Orientation

I think I love orientation,

One that is out to give direction,

One that is out to give motivation,

One that is out to culture inspiration.

But I think I am confused,

Because I realized,

That my friend “came out,”

Making me doubt,

If I love orientation.

I heard him praise his partner,

Just like she praised hers,

Wow! What a relationship,

That might have started in a sailing ship.

I seriously need to know the other party,

And I hope I am not getting naughty,

Because I am curious to have a find,

Another treat for the mind.

But the know served me worse,

Is it really the one he was?

With the priceless looks she wears?

I don’t think anyone cares.

With that orientation,

I am left in imagination,

May be waiting for consolation,

Better still a solution.

Here Comes Easter

It was approaching the end of lent,
When Jesus and His disciples had paid rent,
In preparation for the last supper,
I hear the room was upper.

As they went to pray at Gethsemane,
Judas had already gone for money,
And the soldiers were many,
It was indeed time for the son of man.

Then they went to Pilate,
And the fear for being late,
Denied them time congratulate,
But ample one to humiliate.

Jesus had to carry the cross,
He had to go across,
With enemies so close,
But had nothing to lose. 

Our Lord died painfully,
Washing our sins carefully,
Then He rose silently,
As the world celebrated calmly. 

As we celebrate the Easter,
Let us take that E-star,
To all those who do not have,
Just to make sure we serve.

In the Name of my DAD

In the name of my Dad,

I will thank the Lord,
For the taking off the load,
That disturbed me through the bumpy road.

In the name of my Dad,
I will uphold morals,
For that is what he insisted, 
Thank God my mother assisted.

In the name of my Dad,
I will support education projects, 
For he made me realize the meaning of knowledge, 
Fees paid on time to rejuvenate courage.

In the name of my Dad
I won’t go for job selection,
Because he does his with passion,
Driving him into exhaustion.

In the name of my Dad,
I will take our family to the national park,
Because he took me to Uhuru park,
Only then my dream could spark.

In the name of my Dad,
I will foster unity in the family,
Something he held firmly,
Always correcting us calmly.

In the name of my Dad,
I want to be generous,
For living alone is dangerous,
Worse still disastrous.

In the name of my Dad,
I will build a mansion,
To save on his pension,
There he will live with no tension.

In the name of my Dad,
I promise to be a dad,
For he has been a great dad,
A role model indeed.

Sorting garbage in Japan

When I was doing my undergraduate and studied waste management units, I never knew that one day, I will experience it in real life. I remember cramming (better still, mastering) the types of wastes; industrial, municipal and further divide them into organic, inorganic, hazardous, non-hazardous…a lot of Chemistry there! Yeah? I loved the theoretical part, when my professor could emphasize that all waste should sorted into respective categories for easy management; fact! Right? We (or at least I) have to agree that sorting garbage is quite a hectic undertaking, depending on where and/or how one was brought up. Although I used to sort garbage (sometimes), the Japanese experience was totally on another level, and I think you would like to hear about it. 

Notably, there are specific days of the week that various types of garbage are collected; that tells you that garbage is collected more than once a week (actually, I see the garbage trucks almost every day!). So, how frequent is waste collected in your place (or, is it even collected)?  Garbage sorting in Japan is such a serious activity that even a water bottle needs to be separated into three parts; 1) the bottle that is categorized as a PET (an abbreviation of along chemical name!), 2) the bottle top and 3) sticker that are categorized as plastic. I guess this it to avoid re-sorting at the waste management sites. Dispose the bottle on Monday (月) and please keep the plastics for Friday (金). By the way, if you mix the garbage, be sure that it will not be collected! I remember in the first few days in my apartment, I could see “Please sort your garbage” stickers somewhere (please note: it wasn’t me!). You have to sit down, and figure out what kind of waste should go into what waste bag; the food remains/wastes and other burnable materials into the brown waste bag, plastics into the green waste bag and the process continues. This is just a level of it is own!

This practice kept me wondering if it is possible to get to such sophisticated a level, when we do not even have a clear waste collection and management chain. Right now, the priority may not be emphasizing on sorting different kinds of wastes, but I am sure if the implementation of existing laws is done, everything will fall into place. Off course, that notwithstanding, we, the people should realize that nature is all that we have, and we should collectively protect it. This means that I (you) should take care of own garbage; do not throw that water bottle on the roadside, keep those sweet/chipo/food wrappings and dispose them in the right place. That little discipline will go a long way to ensure a cleaner, safer and healthy environment for us in the present and the future lives.        

