kikuism – Page 13 – Kikuyumoja

topsyturvication

Sorry, but I just HAVE to publish this comment someone left on the contacts form on my “about” page:

“This is the first time that I’ve checked out your blog and i swear I have often dismissed your blog because all along I’ve been thinking that this must be one of those tribal blogs. Ignorance has costed me because I think your sketchbook is ok. But honestly you sound like a kiuk……”

To be honest, I think I would do the same if someone comes and calls himself Bavarian1 or HamburgerEins. Kikuyumoja® – such a dumb name if you see it under a Kenyan context, but I’ll to stick to it nevertheless (not necessarily in Kenya though – yani, for you gals ‘n’ guys, I am just JKE which is btw an abbreviation of my name :-)
(topsyturvication…what a word! LOL)

the traffic act (cap. 403, section 34)

What’s the rule of the road?

==> KEEP LEFT!

Or: there’s no better sound than the irregular rattling of the valve lifters in my VW’s 1600cc motor.
Talking of cars, Ntwiga’s comment reminded me of blogging this story on how I obtained my driving licence back in those days with Rocky Driving School in Moi Avenue, Nairobi, Kenya, while pointing to this interesting BBC article.

my kenyan driving licence

Just a few days after turning 18, I figured I’d eventually need my own driving licence – a piece of paper that every young teenager with driving ambitions wants to have. For those who could afford the procedure, Nairobi offered a few driving schools, such as Rockys on Moi Avenue. Whereas some ppl prefered Glory Driving School due to their well known connections to Nyayo House (read: you pay extra and get the paper without going for the test), I prefered Rockys. Geeeh, I was so serious about this and of course: no kitu kidogo or whatsoever. Also, my friends in Germany paid something like 1000,- EUR each for the whole course – so I knew about the advantages of doing this in Kenya. But beware, you MAY think that you can drive because someone has allowed you to drive the car before (~ Learners Licence) – but that doesn’t also mean that you know how to drive the instructor’s way.

The instructor for the practical part came in form of a very very very short guy, who had problems looking like an adult in the seat of this Datsun 1200cc pick-up. That is, most of the time he would lean his left arm out of the window and take a regular spit on the streets. Hhrrrrrrrrr…..schhhh…tzz….ppfff….., every junction needed to be marked with his spittle.
Then, one day while driving through Eastleigh, I was supposed to stop at a junction. Why?, I said, why do I need to stop here? – Ati, there’s a stop sign. – Where? – Well, it is SUPPOSED to be there. It was stolen by someone some time ago.

Living la vida loca, the Nairobi way. Me I LOve NAIrobi, REgardless.

On another occasion, this driving instructor taught me how to start the car on a steep hill and thus ruining the clutch and handbrake. The Homo Faber part in me suggests that such starts are killing any car in the long run, but hey, we’re talking about Rocky’s 1200cc pick-up here. So why worry? I did worry, though. I showed him my method of doing this and while we both agreed that his is the better way of starting a car from the spot on a hill, he insisted on telling me his official method, because: “we are trained to do it this way”. (which reminds me of this older woman while doing my apprenticeship who told me “We learnt to press the “OK” button whenever the computer system asks for it”….=> format c:\? OK? YES! – go figure).
Sadly, I sometimes hear stories of ppl being confronted by nasty driving instructors. That’s so obnoxious. Ntwiga, I don’t know if this was the very same instructor, but I believe he was one of “that kind” (my driving instructor in Germany was even worse – he confronted me with racist “jokes”…).

The practical part being somewhat amusing, the theoretical part started to become the biggest comedy I’d ever come across. For those who don’t know the system: in Germany you have these multiple choice tests which are somehow hard to pass and you have to pay a lot of money for getting your own copies that will prepare you for the test. At Rockys, they have some ply wood with a roundabout scenery painted on it and you are given a toy car which you need to *drive” through that scenery while changing lanes and entering the roundabout. While there are stories that some cars are equipped with three wheeles only to fool people (“How can you drive a car with three wheels only?”), there is this particulaaaaaaarrrrr procedure of succesfully completing that test which starts with the 1st rule that you can’t enter the roundabout from any direction but only from one! Now YOU go and try to imagine what some ppl do when they are told for 20 minutes that one can ONLY enter the roundabout from one direction and are then given a toy car to show what they’ve just been told. Yup, you’re guesssing is correct. (…)
Sooo… being the court jester, I couldn’t resist from adding further funstuff and brought this matchbox toy car with me:

a Majorette toy car limo

Who has the right of way? The Presidential Escort, of course!

