10 great rules that will help you remain poor all your life by Moses Kiprono and Winny Moimet

Few pointers from my FB friends on how to remains poor all your life and live as an under achiever, got it for the first time from them and I thought I should share them in my blog with my readers;

1.    Never wake up early:

Keep stretching and turning in bed until you get too hungry to continue dozing. If there are no bedbugs, why hurry to get up?

2.    Never plan how to spend your money:

Whenever you get money, start spending it right away and when it is finished, try to count and recall how you spent it.

3.    Don't think of saving until you have real big money:

How can you save when you earn so little? Those telling you to save are not sympathetic to your burning needs.

4.    Don't engage in activities usually reserved for the 'uneducated':

How can you, a graduate, engage in petty trade or home- based production? That is for people who never went to school.

5.    Don't think of starting a business until an angel comes from heaven and gives you capital:

How do they expect you to invest before you get millions of shillings? Even though more than half the businesses in your town were started with a few hundred shillings, you as a smart person can only start with millions.

6.    Complain about everything except your own attitude:

Blame the system, the government and the banks that refuse to lend you money. They are all bad and do not want you to get rich.

7.    Spend more than you earn:

To achieve this, buy consumer products in credit and keep borrowing from friends and employer.

8.    Compete in dressing:

Make sure you wear the latest clothes among all the workers in your office. Whenever your neighbour buys a new phone, get one that is more expensive.

9.    Get yourself a nice second-hand car/mobile/electronic gadget that costs more than three times your gross monthly pay:

That will surely keep you in debt long enough to hinder the implementation of any bad plans that could make you accumulate capital.

10. Give your children/lover everything they ask for since you are such a loving parent/lover:

They should not struggle for anything because you do not want them to suffer. That way, they will grow up lazy and hence poor enough to ensure they cannot help you in your old age.

HOPE THIS HELPS U GUYS.

Poem: Bedroom Technology by Otiato Guguyu

The Poet: Otiato Guguyu

Man why are you still basking in past glory
why are you still in celebratory robes
of the reign over the down trodden
can you rival the sperm bank
in production of likable features
single parenthood single conception
can you even dream of vibrating
like a chinese toy in the electronic shop
self reliance self satisfaction
and you still had the audacity
to let past your power fed eyes
same sex marriage
now the daughters of eve come together as one
will you allow to be pushed to
homosexuality and bestiality?
or will you with nostalgia
discover the joys of your palms
let us fight bedroom technology
lest we be rendered redundant
and allow the race of amazons
in the second millennium

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

The poet, Otiato Guguyu is a Communication and Media Technolgy with IT student at Maseno University Kenya, The Managing Editor of Equator Weekly and a Blogger at http://otiatoguguyu.blogspot.com 

Guest Blogger: Carbide used to ripen bananas causing cancer scare by Aquinas Nyakundi

Photo: Courtesy

I received an email earlier about the use of carbide in ripening banana away from the natural cycle so as to attract more customers and reap maximum profit i  would wish to share.

Have you ever wondered where some vendors selling sweet bananas like the ones using wheelbarrows on Nairobi's Airport North-Ring road roundabouts source them in such huge supply and uniform ripeness!

Some readers who love bananas and eat a lot of them needed to realize that the bananas available in the market are 'forced ripe' by dipping in water mixed with Carbide. 

The consumption of these bananas is 100% sure to cause Cancer or some other infection in the stomach. Therefore, such type of bananas is to be avoided.

But, how does one recognize the bananas ripened with the help of Carbide?

Bananas which are ripened naturally are dark yellow and there are small black spots here and there on the bananas and the stalks are black. While those which are forced ripe with Carbide are lemon yellow and their stalks are green and moreover they are clear yellow without any black spots.

Now, what is Carbide and how is it harmful?

Carbide is a chemical which if mixed with water, emits heat and the heat emitted by a Close tank mixed with Carbide is even more than that emitted by a LPG Cylinder, so much so it can be used for Gas Cutting (which means the calorific value is so high that it can replace LPG gas).

In the same way, when the bunch of bananas is dipped in the water mixed with Carbide, the gas gets absorbed into the bananas and they get ripe.

However, the banana vendors are not that literate and so they do not know the exact proportion of Carbide to be used for a dozen of bananas.

