Are We Denying Turere his Childhood?

It is no secret, we are all learning from children, and childhood to be specific; the mind of the child is unbridled with the worries of life that stop us from taking risks and following our impulses.  A child Turere’s age and curiosity has a high chance of being creatively polymath-as opposed to limited to conservation technology and physics. A child has the perfect ‘beginners mind which lacks preconceptions, has an attitude of eagerness and openness and is eager to learn. The mind of the child is

…”hard-wired to be creative, imaginative and innovative- abilities that often diminish along the way. “

....open to exploration, discovery and experimentation. They learn about their world around them by pushing the limits, discovering what’s possible and what’s not. ”

This is not the patent application design….I hope.

Among the things you will learn if you Google ‘How to Teach my child to innovate‘ is the need to de-emphasize patents, distinguish between problem solving skills and innovation skills and approach innovation as a general skills-based activity.

Richard Turere is a charming and curious soul, as his TED talks and numerous interviews have shown. He is a fast learner and an innovator at heart; the passion is clear in his eyes. One only needs to look at him to realize that that is a boy who is mentally ahead of his physical age. Therein lies the problem, the fact that in a world bereft with new ideas and media glitz, we want our celebrities younger and weirder. We want them to shine yet in our media-hungry generation, do not give them enough time to come up with new ideas. No one can master creativity, I doubt anyone ever will. Combine this media pressure to discuss an idea already patented and over-marketed and you realize that we might be denying a young boy the chance to act his age.

In the numerous interviews with media houses, Turere discussed how his invention was a product of his curiosity. The aforementioned passion could clearly be seen as being a child’s curiosity, the willingness to try out new things without holding back. That passion knows no boundaries and with a father like his, can go overboard and into what others would call ‘child endangerment’ (the risk of electrocution). Yet we have hoodwinked ourselves to see past all that and to see a boy innovator…The truth is, being in the limelight is physically and mentally demanding. The pressure to perform is even higher when the celebrity in question is a child who is still in his developmental years.

He made the lion lights when he was eleven, he is now fourteen and older, hopefully wiser. The lights have probably saved more lions than a blog post like this one would but the question is, have they lost his childhood? Have our obsessive (rightly so) conservation efforts tossed a young boy into an adult world he might not be ready for? One where dark-continent-is-the-new-frontier newsworthy stories-hungry international media are falling over each other to get his story?

I would guess that this photo was staged, there is a clear disconnect…

So instead of letting him stay in the environment that nurtured his idea, of open spaces where he could run wild and free and read books as he herded his family’s cattle, we tossed him into a polluted, concrete jungle, fast-moving world we think he needs. Instead of letting him continue to see the world from the most basic points where he could see links between simple things like busted bulbs and batteries, we tossed him in a world where we can give him all the inputs and the ‘right environment’ to innovate. There is no right environment to innovate, the best ideas are borne out of curiosity and as has been the trend in Africa and particularly Kenya, necessity.

The move to get him out of his school into an international school was good PR but a validation of the truth we all know, our schools are not good enough. But I forward that they are not good enough because we do not let them. Consider this, Turere came up with his novel idea when he was still in his former school. He did not need a fancy environment to see the human-wildlife conflict was not going to end well for either species, nor did he need to ‘the right facilities’ to shine. Then the African mentality hits, the one that has held back the middle class in the limbo of thinking that anyone who is not in a Nairobi school is getting substandard education. It is a unit of the European concept of ‘uncivilized’ as anything ‘non-European’…but I digress.

While I may not agree fully with this one, I understand his frustration with TED.

The world loves a good ‘African success story‘, one where a character manages to see the outside of the poverty cycle, with the assistance of ‘donors.’ The Kibera story, now a stale over-told story of a poverty cycle that has merely keeps NGOs busy has shown that the poverty cycle is a state of mind, not a situation to be solved with just clean sanitation and better schools.

