Animal Farm

I know the poster is outdated, but the message is not

Top of the morning to you all!  This post is late, which means it wasn’t scheduled. 😦  I need to get back to organised posting, but for now, please bear with me.

So, here’s the thing … drivers who overlap get on my last nerve make me want to cry.  I get frustrated not only because they are blatantly breaking the law, but also because when they want to get back onto the road, they expect me to pave way for them.  It’s fine to want to break the law and get away with it, but it’s not fine to expect me to sacrifice my well-earned spot on the line for you.  Most of the times, I won’t.  Sometimes I will because if I don’t, you’ll graze my car beloved Vitz and I’d find a paint job unnecessary.

I have a theory:  Anyone who overlaps in traffic makes a bad leader.  This utterance is driven by one premise only – you’re doing something that you can get away with, and this part about one’s character is difficult to change.  Sometime last month, I had an altercation with a matatu driver because he was overlapping.  He said many things which I’d prefer not to post here, but one thing he said is important for me – because it’s disheartening.  In the heat of the argument, he said, “Madam, Kenya haina sheria.” … it’s difficult to effectively translate this into English, but what I think he meant is that there’s no use arguing on a point of the law because the law belongs to those whom it benefits.

I say to anyone reading this blog today …  a country is as good as its people.  And once we start letting the law dictate what we can or cannot do – or what we want to do and not do, we’re headed down a slippery slope.  If we all invested our energies on being men and women of character, I dare say we’d achieve Vision 2030 before 2030.  The ball is in our court, and we must keep it in play.

The reason this post is titled Animal Farm is because George Orwell’s famous phrase, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”.  On many mornings, I’m on the road at the same time as a cream GK Land Rover … (GK A xxx T).  The driver of that vehicle overlaps almost all the time.  And I know that he can get away with it because of his license plate.  I often pray that he doesn’t cut back into our lane when I’m the driver he’ll be bulldozing because frankly, I’ve not gathered the courage to pit my dudu against a large car that’s all metal.  So far, I’ve been fortunate.

Can you, then, imagine my glee when a policeman arrested a GK driver (GK A xxxL) this morning???  Said driver couldn’t cut back into the correct lane because the two sides of the road were separated by a ditch, so he had to get to the roundabout to effect his acrobatics.  I was delighted that the policeman asked him to account for his (mis)deeds … and since the police officer got into the vehicle, my guess is that he asked him to go to Industrial Area Police Station.

Good people, let’s not make police officers’ jobs harder than they already are.  If you want to get to the office on time, wake up early!  There really is no magic to that equation.  Please do not be a nuisance on the road because drivers like you are the number one reason for road carnage in our beloved country.

Loved this Tweet, and because it’s in line with my post today, I’ll post it here:

(@kenyangetter) RT @carolmusyoka : If Kenyans spent as much aggression in holding leaders to account as they do overlapping on our roads we’d have a very robust democracy…via Twitter 

End of rant.

Seven Wants

This. one. was. TOUGH.  First, I understand the meaning of the word want, but what does the phrase seven wants really mean?  If I use the English I’ve learnt for the last 27 years or so, Seven would be the subject, want would be the object and the sentence would be incomplete.  So, I could just complete the sentence and say seven wants eight.  Hehe.  I humour myself.

Alternatively, I could use the dictionary definition.  Because we use British English, I may not be permitted to use the word want for whatever I want to say in this post.  (Pun intended).

Thirdly and finally, I could use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (because according to some definitions, a want is equal to a need).

http://www.simplygiftideas.co.uk

So I really have no particular wants according to any of the definitions I was able to collect on this delightful Friday, but I have wants all the same.  Ladies and gentleman – my dear blog followers – I present to you, my seven wants!  I want:

1. Nairobi Hospital and Barclays Bank to improve their customer service.  Kenya Airways used to be on this list, but I haven’t used them in a while.  They are off the hook for now, although I understand their passengers have had to deal with quite a number of flight delays in the recent past.
2. You, my fellow Kenyan, to think long and hard about whom you will vote for in next year’s elections and why.
3. Kenyan drivers (including GK vehicle drivers, matatu drivers and City Hoppa drivers) who love to show their might on the roads to stop overlapping, thinking they are in more of a hurry than I am or clogging roundabouts and other exits.  In other words, I want Kenyan drivers to heed this warning:
   

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4. To travel.  Anywhere.  Everywhere.  With money. 🙂
5. To book 12 events for which I will be the MC in 2012
6. To eat at Talisman or About Thyme before 31st December 2012
7. The entire collection of the following series: Mind Your Language; Friends; Tom and Jerry.

Happy Friday, everyone!  Happy weekend too.