Shiko-Msa

Up until yesterday (August, 30) I was of the opinion that I’d not been enumerated in the ongoing Census. After all, nobody had knocked on my door and there was no calling card to indicate that they came in my absence. I’ve since learnt that the enumerators did come but never got past security. They asked for information at the gate and security was happy to oblige. So much for the answers I’d prepared to their questions of whether I use electricity, what level of education my 3 year old nephew had attained so far, what type of floor I have, whether I own any livestock, canoes, handcarts or chicken. Anyway, if they were satisfied with the info they got, fine by me.

But supposing they had not come? The next requirement was to to to the Provincial Office or the local Chief. This I was not going to do but all the same it got me thinking, who is my chief? Heck, who is my District Officer? Who is my District Commissioner?

My earliest memory of a Chief is back in the village when at a young age, Mum gave me a small piece of land to grow veggies for the family and food for my rabbits. Nearby there was this huge tree that was dwarfing my weeds and I saw no reason why it could not be cut down. I mentioned that to Mum and she said we would have to get permission from the village Chief. True nobody was allowed to cut indigenous trees without permission from the authorities. Chiefs were a respected lot although I could swear their high standing in society came second to that of teachers. But in this case Mum was just joking and that was her way of putting the matter to rest.

The issue was instantly forgotten until i came across said Chief and asked him if the big tree could be felled. He gently declined my request. I think he even laughed and I hated him for it at that time. But now I understand. It’s a Mugumo tree and it stands to date. Such is the beauty of innocence. Felling a Mugumo tree because it was overshadowing baby potatoes, spinach, peas and rabbit feed.

The next time I had any business with the Chief was when I was registering for my National ID. The then Chief has since retired, I’ve no clue who the current one is, his/her office, his/her area of jurisdiction and what he/she does exactly. Both home and in Mombasa where I spend most of my time. I guess I need to find out just to know.

So, who is your Chief?

DSTV is finally getting lonely up there and is offering what looks like mass market products. I’m not sure though that the correct word is mass considering the still high cost of the dish and decoder set. All the same, gone are the days when having a dish mounted on the roof was a status symbol. Here is how I see their latest addition – DSTV Access, which viewers can get for Kshs.800/- a month.

• KBC: If you’re like me, at some point in your life you had only KBC to watch. It was grainy and tuning was a two person affair, one person outside turning the pole that held the aerial in place, and the other indoors monitoring the effects of the turning. Often times by the time the tuner returned indoors, it was grainy again. From that perspective, a sharp and clear KBC as you’ll get on DSTV is quite a treat.

• NTV: What and how long does it take to send a logo change for updating?

• KTN: Or to send one at all?

• Citizen TV: Citizen sound quality is not the best and picture sometimes behaves like a scratched CD. But it’s still much sharper than  what you’ll get from a traditional aerial.

• The Style Network. Stylish and sassy as the name suggests. They have fun and easy to watch programs covering personal style, interior decor, celebrities, diets and much more. But that’s where the roses end. They will repeat said programs until you can watch them no more. And then they shall repeat them again.

• FashionTV: Catwalks, beauty queens, make up, interviews with designers and then more catwalks, beauty queens, make up and interviews with designers.

• E: If celebrities are your thing then this is the channel for you. They’re looked at and profiled from every angle. When and how they eat, when and how their pets crap, who is the most beautiful, most scandalous, sexiest, how they look without make-up, all the works. The Play Boy Mansion King of Sex and his bunnies in the harem also get a fair amount of airtime here.

• National Geographic Wild: Before NatGeo split their programming they used to have a line saying, ‘if you think you’ll only find animals on National Geographic, think again‘. That was then. Now there is National Geographic and National Geographic Wild. If you think you’ll only find animals on NatGeo wild, that’s probably because it’s true. It’s all about animals. But it’s done in true NatGeo quality and is very interesting.  Sometimes.

• Magic world: It strikes me as an assortment of feeds from other channels but with an African flavour. If it’s about African I’d rather they would have given viewers one of the Africa Magics. (Africa Magic, Africa Magic Plus).

• BBC World News: Authoritative world news. Updated by the minute.

• Al-Jazeera: An Authoritative news channel from the gulf. It’s an English channel and yes they report more than oil and the war.

• CNBC Africa: Business business business.

• Channel O: 24 hour music.

• Black Entertainment Television.

• KidsCo – Something for the kids.

• MindSet Learn: And the bigger kids. An educational channel based on the South African Curriculum.

• ESPN Classic & Blitz Bulletin: I’d say if you’re a sports enthusiast, you may want to go for the full package. ESPN Classic features not too recent sports and Blitz Bulletin features bulletins and updates only. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. It’s possible.

• Islam Channel: As the name suggests. Interesting look at society from an Islamic point of view.

• TBN: Gospel.

• Inspiration TV: This is a Gospel channel. It’s…… er…. inspirational.

