Hi wazuans,can i be a wahome or mwalimu andrew if i get a good editor? Read below and comment.



BLACKBERRY MAKES MY DAY
I am woken up by the deafening shrill of my kabambe alarm at exactly 7 am. Am nursing a very serious hangover having overindulged in my favorite drink (senator Keg) the previous day. I simply switch of my kabambe, turn over, look at the pretty face of my only daughter a.k.a future ATM a.k.a future Mpesa sleeping peacefully on the other end of the bed and almost immediately am back in deep slumber. An hour later, Mama Mish shakes me so hard from slumber land that I imagine I’ve been knocked by a Citi Hoppa bus. She immediately demands to know why a serious Kenyan who grew a beard before the first multi party elections were held could still be doing in bed at such an hour while his dear wife is up and running.
Hangover
Nursing a hangover is probably the worst feeling that ever happens to tulevis. Your head pounds like 3 generators producing 10 MW of electricity while your bones and joints ache as if you are in labour. At the same time, your stomach rumbles and makes funny noises like a hungry hyena while your vision remains blurred for the better part of the day. Woe unto you if your better/worse half drinks only milk and honey plus water. She simply cannot understand why a full grown man sweats profusely in the morning without doing any execices. She also can not comprehend why a father of the next generation wanjikus always eats his dinner/supper in the morning and prefers it taken cold plus a single cup of tea. Anyway amezoea or else she would have left me immediately after the first date at Tacos. Ama? But today she looks dead serious from the look of her face. And she has good news. Someone has called her inquiring why my phone is off on a Friday.That someone is a guy called Tall. The one and only tall bugger. The one who has taken over and mans an entire bus stage in kawangware and not even the dreaded mungiki can dare touch him.ill tell you his story another day coz the guy is really tall as in heightwise and businesswise.i immediately switch on my phone and call Tall coz a good hustler smells a deal fast even if it is Dubai or Australia.
‘whacha kuwa lazy,niko na iphone kuna mtu ameangusha kwa matatu. Amka tupatane Shops’ tall tells me. Am now fully awake and the hangover has suddenely disappered completely at the mention of a ‘cargo’. I tell him to give me some 30 minutes and he replies in the affirmative and hangs up.Mama mish is already in the kitchen so I take a better look at my princess who is still sleeping. The other 2 thugs have already left for school which means I will not be able to see them again for the third consecutive day. Phew! This is very wrong and I need to be arrested for irresponsible parenting!am really missing their antics and funny questions on the ocampo six but its just that our times of coming home really conflict.They are asleep when I get home and they leave when am still asleep.Anyway tomorrow is a Saturday so I will surely see them and play some computer games with them as I help them with homework. Seriously. But on condition that I arrive home sober today!I rush to the bath room only to discover that the hot water appliance has not been fixed. I vow to take it to the fundi that day so I ask mama mish to prepare some hot water for me as I catch up the latest on the breakfast show. She flatly refuses telling me that she has reminded me about this gadget for a whole week ‘na kazi yako ni gauge tu’ I decide that am not going to pick a quarrel with the mother of my 2 thugs and 1 Mpesa over a gadget made in far away China. I go to the bathroom, take a quicky(you know what I mean) and in a record 3 minutes am out picking a t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans to wear for the day.Hustlers never wear ties, shirts or suits unless they are going for serious business that require a showoff. Why put on a tie when the only thing am gonna do is sell a second hand black and white Greatwall television. Got my drift? Since mama mish is hot headed today I decide its time I also ‘punish’ her as in a small cold war is brewing here. I decide am not going to take her beautifully prepared breakfast of fried bananas, eggs, and fine coffee perfectly laid on the dining table. You know women, if you what to hit them hard, spare the rod and just refuse to eat what has been specifically cooked for you. ataamka class.So I hurry out of the house telling her am late for the appointment but will be back early. She retorts ’hata ukitaka kurudi kesho, ni sawa tu’ my mission accompolished,I head straight to kendi’s. On my way I discover I have again forgotten the hot water gadget. I blame it on mama mish and forget about it. i find tall ‘akitoa lock’that is in tulevi jargon clearing a hangover by taking another drink in the morning. You know ‘dawa ya moto ni moto’ we immediately get down to business. The phone is actually a china made blackberry and its pretty new.I sample it ,place my sim card in it, make 3 calls to guys I know like the finer things in life.. I then order for a 35 and wait for replies. Tall is sitting with 2 really ugly ladies who look as if they have escaped the kumikumi tragedies 5 times. He is taking a 35 while his ‘ladies’ are taking 20’s.Kendi demands for a ‘masai’ from me , but I am not in the mood to buy the local Viceroy so I tell her off. Back to business. Tall only wants 3000bob from the whole deal and I instantly know this is really good business. After about 30 minutes, one guy calls asking for the price of the BB. I walk out of the club and describe the phone in detail as in iko na camera, Bluetooth, internet,phonebook,settings, computer and its an original. The guy laughs and asks me to name my price. I ask for 10 k flat. He is one of those guys who will never shop at Toy market in kibera, Gikomba or Muthurwa .He says he can pay 8k which I flatly refuse and tell him to go to hell and hang up. Inside my small mind, I know this is the best deal I can ever get and start celebrating by ordering one 35 for myself and another one for Tall ignoring protests from kendi and the two urgly ladies. I decide to call the other guys to know their fate.one is mteja while the other says he is in a meeting and will call after one hour. Experience has taught me that in this business , however desperate you may be, never show that to your client. Always play hard ball like the Somali pirates and you will always come out tops. So I decide to give my guy a whole two hours before I call although I’ve already made up my mind to dispose this China made thing to him. An hour latter, the third guy calls and as usual I go out of the pub so that the seller a.k.a Tall does not get wind of the transaction. After some haggling, he agrees to part with at kshs 9,500 but payable in 2 days time. This is a tough business but being a good broker, I tell him openly that I will keep the phone for him as long as I do not get a higher bidder beforehand. I go back to the pub to bid time for the ultimate kill.Tall orders for another 35 for me and 20’s for the now not so ugly ladies. You know what alcohol does to our brains when it comes to women! the more the pints, the better the woman looks. Its no rocket science. its reality! One and half hours and three 35’s later , I make the crucial call. the guy on the other end is a babi and to cap it all a jango. We agree in like 5 minutes on 9000 bob and agree to meet at tankard in dagoreti corner in 30 minutes time.One hour later I have 9000 bob in my pocket with a white cap to boot. I call tall to give him the good news and order via phone for a jug on my bill. After all, here I am, at 12 noon with a cool 6000 bob bila stress. First stop is the the mpesa outlet where I deposit 3100 bob in my phone and immediately send 3000 to mama mish. she does not even flash me to acknowledge receipt of the money. These women! I then head to equity bank, naivasha road and deposit 2k in my current account. With 1 k plus 500 bob commission from tall, am set to have a very serious hangover come Saturday morning. Sorry to my 2 thugs for a deal gone so well coz I wont be able to see them again!

