inkandwords

Monday with no blues

2007-10-08T10:47:00.000+03:00

The weekend saw the unveiling of the ODM presidential campaigns, this followed the earlier one by the incumbent. I have pondered over this whole campaign launch ruckus. Do the millions of chaps who fill up this grounds vote? Is this really a true gauge of the popularity or lack of, of a candidate?

Some guys say that these are just idle youth out to spend a day doing at least something hyper rather than spend it lounging at shopping centres doing what they do best, nothing.

To me this is one of the most pretentious arguments I have ever heard. The fact that this is often peddled by some grey haired chap goes to sure in what state this guy’s mind in. The results of the Banana/Orange duel are there for anyone who needs further proof of this fact. There were massive crowds at each of the Orange rallies and these crowds ultimate made their voting decision in tandem with the way they attended the rallies.

Moving swiftly along I’d like to sat albeit belatedly that the KCB advert both on telly and on radio is quite deadly. The copy chaps who thought it out should really be given some kind of bonus. There is the well thought out jingle to add onto a good idea, this ultimately gives the whole thing a marvellous finish.
Cheers guys and keep them coming.
Still on the subject of ads the producers at the national broadcaster, need to pull up their socks or just retire or even better get into another career, because bland does not even come close to describing their attempts at producing ads. Employ more creative guys please.

victor

Saturday

2007-10-06T10:35:00.000+03:00

It is a bright Saturday today; there are no hints of rainfall like a normal Sato. This sides every thing seems to polite and cool.

Office is the same new stuff everyday, which I can say is the only normal thing here.

My programming project is slowly coming through save for the fact that the Open Source society in Kenya seems virtually dead. It is either that or my blog aint read by that many people so I try one more time; FELLOWS ANY ONE WITH OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE OUT THERE HOOK ME UP!!!!

That said there are debates galore in the part of the woods. In Kenya’s Daily Nation, Mr Habel Nyamu wrote about the taboo subject ‘homosexuality’ his main thrust was that these chaps are more or less socially deviant guy who are just asking guys to feel sorry for them for no justifiable reason.

No sooner had the ink dried on the page than the columnist Betty Caplan fired off a reply seeking Mr. Nyamu clarification on the matter. Nation’s other writer on the matter also gave his thoughts (I forget his name).

I dont where this thing will finally conclude to.

There is also the never ending political circus I can wait for 1st January so that this ruckus is over.

incapoet

2007-10-02T15:42:00.000+03:00

Programming

I am trying to shift my style of writing a bit so that if I havent got something important to say, i just keep my mouth or is it the keyboard silent.

I am trying to learn how to program. This is something I want to do without having to attend a formal class if that is possible. From what I have read from the Great Ones it seems very possible.

The various programming languages are very confusing to say the least. Python, Perl,Lisp,C, C++,C#,Java and the whole lot of them but right now i am trying to concentrate on Python and Lisp. Who knows maybe I might even get to be good at the in this very near future.

The thing that I am lacking is books and where to source on Open Source software coz as i have found out Windows XP doesnt understand anything written in Python.

If there is someone out there who can tell me where i can find this stuff in this country of ours called Kenya I would very much appreciate.

Wish me luck guys

incapoet

Kenyan and African Literature and all that

2007-09-18T10:46:00.001+03:00

The debate about what makes of qualifies one as an African writer has been ongoing for a long time. Suffice it to say that the debate is not about to end any time soon. Ken Opande's article (SS 2 Sept. 2007) made for interesting reading.

From the outset I think this whole debate is pertinent as it tries to shed light on what exactly make one an African writer. Or is there a one-size-its-all description of an African writer.

My opinion is that there isn't. Every person, every writer, has their definition of what Africa is. Each experience is different, so if we try to all write in one confine storyline that is a recipe for failure. Writers living in rural Africa will most certainly have a different story to tell from a writer living in an urban area. Both will have their takes on each situation because of the geographic difference and how they've lived their lives. Is it the writer who lives in the village where the air is fresh, hill undulate and birds chirrup every morning who is an African writer or is it the writer who chokes in industrial smog and smoke, whose eardrums are almost bursting from the intrusive car horns.