• One Gospel: Powerful Gospel music. Mostly South African. These people can really sing and dance!

• Rai: Riesto ariposalmi. Sei sicura carobiere constringere penni. Sente ancoradelle fitte stai tranguilla cara. Mattina estrano. At least that’s what the subtitle bar said.

• TV5MONDE: French TV.

• France 24: French TV.

• RTP: Portuguese TV.

• CCTV E&F: Chinese TV.

The DMX Audio package is also a real treat for music lovers. Good uninterrupted music, some of which you’re unlikely to get anywhere else, perfectly sorted by genre .

Happy viewing.

Images from: DSTV Africa.

With the case of South African sensation Caster Semenya, Ive learnt that it takes a myriad of tests to determine whether one is male of female, and that the said tests are difficult, expensive and potentially inaccurate.

Generally there is overwhelming pride and support by South Africans for their winning athlete. Based on the comments on Health24 alone, there seems to be not too care about lab tests, chromosomes and endocrines. Here are a few I found interesting. Mostly emotional but interesting nonetheless:

• Thato: The sad bit about this whole thing is that once it’s all said and proven, all they’re ever going to say is that they are sorry. This should have been her moment of glory but instead the world is trying to rip her apart. I wonder, had she not won would this be an issue? Regardless of what they say, to us she’s a bright shining star!

• Gerhard: This ‘lady’ looks a lot like a guy. Features, body shape. Does not seem to have boobs. That does not mean anything I guess, but I can understand the suspicion because ‘she’ does not just beat the field, she runs away with them.

• John: What’s the fuss? The tests get done, just like drug tests, the results announced. She is or isn’t a woman and then she either won or she didn’t. I feel sorry for the individual concerned but surely this cannot be the first time that this question has been asked…. so SA Athletics would never send her to a World Champs with doubt… or would they?

• Tumi: Is the reason why people think she’s a he because she isn’t the prettiest girl on the track and she has no boobs?……. Maria Mutola is a real bat with no boobs, why did she not get tested.

• IandI: Test Usain Bolt to make sure he is human. He could be from Mars. Earthly men cannot run so fast….

Someone even said the William sisters look like guys. Really?

From The Archives: Inter Sexual In Kenyan Prison.

Kachwanya has more on why people are doubting Semenya.

Image from: Huffington Post.

Wedding Cake Topper.

Lady: Hand akimbo with a confident knowing stare.

Guy: Confused, clueless, scared and shackled.

Question: Then why go ahead with it?

And in unrelated matters, see what Willpress is saying.

Picture from Oddee. Quite a site this one.

Do you know where some of the modern day customs and cliches originated from? Interesting that they have hundreds of years in history and are still in use today despite things having changed so much. I got a few rumours in my inbox:

In the 1500′s, most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour; hence the custom today of carrying flowers when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw piled high with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’.

There was nothing to stop things falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings would mess up the beds. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top to afford some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying ‘dirt poor’. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to keep their footing. As winter wore on, they added more thresh until when the door was opened, it would all fall apart. A piece of wood was placed on the entrance way. A thresh hold.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock a person out for a couple of days. Such a person would be taken for dead and prepared for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and wait to see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

When they realized they were burying people alive, they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell, thus someone could be saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

In what seems to have become a must do for any TV station worth it’s viewership, Investigative Journalists are bringing to our screen expose after expose of criminal and rebel activities – features and stories we would more expect from police detectives. It’s a brilliant job the journalists are doing no doubt.

We do understand that by the very nature of their work, journalists are bound to find themselves in the thick of things every once in a while. Closer to the Mungiki and other dangerous groups than one would rather be. Inside pirate and rebel territory. Sometimes surrounded by the worst of bad men and woman but armed with just bravery and the power of the pen.

How safe are our very daring brothers? Take KTN’s damning Track It saga or the fake certificates syndicate that was recently aired by NTV for example. Supposing they had touched more directly on people who would rather kill than lose a livelihood albeit a corrupt one? It takes just one disgruntled criminal to plan and probably execute a nasty plan.

Currently, we see Yassin Juma and his cameraman Eric Okoth of NTV venturing into risky rebel territory to document the activities of the Oromo Liberation Front. In my laywoman mind, I’ve always been under the impression that rebels are these blood thirsty goons who can open up a human brain and eat it in some bizarre bullet proofing ritual.  But that’s just me. Now to watch someone taking the treacherous journey into their territory!

An internet search for journalists who have met their end in the line of investigative journalism yielded stories from Russia, eg Anna Politkovskaya and Paul Klebnikov. In any case I did not want to find too many of those. Our journalists are safe here and I wish them all the best.

I hope I’m not too late to congratulate John Allan Namu for bagging the CNN African Journalist Of The Year Award 2009. And Kudos to all you others who are risking life and limb to expose the inner workings of the criminal world. Stay safe.