If we are ever to curve our own in a world full of too many ‘novel ideas’ and with an obsession for innovation, we need to refocus our energies on allowing innovators to do what they know best. If they are young, we should nurture them in their own environments where they can inspire other children to think up new ways of doing old things. What we are doing now, with Turere in particular, is to inspire young kids to think that their only ticket out of their current lives is media blitz and glitz. We are not making a generation of intellectual innovators, merely one that will work to seek glory and validation. We have all seen what happens when a child is thrown into such a world that early with celebrity stars like Gary Coleman. The media blitz ends when the young men begin to date and grow a beard. For others, fans never see you beyond the role you played as a child, best example being Daniel Radcliffe, or, and it is okay not to know who that is, Harry Potter. Of course to compare child innovators to child stars who didn’t make it would be unfair and overly simplistic because there is a Jason Bateman, Christian Bale, Elizabeth Taylor and Jodie Foster for every Gary Coleman and Corey.

Consider what Wanda Behrens Horrell says of child actors in this article

“Child actors often are overprotected and pampered, which can lead to difficulties in learning how to attend to everyday tasks… They can feel awkward when socializing with their normal peers. In other ways, they are overdeveloped as a result of having been exposed to the fast-paced and lucrative world of show business. ”

Will we, four years from now when Turere can vote, buy alcohol, join the army and (legally) have sex, know him as anything more than just the genius boy who invented the lion lights and nothing else? Or will this post be vindicated by a young adult with the passion still gleaming in his eyes and in his cloud storage a host of patents and gadget designs?

I will let George Carlin put it into perspective..”When does a child get to just be a child?”

Owaahh

 

7 Most Intriguing Kenyan Innovations

If you hear the words ‘Kenyan inventions’, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the successful, overly-analyzed and praised MPesa, which is more of an innovation than an invention…and whose success is wrongly directed-similar innovations have been attempted but failed because of low adoption. How does Kenya fair on the tech- and engineering feats though?

Kenya currently ranks 53 out 142 countries on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, above Turkey and Hungary.

The truth is, we are the next frontier, which is why we think we have boobs now and we should be courted like fine lasses. Here are seven (or more, I invented my own number) reasons.

#7 Elijah Kupata

What do you do when thugs break into your friend’s house and brutally murder him? Other than mourn for the obvious loss that is?
If you are one Elijah Kupata, CEO and Founder of Kupata Technologies, you can choose to address the security problem.

Kupata, seen here totally not spying on his househelp.

Kupata’s invention is a GSM-enabled remote camera which works like a normal CCTV camera. A combination of 3 G and GSM networks, the system works only on phones which are 3G (or higher)-enabled. The strategically placed camera streams images directly to the phone. “Once you have installed the system, you are assured of home security. If someone forces a door open, for example, a signal is sent to the camera then you will receive a text message on your phone notifying you about the incident. Ten seconds later, you will receive a video image of the intruder.”
Other than this primary operation, the camera can send snapshots as MMS and notify the user in case of any power failure.
The gadget goes for 30, 000, and costs 2, 500 to install.

 

 

 

 

#6 Gabriel Nderitu
We all know building a plane must take a whole lot of money, resources, and black boxes, and if you order from Boeing, a lot of patience, right? So what if you still wanted to an aerial view and you did not have all that but you have sheets of metal, a Toyota engine (apparently), wood and an uncommon pair of balls? Maybe you would store them in your mother’s garage until they are too old to matter or, if you are Gabriel Nderitu, you can build a plane!
This 42 –year old IT professional decided to challenge the Wright brothers by building his own version of the ‘homemade plane‘ (unless you live in the hangar where they make planes, then every plane is homemade). He used, as you might have already guessed, sheets of metal, a Toyota-engine, a wooden propeller and ordered some parts for the machine (it was already 2010, no need to be a dong and make everything yourself).

The pose is totally 1980 but when you have spent three years building a plane, the position of your big balls determines your pose so….oh well.

“If a guy says that ‘I want to build and aircraft’, it seems like he’s from the moon, or from somewhere. And if that happens, if it at least lifts off — even if it is three feet — it shows that you have gone somewhere.”
In case you want to be one of the few Kenyans who have attempted to build a plane (and all failed) and succeed, you can learn a few tips from WikiHow (note that the article omits –be a mad eccentric with no regard for gravity) or you can just wait for these 3D printers to be commercially available-and no, you will not be able to print Boeings from the comfort of your own home or office, at least not just yet.

Oh, as I mentioned earlier, Nderitu’s plane didn’t fly too, according to this newspiece (June 2012). He wins points for merely having the balls to try, and for making better use of the internet than researching porn and fighting over flimsy politics.

