Chapter 67

Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta

Chapter 67

Flirting is harmless fun. Is it not? You’ve had a long week at work, you go to a bar to enjoy a drink and a game of pool after watching your favourite team playing soccer on the big screen television. It’s called ‘releasing steam’. Letting go of all the pressure and tension that has been building up when you were bogged down at work. Waking up to a realization that: ‘All work and no play make Jack and Jill dull children.’

A suggestive leer, a few naughty words, a slap on the bum, a pinch here and there, even a peck on the cheek and when tipsy enough, a raunchy dance on the dance floor. You even adopt cuddly names to use on anyone of the opposite sex. When you go to a restaurant, you call the waitresses ‘darling’ and the waiters ‘boy’. “Come here darling and take my order.” Or “Boy, what’s new on your menu?” You have no discomfort when strangers put their hands on you. Is this harmless fun? Yes, if you are single and ready to mingle.

But what if you are married or committed in a long term relationship? Is flirting harmless fun to you? Not if you stop and think and come to a realization that marriage and long term commitments begin with flirting!

So here you are, a married man, leering at a woman (who is not his wife) on the dance floor and telling yourself, am just flirting, it’s harmless. Or a married woman with the arm of a man (who is not her husband) around her waist pulling her close to him and telling herself, am just flirting, its harmless.

After a few flirting sessions here and there, SUSPICION is aroused. Those around the married person begin to wonder: ‘Is that not so and so’s husband?’ or ‘Is that not so and so’s wife?’ And they take a keen interest on the harmless fun that the married person is having. They even join in hoping that they might get some! Some jealous ones confront the married person asking: ‘How come you did not come with so and so (in reference to their spouse)?’ The married person replies, ‘What’s wrong, am just flirting!’ And goes on with the enjoyment of this harmless fun.

In time, people start talking about how that married person behaves in the absence of their spouse. And they say all manner of things. The most popular one being: ‘that marriage or the relationship won’t last!’ They even start making bets about how long it will be before the marriage or relationship collapses. They are absolutely certain that for that person to be behaving in that manner, something is not right at home. And when they meet the spouse of the married person, they are so keen to enquire about how things are and they scrutinize the spouse’s countenance to see if the suspicion has been aroused in them. If they see no suspicion in the eyes of the spouse, their suspicion is dulled. Suspicion, feeds on suspicion. If you are suspicious, you need others to be suspicious like you so that you can all bask in the light of that suspicion knowing that the suspects are being brought out into the arena to entertain your suspicion.

On seeing that the spouse is not suspicious, the suspicious person worries that his/her ticket to watch the fight at the arena might go to waste and s/he CANNOT have that happen. So s/he takes time to think and ponder about the best way to arouse suspicion in the spouse without making himself/herself a suspect. No-one wants to be in the arena! Pretty soon, a light bulb flashes bright in the mind of the suspicious person as s/he comes to a realization of how the suspicion can be aroused in the spouse without making himself or herself a suspect. Email! Anonymous email messages sent to the spouse! Fantastic idea!

So the spouse begins to receive a few taunting email messages from someone who cares about his/her welfare and wishes to warn him/her about the danger s/he is in. NO evidence is needed to prove the allegations made about how the married person has been behaving. Suspicious behaviour is all that is needed. What is the spouse to do? If the spouse is an excitable impulsive creature who does not stop to wonder who this anonymous caring person really is, s/he will hit the roof and come down on the married person like a meteor from Mars. And the fighting begins. The suspicious people surge into the arena falling over each other to come and spectate and witness the gory fight and see the blood flowing with each blow. Suspicion has come to fruition. The flower of suspicion has blossomed and the suspicious spectators have come to see it wither and die like all flowers do.

In his or her defence, the married person says that s/he has NEVER done any of the things s/he is being accused of and challenges the spouse to prove any of those allegations. ‘Don’t you trust me? You know am not like other people! Don’t listen to those busy bodies who are just envious of you!’ The spouse knows very well that it is very possible that the contents of the email messages are fabricated and the same can be done to the spouse. But the question here is, why are the email messages being sent? Is it fair for you to expect your spouse to just quell the suspicion aroused in him/her in light of your behaviour, just because you are not like other people? Should it not be you stopping the flirting so that you show that you are not like other people?

The person who can solve the problem of arousing suspicion is not the one to whom the messages are being sent. The spouse has no idea what has aroused the suspicion! It is the married person who knows the source of the suspicion. But, s/he is not willing to stop and consider for even a minute the obvious fact that it is the flirting that has aroused the suspicion. Flirting is HARMLESS FUN! Is it not?

No self-respecting woman is a flirt. Flirting as far as women are concerned is ugly. You flirt as a woman and the whole world calls you a slut. If a man flirts, its harmless fun. A married man will tell his wife that flirting is not good for her. But he can flirt because he is a man. This is chauvinism in the 21st century.

