By Macharia wa Gakuru

It must have been around 20 hrs. I had just come from my bathroom and I had my washing towel round my waist. I had just finished having my shower . my younger daughter  was playing with a new game called dibro and my nephew was standing just next to the TV screen as he is accustomed in doing.

The phone rang

‘Hallo’

Hallo, I replied

‘Oh – Githibo,’ I called It is a long time friend who lives in Canada. I immediately recognized the voice.

We had not met or talked with Githibo for over five years. He had heard that I had a problem with my kidneys and somehow he had managed to get my house number.

‘Who is this’, he asked

‘Well you want to tell me you don’t know who you are calling?’ I replied

‘Ah  gosh – is it you Macharia’, he replied in surprise.

‘Yes’ I replied

‘Well your voice has truly changed. It sounds smooth, interesting, inviting , cultured and very feminine. What happened?’ He asked.

‘Well, I can only guess, but why have you noticed this yet Gitau wa Njenga of the nation, Ngugi of Rift valley news  or even Agnes of Kenya London news had not picked my changed voice?’ I asked. ‘It would have been a good Nation story. The headlines would read; 

‘A man with three kidneys – with a woman voice’, or ‘macharia wa gakuru now speaks like a woman after kidney transplant’ ‘voice change for kidney patient ‘ ……. ‘ or Gilbert Deya would have a field day in his preaching of what God can do to a writer who he does not  agree with his ‘miracles babies’ theory. The sermon would go ‘God protects man of God and strikes those who write against the servant of the most high God. Now this man speaks like a woman – just as the donkey spoke in the days of Baalam as in the bible in the Book of  2 Peter 2:16’ the sermon would go.

 

My health

In this issue I would say I am the subject so journalist and preaches please stay aside. Let me tell the real truth to all. I am fine. I am the man that was before May 2007 – before I was pronounced sick with kidney failure. I have gained my weight from a mare 62 Kg to now my normal weight of   75 Kg, my skin and color texture have come back and I feel absolutely fine I feel good just like you who are normal. My Creatinine reading is 107 (normal people without kidney failure is between 80-120 depending on physical size). My blood pressure are very much controlled and I am very fine.

I am well and unlike what the newspaper would like to report my voice activities are fully macho – man fully kikuyu man with all his ego and characters.  Feeling like a tiger but not Tiger woods – the man of all times. Yes to all of you I am good.

The story is the same  for another  three Kenyans in the UK who have had kidney failures and subsequently transplant and talking to them they are doing very fine. Thank God for donors who sacrificed themselves for the sake of their brothers or relatives to make these patients  life’s better. In my case I cannot thank enough my sister Njoki for giving herself and donating her kidney to me – disregarding all the pain – discomfort, the risks of infection and many other things that could have gone wrong. Njoki extended my life. God bless you sister and many others out there who have filled their donor cards and willing to donate their organs – I beg you don’t let them rot at death if they can save another persons life. We need to change our mentality.

I want to thank all of you my fellow Kenyans. You went this journey with me as when I got ill, I shouted at the top of my voice – I am ill. You came to my rescue. You gave me your money, wished me well, prayed for me, some fasted, visited me in Guys hospital and some for you came to my thanks giving of 6th of June which remarkably started a new challenge in my life – well now its very easy to deal with though. With a kidney failure and walking away from the grave I cannot sink further than this. I am really grateful to God for giving me  another chance to life. I don’t have a day to be sad or cry. Every day is so valuable that I cannot waste it. I just want to be happy – full of joy and I want to give this to others. This is my mission in life. I will use this new life to serve my country and my people. To my pastor  Edwin Kibathi , members of PCEA UK outreach and the leadership of PCEA Kenya for they carried the bulk of my burden.  God bless you. Above all I want to thank Lucy and my daughters Mumbi and Wanjiru for their comfort and care. You mean a lot to me. At least I can now say I will see my grandchildren – well God allowing.

The sad story

Not all kidney failure stories have ends up like mine. This is the sad part of my story. I had a very close friend because her kidney failure came just around the same time as mine. Her name is Mrs Kamande. She passed on a few months ago after struggling with kidney problems. Her children did all what they could but finally it never worked. They went to India with one of her sons and there was some complications and finally had to go back to Nairobi ending back on dialysis machine and finally she passed away.  May her struggle to live be a driving force to us all to make sure that Kenyans will have kidney treatment including transplant in Kenya.