#5 Anthony Mutua, and other Electro-Kinetic variant Inventions
Science and Innovation Week, May 11 2012.
Mutua, like millions of other Kenyans using smartphones, especially watchmen using their phones to stay awake at night, knows only too well the pains of having the phone’s charge (or juice, if you are a techie from yesteryears) ‘die on you.’
Rather than curse the gods of Samsung, Gangnam, Apple, Sony and Techno, Mutua did something else.

This man says you can’t charge your phone using your slippers. Those have other uses, like disciplining your truant children…this man understands.

The 24-year old developed a thin crystal chip (thought to be piezoelectric device, the details were not given for patent reasons) which can be fitted into shoe soles and generates electricity as you walk. How does it charge? The $46 (approx Kshs. 3, 910) device is connected to the phone via a thin extension cord. Mutua adds that ‘…the chip fits into all footwear except bedroom slippers and will last for almost three years provided the shoes don’t wear out first’ so no, you can’t walk around the bedroom in it when KPLC decides to now give the P and the L.

The innovation is not exactly new, Ashley Taylor and Tom Krupenkin had developed ‘in-shoe’ technology (University of Wisconsin)-that harnesses the thermodynamic power generated from footsteps. It is supposed to go on mass production in 2013 under the brand InStep NanoPower (1-10 watts).  It works by reversing an interesting scientific concept called electrowetting
Mutua’s invention can charge several phones at the same time. The electo-kinetic variant technology allows one to charge the phone while walking or immediately after the walk (the crystals can store the electric energy).
The project cost $6, 000 and was financed by the National Council of Science and Technology  (yes, that exists). Once produced, it will come with a 2.5 year warranty, longer than most smarphones (and shoes)-provided the shoe is not lost or stolen (suddenly, shoejackers!).

Not pictured, condom shoes.

…and before you go all ham on this article for saying  “but to give you some context, it’s not unusual for people in certain regions of Africa to walk for hours every day to go on their normal business” Think about it, and the fact that you have a car and internet connection doesn’t mean the rest of Africa does too.

 

 

—–Pedal Power-Jeremiah Murimi, and Pascal Katana (24 and 22)
Before Mutua developed the ‘shoe charging system’, two students had developed a dynamo-powered ‘smart charger’ in 2009.

I know, you last had a phone with an antenna in 2005, but you get the idea.

The two, during the first interview said “We took most of the items from a junk yard’.
Each piece retails at $4.50 (KShs. 350) and it takes about an hour of cycling to charge the phone. Their first ‘product testor’? You guessed it right, a watchman of course.

That was all before Nokia totally stole the idea and claimed it had come after ‘years of research.’ What do you do when you are a broke duo who’ve just graduated after 5 years in university and a multinational steals your idea? Well, you go all the way and sue the crap out of them!

 

#4 Erik Kariuki
Meet Erik, 32-years old and living in Bedfordshire, UK. Before I tell you about his invention, let me first tell you the spoiler alert parts- it involves a hamster, his pet hamster, and a fish tank. Simple, isn’t it? How much would an idea involving a fish tank, a pet hamster, and a Kenyan working the UK be worth? Almost nothing, right? Well no, he turned down a $1.2 million (98-100 million depending on exchange rate) for it.

That smug on his face must be the reason he turned down all that money. Plus a hamster for a pet, yuh, bite on that….

In the comfort of his bedroom, Kariuki combined a hamster cage with a fish tank to make an underwater housing for pets
He got the idea when he visited the underwater hotels Dubai is not famous for (the Burj Khalifa and being the world’s Gikomba are better known).

The smug again, and a house fit for (the) hamster king!

“I immediately remembered how bored my small rodent pet was just having a wheel and other traditional toys to play with. I imagined how enriched its life would be if it experienced the same euphoric feeling I was having when walking through that underwater tunnel.”
He turned down the 98 million shillings offer over a phone call because it involved selling his rights to the buyer. Now called Rodents Arkwatic (RodArk), the pet toy will be available in the near future.

#3 George Kabiru
George Kabiru is a busy man. He makes up more things than the typical Kenyan politician, which is to say a lot, but at least his inventions agree with the literal meaning of the word. His work cannot be contained in a single invention but into three major ones: Alarm-fitted television set, a stovebuilt of wood and windows, a manually operated washing machine, and those were all before 1st July, 2003.

