kikuism – Page 14 – Kikuyumoja

Kikuyumoja Inc.

Someone asked me about this rather strange name “Kikuyumoja” today, and before I keep on explaining it over and over again, let me just blog this once and give out a few juicy details. I know, the first thing some of you out there do whenever you’re on a new blog is to click on the “about” link – which sometimes doesn’t reveal as much as you were prolly expecting. After all, blogs with a domain name (URL) are not as anonymous as all these blogger/wp/twoday services. Whatever. Here’s the story:

When I first went online in Oct 1996 with AOL, I was required to select my own so-called screenname. Back in those days when we were talking of Online Service Providers (OSP) instead of Internet Service Providers (ISP), AOL was one of the big players among Compuserve.
I hate AOL. Do they still exist? Anyways, what they did was forcing me into this screenname-selection-process and so I typed in my first name (“Juergen”).

Now, since there were about hundreds of other “Juergen1234” on AOL (I tend to imagine someone like Joe Dirt whenever I hear my name), I needed to type in something else. I then chose the first thing (name) that came to my mind: KAMAU.

Kamau Njoroge wa Ujerumani, to be precise. I know there’s this friend who goes by the name of Hamisi wa Tanzania. Hamisi probably is what Kamau is in Kenya or Müller, Meier, Schulze in Germany. My folks used to call me that way sometimes because I, a mzungu with a profound interest in anything Kenyan, apparently often behaved liked some Mr Kamau.

To me, life in Kenya is this terrific mixture of meeting ppl from different backgrounds. Be it those high-class people in politics you expect to see on the golf range or just ordinary chaps like you and me. And, before I digress even more, let me just mention how much I hate this system in many countries where you are virtually nothing unless you have a business card or some important title/credentials to show off. That’s so dumb and backwards. I don’t need that. People are so used to a certain frame and try to categorize you right after they’ve met you. They want what? Categorize me? Which part of me? I clearly needed a name that gives me the chance to hide in the masses or otherwise makes me unique. One where ppl wouldn’t ask further questions or maybe even divert this quest for credentials (~”how influential is he”) into a triggered curiosity to know more about me as a person, and not with whom I might have lunch.

In the end, it’s all about marketing yourself – right? How many ppl in Kenya are called Kamau? A million? There you have it…

The name “Kamau” was already given away to another user on AOL. Damn it. I had to think of something else. And the next word that came to my mind was “Kikuyu“. So I typed it in. Basi….woiii? Already someone with that screenname on AOL? wth?!?

…so I just added the third next word which was “moja“, thus making it

KIKUYUMOJA.

(The Agikuyu, ethnic group in Kenya; moja = 1 in Kiswahili => Kikuyu1, K1, etc.)

What a dumb name.

My Kenyan friends would surely ask me nasty questions. And the Germans? They would pronounce it like [Kiikuujuumohhhjaaaaah] – a long moooojaaaaahh. Like in this Rastafarian JAAAAH. Yeah….great.

I stuck to that name though, after I left AOL in December 1996 because I got used to it and then after some time I even registered my first domain name on it. And now, almost ten years after that, this story still makes me think: WTF?! :-))

That’s it! That’s how I got my name. Simple as that! Kikuyumoja.
It could be anything else. Luomoja? Juergenimoja? Mzungumoja? Wait, Mzungumoja – wacha, that’s you, Hash :-) Ama?

so jung kommen wir nicht mehr zusammen

sausages (€0,65) and feta cheese (€0,89) in filo dough (€0,75), covered with one liquid egg (~ € 0,08) = € 2,37
RIOJA, Paternina Banda Azul, Crianza 2001,
a gift from a good friend (thx Gün :-) = € 0,00
Kikoi from Kenya, used as a tablecloth
("never travel without YOUR kikoi" (JKE)) = ~ €8,-
music
Tocotronic "so jung kommen wir nicht mehr zusammen" = € 8,97
time to enjoy life with friends = priceless

a proposal…

Without any proper scientific proof at my hands right now, I would still like to focus your attention to an urgent problem that keeps on arising and needs to be tackled soon: Africa, I think, has become the landfill for the West. And East!

