Free meals

The dot com lady has decided that she wont put out unless she gets a few meals from you. In the olden days, only the spice in your language mattered. I do not like to think of myself as a non reformer. So as soon as the new tradition started circulating, I embraced it willingly. Though at the time I wasn't getting pay cheques every end month.

There was this friend of mine who I kissed once. She seemed shy and I suspected she liked me. So I called her after earning some few shillings from a one day hard temporary job. We agreed I'd pick her up on Wednesday for dinner. On that night, at her apartment, she asked me if her roommate could join us. The roommate was already getting ready while smiling, at me. I didn't want to, but I agreed. There was also another boy who was talking to them. When we got out, all were in the convoy to the nearby Olympic restaurant, which was at a walking distance from her apartment.

We got to the restaurant and the two ladies ordered chips-chicken. The guy ordered a soda and I asked for a soda too. I was worried the bill might be more than what I had in my pocket. Throughout the “dinner”, I was very uncomfortable. I had planned to open up to this lady tonight, tell her about my feelings for her. What shame will befall me if I failed short on the bill? I rose up before they were done and headed to the cashier. Didn't want anyone to see what was in my pocket. Paid up the bill and remained with my fare back home. After seeing them back to their apartment, I said to myself I wouldn't allow that situation happening again to me. I felt used and taken advantage of.

That was about ten years ago. I tried hard not to be ambiguous when meeting women after that. A month ago, I had to meet this pretty girl whom I had just been chatting with over Whatsapp. The meeting was to do her a service. A favor. Since I had only a few weeks remaining to return back to my job in the Middle east, she wanted me to take some things to her sister who also works there. Being a precaution man, I arranged for us to meet at 5pm. ACK restaurant Likoni at Five in the evening because I knew lunch would be over and dinner would still be far.

I arrived there first and stationed myself on the drinks section above the swimming pool. When she arrived, she sat In the restaurant, called and told me the swimming pool section is boring. I went inside the restaurant and we talked for some time. When the waiter came, she ordered for chips-chicken. For God's sake its 5pm! She asked me why I just ordered a drink and I told her I had taken my lunch at home. She said she hadn't. Anyway, I just let it be because money is not a problem now. I pitied her when she asked the waiter to wrap up her half eaten food. This is charity, I consoled myself that I will be rewarded in the hereafter for this.

Yesterday, a girl I have been flirting with over the internet agreed to meet me after promising her Biriani for lunch. We knew each other since we were both in the same computer college. But the busy life after that made it hard for us to meet except over the internet. The itinerary was;- Meeting at Mombasa beach at eleven in the morning, stroll on the beach, talk, maybe swimming a little then head to a restaurant for the biriani.

She arrived two hours late. I had already grown impatient and thought it was a prank. I was relieved to see her arriving alone, thought a chaperon would accompany her. She had grown more beautiful since the last time I saw her. Killer eyes, sunshine smile and the extra meat on her hips showcased her sexy nature. We strolled on the low tide waters for an hour catching up on life and friends. We saw tadpoles, sea urchins and crabs on the little sea ponds. We asked about a glass boat cruise and were told it costs a thousand and two hundred for two hours. Then her phone rang. Her friend, who was also my friend because she was with us in college spotted us at the beach. I asked myself what kind of a coincidence is this? Who comes to the beach on a Monday noon? We went to meet her and after a few minutes she rested on a shade giving us a chance to continue walking on the beach and privacy.

