Well, its been 16 days since I had a new team and boy! do these guys have spirit! We have been working at least 16 hour days – and they haven’t complained (which they easily could have) – for the last 16 days – including saturdays.

And we have achieved a great deal these past 16 days.

Its great to have a team like I do. Here’s to Mbiu & Mutheu.

It simply infuriates me when I see the newspapers putting positive news in hidden inconsequential places and negative new in front and loudly.

The Daily Nation today has an article that Kibaki and Raila have joined forces to push Agenda for through by the end of the year. The article goes furtherto say that ties between the two have been building in the last three months and that they were working together more and rallying their supporters behind the cause.

WHY IS THAT NEWS ON THE BACK PAGE??

Eliminating Hunger: ensuring food security – film presented at the DFID conference

Its 4 something in the morning and its Madaraka day. On this day many years ago, something happened at Uhuru Gardens that was magical for people. The Union Jack went owdown and the Kenyan flag went up – and just like that, Kenyans could from then on make decisions about their destinies and what they want to be in life. For a lot of men and women, that day was the day that they could finally exhale the fear that had been resident in their hearts for decades, It was the day that they could finally stop being worried about whether they were free to walk the streets, or till their land, or have Nyama Choma with their families. Finally, they had madaraka.

That first Madaraka day was very much like the day that a young man or woman moves out of his or her parents house to their own little bedsitter to start their own household. It was similar to the day that a father, or mother finally gave their child their own key to the house so that the starry-eyed youth could come home and go as he pleases. That day, spectacular as it was, was like the day that a young couple first take charge of their home and begin to define the way they and their future families will live.

All these decades later, we have celebrated Madaraka day, keeping a firm eye on that first Madaraka day and remembering the victory of the time – in a word, freedom.

And yet, all these years later, we are still grappling with our sense of identity and we are still telling ourselves in a preachy, insincere way that we are capable of forging our way into the future. We have television shows that are geared towards making us proud to be Kenyan by tapping on the old stories that reside in the museums and the statues. It is as if our sole reason for being was to attain our freedom.

Perhaps that is the point. So our ancestors fought for freedom for all these years and many of them were killed, many more gave up their homes and all of them lost the comforts of home and family so that we could attain self governance. The question is, so that we could do what with that freedom?

My our freedomwn take is that that freedom was worked so hard for, so that we could speak freely – not only of the problems that we have, but also to celebrate our successes and achievements. It was so that we could congregate openly and without being curtailed, so that we could agitate and activate for our rights, but also so that we could fellowship with one another, enjoy each other’s company and have fun.

In other words, our gift of self governance – and our Kenyan-ness by extension – was achieved so that we can labour freely and with enterprise and thereafter enjoy the fruits of that labour. Too often, we hear the statement made, that we should be proud to be Kenyan and historical reasons are given as to why that should be. With all due reverence and respect to the founding fathers and mothers of our nation, it is all very well that their sweat and blood was shed to attain for us to have Madaraka. And there is a cause for pride in their sacrifice. Just in the same way that I am proud of my parent for having done all that he and she could to ensure that I grew up drug free, educated, healthy and of sound mind and judgement. But such historical reasons are increasingly fragile as reasons for me to be proud to be Kenyan.

I am proud to be Kenyan. Because in Kenya we have the most amazingly designed matatus in the world – the only ones of its kind. I am proud that the boys in rugby have excelled globally and the lads and lasses in athletics have made me famous for speed (even though I cannot run any distance very fast myself). I am proud that I live in a place that is clearly developing – although in a very canternkerous and chaotic way. I am proud that Kenya is beautiful but I am more proud of the people that wake up early everyday and make sure I can eat comfortably, walk securely and on cleaned paved roads.

I am proud that Kenyan women are the most beautiful in the world and Kenyan young people are the most enterprising – despite having little to no support from the business and political class who make heavy rhetoric on youth matters. I am proud that I have an opportunity to serve my people and then adjourn to the bar, where I can sample choice Choma.

That pride is not from my ancestors but could not have happened were it not for those people who were adults in 1963. But while I pay homage to them this Madaraka day, I shall toast my everyday self for being a hustler.