Remember China’s interest in various African countries? Not that they only exploit the continent of natural resources – in return the markets are flooded with cheap products that end up somewhere on a landfill. All these plastic items, be it useful buckets or just toys, eventually end up as rubbish and need to disposed of (one way products). Recycling is an option, yes, yet in most cases it’s a downcycling process (material quality deteriorates) and just a delay on its way to the landfill. In the end it’s still waste.
And of course it isn’t China only. I’ve just watched this youtube video of an NGO that helps schools in Uganda going online. Nice! However, to look at backgrounds – isn’t it that most of those computers are 2nd hand and thus disposed of to countries like Uganda?
Or Kenya: ever wondered why there are so many plastic bags flying around? People grew up with organic products, they were used to goat bones and maize/corncob that would eventually decompose over the years. And with those plastic bags and batteries? No one told them that those items are polluting the environment (ok, except for schools). And no one wants to be responsible. People applauded Dr. Wangari Maathai for winning the nobel peace prize but it seems they never really got the message – which I think is taking fate into your own hands and starting to change something without waiting for others. No wonder Kenyans are more into political discussions than in identifying leadership. Dito Germans, btw, and in many other countries. People, it seems to me, are more into living a pleasant life and securing their amenity values. Business and maximization of profits is valued these days – whereas commendable professions like teaching or serving jobs like in the civil service aren’t really honoured. But I digress…

waste on the streets in Nairobi, Kenya // instead of better waste management, wouldn’t it be better to avoid all this waste in the first place by using more intelligent products?

Please don’t get me wrong – capitalism per se isn’t that bad and mandatory for progress. Only, what we’ll need to have are sustainable, eco-effective products that won’t have any negative effect on the environment and that only become better the more we buy/consume/produce. And we’ll need to design them in such a way that we don’t need to depend on the intelligence of people/users.
E.g. if 9 out of 10 people care for the environment and only 1 of them continually ignores all product handling directions by let’s say throwing batteries into a river, all others have to suffer. And since there will ALWAYS be someone violating guidelines (we can not change anyones behaviour), we have to change the products themselves.

Look for solutions, not problems. (Dan Eldon)

I’m not the typical theoretician that tries to lament on problems, writes reports on various subjects and has many different IF/WHEN/THEN-solutions to a problem. What I want is action, and I want it soon.

To make a start, I would like to tell you about this product idea I may have been talking about before and which I choose to blog instead of keeping it in a drawer somewhere. Besides, some companies may already be thinking about it, so anyways, here you go:

While working on this sewage treatment plant some time ago, I came across a huge pile of Q-TIPS® (cotton swabs) in the sewage sludge. The cotton part of them would dissolve in the wastewater whereas the plastic stick in the middle would remain and end on the sludge landfill. Those plastic components also contributed to a lot of mechanical problems on the treatment plant by destroying various pumps and other intergrated machinery.
The first question that arises of course asks for the dumb users that throw cotton swabs (among other things) in their toilets. According to what I’ve encounterded a lot of people do that. Out of sight – out of their mind(s)?
Whatever. You can not change them.

What I CAN do, or try at least, is changing the products they are using. I thought of re-designing those Q-TIPS®/cotton swabs in such a way that the plastic stick will be substituted by a material that is made of (corn) starch, chitosan, plant fibres or other biomaterials. This biological material could then dissolve in the wastewater or decompose on the landfill after use and people could continue throwing their waste into the sewage system without harming the environment that much.

I think some companies are already doing r&d on these products and it will only be a matter of time until customers are informed enough to ask for more and more sustainable products. The different approach, though, is that this shouldn’t be only focused on those that can afford to buy “good” products – the African continent with it’s still traditional and comprehensible view of nature and biological cycles should play a leading role in these (not so new) new technologies and I think it’s about time for more and more companies to start focusing on this instead of just copying various technologies/industries from the West.