Hehe…Now you guys show me how the PE goes round the roundabout. Everyone laughs. Haiiiaaaa….you know this typical behaviour when they start laughing once they don’t know the answer. But true, taking the Limo for a ride on this toy scenery just added the extra spice to this comedy. Btw, I left it with them.

The actual test at the HQ of Traffic Police was awesome. While sitting in the waiting room, a traffic police officer entered the room and announced the details of the prociiidjah (procedure). After mentioning all those important details like “you’ll need this, you’ll need that”, he closed his speech with an army styled “DID I MAKE MYSELF CLEAAAARRR?!”. – Yessaaa.
Who knows what kind of customers he normally deals with.
Once they pulled me in for the test, they asked me the usual questions like “take the car and move it from here to there”. Here’s what you’re supposed to do:

“model town”

Oh, I was so nervous, but I passed. Fortunately. Next thing – of course: “Wewe, you wait until we call you”. – Yessaaa!
After about an hour of waiting, they asked me to take the drivers seat in another Datsun 1200cc. I was SO nervous and confused that I’d forgotten about adjusting the rear view mirror. The lady who had been driving before was about half of my size and so while looking in the mirror, I saw nothing but the loading area of the pickup. Haiiiaaa. Well, I realized that AFTER starting the car but tried to hide this from the traffic police officer. That guy in fact was very nice and cool. I asked him about putting on seat belts and he told me straight away: forget about the belts.
Later on I read in my “motor driving book” that it is considered an official procedure to “forget about the mirrors”. Whatever.
The man ordered me to drive from roundabout A to roundabout B on Thika Road and after returning home, he just said: okay.

Ati, ok? Hey, listen, I don’t want to sound like one of those impatient gals, but this is my driving test, dude. How about: congratulations, you’ve passed!… Nooo. He just mumbled: ok.
A few weeks later on I managed to exchange the interim certificate into this red booklet and once I arrived in Germany, I had to pay an extra amount of ~ 100,- EUR to get this thing transcribed into a german version. Mind you, I had to re-do the test, but imagine this: I drove to the test in my car using my kenyan driving licence, took the test, passed it, and drove away with my german licence.

The bottom line to all this? Well, I might be driving like my grandma these days, you know – slow and always using the indicator – but deep inside my drivers heart, I still share this I-will-survive-the-roads-of-Nairobi-spirit. And the advantage: I know where to get my spare part deals ;-)

sense of delight

Who designed the old KBL/Tusker logo? How illuminated are Nairobi’s streets nowadays with those adopt-a-light lamps? How much does a Coke cost nowadays? What isn’t availaboool @ Nakumatt? What’s the normal fare for taking No. 23 from Kangemi to City Centre? What’s the ecoscan situation in Kenya? In which state are those sewage treatment plants? What are Bertiers, Katarikawa, Kangethe, Maube, Oswaggo and other (older) artists doing these days? What are my friends doing? What do they look like now? ~~How much is 1minute of internet access in a cybercafé?~~ How fast is the average ADSLine in Nairobi? What does the average mobile phone in Kenya look like – will it have a WAP browser or just simple sms functions? Any new joints/kantini I need to discover in NBO? How much money will I need to survive one day in our expensive Nairobi? Will there be any thugs trying to steal my beloved mobile? Will I be aboooool to eventually obtain this novice licence from ARSK for my 5Z4 call sign? What, where, when, who….

