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Archive for March 1st, 2010

Can we talk about sex please

Posted by jambonewspot on March 1, 2010

By Laura Walubengo
Being a teenager used to be a cool thing in the 80s and I’m sure even before that (I stand to be corrected). Most kids can’t wait for that magic age – 13. Nowadays, however, it is quite evident that things are a bit different.

Those days everything was a laugh, and the main struggle was finding out where you fit in and don’t fit in when it comes to peer pressure. Nowadays, frequent cases of men and women preying on young girls and boys, begs the young teens to be more cautious than ever.

As if that’s not enough, the joys of discovery are no longer innocent because there is too much exposure on TV, on the radio and the internet as well!

Teenage pregnancies are no longer classified as scandalous, they are unfortunate. Cases of young boys being abused by their nannies or ‘aunties’ are more common and though still hidden, fathers can even get advice from one another on the how to deal …

I need not mention how traumatising these experiences are for the children and parents alike.

But I do feel that this could be the right time for sex education to be taken with more than just a pinch of salt. It should be mandatory for children of a certain age to know …what sex is all about. All of this thanks to the sobriety demanded of us in the current world we live in. Parents and guardians need to teach their children how to differentiate the inappropriate from the curiosity; the growing from the ignorant mistakes.

Unfortunately, a lot of the young teens know what they see but understand very little about what is wrong and what is right. They also know little about how to protect themselves from harm.

Somebody needs to teach them, and parents and guardians are perfectly suited for this job. Schools can teach the biology, but parents need to make their children understand wrong from right.

It is by far one of the most uncomfortable subjects to discuss with children. But current affairs do not favour them and we are almost duty bound to prepare them for any eventualities.

A friend of mine likes to say that the reason kids grow up so fast nowadays is because of Genetically Modified foods; others blame it on ‘Blue-Band Good Start’, but the fact of the matter is they need education, as a means of protection.

Our kids need as much help as they can get to secure a good future for themselves and for us. So aside from sex education, knowledge of karate is a plus.

Read more: http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/Eblog/view/Can+we+talk+about+sex+please.html#ixzz0gynjwwDh
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

Posted in Sex and Relationships | Comments Off

Kenyan women discover the secret of sexual pleasure

Posted by jambonewspot on March 1, 2010

Gertrude Mungai

Gertrude Mungai

Kenya’s first and only sex therapist is making headlines. In a country where eroticism and female libido are still taboo subjects, Gertrude Mungai’s business begs to differ. A place where the art of Kama Sutra, among other things, is taught, the sex therapist’s outfit also displays an audacious collection of sex toys. Gertrude Mungai has just released a DVD titled: “modern sexy woman”. Interview.

Gertrude Mungai, wife and mother of two, has witnessed the Kenyan society change; a phenomenon she has actively contributed to. The 35 year old sex therapist’s consultancy in Nairobi,— opened since 2005,— comes at a time when more and more Kenyan women are seeking to find a balance between their daily chores as wives, mothers and career women, and sexual satisfaction. Her newly released DVD “Modern sexy woman” deals with those challenges.

Afrik.com : You are a Kenyan sex therapist, why did you chose this profession?
Gertrude Mungai : According to several friends’ testimonies during a party seven years ago, I realized that most of the women were rarely satisfied by their relationship with men. Many of them consider that marriage is a shape of slavery and think that sex is only for reproduction. In this case, only men would take pleasure in sex. I had to do something to help women. So, I educate them to be good wives, mistresses and businesswomen. It’s just a question of balance.

Afrik.com : How did you acquire your knowledge?
Gertrude Mungai : was born on the Kenyan coast and was raised in the Swahili culture. There are the oldest women who teach the girls, from their puberty, realities concerning sexuality. The young generations are (therefore) not faced with surprises when they get married. So, I acquired an African traditional knowledge and my marriage is now a real success. I also studied the Kama Sutra art and the secrets of the Middle East. I travelled a lot to meet other sex therapists.

Afrik.com : Who consults you?
Gertrude Mungai : It is especially middle class women who live in Nairobi. But I have already given free lessons in rural regions to develop the customs. The oldest customer was 58 years old! Married women who want to discover sexual pleasure are the most interested in my consultations. I also propose therapies for couples and special lessons for men.

