Hey,

First up, you may notice that the site is being upgraded at the moment. Most of the website is working at optimum level so don’t be scared; feel free to browse around and we will be done upgrading the site sooner rather than later .

Recently I decided that I would stop blogging about the post election violence for a couple of reasons:

1) The blogosphere does not appear to be a good place to have constructive conversations: Basically it strikes me that a lot of the so called discussions online regarding the violence are basically verbal duels with everyone trying to get a one-up on the other rather than dialogue to come up with solutions. Therefore I don’t want to waste your time or mine getting involved in meaningless, endless arguments that I can never win or mind-numbing debates on the difference between GEMAs and Kalenjins.

2) It is not my area of expertise. I have said it before and I will say it again: I am a boo boo when it comes to the minutia and the idiosyncrasies of the African political process. So I think, I should pretty much stick to my strengths when trying to serve you through this blog.

However…….

Kenya is still suffering and so in parting from this topic (no guarantees though; I will come back to it if there’s some info I think may be relevant) I wanted to give you, in the diaspora, as large a directory as I could of practical steps you can take to assist Kenya at this time. I will split things up into two categories:

1) Information: Without information, you can’t really know where you can have the greatest effect, so please stay informed.

2) Action steps: Concrete steps you can take no matter where you are to end the violence and take Kenyans to a place of peace and happiness

Within these 2 larger categories, there are 12 subcategories that I will touch on:

Information

1) Google News Alerts

2) Useful blogs

3) Local newspapers

4) Pictures and Video

Action Steps

5) Marches and demonstrations

6) Financial contributions and volunteering

7) Pray for Kenya

8 ) Sidenote: If you are in Kenya and you wish to report incidents of violence, where can you go?

9)How to contribute if you are an artist: musical, performing or otherwise

10) My Own Little Idea

11) Sign online petitions

12) Contact me to inform me of anything that you think we need to know about

NB: This post IS LONG so please feel free to scroll through and pick and choose what it most relevant to you.

Information

1) Google News Alerts

If you want to make sure you stay up to the second in terms of what’s going on, Google News is the place to go. If you want perspectives from newspapers all over the world, not just your local geography, sent directly to your email, then please setup Google News Alerts. Some great search terms include: “Kenya”, “Kenya elections”, “Odinga”, “Kibaki”. If you have any trouble setting that up, then I’m sure the good people at Google will be more than willing to help, otherwise contact me at masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com

2) The Blogroll

There are a plethora of bloggers out there typing away on the issue. My personal recommendations :

1) Afromusing : Very nice lady who was nice enough to email me personally when i left a comment on her blog. Very connected within the blogosphere and very involved in relieving the suffering at the moment.

2) aaarrrggg: Written by a political scientist.

3) Kumekucha (You missed this) : Quite possibly the largest blog relating to political issues. One of the most visited websites in Kenya. The comments that are left on this blog-as with many other blogs-really make you wonder the psychological ages of a lot of Kenyans. Gr8 info though.

Below is a comprehensive list quoted directly from the White African blog:

Kenyan Pundit: Another Great Political Blog
Joseph Karoki ***(new picture blog)
Thinker’s Room
Mentalacrobatics
Gerald Baraza

African Path
Mzalendo
Shirel
Afromusing
Nick Wadhams

Jesse Masai
Kumekucha
Chris Blattman
Cold Tusker
What an African Woman Thinks

Mimmz
Farmgal
Kenyan Jurist
Panda Shuka
Gathara’s World

Lovely Money
Odeg
Gukira
Ryan Sheely
Jesse Masai

Shashank Bengali
Crystal Balls
Kenya Imagine
Rob Rooker
Udongo

African Rhetoric
Jikomboe
Kenya Patriot
Africa News
8 Months in Nairobi

Bankelele
Toxic Tribalism
Baldilocks
Lost White Kenyan Chick
Amani Kenya

Eyes on Kenya
Jewels in the Jungle
Shailja Patel
Paza Sauti
Concerned Kenyan

Breaking News Kenya
Updates on Kenya
Sukuma Kenya
Siasa Duni
Kwani Blog

MamaMikes Blog
A Future Minded Kenyan

A couple of Facebook groups have popped up:
Peace for Kenya – Videos and Pictures
Praying for Peace in Kenya
Kenya’s Post-’Election’ humanitarian crisis

Global Voices – Excellent overviews from the Kenyan blogosphere by Ndesanjo: (1) (2)

Africa News – Newsletter with an overview of the movies that were made by their mobile phone reporters in Nairobi.

