Kenya Bitter Truth

By Dr.Paul Bundi Karau Nothing brings out our humanity like simple acts of kindness, especially those done with no hope of reward. All of us have been recipients of kindness, and we know how deep, how joyous, how good it feels. A random act of kindness invokes our deepest spirits and makes us feel like humans, valued by God and man.  For this reason, we should always strive to show kindness as much as possible.  When I started Oregon Health Services, Tarsila was among the first patients who came. She recounted how her prayers had been answered. She suffered a catalog of chronic problems, and prayed for someone who could walk the journey with her.  I decided to adopt her, and there and then, promised her of my support. I exempted her from all fees, including drugs and laboratory tests.  She told me she thought she had birthed another son, and from that day, she essentially became my other mother. Todate I have over 10 of such. She would pray and fast for me. And whenever she visits me, ...

History is the realest and simplest way of making us more human, satient beings with a belonging. By reconnecting with the past, we understand who we are, and where we go. It is Sir Winston Churchill, the bellicose triumphalist, who once said that "pondering upon the past enables a new generation to repair some of the errors of yester years, and forge ahead..thus, the further backward you look, the further forward you see." By sitting and reminiscing on past successes and failures, joys and tribulations, hits and misses, mistakes and triumphs, we become more human, relate better and derive inexplicable joy and satisfaction. Yesterday, I sat down for several hours with my aunt, Jennifer, as I reminded her of whence we come from, and her indelible contribution at a time of need. She was left in tears to realize that I've not forgotten the role she played in our lives during the heady and stormy 90s, when lack ruled our lives. She was then a dashing yellow beauty, trapped in...

Karama Ward has upper & lower zone, for the past few months I have devoted myself to coming up with strategic initiatives that can improve living standards of lower zone.  Midst so many challenges, The area has experienced constant drought and famine over the time.This has greatly affected school going children to a level they have to quit schools for herding, leaving empty classrooms, for the few left in school their performance has been trolling day by day making Karama the poorest performing division in terms of education.  The only sure transformational matrix that can and will see our society grow is through constant investment in young generation through education, as long as this one is not achieved we live to fight "unseen demons"  To address these concerns in my little ways, after continuous engagement with the affected school Management and the parents I have formulated and came up with a sustainable feeding Program for all class eight pupils in Luthie Primary S...

By Dr Bundi Karau Teachers, please answer me. I have been to many schools, and I always ask students what time they do their own private reading. It seems times have changed. In almost all schools, remedial teaching starts very early, sometimes before 5am. In some schools, even the short break after lunch is taken up for teaching. This goes on at night, and teachers sign off at 9pm. Over weekends, you hear of maths or chemistry hour, and all the Saturday and Sundays are spent with teachers. The syllabus is covered very early, but these students will not have a moment to reflect on their own lives and improve on their own. During our days, and it's long time ago, most of these hours were spent alone. Those who could improve did so on their own. We figured our own ways, and I saw guys do a good job at it. Pray, if this be the trend, when does someone realize I'm not good in something and I need my own time and effort to sort it out? And in the end, won't we bring forth a gen...

__Listen up, because you need to hear this, and you might not like it “Money is king, and it is bigger than your idea”. Serious investors will never want to steal your idea, because they need you to run the business… and to run it well! When you go to a financial investor, you pitch to convince them to invest their hard-earned money, explaining [with numbers] how if they do, your business will GROW their money. Few investors are interested in dividends, they want GROWTH! I have told you this before! They want to invest say $50,000 and after 5 years sell their shares for at least $250,000. Most don’t want to be receiving small little dividend cheques from profits! [And remember, investors are not donors. This is about making them money!] Investors wants you to properly manage the business created by their money. If you fail to achieve the agreed growth, then you must step aside! There should be no “Buts” about it! If you said that the business would be generating so much revenue, and so...

Human beings are endowed with remarkable resilience, which can only be broken when they choose to give up.  Says Viktor Frankl in his seminal book, Man's Search for Meaning; ''it is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future-sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in thd most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.'' Man's life is primarily driven by the desire for future, the unshakable belief that the future holds promise. We invariably cease to live when we think we have hit a dead end, or that there's nothing more to be had by living. Theoretically, there is no limit to man's achievement, and that is what drives men to wake up and strive day after day. The opposite is spiritual, psychological death, which manifests way ahead of physical death. Lesson? Losing today doesn't mean losing always. You can lose 10 times and win the 11th time. Or, you can lose all th...