Ask yourself: How do extra marital affairs and promiscuity get started? By flirting! Is that not obvious? And do men have extra marital affairs or not? They do, many many many of them so much so that it has become the norm. And yet, flirting to them is HARMLESS FUN.

Flirting is harmful and it is not funny! It hurts both you and your spouse. It arouses suspicion and in time, that suspicion grows into a hunt for blood. If you ever wondered WHAT A WOMAN REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY WANTS. Here is the answer, plain and clear, easy to understand but DIFFICULT for any chauvinist of the 21st century to ever comprehend:

ALL A WOMAN REALLY WANTS IS FOR HER MAN TO STOP FLIRTING.

If all married and committed people could stop flirting and stop arousing suspicion, marriages would remain the sacred bonds that they are meant to be instead of being turned into the bondage that they have become.

Chapter 66

Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta

Chapter 66

Did you know that it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to prove that you are NOT sleeping with someone you know. Think about the people you interact with. If someone came up to you and accused you of sleeping with one or two or more of them, how would you defend yourself against their accusation?

It is so easy to prove that you ARE sleeping with someone if accused of not doing so, but how do you prove that you are NOT sleeping with someone? You must rely on CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE to demonstrate that your relationship with the person you are accused of sleeping with cannot be interpreted as a sexual one.

The other day, a friend of mine told me about an incident that occurred which made me think deeply about what ADULTERY really is. She told me that she had met a married man who liked her so much and would take her out to lunch once or twice a week, buy her beautiful exotic flowers and gifts and that was it. She thought that allowing that guy to do those things for her meant nothing because she had ABSOLUTELY no intention of sleeping with the guy and had even made that ABSOLUTELY clear to him. She declared that she is NOT an adulterer!

It did not end there. Soon enough, the guy’s wife heard about her and her little ‘innocent’ escapades with the woman’s husband. The wife confronted her about the matter and she swore to the wife that she has NEVER had any physical contact with that man beyond a hand shake. That was not enough for the wife and she threatened to do something bad to my friend should she continue sleeping with her husband!

So my friend came to me to lament and moan about how she was being accused of a crime that she did not commit and how women these days are so insecure. To her, that guy was just a friend who liked her and he knew her deceased brother well so she enjoyed hearing him telling her stories about her brother whom she loved dearly and missed greatly. I knew her well enough to believe that she was telling the truth about her relationship with the guy but I told her in no uncertain terms, that she WAS an adulterer. Adultery does not require you to have sex or even be naked or even kiss someone else’s wife or husband.

The definition of adultery is: PUTTING YOUR SPOUSE IN A POSITION OF SUSPICION IN REGARD TO YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH A THIRD PARTY.

As long as you are behaving in such a way as to suggest to a REASONABLE MAN or WOMAN that you are sleeping with someone, and that someone is married, YOU ARE AN ADULTERER. You cannot defend yourself against an accusation of sleeping with someone when your behaviour suggests that you are! How do you prove that you are not!

This is what adultery does: It makes your spouse suspicious about your relationship with the other person who you are so intimately close with. Once that suspicion is aroused, you cannot prove that you are not doing more than what you claim to be doing. So that your spouse has to decide whether or not to believe what you are saying and disregard what you are doing. ACTIONS speak louder than WORDS. When you arouse suspicion in your spouse and cause him/her to feel violated, you have committed adultery.

And it does not end there. It gets worse. What do you suppose the other person thinks of your relationship with your spouse if you are allowing them to do things with you which a reasonable person could use to accuse you of sleeping with that other person? What do you suppose others who see what you are doing are thinking about your relationship with your spouse?

No doubt, the world begins to see that your relationship with your spouse is not the SACRED BOND that it is meant to be. You have committed adultery.

AND, the person you are being so accommodating to begins to understand that were it not for the fact that you are married, you would give them a chance. By giving an outsider the comfort of knowing that it is your spouse who is the IMPOSTOR, you commit adultery.

Adultery makes your spouse suspicious and puts your spouse in suspicion. Your spouse is wondering who that other person really is to you, while others are wondering who your spouse really is to you. You have opened a pandora’s box of suspicion and so you are an adulterer.

The other person who you are using to arouse suspicion in your spouse is also an adulterer because without him/her, no suspicion would arise and even that person is sending a message to you and to others that were it not for the fact that you are married, s/he would give you a chance. You also begin to see your spouse as the IMPOSTOR. Someone who is preventing you from taking chances.

Once your spouse becomes the impostor, what kind of relationship will you have with them? Think about your sex life and how that suspicion can cause you and your spouse to drift apart. You will have eroded your spouse’s confidence and you will have eroded your confidence in your spouse!

The other day I was walking from court with a colleague of mine, a married man. We were discussing about an incident in court where the Judge, a woman, sent all the laymen into the cells because a mobile phone rang and no-one owned up as the culprit whose phone rang. Everyone had to pay Kshs.500/- fine to secure their freedom. That was a grave miscarriage of justice but nothing could be done to that Judge in our current system where Judges seem to think that in their court rooms, they are gods.