(NB: The above was taken from the White African blog)

3) The Local Newspapers

Stay up to date by reading the two big Kenyan newspapers and one of the largest online publications in Africa:

1) The Daily Nation

2) East African Standard

3) All Africa: Aggregates and collects news from newspapers all over Africa, allows you to subscribe via RSS: A great ‘one-stop shop’.

4) Pictures and Video

For the more visual amongst you, please go to Flickr for pictures of Kenya, before, during and after the elections. Below are a some groups and people that have done a great job of capturing what’s going on in Kenya on film:

Flickr Groups

1) Kenya Post-Election Pictures 2008 Group

2) Kenya Elections 2007 group

Flickr Members

1) DEMOSH has his own Flickr page and has done a great job of capturing the action

2) ActionPixs (Maruko)

3) Afrofuturist has done a great job of capturing snapshots of the election day and the protests that followed the elections.

There are also a few other photographers here and there who have taken sporadic pictures of what’s going on and if you go to www.flickr.com and search for “Kenya” and “Kenya violence” you should be able to find them.

I would also recommend you use the same search terms in www.video.google.com (This is better than simply going to www.youtube.com because it has videos from may other sites including Youtube). I wouldn’t recommend going to www.video.google.com as much as to www.flickr.com simply because in terms of videos, you have to sort through quite a bit of junk before you can get to some useful videos. However, I definitely don’t discourage you from checking out some videos on Google Videos and Youtube

You Have the Information? Here’s How You Take Action.

5) Marches and Demonstrations

Forgive me for generalizing. The more I strive to understand what’s going on in Kenya, the more I come to understand that there are a lot of interests that basically converged during and after the election saga. I will restrict my discussion to three types of people who want to get onto the streets and have their say, in the diaspora, and in Kenya itself:

a) People who want to march for peace: These people don’t care about whether the elections were stolen or not and simply want the butchering and violence to end.

b) People who are marching for justice: People who feel like democracy was stabbed in the back and want to restore the power of the vote.

c) People who want both peace and justice in varying combinations

Regardless of whether you belong to any of the above camps or you belong to an entirely different one, please don’t go out and lash out violently against your fellow Kenyans. Remember, it’s not them who stole the vote (If you believe Kibaki stole the election). Please keep your goal in mind at all times, when you march, and please, I implore you, do not get sidetracked and degenerate into violence.

I have already spoken about peace marches that I know of in Dallas, Texas and here in Melbourne, Australia. While browsing through Flickr I also discovered a peace march that had been organized in Minnesota . All you need to do is read the local papers or even traverse the blogsophere to find people itching to get involved with any initiative to restore democracy. Basically, people are eager to get out there and march for peace or justice and ultimately a better tomorrow.

So, get in contact with the Kenyans around you and organize a peace march or a justice march this weekend. Some quick tips that may make the marches more effective:

1) Take photographs of it and put it in www.flickr.com and distribute the pictures to the newspapers and blogs listed above.

2) Take videos of the march and post them in www.youtube.com. When you post them in www.youtube.com, make sure that your title for the video and tags that you use are relevant and things that people will search for. Some examples:

Titles: “Kenyans March Against Violence”, tags: “Kibaki”, “Raila”, “Kenya elections”, “Kenya riots”

Titles: “Reaction to riots in Kenya” tags: “ODM”, “rioting”

It is a sad reality of life but chances are more people will search for the negative terms such as “violence” and “riots” and “tribalism” than they will the positive ones such “peace march”, “Kenyan peace”, “Kenya justice” so when you are naming the video please take such things under consideration.

3) Discuss the marches on the forums and message boards such as www.mashada.com, www.kenyanzone.com and http://www.mambogani.com/.

4) Release press releases to as many newspapers, television stations, blogs and online publications as you can.

5) Email EVERYONE you know informing them about the march before it happens and after the march send them some pictures and some videos.

I hope you see the general point I am driving at: IF YOU ARE GOING TO ORGANIZE A MARCH, SHARE WITH AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. This way people who are working towards peace or justice don’t feel alone and this also encourages other Africans sprinkled all over the world who may be thinking of marching. Finally, it actually UNITES US OVER A GOOD CAUSE.

I know that last weekend (I am sending this out on the morning of January 26th 2008) the same Kenyans who were involved with the peace march here in Melbourne organized a brainstorming session and came up with a couple of ideas. If you are in Melbourne and you want to get in contact with them, email me at masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com and I’ll get you in touch with them.