Every person is going to have a different view of what makes him or her successful. You could define success by income, rank, family life, or even leisure time--whatever you seek, it's important to work toward that goal without letting other people's definition of success change what you want. If your definition of success is a happy, well-balanced family life, maybe don't take a job that won't allow you to spend time with your family. If success to you is the ability to make a positive difference in people's lives, then don't pass up chances to share your expertise and lead your company or industry in a way that helps others. The literal definition of the word "success" is the achievement of a goal or objective. You can't be successful if you abandon your goal altogether!

Two groups of people make ugly sums of money by employing small-time mental tricks, without breaking a sweat. One group is the tenderprenuers and the other, land dealers. To rob big money from an unsuspecting Kenyan, you merely need to dangle the carrot of land. There’s an inexplicable affinity with land that smirks of either a curse or a disease. Or perhaps, it is a primeval connection with our final destination, the soil. The naively trusting, the willing, the greedy (or is it needy) are easy prey to these prowling devourers, who sniff these ingredients from a mile and swoop like vultures massing for a fallen carcass. This coincidental twist of circumstances found me, a trusting, honest doctor in the middle of a scam four years ago. The vulnerability A dashing doctor, relatively successful, in need of land to build a townhome. I met this old man, in his 70s, smart and always in a tie, driving perhaps the cleanest landrover in town. The 1970 machines, whose few remnants look like cart...

__The things practical people do! The Richest Man in Babylon advised his mentees to “increase your earning capacity”. This is like me always encouraging you to #SkillUp! Now here is a mistake made by many people who work in companies: they expect the company to train them. A good company will always train you to do the job for which they hired you. They don’t necessarily train you for everything you need to make you a great success. If you want to develop your skills fully, YOU must take charge yourself, otherwise you will not realize your full potential, whether as an employee or an entrepreneur. It reminds me of a friend of mine who worked for a big company where he was CEO, and very happy in his job. One day I bumped into him on the street with a pile of books under his arm. “I’m on leave,” he said before adding, “I use my leave days every year as a STUDY LEAVE to focus on a knowledge area where I’m deficient”. I was totally taken aback, and my respect for him went through the roof....

__Don't go broke trying to look rich... When I was at college I had a scholarship, and was one of a small group of students who had exactly the same scholarship. It was not a lot of money, and it was the first time we all had to manage our own money. It was always interesting to observe how the students handled their money! 1. Most students spent the money as soon as they got into the account. They always seemed to be planning how to SPEND their money. 2. Two of the students were always discussing how to SAVE their money. No guessing in which group I was! Ever since I was a child, I was always trying to SAVE. I kept little coins in boxes, and I enjoyed SAVING UP! If you are one of these people who must absolutely SPEND, it will always be like that no matter how much you have. For some people, it is almost as though the money is burning a hole in their pocket, DEMANDING IT BE SPENT! It all seems so simple, but it is at the heart of CAPITAL accumulation. At some point you will come i...

NAIROBI, 10th September 2021(PSCU)-President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday at State House, Nairobi donated ten (10) buses to various secondary schools and community groups from across the country, among them Catholic Women Association of Maralal Diocese and Marafiki Football Club from Nyeri County.  The school buses were donated to Tumutumu School for the Deaf (Nyeri County), Marifano High School (Tana River County), Achego Girls Secondary School (Kisumu County), and Olorukuti Secondary School (Narok County).  Others were Rukanga Secondary School (Kirinyaga County) and Mnagei Secondary School (West Pokot) as well as AIC Moi Girls Maralal and Kisima Girls all from Samburu County. In addition to the buses, the Head of State donated 2,000 re-usable masks to each of the schools as part of Government efforts to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. The brief handover ceremony was attended by several political leaders led by Senate  Leader of Majority Samuel Poghisio and Samburu County MP Maison Leshoomo...

This is what Kiraitu had to say "I joined the Meru Professionals and Business Community in a meeting with former Prime Minister, Rt Hon Raila Odinga 'Jakom' in a meeting where we deliberated on the interests of the Meru community. As you all know, my mission is to Make Meru Great and ensure that our people are rich and prosperous. I have become skeptical of political friendships because you see people who haven’t quarreled becoming enemies and enemies of yesterday becoming friends. So I do not want to base politics on personal friendships. We will be bound by interests of our people. We are forming a party that will focus on the interests of the people of Meru and the region so that we can also be in the national political arena. When our youths are empowered to be employable, when we have good roads, adequate clean water, improved agriculture and much more, these will definitely uplift the livelihoods of our people. This can only be achieved through increased resources in...