This might just be small idea for progress, but at least it’s a start, or? What do you think?

simumania, part 2

Talking about my cordless phone the other day – a friend of mine called me this morning from his almost broken cordless phone and, since I ‘ve been longing for a new phone for some months now, I came up with this idea to sell him my old cordless phone and buy a better one.
One with Calling Line Identification Presentation (CLIP) and a hands-free/speakerphone function. Everything else isn’t really required but nice to have…

So why would I blog on a normal cordless phone? Becooooos ~~I am showing off~~ there’s this special story that I’d almost forgotten until last Saturday when Mbuzimoja, her bro and me were strolling through Munich and came across one of those old Panasonic phones. You know, those huge white analogue ones with telescopic antennas that used to sell for ~9.000/= Kshs. back in those days (in the mid-90s).

Back in those days (~1988) when cordless phones came up in Europe, I always wanted to have one which, of course, I just couldn’t afford. Then, in 1992 or 1993, some local dealers in Nairobi had the first mobile phones for sale – most of them being those Panasonic ones with that huge telescopic antenna. One dealer, though, had this brand new Sanyo phone, operating at 46/49 MHz and the moment I saw it, I wanted to have it. Dearly. It took me half a year and selling some beloved items to eventually get my hands on this cordless phone.
Ndugu Mathias, remember how you used to laugh about this? Nairobi with its faulty telephone network – who really needed a cordless phone when most of the time, damage due to damp killed the line? Mimi! :-)

And nowadays, the market is overcrowded with digtial cordless phones with prices starting as low as 30,- EUR and Nairobians are meanwhile getting used to mobile phones (GSM). What’s next? A blackberry-styled network that will bring the internet to remote places such as Wajir? Stay tuned!

p.s.: the downside on this simu? Hakuna answering machine – but hey, why do I ~~keep~~ have this roommate who picks up the phone for me? ^^

the 4,- EUR joy

Just like Amélie, it’s the small things in life that make me happy.
In this case, though, a rather capitalistic approach, good luck on eBay and an investment of 4,- EUR that helped me strike a deal in form of a "broken" Realistic PRO-27 radioscanner.

Not so broken, as it turned out. This radioscanner from 1995 has an inconvenient and rather complicated user interface (small display) and since it didn’t come with any user manual (and ppl out there desperately looking for one), I managed to get a copy via mods.dk.
Et voilà, upon going through the manual, connecting it to a decent active antenna (the mandatory part on radioscanners – they are useless without any proper antenna) and typing in promising frequencies that actually show results (up here in this rural area, there isn’t much activity on VHF), this resurrected gadgetimoja turned out to be a good deal and working just fine. Haiiyaaa!

Now, since I had already opened it (hey, 4 screws – who couldn’t resist?), I saw some clear indicators on the PCB: whereas it normally takes some further testing or checking various internet resources for the discriminator output (signal), this board already came with "testing point" (TP) indicators printed right on the board. All it takes from that point is to solder a wire to that TP, another one to the base (metal frame, etc), fit in a 3,5" headphone socket and there you go – your new discriminator* output is ready. Simple as that.

BECOOOOOOOOOOOS: a normal, simple, yet modern radioscanner sells for about 60,- EURs and those with discriminator output cost an extra 20,- EUR…

Sasa, I might try to sell this thing again and hopefully make a killing with it! Who knows how much money I’ll still have to save for Mbuzimoja’s dowry? :-)

*Monitoring digital modes using FSK or PSK (e.g. POCSAG, FLEX, ERMES and AIS) gives the best result if you use the unfiltered audio from your scanner. You can find that signal at the discriminator of your scanner. A discriminator is the ‘heart’ of an FM-receiver. After the discriminator, audio filters and amplifiers follow that may heavily distort a digital signal. If you want to read along with digital (FSK and PSK) systems seriously, a discriminator output is absolutely prerogative.
Usually, scanners are not equipped with a discriminator output as a standard. You need to ‘operate’ on your scanner to make the discriminator signal available to the outside world…(source)

back from hiatus

A small round-up of thoughts that have been coming up during my recent visit to Bavaria where I’ve tried to fix Mbuzimoja’s laptop. Problem was that she had left the recovery cds in EAK and now try to imagine how difficult it can be to install an OS like WinXP on a laptop with all these small driver issues like missing USB (!) support and even service packs not bringing the required change. Alternative OS like (K)Ubuntu or Knoppix weren’t an option, but in the end, it all worked out and in terms of IT-related convenience, I can now safely send her back home.

