ONE YEAR OF 'BACK HOME'

Haiya,it's been a year already.

What has got better

• Closeness to family and hooking up with old friends. Going home more frequently
• I have a job that I love
• Cheap organic food
• Nice people, (in Uganda at least), generally
• New friends,new language (that's very similar to Gikuyu and Kiswahili)
• No winter, leaving and returning home when it’s dark outside
• Low bills. $10/month for electricity and $5/month for water. Now am not paying for water
• The profit potential
• And then some

What has got worse
• Death. Lost 2 relatives this year, the Mungiki massacre. Have also been to two funerals with work colleagues, and other colleagues have lost people and I haven’t been able to go. At least two meetings have been cancelled because someone has died and there is okuziika. The frequency has made me a bit of a worrier.I hope to live long, seems planning is not enough. An idea comes to mind. Creative people are making making a living out of the death industry. It's sure, and it's recession-proof.
• Blackouts, H2O rationing in Nairobi
• Traffic. In Kampala, Boda Bodas don’t help with that
• Bad customer service, if existent. Not being able to return stuff once I’ve paid for it
• The poverty that I see, or the manifestation of it

What I miss
• My friends and ‘family’, those who saw me in my good and bad times
• Good customer service. Being entitled as opposed to being treated like someone’s doing you a favour when you give them business
• Reliable power, water, things generally working efficiently. You know when the train comes
• People who take responsibility when they screw things up
• Open-mindedness, even at church. Now you know I didn’t commit to the fundamentalist world view
• Springtime and Summertime, my mind and moods popping up with the flowers, the sun setting late

What has changed
• I’ve blogged more. This is my 21st post this year. I did 17 in 2008, 1 in 2007.
• I am no longer dating ‘Chorge’. He is a great guy, I enjoyed his sense of humour (“you know in Kisii we can never go jogging in the mornings or evenings, especially if it’s (still) dark. Someone may think we are night runners and we end up getting lynched”), and a perfect body. Won’t delve into the details of my current state of affairs. Stay tuned
• I am more assertive, and that can be a bad thing sometimes. I am working on being nice about it
• I’m no longer deeply religious and don’t want to be. I’m a Christian, yes and I’m working on getting my relationship with God back on track. Guess who had moved?

Sad

I passed up a chance to show love last Christmas. They made an attempt but I was cold and distant. Now they are gone. I feel horrible.
My father was not a good father/husband, but he is definitely a good person. And my mum? She is the truest reflection of God in my world.I am older than my brother and sister, but clearly, they are way wiser than me. I wonder if it comes with marriage and/or parenthood? My uncle was telling me last night that people get wiser as they get older, but clearly that hasn't applied to me, at least compared with my siblings.

RIP G. I pray you understand. And I promise to be different with the rest of us.

Facebooking

Over at kwa Wambui, I was reading a post she has on Kenyans and Facebook. nteresting.

I felt like the oldest person on Facebook when I signed up in the fall of 2005. At least that's what it seemed like back then. The dude who introduced me to the site was 23 (I was 27) and everyone else seemed to either be an undergraduate student, or graduated from college the previous year. That was then. Not any more.People older than my parents are on there. Even organizations as big as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, just to mention one.

It's nice reconnecting on facebook with people you haven't met in the 10+ years since seco, get to know who married who, has kids (the wildest gal in our class is a mother and no one seems to believe it), who switched religions,etc. And meet new ones. I once met a a jamaa that I had an immense crush on through a conference that I only knew about because of facebook. (And dated another one that I met on graduates.com......am I weird or what?)

One of the biggest inhibitions I find when using Facebook is that I use my real-life names and pictures, so it's not like I can blurt out something like "I want my boss's job!". That may not be professionally savvy especially since some of my collegues, local and regional, are also my facebook friends. I remember posting an update about (possibly, back then) losing my religion and getting feedback from some unexpected corners. I wish I could choose who sees my status updates!

But here are some of my 'rules' on facebook:

1. I'm probably never putting my relationship status on there. I started with 'It's complicated' (and it was in real life, then) and stuck to it for a year or so. In real life things may be getting less complicated now. But still, were I to update my relationship status every time it changed in the past 4 years, I could have been 'in a relationhip', 'single' and 'it's complicated' for---never mind how many times. I don't want to have to explain each time.