When we got to my office building, I and my colleague stopped to finish off our conversation before parting ways. As I was in the middle of a heated sentence I was taken aback by a lady who came over, gave the guy a tight hug with her big boobs all into his chest and gave him a smack on one cheek, another smack on the other cheek and another smack on the mouth and held on for what seemed to me like a long time. She then walked off saying ‘see you’! Prior to seeing that, I always believed that my colleague and his wife were the most loving and admirable couple I have ever met. He and his wife are the envy of many.

So I asked this guy who that was. He told me that it’s some friend of his. I accused him of sleeping with that woman and he said that he has never met her in private. I told him that for her to behave like that towards him, there MUST be something. He said no. He even defended himself saying that he had told his wife about how that lady behaves towards him and she didn’t seem to mind. To him, telling his wife about what that lady does is sufficient to erase the suspicion that is aroused by her behaviour. I was amazed to see that the guy thought that he had nothing to do with what that lady was doing and according to him, it was her who was at fault, not him! And he even went further to say that the lady had no ill intentions, she’s a very nice girl! I just laughed because I had no words for the guy. He, like many others in this world, do not understand what adultery really is.

ADULTERY IS PUTTING YOUR SPOUSE IN A POSITION OF SUSPICION IN REGARD TO YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH A THIRD PARTY. The suspicion is enough because there is NO WAY of erasing that suspicion!

You cannot ever be able to prove that you are NOT sleeping with someone with whom you are behaving in a suspicious manner.

It is your duty as a married man or woman to refrain from entertaining the advances of others and arousing suspicion about your relationship with that person and your relationship with your spouse.

And it is everyone’s duty to refrain from entertaining the advances of a married person and arousing suspicion about their relationship with that person.

Once you have failed to satisfy that duty, YOU ARE AN ADULTERER!

Chapter 65

Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta

Chapter 65

A socialist is someone who knows the truth about life. A truth which is contained in the following words:-

1. In the absence of someone to share it with, LIFE and MONEY become inconsequential;

2. Therefore, DO NOT take ANYONE for granted;

3. LOVE your neighbour as you love yourself;

4. Because that IS ALL that will matter when you die.

A capitalist does not know this simple truth about life.

When a capitalist dies, s/he goes to a place where there is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH MONEY and SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY MATERIAL POSSESSIONS and NOONE to stop them from grabbing it all for themselves.

Immediately, the capitalist becomes delirious with the thought that ALL THAT MONEY AND ALL THOSE THINGS belong to him/ her and flops back to relax from all the hard work it took him/her during his/her lifetime to acquire them.

After a while s/he begins to look around slowly coming to the realization that as much as there is no-one around to stop him/her from doing WHATEVER s/he wants to do with the money and material things, there is also no-one to SHARE them with. S/he then looks at ALL the money and ALL the material things and comes to a realization of the TRUTH:

THAT IN THE ABSENCE OF SOMEONE TO SHARE IT WITH, LIFE AND MONEY BECOME INCONSEQUENTIAL.

There and then at that point in time, the capitalist gains the knowledge that s/he would give ANYTHING; s/he would give ALL THAT MONEY AND ALL THOSE MATERIAL THINGS just to have ONE person to talk to or even to fight with!

Something else slowly dawns on him/her, something even more painful to bear:-

THAT ALL THAT MONEY AND ALL THOSE MATERIAL THINGS can NEVER create life.

And s/he begins to understand that IN FACT, there is a GOD! God being the one who created him/her and the others s/he enjoyed taking for granted during his/her life time. And now, in that hell-hole of money and material possessions, God is not there, to give him/her someone to love and share his/her valued possessions with. In life, the capitalist did not believe in God and thought that capitalism was all that mattered.

In the fullness of time, the money and material things begin to repulse the capitalist and the capitalist decides that s/he would RATHER DIE than live alone with ALL THAT MONEY AND ALL THOSE MATERIAL THINGS. But alas! S/he is ALREADY DEAD! And now s/he has to live with that money and those material possessions ALL ALONE FOR THE REST OF HIS/HER LIFE!

Imagine if right now, this moment, EVERYONE in the world disappeared from sight and left you ALONE. Would that make you happy? What would you not be willing to give to have those people back?

And do not cheat yourself that just one or two people would be enough. No, variety is the spice of life. Two heads are better than one. The more the merrier. And all of us, the trillions that we are in this world, cannot survive without each other. We need people to do the farming, to fly the planes, to build the houses, to argue the court cases, to carve the sculptures, to wash the dishes, to do everything that needs to be done to keep the world running. You cannot do everything alone!

Its all or nothing. Look at your body, can any part of you be cut off from the rest of you and still survive by itself? No! And any part of you that is not there has a vital function and without it, life can NEVER be complete. Until all the parts have been made whole and put together, you will always be missing something and looking around for it.