Afrik.com : Can you describe your sessions for women?
Gertrude Mungai : To educate a woman, is to educate an entire nation. My sessions are very diversified. Advices and practices are part of the program. I teach the art of love making by showing how to practice “vaginal gym” or how to move the hips to facilitate penetration. With time, we succeed in having fun whilst trying different Kama Sutra positions.

Afrik.com : And for men?
Gertrude Mungai : I explain to men the feminine genital anatomy and how to stimulate the erogenous zones. I insist on the importance of preliminary sex to help women reach orgasm. I try to explain that a satisfied woman is more affectionate. The results are positive because some women say they have had multiple orgasms.

Afrik.com : You also run a shop. What do you sell?
Gertrude Mungai: Undergarments, massage oil, sex toys and condoms. My DVD, “Modern sexy woman” is the latest novelty.

Afrik.com : Are you engaged in the fight against AIDS?
Gertrude Mungai : In Kenya, especially between married couples, we don’t speak openly about sexuality. Now, this lack of communication is the main cause of infidelity and distribution of HIV. People should use condoms every time. This use does not necessarily mean boring sex!

Afrik.com : Doesn’t this profession go against the taboos of the country?
Gertrude Mungai : It was a real challenge. My friends and my husband encouraged me to make this profession in spite of certain reprobatory glances. I think that old cultures and taboos tend to give up, the African society being in the crossroad between traditions and the realities of the 21st century. More and more women earn more than men and get married mainly for love more than for financial safety. My teaching is possible thanks to all these evolutions. More than 5000 women have come to see me. My DVD was even approved by the government.

Afrik.com : For you, who are the best lovers in the world?
Gertrude Mungai : The Ugandans. They taught me many things.

-Afrik.com

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For Pennies, a Disposable Toilet That Could Help Grow Crops

Posted by jambonewspot on March 1, 2010

BIODEGRADABLE Children in Kenya with the Peepoo, a single-use bag designed to convert waste into fertilizer while destroying disease-producing pathogens.

BIODEGRADABLE Children in Kenya with the Peepoo, a single-use bag designed to convert waste into fertilizer while destroying disease-producing pathogens.

By SINDYA N. BHANOO

A Swedish entrepreneur is trying to market and sell a biodegradable plastic bag that acts as a single-use toilet for urban slums in the developing world.

Once used, the bag can be knotted and buried, and a layer of urea crystals breaks down the waste into fertilizer, killing off disease-producing pathogens found in feces.

The bag, called the Peepoo, is the brainchild of Anders Wilhelmson, an architect and professor in Stockholm.

“Not only is it sanitary,” said Mr. Wilhelmson, who has patented the bag, “they can reuse this to grow crops.”

In his research, he found that urban slums in Kenya, despite being densely populated, had open spaces where waste could be buried.

He also found that slum dwellers there collected their excrement in a plastic bag and disposed of it by flinging it, calling it a “flyaway toilet” or a “helicopter toilet.”

This inspired Mr. Wilhelmson to design the Peepoo, an environmentally friendly alternative that he is confident will turn a profit.

“People will say, ‘It’s valuable to me, but well priced,’ ” he said.

He plans to sell it for about 2 or 3 cents — comparable to the cost of an ordinary plastic bag.

In the developing world, an estimated 2.6 billion people, or about 40 percent of the earth’s population, do not have access to a toilet, according to United Nations figures.

It is a public health crisis: open defecation can contaminate drinking water, and an estimated 1.5 million children worldwide die yearly from diarrhea, largely because of poor sanitation and hygiene.

To mitigate this, the United Nations has a goal to reduce by half the number of people without access to toilets by 2015.

The market for low-cost toilets in the developing world is about a trillion dollars, according to Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization, a sanitation advocacy group.

As far as toilets go, “the people in the middle class have reached saturation in consumption,” said Mr. Sim, who calls himself a fan of the Peepoo. “This has created a new need, urgently, of looking for a new customer.”

Since 2001, his organization has held an annual World Toilet Summit, and Mr. Sims said he was excited that in recent years there had been an emergence of entrepreneurs devising low-cost solutions.

At the 2009 meeting, Rigel Technology of Singapore unveiled a $30 toilet that separates solid and liquid waste, turning solid waste into compost. Sulabh International, an Indian nonprofit and the host of the World Toilet Summit in 2007, is promoting several low-cost toilets, including one that produces biogas from excrement. The gas can then be used in cooking.

But Therese Dooley, senior adviser on sanitation and hygiene for Unicef, said that inculcating sanitation habits was no easy task.