2. I try to not live on face-book, though it's tempting enough. I feel like there are people out there who do. Like: I'm now feeding my cat, I'm riding my bike, I'm making chapati, I'm in a matatu, just killed a mosquito with my bare hands, going to see grandmother, going to take a shower. You get the feeling their virtual lives are more interesting than their real lives- do I make sense? But well, there are pictures to prove that's not the case...still, I don't want my whole life on facebook!

3. I try to not bring my 'issues' on facebook. With some friends, you know they are having baby-daddy drama by what they post kila siku. Man-hating,the philosophical statements, the works.

4. I try to project a positive and balanced view and attitude. Fake, it may be, but well, it's like interacting with real people. You don't want to have a long face when interacting with your friends in real life simply because you're having a bad day either. Again, there are people who party on facebook all the time or go to church all the time. You can almost 'know' someone from what their status updates.I know I've formed opinions on people based on them.

5. I've never been facebook friends with people I've dated, my siblings or half-siblings. Not even sure the last two categories are on there. I don't think I'd be with my parents if they were technologically savvy either-they are sooo not.

6. I don't want to get automated emails each time a friend updates their status or changes their relationship status. That clogs my inbox which I can hardly keepo up with. Neither do I want my friends receiving such emails. Or notifications.

7. I delete wall posts and comments on my profile that I don't like-because I like having a wall and want people to comment but don't want people bringing issues that I have decidedly left out of my profile.

Do you have facebook rules?

I got this link from Wambui's comment section: Here's to managing your online life once your're dead. From there, went on to realize why your facebook relationship status is complicated. Oh, and try using facebook in Kiswahili, as Cee asked on my previous post. Utapenda. Not sure why 'Grad School' remains 'Grad School' in the Kiswahili language setting. I suggest 'Chuo Kikuu Zaidi'.

Connecting People in Kiswahili

I got one new K-series phone on Saturday. A friend calls the cheap phones the K-series because almost every network has a ka- before the name they christen the cheapie. There is the Kabiriti from MTN (some ZTE-made phone) ka-tikitiki or something from UTL, and my new ka-tochi (some Nokia so called juu iko na torch).

I was trying to do away with their suggested spellings when typing out SMSs but couldn’t figure out how in a short time. I thought choosing Kiswahili as my language may be a good way to get rid of the suggestions. Not really, but I’m more surprised by how much more Kiswahili the programmers know that I don’t. Stuff like Kihesabu Ujumbe (bado sijajua nini hii), Rajisi ya Simu (call log), kikokotoo (must be calculator from the picture) mifumo, mipangilio ya kitufe cha kucha....kulia, safisha (clear) na kadhalika. Kwa sasa, nataka kurejesha mpangilio wa kiwandani for a while but alama ya siri ina makosa.

Meanwhile, from Kahenya, ati this is what an Equity Bank ATM reads in Gikuyu.

I dig LKW

Just discovered Tart and Soul. Clearly, she has guts to say stuff that I can't say on here. Loving it.

To Invest or Not to Invest All?

I've been thinking of putting some or all of my money in Uganda. Unfortunately, the political risk may be quite high though UG has been generally stable over the past 23 years of Museveni, if you ignore the northern region (which most people have, IMO).

The fact that there is an election in 2011 puts everything in a different perspective. There's already some talk of some tribes being at risk , and possible violence during the elections. Land, too is an issue. Call me pessimistic, but I can't ignore what happened in Zimbabwe, Kenya and xenophobic South Africa. I've to imagine the worst case scenario, even as I plan and hope for the best outcome. Yesterday, the Vice President's team survived a mob while trying to evict people from some land

I'm not about to close my 401 (K) account-not that I've that much saved, anyway- and invest it all here. Portions of my salary, maybe.

NEW AGE RESOLUTION

I’m now solidly in my thirties-wah, 31, na hizo miaka zinasonga! The b/day was jana but I didn’t have a chance to celebrate properly-too much going on. But will have a make up in the coming weeks.

I fulfilled one of my goals just one day to the birthday.
One of my lesser goals for rest of the year is to be tidier-neat desk, no clothes on the floor, and no asking myself everyday “Now, what am I wearing today?” because I can’t find anything that doesn’t need ironing.

And dude, thanks for that MP3 player. Really helpful on a 12-hour bus ride, especially when the herbalist is selling concoctions that can cure everything.