6) Financial Contributions and Volunteering

I have already written about this to some extent.The one addition I have to make is:

Mama Mikes, which can be found at http://www.mamamikes.com: It’s an absoloutely phenomeal resource that is Paypal friendly so check it out if you want to get involved financially.

It should be noted that there is always the possibility of flying to Kenya from the diaspora to:

a) Get involved with organizations such as the Red Cross and initiatives to assist displaced people.

b) Get involved in the political organizing and heated political debate that is currently brewing

c) Find out where you are needed and can best serve and have the greatest effect.

7) Pray for Kenya

The event that triggered me to write all this is an email I received about prayers for Kenya that were held today. If you feel deeper connected to the divine, please get involved or organize events such as the one below (I have posted the email verbatim):

Send this message to Every Kenyan:

JANUARY 25^TH 2008,

DAY OF PRAYER FOR KENYA
“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, I will hear from heaven, I will hear and I will come and HEAL THEIR LAND.” God, 2 Chronicles 7:14

On January 25^th 2008, we are asking Every Kenyan, Everywhere to take time to make a concerted prayer for Kenya.

We want EVERY Kenyan in EVERY CONTINENT on the face of the earth to be praying together on this one day on behalf of our country.

How to participate:

Spread the word:

send this message to Every Kenyan you know, Everywhere – txt, SMS, e-mail, phone call

On January 25^th, make a point of setting aside time to pray for Kenya, it does not have to be a long time but it must be a deliberate effort to pray for specific things about Kenya

You can pray individually, or get together with a friend or friends, workmates, someone on the street, your priest, pastor, congregation, youth group

What to pray for:

· AMANI, AMANI, AMANI. PEACE, PEACE, PEACE

· Whatever else you feel in your heart to pray for concerning Kenya

‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;where there is hatred, let me sow love; when there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.’ St Francis 1915‘Maombi ya mtu mwenye haki yana nguvu na huleta matokeo.’Bible James 5:16If you have any questions/suggestions please send an e-mail to: AmaniKenyaMilele@hotmail.com

8 ) If you are in Kenya and you wish to report incidents of violence:

Go to the Ushahidi website which can be found at http://www.ushahidi.com/

Here you can quickly and easily send word about any incidents of violence via SMS.

9) If you are an artist

There has never been a more important time to be a performer than right now. If you are in Kenya right now, please, go out to the camps where the displaced people are and entertain them; sing some songs, put on a show, read stories or even just sit down and talk or listen to them.

If you aren’t in Kenya, join the growing number of people who are putting positive music on the web. I have listed a couple of the links to these tracks below:

a) http://youtube.com/watch?v=dE_8OWf2noM

b) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y7O857Q1jk

10) My Own Little Idea

Prettty much all of the violence in the country is being CAUSED by and AFFECTING the poor who unfortunately are burdened by the yoke of ignorance. It strikes me that a forward-thinking solution to this problem is to begin educating the poor in the political process, the history it, how it works currently and most importantly how they can use it to bring about the type of changes they want in their lives. This way the poor can actually direct their energies in a direction that will bring about improvements in ALL their lives . With the advent of cheap and quick means of communication -Internet,radio, tv etc-and the plethora of brilliant well-educated Kenyan minds all over the Earth this shouldn’t be too difficult to implement if people have the will…………..Just a thought.

11) Sign Online Petitions

In the last couple of weeks I have received a couple of online petitions that relate to the crisis in Kenya via email. They are:

a) Kenya crisis: Support Kofi Annan from www.avaaz.org

b) Call for resolution to the Electoral Crisis from Petition Online (www.petitiononline.com)

I don’t have a lot of experience or information on this, however, considering the Power that Americans have in the world political scene, if you are living in the United States, you could always write a letter to Congress to push for peace. The same applies if you are in the UK, Australia, Sweden etc. Please click on this link to go to a guide that gives further information on writing to your congressman.

If anyone has any other online petitions they want to share, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me.

12) Finally, if I have missed something, contact me and let me know

Contact me and let me know at masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com or just leave a comment below or just link to my blog from yours and write about other initiatives that you know of.

I hope this is a blessing to you and feel free to email me with any initiatives, stories of success or challenge or anything that may occur to you as you read this.

Be blessed and go out RIGHT NOW and be a blessing unto others,

Mwas

Update

The Project Sunshine blog also did a post where Africans based in the US were encouraged to lobby congress and the blog gave more information on how to do that. Please read the post by clicking the link below:

Project Sunshine on lobbying for congress

Hey,

I wrote a nice long article, hoping to release two articles today within twelve hours of each other, and then lo and behold, the computer froze up and deleted three quarters of my article. I should have that done by tomorrow. Today, however, as promised, I thought I would give you a glance into what is going on in Kenya from a Kenyan perspective. I will share with you a couple of resources that can dramatically increase your knowledge of what’s being going on in Kenya since the election debacle began.