“It will take a large amount of behavior change,” Ms. Dooley said.

She added that while “the private sector can play a major role, it will never get to the bottom of the pyramid.”

A sizable population, poor and uneducated, will still be left without toilets, Ms. Dooley said, and nonprofits and governments will have to play a large role in distribution and education.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wilhelmson is pushing ahead with the Peepoo.

After successfully testing it for a year in Kenya and India, he said he planned to mass produce the bag this summer.

-The New York TIMES

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U.S. Ups Criticism, Pressure On Kenya

Posted by jambonewspot on March 1, 2010

By SARAH CHILDRESS
President Mwai Kibaki inspects the guard of honor during the opening of Parliament last month in Nairobi. The U.S. is increasingly impatient for the government to fight corruption.

President Mwai Kibaki inspects the guard of honor during the opening of Parliament last month in Nairobi. The U.S. is increasingly impatient for the government to fight corruption.

NAIROBI, Kenya—The U.S. stepped up its harsh criticism of Kenya, raising again the threat of sanctions against a longtime east African ally that has become riddled with infighting and allegations of corruption.

“Nothing’s off the table,” said Karl Wycoff, the deputy assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, referring to steps Washington is willing to take as it urges Kenya to crack down on political violence and root out corruption.

Washington’s hard line against Kenya began building after the disputed 2007 presidential elections sparked ethnic clashes that killed more than 1,300 people and displaced tens of thousands more. Rivals Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga agreed to a internationally brokered power-sharing deal that made them president and prime minister, respectively. They pledged to work together to end ethnic disputes and overhaul the country’s colonial-holdover constitution.

Two years later, however, their coalition government reamains shaky and the country is on edge. The U.S. is increasingly impatient for the government to take steps to punish those responsible for the postelection violence, crack down on corruption and amend the constitution.

“We will not hesitate to give our opinions when we feel that’s what needs to be done,” Mr. Wycoff said. “We will take strong actions when we think that’s what needs to be done to move the reform process forward.”

Associated PressAn anticorruption protester last month in Nairobi.

KENYA2

KENYA2

Kenyan officials have bristled at U.S. pressure. Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua called the pattern of U.S. criticism and threats condescending. “Their policy is playing to the [Kenyan public] gallery, which we call activism diplomacy,” he said, calling the warnings on travel bans part of “a big bully blackmail system.”

The U.S. believes now is the time to push, a senior U.S. official said, in part because the U.S. enjoys wide support among Kenyans that deepened with the election of Barack Obama. Washington also sees a grass-roots move toward change among Kenyans weary of backbiting politics and scandals. And officials want to move before politicians turn back to campaigning ahead of elections in 2012.

The U.S. push in Kenya—a bastion of stability in an east Africa region that includes the war-torn states of Somalia and Sudan—contrasts with its more subtle approach toward neighbors including Ethiopia, an ally of the U.S. in its fight against terrorism that has been accused of human-rights abuses related to political violence.

“There may or may not be such windows of opportunity in other countries,” the U.S. official said. “But Washington is looking at this particularly as a very unique, historic opportunity to bring about real change.”

In October, Washington banned U.S. entry to Kenya’s attorney general, who it said had obstructed anticorruption efforts. It has issued letters to several other officials threatening similar action.

The most recent clash between Kenya’s top leaders followed two corruption scandals over the past several months. In one, an independent auditor alleged the Agriculture Ministry had sold its reserve grain to shell companies that marked it up, raising market prices as people went hungry in rural areas. In another case, about $1 million in funds disappeared from a fund for free primary education.

Mr. Odinga, the prime minister, suspended the two ministers. Mr. Kibaki reinstated them. The dispute threatened to inflame ethnic tensions: After Mr. Odinga’s announcement, makeshift roadblocks—often a precursor to ethnic violence—sprang up in Eldoret, which saw some of the worst violence in 2008.

The two leaders met Sunday and said they repaired their rift, adding they remain committed to their partnership.

The government spokesman said the government is expected to hold a referendum on the new constitution by the year’s end, a move toward spreading power beyond the president and establishing a more accountable system of government. “We are progressing very well,” he said. “But it is not because of the U.S.’s so-called interference.”

-Wall Street Journal

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My first Kshs. 1 million has just slipped through my fingers

Posted by jambonewspot on March 1, 2010

By Peter Gaitho

I remember Mr. Maneno, my high school business studies teacher telling me that, the first Kshs. 1 million is the hardest to make, after which money will follow money and before you know it, the blessed will start calling you blessed.

