Thursday, August 11, 2005

Me and cameras

Went out for dinner the other day with the rest of my people.We went to an all you can eat, it was pretty much fun I will admit.Even though I am not a big meal person, I am one of those people who would rather have like 5 small meals or so a day rather then 3 big ones.
Anyway in true American tradition the camera was whipped out and in it was phot time.I do not like being in front of the camera I prefer being the one to take the photos then be in them.So usually I find it hard to smile in photos usually I put on some dead pan expression in fact I think I will post some of those pics but I did manage to smile in some of them if you could call that thing on my face a smile.I guess it roots back from my later days in Kenya ie the school and ID photos.By the time you take that ID photo you had been shuttled from office to office,asked to bribe and been burnt by the over head sun.So I guess the sight of the camera warps me back to that point of suffering thus the instant dead pan expression.Well when my small sis was going to get her passport at photo time she decided to give a glowing model smile; she was shocked.The guva photographer told her "angalia mbele na funga mdomo ( look in front and stop smiling ), much to her dismay.Oh well I guess thats how it is sometimes.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Roads

I was just looking at the road system here and I am really impressed with what good planning can do.The interstates really do speed up things.Right now in Kenya there is a major problem with road congestion.It is now that it is hitting the government that the bomb is about to explode.With the dubai explosion of the 90s the car numbes expanded exponentially but unfortunately the road surface area did not.Also many roads are poorly maintained so that leads to traffic moving slowly.Millions even billions of shillings are lost via poorly maintained roads but the goernment seems to be dragging its feet on the issue.To add to this many road reserves were grabbed in the land grabbing mania of the late 90s so many are now occupied by buildings.
I once recall being stuck in a jam from Nairobi west to the South C mosque for 1 hour a distance that takes 15 minutes to walk.Let me not get started on jogoo road and thika road.Well at least players in the relevant industries were meeting today to come up with a plan of action let us see what they will come up with.