Is it not wonderful and comforting to know that you are NOT ALONE in this world? So why do you take your fellow men and women for granted? And why can you not spare a minute of your time to thank God for giving you ALL THESE WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL DIFFERENT PEOPLE to share your life with? Why are you not interested in the suffering of your fellow men and women?

KNOW THIS NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. When you die, all that will matter is the love you gave to your neighbour.

Picture this, a child is being born into this world, its mother is in distress, as soon as the child pops out of its mother’s womb, its mother dies. And there is no-one to receive that child into the world. Sadness cannot begin to describe the sight of such a situation.

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF, so that when you are born into death, you will have someone to receive you into eternal life.

Chapter 64

Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta

Chapter 64

Discrimination is an art. In order to perfect it, these are the things that you MUST do:-

1. Accept that it is normal to divide people into groups like men and women, blacks and whites, Kikuyus and Luos, Kenyans and Nigerians, Fats and Thins, Disabled and abled, rich and poor, supporters of Kibaki and supporters of Raila etc. Usually the groups you choose have no justifiable basis. Whatever enables you to disguise your insecurities will do.

2. Accept that you belong to one of those groups so that you adopt a perception of people as us and them.

3. Apply double standards in the way that you judge the group you belong to and the other group so that as far as your group is concerned, any imperfections are excusable but as far as the other group is concerned, you will not accept anything less than perfect.

4. Completely disregard the possibility that all people including those who belong to your group are different in many ways and the correct standard in judging anyone is by their deeds. Jesus said that we will know those who follow Him by their deeds.

5. Completely disregard the possibility that the people who are important in your life are those who experience the same or similar challenges to you and who share the same interests as you.

6. Completely disregard the possibility that your point of view may be flawed.

7. Adamantly refuse to listen to any point of view that may be different from your own.

8. Refuse to give your opponents the opportunity to challenge you and be heard on their point of the view and its justifications.

9. Develop a morbid fear of standing alone in a debate over your views and if confronted, you raise your voice in an angry tone and rush off.

10. Refuse to accept others as your equals.

Here is a summary of a conversation I had with a PNU supporter the other day:-

Njeri: So ati why is it you are against Raila?

PNU supporter: That Raila man. Who does he think he is? How can he expect us to vote for him? What kind of a cabinet will he even have if he comes into power? He has no record. He has never done anything useful, all the time he has been in government his job has been to disturb the peace and mess up. Ok, he helped us get our man into power but now he needs to leave things as they are. And let me tell you, those people from the lakeside, you cant trust them. Everywhere they go they just want to cause chaos. All the labour unions are run by them!

Njeri:Well, I am supporting the guy from the lakeside.

PNU supporter: You cant be serious. Are you not a Kikuyu? How can you not support your own?

Njeri: Well, my vision for this country goes beyond my tribe. I am an advocate for change. I want it to be one day possible for a Kenyan Indian woman to run for presidency and get it. The presidency has been the reserve of the elite and look what is happening to our country, we are being robbed silly by every regime that comes. What we need to do is agitate for change and use our votes to make it clear to the politicians that we want the best and if they do not perform, they are out. We need to encourage qualified educated people, CEOs of businesses to run for presidency by showing them that we choose our leaders based on their performance not on euphoria or tribal lines.

PNU supporter: Eheeheeheehe! You have said it. Raila is all about euphoria, that guy is not interested in working! He just wants to take power and turn our country into a dictatorship.

Njeri: Ok, first let me tell you the underlying principle of my support for Raila before we get to the nitty gritty. I am like the battered wife. I voted for this government expecting Kenya to be transformed into a nation of Kenyans. Now all I see is marginalization of Kikuyus and a government dominated by Kikuyus. The government that I have now has disappointed me in many ways most of all is the Angloleasing scandal, the Artur Brothers and the raid of the Standard Newspapers. Nothing much has changed for the better in the last five years. I now have the chance to change things, to leave my abusive husband and am going to take it. I know that there are husbands out there who don’t beat their wives and there is one for me too. No-one tells a battered wife to stay with her abusive husband even if it means that she has nowhere to go, no money, and no-one to help her, she MUST leave to save her life. I am surprised that you are willing to stay on inspite of the wrongs that have been committed against our country by the current government. There is no valid excuse for any of it. I will not settle for what I’ve got when it comes to anything in my life including the President of my country. The Bible talks about the shepherd who comes home at sunset and finds that he is missing one sheep and instead of locking up the sheep he has and going to bed, he goes out to look for the missing sheep until he finds it. That’s me. I am missing something in my life and am going back into the dark to look for my missing sheep because I know that when I find it, I will be happy because I will have secured a better future for my children.

PNU supporter: Look Njeri, be realistic, you are being stupid. A Kenyan Indian woman can NEVER EVER be president of Kenya. As it is, even me I can never be president. And how do you know that Raila will help you find your missing sheep?