                  -The Alarm-Fitted television
Kabiru fitted a matchbox-sized alarm into a television as a crime deterrent. Once the alarm is switched on, it goes off anytime anyone touches it. “Who will want to run down a street with a TV howling at them?” Kabiru comments wryly.
“It is a good crime deterrent,” Kabiru says. “The alarm can sound for something like eight hours.”
The Alarm is fitted at 15 and can be fitted on almost any electronics, including computers and fridges.

         —The Solar Jiko
At $44 is a charcoal stove ideal for cool, high-altitude cooking, between 0900 and 1500 hrs. The stove includes an insulated wooden box with two glass windows-one for heat absorption and the other to allow heat through which is then reflected by the inner aluminum coating to penetrate the box and cook the food.         

        —-The Washing Machine

Granted, this was 2003, showing chest hair was still cool if you were too busy inventing things.

Kabiru’s greatest invention, by his own admission, is ‘…a plastic contained fixed to a stand and operated manually by turning a wheel.’ The $68 machine can handle a load of upto 40 kilogrammes.

Did I mention that when Kabiru was not thinking of ways to traumatise TV thieves, he was just a (bored) medical technician at the Mathari Mental Hospital? Which sort of explains some of his inventions….

#2 Richard Turere
Richard Turere is just 14 years old. In his one and half decades of living, he has been featured in a TED talk, appears on about 11, 800 results on Google Search, schools in Brookhouse International School (on a scholarship) and is reknowned contributor to wildlife conservation.

That smug again…

The secret between getting eaten by a lion, and not getting by a lion lies somewhere in this picture

How? Five flashlight bulbs, a car battery and a solar panel. He rigged up an automated lighting system from five torch bulbs around his family’s cattle stockade. The bulbs are controlled using switches and a car battery which is powered with a solar panel (which his family used to power their television set). The idea is intriguing because it is simple: the lights are pointed outwards, towards the darkness, and they flash in sequence, giving the impression that there is someone walking around the cattle barn.
Human-animal conflict is real, especially in Turere’s case where his family herds cattle, with all that fleshy and juicy meat, next to a national Park teeming with carnivorous felines The Nairobi National Park has 24 adult lions ( 8 adult males and 16 lionesses), 8 sub-adults (between 2.5- 3 years; 7 males and 1 female) and at least 8 cubs of varying ages below 1 year of age. Unlike most of the inventions on this lis, Turere did not do any keen research, at least initially, and was merely trying to protect his family’s wealth. Each installation costs about $10.

This is not the patent application design….I hope.

Oh, and he invented the system when he was 11 before a group of wildlife conservationists bumped into his brilliant invention. He has no books or access to technical information. He does not know where he gets the ideas or the knowledge, and yes, he has given him self plenty of electric shocks.  Richards father James is proud of his son, and has given him space to tinker and collect bits of gadgetry. Like so many boys, Richards dream has something to do with aircraft – he wants to be an engineer.

#1
1st Science, Technology and Innovation Week 2012 runners-up
The problem with having a competition about an innovation is that some ground-breaking inventions are lost in the murkiness of being runners-up as some such as Anthony Mutua’s receive all the attention. Here is a number of them:
Joseph Onyaiti’s Electrical Brooder system: Built at a cost of KShs. 42, 000, this interesting system includes a feeder coated with a metallic gauze covering with an electrical cable attached, an automatic switch and an electrical timer. The idea is to automate the feeding process-leaving the chicks alone with the electrical brooder. It has the capacity to provide feed for upto six weeks, the growth period for most of the chicks that make it to up the food chain as ‘kuku porno’.
Vincent and the non-electric cooler: Solar refrigerators are not a new idea. Vincent took it a step further and built a cooling system that uses recyclable water, and charcoal (heating/cooling agent) instead of electricity.
Each piece goes for Shs. 25, 000.

Image sourced from http://www.ihub.co.ke

William, another innovator built  solar panel sun tracking device-which is a mouthful for a solar panel that ‘follows the sun.’ The light dependent resistors in thesolar panel take the position of the sun, tracking it using special tools which make the panels tilt towards the sun direction…automatically, giving them the best position for optimum solar absorption.
David and his colleagues built GSM tracking devices which allow the user to do simple operations like switching on/off the lights, opening/closing doors and gates, setting alarms and turning on a cooker using the mobile phone. The series of devices use a sim card, an internet-enable mobile phone or computer and a text messaging system. “It can do many things,” said David, a young inventor, “passengers can tell how fast a car is driving and report over speeding vehicles to the police since it uses satellite tracking. When a car moves it can measure its speed and passengers can report such incidents to the police.”

