For those who are requesting for the summaries, I'll post them somewhere and provide the link

weka mimi pia; george.kingg(at)yahoo(dot)com

Kindly send me all the lessons to lovenuffs@gmail.com

Guys,

Anyone who wants the summary for the topics, the files are in the link below. I'll compile the latest and post there.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/wazua/22iC-q4KUM0

How do i access them on google groups?

@Marty, I agree with you. @Mfadhili and folks should be happy they are getting something and not walking empty handed. The Situation would have been different if the land buying company was Mbo I Kamiti or Embakasi Ranching , you would even end up roughed up or killed for claiming what rightly belongs to you.

On a diferent note, I still can't understand some things. How do you buy a piece of land using hard earned cash and not go check it out in 19 years???

If I bought a 10 x 5 Yard plot in Lokichogio, Maralal, Garissa etc, I would go see it twice a year.

100 million Cheque Final Part

The Merc was no more and off it went with the flashy life. Mark thus got a bit of cash from the proceeds of the sale. He knew that the small cash available to him would make or break him; it could tip the scale between absolute poverty and recovery. Remember the story of that widow of Zarephath and Elijah and that handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug? After much thinking, it took Mark a week or so to decide what to do with the cash. It finally dawned on him that his recovery was pegged in reviving the fortunes of his ailing firm. He thus decided to revamp the firm by investing in advertising and popularizing his services.

He went knocking on doors of companies seeking to sell his services; after all this is a skill he had acquired while selling insurance to strangers. Of course it was never easy but the guy is kinda convincing; the type that would remove a snake from its hiding (kutoa nyoka pangoni). In a few months his marketing drives started to pay off and clients starting coming. His fortunes started to change for the better. He had a clear plan on his business and set targets. On a good week, he’d make as much as half a million after expenses coz he started getting high profile clients (managers and business owners)

Mark went to the back to the basics of financial prudence. He embraced the basic but simple concepts of financial management. You know most people fail to understand that the road to financial freedom is one that requires very basic knowledge. Isn’t it easy to understand that you must spend less than you earn?? Anyway, he managed to dramatically improve his finances by embracing frugality.

The other big change he had in his life was to become a staunch Christian. He quit drinking and left the bad company. Actually most of his friends had already left him. He slowly got better friends and soon after walked down the aisle. Sometimes we underestimate the strength of friends and the motivation one can derive from a supportive spouse.

With better fortunes he managed to buy 2 plots at Garden estate. He built his family’s abode in one of them. The other plot he did the guest houses which were almost completed from what I saw. I noted how positive the man had become. He was constantly pausing to remind us of how God has blessed him. He could radiate the feel good factor to the two of us and I could from his tone that this was a man who had deep lying passion that can only be seen in people destined for greatness.

Then out of blues I asked him whether he finally paid himself the 100M. He looked up and told us that indeed he has never had cash in the bank anywhere close to 100M. However, the valuation of the guest houses alone together with the land was around 120M. So in his own words his wealth more than showed that he had earned the 100Million.

Paul jokingly asked him why he was driving a Toyota Wish being that wealthy. The man rose from his seat and his response was telling, “My friends, I have driven the big ones and I can assure you that it is no big deal. In fact sometimes back I met one of my former drinking buddies who asked me what I was wishing for now that am driving a Toyota wish. Someday I’ll drive the big ones again but I need to ensure that systems are in place that generate enough to sustain the big ones”.

I realized the transformation the man had gone through and it was amazing. It took him as many as 9 years to hit the target but at least he did. I noticed how he had a grip of his life and how he had rediscovered his dream and kept it alive despite falling. Often we fall but we forget to rise up, dust ourselves and proceed with our journey with lessons to boot.

We finally left Mark’s place at 9pm and it is then I remembered how tired I was but the absorbing story more than refreshed me. I left knowing that there was need to stretch my imaginations and pay myself big….a few hundred millions would do for starters…QED, isn’t it?

Next post we'll talk about misers, I know one and his story is out of this world.

Miser, pinchpenny and stingy Part 1

He is one of the strangest human beings I know; surely he must be. This guy is my first cousin so I know his background and his path to his current status. He is much older than me, in his late 40’s. Some of us hail from very large families (nuclear), after all ten kids was no joke even then, but this dude has 6 brothers and 5 sisters. Theirs was a life where even basic needs were hard to come by. He finished primary school, did two years of high school then dropped out for lack of fees.

He got his first job as a farmhand to take care of a rich man’s pigs. Rich men who owned cars in the village were few and far between. I vividly remember him atop a Toyota Stout, whose front design looked like a pig. Together with the son of the rich man who used to drive the Stout, they’d pick left over foods from some big hotels in Nairobi and deliver them for the pigs to feast on. He took care of the pigs for some time till he was promoted to deliver saw dust to homes; you know the saw dust that has always been used as bedding for chicken. The rich in the village deal with strange products and services, things that the elite in Nairobi will never think of.

This cousin of mine worked his socks off for several years and was saving a lot. He eventually quit his job as a farmhand and bought an old taxi. Back then the shilling had a bit of value, it costed him 17k. Those loudmouths in the village were even taunting him that he purchased the taxi with a bag full of coins. U know those funny taxis in the village which have seen better years; the ones when inside you feel like you are outside, very dusty and if it rains you are rained on. The starter is a set of wires, the driver has to carry water coz the thing can chemka anytime. Those vehicles (if we can call them so) are just strange, what with a Mercedes side mirror, Peugeot carburetor, stools for seats and the body of a Colt…and the mabatis on the body if they ever cut you, you’d get tetanus.

As a taxi operator he started displaying strange tendencies, like eating an orange for lunch, mandazis and chai for supper, walking around in faded shirts all in the name of saving. For this man, extracting a shilling off him was tantamount to milking a bull. He was as stingy as they come. Maybe because life had previously been harsh on him.. You may have heard about that hardware guy somewhere in Kabete (his name with-held) who once collapsed and when taken to hospital, the doctor advised him to eat. I could see from far that my cousin was headed there.

Someday I met the fellow as I was heading home from high school on my mid-term. Knowing that he was doing well as a taxi operator, I requested him to buy me a cup of tea. He jokingly said (or so I thought) that we will go take tea and I will pay for it; after all the kidogo pocket money l had in my pockets would be enough for two cups of tea. We went to the café and enjoyed the cup of tea, but when the bill was brought, he insisted that I had to pay. You see I thought he was just joking but I was in for a rude shock and I ended up paying for it….

This fellow never ceases to amaze me. He however continued with his saving habit till he managed to buy an old Nissan to ferry horticultural products for small scale farmers to City Market. When I pass by the City Market it reminds me of so many things. I went to a high school that taught Aviation and my dad thought that I’d finally live my dream as a pilot. When I landed there, I opted to study Agriculture to the shock of my dad after I realized that everyone was fighting to study Aviation; I like swimming against the current. Immediately after high school and for lack of something else to do, I used to farm in a small scale those horticultural products on the river bed and on maturity I’d take them to City Market. So I was a customer to this cousin of mine for some time till I went to Campus. And by the way, I almost declined to go to Campus as I was really doing well with my farming. Actually were it not for my dad who actually thought I was nuts, I’d be a big rich farmer by now. I may never know whether it was a wrong or correct decision.

In the next post, I will tell you more about this strange cousin of mine; someday he told me that a jalopy I was driving was his dream car, and as of the car he drives now I’ll leave it to your imaginations.

@ Marty this one cracked me reminds me of one of my siblings...Waiting to read on Chamas as well.How is James doing now?

Very true Fyatu.....hehehehehe.....