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12:20
Poor women being detained at Pumwani Maternity Hospital
» Kenyan Pundit PLEASE HELP GET THE MESSAGE OUT. THE WOMEN ARE BEING DETAINED FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO PAY THE DELIVERY FEE OF KSHS 3,400. We, at KENGO believe that it is our responsibility to hold all public institutions accountable and to ensure that in the delivery of services the right of all to dignity is respected. [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Poor women being detained at Pumwani Maternity Hospital", url: "http://www.kenyanpundit.com/2008/06/28/poor-women-being-detained-at-pumwani-maternity-hospital/" });
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12:04 2 Funny Stories from My Days as an Aged Care Nurse
» The Displaced African Today let’s take a look at how the pursuit of the dollar has humbled us.
Let’s not discuss it at the abstract or conceptual level: let’s make it real by sharing some stories.
Below are two stories from my days as an aged care nurse/hospital wardsman/general cleaner and gardener/disability care person.
Before We Begin
It should be noted that I never entered the Aged Care field with any airs or feeling of snobbery. I didn’t have any interest in the job and didn’t really want to do it initially but once I got in, I loved being with old folks, especially because their old age (and in some cases) dementia made them so real, non pretentious and friendly.
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I never ever made the declaration that I was above other people’s bodily fluids or anything like that: I accepted it as part and parcel of the job before I got in. The reason I got out: because I don’t really have a passion for the industry AND I am a pretty bad nurse (and I like to imagine, a much better writer and thinker
)
Some scatological humor coming your way. Don’t read this within the physical or psychological vicinity of food, anyone squeamish or uncool.Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
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/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}Story Number One: My Friend’s First Day
The nurse had done this many times before and knew exactly what to do. Grab the old feeble person lying on the bed. Roll them over so that they were facing them and their back was to the newbie nurse sent by the agency. Pull of the diaper pad. Grab a face washer and……….pass it to the agency nurse: No need doing the grunt work when there was an agency nurse around.
Nine point five times out of ten, the agency nurse would gladly grab that face washer and wipe that bum clean as though it were La Mancha and he was hunting for some gold. But not this day my friends and not this African. The African contorted his countenance into a look of pure surprise:
“Excuse me?” he said as he stared at the food that escaped the decaying old man.
“I don’t have all day, grab the face washer and give his bum a wash!”
Would this be the day? Would this be the moment? Would he now officially become a member of the ABC: the Australian Bum Cleaning Association?
Alas friends, today was not to be the day. For you see, our protagonist had the perfect excuse:
“I can’t do it, I’m new here!”
Now a second countenance contorted into pure confusion:
“What do you mean your new? This isn’t rocket science. Grab the towel. Dip it in the water there, wipe of all the sh………”
Shhhhhhhhh, he lost our protagonist at shhhhhhhhhhh
“I am new here! Please do it and show me how!”
And with that the young man put off the inevitability of joining the ABC. Too bad, the person whose bum he wiped to join had a much nastier treasured buried in that there diaper.Story Number Two: Will Mwangi Find Love?
“Thank God it’s Friday night and I juuuuusssttt got paid!”
That song kept playing in my mind over and over and over and over again. A few minutes until the shift ends and then women had better watch out, there was a young aged care nurse on the prowl, and I was loaded with sanitary gloves
. Sure I didn’t have much. But where money was lacking, I more than made up in testosterone and enthusiasm.
With me being in such an expectant and chirpy mood, I basically floated into the room that belonged to “the Lady” in the final minutes of the shift.
Unfortunately, the Lady had busted her nose and I was there to clean up the blood while she lay there in bed. For some reason that I can’t quite fathom, I forgot to turn on the lights as I walked into her room and the only light that showed was a tiny sliver of flourescent light from the hallway. That flourescence formed a perfect line from the hall all the way to the head of the bed where she lay and where I stood with a towel in my hand and ready to hold my jaw in the other. Let the soap opera begin.
She was smiling at me a little too much. Then again I was a young man in a nursing home, this happened quite a bit and I was used to it. I gently caressed (that must have been what she thought) her face with that face washer until all the blood was off.