These and other questions will hopefully be answered soon, especially since I booked my flight to Kenya. May 9th until 31st, 3 weeks in May that will hopefully secure me an interesting placement/internship for my final (diploma) thesis. YEAH! :-)

the blue pullover

I’ve always wanted to buy one of those blue RAF / army pullovers for their heavy duty qualities and timeless style:

I wonder, though, what the people on the streets of a city like Nairobi would think when you wear this kind of stuff which is normally seen on policemen only…says Irena: “..hopefully the Kenya Mwananchi will not mistake you for an Armenian Mercernary.You might walk in River Road and a malicious Kenya shouts “Huyo Mercernary, shika yeye” ha ha !! and you know how us Kenyans love public lynching!!”

I might add some bling bling for that matter to make it look more realistic. ^^

Talking of mentalities in Kenya, I had an interesting conversation with a Professor of mine earlier this week, and she told me of her own Kenyan experience. You know, the part she remembered the most is the warmth and hospitality with which she was received in Kenya during her professional stay (conference on water probs). The point is that Kenyans in Germany (at least) are generally not received with such warmth and friendliness. Ama? I often feel that the biggest thing missing in Germany is an understanding for social behaviour and the awareness for doing the first step in getting to know foreigners. Don’t get me wrong, my fellow Germans do have this warmth as well, it only takes some time for them to open up as such qualities aren’t thought in school or society in general.
There’s this embarassing scene I remember like 11 years ago when the Queen of England visited Germany and our former chancellor Helmut Kohl sat there in a restaurant next to her and kept quiet because he wasn’t advised on how to have an easy conversation with her. I felt very embarassed while watching this on tv…

Asiyefunzwa na mamaye, hufunzwa na ulimwengu.

the business card issue

Kenya, the land of adventurous wildlife safaris, endless beaches; the land of tea and coffee; the land of successful athletes; the land of different cultures and people…. and the land of business cards.
A country, where influential ppl are abooolll to pull of a deal that has some US$ 200 millions sidelined from public funds whereas fishermen in Western Kenya are forced to use mosquito nets to catch fish (!) is still the country I love the most. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know, it’s just a feeling inside – and it sure isn’t only due to myself being this Mzungu from Europe who has misty-eyes for the reality in Kenya.
The reality being that Kenya is a country with a HUGE potential, an assiduous group of well-educated young ppl that are ready to take over responsibility and make Kenya popular to an extent beyond to the already known “products” such as the tourism industry, gold medallists and cash crops. The reality where we see a lot of ppl dying from diseases that could be cured in other places of the World, hunger epidemics due to the lack of reliable crops, the lack of decent water supplies and proper sanitation despite of the fact that Kenya is surrounded by enough water reservoirs, the reality where we see an upcoming middle-class with desires to make proper use of a working infrastructure (communication networks, roads, water pipes, etc), the reality where we see this apparently huge gap between city ppl and their upcountry- shaggz – folks who are a bit behind the city attire, the Nairobi style, the sheng culture and the hip hop tunes emerging from Dandora’s Ghettos. The reality where we see a lot of young Kenyans taking up different chances outside the country (as M mentioned earlier) just for the simple fact that – contrary to Kenya – opportunities open up and in today’s world it is important to survive and to stick to any opportunity that opens up.
Globalization, be it Germany or Kenya, you have to be good in whatever you do (or better & faster than the competition), and where being good alone doesn’t change anything, you’ll need connections, a reliable network of business contacts, something or somebody that will help you get a decent job/deal/position/etc.
As much as I hate this constellation, and seeing that a lot of really qualified ppl don’t get their chances just because the job market doesn’t provide as many slots as there’s a need for, I will need to prepare for this challenge as well.

“Oh yes, you know me I have lunch with this and that person…I know him very well” – aterere…that’s not my style. I know a lot of ppl are like that and they’ll often use any chances to underline the important contacts they have. Who? You mean I just call them and they’ll type a letter of recommendation for me that will open up doors at this and that Ministry or important office? ….“Oh, you’re working for this NGO? Ati, from Germaaaan(y)? Haiiiaaa, I know this man from Europe – in fact there’s this mzungu I know, wait, what’s his name again? Muller? …oh, you know, we did some business with him some time ago. Yes, we good contacts with him”. etc. etc. etc. *yawn*
The bottom line is that there are a lot of informal networks, and those networks aren’t closed to any Lions or Rotary Club networks or limited to a membership for Windsor or Karen Golf & Country Club.
What you need in a country like Kenya (and a lot of other places around the world) are credentials, a good reputation, publicity or money – the later commonly reffered to as Bling Bling style.