Seeking a better life

Today looks boring,

My ears don’t like the songs,

So no music any more,

The fingers have refused the keyboard,

So no more games,

And the eyes?

Neither ready to read nor watch.

But the day seems to be so long!

I think I need company along,

With that the day will run,

Actually the week will rush,

Pushing the month along,

And years will humbly count!

It is time to make it work,

Even if it means a tiring walk,

All the way to the land of talk,

Where no one will stalk,

But rather fill my happiness stock.

The journey started yesterday,

But today  is a bit lazy,

I hope tomorrow will be a continuity,

And the day after an habit,

Forever seeking a better life.

Amorous Confession

Listen my gentle one, 

These are the cherished moments,
Hours of ecstasy,
Minutes of illusions,
And seconds of romantic numbness.

For this time distance means nothing,
Important is the communication we have,
Wish you a good day,
Blessed night,
SMSs complementing the feelings.

For this time I may not buy you jewels,
But my love for you is priceless,
Your beauty so invaluable,
Character so noble.

Am yet to perfect,
So I need respect,
For me to protect,
The one I respect.

My cry in front of you isn’t weakness,
Is just that this unique feeling is shameless,
Making me become manner less,
How I wish you understood.

Incase I go wrong,
Please never take long,
Cause it may grow strong,
Making you refuse my ring.

Incase we part ways,
Let me the know cause,
So that I can mend the path,
For a greater reconciliation.

Loving you is all that is left,
So please stand aloft,
Cause we can’t be wrong,
When all others are right. 

Mama Pima

Tangu enzi za zama, kabla kuzaliwa baba na mama,

Hakuna mtu aliyezama, kuelekea kwa mama pima,

Babu alitoka huku akikwama, aghalabu kuhitaji rukwama,

Nyumbani alifika salama, kupunguzia nyanya gharama.

 Vivyo hivo walifanya, walofuata baadae,

Kila siku baba alipenya, asiwaache wanae,

Mama naye kutukanya, pombe heri ikae,

Hayo yote yalinifinya, Athumani niokolee.

 Mtu angenipa pombe ya kale, singesita kuikunywa,

Kwa sababu wakati ule, haikuwa shida kwa kinywa,

Nakumbuka tembo ile, ilihitaji kufinywa,

Ili ifike kiwango kile, kisohitaji kukanywa.

 Lakini tembo ya siku hizi, jameni ina mikosi,

Kumbuka hivi juzi, ilivyochukua roho kasi,

Mama atokwa na chozi, mtoto kajaa kamasi,

Baba yetu kafa ja mwizi, kalazwa kama mjusi.

 Ole wenu mnayofanya haya, ona kaenda tulomtegemea,

Hata hamwoni haya, kunambia nyasi itamea,

Nawe ulozoea kaya, nami basi nakukemea,

Chunga usikanyage nyaya, nao ukauke mmea.

Born a Sufferer! Live a Conqueror! Die a Victor!

PART ONE: 

Thanks and ululations fill the village. The sun has yet another responsibility to accomplish. You have passed the first transformation headed to the next. The well kept palace with a 24 hour CCTV surveillance has been destroyed! First few months and many days in the new world prove difficult. Thickly woven materials around your body replace the comfortable warm placenta. The lactic liquid suckled and soft food supplements day-to-day meals in a while. Toothless and weak jaws cannot manage tender foods. To your mum you are the raw clay that can undergo pottery to produce the most envied product on earth. She will do exactly that.

PART TWO:
There you grow strong. Feet fidgeting, as you gallop porridge from the green plastic cup. A fully engaging battle between the molar teeth and that bone an indication of strong jaws. In the oversize 'marbolo' T-shirt off to the stream carrying a 5-litre 'elianto' container. The best swimmer in the river across your shamba after an entourage of collecting firewood.

PART THREE:
Soon you will be headed to nursery school because your right hand can go through the head to touch your left ear. In bare foot, you walk for km to school and back. On your back the white school bag, a product of an abandoned DAP fertilizer sack. The chilly mornings and rain seasons a great enemy to your lice infested feet. Your next colleague gives a consolation that your feet are at least better. His perfectly produce a broccoli picture! Somebody accidentally steps on his fingers and the bell ringer has free time around- the painful cry sets the whole school into attention.