I dropped the face washer back into the bucket of water and began to bounce my way out when I heard a gentle whisper:
“Heeeyy,”
I could say that I did an elegant swivel back to face her as Ridge would to Brook in the Bold and the Beautiful, but at that moment I looked like the black guy in the movie who had just heard the sound which everyone in the movie knows will kill him. I turned round: oh oh
“Come here,” the senior lady of the lake (if you get this reference, I’m so sorry) purred
I came to her side like a good nurse would:
“What’s up?”
“Just one?”
“Just one what?”
“Just one KISS!”
I looked like a deer in the headlights.
“Say what?”
“Come on, just one, just one little kiss!”
I did what any compassionate loving human being would do….I began to cackle!
“You’re bad for me you know that?”
“Come on,” she continued like a siren upon the rocks on a Scottish shore.
I slowly began to back away cackling and unable to believe that this was happening. Finally I left her with a kiss in the wind which was delivered from my lips to her cheek via a blow from my right hand. I had to give the people what they want
. Now to repeat that process with a twenty year old……………To hear more stories like this, make sure you subscribe to this site via RSS or email to receive regular updates.
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12:01
Nairobi Java MD Faces Life Imprisonment
» You Missed This 
The Managing Director of popular JAVA Coffee House was yesterday arraigned in court and charged with defiling two Kenyan minors aged 13 and 14 years old.
A calm looking 41 year old Jon Cardon Wagner appeared before Senior Principal Magistrate Stella Muketi for mentioning on Friday when city lawyer Mohammed Nyaoga pleaded with the court to grant his client cash bail. Wagner, who is an American citizen, was ordered undergo a DNA test and then remanded at the Muthangari Police Station until Monday when the magistrate is expected to make a ruling on the bail application. Officials of the US Embassy were seen taking notes in the courtroom on Friday. The case shall be heard on August 26, 2008.
One police officer speaking on condition of anonymity revealed that they made a decision to arrest and charge Wagner after they had been able to establish that hotelier paid two women a total of about US$500 to lure the girls, whose identity remains unknown, from their homes in a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi to his residence in the upmarket Lavington estate. In addition to the current charge, police are said to be investigating at least two new complaints of statutory rape against the American, which were received at Muthangari Police Station following media coverage of Wagner's arrest Thursday. A sign that police are taking the matter seriously could be seen when Wagner’s arrest was conducted in person by the Muthangari OCS while journalists from the mainstream media were summoned to witness the arrest.
According to Kenyan law, (Penal Code Chapter 145. Defilement of girls under 16 years), any person who ‘unlawfully and carnally knows’ any girl under the age of sixteen years is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment with hard labour for life. Additionally, any person who ‘attempts to unlawful carnal knowledge’ of a girl under the age of sixteen years is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment with hard labour for life.
Discreet inquiries by this blogger reveal that tens of innocent Kenyan girls have fallen victim to Wagner's insatiable sex-drive. Indeed, many of the hundreds of girls who have been employed at Java as waitresses, cashiers and supervisors have had to be forced into sleeping with Wagner before collecting their employment letters at the firm’s head-office at ABC Place along Waiyaki Way. In one shocking incident, this blogger was able to trace one of the girls – originally from Western Kenya – who confessed to having been appointed a restaurant manager in one of the Java outlets despite her obvious lack of experience or qualifications in the hospitality industry after Wagner allegedly slept with her over a period of time and also allegedly infected her with the HIV virus.
During Wagner’s widely publicized arrest, one young damsel emerged from the stately home clutching a handbag and calmly walked out of the gate and on to the road towards the bus stop. In Nairobi upper class restaurant circles, Wagner’s sexual escapades are a poorly kept secret and it is indeed surprising that it has taken police nearly a decade to catch up with this notorious sex pest.
Nairobi Java House began a culture of gourmet coffee drinking in Nairobi nine years ago and has grown to have eight posh coffee shops in the capital and around the suburbs employing hundreds of Kenyans. Java is hugely popular with upper upper-class Kenyans, tourists and expatriates. The Java group also exports Kenyan coffee to USA and Western Europe.
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9:17
Clearly, I am excited to be in Budapest....
» REBECCA WANJIKU'S BLOG 
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Proudly blogging about Kenya, Juliana
» REBECCA WANJIKU'S BLOG 
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Enjoying meeting people
» REBECCA WANJIKU'S BLOG 
Daudi joined the party.... -
Juliana, David, make the village pose famous ....