1. Been mentioning this issue before, but securing intellectual property and the amount of time and energy it requires to get a product on the market over here in Germany is just horrible. There’s this good friend of mine who recently moved to Taiwan for good – yet alone for this reason of "getting things done", e.g. to develop ideas and to get them out as ready-to-buy products. I might consult him over an idea I had.
I think this barrier is one of the reasons why some great product ideas are still sleeping in drawers somewhere and not yet marketed. Stupid! I only hope that some wise chinese engineers are already checking out websites like shouldexist.org for useful input…

2. The West is so modularized. It seems we’re living in a world of pictograms that indirectly give us instructions on what we’re allowed to do. The matrix, this special frame society has put on itself can be seen everywhere and without these small, but yet elementary guidelines, chaos and anarchy would rule. True?
I shot this pic on the train last night and wondered how passengers would react if someone just comes and applies some totally irrelevant and moronic stickers instead. Would they be left flabbergasted or are they already used to this frame so that they would sort out things for themselves? And could you imagine ppl in Nairobi slums like Kibera to put up sign post with pictograms to organize e.g. water and sanitation issues? Would they need it? And would there be anyone feeling responsible for it?

3. Is there any place (on the inet) where we can find templates or images of the old BlueBand Logo? As Msanii_XL mentioned earlier in the comments section, this would really make up for a stylish Jamhuriwear. I need to get this on a t-shirt!

4. I will need to work on the spam-filters of my mailboxes. 244 emails on my uhuru.de account out of which only ~10% were private emails is just too much for five days…

5. Kudos to The Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) whose website I’ve only recently discovered via an article in a Deutsche Bahn magazine. What an interesting project!
On the other hand, it seems, Kenya is only interesting to them once the stories cover the following subjects: a)slums/hunger/drought/aids/etc., b) tourism and c) kenyan athletes. Please, there’s much more news from Kenya that could be interesting for the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, Riemer-san has send me this picture (thx!!) of a proud Philip Boit as shown in a german newspaper the other day:

6. Had the chance to eventually see "Darwin’s Nightmare" and "The Constant Gardener" over the weekend. The Constant Gardener….well….nice camera work (~City of God-style) and good to ~~see~~ hear they used some nice Ayub Ogada tunes on the soundtrack (and not only once!). Sawa!

As for Hubert Saupert‘s "Darwin’s Nightmare" (review), the portrait of this man, an askari/watchman on a fish-reeeesaaaaach (research) compound, left me completly astonished. Yet alone for the constant mentioning of this man (with his extreme facial expression most prolly due to HIV related diseases), I think Saupert deserves an extra prize.
This man has left a lasting impression on me and you just have to see for yourself how he speaks – closing one eye, turning the head to the side and putting on this serious Bwana Bunduki (C.I.D.) expression on his face. A picture of a man that has seen everything, and although he praises war activities as a way to bring prosperity and economic stability to the region, you would like to hug him for just being as unique as he is. Saupert, I think, felt similar and resourcefully used this man’s explanations to avoid any direct voice-over(ing).
This documentary contains so many small details that already speak for themselves and those who feel the silent moments and stills the camera catches also don’t need any further explanations.
What a great piece of documentary which clearly deserves 10+ out of 10 points!