Sometimes a cup of water sees you through the night because the hard working woman's food basket is empty. She missed menial work today. This compels you to have numerous stops on your way to school picking sugar cane twigs to please the roaring stomach. Depending on the season, half-eaten guavas and loquats fallen along the way serve the purpose. Your neighbor's slasher misses you by an inch on trying to sneak into his passion fruit shamba. It is not your fault to get into the mess. The hungry stomach needs to feed. That is so daring!

The peaceful hen's hatchery journey cut short after three days as the eggs must be sold to pay your activity fee balance. Your fully decorated uniform alienates you from the smart colleagues. The patches represent almost all favourite colours of Kenyan tribes. Very active in extracurricular activities and of course the best in the curricular world.

Over the December holidays you to pretend the best geographer in map reading. Up the highlands, down the valleys and across the streams you will visit almost all relatives aiming to get textbooks, story books and topmarks.'Remember your cousin was promoted to class eight, so tomorrow you have to go for his class seven books,' your mum speaks in full composure. There you go across the hills to accomplish the task. You get lost in some instances but thank God you manage. I guess you would have used GPS to ease your work if it were today.

PART FOUR:
The so difficult and trying moments help you build the bridge to higher heights with hopes that tomorrow will be a brighter day. All through secondary with life reluctant to improve financially, socially. . .still traumatizing moments. Sharp sun rays penetrating the thatched roof gaps create a sigh of relief every morning.Your cherished matress is that skin from the family cow that was poisoned by the jealous-for-notning neighbour. Since then no few coins from milk. It was the only cow left after a series of dead of calfs and their lovely mothers. You very well know who did it! He has no apparent reason for this cow genocide. In fact he started with the dogs and chicken. The chicken your grandma gave to you when you visited her last christmas! God forbid!

The prayers, songs, homilies from clergymen, bible sharing with friends keep you going.The persistent guy as always you achieve academically. Your are headed into great heights; to conquer the unconquerable, achieve the unachievable and accomplish the dream in great honour of the Almighty!

PART FIVE: 
There you find yourself in campus. That 'life is up there' phrase a very great driving force and inspirational day in day out. Social, religious and political shocks too hard to absorb. Financial life another hell on earth! Back from the mess/mabatini, your roommate is feasting on chicken/chipo, hamburger. . .anything delicious, expensive and hard to get. Colleagues outings the order of the day. I guess your best outing is that visit to your long lost distant relative of yours at Kibera. What a reunion! Once in a while you will get friends. Others genuine and others with ill intentions. Your wit manages to filter them out.

Running and panting across the street to repair your friends laptop. It crashed in your hands when you were typing that 'must type' assigment. The lecturer is a no nonsence person. He will take ages to get back the assignment marks. Worse of all, he will make sure your transcript has achieved the equality rule of accommodating the disabled; and for that reason, he will give you an undeserved 'D'! You are the chief consultant on the class timetable, assignment deadlines and postponed classes.You have been very humble through campus life excelling in all helpful fields.

You have proved your critiques wrong. Those who always had you in the news for all wrong reasons. They said you cheated in your final exams to book a place in that institution. You wonder why your transcript can't prove them right. You are on long holiday for a few months, they say the in disciplined guy has been expelled from campus. You greet the old men in a salute because you are in a hurry, they confirm their fears on how spoilt campus people look down upon them. As one philosopher once put it that that you may not be able to stop people from having a bad perception about you but you can keep them from being right about it, you endeavor to apply that.Trying to suggest an improved way of looking into things, the child is getting beyond boundaries. Culture and traditions do not allow such practices. They insist that what they found there forefathers practicing will always be right. Surely, even quaint traditions? Out of date farming methods? Unsustainability? It is very ironical that the very people are feeling on the upgrade that their clan has learned children.
* * *
Some think education is just but an accolade to make you famous. Education is beyond that! It empowers people. Education is a poison to poverty, laziness, social evils, foolishness. It opens golden gates to development, prosperity, sustainability, fair and equitable sharing of resources. Thanks to the Almighty that most people are getting these facts in their fingertips.
* * *

Powers to read empower the young guy. You are back to the village to transform acquired knowledge into someting useful. Those project proposals go through as expected. Some development enemies are still against your project implementation. With cooperation from most people, you succeed in setting the community water project that has helped in irrigation and domestic uses. The community is producing surplus agricultural products for sale regionally. The underway village electrification will ensure that no family will be suffering to get paraffin in their lanterns. Your schooling siblings, cousins and neighbours will be studying to saturation because lighting is no longer a problem. Your grandfather will be listening to his favourite local radio station all through. Dry cells era will be a history.