 

Owaahh.

 

Shove over World, Africa Has Boobs Now!

This comment belongs inside here…

Here! Have our kids! Eat our wives! We offer thee this sacrifice of our souls! Give us Money! Sell us things! We need! We Want! We will let you stare at our cleavage! Hell, you can even touch them while we are sleeping! You can look at my cleavage, but don’t make it too apparent, buy me dinner first, take my elected leader to a dark hotel room and make a pimp of him first, show me your constitution that I may copy it word for word without wondering why you are not going to be a superpower in half a century.

 The mother continent is a pot of energy, she is undergoing a phase where she is not sure what her mood is, or whether the feelings are real. She is unsure about the acne, but she has boobs, they are perky and firm at last, and men are beginning to notice and salivate. She might be 15, but she is sure that hot gangster guy from her hood was checking out her chest when they ‘met’ (he was an ocean away, but it does not matter). It doesn’t matter if our mother says we are beautiful; we want outside validation. We want to hear the strange man who looks lives across the street tell us our breasts are attractive. We want to hear him tell us sweet nothings, that we are now of age, that we can now indulge. He wants us to go to the houses he built, where we will be too distracted to remember that breasts are not everything.

The next Vicar of Christ should come from Africa? The next successor of St. Peter should not be from the cradle of humankind? Kofi Annan’s two terms in the UN did not do any magic for Africa, nor would a Vicar of Christ who is a son of the motherland. He would not increase the number of souls going to St. Peter, nor would he canonize more Africans to satisfy our growing need for validation and recognition. He would not make Christians of our problems, nor would he do anything but dress in uncomfortable robes and be driven around in a silly-looking bullet-proof car, because what is faith without action?

African Grumpy Cat: no 😐 NOT until an African asks me!

We had Kofi Annan at the United Nations, and Boutros Ghali before him; but I guess the latter does not count because he did not have the skin tone our mothers told us to marry. Actually, North of the Sahara is a no-go zone, unless they dress in robes and give us money and things, then we can lay prostate and call them kings.

While we continue to demand for a seat at the high table, we assume that getting the top positions will validate our right to eat; our turn to eat. Whether it’s the papacy, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the UN, European soccer leagues, American basketball-Africa is slowly ‘taking over the world’ or so we like to assume.

We are like the youngling who falls in love with the sugar daddy, the vastly experienced man with more around his stomach than gravity should allow. He knows he is fat and wobbly, and  too quick to shoot, but he knows money and a good life can cure all. What does the young thing know anyway? What does she know about this murky business of global politics? I will let her yell in the bar around my friends, make her a secretary, even let her tell me what to wear and why I should go to church. If I let her yell at me during our dinner date, she will most likely agree to my advances. Oh her perky breasts…

We feel that we have now come of age, that our

But the question is, is that minute African?

breasts are now firm and perky, and that the rest of the world must notice. They are all over us, courting us, buying us flowers and weapons so we can let them tap our oil (implied pun wholly intended) and suck our resources. While they have been at it all along, we now know enough to make a conscious decision.

We want to play in ‘the big leagues’, even poking our brothers to go and whore their talent. There is nothing here at home for you, dear, you must venture into the world [read anywhere but here] and make all of us proud. You must win and only come home to play for country and charity- also, send us things, and don’t, under any circumstances, marry anyone who does not bear the marks of our tribe.

In fact, at this tender age in our development, we have become gold-diggers, looking for the highest bidder to whom to sell our souls and the futures of our children unborn. We import from each other, but as one Obbo notes ‘one who marries his neighbor is not considered to be adventurous…” We will run, and win, and get paid, in your city marathons. We will play, and win in your leagues, and only go home to sleep after the walk of sh(f)ame. We will not read your newspapers or listen to the stories you tell your boys in the club as we perch on your thighs, until you say something racist- then we will use call all our friends, text our acquaintance ‘Oh no he didn’t!’ and gang up to lynch your ass with your computers, your internet, your patents, your money, your motel room key.

