A couple of us have been doing interviews and trying to get the word out about Ushahidi to as many news and media outlets as we can. Why? In hopes that by reaching out and talking to a broad selection of media more people will hear about it and that the news of Ushahidi will trickle down to the Kenyans who need it most.
The BBC recently did some interviews with those of us involved with Ushahidi. You can listen to the piece at the link below (4:30 long):
BBC Audio Interview on Ushahidi
BoingBoing and the TED blog each did a write-up about Ushahidi and the TEDsters involved with it.
Well known VC blog VentureBeat has a story on Ushahidi, as well as Global Voices on the broader picture behind cyber activism.
On Business Daily
Good Magazine
We’re trying to spread the word even further. If you know anyone at a media outlet in need of a story, consider helping by directing them towards Ushahidi. This is a newsworthy cause that only gets better the more people know about it and use it.
Here is the script for the Parliamentary Session of Janurary 15th 2008:
The Session will be opened,
MPs will be asked to pledge allegiance to the Kenyan President Kibaki,
ODM MPs refuse to do so,
next agenda: voting for a new speaker,
only MPs who pledged allegiance will be allowed to vote,
a big turmoil breaks out,
ODM MPs try to stop the session,
all other MPs vote back Francis Ole Kaparo, PNU’s choice.
Alternative ending:
PNU convinces enough MPs to switch sides,
and MPs vote back Francis Ole Kaparo, PNU’s choice.
…and the Academy Award for the best script goes to:
Mwai Kibaki

My friend warned me that a season would come when there would be numerous tiny jelly fish in the ocean and it becomes excruciatingly painful to swim. And as I touch my still sore knuckle, I guess that season is about now. I have had 2 jelly fish stings in the last three days. The first day it happened, a tiny jelly fish drifted towards me from the back and came into contact with my shoulder. Reacting from the sting and not knowing what was going on I reached behind and smeared the wispy tendils all over my back, making it even worse. I can only describe it similar to the pain of skin coming into contact with a hot surface. And the reaction is similar since like a burn, you instinctively attempt to wipe it away even after the contact is no longer there.
Up till today, the only thing that I knew about jelly fish is what I learnt from the animated movie titled Finding Nemo: that they look similar to pretty pink mushrooms with thin roots growing downwards and that they sting. The jelly fish at the coast of Mombasa must be babies since they are tiny and blue have a few bubbles around them. They might not even be easily recognized from any other tiny sea debris floating in the water making them treacherous. Today I heard howls and screams from no less than three swimmers who had been stung.
And as I research about jelly fish, the most surprising things to learn are that they have no brain and that the same orifice used to take in food, is also the one used to expel waste. Here’s more:
The body of an adult jellyfish consists of a bell shape producing jelly and enclosing its internal structure, from which tentacles are suspended. Each tentacle is covered with cells called cnidocytes, that can sting or kill other animals. Most jellyfish use these cells to secure prey or for defense. Others, such as the Rhizostomae, do not have tentacles at all.
Jellyfish lack basic sensory organs and a brain, but their nervous systems and rhopalia allow them to perceive stimuli, such as light and odor, and respond quickly. They feed on small fish and zooplankton that become caught in their tentacles. Most jellyfish are passive drifters and slow swimmers, as their shape is not hydrodynamic. Instead, they move so as to create a current forcing the prey within reach of their tentacles. They do this by rhythmically opening and closing their bell-like body. Their digestive system is incomplete: the same orifice is used to take in food and expel waste. The body of an adult is made up of 94–98% water. The bell consists of a layer of epidermis, gastrodermis, and a thick, intervening layer called mesoglea that produces most of the jelly.
Most jellyfish have tendrils or oral arms coated with thousands of microscopic nematocysts. Generally, each nematocyst has a “trigger” (cnidocil) paired with a capsule containing a coiled stinging filament armed with exterior barbs. Upon contact, the filament rapidly unwinds, launches into the target, and injects toxins. The animal can then pull its prey into its mouth, if appropriate.
Although most jellyfish are not perniciously dangerous to humans, a few are highly toxic, such as Cyanea capillata.
It was one of those nights where a person finds themselves wondering how long they have been awake or asleep. I did not know what time it was, and did not want to know. All the same, I hoped that it was closer to morning than to midnight. The air was very still and the night was hot and stuffy. Whereas I would be tossing around in bed if I were in Nairobi, in Mombasa, I found myself scratching my body at no place in particular. And so it was almost a relief to learn that Kachir was drunk once again.
In this town, Kachir is the word used to refer to fried potatoes, and is the nickname given to the short, lean man with a bald head and shaggy beard who lives in an iron sheet shack at the back of the apartments block. The reason why the man is called Kachir is because once in a while, he lights a huge fire, brings out a huge frying pan, boils some salad oil and spends a few hours preparing potato crisps. He then packages them in small transparent plastic bags and sells them next to the main gate. However, his trade is not consistent since as soon as he has a substantial amount of money, he wraps up his trade and goes off to drink mnazi (local alcoholic beverage prepared from coconut milk).
Kachir might or might not be our watchman. I heard that he resigned about a month ago after a theft in the neighborhood, but from his loud theatrics last might, I suppose he still considers himself the watchman. When he resigned, he took up the job of cleaning the neighborhood and collecting garbage, after telling off the former contractor.
Though inconsistent, Kachir is very hard working. He is also the true jack of all trades and an even truer master of none. The other day when my shower tap was leaking, Kachir offered to fix it. Even though he only needed to replace a rubber valve, I ended up purchasing a whole tap, and then realized that he did not have the right tools to fix the problem. The leak was eventually fixed when Kachir enlisted the help of friends. If water was blood, and Kachir and company were a team of surgeons, it would have been one of the messiest operations you have ever seen. It is amusing to think that Kachir’s solution was similar to a person buying a new car so that he can remove the wheel and replace the puncture on the old car, and then realizing that he did not have a wheel spanner once the purchase had been finalized. Still I am grateful to Kachir since when I moved in, he is the one who did the general cleaning in my house and also did most of the moving of the furniture. I also have a standing offer from him to do my laundry, which I keep turning down.
Anyway, Kachir was high as a kite and he walked into the compound shouting at imaginary enemies. He dared them to “kuja mkirukaruka kama chura” (come hoping around like frogs) and informed them of his deadly arsenal of bow and arrows. By then, I was already out of bed and I looked out of the window to see him seating on a heap of building stones attempting to wear his shirt. The task must have been very cumbersome to accomplish as he simultaneously made his loud threats since it took a very long time before the shirt successfully went over his head. By then he had given his opinion about educated people who do not use their “school brains”, the government and also about the opposition. To a person from bara (upcountry), listening to Kachir’s insult laced tirade of poetic coastal Kiswahili is as fascinating as a British aristocrat listening to a African American brother talk shop.
When his shirt was firmly on his back, he stood up and went away towards the direction he had come from. And there was just a small respite after Kachir’s departure before a car pulled up and the silence was replaced by the agitated voices of two females. One was telling another, “Makena…stop crying!” and the one called Makena replied by telling her partner, “Why does someone take my life for granted?” After a short heated exchange, the car drove away with Makena’s voice wailing loudly. That is not totally unexpected in Mombasa since here, the party never stops and once in a while the aftermath comes interrupting your sleep.
When I found Kachir washing a car at the car park this morning, I asked him who had so incensed him last night, and he looked at me as if he had no idea what I was talking about. And as I walked away I thought about the cycles; the light that chases away the darkness and you cannot recognize the person you saw in the night, when it is day. And I prayed to God that the angry Kachir and the anguished Makena that is in each one of us may find true peace, and that eventually in our hearts, night may be as day.



