TALES FROM THE AFTERLIFE

Life is defined by the moments that take your breath away and not by the number of breaths you take. You live life on the high wire, the rest is just waiting. This article is for all the adreno-holics out there, tough homo-sapiens with a sense of adventure and a spine for danger. So if you are a lazy, soft-bellied, corporate geek, you may want to flip the page. But then again, this is a dare, get out there and get some oxygen (and perhaps some water) into your lungs. I have heard many long tales about the wild waters of the Sagana River, its rafting, kayaking and hippos, but have never quite had the experience. Last Saturday found me in the environs of Sagana bored and thirsty for adventure.   This was my perfect opportunity to experience its savage charm. Deep in the hilly wilderness of Sagana, lies an alien kind of beauty - that of a brute kind. You know, sort of like a Hummer, not exactly beautiful but still dreadfully attractive. There is no better place to mooch...

HOW SOFTLY OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS… On this brilliant Friday morning, we depart from Meru Town/County and head North for Isiolo County where we are scheduled to attend a Water and Sanitation (WASH) Inter-agency Coordinating Committee (ICC) meeting at the Sarova Shaba Lodge. Isiolo town is located on the Great North Road, barely 50km from Meru town. Despite the proximity to Meru, the climatic contrast could not be more diverse. Whereas Meru town has this nice cool mountain weather, Isiolo is a hot, dry and harsh savanna affair. By some lucky toss of the cosmic dice, Isiolo County happens to be smack in the middle of the Republic of Kenya. It straddles what is currently referred to as the LAPSSET. (Lamu Port & South Sudan Ethiopis Transport) Corridor. This vision 2030 project will consist of a pipeline, road and railway corridor that will link the oil-rich South Susan, Ethiopia and Northen Kenya to the port of Lamu. (Lamu Port and South Sudan Ethiopia Transport)   co...

My formative years were spent in the dusty streets of Nakuru. When a friend called asking me to attend an important function in Nakuru, all the pent up nostalgic memories of my childhood “home” came roaring back to the surface. This is my homecoming. I mostly work in Central Kenya and I rarely get the chance to venture outside its borders. This was one rare God-sent opportunity to visit Nakuru. I was traveling down the Aberdares from Nyeri/Nyahururu and we agreed with my Nairobi crowd (Ken & Joan) to rendezvous at Gilgil. Gilgil is this small sweltering dusty town on the Nairobi-Nakuru highway, about 25km from Naivasha in the neighborhood of the Soy Sambu Ranch. The property belongs to a lineage of aristocrat ranchers have a penchant for shooting stray citizens and I was warned against straying too close to the ranch. The ancients tell us that this tiny army town nestled by a range of flat-topped hills draws it name from the biblical Gilgal, the hill of the foreskin(Jo...

The other day I was awestruck by this young boy Ryan on Churchill Live – a popular Kenyan comedy show. The young boy could tell colours apart while blind-folded. He could even read a children’s book and a newspaper while completely blindfolded. The seven-year old class one pupil was discovered after attending a class at Peak-performance, an entity that trains people to push their limits. This got me thinking – he had not gone through the lifetime discipline of the Kungu-fu masters, Buddhists monks, Psychics and Mentalists and there is no way this could have been a mental trick. Without the benefit of any sensory perception, the kid could read complex text clearly as if his eyes were open. Science tells us that light must be reflected from the book, perceived by our eyes, projected onto the retina and nerve impulses created that travel to the brain which then interprets the picture. So, if light did not travel from the book to his eyes, then it suffices to say, that he has ano...