This is where now we are. After my problems I did not seat on my hands. I did all what I could to see that I could do something on kidney issues in Kenya – give back to my community. Today I can thank God because in January 2010 if all goes to plan a German company – the best in the world is installing dialysis machines in Kikuyu PCEA hospital.   The ministry of health Kenya gave me 8 hospitals to equip with  dialysis machines. Doing work with the government is hard work and issues go at snails pace. Quoting Barack Obama – ‘…..it may not take us one term … but we will get there. We will defiantly get there’.

I have more good news. This December 2009 another private hospital is in the process of signing up with us for the same deal and we are on our way to Tanzania with the same mission.

There is hope

But what did we negotiate? well with the new deal at PCEA Kikuyu Hospital dialysis is about Ksh 2000 cheaper than Kenyatta National Hospital and we are working flat out to see that no patient will be turned down treatment because they don’t have money for dialysis.

We are going further than this I am hoping that by December 2010 we will have transplant happening out of my experience in Kenya. I have a team of surgeons, doctors, consultants, nurses and well wishers who have become a part of this project. The very good news is that we have been working with Githimbo on a proposal to get a big medical company to achieve this dream. They have made the first agreements and they are meeting in January 2010 in Holland to see if our proposal makes any business sense to them.

We cannot do it alone – the health issues need all of us to act. I am sure you know or have heard someone who had issues that required an organ – it is me today but might be you tomorrow – God forbid. It is good we are in the West – Europe or America but in Kenya after spending all the accumulated wealth people with health issues ends up finally in the grave. Together we can change that.

I will be back on Ben TV channel in the new year 2010, my new books will be published in January 2010 – Mumbi and Prince Olympics (www.mumbibooks.com ). We will be making our first 10% money donation to Kikuyu hospital in the early 2010. Thanks for many of you who have bought ‘Deya and the miracle babies’ book. I appreciate.

We are working with PCEA Kikuyu Hospital. Please make your donation  via their website http://www.pceakikuyuhospital.org/donations.php.

Please mention in support of  Renal / dialysis unit God bless you for being part of my life. 

All I can tell you all things that I was restricted to eat last December 2008 I will have lots of them – bananas, lots of drinks- all sorts, cheese, potassium – calcium’s –anything but no grape fruits or juices – it does not like transplanted kidneys!

 Merry x-mass and happy new year – drink and drive responsibly!

By Alex Kiprotich

With parents being too choosy on who their children have to marry, four people have started cashing in on the situation by offering ‘parents for hire’ services.

The four offer services to young people whose parents do not approve their choices of partners from different communities. The two men and two women from the South Rift pose as parents for the occasion.

“We know our culture is rigid when it comes to intermarriages. For instance, the Kalenjin often oppose marriages of their sons and daughters to individuals from Central and Eastern provinces,” explains Moses, 47, who doubles as a pastor and an uncle during the ceremonies.

Moses teams up with Zakayo, 62, Martha and Linah.

Zakayo takes up the role of a father, Linah, who says she is in her 50s, poses as the mother while Martha is a neighbour.

During negotiations, it is Moses who leads the exercise besides doing the introductions with the help of Martha.

“According to Kalenjin customs, the parents of either the bridegroom or the bride do not take part in the negotiations. They only monitor the progress. Only once in a while are their opinions sought but away from the negotiation table,” says Zakayo.

Avoiding suspicion

It is hard for anyone to suspect that the four are up to any mischief given Moses’ gift of gab and Zakayo’s looks of a serious father.

Though Zakayo, a retired civil servant, and Linah, a former teacher, can communicate in Kiswahili, they feign lack of knowledge of the language while in their business as Martha acts as their interpreter.

To get the ‘parents for hire’ services for a day, one has to buy the impostors suits, cater for their transport and feeding and a fee of between Sh8,000 and Sh13,000. “At first I did not believe it until a friend invited me to meet them while planning for his show up,” says Mr Vincent Kipyego, who introduced this writer to the group at a hotel along Moi Avenue in Nairobi.

Before we settled down for business, Moses insisted the ‘parents’ only represent young men planning to marry from different tribes and not from within the community.

He says their interest is not the money but to salvage young relationships from failing when parents or relatives’ oppose them.