Without a doubt one of the most uttered sentences in Kenya today is along the following lines …
Me? A tribalist? No! I am no such thing!
A more refined version goes as follows.
I am not a tribalist! In fact I have friends who are Kikuyu/Luo/Kamba etc.
Interesting. A feeling of déjà vu took over me and it’s just this morning I figured out what was causing that feeling.
About two years ago I wrote a post about tribalism, or to be precise an amazing creature that had been introduced to me called “positive tribalism“. I remember how astounded I was when I first heard it. I thought it was the most outrageously preposterous thing I have ever heard. And there were people who objected to my objection. The post, needless to say, triggered a healthy debate, replete with the usual fare of outraged indignation, threats, and insults, thinly veiled and outright, that I preserved in their entirety. The only comment I obfuscated was one attacking someone else (the only fair game I allow here is myself!)
My opinions have not changed. I think positive tribalism is about as absurd as positive racism. I think it a thinly veiled attempt to legitimize the illegitimate.
I think if you voted for Mwai Kibaki because he is Kikuyu, or Raila Odinga because he is Luo, then you’re an ass.
I think if you didn’t vote Mwai Kibaki because he is Kikuyu, or you didn’t vote for Raila Odinga because he is Luo, then you’re an ass.
If tribe was one of the considerations in your voting decision, then you’re an ass.
What makes me especially sad is that many of the people I know born in the window between 1970 and 1990, who really ought to know better by virtue of being brought up in a cosmopolitan Nairobi have left me puzzled and saddened.
I find it difficult to believe that to a wo(man), most of my peers with roots (albeit several times removed) in Central Kenya resonate with Mwai Kibaki’s policies and agenda, and that his tribe was not a factor. I find it difficult to believe that to a wo(man), most of my peers with roots (albeit several times removed) in Nyanza resonate with Raila Odinga’s strategies for growth and empowerment, and that his tribe was not a factor.
Let me stress that again. These are not people in Central Kenya and Nyanza who have grown up in a homogenous community. I’m talking about people who grew up in cosmopolitan, multi-cultural estates.
Absolutely preposterous that we, the leaders of tomorrow, the iPod-carrying, blogging, Kwani-reading campus graduates have the temerity to purport to be the enlightened future of this nation and yet we still use tribe as a guide in our decision making!
If the tribes of our play pen mates when we were howling toddlers filling our pants did not affect us, and they did not affect us when we were racing our BMX and Choppers how then are we, the product of the cosmopolitan 80s and 90s, using these very things we ignored against our fellows? How, in 2008, can lawyers and doctors and engineers who will be standing for public office in 4-8 years subtly and openly promulgate the same innuendo, fear, paranoia and outright hate and in the same breath express outrage at people hacking each other to death?
My friends, using blogger.com and WordPress.com does not absolve you from your responsibilities. Neither does using gmail.com or yahoo.com. Neither does using Safaricom and Celtel text messaging facilities. Using technology to spread disunity does not absolve you of responsibility!
Do you get outraged when you hear “thieving nigger”? (Yes, nigger) You do? Then why don’t you get outraged when you hear:
I’ll just bet you don’t! And I also bet you forwarded and re-forwarded all those inane jokes starting with “A Kikuyu, a Luo and a Luhya …”, that you fondly believed to be funny.
It’s just a joke, you say? Oh really? Is blackface funny? Disabuse yourselves of that notion!
We are the generation that ought to know better. Why then do our communication, our perceptions, our stereotypes and our voting have anything other than sound logic, merit and character at their foundation?
Have the two-faced youth done this country a disservice, preaching unity from one side of the doubt and undermining it with the other? Could we be the problem?
Given the events of the past 3 weeks I’m beginning to be so inclined …
AOBI was very serious about hate speech in this blog. If I find your comments fail to live up to the basics of respect for your fellows, even those of opposing views then your comment, and then you, are gone. I am not interested in Oompa Loompas and River Trolls interested in sowing their hate here. I will black list your IP address. I will not remove your IP address from the black list until January 1, 2012. So do not bother emailing me.
USHAHIDI.COMA brilliant initiative is ushahidi.com, an initiative to keep track of incidences of unrest in the country. Ushahidi.com is a tool for people who witness acts of violence in Kenya in these post-election times. You can report the incident that you have seen, and it will appear on a map-based view for others to see. This will be a big help not only in knowing what’s going on, but also some time in the future be a tool for introspection
© M :: tHiNkEr'S rOoM, 2008. Comment On Tribalism & The Youth
Category: Elections, Hubbub, Reflections.
After being 'awarded' presidential votes by Samuel Kivuitu, President Kibaki through his PNU party and affiliates are due to make another 'award' to Mr. Francis Ole Kaparo, as Kenya's 'permanent' Speaker of the National Assembly (SNO).