We sat three hundred meters away on a low coral rock where there were no passers by, and I started pouring my heart out. Time was against me. I told her of how I have liked her for a long time and this was the time to start a relationship and take it further. She kept smiling shyly. Then she told me that I'm not her type. She told me she has a boyfriend in Nairobi who was a Mechanical engineer. He gives her everything, and that's why she has an inflated cute figure. I stepped up the sweet talking but she kept rising up and leaving our hideout while I'm in the middle of sentences. This frustrated me, but I maintained my cool. I listened while she blew her trumpet. She asked me to look at her very well, “what class do you think I am? I have my businesses and don't depend on anyone. I have been very busy that's why it has been hard to get a date with you. Tomorrow I'm going with my cousins to a beach hotel in South coast. Day after that I have an appointment with a rich friend in Watamu. I'm supposed to fly to Nairobi on new year's eve to meet my boyfriend. My kind of men are those that send my heart thumping fast against my ribs, they are breathtakingly handsome.” her eyes rolled teasingly while she said this. What was she doing with me if she was in a happy relationship? I asked myself. She has forgotten that the reason she gave out for being late was that it rained in her muddy neighborhood of Mishomoroni, and there were streams which she had to wait for them to dry so as to come. She also didn't know I knew exactly where she worked and how much she earned.

On her last stunt of standing, she asked me to follow her to where our friend was resting. She then inquired about the lunch, saying that now she wants pizza and not biriani. I pleaded with her that I wasn't finished yet with our conversation but she proceeded. I thought she was joking but after five minutes when I stood up to check on her, she was a good two hundred meters away heading to the direction of our friend.

I decided to take the opposite direction. It was around three kilometers to Nyali beach along the coastline but I was determined to give her a rude surprise. I switched off my phone and headed southwards slowly. As I was walking away, I remembered the biriani promise and I couldn't help laugh hysterically to myself like a mad man. Poor her. I refuse to be used again by girls into giving out free meals. She didn't get the glass boat ride which we talked about, she didn't get the biriani, and she didn't get her transport back home which she claimed to be five thousand shillings. I thought of when I'll turn my phone back on and I had a perfect story to text her;- You wont believe it my dear. after you left I decided to take a brief swim. Ten minutes in the waters and a sea urchin pierced my foot. It was so painful that I lost my balance and was throwing hands confusedly. Two white men came to my rescue. I was carried inside the Bahari beach hotel to have a rest, where they also gave me some painkillers. The hotel owner felt pity for me and he ordered his driver to take me back home. I just realized my phone went off but we are now aboard a ferry in Likoni. End of story.

It's a wide agriculture's world

Taking a look at what man needs most in his life, we note air to breathe, shelter to live, clothes to cover our dignity and food and water to fuel our living.

Breathing is free. We can decide to live on a tree or on a street for many years. Clothes, one can take those thrown in a dumpster and survive. But with food and water, very essential to our living. Whether one is rich or poor, we cannot avoid eating.

Agriculture is the industry that we have made responsible for our eating. In the olden days, food distribution was simple. A few family members did the farming. They brought food and everyone in the village ate. We now live in bigger complex societies. Many want to live in cities and be able to buy food. Leaving the responsibility of food production to very few.

In one way its a blessing. In another, a curse. Technology has enabled a single farmer with few staff and machinery to produce food for a hundred thousand people or even more. Its a blessing because new industries have been created, Farming machinery, road building and transport industry, food preservation science, among others. Its a curse because a balance between farming which is the most important source of human fueling has been compromised. People have over flocked towns making a bigger percentage of them jobless. The value of food production has been diminished. Many would rather study law and engineering because it earns you more respect and money than agriculture. A computer software might cost more than a bag of rice.

The rate of joblessness in cities is high. People go days without food. Some turn to being thieves. And even those with jobs find even food to be expensive because of low wages. Where have we gone wrong in our society?

Since we need food first and foremost before anything, we need to decrease the burden of nation feeding to a few. More people should return back to farming to the point of one farmer producing food for a hundred people instead of one farmer for a hundred thousand eaters. Secondly, other professions have been highly overrated. Doctors, engineers and politicians need not earn so much that what they make in a month can buy food for ten years. This abnormal disparity has been greatly aided by the introduction of paper money. Somebody produces a song to entertain people and he takes equivalent to an eighth of what the high scale farmer produces in that season.