As a result they end up using excess quantity of Carbide which gets absorbed into the bananas and ultimately enters our stomach. Due to this excess use of Carbide, tumors can be formed in our digestive system.

Aquinas Nyakundi is a graduate of Communication and Media Tech from Maseno University in Kenya. He is a journalist based in Kisii running an agriculture based blog: Small-Scale Farming Commercialize

Is bullying a learnt or hereditary trait?

Blame it on the genes.

Recent studies by scientists have established that bullying and aggressive traits in people can be caused by genetic formation in the DNA.

Thalia a London based scholar studied 1,523 twins in Sweden and Britain with a half of them being identical and sharing some identical inheritance found that gene play a role in formation of aggressive behavior causing bullying.

The study, published in Child Development Journal strongly tied Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) has a flaw in character trait that makes a person to be more likely to be a bully.

“Aggressive behavior can be inherited by the gene ADHD although social environment plays a highly significant role in non-aggressive anti-social manners” the research said.

The finding now adds genetics to other causes of bullying like low self-esteem, poor parental upbringing and social context.

While boys are more likely to be influenced into bullying from their environment, girls are predestined be traits in their genes into the anti-social behavior, the study said.

“In girls, a beautiful and more sexually active female is more likely to be bullied as she appears to be more attractive for mating making her more competitive” Zapito Marini’s atavistic angle in Bullying from an Evolutionary Perspective is quoted in the study.

Marni espouses that gene leads to bullying as a specie is forced to procreate and pass the dominant gene to the next generation in Darwinian theory.

Equally excess or low genetic neurotransmitter serotonin and other enzymes are a main cause of the trait with bullies having a 10% likelihood of verbal abuse and 16% chances of getting into a physical fight as compared to other people.

“Bullying is when people use their strength or power of some kind to hurt weaker people” Prof Dan Olweus of University of Bergen, Norway says.

A bully dominates, blames and uses others for their means with poor soial skills and lack of compassion for weaker people whom they see as preys.

Guest Blogger: Children in Abusive Families by Jackie Tulloh

Child discipline and abuse is often poorly defined. Many parents at one time or another have felt the urge to strike their children. With physically abusive parents however the urge is frequent and a little more stretched.

Sadly seeing parents treating each other in abusive families makes the child think it is ok to do so and it happens in other families.

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional or neglect of children. Neglect involves not providing adequately for the child’s food, shelter, medication and even affection.

While physical abuse involves assault, sexual exploitation include pressuring a minor to engage in sex, showing a child pornography or showing adult private parts.

Additionally there is the emotionally abuse which involves name calling and bullying the child.

Major cause of child cruelty is unemployment where parents without income to sustain their children become increasingly depressed. At such emotional turmoil any mistake by the child leads to over-reaction in disciplining which harms the kid.

Equally parents under substance abuse like alcohol, cocaine and other hard drugs often get out of control in handling their children especially when disciplining them. Under the influence they are pushed overboard which might include sexually abusing the children.

So what are the effects of abuse to the children? Physically a child is left with bruises, cuts and fractures with some leading to their early death.

Psychologically, the effects are worse and affect the child permanently.  This affects their attentiveness in school, learning abilities and stress related experience. Neglected they bear emotional scars which affect their self esteem by being insecure and having a sense of guilt thinking they are the main cause of their problems and those affecting the families.

Growing up with these low esteem makes them easy victims of verbal and physical abusive from the society with a more likelihood of being criminals as adults. Sadly as boys end up being abusive the girls are socially constructed to accept abuse in families as a norm!

Sadly with limited number of resource centers for child protection for increase number of children in abusive families makes child protection to be strained.  Governments need to help in stopping child abuse in the society and everyone needs to be committed against the vice and report any violators to child rights authorities.

Jackie Tulloh is an Internee journalist at Kenya’s Vice Presidential Press Services (VPPS).

Nairobians; their cold induced smugness

Whoever said Nairobi, Kenyan capital is the city in the sun never had in mind the cold June and coldest July. The gloomy grey cloud and mist hanging the city discounts the mantra.

Coming to think of it today morning as I woke with a cold and blocked nose, the author of the saying must have been a Briton. A colonialist. The author fresh from gloom, grey and sleet of Britain with anxiety to entice his fellow countrymen for a piece of Kenya coined the phrase.

