involves a need to give or receive love and experience emotional close contact. Less than that one feels unlovable and that people avoid us, however if there is a pleasant experience of affection especially during childhood attachment which influences positively the future approach of decision making, self concept and relationship, then it is easy to handle relationship and recognize that not everyone one meet will necessarily care for him/her the same way as others.

Everyone experiences emotions though it varies with it pleasantness or unpleasantness. Chronic intense emotional if not addressed leads to severe psychological disorders e.g frequent episodes of stress leads to depression and uncontrolled anger is mostly deviated to innocent victims “the last straw syndrome”. Our feelings affects relationships for good or worse, only when direct attention is paid to the same are we able to commit ourselves, have courage and skills to express the pleasant or unpleasant feelings that when a healthy relationship is achieved.

By reaching out for someone, having an effective communication, expressing empathic understand and giving support and courage, we enhance the essence of life i.e. love. So next time someone tries to reach out for you, take time to listen and extend a helping hand. You might be breaking someone’s self rejection cycle and probably that is the blueprint for helping the psycho-social products system we label and stigmatize as insane. For sure they lives among us, this people are us.

August 30, 2008 | 1:02 PM Comments  1 comments

Tags:


School riots ' youths crying for love'
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic


The riots in Kenya secondary schools as witness in the past month reflects a need for the society and all the concerned parties to change attitudes and seriously evaluate efficacy of our schools in terms of structural and administration. With more than 300 secondary going on rampage and leaving a trail of damages, one student lost life, and scores injured. This has caused a public outcry with everyone blaming one another. In the wake of the crisis, many factors have been associated as the cause of the mayhem, however some of the recommendation should surely be given a second thought for instance the decision of the minister for education to ban televisions, DVDs and mobile phones can be a good measure but short-lived solution. The copycat phenomenon is probably a major cause as the students copied what others were doing by seeing the news and use of mobile phones, however the mass media have been there and they will still be using the same at homes.

The society has to reinforce good and positive moral development first for the students to conventional air their grievances. If the society is to go by what we witness during the post elections crisis, that now it is an order of the day to use violence and destructions to be heard, then the modeling impels the student to imitate the same.
The changing social roles and social disorganization as a result of unsatisfactory parenting is another cause, the decline of family roles especially the parents in a child primary socialization whereby the children are spend most time in day care center, boarding schools and other institutions provides a ground of differential association. The child learns from diverse environment such as peers, but the major responsibility of such institutions are not based on child development on bases of family oriented values and norms hence not so much effective. By the virtue of a child growing with lack of good models and negative influence increases probability of drug abuse and aggression behaviors in children.

The youths need models, psychological presence of the parents and a working system of administration in schools. The 8.4.4 system should be evaluated and modified to avoid burdening. The relationship between the parents, society, teachers and the students should be enhanced and good communication comes in handy. The moral values and norms enhancement should be aimed at helping individual student to change and have positive self-esteem and good perception. However, there is a need to use effectively rules and regulations in schools just as the laws are used for social control. The indiscipline students should be given a punishment on variation of wrong acts; this will work as deterrence and should be stipulated and reasonable to serve it purpose. The fear of punishment deters criminality behaviors.

July 31, 2008 | 12:21 PM Comments  1 comments

Tags:


« previous 5


dave's Profile

dave's Friends


Latest Posts
The Unheard Voices
It Is Never Over Until...
Growing in up country
WHERE DO BROKEN HEARTS...
School riots ' youths...

Monthly Archive
January 2008
February 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2009

Change Language


Filter By Type
Events
Travel
Topics

Friends
Angela Sun
Annie
Camilla Noble-Warren
Dave Matthews
Diane
Linda Rath-Wiggins
Malcolm Lawrence
Martin Tairo M.
Serah Katusia
Terri
umeche, chinedum ikenna
Wambui
Yuel Bhatti

Links
facebook


16651 views
Important Disclaimer