What if paper/money could rot as easily as an orange? The reality is, Human beings can live without architecture. Our great grandfathers did not have bridges and fast transport. Homo-erectus had no televisions. Whatever technology has brought us cannot be as much important as food. We would perish soon if we had fast jets, computers and state of the art medical engineering equipment if food stops growing. Yet politicians or community valuers have set the price of Entertainment and civil engineering higher and out of balance from agriculture.

Communities a hundred years ago survived happily and harmoniously with ten members doing the farming for the hundred. Twenty of them being in charge of security. A few house builders and repair. Women doing domestic work. Elders educating the community. Children and the physically or mentally unable getting free services from the community. There was balance and there was no profession that was more important than another.

The price of agricultural products should be low because everyone needs it, and so should be the price of technology because we need it far much lesser than food.

Mean wages

We live in a society where it is perceived that we need jobs more than the jobs needs us. We put up with every displeasure and sacrifice a lot more just because we fear losing the job. One of the most common problem facing workers, especially in third world countries, is Salary.

Employers argue that it is their investment, their money that runs the business. Hence the right to pocket a big chunk of the profit. Employees did not help in any way to start and run the business, and the risk is on the investor since no employer will take a pinch of the loss when the company goes down.

Another reason is that operating costs are high, electricity, transport, high taxes you can name them all.

Often, a boss tells an employee to quit and he will get a replacement even before he steps his foot out of the office. And its true, there are thousands who are willing to take your job even though the wages are unfair. Almost the entire urban population has to buy food, clothes and even rent a place to sleep. Who will come to employees' rescue when the employer acts judge?

Truth of the matter, No business will put a price tag on it's products or services that are lower than the operation cost. When transport costs rise or government raises tax, they raise their prices too. Failure to do that, the business falls. Using that as a reason to pay low wages is just a mean excuse.

People spend a better part of their days at work. Its not a favor, they are helping you while you help them. Its an employer-employee business. As much as it is not fair to be given a share of the profit since they are not investors, they still deserve a pay that will afford them a decent housing, food, transport and some money remaining as savings without having to sacrifice their basic needs. Let employers include decent salaries as part of their operational costs and not something they can reduce to give them an edge in competition.

You might find out that after all the operational costs and taxes, a businessman remains with a profit of a fifty million. The business has a hundred workers earning ten thousand each which is below the average decent salary of thirty thousand. Increasing twenty thousand to salaries of these a hundred employees costs two million. Cutting two million to the net profit of the businessman will remain him with forty eight million. Yet, this humane step is a very bitter one for most employers to make.

Rescue comes from policy. Good salaries enables employees to employ others and pay them well in some of home jobs that come up. It also enables employees to have a culture of shopping. This supports other businesses and economy of a country grows. Law makers should make it a law that employees are not exploited. And judges should show no mercy to parasitic employers. They should be forced to pay good salaries to employees. Pay fair salaries or stop your business.

Apology denied!

The phrase “it will never happen again” has become more likable as an apology than “I'm sorry” nowadays. Both have the same purpose, apologizing after you wronged someone. Because the wrong one really doesn't want it done to him again.

A person wronged usually hurts inside, it could be a little hurt or big. But the fact that they don't like what you did to them is a proof that their hearts shrunk a bit. Since they care about you, through friendship or family ties or whatever reason, they are willing to forgive so that they don't loose their special relationship with you. But we must understand that its care and love that makes them want to forgive. They don't want to feel you are taking them for granted or disrespecting them. That's why they expect a good apology from you.

If its something simple, one can say “I'm sorry” and life goes on. The relationship goes on. But if it comes out that you didn't mean the apology, then the person wronged doesn't feel good. He feels wronged and fooled.

How do we know the person doesn't mean his/her apology? First, its in the manner in which its said. I'm sorry can be felt in the voice or seen on the face of the apologizing party while saying it, that they truly are sorry. Secondly, the mistaken part must believe that what they did was wrong. A person says “I'm sorry” and later returns to defend his action means that they don't believe they are mistaken or wronged you in the first place. it means the apology was Hippocratic. Thirdly, its when they keep repeating doing the same wrong to you. If they were really sorry, they wouldn't want to cause you the same harm they did before. They would have been careful and worked hard not to, to prove they care about your feelings.