Njeri: I don’t know what Raila will do when he gets in but I do know that voting him in gives me hope that things can change for the better. Something that the current government cannot give me. Its record reads loud and clear. With Moi siding with them, I can see us regressing into the hell that we fought so hard to get out of in 2002. When it comes to who can be president of this country, what matters is what you are ready to accept. If you accept that the presidency is for the select few excluding even you, then that’s what you will get. We need to demystify the presidency and make it accessible to more Kenyans who are able and willing to serve. Voting for Raila will awaken our country and bring us to a realization that ANYONE can be president. Don’t you see that? That is the first step towards building a Kenya for Kenyans.

Chapter 63

Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta

Chapter 63

My countrymen and women suffer from selective amnesia of the worst kind. I say this in reference to something called ‘DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL’. How do those words make you feel? They are horrific! If you hear that someone, anyone, has been detained without trial, you shudder at the thought of what might be in store for him/her. I can only imagine the harrowing experiences people go through.

In our country, two men called Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia were detained without trial. When they surfaced, both of them were maimed and crippled for life. Their families had suffered what can only be described as a monstrous tragedy.
These people to me are heroes. Our country has done little to recognize their valour. These people were detained without trial and tortured for the sake of our country and the futures of our children that we may have multi party democracy in our country and discuss politics freely without fear of persecution.

It is because of them that I am able to sit here and write about the elections and what I think without fearing that some hooded goons will ambush me and make me disappear from the face of the earth only to re-surface as a relative to the hunch back of Notredame! Are you daring enough to be detained without trial for the sake of your country? I dread the thought of spending even a minute in a police cell under arrest with only one shoe on to identify me as a cell mate. My heart breaks for those I have seen behind bars in a police cell or in the dungeons at the High Court or in remand prison.

I remember a story my mum once told me about how she struggled to free a cousin of mine who had been arrested at a bar in some border town for saying something unpleasant about our former president! Fortunately he made it out before they could start pulling out his teeth!

Recently, some muslims were arrested here in Kenya and deported to unknown destinations on suspicion of being involved in terrorist activities. Only God knows what kind of treatment they are being subjected to, if they are still alive. The families of those people who are Kenyans are in anguish. They are pleading with the government for only one thing: that they should be told where their loved ones are and their loved ones should be subjected to a fair trial to ascertain their guilt. It seems highly unlikely that those people will ever be seen again especially since our President recently declared that he does not even know their names. Imagine if that was done to your husband, son or brother! Would you have enough tears?

One of our presidential candidates has spent six good years in and out of detention without trial in his quest for multi-party democracy for this country. The government of the day has labeled him a dangerous man who is likely to turn our country into a dictatorship. Makes sense doesn’t it? Spend most of your life being tortured for the freedom of your people then you are labeled a dictator! To make it more interesting, one of the people labeling him a dictator is the same same person who subjected him, Charles Rubia, Kenneth Matiba and many others to detention without trial! And some of the Kenyan people actually accept the opinion of that person! People who are detained without trial are not expected to survive the ordeal. Not only did he survive the ordeal, he is hugely responsible for the removal of the former president from power and replacing him with our current president.

Apart from being labeled a potential dictator, leaflets are being circulated accusing him of being a devil worshipper because his religion is uncertain! Whoever came up with that idea should be given a medal. Anyone will tell you that our former president who subjected people to detention without trial and during whose tenure this country was robbed of billions, now apparently stashed in foreign bank accounts, is a Christian, a God fearing man who can be trusted to tell us who we should vote for! He has been seen so many times attending church functions and services that his religion cannot ever be doubted! It is laughable! A thief comes into your house, robs you silly, leaves your loved ones maimed and when you go out looking for a security guard to employ, the same thief recommends a suitable guard to you and you gladly take him in!

I am gob smacked by the selective amnesia afflicting my fellow countrymen and women!

I am unable to make any sense of most of the reasons being given to justify our not voting that heroic guy into power. It has been claimed that his promises are just dreams because he did nothing when he was in government. Our current president featured prominently in our former president’s government. If we apply his argument fairly, he too can be accused of having failed us. In fact, he can be accused of having conspired in all the robbery and atrocities that the Kenyan people were subjected to. Then what would be his answer? In truth, a Minister is only as powerful as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces will allow.

The other two presidential candidates’ curriculum vitae are no competition for someone who was detained without trial fighting for our freedom. To me, that in itself qualifies anyone for leadership in any country. Look at Nelson Mandela, can anyone say that he does not deserve to be president of his country even at his present age? What qualifies him for leadership? His persistence and boldness.

Why do we Kenyans persecute our heroes? To me, the answer is idol worship.

Top of the list of our idols is economic development. I do not see anything spectacular about the economy of this country in the last five years. I am still driving on potholed roads spending huge amounts on car repairs and paying for private health insurance and primary school fees while getting taxed at the highest, most efficient level of taxation ever achieved in the history of this country and our Kenya Revenue Authority will openly admit to this. At the same time, our country has continued to be robbed of billions and most of those who resigned from government for having been implicated in the theft were accepted back into government and entrusted to head Ministries! Is this what economic development is?!