“We assist young men whose parents do not support intermarriages,” he says.

The groom is required to invite few friends to act as his siblings and friends during visits to the bride’s parents. When not on hire, the two women would often be spotted along Continental House waiting for handouts from MPs while it is hard to miss the men near Development House, popularly referred as Koita or opposite Jogoo House.

Moses says, they took more than 10 men to Machakos, Kathiani, Maua, Murang’a and Matuu between November and December for marriages.

“We depend on the goodwill of those who have benefited from our services — they are our ambassadors,” he explains.

They started the trade soon after the post-election violence when Kenyans became deeply divided along tribal lines.

“After the violence, we realised many parents had a passionate hatred for some communities and could not approve inter-marriages. We tried the service and it worked,” explains Zakayo.

It must look real

And if the parents of the girlfriend or bride insist they want to visit their son-in-law’s home, the ‘parents’ assemble in one of their rented house at Ngong to receive the ‘in-laws’.

“It must look real. For those who insist on visiting we receive them in one of our houses,” says Linah.

Mr Thomas Kiprono says he had no choice but enlist their services when his aging parents could not give consent to his relationship with a Kamba woman from Kathiani.

Kiprono, who works in Nairobi’s Industrial Area as a mechanic, says he met his girlfriend, a security guard in Nairobi, but he could not convince his parents to give him consent to marry her.

“I explained everything to her. She understood but the pressure from her parents to meet mine was irresistible. They wanted to meet for dowry negotiations,” he says.

She was later convinced and they went for the ‘parents for hire’.

“We visited her home last month. My greatest challenge is to now confront my parents with the bitter truth that I am already married without their involvement,” he says.

Another beneficiary, Mr Peter Rotich, says with commercialisation of bride price, it is now easy to exclude parents in negotiations if the groom can comfortably raise dowry.

“Now we pay money and not livestock. During negotiations everything is converted into cash. So it is easy for people working in town to marry without parents’ consent and as long as the bride’s side does not insist for a church wedding,” he says.

Linah says apart from cases where the man does not want to involve his parents, they also represent orphaned people.

“Most of those we have represented are orphans,” she says.

 Source: The East Standard

By Joyce Wanja

They are unloved, if not ignored, viewed with suspicion and, in the words of one boy, left on their own to figure out “this adolescence thing”. These are some of the candid views of Kenyan teenagers, both boys and girls aged between 13 and 19, that should make a sober reading for their parents as they prepare to be rid of them with the opening of schools and colleges.

Saturday Nation spoke to over 50 teenage girls and boys in various social settings like churches, estates, parties and clubs to explore their fears and hopes as adolescents and what they would like their parents, guardians and the larger society to know about them. Their views reveal a society in which parents attempt to exercise great control over whom teenagers meet or fraternise with but, ironically, provide little guidance on the issues of growing up, relationships and sex.

Peer pressure

“It may not be right to get a girlfriend at the moment,” said a 16-year-old teenage boy, “But can someone please explain these feelings? I fear sharing this with my friends as they will laugh at me!” Most of the girls interviewed for this story said the “suspicions” of guardians was like a wall separating the two.

“It means a lot if only parents told us that they trust us,” says one teenage girls, 16. “Knowing my parent believes in me will encourage me to make the right decisions when it comes to sex, relationships and peer pressure.” Addressing her mother directly, she said: “I miss the days when I was seven years old and you would tell me that you love me and that you are proud of me and would do anything for me. What happened to the good old days? I’m I still your little girl?”

According to Ms Judy Twala, a counseling psychologist with Oasis Africa, the greatest hope of these teens is that their parents would trust them and delegate duties that prove that they could be held responsible. “Befriend your daughter or son if you expect them to confide in you,” she advises parents and cautions against revealing the information to a third part or discussing it in public (see separate story).

American psychologist James Dobson, best known for his parenting series Focus on the Family, describes parenting as a “delicate art” that works best if guardians communicate their values, ask questions and supervise their children’s choices, while being realistic. Dr Dobson notes that parents who set moderate and reasonable rules for dating and interaction with the opposite sex got the best results while those who imposed strict rules and unreasonable curfews got a lesser degree of success.