Africaness, in writers if I may call it that, is a state of mind where you sensibilities are towards Africa in its true state, the geographical conditions of you area notwithstanding.

These sensibilities allows one to write about both the ills and the good things about Africa without glossing over the bad thing for that idyll that is the rolling hills, clear streams, chirruping birds every morning, and very pleasant village in general.

If we take a look at the growth of the African novel post independence, we can se that almost all the writers then we focused on one thing. That is telling the story of a growing country, a country trying to find its footing in the world. It helped that these countries got their independence at more or lees the same time. This brought about some sort of uniformity to their stories.

As time went by these storylines diverged, as writers faced new challenges their writing also became new. Some took the emerging dictatorship head on, others wrote about the growing squalor in the cities and most recently the AIDS scourge that is laying waste to the continent. It is important to note that Monica Arac de Nyeko won the Caine Prize for African Literature for her story which is about the forbidden love between two girls. This is a taboo subject in Africa, many people think that this kind of story is a preserve of the west but the fact the she is a woman from Northern Uganda tell us that this is a true African story.

This goes to state my position that it is foolhardy to expect a writer whose thoughts and experiences do not include village fires, bullfrogs and village criers to base his works on that just to please a critic with a romanticized view of Africa. The same applies to a writer whose base is rural Africa. As writers we try to tell the world our stories and experiences. The moment you start writing from an uninformed point of view just so as to fit into a conventional mould of an Africa writer then you are setting yourself up for failure, to be liked only by the some chaps resident in some literature departments.

So the moment my novel tells you about a concrete jungle where people dodge cars and flying toilets and not a spear and they leap over sewers and not rivers, read and give if it a chance and if you don't like it, look for another which you like.

The Cynic

2007-09-12T14:22:00.001+03:00

I have always connoted the word 'cynic' with something diabolical. But I have now realised the need for us to have some cynics if we are to survive in this cold and cruel world.

What has made me turn my thoughts to the cynic is the fact that it is becoming very clear that all human being have an inherent sense of putting one's self first. Some will say that this is a good thing, the stuff that drives ambitions, but what do you say about the chap who snookers his mate's clients as his when the other chap has called in sick or the best lady who snatches her best friend's groom to be on the eve of the weeding.

If we are truthful to ourselves then we can clearly say that 85% of everything you hear from anybody is a lie. More so one intended to further the liar's life in some way or the other.

How can you explain an economist lying to a hapless group of illiterate villagers about the benefits of a fake pyramid scheme? And he does this with no compunction and the villagers with take this as the gospel truth. Woe unto any who tries to question this guy's assertions.

I few are to believe that everyone means well for us and accept what they tell us or do with so much as a check, then we are setting ourselves up for serious failure. Guys will run roughshod over you using you as the stairs to get to the upper floor.

A little cynicism didn't hurt anyone rather it is good for us all.

Nothing

2007-09-11T10:20:00.001+03:00

I have wrote nothing in a while and thought this would best summarise my brain. I currently am thinking up what to write but my brain seems to be on a very lazy plane. That said Kenya politics has never been this entertaining what with politician from all sides of the divide try to upstage each other. Not by a visceral contest but by how much profanity and abuse can come out of your mouth than the other guy.

If anyone thinks that they is any difference beetween the opposition and the ruling class then they must be living in some deluded world. Suffice it to say that the chaps who are today shouting in the opposition were yesterday in goverment and vice versa. And so will the bloody circle revolve.

Till the day we'll load them up in a ship and blast it to high heaven and start afresh with new chaps then it will be same old same old. Or what do you think???

incapoet

Thinking

2007-07-08T12:11:00.001+03:00

I got a weird title today coz I've many thoughts swirling in my head. From finances to heart matters if I may call them that.

I am go back to Kenya tomorrow coz of the semester ending and all and I hope to take like a polite drink when I reach there so as to kind of put my head blank.