Next on the idol list is TRIBALISM. There is a friend of mine who was recently looking for a house to move into. He identified a suitable one, signed the agreement, paid the deposit and just a day before he could move in, the agent called him and told him that the landlady had refused to sign the tenancy agreement because she could not let her house to someone who eats fish! Hahaha! Imagine that a grown woman living in the 21st century in Kenya and educated enough to own a house is practicing tribalism! And while you’re at it, imagine that in order to get a house, that friend of mine had to lie about his tribe!

I wonder what that lady would say to the theory presented by the infamous Dr. James Watson who recently declared that Europeans are more intelligent than Africans by nature. If she would be offended by that guy, she deserves a trophy for hypocrisy at the highest level.

Recently we experienced earth tremors which put the fear of God in us. People were so anxious about going into buildings. At night, people would wake up and vacate their houses and flats and during the day, people were rushing out of their offices in fear that they would cave in. No doubt, when the earth tremors hit, the people running out of their flats and buildings were not bothered about the tribe of the person running next to them. Except for our president and a few privileged others, traffic jam afflicts us all. Noone cares about the tribe of the person who gives you way or who stops to help out when there has been an accident! When boarding a matatu or bus, noone cares about the tribe of the people sharing the vehicle or sitting next to them. Why then does tribe come into the equation when it comes to choosing our leaders?

Is it not hypocritical for us to be practicing tribalism while saying that racism and slavery are bad?!

If you are a God fearing person, recognize that your life’s purpose ought to be about pleasing God. God cannot ever be a tribalist and all of us are His children. People who have a past of detaining others without trial cannot ever be trusted. Do not allow yourself to be blinded by idol worship.

Chapter 62

Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta

Chapter 62

I have been to church for two Sundays since my t-shirt was printed. I wore it the first Sunday and forgot to wear it the next time. Both times, I was confused. I had realized that my rebellion against the church was not going to get me anywhere.

God had planted a thought in my mind. He called me arrogant! He said that I had no right to call the people who were leading His church hypocrites. I should have been grateful that there was a church for me and my children to go to in the first place. They had taken care of that for God and they deserved my respect. Well ……….. who am I to argue with God. What He said was completely true. I was arrogant.

So I went to church both Sundays wondering how to deal with my arrogance and make myself useful in the church. I did not find an answer until after I got home last Sunday and remembered that I noticed an item on the church bulletin calling for participants for a celebration coming soon. I looked at it and thought it might be interesting but ignored it. I later on wondered whether God wanted me to join some group in church. I did not like how that thought made me feel. I could not imagine myself in the company of ardent church goers. I find it hard to understand their reasoning and I did not want to be questioned about my faith or enter into any confrontation with anyone. I knew my views were radical and could not see how I could tone them down in a way that they could be understood as constructive criticism.

The other day, I stepped out for lunch and met a lady who works in my building. She told me that her church was fasting. Her attitude made it clear that she is an ardent church goer and an active participant. I engaged her in a spirited conversation about the usefulness of fasting and by the time we parted ways, we had managed to reach a middle ground about the whole issue. We agreed that just not eating during a fast, is not sufficient. People need to reflect on themselves and find out if they are contributing to the problem which the fast is dedicated to.

I think that everything that happens outside of us is a reflection of what is inside us. A single person has as much to do with broken marriages as do married people. There are those single people who are vultures. So a single person on a fast focusing on broken marriages should make the effort to ascertain whether s/he is a vulture in some way. It is sufficient to covet your friend’s spouse for you to be a vulture. Some people go as far as wishing that the friend could die so that they can have their spouse since people are always saying that all the good guys are taken! We are commanded by God not to covet. So if you covet a married person, you are a vulture. I am sure that there are many single ladies in church who are secretly in love with their pastors or bible study tutors. I know of some ladies who will not go so far as to get involved with a married man but will always make sure that their greetings involve a tight hug and smooch leaving the guy and those around him wondering what that was all about. Clear your mind of evil thoughts about other people’s spouses and you are on the way to finding your own. There is someone for everyone.

You are partly responsible for all the problems you see around you. You just need to put your ears to the ground and listen real hard to find out what you are doing wrong. Find Jesus and let Him tell you where you are going wrong.

After meeting my church lady and realizing that it was possible for me to agree with an ardent church goer, I entered a lift and when pressing the third floor where I was intending to go, I also pressed the fifth floor by mistake and wondered what could be on the fifth floor. I later met a lawyer I know who is an elder in his church and even preaches. His office is on the fifth floor of the building. He is a very nice guy and we talked and laughed for a while about spouses running offices together and why my husband and I work in separate offices. That guy made me realize that there are some sober church members around. Unfortunately for me, that meant that I had no reason not to get involved in some church functions. I also realized that my t-shirt would be more noticeable to those I was working closely with than a whole congregation. So I decided to give the participation a try next Sunday although I was still apprehensive. What convinced me to do it is the fear of ignoring God and what the dire consequences might be.