Mr Musau Ndunda, Chairman of the Kenya National Association of Parents has criticised parents for turning schools into “dumping grounds”’ and leaving the parenting and mentoring of children to the teachers. Mr Ndunda’s organisation, which represents more than 16,000 parents countrywide plans to launch a parenting guide titled Parenting in the 21st  Century, to help parents cope with the “slippery” generation called teens.

Difficult period

Some local organisations have opted to organise “teen camps” aimed at preparing them for initiation into adulthood with alternative rites of passage set for the girls where topical issues affecting the age group are discussed. The programmes focus on behaviour change and prepare the teens to deal with negative peer pressure, substance and drug abuse, negative media influence amongst other emerging issues.

But these programmes can only do so much. One of the boys interviewed said: “I liked the information on sex and relationships I received there but I wish there was a manual for adolescents on how to handle this difficult period.”

Some teens also wish their parents spent more time at home personally teaching them basic skills like cooking, washing and cleaning up which would later come  in handy later as young ladies of wives and mothers in the future. “How will I ever feed my husband and children one day if I am never allowed near the kitchen area by mum and the househelp,” one joked.

Family outings

Most teenage girls sought greater flexibility in terms of friends they were allowed yet they acknowledged that they were more vulnerable to peer pressure and more so to sexual abuse compared to the male teenagers. The girls wished parents opened the doors at home for them to hang out instead of consigning them other options that put them prone risky behaviour. They were also against forcible family outings yet at times they have valid reasons not to attend.

Fathers were also put to task to play more active role in their well-being besides the usual casual talk about books and financial assistance. “A violent home like the one I live in affects my self confidence and makes me hate boys,” said a discontented one girl. Said another teenager: “Please understand that adolescence is a difficult time for us but we love you all the same.”

Source: Daily Nation

By Robyn Dixon

January 1, 2010

Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya

The crescent moon of the railway track divides the slum, a metal slash in the tumble of rusted tin roofs, stinking channels of sewage and narrow paths where children play with toys made of scraps of wire and rubbish.

A band of youths hangs about on the track, perhaps slum hoods and their girls. Closer, you make out the boy among them. He looks tense, surrounded.

Closer still: He wipes his hands over his face, as if washing off anxiety. One of the bigger youths totes a grubby supermarket bag. Gently, as if lifting out a loaded gun, Victor Onuoch produces a video camera. He softly reassures the boy. Then points the camera at him and begins.

::

It takes imagination to build a film school in Kibera, a crime-torn slum outside Nairobi where people routinely are beaten to death by mobs for stealing cheap TVs, radios or cellphones.

Might not the camera gear and laptops be, well, taken?

“My approach is just to give people access and see what happens,” says U.S. filmmaker Nathan Collett, who’s based in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

In 2006, Collett, then a master’s student at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, set up a nonprofit film production unit, the Hot Sun Foundation, and shot a student film called “The Kibera Kid” in the slum, using local talent.

The film won awards. It was fun, but then it was over.

“People said, ‘Thank you for making this film, but now what? You are going to go back to film school? But what about us?’ “

Collett won a fellowship to make a feature film, “Togetherness Supreme,” scripted, filmed, cast and edited by Kibera slum dwellers. It’s now in its final stages of production. When filming ended in mid-2009, Collett created the film school, funded entirely by donations (www.globalgiving.org/projects/kenya-slum-filmmaking/), to train 10 Kibera students.

That’s how Onuoch, a 22-year-old who dropped out of school because there was no money, comes to be standing on a railway line behind a camera. In front of the lens is Teddy Onyango, 11, but small for his age; he dropped out of school for the same reason.

There’s a shout of alarm as Onuoch frames the scene. A rickety train grumbles along the track. The group scatters, the girls shrieking and giggling.

Onuoch tries again. But the evening light is diamond hard. It’s no good. They’ll have to come back later.

Walking back along the railway track, Onuoch takes the boy’s hand.

They’re alike, these two. Both motherless, struggling to rise out of the jostling heap that is Kibera. Rags-to-riches miracles rarely happen here, no matter what the TV evangelists say.

Teddy Onyango doesn’t remember his mother’s face. Victor Onuoch grew up with no parents.

Onuoch’s grandmother struggled to raise him and six siblings, then sent him to an uncle, who she hoped would pay the boy’s schooling. Instead, the uncle made Onuoch clean, wash, mop and sweep all day.

“All I could do was sleep, wake up, do the housework, sleep,” said Onuoch, a man with soft eyes, a ready smile and a gentle, hesitant voice. “I felt like I was locked in.”