The Picture Man

If you haven’t yet,go to the end of my previous post and click on the link that tackes you to the Flickr gallery of DEMOSH.He is a brilliant photographer who really captured the comotion sorrounding the elections. Below I have posted the email conversation we had verbatim. The questions I asked were:

1) What’s going on in Kenya at the moment?

2) How can we in the diaspora best serve Kenya at this time?

Response:

Hi, Mwangi

1.Business people have started to worry about the
Economy and the shillings is slowly sliding lower to
stand at 67 against the dollar up from 62.
2. in most parts of the country especially Mombasa the
hotel industry remains the most affected with tourist
being evacuated and bed occupancy dropping to 40% from
the 100% mark.
January through to March is normally peak tourism
season and that has now been shattered and the hotel
owners are now sending most of their staff on
compulsory leave because they cannot afford to keep
them on payroll.
Food and other basic commodities are also on the rise
due to high demand and low supply from the farmers.
3. Neighboring countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi
who depend on the port of Mombasa for all there
imports are also facing difficulties they do not have
flow of processed goods from the Kenyan industries and
even fuel which they normally receive from Kenya.
Traders are forced to sell their fuel at 4000 Uganda
shillings.
With the fuel shortage biting hard in the neighboring
countries peacekeeping effort in the horn of Africa is
almost coming to a halt due to fuel shortage forcing
the mission bring to a halt the transportation of
military personnel to Somalia according to United
States Assistant secretary of African Affairs Jendayi
Frazer.
4. Already the African union president who is the
president of Ghana is expected to arrive in the
country today to broker a peace and reconciliation
between President Mwai Kibaki and ODM presidential
leader Raila Odinga after the chaotic situation that
left more than 500 people dead and over 500,000 people
displaced throughout the country after the post
election violence.
Lastly Kenyans are a bitter lot with the current
president and his entire leadership, they feel
betrayed and robbed of democracy. Most of them being
the youths who turned up on the 27th December 2007 as
early as 4am to que to cast their vote to bring change
but it all ended up into a flawed elections and
president Mwai Kibaki declared the winner in a poll
that the international Observers described as a sham.

Following this, I asked him:

1) Do you have any ideas that you might suggest we in the diaspora can implement to help the situation back home?

2) Can I share our conversation with Displaced African readers?

Response:

Thanks for your response, You can post the article………On the part of helping kenyans back in the diaspora i will give you details once I get the correct address of the parties involved in the process.

So thanks to DEMOSH for sharing his time and his knowlege with me,we await the response.

 The Blogs

Ever since I typed, “What African woman thinks,” on Google, I have been an on-off fan of this blog. Particularly poignant is the way she described her tension,fear and the pain that immediately sorrounded the eruption of the violence. Very few blogs really get to the heart, the human heart, of what is going on in Kenya; newspapers are more interested in sensationalism and other bloggers are more interested in sub-sections of constitutional clauses. She is a human being with a wonderful, vunerable heart and I honour and salute that.

 Hope this serves . Leave a comment and let me know how these resources may have touched you or any information sources you know of that you can share with others.

Be blessed,

Mwangi

Straight off the bat let me apologize for the vulgar language. Though I tend to use profanities in every day life that’s not what I wanted this blog to be about. Every once in a while you come across one of those expressions that just can’t be expressed in any other way.Plus it got your attention didn’t it?

But Before I Get Started

I just wanted to inform other Africans who may think that we Kenyans in the diaspora are doing nothing about the current crisis that there have been a couple of peace marches that have already taken place and I want to honour and salute them.

1) North Texas March

There are approximately 80,000 Kenyans in Dallas Texas (Wow! That’s a lot!! :-O greetings to all y’all Texans reading this). They held a March about a week ago and it made it into the Dallas Morning News. Below is a link to a blog that expounds on the matter:

http://breakingnewskenya.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/kenyans-demonstrate-in-dallas-tx/

2) Melbourne march

About a week ago there was a March right here in Melbourne. As of now all I have is hearsay and I will email the marchers to get more details. What just fascinated the socks of me was the way the Australian media reacted to the demonstrators.

