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A Practical Solution for the Poor

I am talking to all of you poor people so pay attention. Yes you are poor, too bad, you have been handed the worst cards in life. Feel sorry for yourself for two minutes. I’ll wait. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself. Take a hard look at yourself. It cannot be that you have absolutely nothing. There must be something. Maybe you can use the left hand almost as well as your right hand. That is something. Maybe you can make people laugh in the way you tell stories. That is something. Now focus on yourself. What do you have?

Exchange is your friend. Money and opportunities may be very difficult for you to come by. But so long as you understand that getting rich is a matter of getting the better deal in an exchange then you are good to go. Before all that let us establish some ground rules.

Rule #1:

You must be somebody who knows how to listen to people. You must be empathetic to the needs and wants of others.


Rule #2:

Whatever you share with people especially conversation must be both interesting and value-adding to others. This way you become someone people want to listen to.


Rule #3:

You must represent and sell a dream bigger than yourself. Choose two or three virtues and values and stick by them eg honesty and aggression.


Rule #4:

Become a wizard. Hone in a skill to magical levels so that you become both irreplaceable and the best at whatever you do.


Rule #5:

Know when to leave. Being poor and having internalized the previous four rules you will find yourself in lofty company in many times. Do not overstay your welcome, leave before you become a nuisance.


Rule #6

Act your talk. Rhyme your words and actions to be honorable and respected.

Good luck in your anti-poverty campaign.

Helping the Poor

In Kenya, the poor might be helped in a variety of ways:

Government interventions
Private citizens interventions
Corporate interventions
Communal interventions
Self-help collaborations

These are just the solutions I can think off the top of my mind, meaning there are more. But I have just asked myself who helps the poor and what manner is the help. These questions are important. For me, ideally self-help collaborations are the ideal solutions with a hybrid partnership of the others.

Another question is what has caused poverty in Kenya? This is not a good question because the answers are indirect ranging from historical land injustices to being dealt the worst cards in life etc. A better question is what the economist Per Bylund asked on Twitter some years back:-

“What causes prosperity?”

To answer this question we must interrogate the term prosperity at different levels. At an individual level, at the family level, at a village level, county level, national and international level prosperity means different things. I will focus on individual, family, village, and county levels.

From what I have seen in my almost 30 years of life, education is a big boost in the fight against poverty. Just going to university increases the odds of a poor person shaking off that unwanted label. Entrepreneurship is not that far off. But the great entrepreneurs are much fewer and much richer. Education uplifts people at an almost equal rate but entrepreneurship takes people to the stars. This is Kenya, entrepreneurship is very hard for poor people. I know quite a number of smart chaps who despite having ambitious dreams of being entrepreneurs, they had to postpone them because financial support was hard to come by.

Good will is necessary across the board. The government, the private citizenry, the corporate sectors, the community, and the poor individuals themselves must all resonate at the same frequency. All the sectors must agree on whatever the plan is and be willing to implement it. If one sector is not contributing then the train won’t leave the station.

The Partner Ship

The Partner Ship for the Eradication of Poverty must have all stakeholders on board before it leaves the harbour on its way through the Seas of Prosperity. As I have so cheekily named it, getting rid of poverty is a partnership.

Prosperity can be defined in many ways by as many people. Personally, I considers prosperity to be humans living dignified and decent lives individually and contributing to the various organs of the community. My definition is very simple, to make the solutions likewise simple and implementable.

I am tired from writing all this in just a short time so I’m going to stop here for now.

The Anatomy of a Prayer

It seems to me that a Prayer has 3 main components: Praise, Thanks, & Favours.

Praise is the mention of the Supreme Being by name with all the relevant adjectives and other names such as Almighty, or The Great Thunder in the Sky. Mention in brief some powerful acts in the deity’s CV like raining bread in the desert or a lightning strike that divided a disputed tree into 3 equal portions, or the car braking in time last week avoiding a surely fatal head-on-collision.

Thanks is acknowledging what the person praying has— all because of the Supreme Being; peace of mind, life, a body in full working order, peace in the country and so on. The little things matter.