Yeah, i meant the legendary humour writer.nawesmake kweli?

Thanks JB,Now mtu husonga aje from here. Am an accountant na hii mambo ya media mimi sielewi.

@Elder, very good advice.

@Katiba, please work to create a personal style of writing. I don't want to read a reincarnation of Wahome or Mwalimu. That is them.

@Mcdoba ,thanks. This one is a bit different lakini just go thro na comment.
Dear civil servant,
Hi guys, ope u a doing well as we approach the much anticipated hague aka ocampo 6 aka KKK kulemewa .This is a critical moment for our not so old country having fought for over 20 years for a new constitution. You are playing a very important part in the history of our country & we applaud you for your dedication. Impartiality is the cornerstone of your esteemed careers and all Kenyans appreciate your selfless efforts in serving them and in turning this country into a middle (why not first) class country by 2030. Being public servants , your job requires you people to work for whichever government that is in power whether it is a coalition or collusion one and to be sincere ,u guys have perfected in this art since independence giving incoming administrations the much needed ease to consolidate power. I think you are among the best in Africa when it comes to transfer of power. Anyway, I have a number of misgivings about your performance and I will highlight a few.
1. Why do reception areas in most government offices resemble a ramshackle in Kandahar or a manned road block in Al-shabbab controlled Somalia? The furniture looks like they were made during vasco da gama days while the ladies behind the desks are old mamas with mean looking faces well beyond their retirement age. The AP’s with their G 3’s sends shivers down any visitors spine as they boringly wonder why their bosses assigned them here in the first place instead of doing real work like raiding chan’gaa dens and make that extra coin. Our government receptions will always have an analogue telephone, no computer and directions to a certain office are verbal “enda 11th floor, uulizie huko” Jameni!! Guys, the reception area gives the first impression to any visitor of what to expect in any organization. It is the epitome of any firm worthy its salt and that is why they are manned by lovely ladies with wide smiles in most organizations. Please do something about this!
2. Your dress code has always left me with more hard questions than answers. The men are mostly dressed in jackets, ties and trousers bought directly from Toy market and dry-cleaned at Mama Safi’s kiosk in the estate. The ladies’ sense of dressing is a fashion disaster and they behave as if they have never heard of Mr.Price or Enka-Rasha .Is it a crime to be an elegant, immaculate, suave, sharp and smart dresser in government offices? A buddy of mine who claims to be a career civil servant (although he has barely worked for four years) intimated to me that being smart in government offices is courting serious trouble. It is a sign of ill gotten wealth and the dreaded K.A.C.A (or is it KACC, KCC or simply Watchdog) will be on your trail if you are ever spotted shopping at Yaya Centre or Westgate with a civil servants barge hanging from your neck. God forbid!!
3. The rapid response initiative has yielded what I simply can call mixed results with improvements being noted in some government institutions such as the issuance of IDs, Sheria house and the KRA but that is it. The rest have simply refused to change. There is a terrible disease in our government offices called lethargy that is so deep rooted and endemic that even a genetically modified anti polio virus cannot eradicate. You are tossed from one office to another like a ping pong, your file is always missing or is awaiting to be signed, officer Wafula is never in his office coz he is either attending a seminar or is simply nowhere, receipt book zimeisha mpaka zitoke Nairobi, pangeni line hapo nje juu niko lunch etc. This is the appalling typical attitude our “servants” have towards the very people who pay their salaries!! You guys need to be transferred to EABL or Safaricom for refresher courses for just 3 weeks and may be you may comprehend what serving people is all about.
4. Any government office filling system is as outdated as Ms Dos!! Even the newly created ministries like that of the prime ministers office have not shown any difference. Files are strewn all over the place and computers are alien in these offices .The filling system is so disorganized that finding your file is like looking for Somali pirates in the Pacific ocean. Nobody here understands the whole fuss about Facebook or twitter. Please I beg u to use some of our hard earned taxes to invest in a simple computer system and u will see such a big difference u won’t believe it!!
