Sunday musings

Today morning as I bummed in bed I did the usual Sunday thing, I watched TV.I got to watch the Village directed by M Night Shymalan. I must admit that it was not as bad as I thought it would be.I did like the twist at the end of the tale.The fact that the monsters that kept them in the village did not exist and were just made up by the elders who lived in the outside world to prevent the people from leaving.Plus the fact that the people chose to live a life resembling that of early 20th century frontiersmen eschewing electricity and other conveniences (resulting in the needless death of a child) when access to all those things was just a few miles away.What people won't do to run away from their problems?
Other then that I am plugging away doing some article reviews for one of my courses.The problem isn't reviewing the articles but typing them. For some reason it just feels like an uphill task but it's one that I have to do.
I read about this miraa bust in the States. It seems some veve lovers will have the shakes in some weeks to come. I must confess despite living in a neighbourhood where there were many miraa users, I have never ever tried the drug. The whole idea of chewing those stalks for hours on end, while exchanging endless tales as I wait for the buzz to kick in never appealed to me at all. I used to know arab families where everyone from the parents to the children were users. Call me sexist but I always saw a chic chewing miraa as a major turn off; it was sloppy enough with the men already.
The Sunday Nation also had this well written but brief commentary about the plight of Kenyans in the diaspora.The writer highlighted the stress that some of them undergo that leads them to crime.These lines do say alot.

Kenyans in the Diaspora are faceless in many ways. While they still write and miss home, the same is often not the truth save for their being missed for remittances and other funding.
The cow gives milk and little thought is ever given as to how it lives. Yet the pressures the Diaspora endures just to survive is great. More often than not, we do two jobs just to eat. Less speak to pay the rent, support our own.

I am not in any way saying that all Kenyans back home have their arms open waiting for hand outs but there are a large number who are.Many people back home see life abroad as paved with pounds and dollars, I remember when I was leaving the country one of my friends asked me to leave him one of my favorite pairs of shoes that I saved for a long time to buy with the words, "You'll buy another pair when you get their." The fact is that for most Kenyans out here things are not that simple but since the people back home sacrificed to send you abroad, it is only logical that you do what you can to help out. But at times the requests can become a bit much.Lucky for me, my mother has been out here quite a number of times so she knows how hard things can be so she doesn't ask for too much. But the story is different for most people, due to this mindset doing business from abroad is a headache and a nightmare. First of all the price of everything is jacked up spectacularly, I mean take a look at the price of subscription to the East African Standard and the Nation; they are more expensive then subscribing to American papers and magazines. A blogger who tried to buy stocks in Kenya said how it took so long that by the time the stocks were being bought they had already rose in price, defeating the purpose of buying them in the first place. I was once told this story about this Kenyan dude in the UK who had been remitting cash home to his family so that they build him some apartments.He forsook the finer things in life and sent the money home diligently even overstaying his visa so that the project may be concluded. After working his fingers to the bone to overcome the reported hiccups of the project, he decided that he had tired of the drab European lifestyle and returned home to manage his investments and live in peace. On coming home and going to the purported site he found that nothing but weeds existed on the land, he confronted his family members who just led him on a wild goose chase.He tried to seek legal redress but the family members involved used the money they had gotten from him to pay off the law, with all the stress and despair surrounding the issue he promptly lost his mind and eventually took his own life. I know not all cases are as extreme as this but such things do happen. Despite all this their are still muppets who find time to write articles like this.
So people back home, unless the person you know that is leaving has been hired by some big corporation or the United Nations to work abroad, life for them isn't as easy as you think it is. Have a nice Monday (If that's possible!)