Mr. Maneno wanted to actualize this dream, so he leased 40 acres of land in the fertile Happy Valley, Nyandarua. He planned to plant 250,000 cabbage seedlings in two seasons, so he got himself a Mwalimu SACCO loan on his way to riches. Twenty years later, Mr. Maneno is retiring this year before seeing the color of Kshs. 1 million.

I have been harboring this dream too, so I laid a foolproof business plan that would see me turn from an hourly wage earner to an employer. I have learned some basic investment strategies, read all the Rich Dad Poor Dad books by Robert Kiyosaki, and currently one by Warren Buffet.

Armed with all these, I set out on a journey to my riches several moons ago. All the books I read have one advice in common: in order to make it, you have to do that which you understand, which in my case I thought was farming. My father was a small scale farmer, and as the Waswahili say, mwana wa mhunzi asiposana huvukuta (the son of a welder turns out to be a welder).

Therefore when I visited Jamhuri last season, I met my cousin, Wallace Kahugu, also a big time wheat farmer in Timau area, on the western slopes of Mt. Kenya. This is the person who encouraged me to venture into wheat farming because, as he put it, “watu lazima wale mikate (people will always eat bread)” and the cost of wheat keeps rising, making wheat farmers smile all the way to the bank.

I got myself a well maintained, white Toyota Corona from a hire company along Muindi Mbingu Avenue, Nairobi. “You must create a positive image of yourself,” Wallace had advised.” I took his advice and remembered the slogan “fakes it until you make it.”

After visiting the land in question, we signed the lease at the popular Kungu Maitu Bar and Restaurant in the heart of Nanyuki town. In attendance were Wallace, Mr. Kimemia, his lawyer, and Ole Simani, the landowner.

“I am sure you will not regret the decision to be a wheat farmer,” said Mr. Kimemia, a Nanyuki-based lawyer, as he munched goat ribs, which he washed down with Pilsner Ice. “I have worked with your cousin for many years, and I am sure he will take care of your business while you are away.”

After the sumptuous lunch that no one in the group helped me pay for, we concluded our business and parted. I remained in Nanyuki town for another week and a half, during which, the land was duly tilled, sprayed , and planted.

“All we need now is Mwene Nyaga (the owner of ostriches) to send rain,” said the seed dispersing machinery operator as I paid him his dues.

“The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is faithful. I know He will send the required precipitation,” said Wallace, trying to be religious.

“I will be sending money for pesticide and stuff via Western Union,” I said. “In the meantime, here is Kshs. 20,000 for any emergency.” It is funny how a Kikuyu’s mien changes at the sight of an envelope stacked with cash. Wallace’s face would have lit the room if there was a blackout.

A few days later, I was en route to these United States. I quickly settled back to the hustle and bustle that is life here. “You are looking at a soon-to-be millionaire,” I told anyone who cared to listen. “Nitawaacha mkipiga masaa (I will soon leave you guys clocking in donkey hours here).”

I kept close contact with Wallace, and my wheat crop was promising to be a bumper. That was until one day Wallace sent a text message me to call him ASAP.

 “There has been bitter cold these last two days, and the frost has done some damage to wheat all over the Timau area,” Wallace delivered the sad news. I remember I was ready for that, and had sent a tidy sum of money for spraying to protect the crop against frost.  “But the spraying we did seems to have saved some of the crop. Not everything is lost,” Wallace tried to reassure me.

After this, I received more bad news on a weekly basis:  A flock of quelea quelea birds passed by and helped themselves to the wheat. The combine harvester was late in harvesting, making the land soggy, and some of the wheat is rotting in the stalks. There was a glut in wheat production, and the price went down by Kshs. 1, 200 per bag. There seemed to be no let up to problems affecting wheat farmers that season.

“These things do happen, the best thing is to remain positive,”  Wallace said over and over again. He said it even after depositing a measly kshs. 165,000 into my Equity Bank account. I had spent more Kshs, 400,000 on the wheat, making it difficult to keep hope alive.

So now you know why I am walking with my face down and sleep is a luxury to me. I still owe my bank a tidy sum of money. I am still an hourly wage earner, and my million has slipped away, just like the cookie crumbles. You are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t!

Reach Peter Gaitho at pgaitho@eafricainfocus.com

Source: East Africa in Focus

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