Being in Kenya will come with the attendant benefits of having a reliable internet connection as compared to this backwaters.

But one think I will definitely miss will be the waragi. A drink that soothes you soul when you want and give you fire when you want it.

YOU

2007-05-01T15:02:00.001+03:00

Hello people its been while since I got on the net, my last post was
like a month ago. I have been alright all this while but going
through my comments I find that nobody has commented on my last
question about poetry I dont know if there are very few people who are
into the verse but surely there must be someone out there with
thoughts on the matter. Or maybe its that my blog aint read by as
many poeple as I thought but its fine.

There was an article in one of the Kenyan papers about the blogs
there, its good to know that many folks these days are netters. That
goes to show why the Time magagazine person of the year is YOU.

Cheers

Release

2007-02-12T10:17:00.001+03:00

Poetry is release, one of my pals said, with all the conviction he had. Bull man! Methinks that poetry is life. We live in verse, our lives punctuated by rhyme, syllables and all.

Usually this debate about poetry compared to prose or about the need of poetry is kinda cliched. Guys who put forward arguments to support it will most certainly sound like they are using the same old same old points but that coz they believe in it.

The one thing I would like to ask all the poets out there is Performance poetry and Read poetry whats the difference is any.

Cheers.

Inca

December

2006-12-18T09:52:00.001+03:00

Christmas here, is very disconcerting. The same old song which we heard as kids are the same one still assailing our ears. Its not that I hate the X-mas period its just that everyone seems to go into a whole celebratory mood (me included) which doesn't look justified at all.

I think it must be something with the ending of the year. But who knows for sure that the new one won't bring more problems than the one almost winding up. Fear of the unknown is some trait that people abandon in December on to embrace it in January when thing seem to be headed towards their usual course rather than what they had expected.

Even the most forlorn chap will try his best to join in the mood in the hope that one of the now-happy fellows with a little more to spare will dish out some.

That I think is the only good thing can cipher out of Christmas.

School and all

2006-11-20T18:01:00.000+03:00

I have been in Uganda three weeks now since my last post. Definately I'm back to the things I had moaned about missing some weeks ago in the post headlined 'Kampala' The time has been slow moving compared to the fluidity of life as I knew in when I was back in Kenya during the University vacation.

I've been doing the favourite thing that I do that is reading the newspapers and this has been very interesting. Compared to Kenya there is a strand of porno or should I say tabloidism that is present in almost every page.

It seems that the society here is very permissive about talking about sexuality the many versions of it and being a Kenyan coming from what I would call a conservative family. The first days were very shocking indeed, what with nude pictures galore in every newspaper and sexual talk wafting into almost every conversation.

Slowly one familiar with this and the akwardness disappears and it get kinda normal.

2006-11-01T10:40:00.000+03:00

Football Tricks

I have borrowed the title from the forthcoming issue of Chimurenga Magazine. This is an apt title for the charade that passes off for the beautiful game in Africa. It is a fact that very few countries in this continent are without some nasty skeletons in their closets.

Football politics is now at the same level with national and international politics. Which is to say it is as dirty. It is not rare or strange to see a fully grown men anticking like toddlers. Each of the telling the other ‘’let take it outside if you are man enough’’. And they are all men enough according to what follows.

Fifa, the world governing body, isn’t also without its share of foibles, with very strange happenings going on in Laussane, its headquarters in Switzerland.

My country Kenya was banned from international football. The effect of this is that no team from Kenya can take part in any international competitions and worse, no player can move to another team whether in or outside the country. This is the worst part of it. Honest players are being pushed to poverty.

This is because of one or two or more punks at the federation got greedy. The mess that is Kenyan footie is solely and squarely the fault of some individuals dreaming about being councillors and MPs. It is a fact that almost all so called football administrators aspire to be elected politicians and see the football federation as their ticket to get a foot in. This is because of the attendant exposure that comes with managing the game. An emotive sport if there was one.

The breakaway league formed by a renegade group showed that football can in deed by run professionally and gain sponsorship from the corporates. Companies were falling over themselves for the chance to sponsor Munro and his group, even the hallowed Transparency international offered their support. But they just had to rejoin KFF.