As the alleged Armenian ndugus have already shown, the Bling Bling method is SO 1980s Kashoggi styled. Ati, no Kenyan buys that story and – frankly said – it just sucks. If you have money – and some ppl think you’re rich because you have this light coloured skin (*/wtf?!) – you keep it to yourself or at least try to hide from public. Showing off is just so new-rich, so horribly ungentleman-alike. Understatement is what we’re looking for.

Which brings us to method numba mbili, the business card approach.
I have this well known “friend” in Nairobi, a buddy a lot of ppl in Nbo know. He is this (muhindi) guy who used to have a female American friend speak on his answering machine to make it look like he could afford his own secretary. But beware, not just a secretary, but this mzungu one. You know, the foreigner bonus, which makes him a bit more “special”. In fact, he is the very same guy who bought an ETACS mobile phone back in 1995 which was of course offline because back in those days, the mobile phone network was limited to 2000 users only and all he needed was to have this phone on his belt so he could “look important”. As I said, he knew a lot of ppl and had perfected the small talk business.

Naturally, he had his OWN business card. Well, business? What for? The business of sweet talking? WHO CARES! He had already perfected the most important thing with business without any further theoretical studies: marketing. Or in his case: personal marketing. YES! A business card, my dear readers, a business card is that little piece of paper you’re handing out to the person you’re talking to, and in his case – of course – it wasn’t just a normal business card (bc). Whereas some companies maintain their boring logo and corporate identity even on the bcs their giving out to their employees, his card was GOLDEN. Yes, you read that right. A white bc with big golden letters, a fancy name and the V.I.P. look. Here comes Mr. Important….

So the point is that he knew how to sort of impress his ppl – and the next bc I saw when I met him again a few years later was much more serious because he had in fact opened up his own import biashara which required a more serious approach. However, still, the first thing I was given was his BC. Alafu: I’ll also need a business card.

Now, since I dropped my well-paid job(s) some years ago and went back to university where I am just an ordinary student of water and soil management, I of course have NO company or corporate identity to portray or show off on my business card. Hence the need for something special, something that will make me look unique and impress ppl. I thought of this:

What do you think? ;-)

P.S.: yes, that’s a mobile fax gadgetimoja of course, what did you expect?!
P.P.S.: maybe I should rename my company from Kikuyumoja Inc. into “Gaaman Rrrreasing Ltd.” due to better marketing chances…

an indecent proposal?

Contrary to what you might think, the following question isn’t a delayed april fools joke but instead my very own sunday morning i’ll-need-to-find-a-solution- to-that-car-problem- issue-in-Nairobi brainstorming attempt to figure out how I’ll get decent transport for myself in terms of having the convenience of driving my own car.

My own car? My car is a 1989 VW Golf II I’ve mentioned earlier here and here, and I tell you: BEFORE I sell this beloved gari to any strange Belarussian car dealer for something like EUR 100,- who then sells it to a fat man sitting on his car empire within a free port somewhere in Ghana, West Africa I am way much better off taking my car to Kenya and driving it there till it falls (even more) apart.

Having said that, what about the route?

Would it be possible to drive a car from here to Nairobi? I know it has been done before, so why shouldn’t I do the same? Not necessarily with my current car, maybe an older Mercedes with A/C etc that sells for something like EUR 500,- ….Mzeecedric, any idea? Ati, I know you’re laughing on this, but hey, it’s an adventurous idea, ama?
(Mbuzimoja, we’ll do this in August, yes? Just say yes, eh? :-)

How to reactivate your 2,5″ HDD

I have this broken 6GB 2,5″ hard disk drive (HDD) I recently removed from an old notebook. The notebook is fine, but this HDD just refused to work. It requires some a) sweet talking, b)prayers or c) external pressure to get this thing going again. After all, all I want is to retrieve the data from this HDD.
Having said that, options a) and b) didn’t bring the required change, so I had to apply option c): external pressure.