Mamamikes’ donation page is now live. When you click on the homepage, you now have an option to purchase vouchers for Kenyans in Distress. The food and supplies bought will be distributed by the Red Cross to the various parts of Kenya that have been affected by post election violence. This is another way to help and it can save you on wiring costs associated with direct Bank Transfers to the Red Cross. Even without advertising, Mamamikes has already received $300, worth of donated vouchers. (Thank you to that Kind Soul wherever you are)
Update: The amount received so far is now $1000 (thank you!)
For your $10 voucher a package with the following items is purchased for the Red Cross.
-3litres of cooking oil,2kgs of rice and slippers
-2kgs of unga,5litres of water and a pair of shoes
-sanitary products,2kg unga and 2kg of rice
Vouchers are available in the amounts of $15, $20, $25, $50, $75, and you can buy as many as you are able to.
Bloggers for Kenya
This week we would like to appeal to all bloggers, friends of bloggers, wannabe bloggers, diaspora kenyans, Tedsters, treehuggers, geeks, nerds, boingboingers, worldchangers…you get the idea, to give what they can using Mamamikes’ donation page. On Thursday the 17th of January the bloggers in Nairobi will meet at the mamamikes office, assist in purchasing all the items and delivering them to the Red Cross.
Parliament opens tomorrow and there are some rallies planned later in the week, therefore depending on the situation, we will still shoot for Thursday to deliver the items to Red Cross. If for one reason or another the situation is too unstable on Thursday, we will reschedule and let you know. For now, please post about this and tag your posts with ‘Bloggers for Kenya’.
Hope In Jamhuri Park
With all the feelings of helplessness many feel at the current situation; what with failed mediation attempts, fears of more instability as Parliament opens tomorrow, the secondary trauma of watching news of your country being torn apart; perhaps the only thing that can keep Kenyans (here and in the diaspora) sane is doing something to assist the displaced. I have since learned the acronym IDP (Internally Displaced Person), something that aid workers such as Mr. Arunga who works in Darfur, and diplomats in Africa are familiar with…Now the acronym is being used to describe the people camped in various shelters in Kenya.
One such place is Jamhuri Park, Nairobi. I joined Martin and Cynthia of Mamamikes on a visit to Jamhuri Park to see first hand the plight of Internally Displaced persons. It was heart-rending, and very surreal. We could not believe that this was happening in our country, but left with a bit of hope in our hearts as we saw the work of other volunteers, the Red Cross, St. John’s Ambulance Service and even the police/military. Martin and Cynthia have written about the experience here. I will only add some pictures from our day, as they have wonderfully captured everything i wanted to mention in the post. Thank you!
Queues to get food