Favours is the most important part. After the Supreme Being has been given due praise and thanks, it is only fair that the person praying asks for a few things. Quid pro quo; the give to get principle. If there is a big event, then a sacrifice is given. A white goat might be slaughtered, or one-tenth of income given to an earthly organization representing heaven, some incense burned, or seven virgins sacrificed on top of a pyramid.

But usually the favours are just for the little things. You can ask for rain or a successful war raid, a promotion at work, a job offer, a miracle in the hospital, protection from enemies… People always want something and a divine helping hand goes a long way to set things in order.

Once the Favours have been mentioned, bring up some other Praise and Thanks just in case the favours are becoming too much. Add to that, a few concessions for when favours are granted in the form of an IF… THEN… OR statements or a FOR…THEN…OR statements… And finish with some more Praise and Thanks. You know, just to be sure. There, prayer done successfully.

Have I left something out?

Modern Individualism Vs. Communal African Living

I think in Africa the biggest problem is individualism. The colonizers really did a number on us. Made us forget that although we were tribal, nepotistic, and “backward” in each of our cultures the community was of utmost importance. So we discarded our communal living without ever really asking ourselves what were its merits? What role did it do?

Let me use a very bad example of a backward practice to make my point. Among the Kalenjins, girls used to undergo female genital mutilation (fgm)/the cut and they would be given new names after transitioning from girlhood to womanhood. Conversely, men were and still are circumcised, apprenticed and taught some form of Kalenjin philosophy which we are not allowed to share with outsiders. FGM is bad yes, we all know that, but what has replaced that month in seclusion learning from elders?

As a Kalenjin muren, I know my ageset Kipnyige, our reputation is peacekeepers. That knowledge of what ageset represents influences how I act and make decisions.  But what about Kalenjin women my age? Did they get that chance to be taught the wisdom of older Kalenjin women that have been passed down through the ages? Were they given new names for that girl to woman transition?

Every Kalenjin man has lifetime advisors, brothers and peers of “bakule” but there is a lost sisterhood which older Kalenjin women called Taplule, Tapnyole, Taprantich etc consulted and benefited from for life. The physical act of FGM is bad, but there are good things about that rite; the seclusion, learning sacred/guild knowledge millenia old, and having life companions.

There is wisdom in dark places. Let us not throw out the baby with the bath water.
The philosophies of our African cultures are beautiful. But we have to interrogate them with an open mind to find the diamond in the rough. We have been alienated from them by modernity, capitalism, and ultimately individualism. Some communities such as the Maasai have adapted well to modern times while still holding on to the core philosophies of their cultures.

Us, other African communities, we should aim to be proud of who we are. Modern education is very good, for example I benefit from learning English as my third language up to now as it is the language I write and communicate most easily. This might mean losing a bit of fluency in native languages but I practise often and enjoy it. .

Another bad example, when my grandfather was a young man, after earning his manhood name, the standard back then in the 1940s was to go steal cows from neighbouring communities to prove his worth to the community, and earn a wife. His ageset believed in such things which we know of today as “cattle rustling” and “banditry” but back then it had a name which if I translate is closer to “hustling.” Bad thing but the prosperity of the community was dependent on that.

The cattle bandits of North Rift are still operating on these philosophies by the way. It is a misguided warrior way but we have to see the situation as they see it first before attempting any remedies, adverse or otherwise. It is through understanding that my grandfather lived in a different landscape with different rules and guidelines that I can sympathize with the bandits of North Rift. And since I identify as Kipnyige, a peacemaker, I consider peaceful solutions.

That is the story I tell myself. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve thought long and hard about this for sometime now. The African crisis is a crisis of losing communal identity and purpose. We have to marry modernity with communal African living. It is a worthy paradox to live by.

Religion A Versus Religion B

No religion is superior. All have their sense, their purpose; all have their nonsense and tendencies for abuse and misuse. Just like you and I. Most of us Africans are hybrid religious believers anyway. A mix of traditional African and maybe some Abrahamic religion.  So before you crucify any “dissenting religious views” first find out how your ancestors made sense of the world. If you could meet your ancestor from 1822 or 1622 he or she would impart lots of lost knowledge and wisdom I’m sure. And some will be nonsense, abusive and revoltingly backward.