A Brief Digression

I am yet to get confirmation of it but apparently the reason that the peace march wasn’t on the news down under was because they wanted an outright condemnation of the Kenyan government in order for the march to be newsworthy. The marchers refused to be hasty in their criticism, prefering to keep an open mind that says Kibaki might have and might have not rigged the elections….but either way “we want peace!” If it’s true, I guess that’s a fantastic insight into the mind of the Australian mass media.

Secondly, I emailed the Kenyan Red Cross.The public relations officer, who I share a name with, informed me that the Kenya Red Cross had facilities that allow one to make donations (oh, I just noticed it on their homepage. I’m blind, no? They even have links that allow you to become physically involved in the Red Cross; How exciting). They will be setting up Paypal shortly so stay tuned for that if that’s how you want to contribute.

So What Did I Mean By the Title?

I will begin by telling you a story.

The Famine

About…oh….maybe a year ago drought hit Kenya’s North Eastern province hard, again. There were a couple of us concerned folk in the diaspora who decided we would get together and do something about it. So we began by creating a wonderful non profit complete with tax deduction benefits for the donators. The organization had roles; we had a president, a secretary, a meeting secretary or whoever’s job it is to take notes among other absoloutely well labeled roles. The organization had a well planned distribution system: we raise money in Australia and send it to a church in Kenya that was already doing work in North Eastern Kenya. We printed out 1oos upon 100s of brochures and spent hours planning and tactically thinking about where we would distribute our material and the effect it would have.

What was the result? About thirteen dollars, or was it 100? I forget, but either way it wasn’t much. Now mind you I was probably the youngest person at the meeting so we are not talking about a bunch of zealous youths like myself. We are talking about for the most part calm, well-reasoned, sophisticated middle-agers and baby boomers. So this over zealous youth and the adults couldn’t raise more than 13 dollars (by the way the Australian dollar is the unit of currency in Australia if anyone is curious). What I want us to discuss is where I think I, and the group, went wrong and ways you can avoid the pitfalls we did as you go about serving Kenya at this time:

Why are You In This Game?

1) We didn’t spend enough time discussing WHY we were doing it. Solution: Whenever you set out to do something get very strongly associated to the emotional reason YOU want to do it. Truth be told I never truly had a clear idea of why I was part of the group. I suspect the group was also not clear on why we were doing what we were doing.Were we doing it to assuage our guilt by temporarily ending the extreme suffering? (Even if you’re reason isn’t pretty be clear about it, if you don’t like it, find a reason that is more in line with your consscience.) Were we doing this because it was the right thing to do and we wanted to feel like good people? Whatever the payoff is for you and for whatever organization you are a part of , be very clear on it.

What’s the Solution? Not Just the Problem, the Solution?

2) We didn’t have a clear vision of the future we wanted to create .Solution: Whenever you set out to solve a problem, be extremely clear on what solution YOU will bring about. For those of you who have studied transformational psychology or the psychology change you are pretty well rehearsed in this idea. Spend 20% of your time fully understanding what the problem you are trying to solve is and then once you fully understand the problem (or feel you have an alright grip of it), spend 80% of your time on the solution. Did we want to create endless food abundance in Kenya forever? Did we want to be the source of food for the North Eastern region through the famine? Before you engage in any endevour to improve the lives of people be as clear as you can about what you want their lives to be like after you enter their universe. Do you want to take Kenya to a place where the vote counts? Do you want a Kenya where all children have unlimited protection and ability to self-actualize? Do you want all these things?BE CLEAR.

Begin with the end in Mind

3) To paraphrase the great business thinker Dr. Stephen Covey, Begin with the end in mind. From there backwards engineer figuring out what steps will get you and the people you serve from where you are to where you want to be (or rather where you’re going to be). These backward engineered steps, written down are pretty much your plan. A couple of things that can really make the plan great:

a) Put deadlines: Without deadlines there is more likelihood we will slack off or postpone to infinity. We set up and regularly check on our deadlines-I don’t like the term it’s so negative, anyone have any alternatives?-and it’s more likely we’ll get things done.

b) Be flexible in your approach BUT NOT in terms of what you want to achieve: Be willing to change your approach until you get to the destination but do not change your destination. If you want to ensure that children have universal access to joy and happiness then:

Start orphanages, review the education system, take in orphans, lobby and get child laws changed, work with non profits that work on children’s issues……whatever it takes. Don’t be too attached to the way you’ll get there but if I may make only one suggestion in the midst of this rant that you take on, it is be flexible in approach but not about what you want to achieve.