Who, and what will cure our anger and frustration? Kenyans, it seems, have drunk the cup of anger, frustration and sadism. Beneath the veneer, people are seething with anger. The problem is no one knows the cause of the anger. And without a diagnosis, there can be no cure. I read about the killing of the top KCSE candidate nationally in 2012, a Yale graduate. Just recently, two brothers in Embu died needlessly, victims of an angry and frustrated system. But what stung even more was the killing of four young boys, enjoying their racing bikes somewhere in Isinya. Herdsmen saw them, suspected them to be cattle rustlers, and lynched them.  You wonder how cattle rustlers look like, and whether four young boys appear like them. You also wonder how rife cattle rustling is in the part of the country. But what you wonder most is that not one among that mob was the voice of reason. No one could listen to their pleas. This is a classic case of shooting first and aiming later. These are symptoms o...

Copied from Dr. Bundi Karau What to do with the tribe? Tribal instinct is a primitive instinct; primitive in the sense that everyone demonstrates the instinct. The same way a newborn has a sucking reflex, which is a primitive reflex that ensures survival. Whether the tribe will disappear with time, nobody knows. Maybe as we cross borders and marry from other tribes, we shall obliterate the barriers and form an amorphous, tribeless population. Why is tribe such a powerful tool? Is it only exclusive to Africa? By no means. If you look keenly, most European countries are homogeneous tribes. Those with more than one tribe face perennial problems. In Spain, the Catalans, despite being given near 100% autonomy, dream daily of their own state. In the Balkans, some countries like Bosnia have 3 presidents to represent the 3 tribes. In the 90s, some tribe wanted to exterminate the other. Because national boundaries are an artificial creation of colonial powers and other forces, it follows that t...

From Dr Bundi Karau Random observations Was the male species created to suffer, or does the male species bring suffering upon itself? I watched an animal documentary about lions; how they live in their nations and how they interact with one another. The behavior of males strikes as fatalistic and nihilistic. Male lions spend the day lazying around, mating and fighting. In fact, fighting takes most of their time. They fight for female friends, for territory and for dominance. Most of the fights end up in severe injuries and death. On the other hand, female lions take care of the pride, do most of the hunting, defend their young and generally groom each other. Once male lions grow old, they are violently dethroned, ostracized and sometimes killed. Those who manage to escape wallow in hunger, pain and defeat, until hyenas, hunger or old age. If you see one, it's glory days look a distant blur, and it resembles a rained on cat that was once a lion. Elderly female lions spend...

The mountain isn't happy.Covid 19 virus has not only affected Thurakus' economically but also Matiangi's boys have denied them of their freedom. Nothing is easy as assuring a regretting and hopeless man a better tomorrow. Mr.Ruto got a PhD in this,sell an hustler narrative, give hope and you are assured of blind support from the struggling population,all with hope of a better tomorrow.Which will never come.Confuse,divide and get their support to propel you to the house at the hill.Later... exploit, attain self actualization and ensure your community gets freedom from perceived Kikuyu dominance. This will simply be achieved by selling a national cooked propaganda by the name"hustler" forgetting  neither Kenyatta senior nor Moi not even Kibaki parents were known.Fortunately none of them sold this "Hitler"  narrative to win presidency. Mr.Dp Dr Ruto,Wajinga ni wengi lakini wajinga wameisha Kenya.

Well, I got to watch and read about the WRC Safari rally. The somesaulting drivers flown to Nairobi, the Nairobi entourage of spectators living life largely, and the decorated FIA president being decorated with a national award. Chief of the Burning spear. For his burning spirit and dedication that had brought the circuit back to Kenya.  Monday comes with its blues.  But, as I have observed before, there is never a dull moment in the life of the village surgeon. My heart was warmed by seeing a septogenarian I had admitted with severe malnutrition and suspected colon cancer munching away at a pile of oranges.  "You mean with all the schooling, you advised the patient to have oranges as her source of high protein diet?" I thundered to the nutritionist in my team, knowing very well that she was not to blame. If anything, the swollen legs and sulky face- all evidence of poor nutrition-had abated over the #Vasha weekend.  She had had porridge and a mug of milk was enroute in a few...

