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

Poem: Nairobi by Manuel Odeny

This concrete jungle
striking, confusing
with a dearth of appeal
like a doodle,
an open man hole
gaping, grasping
insatiable,
maggots slimy
squirming, squelching
trip in-
and
before rock bottom
you dare dread
the slimy you
when surfaced!!!!

PS: I have created the Facebook page for The Burning Splint. you are welcomed to 'Like' and 'Share' 

A poem called A sheng poem by Manuel Odeny

Yeah man (mic is on)

mimi ni da best
riding the wave kwa crest
ku-land mtaani ni East wala sio West (lands)
shika biaf na da-best to join the rest
ni-siense da best to waive the rest
themes kwa heart ku-nest
kuangusha ki-biro ki-viagra na ease bila test
mistari mikali bila rest
nikichill ki-ndom bila vest
chupa na glass ndani ni Krest,

Yeah

(Written at 02:46 am yesterday in insomniac night to lull back to sleep)

Nairobi Dating: Shreds of tenderness.....

“Mannu are you gay?”

The questioned only warranted a hearty laugh from me. I just threw back my head, hand in the pocket and laughed. No qualm was felt because the accuser was a friend.

This was the first gay slur of the night, another was on the way. And I took it easy.

Often from lunch together with her or I typing and reciting a poem for her in the quiet office had culminated into the diatribe, and more friendly others. That is why I just shrugged it off lightly like water off a duck’s back.

Mannu, the first time I saw you I thought you were from Turkana (That’s kind, the last one said Kordofan). Dear you are so backwards (I know because am always infront of you). I can never marry you (So you were even contemplating it).

That was how we shared the jabs, and the two gay slurs came about yesterday in a Nairobi dating which we had on a road.

The major ball of contention between us was her always keeping on me to leave the office earlier.  She badly wanted my escort, which was ok. She wanted to evade the high fares, fine with me. And most serious was that her mother wanted he home early, which I didn’t mind.

But after an incessant nagging for me to hurrying up I would be forced to cut short my inveterate internet proclivities to go home with her.  

I would be rushed from the office to the lift, but immediately on ground floor she would change.

“Mannu, there is no need for the hurry let’s just stroll” she curtsied taking my arms tenderly.

And I would feel thoroughly irked; the erstwhile busy girl suddenly had the all time in the world while I had been cut from internet.

“Your mother called and we are going to catch the mercurial fare so let’s roll” I replied waltzing her around the parked cars, human and traffic jam to the bus stop.

The first matatu shouting our route number would be a welcome. Her idea of a little street chit chat (Mannu you are so silent) wasn’t taken lightly. With my arms under her armpits we boarded, not taking any chance with the mercurial Nairobi bus fares.

“Are you ignoring me? You are so silent.” My standard reply was to point at the speakers right above us (They are bursting dear, we won’t communicate).

That was how it was for the past three months of internship, but yester-night to finish her stint she caught me flat footed.

Yesterday I wasn’t hurried out of the office, no. She gave me a free rein on the computer as I enjoyed Def Jam poetry and Maya Angelou reciting her verses on the Youtube.

As we strolled to the bus stop without the customary waltzing my silence infuriated her to the first gay slur?

My laughter was suddenly arrested by her eyes boring into me like red point of a laser before the trigger of a M16 is pulled. Other bystanders looked at my ears curiously for a stud.

“You have ignored me for three months” she accused me coldly. More commuters, now attracted by her fuming looked at my ears Dr. Willy Mutunga style.  She reached into her hand bag for her ‘street shoes’ and bandana to protect her hair against the dust, ignoring everyone.

“We are going for a long walk and we need to talk, no matatu today” she hissed.

Say what! I have the fare girl, I will pay today. C’mon Nairobi girls shouldn’t be walking. It’s 7 o’clock, just look at the watch dear it’s late. Anyway you complain that I always walk too fast for you.

“Follow me” the girl we will call, not her real name, Dorothy commanded.  Hell hath no fury. I obliged knowing I didn’t need nuclear science to know I was in a hot soup.

For philosophical digression; never taunt, because you can’t miss, a missile from a woman. And when the hunter turns the hunted from a wounded prey with a bruised ego, then he won’t go far.

The dearth in my part with Dorothy was her need to bolster her ego since except me, all the men including two fellow internees, had had their heart in her hands. I was not keen to join the queue from a kilometer away.

I survived her with my silence and mature deep furrowed face which made her open up about her office mishaps. You see when you are silent with an ear for conversation you tend to hear more that what you bargained for, but back to last night….

A tall lean figure (me) and a petit diminutive girl hand-in-hand strolled from Ronald Ngala, past Nairobi River to Kariokor Market past Ngara (With passengers and motorists staring at us). Amid the evening traffic she deftly hanged on my arms all the way to Pangani (where I flatly refused to go any further).

We haggled a truce; I badly wanted to be home (without her) even though she hinted about being this  being her last night before heading back to college.

To glean what we talked about, I let her rumble on about the details of men in a confined office messing up their egos. I wasn’t keen into jumping the bandwagon of her dating history.

The second gay slur came when I told Dorothy she was like a little sister to me. I shrugged it off as I boarded a matatu home. Without an option with my determination she followed me in at the last row seats.

“I had to survive, all those old men beating down on me I just need to be crafty to avoid the dustbin” she said as the matatu pulled out (The office talk was just that, office talk).

 I felt her pain, nothing sucks like amoral incessant of men suffering from mid-life crisis and still watching porn on their phones on a ego trip.

“I had a beautiful siz in you, I treasure the memories” I assured her, which was badly needed.

“I hope you won’t judge me”

“I didn’t, even though I knew what was happening, I won’t start judging you now”

“I will miss you Mannu, am leaving for college tomorrow”

“Good luck dear”

“Good luck”

She gently stroked the hair on my hand as other passengers looked uneasily. We didn’t care.

That was 9.58pm yesterday night, as I and Dorothy went to the estate together for the last time.

But now as I type this on office computer, the wailing sailing emptiness of her absence haunts. This nest has suddenly grown small, fellow internees have grown wings, and Dorothy was the last.

She went with a piece of my heart, in shred of tenderness of Nairobi night dating…. 

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.