So our perky breasts are the talk of town, courtiers now fill father’s hands with goats, and fake polythene and drugs, and some take a dump in our backyard while we are too distracted to notice. They lace our food with drugs and take from us to give to us. Africa, young sassy Africa, has been conditioned to believe she cannot be beautiful without validation-that a safari should only matter if it’s the strange ones who don khakis and seek the thrill. She won’t scale her mountains, wash her own hair, she won’t even cut her nails, without waiting for Big Brother’s opinion.

We now know how to hide our acne under shades of gray, taught to us through soap operas and imported literature. So we fill our streets with foreign literature at a throwaway price, while we place our best minds in the friend zone, the never-to-be-seen-as-anything-but-a-symbol-of-brotherly-love zone where there is no sunlight but the tight hug and the occasional kiss on the cheek. No one wants what they have anyway, at least not in the age we are in.

We are boiling with energy, raring to go, eager to please, excited to experiment, craving for attention. We have discarded the previous generation of bras in favor of push-ups, to make sure the rest of the world cannot act like our cleavage is not the best thing before sliced bread and hot showers. We want a version of everything made for us, intended for our needs, and not for your first wives, mh. Mh. We are young and we do not care, who needs love anyway, give us money for food for the few, and the evening, and a glass of wine, a candlelit dinner, and enough attention, and we will not even ask whether you bothered to carry condoms.

Do you feel like this cartoon should have African characters? If yes, then it is you I am speaking to…

Now we are demanding the Vicar of Christ’s seat, because that will most definitely make sure you cannot ignore our nipples. We had the UN seat, and a North African once held the Papacy but they are not ‘African enough.’ African must be dark as coal, with hair as brittle as a twig; African must be strong and sturdy, hefty, buff, with piercing eyes and a heavy accent. Anything else and you are getting duped, those breasts are fake, yes, you might have noticed, because your wife’s are too, but who really cares.

The old man, tired from fighting unnecessary wars, stealing wives, playing with money and doing things that only come with age, is mesmerized by this new young thing. Damn! Was she always this hot and sassy? How come I never noticed it when she was sprouting? Here Africa, have these things so I can have those juicy-looking things!

This cat is not African, can someone put an African cat in this picture?

So we are standing here now, at this spot where you want the value for your money and I am ready to cry foul and scream I never saw this coming, I thought you were a nice guy who merely noticed my boobs and hunger and wanted to feed me. I will act shocked as you give me all the top seats and take away all my land, virginity, oil, resources, life, nipples, love, confidence, and destroy my idea of men. I will cry and wail and yell neo-colonialism yet I opened the door for you late at night and even caressed you, sending you delegations of foreplay to attract you to come visit me. At this point where we are now, or will be standing soon, I am wearing nothing but the clothes you gave me before you turned into ‘just another guy’ (the fact that your grandfather did the same thing to mine notwithstanding). There are no lessons from history, people change, the world is different now, and I can have ice-cream and do drugs with the fun girls! I can be president! I can be Vicar! I can be a Bra Model! Who cares for Common sense anyway?

 

No White Light?

As she straddled across the room,
feet dragging a trail of blood
The music stopped
The birds died
She held the wound upon her head,
walked as the life escaped from her
The blood zigzagging behind,
Death following with a wicked grin
The man started humming a dirge
The woman laughed
Something must have changed the game
Everything was fear
The mice lurking behind the wall
The eerie silence in the room
The dead cat
death was on a rampage today
He had brought the plague,
Upon the mind of the pair
A plague and a desire to kill
So here she was,
dragging, dropping, drooping, but never begging for mercy
They just sat there, two maniacal creatures of predation
As their last victim fell, knelt first

Felt her side

Felt the knife handle
Fell, died. Death wins.

Owaahh

 

No Country for Skinny People, and Stories of Stolen Phones

Once I regained my composure, I realized that the moment when you it hits you that your precious phone is gone is an epiphany of sorts. You arrive at a quagmire where you have to make a life decision-do you scream, react, slap someone, ask for a hug, run after the thug or just sit there trying to soak it all in, like I did? When you have to go through all the stages of mourning in a split second, time slows down, and for a moment you can almost reverse time-travel, have the phone in your pocket in that moment, then acceptance.

I lost my last phone in Githurai 45, the place where phones go to die. At the time, I did not realize that I had joined a small and growing population of people who have fallen victim to that little town’s phone-snatching menace. It is when I first shared the story of the theft with my friends that everyone first sympathised with until I mentioned where it had been stolen. It turns out that losing your phone at Githurai is like getting mauled in a lion’s cage.