By Paul Karau The trodden path to success: my date with Chuka Boys High. Today, I will exchange notes with Form Four boys of Chuka High, that lion that has long refused to roar. I take these assignments with spiritual devotion, because I know the role motivation and role-modelling has played in my life. As I sit in my study to prepare what to share with my small brothers, these are the thoughts that come to mind: 1. Be specific about what you want, and be specific about the obstacles that lie on the way. As you strive for any success, picture VIVIDLY how it will be like to achieve that goal.  2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Decide WHEN and WHERE you will take specific actions to reach your goal. 3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Self-evaluation takes effort and will power. In this regard, there are two forms of thinking; to-date thinking (focuses on what you've accomplished) and to-go thinking (focuses on what is left to be accomplished). For example, a maratho...

Just how much is enough evidence?  A young boy was brought to my clinic the other day.  I had operated on him two years earlier, freeing and anchoring his hitherto undescended testicle to his right scrotum.  He later developed a reaction around the scrotal skin. A small lump developed at one edge of the surgical scar.  His mother happened to get my phone number and called me incessantly. When she finally got through, I agreed that she comes across to the other side of the mountain for review after I could not succeed in imploring her to visit other colleagues nearby.  She was punctual for the appointment. Very punctual!  I reviewed the boy and was impressed that the swelling was a form of complication we call suture granuloma. The flesh around was fighting the suture (thread used to stitch up tissues during surgery).  I would offer surgical exploration and excision.  It was time for the insurance paper work.  As colleagues have argued before,...

Kenyans, it seems, have drunk the cup of anger, frustration and sadism. Beneath the veneer, people are seething with anger. The problem is no one knows the cause of the anger. And without a diagnosis, there can be no cure. I read about the killing of the top KCSE candidate nationally in 2012, a Yale graduate. Just recently, two brothers in Embu died needlessly, victims of an angry and frustrated system. But what stung even more was the killing of four young boys, enjoying their racing bikes somewhere in Isinya. Herdsmen saw them, suspected them to be cattle rustlers, and lynched them.  You wonder how cattle rustlers look like, and whether four young boys appear like them. You also wonder how rife cattle rustling is in the part of the country. But what you wonder most is that not one among that mob was the voice of reason. No one could listen to their pleas. This is a classic case of shooting first and aiming later. These are symptoms of anger. The cause, no one knows. But the cure ...

By Bundi Karau Nothing has tested the mettle of many physicians like the covid-19 pandemic. As the crisis lurches on, we are faced with hefty decisions everyday, and some of them take a heavy toll on our resolve and even mental health. Make no mistake, the pandemic is still in full swing, and there are little signs of ebbing of the tide. Further afield, giants like India are reeling under a surge of covid-19 deaths. The world must act and save the world's pharmacy. But three things have tested my mettle the most. Sometimes I count it God's grace that I can still wake up and head to work. Being in the eye of the storm is no easy job. 1. The scarcity of beds Nothing breaks my heart than relatives of a patient who is barely breathing calling me and requesting my help to get them a bed. This time, they are in a casualty somewhere, and the hospital says they can't admit them, there's no space. You call all your contacts, and don't succeed. You call back to tell them you...

By Bundi Karau Last week, an article appeared in the Standard about the sorry state of men on retirement. Men who were previously kings in their careers and businesses now suffer silently, as children and mothers alienate them and sentence them to loneliness and neglect. It was a sobering read. In the words of one commentator, men who don't spend time with their children in their formative years end up becoming like "a rained on cat that looks like a former lion." Most ladies who commented talked about the value of presence, and time spent with children. Accordingly, it is not the money that counts, but the time spent with kids. Otherwise you could end up spending your last years like a rained on lion. But come to think of it; can you actually achieve a perfect balance in life? I reckon that man was created to strive and to suffer. A man who doesn't strive misses a certain gene, a certain coding that the creator implanted in us. Whether as a professional or a business...

The memorial service for Mzee Simeon Nyachae was held at the Nairobi Central SDA Church on February 11, 2021. Residents from Nyanturago in Kisii County on Thursday staged a demonstration against decision to move Mzee Simeon Nyachae’s funeral venue. Also Read: Former Cabinet Minister Simeon Nyachae dies at 88 According to them, moving the venue from Musa Nyandusi stadium to Gusii stadium amounts to disrespect of their culture since Nyachae’s will indicated where the official ceremony should be held. The angry residents who thronged the stadium were astonished to see organizers demolish tents already erected for the Monday, February 15 send off. According to them, local hotels and shops were already stocked in readiness to receive visitors across the country. Musa Nyandusi Stadium is considered a cultural venue for most Gusii cultural and political activities. Also Read: 1. Leaders mourn former minister Simeon Nyachae 2. Former Cabinet Minister Simeon Nyachae dies at 88 3. Maziko ya mke ...