You decide to partly fund that neighbor's child through high school. Don't forget he is the very person who was a nuisance during your childhood and schooling days. Those chicken and cows he poisoned! You never held a grudge. This brings a great reconciliation between the two families. Surely, what can't you do? You are really confirming the power of education to those development enemies. With that spirit, everything will be a dream come true. The SUFFERING child has transformed into a CONQUERING intellect, and will indeed, die VICTOR!

I don’t want to be Famous

I don't want to be famous because am LEARNED; 

I want to be famous because I can TRANSFORM the knowledge into something useful. 

I don't want to be famous because am RICH;
I want to famous because I use my wealth to INVEST in people!

I don't want to be famous because am ABROAD;
I want to be famous because I REMEMBER my family and my country!

I don't want to be famous because I am STRONG;
I want to be famous because I can use my energy CONSTRUCTIVELY!

I don't want to be famous because am a PREACHER;
I want to be famous because my ministry ACCOMMODATES all sorts of people!

I don't to be famous because am SAVED;
I want to be famous because people can see a SECOND CHRIST in me!

I don't want to be famous because I am a LEADER;
I want to be famous because am able to BRING UP another leader!

I don't want to be famous because am an ORATOR;
I want to be famous because my speeches are VIABLE!

I don't want to be famous because am a CRITIQUE;
I want to be famous because I NEVER CEASE to criticize!

I don't want to be famous because am INFLUENTIAL;
I want to be famous because I have POSITIVE influence!

I don't to be famous because I have a TALENT;
I want to be famous because I can use my talent to IDENTIFY talent in other people.

I don't want to be famous because I am FAMOUS;
I want to be famous because I know the MEANING of being famous! 

WHY GREEN

In my childhood days,
I thought green is just but a colour.
I enjoyed adding modifications to it.
Green, greener, greenest or even greenish.
Nothing beyond that!

Maybe I was too young
To comprehend its full meaning
Because hearing, spelling, writing, speaking,
And drawing with a green pen or chalk
Was by itself greening!

Going green?
Which is this place called green?
Why not blue or brown?
Let me consult my phone
And get to learn.

It is a specific section
Of environmental and economic intersection,
Encouraging human well being and social pomotion
Yet reducing environmetal degredation
And balancing the ecological equation.

Talks of the sustainability pillars,
Arable between social and environment,
Viable between environment and economic,
Equitable between economic and social.

This developing mother land,
Full of agricultural potential.
Has incorporated modern methods
Some friendly some unfrienly
Main  aim to boost
Present foood security,
Reduce poverty,
And curb mortality
Without considering posterity.

Amzing Indian Ocean
Across the coastal borders.
Whose water is unfit for use
But for products you will never re fuse
Crabs, prawns, dolphin, carageenin. . .
They are seeking marine protection.

We have gone in for water polltion,
Promoting sedimantation,
Eutrophication,
Deforestation. . .
Remember only 3% is fit for consumption.

CSR working out better.
Organizing environmental marathons, walks and talks.
Afforestation an order of the day
To protect catchment areas
And achieve the 10% goal!

Solar street lights
Strategic garbage sites,
Proper drainage and sanitation,
Green building construction,
Recreational parks,
And urban forestry
Are all dreams for my green city
Trickling all the to the municipality.

Unsighrty dumping sites
With oppotunity lots.
Enegry potential from methane,
Fertilizer production
To ensure waste reduction
And recycling at different locations.

We should take it into roads.
Seeking electric car subsidies.
Perahps it will be a new regime
Of a pollution minimum.

I like our National heritage
From the wild to those in the cage
Attracting tourists of any age
Who are never in sabotage.
Twende tujivinajari!

Let us embrace framework and modelling,
Enabling incentives
To capture green investors' eyes
Finance projects. . .
And all will be green, greener, greenest!

REFERENCES:
1. UNEP website ( The Green Economy Report),
2. UNSCD (Rio +20 Summit Report),
3. Daily Nation (19th, October 2012- Sprays and Fertilizers put future crops at risk),
4. Wikipedia.