City in the sun? That only looks good in a tourist brochure (Tell that to a Mombasani sweating in Hotness)

With barely a month in the capital I find this weather funny. The mornings are not ushered in with the sun streaking the horizons. Golden rays touching golden skies for a poetic muse.

It’s rare in this month.

Instead the cold and groping mist hangs, stifling like a fart in a hot, windless and moist room. Thick grey clouds pregnant with sinister hang the sky like an over coat from an amateur artist.

Irony? As the clouds hung thick no rain falls, the earth is dry and dusty. Being windless, the dust and the mist hang about going nowhere forlornly.

The grayness is compounded by Nairobians. They never greet. In reply to your greeting they sound short, clipped in a groan like a ram kissing a slaughter knife. There must be unwritten code somewhere that greetings make women pregnant and men’s wallet to disappear.

You pass a greeting and a Nairobian freeze waxing cold. Looks and sees through you before replying in that clipped sound facing away.

And the colder it gets as we approach July the worse they will be in public places like under the city clock at my matatu stop, which inspired this post.

As a communication student a Nairobian body language in public shows high level of discomfort; legs pressed together. Hands folded tightly. Hand bags clenched. Their eyes (Like Edvard Munch’s mural The Scream) are stiffy and ferrety when they stand still, unfocusing but still when they move suppressing anguish.

A Nairobian is unattached, lonely and alone in a queue, bus park, lift or other public places. This sucks since even glasses clink in a tray, acknowledging others.

Beating this cold stupidity

I did beat this cold madness as I type this post behind the office computer seeping hot tea.

But the madness will return at 5pm during office close time. As if stung on their butts by a scorpion my erstwhile idle mates will spring citing urgent appointments. With hurried goodbyes they slither off.

Later when is stroll home, as I do every other day, I join them at matatu queue trying hard to look serious (And ignore me)

Worst, I will dread motorist flouting traffic lights and zebra crossing while honking foolishly.  Impatient pedestrians busy pushing, shoving and stepping on my shoes like the two insolent Nairobi girls yesterday.

Hurriedly and without apology they shoved and stepped on my shoes. Ahead at a corner in Ronald Ngala Street I found the pair bending over a hawker haggling a Ksh-20-tin-coated-hearing (yawa!!)

Of Nairobians and West Wannabes.

So much fascination of the West. Are there no loafers, vagabonds and street sweepers? And is it not a fact that almost everybody who goes there are menial workers.

These are the people who are ready to be called ‘Black monkeys’ while stooping low to boot lick the whites and when they come back to Africa they want to be treated as demigods.

They come back with aura of snobbishness spiced up with haughty eyes. So it is no surprise when westernized Africans say; “it’s very hard to help an African….” This comes after their hard earned money has been overtaxed from jobs with no (or least) security like nursing.

Have you ever wondered what could happen if US borders were to be free for just a day? Just imagine those poor blacks dying to Spain could have a heyday; the visa line at American Embassy could be relieved.

I imagine banks doing a booming business loaning out fares, but above all Africa and Kenya in particular could be empty. I would not forget to pity the Americans because the millions of shillings they get from visas will dry up, my pity will too go to third world countries which receive this donor shillings in loans-just talk of giving with one and stealing from the other.

It is just absurd how Kenyans are west-crazy. Have you ever come across anybody with a relative in the west (a relation attached by cello tape): “Oh! My relative (or unseen pen pal) ananifanyia mipango….. Blah! Blah! Blah! (Plus a lot of daydreaming) these are guys living in a cocoon of fantasy and find it hard to embrace reality.

Kenya is a thousand miles south of Sahara and do you know what that means? It means we are in the part of the world wrenched with poverty, civil strife, high child mortality and a cool HIV/AIDS infection rate. So the thought of comparing your fellow Kenyans with westerns is very inconsiderate.

Anyway away from the West and direct to our capital Nairobi. I just wonder why villagers have got a passion for the capital and not any other big towns. Problem always catch up with us villagers during holidays when the Nairobians carry all their households back. It is funny that all these Nairobians are always from Lavington, Runda and other crème-de-crème estates, I am yet to meet a Korogocho and Mathare Valley guy.