I would think that they should stand their ground this time round coz deep down everyone knows that they are doing the right thing.

Intricacies, skulduggery and other bad meaning adjectives that describe football politics in Kenya and Africa, are indeed saddening but true.

Because of this the FA Premier League , La Liga and Serie A will always be the leagues watched in Africa

2006-10-31T12:58:00.000+03:00

Kampala

Kampala here I come. After a break of four odd months languishing in the villa’, I am ready to let go, a bottle cold Bell Lager in my hand is all I need. Ready to live life and handle the small matter of reading towards a University degree, that is if I don’t lose the plot along the way.

I must say I have missed the place seriously; the yucky tasting matoke and groundnut sauce on beans and queer tasting banana juice is imprinted on my mind, weirder women and rare chaps. Yeah I miss the life.

That isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed Kenya, somewhere in the middle of my attachment job, a weekend in Nairobi lies hazy, blurred by a hangover and covered in smoke. Its memories fleeting.

I have thinking about my writing, particularly the poetic side of myself. This is because words had dried up. Was I going to be a unborn poet, with rhymes stillborn in my mind? But all is good now slowly I’ve been regaining it and plodding towards the heavens, one line at a time. I’ve now found out that it is very easy to call yourself a poet but very hard to be one.

But I am going to be one or die trying.

Bored

2006-10-30T16:09:00.000+03:00

I have been checking out other blog hosts and all seem kinda inferior.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

2006-10-28T10:22:00.000+03:00

Music and Kenya

I like to think of myself as receptive and appreciative of all types of music, that is among other things, so I have been up to my ears in our, read Kenyan music. Listening to it, liking it, sometimes that is, and ultimately trying to discern what is behind the music. This has left me sometimes fulfilled and others downright disgust. First to the fulfilment:

There is a hip hop group called UKOO FLANI. Their offering is hard core hippity hop. With two albums, ‘Dandora Burning’ and ‘Kilio Cha Haki’’ (A Cry for Justice/truth in English) they push the bar for hip hop excellence higher. Maybe it’s because they’ve got Kenya’s hip hop pioneers in their ranks. But, man, do they rock. Singing about the ghettos they live in, and the hustles they go through is way, way too cool. The thing that stands out is that there isn’t any pretence in their lyrics. This isn’t for the guy after a club hit (there are some in there by the way) but a chap who wants to bob his head as he hears the words.

Save for a few other chaps & ladies. I have been slowly getting fed up with the excuses for music guy are putting out as tracks.

You find a track with no sense to it. Granted it has the beat, it starts and then it ends but after that zilch. Club tracks are alright, coz I mean who doesn’t like to party. After a quafty day, some dancing and some drinks are just the thing to chill you out. But if you are going to release a club track have some decency to offer your 100 percent
Computer generated beats are fine, but after a while they start getting old. Even a 100 year old kid who doesn’t have to be a nerd can do it. Releasing half-baked stuff, while hankering for your 15 minutes of fame is lame, man! Better settle in some white/blue collar nine to five arrangements. Coz music is an art form innit! And if you can hack it keep off.

All this said, there is a music scene, albeit underground (if you can call it that) and not the ‘underground’ that every new wannabe keeps harping about, that’s thriving. You can hear it at the poetry readings KWANI hosts every month and other gatherings where true artists let rip and you can only watch in awe.

PEACE

Rock and Roll

2006-10-27T18:02:00.001+03:00

Today, I lean towards my favourite kind of music, Rock music.

I have often wondered where the name came from, the banging of two rocks maybe? Most likely it's because of the way the music has its own hands which grab and do their best to rock you. Or is it the lyrics in their intensity and verve which describe the name 'rock' truly.

Whatever it is the music can only be described as awesome. This isn't some faddish thought because rock seems to be on everyone's mind these days. After the last chap leaves when the next big genre of music arrive I'm certain that I will still be here clutching onto my Evanescence CD case as 'My Immortal" plays in the background.