Evans Kangetha writes, the words pouring out furiously. A screenplay: his story.

He hears Collett’s voice in his head, urging him to write everything he’s seen and experienced, telling him he can stay in the filmmaker’s apartment to write.

He remembers running. He hears the old man’s screams in his mind too. He writes, but it gets to be too much.

He trembles, afraid of his memories: December 2007 in Kibera. Mobs are hunting members of his Kikuyu tribe, furious that the Kikuyu president, Mwai Kibaki, has claimed election victory.

Kangetha runs. He sees an old man attacked by a mob. They roll him up in a mattress and set it afire.

Nightfall in his mud shack. He has padlocked the door from the outside, to make it appear no one is home.

The mob gets louder. Machetes clang on iron shack walls nearby. They reach his door, begin smashing the lock. Kangetha escapes through a hole in the roof, leaps onto a wall and drops silently into the alley. He runs, and is swallowed by the darkness.

“The voices I could hear were the voices of the people I knew. Neighbors,” says Kangetha, now 27. “There were so many evil things within just a short space of time.”

The story of his experiences during the election violence inspires the screenplay for “Togetherness Supreme.”

“I think people will shed tears when they see the film,” says Kangetha, who wrote the script in collaboration with Collett. “People will remember what they did was wrong.

“We should put aside tribal loyalties and let togetherness be supreme.”

By chance, while channel surfing, Onuoch hears that a film called “Togetherness Supreme” is being filmed in Kibera. On the morning of auditions, in January of last year, he’s one of the first to arrive.

He anxiously waits for his chance at the front, watching as the people casting the crowd run auditions. He just wanted to be a part of the project — any part; he didn’t mind.

After some waiting, he is chosen to help cast and audition the people who want to act. It’s his foot in the door.

“I didn’t know anything about auditions. But for two days I watched and I caught up,” he says.

“On the third day I was given a chance to audition people. The director, Nathan, started trusting me and giving me things to do. I became happy.”

Onuoch is casting boys for the role of Peter, one of the leads, when he discovers Teddy.

Most boys mumble, camera-shy. Teddy quickly grasps the need to speak naturally. But he keeps forgetting his lines.

There’s another boy, who has the script down word-perfect. He’s the natural choice.

Teddy sees it. He knows he is losing his chance, like a castaway watching a magnificent sailing ship disappear.

Late that night, Teddy is still awake. He has a copy of the script and reads it over and over, his face set in concentration.

“We didn’t think Teddy would get that role,” Onuoch says. “He was slow. And the other boy was fast. But then one week before filming started, Teddy just changed. He became Peter.”

“I changed because I was afraid the other kid would get the part of Peter,” Teddy says. “I was so afraid that if he got the part of Peter, he would play many roles. One day I borrowed the script and I went home and read it. And when I came back the next day, I’d put many words in my brain.”

Finally, after weeks of work and about 1,000 auditions, the casting people aren’t needed anymore. Onuoch is out of a job.

“After the auditions, people like me were told to go home,” he says. “I refused to go home. I said, ‘I’ll just be sitting there. I’ll just sit and watch.’ “

He comes to watch the crew of “Togetherness Supreme” every day.

One day when Onuoch is in his usual position, watching Collett and the cast rehearsing, the cameraman isn’t around.

“Nathan said, ‘I want you to take that camera and shoot.’ It was like giving someone a [camera] and they have no idea what it was,” Onuoch says.

“I wasn’t even in the crew. I was chosen. But Nathan just gave me that freedom. That’s what gave me the courage.”

At the daily meeting of the Hot Sun Foundation trainees, Teddy sticks close to Onuoch. Often the young man rests his hand softly on the boy’s shoulder, touches his face lightly, puts an arm around him.

They’re like brothers.

He’s making a short film about Teddy for his film school project. He asks the boy about “Togetherness Supreme.”

“Being in the film changed me, because before, I wasn’t going to school,” he says. “And now I’m going to school, because I paid my school fees with the money I got for going in the movie.

“I know my talent. Now big people will see me all over. And people in the street will know me.”

Watch the short movie Kibera Kid here: http://www.latimes.com/videobeta/watch/?watch=56dea977-fd80-45ba-9736-2aab76b8cb89&src=front

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times