Make it Easier For Yourself

4) Break it down to little steps: I cannot emphasize this one enough. This is particularly important when you are doing something that serves other people. I am inclined to believe that we are predominantly selfish beings who find it pretty easy to do things that we like and things that bring us pleasure especially in the short term. However for a lot of us, engaging in a concentrated effort to bring pleasure to other people feels unnatural and difficult. This is the reason that as you backward engineer your plan, you should break it down to the smallest steps possible. Break your plan down into microsteps with deadlines that are vey close to each other. This way you conquer the mountain ‘one step at a time’ rather than CONQUERING A HHUUUGGGEE MOUNTAIN over a reeeaaalllyyyy llloooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggg timeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! In the example of the famine initiative, we could have broken it down to everyone distributing a couple of brochures with our details to two friends and acquantances every day for a week. The second week we could begin leaving one of our group’s posters in a public place-like display boards, telephone poles etc etc- daily. Typically, at some point the power of momentum takes over and it slowly becomes easier to work harder as we go along taking bite size steps.

Take Time to Reflect

4) Daily reflection and review of the goal: The famine project had weekly reviews;I am suggesting that we review and reflect on how close we are to our objectives every morning after waking up. This has really revolutionized my life in terms of what I notice in my day to day life . At the moment my primary interests are health and nutrition, business and personal development. Every morning when I wake up my focus almost immediately switches on to what I want to achieve in these areas. When I walk down the street with my cousin, my cousin will notice that someone is driving a car with great rims and go off on a tangent about how he wants rims like that. I will notice the protein shake in the passenger seat and begin to reflect ( I bore my family to tears when I discuss my interests) on whether he is using dairy products and whether dairy is good for you and what whey is made of etc etc. This is all because every morning that I wake up I am CLEAR about what I want to achieve in this world. So focus daily on how you want to serve and watch yourself notice things you never noticed before……. and by the way if you achieve your deadline, as soon as you do celebrate and have a party!

Clarity is Power

When you live in a country like Australia, it is extremely easy to get distracted. In the US, people are exposed to 10,000 commercial messages a day, and I know Australia isn’t trailing by too far behind.That’s not even mentioning television shows, music among other things. I would urge you to cut through the muck of distractions and keep your focus clear on what gift you have that you can share with Kenya at this time.

I have said this before and I will say this again,” Live by the Pareto Principle.”Clearly focus and be about the 20% of things in life that will bring about 80% of the results. And ultimately what it is more important than serving our fellow man, though we may forget that from time to time.

Half-a** is better than no a**

For those of you who may be wondering, “What does this post have to do with the title?” Simply put, if your heart is in the right place and you are coming from a place of genuinely wanting to serve other people, doing anything, even though it’s a half-hearted, weak attempt is much better than doing nothing at all.

Don’t worry about getting the perfect grandiose plan that will end world hunger and bring justice, peace and understanding to the entire universe.Just one person you save from hunger, sadness, depression, poverty and fear is better than serving no one in the first place.

Tomorrow, I share with you what I have learned from communications I have had with my fellow Kenyans including DEMOSH, a photographer from Kenya who has been right there in Kenya on the ground in the midst of the action (please check out his pictures by clicking on this link).

Hope this has served; leave me a comment and let me know how this article has helped you, anything I have missed or any random thought that pops in your head as you read this.

Be blessed,

Mwangi

Hey,

I have created a new category within the blog which you can find on the sidebar to the right. It is called “How WE can help the people of Kenya”. It will basically be a list of ways you can get involved physically in taking Kenya to a brighter place following its current dip into the abyss. So let me begin with:

1) Nation and Standard Newspaper – For up to the minute commentary on what’s going on in Kenya from the largest media houses in the country.

2) Mashada – The most popular website in Kenya. The political discussion may get silly at times (as it does everywhere) but definitely peruse the website for some great gems of information. Remember: Clarity is power.

3) Reliefweb - I just discovered this website this morning. Through in my experience foreigners rarely have an inkling of an understanding of what people are thinking and feeling in Africa, I must promote this website for its a resource for the humanitarian societies and organizations of the world. Definitely a place where you can find links to places to donate your time or money.

Through Reliefweb I have found a number of non-profits that you can contribute to financially or through participation including:

4) Trócaire: They just launched an emergency appeal that you can be a part of.

5) Oxfam :I have been a fan of theirs for years now and what I like about them is that they have a lot of initiatives that centre around trade- for example a shop that sells ‘fair trade’ products shipped from Africa and Asia- and you can also donate to them as well. If you go to Reliefweb they have authored a report on the crisis.

6) Kenya Red Cross: No doubt you have either seen or read about the distribution of food by the red cross. They are on the ground dealing with the crisis as we speak and if I were to recommend you get involved with any group right now that would be Kenyan Red Cross. I have written an email to them asking how we in the diaspora can help and am awaiting their response.