The CD currently on my mind is the new release from Bob Dylan. After some years is being in the background of news with him being on the road touring. This album is more or less vintage Bob. Modern Times as it is called starts with 'Thunder on the Mountain'. A kind of chant, if I may call it that, with the voice of God at the mountains.

Listening to it just remind you that whatever Bob Dylan offer we will keep lapping it up.

Cheers

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Thoughts

2006-10-26T11:02:00.000+03:00

I have been thinking about the Kenyatta Day celebrations or particularly, the remarks the president made. For those not in the know, he called some chaps 'pumbavu' that is the Swahili version of idiot or dim wit or fool or stupid whichever you prefer. This is not the first time he has done this and probably not the last.

Called some a fool is not bad, if you think he is a fool that is, and I am of the view that he is entitled to his opinion and if he wants to call others fools he should be ready to be called by the same name.

Some chap who thought he had a brain wave, an MP, I think, said that we should excuse him because of his age. That is pure rubbish. Is it that old age gives one license to name calling. That is why I am against placing old age on a pedestal for worship. Just because you are a bit older, doesn't mean that you be allowed to have you way on everything. There are exceptions to this which mostly come about due to common sense; everybody knows that giving up a seat in the bus to an old frail lady is the sensible thing to do.

Old age is overrated; the only good thing that I know you get out of it is experience. After those many years, experience put common sense where it should be, that is, before everything you do. One of the things I hate most about old age is the accompanying grumpiness, that irritating behaviour, which the offending party is most oblivious to. The fact that most people have tolerated it in the name of accepting people of advanced age is most shameful. Some of whom now know that the will most certainly get away with anything hence the 'pumbavu' remarks.

That brings me to the second point. Does anybody know if the president of our beloved republic uses 'pumbavu' terms in private, maybe even in jest? I'd welcome any correction but if he does then there is no good reason why public use of the same is an unimaginable occurrence. The chap is human after all. We can't go about expecting the president to be a saint can we?

My thoughts are somewhat opposing each other but what I think is clear is that everybody is capable of name calling ( not a bad thing in itself) but trying to explain or justify that in the name of old age is just too lame.

Cheers

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2006-10-25T17:17:00.000+03:00

Theocracy

My last post was on theocracy. I felt that I should post a letter that I sent to the editor of one of our local dailies who didn’t deem it for for publishing.

The subject threatens to be a rather emotive one but we shouldn’t get carried away, because behind all the moral/Christian posturing there appears to be a definitive plan to further the theocratic agenda.

I think it would be unfair to do this; this is all I can say without getting angrier

Kericho, home

Kericho is a very cool place, literally that is, it is damn cold and after I shaved my hair after two years of trying to grow dreadlocks it was like almost putting ice on your head. The sensation of cold wind hitting your head is one that I would seriously wish upon an enemy.

You see I have been here for the past 4 months, the longest stretch since circumstance moved me to Nairobi. The months have been kind of both slow and fast depending on where I was at, at the time.

I have been doing some attachment job. It has been alright doing what I enjoy and lounging at the same time. The company is great and the people working here are just poa.

The 4 months have passed sometimes slowly and boring and sometimes refreshingly quick. Slowly I’ve been seeing this place in a different light. It brings a whole new twist to ‘poet’s idyll’.

I have been watching chaps around my digs and the small shopping centre around, trying to get to know what they are up to. (After all I’m trying to be a journalist) So slowly I’ve built up a small list of the most interesting characters in this place. Interesting as in, both good and bad interesting. (Hope you don’t mind the repetition)

There is this chap who I thought once knew because his face is so familiar, but then when I look again I don’t know him. Every other time I meet him or pass him on the way, a smell of raw bananas seems to shadow him and even overtake him because by the time you are level with breathing brings tears to your eyes. But the smell is but one part of his persona; the guy will feign drunkenness and stagger about only for a momentary lapse when he walks properly and then a sheepish look when he remembers what he has just done.

More on my list after it has gotten more definitive.

Cheers.