God talks to us. I could see His influence in the accident with the nun and the church goers and my meetings with the church lady and the church lawyer. Those events in my life had messages for me which I figured out. It seems then that all the events in my life have a message for me from God. They are either giving me answers to my questions or pointing out my mistakes or pointing me in the right direction. It is not easy to figure out the messages. You have to be very focused on your questions and ready to accept responsibility for what has seemingly nothing to do with you.

For instance, if you get home after a long day at work and sit by yourself asking why your life is so hard and why you cannot seem to meet the goals you set for yourself, then in the middle of your thoughts, your cell phone rings and when you check the screen you see that it is your nagging mother calling and you refuse to pick up thinking that your day could not get any worse, so you get up and reach for a drink to soothe your nerves and get distracted from your thoughts about your life, you are mistaken. Your mistake is that you do not realize that your nagging mother calling at that particular time means that your hard life and inability to meet your goals has something to do with her! What you are focusing on, which is usually making money, is really not the answer to your problems. What you need to do is to examine your relationship with your mother and find out what the message is, act on it and you are on the way to solving your problems.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. If you honour your mother unconditionally as God has commanded you to and take her calls no matter what a pest she may be, the peace of mind you are looking for in your job and the goals you have set for yourself will be exceeded beyond what you imagined. Even your relationship with your mother will improve amazingly.

The answers to life’s questions are simple. They lie within you in the choices you are making and the kind of person that you are. Just take the time to think deeply about who you are and why you do the things you do.

Chapter 61

Mind Boggling
By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta

Chapter 61

I called my motor cycle guy today!

On my way to work, I saw a nasty car accident just a short distance from my house near where another one had occurred this same month. Both involved a saloon car and a matatu and looking at the final position of the vehicles and the damage caused, it appeared to me that in both accidents, the saloon cars were overtaking dangerously. The one I saw today was even more gruesome than the first one! Everyone who passed by must have said a prayer for the people in the saloon car which was bashed up pretty good with generous blood stains on the windscreen.

When I saw the accident I asked myself why the two accidents had occurred there and not somewhere else where I would not pass by and experience the horror of looking on. I wondered whether there was a message for me in the two accidents. Recently I had started wondering whether the things that happen to others around me, good or bad, have anything to do with me and the kind of person that I am. Do my actions and omissions affect those around me? They obviously affect those I come into contact with in different ways, but who is to say that they do not affect the lives of my fellow human beings who are not in contact with me?

This is election year in my country and potential candidates are busying themselves campaigning in the hope that the masses will side with them and vote them into office. The actions and omissions of politicians undoubtedly affect those they have never even heard of sometimes in devastating ways like when a president wrongly orders the country to go to war and soldiers are killed. Where do I fall in this equation?

The other day a client came appealing to me to stop the sale of his house where he lives with his entire family. I did what I could to help him and managed to delay the sale on the day it was scheduled to take place. Did my decision to help him affect others I do not know? Definitely, in many ways. For instance, the auctioneer was pissed off because he already had a buyer for the house and the delay meant no fees and possibly a fat commission for him, at least not for the moment. By filing the case, my client’s opponent appointed a lawyer who will get paid for the work s/he does. The potential buyer has to find something else to do with his money and his expectations were dashed. Most importantly, my client’s family can sleep comfortably in their precious house without worrying about it being sold for the moment. I gave my client a chance to put things right and hopefully salvage his house permanently. For every transaction and court case that I have been involved in, I am in no doubt that I have affected the lives of people I do not know in similar ways.

My giving way to my fellow road users and holding lifts for others no doubt affects the timing in their lives similarly to how it affects mine. The tips I give at the supermarket and at restaurants no doubt affect the financial abilities of the recipients. These are people I know nothing about.

So did I have anything to do with the occurrence of the gruesome accidents in a way that perhaps I am not enlightened enough to appreciate? This question stuck in my mind all the way until I got to park my car. During that time, I examined my driving and could not find any wrong in it. I could not imagine that the accidents could have had anything to do with another aspect of my life. That would be too complicated for me to understand. To simplify things, I decided to think about the accidents I have been involved in. Other than the motor cycle guy accident, by the grace of God, I have never been involved in an accident where anyone sustained serious bodily injury. In fact I have only had five material damage brushes with other vehicles which we settled without police assistance. I have been driving for eleven years now. The first minor collision occurred when I was a very green driver, the other four occurred between last year and early this year including the one after church. I was at fault in only one of them. The prominence of road accidents in my life in the recent past has got me concerned that there is something I am supposed to do but am not doing it. Hence my improvement in my driving. After a long soul search, the only thing I could point to is the fact that I had not bothered to call up my motor cycle guy and find out how he was doing. I wondered how my not calling him affected my life or his. Since I could not think of anything else, I went ahead and called him.