Some people hide under the umbrella of “I'm just human, I make mistakes.” We are humans, that's true. And we do make mistakes. But there are accidental mistakes and intentional mistakes. A friend might be angry at some point and slap his friend hard, it happens. But usually, these are things we can control. We can decide not to slap another person. We can decide not to insult a friend. However, a caring person can forgive these intentional wrongs, but never when repeated again and again.

Others take the defense of “Take me as who I am.” Accepting people as who they are only means in the natural things that they cant change. If a person is short or tall, you cant ask them to adjust their height as a prerequisite to becoming your friend. If a friend is not strong then that's it. If they aren't good in Maths that's it, if they have a bad history, that's it, you cant change it. But angering people we are close to by constantly doing them wrong is not rubber-stamped as human nature. Only those who want to continue hurting others will take this defense. Such people feel unfairly treated when we let them meet the consequences to make them feel the hurt we feel. Anyway, hurting others is not natural and human. We can adjust this. If we care enough, we can change.

People talk of patience and willingness to forgive over and over again closing their eyes on the fact that patience has limits. Must the patient friend accept that you will repeat slapping him once every month and keep forgiving you? That's insane. How about a more sane solution to this? The reasonable solution is for the slapping person to stop it. This is just an example. The solution to our interpersonal frictions is for the mistaking person to admit his mistake, apologize and to not repeat. We can't say the solution to this is for the other party to keep forgiving. The problem will not have  solved since one party is dissatisfied and keeps hurting. Compromises do not exist in such situations, The wrong must stop.

There is no morally acceptable reason that allows one to continually wrong another, and enjoins the other to keep forgiving.

Living in a society

Since we were not the first man, we were born to find this world already inhabited. Be it in civilized big cities or small desert villages. A baby born and thrown away will eventually die if he or she is not rescued by a society that brings him/her up.

As an adult, one might decide to live alone. An isolated house far away from villages with his little agriculture and livestock. But even then, he would have to visit the village when he is very sick, a famine might knock on his door or he might need to buy something that will make a certain work easy in his isolated life. In his isolation, there must be discipline to maintain his chosen way of life. Taking care of his livestock, house and prepare for mild natural disasters that might come his way.

The isolation, is a way of finding peace, escaping rules and taking refuge from the inconveniences of unjust society. Living in a society means bumping shoulders. But rules are everywhere. They are in the discipline you keep to maintain your isolated life, and they are what you find already existing in the big or small village you find yourself in.

There are societies that have groups of leaders, others one. But all are almost the same in terms of working to the maintain the society. Developed states have got democracies, monarchies, communist systems that govern the society. You might be the one having the highest power on the society, or you could be a commoner. Your responsibility in the society is to live responsibly. If the leadership is cruel, or the society is backwards, work to help change the situation for better. If the society is good and fair, help to maintain the law that you believe in.

Families, are small governments. They only consist of the father, mother, brothers and sisters but the workings of it if seen under a magnifying glass, a close similitude can be seen. This is where it starts, we must be fair in the roots for the leaves on top to be beautifully green. We must have solid families to have a solid society, its the backbone.

Survival of a society depends so much on how it maintains itself and how it relates to other societies. Escaping the society by suicide cannot be a solution. Some immigrate to other societies that they think they can live happily in. Ignoring the politics and being passive even if they are ugly doesn't help either because whether you like it of not you are subject of the governing power. You must find a way to survive in the society as well as create ideas to develop it. Either by rising to power or convincing fellow villagers and countrymen. If you cannot, don't undermine those who do. If you cannot act, at least pass the good thought to your child. A hero might be a few generations away.

Others spur fighting back evil power and are called revolutionaries. Some use wisdom and after a period of patience, fruits of life are realized in the society.