7) UNICEF Kenya :Another organization that is on the ground as we speak and I recommend it as highly as the Red Cross is UNICEF Kenya. They have facilities on the website that allow someone to donate money.
Kumekucha Blog :If you are interested in being a part of a political solution to the process, I found this great blog that has a large, vibrant community full of lively debate. They have something that is coming to be known as the Cellar Group
who are drafting comprehensive resolutions and plans to deal with the situation. I believe the writers are all in Kenya so yet again you have access to people who have their pulse to the situation. I have also written to them to learn more about how we can help.

I hope these initiatives help get you started in the right direction. If you have anything to add, please leave a comment below, or trackback to my blog from yours. More to come soon so subscribe to receive updates.

Be blessed,

Mwas

The country is slowly returning to a state of calm. Kibaki is ready to negotiate the formation of a coalition with Raila Odinga. Raila Odinga is ready to negotiate WITHOUT any precondition-like the tiny caveat of Kibaki stepping down and Raila being given what he thinks was stolen from him.: Why?

Some may say it is because the legendary Archbishop Desmond Tutu flew over to Kenya acting as a voice for peace. However, during the time he was in the country, Raila was still saying he would not negotiate unless Kibaki stepped down as president .

Others might say that it was because of the violence. Hundreds of people dead was too much on the conscience of both men and they just had to do something to put a cork on the bloodshed once and for all. Their actions don’t seem to support this. Both men when faced with the violence simply voiced the need for calm and Mwai Kibaki showed no signs-and still shows no signs-of stepping down or conceding his presidential power to put an end to the violence.

The Jendayi Factor

Probably the driving factor, or at the very least veeerrrry important catalyst in bringing both men to the negotiating table has been a short haired bureacrat by the name of Jendayi Frazer. For those who don’t know, Jendayi is the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa.

Here’s what’s particularly interesting about Jendayi’s presence in Africa. If you look through the newspaper reports:

1) The moment she concluded her talks with Kibaki, he was ready to negotiate. Tutu didn’t do it. The protesters didn’t do it. One meeting with Jendayi and he was ready to negotiate a coalition.

2) The real big shocker. She finished talks with Agwabo Odinga and he was ready to talk with absoloutely no preconditions on the meeting.

Here are my questions:

1) What on Earth did she say to them to fast forward the process so quick?

2) What is the American interest in our post election violence? Some have said it is because we are their only ally East Africa and the only one that has steady American military bases and a solid stable economy that supports American economic interests and they want to preserve that. This may be true, I don’t know.

All I do know is Jendayi Frazer is one powerful lady; maybe I can hire her any time I get a speeding ticket.

Just a thought

Be blessed,

Mwas

Pretty strong title huh? To be honest, the title makes one very small omission, the title should actually be “Why we are responsible for the riots and what we can do about it.”

200+ people are now dead in just 2 days….absolutely amazing.

It’s about 2 a.m. as I am writing this. It is now the 2nd of January in Australia and the reports just keep coming in of more and more violence and unrest from home. What I want to discuss in this post isn’t the political minutia that’s behind the riots and unrest – I will say it again; as far as politics go I am quite ignorant. What I do want to discuss is the psychology behind it?

What I want us to do together is to understand the factors that are behind the violence back home. Then with a clear picture of what is going on back home we engage in serving the people of Kenya so that we can help take that beautiful country to a place much better than before this disaster-filled election. Here I sit in Australia with a very marginal and superficial understanding of why our fellow countrymen are slaughtering each other with such zeal. I decided I had to start blogging early so that I could understand what’s going on back home and assist other Kenyans to create practical, positive solutions that are win-wins for as many Kenyans as possible.

The Challenge

With that in mind I would like to “open the floor” to anyone who is willing to honestly and clearly express their thoughts and feelings about the election, the riots and the political situation in Kenya. I would also like to open the floor to anyone who has any initiatives or plans for how we will get the country out of this mess.

Why not Just Go to Mashada.com or Read the Nation? Why bring my conversation to the Displaced African?

I strongly recommend that anyone with a heart for the situation back home ‘keep in touch’ by going to forums like Mashada.com and reading newspapers such as Nation newspaper. The main thing that separates this website is that everything in this website is focussed around how we in the diaspora can serve and assist with the situation back home. This website will be a directory guide for anyone in the diaspora who has a heart and wants to get involved.

So What Do I Know?