I had got his number from a friend who was at the scene of the accident and had collected as much information that he thought I might need should I plan to sue or have to defend myself in court. I printed out the email he sent me and filed it away without a second thought. Now I was wondering what good calling the guy would do to my life. I remembered that I thought that he and I had some connection that caused us to meet on that fateful day. I looked at his name wondering whether it should mean something to me but it was not familiar at all. I asked myself what I had to lose if I made the call and could not imagine anything life threatening. It was possible that he may have lost his phone after the accident and had changed his number. I was not going to get away that easily because I knew where he worked and could call there if his number was of no help.

I asked myself what I had to gain by making the call. I concluded that my curiosity would at least be satisfied. Why not just find out the answers to my questions about him? I was curious to know what the hell he was thinking when he smashed into my car, how he was doing (I did not know if he survived and was dreading the thought that he could have died) and anything else that could help me make the connection. My curiosity got the better of me so I gathered the courage to call and dialed his number.

He picked up the phone and I got confused because I had imagined that he wouldn’t and had not planned on what to say. What reason was I to give him for calling? I decided that it was too late to start planning and resolved to just go with the flow of the conversation. I introduced myself and he sounded happy to hear from me, like he was hoping I would call. He told me that he had recovered and was back to work. I asked him the questions I was dying to hear the answers to: “What was happening that day? Where were you rushing to?” His answer was simply that he cannot remember anything that happened that day! He developed some form of selective amnesia that caused him to block out the memories of that particular day completely. He was in a coma for a period of exactly fourteen days. There are other things and people that he does not recall but he remembers the important things like his family, his workmates, his work etc. He said that he swore never to ride a motor cycle again in his life and thanked me so much for calling. I assured him that nothing serious happened to me and he was relieved. We said good bye and that was it!

I then asked myself what was so hard about such a simple thing. I sat for a while and thought about our conversation and it occurred to me that my calling my motor cycle guy had given him some assurance and comfort that he was lacking. I was certain from the way he sounded that he was also curious about how I was doing and whether I blamed him for anything. The sound of relief in his voice was clearly audible. I felt guilty for having taken so long to call him with no justifiable reason, just imaginary fear. I remembered what my counselor had said about freeing me from my fear of the unknown and realized what she was talking about. Why had I allowed myself to imagine the worst of that guy and act on it instead of acting on facts? It was obvious to me that my not calling that guy was causing him anxiety that he did not need to have and perhaps now that I had called him, his healing could be complete.

It had taken me nine months to call that guy. Was the fact that I survived the accident unscathed not sufficient to warrant my reaching out to that guy who was less fortunate than me? Why did I act so selfishly towards him? Was it not my duty to call him? Could it be that my not calling him had something to do with those gruesome accidents occurring in places where I would pass by to remind me of a duty I was overlooking? Had my failure to perform that duty altered the timing of events in my life to bring me to seeing those gruesome accidents?

Jesus said that we should love our neighbours as we love ourselves. It was my duty to call that guy and even visit him in hospital. Could it be Him who was always pinching at my mind pleading with me to call my motor cycle guy then I would brush Him off by giving some lame excuse about what a ‘dangerous guy’ the motor cycle guy must be! How stupid was that! Passion was calling at my window in the dead of night and I ignored it for fear of the darkness! Could it be that if I had continued ignoring the message to call my motor cycle guy, my passion would have killed me like it did my dad? Maybe the next gruesome accident would have involved me since I had chosen to learn the hard way! Then people would be laughing at me in Hell saying: “Heaven was just a phone call away, you had the name and number all along and you did not call?” Heeheeheeheehee! “What was the reason for you not calling again? You thought the guy was dangerous?!” Heeheeheehee! “You should have read your Bible more keenly and realized that God is more dangerous that anyone in the world and if you ignore His messages, woe unto you!” Heheeeeeeeeeee!

What message did my motor cycle guy’s amnesia communicate to me? Picture this: what if when I called the guy and introduced myself to him, he said that he did not know of any accident, he was never involved in any accident and he does not know who I am and just hang up? I would be left looking at my phone and thinking …… what the……?! I don’t exist to that guy? He almost killed me! I could relate this to what my counselor said about me not acknowledging that God was there with me before I was born since He created me.

During my days of atheist philosophy, I was suffering from selective amnesia. Many people around me were trying to tell me of something that I had no recollection of, they showed me the signs and I refused to listen. The motor cycle guy accepted what he had been told about the accident, he accepted the circumstantial evidence and even acknowledged my existence without questioning my motives when I called. I could have been an investigator from his health insurance company trying to confirm that his medical complaints were genuine! He just believed what I told him without question. AND so did I! I accepted the phone number given to me as his and all that he told me without question. So why does anyone need definite proof of the existence of God? Is the circumstantial evidence especially the inevitability of my death not sufficient?

I do feel enlightened and hope that there will be no more gruesome accidents featuring in my life.