5. There are men and sometimes women who patronize most government offices in the name of brokers. They are always smartly dressed, better than our civil servants, know how to spot a mwananchi in trouble and are so efficient and fast at delivering ‘services’ that I often wish they are ones behind the desks occupied by our lazy civil servants. At a small fee, these guys will deliver your passport in a record 3 days at Nyayo house than the usual 3 months, get a tax compliance certificate at Times Towers within hours, fix your missing file at the Pensions department in a single day and register your company at Sheria house in 2 days. Phew! If only we could pay them a salary for a job well done!
6. Every Kenyan has been crying foul and making a lot of noise over corrupt government officials. I beg to differ in the strongest terms possible. Our beloved officials are probably among the worst paid public officials in the whole universe while the same officials handle some of the biggest contracts south of Sahara! Sample this, an engineer earning a paltry Kshs 30,000 per month and living in Nairobi is assigned to oversee the construction of the Mombasa- Malaba four lane highway costing a staggering Kshs 3.1 billions!!! Hii sio majaribu! Another doctor earning about Kshs. 40,000 bob(not USD!) is given the job of running a provincial hospital with an annual budget of Kshs 30 million and a staff of about 20 other doctors, 50 nurses and another 100 auxiliary staff!! Jameni. What do you expect these officers to do in such circumstances when they also have families to feed, school fees to pay etc Simple. Be corrupt. I want to offer a very simple solution to this national pastime. Just triple their salaries and corruption will go out of the window! Period.
7. And talking of salaries, my good old buddy who works at the provincial headquarters in Kisumu showed me his pay slip & I nearly wept. The guy has such a big title in the government that you may imagine he is the CEO of the whole province. But his salary has so many deductions a.k.a sacco loan, bank loan, school fees loan, contingency fund, burial and benevolent, P.A.Y.E., etc that, to quote Nyambane, he only goes home with the pay slip at the end of the month. Is it affection or prestige or an addiction among these guys to sock up so much debt that they end up going home with about Kshs 978 like my buddy? Doesn’t that rule about not taking more than 1/3 of your net pay apply to you guys? Please style up or u will live in the perpetual shame of borrowing from friends on the 3rd of every month!
8. I think our minister of finance a.k.a D.P.M a.k.a U.K. should consider introduce a civil servants revolving fund in the next supplementary budget(whatever that means) like that one for youth and women coz these guys are so business savvy. While one old dude will be offering porridge at tea break, the lady at the reception will be selling fruit salad and cheap Chinese clothes at lunch break to fellow colleagues. At 4 pm another will be offering tea and mandazi while another will be selling some products from a company called TIENS or GNLD. And each of these enterprising officers always carries a big black book to record the debts which are paid at the end of the month. Seriously, with such a fund formed specifically for our hard working civil servants, we could just transform Afya house into a mini-Sarit centre while Arthi house could be a branch of Village market. Over to you .Mr. Kenyatta!
Lastly if you guys could please stop talking in your mother tongues while in the office the way my brothers from central Kenya do when in a matatu, I will personally come to your offices and fire everybody. No kidding. Anyway, see you at the ministry of --------------



Yours,
Soft

@Leona ,nimeskia. Sasa nani atanipolish? Mimi huandika tuu but ave never attended a writing class or so.

@Katiba..
Hang out with people who write for a living.. you know that thing about birds of a feather? it works! If you cant find them..dont give up,start reading their stuff seriously and seeing more than the article. Read 'between the lines'. What's their style? what makes them stand out? who inspires you the most? and most importantly,whom do you wish to target with your writing..

@ kati, mimi sio mtu wa hiyo lakini i promise to read and comment whenever you post :) i like writting too.About making money from it,it is not easy but that does not mean it is not possible. Most magazines and newspapers stay with the people they know and it is hard to penetrate that market....but keep looking. you can start by posting on wazua or writting for friends and sending to their emails. Have a name for like "this is life" or " the way i see it" something catchy that makes someone want to open the mail and be consistent.

Cheers!

Nitasoma hiyo ya pili baadaye....!!!

@ mahegoat, where can i get the brighter grammar series?

Long time by the way,umekuwa wapi?