MURENONI KANGOGO

HATE ME TEACHERS BUT YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN A RAW DEAL…AGAIN. I laughed like a mad man as I watched some teachers merry themselves to utopia in celebration of the Supreme Court judgment that would mean the least paid teacher would pocket a cool 26k plus up from 15k. If you’re a teacher and you’re still celebrating Monday’s Supreme Court ruling then you must either be naïve or otherwise ill-informed of the history behind TSC-Teacher’s wrangles. This is all politics my friends and allow me to remind you some few bitter facts about these seemingly un-ending ‘feud’ between the TSC and her employees. History and by fact, the teacher factor in politics and most importantly in elections was paramount. This reality is based on the fact that teachers’ contribution in votes always determined the victor in every election. It all dates back to the Moi era whereby the political pundits and advisors to Moi saw the importance and the significance of keeping the teacher loyal to the powers t...

AN OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR BENJAMIN CHESIRE CHEBOI: I am not starting this with the usual greetings that your sycophants normally convey to you on bended knees shouting 'Habari mheshimiwa'. because to me you are just a disappointment not deserving any title short of a mediocre and focus-less political psychopath. Before I proceed though, I would like to commend the job you did as HELB boss in ensuring that students were always catered for. Do not rejoice yet as still I wonder  how a mere lady-voiced fellow like you could amass the tremendous assets that you posses if not through murky dealings and fleecing of the poor. As a beneficiary of the loans you oversaw, I stood tall, openly and thoroughly campaigned for your course in 2013 - something that I ashamedly admit and will regret for ages. Why? First, you presided over the misappropriation of finances meant to develop our worthy county. Secondly, under your watch you ensured that MCA's always got the fatter ...

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SEMBE CLUB – FROM LOGS TO TABLE 15; FROM TORO TO TOROMO: (High School Memoirs - 26th Sept. 2014) 2004: Almost all the boys in the dormitory had contracted chicken pox. This was the first thing I noticed while being escorted into that rocket by Hezekiah Chebon. More strange however was the fact that they smeared themselves with some white paste and stretched out in the sun – naked. It was a strange sight that I won’t easily forget…This was February 2004. I was even shocked more later when I got to the dining hall and realized that guys were using bisected logs of wood as tables and the immobile cylindrical logs were used as seats! In the evening I noticed that some form fours used to ‘dunk’ ugali form Jack and Toro. They would eat the first plate comfortably but later lock the second untouched plate in their boxes! There were also these form three badminton players who had their own “cubicle” in one corner of that congested dormitory, did everything to...

He was the most sought after by the girls. He was always the well-dressed among the three adolescent ‘dwarfs’. His shirt, sweater and khaki shorts were always clean – sometimes ironed. When students were going for C.U. functions or ‘team’, he was the only human who could, without batting an eyelid, ask a shopkeeper for a Soda ‘madiaba’ and gallop it with zeal; a commodity that not even the teachers could afford. He was the only one who could wear sports shoes on Mondays, moccasins on Wednesdays and polished leather boots on Fridays. Ask around and you will be told that Victor Chepyegon (V.C.) is the man I’m hereby descrining as he was the envy of all students, all girls, all ‘other’ parents and most of all, all ‘other’ teachers. Our second character was the most timid and unpredictable among the three. Though he used to be beaten up by classmates (most of them girls), he never shed a tear. Though he was shy, he was the most notorious in his private capacity. He was the school...

TOWARDS KAYOAN SUPREMACY: My self-imposed short leave is over and I have undertaken to resume my socio-civic norm of prescribing the bitter pills of truth to Kayoa. This is so mainly because most of my previous posts had elicited undesired responses with many claiming that I have some scores to settle with God knows who. In as much as I claim to be a truth lover, I am more than conscious of the repercussions that accompany my standpoint and declaration of such. Be that as it may, by looking retrospectively at the posts and comments by Kayoans, by analysis one can collapse KAYOA problems into one simple but weighty sentence: “YOUTHS DON’T HAVE A PLACE IN KASISIT.” From all social, economic and political fronts, it’s evident that the youths of that metropolis have been trampled upon by some pot-bellied wazee wa mitaa. How and why are the questions you may ask but my intuition tells me that it’s because unlike those wazees, the youths lack any holistic and formidable framework of v...