To be honest with you through most of 2007 I had completely forgotten there was an election back home. Anytime I heard that someone was flying back to Kenya I would temporarily be reminded that this was THE YEAR but for the most part, people around me didn’t talk about it much.

The around October-November things changed. There was an election in Australia and so any conversation about an election in Australia would naturally lead to a Kenyan election conversation. The other big thing that got the diaspora’s attention was when Raila Odinga put his hat in the race and then…..had a chance of winning.Oooohhhh! Now that got the conversations going on all four cylinders.The conversation pretty much snowballed from there.All of a sudden:

1) Reading Nation newspaper was a daily, tridaily and 20xdaily event.

2) People realized they could subscribe to receive live streams of KTN and KBC online (go to www.africacast.tv for KTN)

3) ‘After church chit chat’ turned into exuberant analysis of the canidates and there was basically an epidemic that began with ‘e’ and ended with ‘lection’.

With all this election fever in the air (of which admittedly I wasn’t a part) I managed to pick up a couple of things and here now is my understanding of the situation from a Kikuyu perspective.

Conversations With Kikuyus: Pre-election fever

I think you already know how I feel so I will get straight into it. My ushago (home of my grandparents) on my mother’s side is Rift Valley deep in Kalenjin and Maasai teritory. The Kikuyu population there is quite large and for the most part they co-existed pretty well as far as I know. Now apparently around the time Raila’s campaign was gaining steam, my grandmother began to receive threats that as soon as Raila came into power they had best move out or they would be forced out. In addition to that many Kikuyu’s were concerned that should Raila come to power this would mean an end to the Kikuyu tribe as we know it and Raila’s supposed bitterness towards Kikuyus would lead to even maybe genocide and/or general displacement of the sons and daughters of Agikuyu.

Then of course there were the many Kikuyus who simply couldn’t fathom or comprehend the thought of being ruled by Jaluos who they perceived as having an alien culture, being rowdy, impetuos, uncouth and kahees (uncircumcised) or otherwise had some other irrational fear and hatred of the tribe of Lwanda.

Now mind you this wasn’t universal: Some Kikuyus wanted Raila voted in, disillusioned by Kibaki’s new formed love affair with Moi.

With that our brothers and sisters took to the polls

Election Irregularities

Around the time that the counting began to ’slow down’ it became pretty apparent according to the reports that there was a chance that Kibaki was stealing votes. The Kikuyu reaction:

Some thought: “Kibaki has done so much good over the past five years and Raila is too radical and hateful of the Kikuyus:We have no problem with the rigging, he just should have done it wiser”

Others thought: “ODM probably did it too and they are being so pushy and forceful about the results, if they want to manipilate the electoral process, PNU (Kibaki’s party) has every right to do it?”

Fewer people than there should have been thought: “We are not sure if Kibaki stole.HOWEVER, if he did we must restore justice to the process and get to the rightful winner of the elections and the true choice of the people.”

Post Elections

Kibaki in the greatest comeback in human history came back from what had been a consistent trail in the polls to steal the election by a nose hair. 15 minutes later there was a huge crack in the middle of Kenya and hell spilled out. The almost universal reactions in the diaspora were concern, fear, desparation, empathy, sympathy and a whole host of other negative feelings all rolled into one.

An interesting reaction I heard expressed a few times was:“There was going to be violence against Kikuyus either way. This way at least our relatives back home have the government machinery protecting them and we have a president who will bring peace back to the country after a couple of days or weeks things will calm down na kazi itaendelea (”the work will go on))

Why Do Kikuyu’s Think the Violence Is Taking Place?

Power! To paraphrase: ” The other tribes in Kenya have replaced Moi with a Kikuyu face. They think we are responsible for all their problems and we have all the power in the country and now they want all the power and think that getting rid of Kibaki will get rid of this grip we have on power and leave them to scoop it all up. Somehow by getting rid of Kibaki their whole tribe will become rich tomorrow.”

That in a nutshell is my understanding of the Kikuyus in the diaspora’s perception of why the violence is taking place. Kikuyus, if there is anything I am missing, feel free to leave a comment and add to the body of knowledge. My other fellow Africans, from any other nation,tribe and ethnicity please feel free to also leave a comment and share your feelings. If you have a blog, track back to this article. The closer we get to the truth, the closer we get to ridding our brothers and sisters back home of all the pain they are experiencing now and prevent them ever having to go through this again.

Be blessed and share so you may be a blessing to others,

Mwas

PS: I have full intention of starting up the blog as was originally intended in mid January by blogging on the 10 things I wish I knew before I came to Australia so brace yourselves for that