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We enjoy meeting people, those we know, and those we dont... -
Kenyans meet
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When biases meet biases: the case of China
» REBECCA WANJIKU'S BLOG When biases meet biases: the case of China -
No skyscrapers, this is Budapest
» REBECCA WANJIKU'S BLOG 
The St Stephen's Church is the tallest building in the city. All other buildings have to conform to this.
The buildings have medieval architecture, its very good looking. Old Russian style buildings, make the place a tourist attraction. -
You gotta give it up for Japanese tourists
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More photos
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We Sold Grand Regency To The Libyans… Muta-do?
» You Missed This Two things happened yesterday, one a small incident and the other a major announcement that shook the country. Both served to remind Kenyans that nothing has changed. And probably nothing will ever change.The smaller incident was that Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka’s motorcade was leaving his Karen residence in the morning when they came across an accident involving a Mr Joshua Kulei. Remember the former-prison-warden-turned-billionaire? The semi-illiterate guy who made bags and bags of cash, mainly looted from public coffers as former President Moi’s personal assistant? The VP’s people assisted Kulei. Apparently there were no serious injuries.
If Kulei is still not in jail it proves that nothing has changed despite all the hot air witnessed these days. The guy is still in the country enjoying his ill-gotten wealth. Yet another shining example of selective justice, Kenyan-style.
The bigger event was that Finance Minister Amos Kimunya announced that the Grand Regency has already been sold to some Libyans for about Kshs 2.9 billion. (Chris published the inside story here almost 2 months ago. Read it HERE. You will cry tears.) Now the virtually toothless parliamentary select committee has threatened action. That is really funny. What action can they seriously take?
Kimunya and company are very smart. Together with the likes of Martha Karua, (and another lawyer called Gichira Kibara) they went through the Kenyan electoral law last December and quickly identified all the loopholes. The most gaping one is that to be declared president of Kenya (whether you have lost or won the election) the only guy you need “to take care of” is the commission chair. This explains (for those with the memory of an elephant like me) why the president was so determined to fill the commission with his cronies. The idea was to prop up his own hand-picked chairperson who could do as he or she was instructed. Public pressure forced the re-appointment of Samuel Kivuitu but ways and means of getting him to play ball were still found.
These people do not make mistakes (legally at least). When it comes to politics, that is a whole different story which I have no intention of discussing now. So the Grand Regency Hotel has been sold for at least half its’ market value BUT Muta-do? There is absolutely nothing anybody can do about it. I will use Robert Mugabe’s words to the world the other day; “they can shout as much as they want…”
The comedy in the whole Grand Regency saga was the clip local TV stations have been playing showing Kimunya denying that there was any plan to secretly sell the prestigious hotel turned public property.
Here is what the guy Chris calls a blind side winger said;
“Somebody heard it in a bar, others got it from some rumour mill (I am certain in his mind he was thinking about this exclusive Kumekucha story) and now they are talking about it with such authority as if they know what is going on.”
Very funny. Now it is clear that the “bar stories” and the “rumour mills” were 100 per cent accurate and the Finance Minister was telling lies on national TV. Muta-do?
P.S. This is precisely why ODM were dreaming when they gunned for the Finance portfolio during the Kofi Anan talks. This Grand Regency deal like the Safaricom one before it would have been impossible to pull off without Kimunya at the Treasury.
P.S. 2 Something we were discussing with Chris on the phone which I want to pass on for you to mull over this weekend. Why are some people so determined to discredit this blog and Chris’ explosive raw notes? And yet time and again the information published in both is proving to be 101% accurate. What would be the real motive?
99 brilliant Online moneymaking ideas anybody can implement part-time/fulltime
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Live blog session: Day two
» REBECCA WANJIKU'S BLOG Live blog session: Day two
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0:49
Refreshing WhiteAfrican’s Design
» White African I decided to update the look and feel of WhiteAfrican.com last night. No drastic changes, more of a cleanup really, as things seemed messy to me before. I’m a big fan of Chris Pearson, so I’m trying out his new Thesis theme. Bugs are still being worked out as I customize it a little bit…
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0:08
Speaking of Africa
» Black Looks Changeseeker, of Why Am I Not Surprised, says, “Yesterday, surfing the web for the first time since I moved last week, I decided to stalk my favorite website builder’s work and came across a call for applications for the Focus Features Africa First Short Film Program. The application period opened May 12th and closes July [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Speaking of Africa", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/06/speaking_of_africa.html" });