Here’s what you’ll need to open a 2,5″ HDD: a TORX #6 screwdriver, a multitool / pliers to remove the small nut which is right below the sticker on the front cover (that brownish thing on the HDD plates is the reflection of my finger :-)

Now, what’s pressure? Think of powaaafullll women awaiting ~~the press~~ their husbands with a rolling pin or even a frying pan and you get the picture. In terms of electrical devices, this pressure relates to a an extra ordinary high voltage. Whereas this small 2,5″ HDD normally requires a low voltage of only 5 Volts (n.b.: USB port provides this voltage @ 500mA), I took the convenience of using the ~220 Voltage provided directly from the socket (as you can see from the picture, that voltage is even higher).

This is an IBM Travelstar DBCA-401060 HDD and it was quite easy to identify the necessary solder points on the printed circuit board (PCB) where I just needed to attach this high voltage. The IBM 1414PQ IC chip they’re using to control the stepping of the read head inside is said to be of low quality since it was made in Taiwan & China. That is, analog to any tumescent political differences between Taiwan and mainland China, the chip is said to be a direct result of having been designed in Taiwan and produced in China. Well, I don’t know if that’s the real explanation for the chip’s frequent failures (I read this on the internet, so it’s gotta be true in one way or another…you know, rumours and other viral marketing..), but the bottom-line is that the chip is used to high pressure and thus shouldn’t have any problems handling a slightly higher voltage of 220 V.

And yes, right after I’ve attached the isolated pins from the socket to the hdd’s PCB, the hard disk drive came back to life and started working again. I knew it, i knew it! My sometimes brute ways of repairing stuff the jua kali way eventually work out. Remember those mobile phone PCBs I had put in a heated oven due to the lack of a hot-air-soldering station? That was SUCH a ~~cool~~ hot way of re-attaching the small surface mounted devices (SMD) back to the PCB…

Mind you, a voltage of 220V is dangerous, so please only do this if you know what you’re doing!

AOB: ? Maxïmo Park “apply some pressure” ?

kikufundi

Am I a geek? A “multitool-pouch-geek” maybe ;-)

You see, I like carrying my Leatherman Wave around with me, and have ever since been looking for an alternative sheath / pouch / holster that could accomodate a bigger multitool, a small AAA maglite® as well as some extra tools, like the flat bit set which comes along with the Leatherman Wave series. This is what my collection of sheath looked like before – with the content that needs to fit in:

The downside with all of these sheaths is that they do not provide enough space for fitting all these items (Leatherman, torch, bit set) at the same time, and even if you manage to do so nevertheless (like that black leather sheath which is supposed to be big enough), the result is a baggy conglomerate of stuff on your belt – which makes you look like a nerd. I am not a nerd, I am a geek. Geeks are cool, good looking nerds. Hehe… :-)
The solution is to make your own sheath – like the one I’ve made a few months ago out of green canvas (from Kenya) and blue brocade. It being my first try on making sheaths, I didn’t make it strong enough and so it became rather baggy on the belt and didn’t have an inside pocket for the extra tools (despite looking good, but that’s just my taste on these things :-)

Now, since I wasn’t really happy with that interim solution, I figured I should check the market for a more prêt-? -porter sheath – like this Nitze Ize® Pock-Its holster:

This huge holster fits an AA maglite® as well as a Leatherman® multitool – nice, although ugly and btw wayyyyyy too big. I bought it nevertheless because I had different plans with it:

Yesterday evening, I just ripped it up and made a new sheath with an inner pocket for the bit holder:

And of course, this new pouch still looked too normal so I had to further modify it to fit into my very own Kikuism-world (I call it Kikuyumojawear® :-)

empty pouch (left) & filled with LM, torch & bit set (right)

(I’ll still need to work on that logo thing, though, as it’s still too jua kali styled :-)