It must have the highest number of people per square mile with the guts to snatch your phone through the car window, run and stop thirty metres away and stare at you-as if daring you to alight and go after them. Githurai 45 is so insecure that any matatu or bus conductor worth his job is likely to start staying “Chunga simu! Chunga simu” as you arrive at that little stopover. You might have heard the saying “Your girlfriend is so insecure we call her Githurai 45 (pronounced ‘FORE FAE’). Any bump on the road is a potential risk area because of obious reasons, and any open window is an invitation to treat.

There are 10 phones being stolen in the scene in this picture. Go ahead, look more closely….

Losing you phone in this city, contrary to popular belief, is a good thing. It is a good thing for the economy, and for the phone companies. Some of us would stay with the same phone until the last button on the keyboard dies or the battery swells (Yours truly has had both, and still won’t let go of that one). Once your phone is stolen you have to buy a new one, injecting much-needed money into the economy and making the middle class look good. Getting your phone stolen is your civic duty, and I suspect that in the long queues of the eagerly anticipated March 4th elections, thieves will not only be getting elected to office, others will be in your pockets. The economy has needs, and no one can deny the economy what the economy wants.

We have reached the point in the economy where anyone who has a cheap phone is automatically assumed to have lost a smartphone and had to use the spare phone as the primary phone.

My phone was snatched by a guy who was inside the mini-bus, as opposed to the common victimology where the phone ‘goes through the window.’ Why didn’t I just scream and grab the guy in a matching blue T-shirt and cap? Because he was standing at the steps and I was seated in the inner aisle, and have you ever heard a man-scream? That, plus my adrenaline takes its time to kick in, it just slugged its way as the phone left my hands in the middle of a Tweet (I should have ran after him crying out “Finya OK! Finya Ok!’ huh? The most annoying thing was not even losing my phone 1t 11 AM the day before the end of the year, but the lady seated next to me. She started telling me ‘Aki nilikuwa nadhani ni yangu anaiba’ (I swear I thought he was stealing mine). Who does that? Who tells the victim of a crime that she feels lucky it wasn’t her. I should have slapped her in the mouth the way mother used to but I couldn’t because my slugging adrenaline was not yet in port.

A friend of mine once lost her phone when using the washrooms at Kenya National Archives. As she removed her pants to begin her business, the phone slipped out of her pocket and fell below the door. Since the business at hand could not be stopped, and there was hardly any movement outside, she decided it was safe to continue and pick her phone on her way out. She never found it, and even the janitor swore by his mother’s grave that he had not seen anyone take the phone.

Because no one wants you to walk out of the house without skills…

I know someone else who dropped her phone when alighting from a bus. She heard the sound of something hitting the ground, look behind and saw someone bending to pick something and decided it could not be any of her business. Until later, when she realized it was her phone.

The art has been so well perfected that I suspect there are Yodas of the art now, taking on apprentices and showing them how to spot a mark and make a move, or a snatch, if you will.

The pick pocket is the scariest of all phone thieves, at least to me, because they take a risk that involves skill and patience.  I fear the heart attack that follows the moment you realize someone was in your pockets without your knowledge; so much for being conscious.I think being robbed, in the literal sense of the word, gives you time to accept the loss. Time that being pickpocketed or conned does not, it just of tosses you inside that den of lions and expects you to cope.The phone snatcher is also a marvel, he is almost always wearing a cap so all you see is a blur. Some people manage to scream ‘Mwizi! Mwizi! until their voices are hoarse. The most ingenious ones I’ve heard of was a group of three that lifted a laptop off an acquaintance of mine in a bus. 

If you want to see the thief brought to justice then you need to grow a pair of boobs, because that is all you need to have it easy….or a millitary ID, either of them will make grown men act at your behest. In fact, if you are already endowed with a pair of the tits, and your phone is snatched in the matatu, and you play your cards right, you can leave with a new smartphone from a Don Juan-there is no scarcity of men seeking damsels in distress to prey on in this Nairobi. I suspect that had I had been blessed with a pair myself, the conductor would have no qualms chasing after the thief and getting me my phone back, but not before dialing his own number and telling me his name. Sadly, however, this is not a country for men, and we skinny men are at the bottom of the tier, the lowest rung of modern middle class-driven society.