In light of Science, democracy, education, imported religion and other vehicles of change we now know how some beliefs and practises were revoltingly backward. Every religion has their demons and some more than most have kept them hidden well. Galileo Galilei was once put under house-arrest by the Catholic Church for suggesting that the earth went around the sun and not the other way. Today’s knowledge is tomorrow’s ignorance. What we know is limited, but what we believe is unlimited. We should be able to refine our beliefs whenever presented with new information, evidence, criticism etc.

No religion is superior to another. We should be able to criticize religions as much as we see fit. In the same vein, what is good (about religion) is good and should be made evident. Personally, I prefer my customized recipe of religious beliefs. A bit of servant leadership from Jesus Christ. Pursuit of enlightenment from Gautama Buddha. Unity out of duality or “multiplicity” from Advaita verdanta and the Hermetics. Ritual graduation from traditional African culture and so on. Plus philosophies from the stoics, warrior-poets. And more to come from sources I have yet to encounter.

Everybody has their own version of God when it comes down to it. If we could communicate telepathically, people of the same religion would fight and argue a lot just because they have different versions of their same God. The imagination is God, that could be my poetic assertion. You are welcome to criticize it. I can explore the possibility, and find out from the exercise if I have a reason to be serious or if my assertion is a parody or a mockery. Whatever is the case, I’m sure I will find a religious text that backs me up. That is the beauty of religion. Some order, some direction amidst the chaos and confusion of beliefs. No religion is superior; they are just different flavours of the same delicacy. You are free to make your own recipe as you see fit.

Profound Truths: My Writing Style

Every time we eat food we are eating the sun. Directly or indirectly.

This is an indirect truth, a counterintuitive truth.

All truths are equally true but not all truths are profound. Truths which are profoundly true are cloaked in mystery and are mystical, almost whimsical. Like a comedian making people laugh with an uncomfortably true social commentary.

The difference is in the style of delivery. I find that to me truth is smoother and more profound when I sit down and write. Because when I sit down and write every word that appears on the screen or the piece of paper is carefully chosen. The method makes it smooth and profound. Speaking it without writing down robs the truth its smoothness and profoundness. Though I sometimes practise speaking truth without writing because it has its own surprising charm and magic. It too is an artform by itself.

I consider my writing an art. I have the gift of describing truth with words. I know people who do the same with a guitar and some singing. Others do it with paints and canvas, others do it with acting, directing. We all do it in one way or another. A teacher does it by issuing instructions, guiding, knowing what the learner doesn’t know but needs to and how to bridge that gap. An accountant encounters truth in the numbers. A doctor finds the truth hidden within the symptoms. That’s how I see it as a writer at least. I could be wrong but I think not.

So as a writer how do I find my truth? I immerse myself in the minds, bodies, and souls of the people and the things I write about. If I am writing about a bird I put myself in the bird’s feathers, nest, and aerial domain. It is a fun and intellectually stimulating exercise. When I’m writing about a place like Kericho I imagine the soul of a place; the dominant smell in the air, the terrain, the climate, the vibe, the natural sounds that make for ambient noise… for a time I become a bird, for a time I become Kericho.

When writing my imagination runs wild. The words that appear are not tame, but they occasionally surprise me because somehow a structure emerges. Out of chaos, emerges order. The title is the last thing I usually write. This relationship between lack of control and gain of control is what makes my writing profound. On the no-man’s-land between order & chaos is where discovery is nurtured, truth encountered. How I write is a contradiction. Maybe that’s why I love paradoxes so much. Maybe paradoxes can shed some light on the nature of Truth. But that is a Truth for another writing.

If I go some weeks without writing I am robbing myself, and my readers this encounter with mystical, whimsical, yet profound truths. My style is short bursts of writing time followed by long periods of non-writing. When I really want to do some profound writing, I do everything but force it. If I force it I can still write but I do not enjoy it as much. This piece of writing has been  done in 30 minutes after about a week of non-writing. I could go into what I mean by non-writing in my next piece because currently I am not sure what it is.