The problem gets murkier when they have electronic gadgets; they will assault any poor guy willing to listen in ‘Ahujarized’ voice about the manual, but please do not ask what an electronic cooker is doing in a grass thatched-mud-and-wattle house in the heart of a remote village where rural electrification is a myth.

You see my village mind always get confused with those city girls a.k.a chicks- I always wonder if their boyfriends are cocks.

Can somebody please enlighten a villager to why a fully grown female specie of Homo sapiens with a bunch of kids likes the name chick but not a hen? These chicks or hens will always insist on Fanta and Chippo in the heart of a Githeri zone.

Needless to say they have always deleted their sir name to have a bizarre combination of two English names to hide their tribes therefore a Mary Nyang’inya will be Mary Anne or a Sipporah Nyakerario Atieno will be a Zippy Night.

So it wasn’t a shock when I saw an ‘enlightened’ fellow who told us was a manager being buttoned by city askaris in the daily paper. The other who was helping his long distance uncle to run a chain of hotels or hovels was caught begging on the streets.

Dilemma; The Pressure for Premarital Sex

 (An article for Nuru cartoon column, in response to the dilemma of issue 33 of Supa Strikers on 22nd November 2005)

Firstly I’d like to congratulate the girl fir the action she has taken. It is good she didn’t have sex with his boyfriend and secondly, for choosing a reliable source to share her predicament.

I’d like to note that most girls are nowadays falling on the same trap.

Symbolically a girl is like a fruit on a big tree. Some are on the low laying branches while the rotten and the half eaten fruits are on the ground.

Only lazy boyfriends go for these girls for short-lived untrue love and easy sex. Meanwhile the golden fruits on top of the tree are always the hardest to get because many boys fear the risk of falling and breaking their bones.

Such girls always wait for reliable and enduring boy(couple) who knows the value of true love waits thus having sex at the correct time: when married. I may advise the girl to be the golden fruit.

If I may refer to the bible about such love, Amnon was deeply infatuated by his lovely sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1-32). Such a union was not possible.

Amnon was so vexed that he laid a trap to rape Tamar after being advised by his subtle cousin Jonadab. Ironically after the ordeal Amnon hated Tamar more than she loved her!

That is exactly what happens about boyfriends who insist on premarital sex; soon after they have got what they want they will treat the girls like things left behind in a deserted homestead.

Sex is not a receipt of love. Sex, too, is not an opiate for love.

This is a true statement! During my high school years boys had girlfriends in almost all girl schools in the district. They used to threaten girls for sex to proof their love to them.

After sex during the holidays the relationship will usually break up with the girls receiving cold-booting letters and being laughed at for being cheap prostitutes.

This paves the way for other girls who will be acquired during the interschool activities for the following holiday.

In school general knowledge will be great in schoolwork but self-knowledge is best for survival during such period because first love is always overcome by the second sight.

I also think that by having enlightened friends always help in such a dilemma. If I may refer you back to my bible quotation, When Absalom (Tamar’s brother) revenged by killing Amnon and King David thinks that all his sons are dead, Jonadab (the subtle advisor) tells King David that its only Amnon who is dead.

On the same line, in most cases friends who advise girls on premarital sex know about the other side of the coin.

When the girl will be infected by sexually transmitted infection; gets pregnant and her studies terminated they will be the ones babbling, howling and spreading the message with a let-me-tell-you tone.

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. It is only the rough time in relationship that you know about the real intention of your boyfriend. “He won’t tell everyone that I’m is chick” fear shows clearly that the outside force and not the inside define the relationship.

This shows that what the girl will have to say will not work because the boyfriend will listen to the outsiders.

If you drive your car up the mountains, you are not going to cruise to the edge of the cliff to see how close you can park without actually plunging over it. No! Common sense tells you to stay as far from the edge as possible.

You should tell the boyfriend about the value of “true love waits” but if he still sticks on his guns then the girl (Boy) should quit because she may get infected with H.I.V/AIDS, be pregnant and her studies terminated.

This may seem to be tough but the next time she is “on the edge” of the premarital sex cliff; she should look down, she will see some of her friends down there who didn’t think they would fall either but they did.

My late grandfather, a fisherman, once told me: Only the strong fish swims against the current. With all this pressure on premarital sex affecting youths we should always be strong.

But if we might have almost fallen then it is much easier to be wise about the mistakes we made yesterday than the ones we are in process of making.