Queue for health care by St. Johns Ambulance Services

Red Cross
Ahmed’s red cross Jacket. He usually works in Isiolo, but came to Jamhuri Park to help with the tracing activities. I.e figuring out who are the lost children, photographing them, and tracing their relatives.

Kevin (the little boy) talks to Victone of the Red Cross,who is part of the tracing team that will try to locate and reunite Kevin with his family.

Children gathered for a bit of entertainment in the afternoon.

Volunteers entertaining the children with song and dance

The whole set of photos from the day is here.
Kenya is a depressed Nation. The hopelessness that the country is in is beyond any psychiatric description. The stolen elections, the death of a new hope, change that never came, new economic hardships, death and displacement. What Kenyans need are not the police to keep them away from the streets but someone to make them understand. Someone to make them live with all the bad things. Someone to psychoanalyze them and turn their anger into hope. The anger must be converted into strength. We need someone to explain to us why it had to happen the way it did. That someone must be able enough to tell us why we had to participate in the elections in the first place. Kenyans need counseling.
At the moment, this is somewhat melancholic acutely dissatisfied and to some extent bitter nation. The police might be brutal in containing the situation but the will of Kenyans might not welter. If Kibaki plans to stay in power for the next four years, then Kenyans must be made to understand. Someone must appeal to our minds. We must be made to accept him unconditionally. A psychologist/Psychiatrist/Counselor must be deployed.
Blogged with Flock
Note: Images posted on www.Ushahidi.com.
Disclaimer: The following images are gruesome and disturbing. The humanitarian crisis is real and dire. Complete set of photos taken in Kakamega by Mr. Arunga are available here. The images include shots of the police station, showing the displaced taking refuge there, burning shops, vandalized petrol station and burned car.
Onlookers and concerned citizens around the body of 24 yr old James Odhiambo, who was killed in the post election violence in Lurambi - Junction on the way to Shikoti, Kakamega, western province, Kenya. The gentleman in white (Brian) on the right worked with James at the petrol station as attendants and witnessed the shooting.

Close up of the bullet wound on the body of 24 yr old James Odhiambo. According to eye witnesses, he was walking to work when he met the GSU paramilitary. Mr. Odhiambo continued to walking towards towards the GSU as he thought he could talk to them and find out what is happening. According to eyewitnesses, he was shot without even though he was not violent or doing anything that would indicate he would be a threat to the GSU. The witnesses tried to contact the police so they could come and pick up the body, but the police said that they did not have fuel for the vehicle. As of the writing of this post, the late James Odhiambo was buried yesterday in Homa Bay, Nyanza province. Brian and other friends from the area traveled to Homa Bay to comfort the family. If you would like to help the family directly, please do not hesitate to contact Brian Oluoch at +254 724 912015. Mr. Odhiambo was the sole breadwinner for his family…Any contributions towards their well being is appreciated.
Pictures were taken by Mr.Michael Arunga, who works for World Vision in Darfur, and was on holiday at the time. He witnessed the burning of a kikuyu owned property, as shown in this photo.

**The decision to post the pictures here and to tell this story is partly because the pictures were sent to editors of newspapers in Kenya, they did not run them or cover the story. As people try to get back to ‘normal’ life around the country, it is important to remember that there is no normal for a lot of people in Kenya.
Part one of the 10 things I wish I knew before I left Africa
One of my teachers once told me, “If you want to succeed, put words to things which people haven’t put words to yet. Give a name to, verbalize or talk about gnawing feelings that people have that they just can’t describe.” Ironically, I am about to do that for myself and in so doing I hope I give voice to some of the things that YOU experience.
Social Bookmarking