DAY SOMEONE MADE US DONATE FREE WATER TO SERETUNIN RESIDENTS: Maybe you have met him in person or came across his pics somewhere or further still, have heard legends being told about him. But if you have no idea who I am talking about, then probably you never went to the great Ebe! He was far from being a Kalenjin but he would shout Kalenjin obscenities all the way from the Basketball court, through the rocket dormitory, past the D.H. and romantically hug his girl just outside t he canteen. More often than not, he would roar in the boy's dormitory in the morning and the majority of us would freak out and the entire hall would go grave silent. And if you ask around you will be told that he was a man of few words but when he spoke, even the wind would pause to listen. He was a great figure in Ebe with a good heart and moreso was friendly and down to earth…Those who have heard of or interacted with this folk know that Francis Ali Kadi was a man of big balls and is the guy on...

THE SOCIETY NEEDS YOU, MISTER INTELLECTUAL: [Sob…Sob…Sob] My son. Oh! My son. I catapult you through, The white man’s education. Never imagined ‘twas to end this way. Lone with the goats for company. The last time I laid these,   my old eyes on you…[teardrops]… Was at the funeral. Forced you to be. Yes, my son. Five years ago had been   The last time I embraced you. Even at the funeral, five minutes was The only time you could bestow me. That neighbour’s son,   You remember him? That childhood friend of yours? The brotherly times you spent together? Perhaps you don’t. I blame you not though. That thing they call tigrii has erased your memory, Made you for…[sob]…get, dis…[sob]…pise, Hate your peopleee…. [Sob.Sob.Sob] My son I’m embittered. Depressed. Regretful. You say you are a pilot. I’m puzzled. “Anamaanisha Dereva wa ndege.”   To me they translate. I am perplexed! Wh’ver it is, I think you’re married to it. ...

I still hold on to the believe that it's still premature to call for a fundraising, especially from alumni. Most of them are still students somewhere or still struggling first to make their own ends meet. A big number of Ebenezer graduates graduated with grades that were quite fine but not strong enough to steer them directly to campus, and so they went to colleges. This means that they took roughly 3 or so years to graduate. Since in Kenya there's no guarantee that a Diploma   will land you a good job, these same alumni decided to pursue education further and enrolled for degree programmes. And this I'm certain is the path that many of us have taken. So assuming that you graduated from Ebe in 2004 and let's assume you joined a College in Sept. 2005, you might probably have graduated in 2008 with a Diploma and joined Campus in 2009 or later. That means now you're either in fourth year or so of your degree! Mind you, this is somebody who graduated in 2004! S...

BRAVO! GOVERNMENT FOR ENSURING THE SAFETY OF MY MONEY: (Written 14 th  July 2014 - Published in the University of Nairobi's MWANGAZA Journal for UON-LTSA) Yesterday, I had gone to visit my high school friend at The Technical University of Kenya (TUK). After my business with him, I had to get back into town and so I decided to use that City Square stairs to cross the busy Haile Sellasie Avenue. Suddenly, I heard sirens emanating from somewhere around Times Towers. All my life, whenever I heard sirens that loud I often get scared because I always associate it with blood. That is to say: it’s either there’s building somewhere burning down with humans trapped in it or it is an ambulance ferrying injured people or worse still it is a hearse transporting corpses! I was alarmed beyond description and I concluded the worst of tragedy that could hit a Kenyan – that the most prestigious building in the land (which also houses the KRA offices) with all those Kenyan monies – had been b...

( MAY 2014) THE UNFORGETTABLE LESSON MY GRANDMA AND AUNT TAUGHT ME: On Saturday 21 st at around 9am in the morning I was scrolling through my phonebook as I sought to reactivate my mind of the numbers that I hadn’t contacted for long. Suddenly, I bumped into my aunt’s number and I said why not. I called her up and our conversation was something like this: MY AUNT: Amunee ee telyani? (How are you my friend?) ME: Achamangei kabisa senge. Amune area noo? (I’m very fine thank you Auntie. How’s that place?). MY AUNT: Kechamachegei kwelikweli Senge. Kemi kechabegei si kebe koe. (We’re very well auntie and             we’re currently preparing to go for an engagement).             [Ooops! So that was the day. All along I never knew that the engagement was that day. I chose to divert the course of the conversation] ME: Ara amunee akot kokoe Komulwon? (So how’s gran...