7. Trigon-Film, this swiss-based independent film foundation which also provided me with Sarasin’s documentary on Boubacar Traoré last year, mentioned the release of "Congo River – Beyond Darkness" in their newsletter. I will need to get my hands on a copy soon! Interesting to note that they’ve used Lokua Kanza as the soundtrack music – an artist who has only recently been touring the continent and even performed at the French Cultural Centre in Nairobi.

Kashionimoja

my old CASIO fx-85v calculator

Isn’t it ironic?
Just when my studies are coming to an end and most arithmetic exams already written, I eventually realized today that I could actually go and substitute my beloved and almost rotten CASIO fx-85v calculator with a new one. Mind you – I’ve already reserved a few stickers for the cover of any new calculator – so this flag & car stuff will remain (Kiku’s style :-).
I think I got this one in 1992, and according to what other people use, this machinimoja here is old kabisa. SO OLD! The keys have a very soft, almost spongy pressure point, there’s no 2nd DOT display to double-check the last entry and some functions are missing.

Being a bit perfectionist on all buy-technology-matters, there’s this gap between the decision to buy a new calculator and the actual decision on which model it should be. I think I will go for this ~~CASIO FX991MS~~ CASIO FX-991ES scientific calculator, however, I just can’t decide…
Any recommendations? Thx!

Update:

my new CASIO fx-991ES calculator

The difference between Mama fx-85v and Kijana fx-991ES is like driving my old Tembomoja compared to a 2006 Lexus GS. Both will get you from A to B, but using the new one is just much more convenient.

tagged by irena…

Eehh…I’ve been tagged by Irena, so here ya’ go:

1. Favourite Kenyan Food

– Mandaazi with Cardamon
– Githeri

2. Favourite Kenyan Drink

– Stoney / Tangawizi (Kenyan?)
– Tusker (of course)

3. Favourite Kenyan TV Programme

Those charming ladies over at KBC are just perfect :-)

4. Top 3 Kenyan Hangouts

Any kantini with reasonable prices, nyama choma, cold beer and good music. Think global, drink local. And when I say ANY, i mean ANY! The whole range…though….I think I feel more comfortable with those joints that are somewhere deep down in a kijiji. I hate those spoiled places in Westlands & downtown where you only find Children of the BlueBandGeneration showing off…

5. Top Holiday Kenyan Destination

– Takawiri Island
– alone/with friends on Safari somewhere
– Coast: Tiwi Beach

6. 3 Kenyan phrases you use a lot (ati, nini, nani and bilaz DO NOT count)!
– aterere…
– eeehh…
– ama?…

7. Three things about Kenya/Kenyans that make you go ‘hmmm’

– many ppl are waiting for something to happen, ignoring the fact that they themselves have to start first.
– the "learn & repeat" educational system that offers no chances for creative students (remember this guy from Western Kenya who wanted to build his own "aeroplani"? Crazy dude, but brilliant thinking. I like that).
– class thinking: "I am a driver, I do not work in the kitchen or the garden." Irene says that’s the Colonial heritage….

8. Three things non-Kenyans say about Kenya/Kenyans that make you go ‘hmmm’

– why are there so many ppl on the streets?
– why do Kenyan men hold hands when they like each other? are they gay or somethin’?
– what’s that small footpath next to any street? don’t they have sidewalks?

9. Three things about Kenya/Kenyans which non-Kenyans ought to know

– Kenya is a beautiful country with very intelligent, capable, interested and friendly people.
– Kenya is more than what tourists get to see like the National Parks, the Coast, etc. It’s the whole picture with all those happy people that might suffer from something but still have the inner happiness to enjoy life the way it comes.
– the history of the country / area did not start with colonial rule…

10. Complete this sentence: I am Kenyan because……

…because it is part of my world – Kiku’s realm. :-)

And finally – list 3 members (~~of the Kenyan Blog Ring~~) you would like to see complete this quiz

Mzeecedric
Mwendemoja
WhiteAfrican

(since Lady Mbuzimoja doesn’t have her own blog as of yet, I am expecting her answer in the comments section OR alternatively as a private email….honey, now you’re in for it :-)