Unless they are fat too, then the dynamics must change…

You would think thugs would target fat people-its only logic because they are heavier, and cannot make good running mates-but they target people like us, the skinny, because our society hates those who have succeeded in keeping their body mass below 60 Kgs. It is almost a crime to be skinny in this country, although there are many people in the gym right now fighting to join the Skinny Party. Our African culture tends to relate having a kitambi (beer belly) with riches- and a loving woman or barmaid. You will get served faster if you have a big tummy, and people will respect you more. Cops will even be more polite to you, at least at first, before you open your mouth and ruin your own luck.

If you are skinny then you have to make an extra effort to get the teller to believe the money you are withdrawing is actually yours and you are not a thief or a boy toy of some old rich woman. The onus, and the pressure, will even force you to buy a newspaper once in a while so people can give you an ounce respect. Most people, including the phone thieves who are themselves skinny, do not even know they have a ‘skinny people bias’. Fat people look rich, or endowed, and will be served before you in a restaurant. In the man world, if a 50 Kg man sits on a table next to a 90 Kg man who looks nine months pregnant, the bill will be brought to the latter. To women, that is completely normal when they are on a date but to men, there are ego issues to sort out.

Disclaimer: This is only a hypothesis, the would-be sample population is not exactly forthcoming with data…

Note that this mostly applies to males, although there is a pecking order in the female world too. At the top of the chain are the lightskinned medium sized middle class women with more products on them than an aisle in a beauty shop. At the bottom of the ladder are the skinny colourless girls with too much geek to shop for a good bra. The obese women with serious self-esteem issues are slightly above. Men will give them seats in a matatu because they are afraid of the possible impact, not for chivalry.

…or the next best thing, a man with man boobs…

Back to skinny males, culture expected a man to grow a tummy once he was married and rich. It was and still is regarded as a sign of opulence, that one is now too settled to want to see their own reproductive organs. You will see it with men who rub their tummies during a conversation, sending subliminal messages that they are hungry, and bored, and important.

If you are skinny then the shop attendant will be rude and hormonal since her first assumption is that you are just windowshopping. If you have the kind of egos they are giving birth to these days then you might even buy a car, three cars even, to prove to the car dealer that you are not toying with him trying to find out why a Vitz is more expensive than a Probox. The pressure to tip the waitress is immense, because the sneer on her face everytime you distract her asking your fat friend whether he wants a refill is more scary than annoying.

The skinny guy will have to work harder to get the ladies attention because the first impression is that he is a high school or young campus boy with nothing to show. He is best left as a boytoy, never for anything of meaning.

The bouncer at the entrance to the club will most definitely freeze you and demand your ID, and even then illuminate your face to confirm. A fat person will, unless they have small boobs, just walk through. A tummy also implies you did not use public transport, and that you can afford your own beer and meat.

You can’t even fit in the space between seats in a matatu, where you will be inevitably forced to sit if you use public transportation in Nairobi. Where a ‘buff’ person can comfortably anchor themselves on the seats on either side, leaving only the crack in the middle, a skinny guy can only anchor on one side. Its sad, having to hold on to the person seated next to you and with one cheek in the air as you grab the seat next to you with your butt crack. Being skinny is a crime!

Actually, if you are skiny you might as well tell the butcher to sell you steak because you are in for a good duping. The size of the bone the butcher selects is subjective and is dependent on how much he thinks you know about meat; being a skinny thing the first assumption is that you are gullible and therefore unlikely to to complain when half your order is nothing but connective tissue.

Discrimination on the basis of body mass; survival for the fattest.

I challenge you to go and shop for pants or belts if the only thing on your waist is your pelvis. Its the skinny man who must use up a great deal of his lifetime getting the tailor to reduce the waist size on his pants, and the shop to reduce the length of his belt, while the heavyset pregnant-looking man can focus on more important matters.

There are so many people walking around with a fat person in them waiting to be fed into existence. Thieves do not want you, neither does the government, or even the women, being skinny is a curse, you should cancel your gym subscription and stock your fridge with GMOs.

Where you would think evolution would have discriminated against fat people-for obvious reasons-it seems skinny people are now in the outliers, waiting for the inevitable mutation or extinction. Maybe the zombies will restore the balance of nature as Darwin perceived it.

Owaahh, 2013.