Now, starting march next year, members of parliament could be transacting their legislative business in the new chambers.. The ministry of public works says the completion of the 949 – million – shilling project, was now on course, after a tender dispute was resolved…but, here is the catch.. One of the first things to be completed as early as February 2012 will be a 352-seat chamber, at a cost of 200,000 shillings per seat. Willis Raburu reports on the price of comfort, in the national assembly.

Some 216 Kenyan IDPs in Uganda have not been resettled because they are arrogant and some are still traumatised by the 2007/08 post-election violence experience, a Cabinet minister has said.

Special Programmes minister Esther Murugi said the IDPs remaining in Uganda are demanding a 5-acre piece of land and Sh500,000 each before they come back to Kenya. “So we decided they might as well be better off living in Uganda as IDPs. They cannot give us ultimatums like that,” said Murugi during a Parliamentary Select Committee on IDP’s workshop in Mombasa yesterday.

Saboti MP Eugene Wamalwa had asked why the government has only returned 400 IDPs who had fled to Uganda and left the others. He said they should all be brought back. “We appreciate that the government resettled 400 IDPs from Uganda but there are others still remaining. How has your ministry helped them? Have you visited them?” posed Wamalwa.

Murugi said some the IDPs in Uganda need continued counselling and some are not ready to come back for fear of victimization. “One woman in Uganda witnessed her children being burnt in Kiambaa. She told me she cannot come back to Kenya for fear of the unknown,” said Murugi. She said the UNHCR in Uganda should continue counselling the IDPs until they are ready to come back home.

The minister also complained of skyrocketing land rates that she said have hampered the resettlement. She called on Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta to increase the amount set aside for purchase of land for the IDPs. “The amount set aside for purchase of land was Sh200,000 per acre but for the last three weeks the prices have been going up,” she said.

Murugi said verification is necessary because some people masquerade as IDPs to benefit unfairly. She said the ministry is tracking alleged IDPs who sell off or let their houses. “It is disheartening to find out that an IDP has sold off or let his piece of land bought for them by the government,” said Murugi. Wamalwa and Cooperative Development assistant minister Linah Jebii Kilimo said there should be consultations before resettling IDPs to avoid conflicts.

Source: THE STAR

Geoffrey Kago

In 2002, the frustrations associated with finding a good egg incubator to hatch chickens to sell and sustain his fledgling poultry business, drove Geoffrey Kago to invent one. So with around $6 he built one incubator, which marked the starting point of a poultry enterprise worth over $100,000 today.

It has been quite a journey for the soft-spoken man who receives 50 to 100 calls daily from Kenyans in various regions interested in his signature innovation called the Kaki Incubator. The incubator is named after his company Kaki Village Enterprise. It’s one of the most popular of his innovations, which also include egg candlers (lights used to observe the growth and development of an embryo inside an egg). “Sales this year have gone up by 50%,” says Kago.

At the time of conceptualising his incubator, Kago noticed that most of the incubators in the market were designed for large scale hatcheries and unaffordable for smallholder farmers.

Besides making electric incubators, Kago has also developed kerosene powered units. For regions where there is abundant sunlight, he converts the incubators to tap into solar energy. The company is currently also in the process of developing incubators that can run on biodiesel, sourced from cotton, croton and castor seeds. In Kenya’s Mai Mahiu area, where there are 3,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to the 2007 Kenyan post-election violence, Kago is providing them with castor seeds to plant on their small plots of land and in the neighbouring forest. He aims to be buying the castor seeds in the near future and provide IDPs with a source of income.

Loving the “sense of independence”

Growing up close to the rural Kenyan town of Nyeri, where his parents reared indigenous chickens, got Kago interested in poultry from a young age. In 1985, he bought his first chicken from his mother for $0.20. He was able to tend to it well and bred 200 chicks. From selling these chicks, Kago paid his high school fees from Form 2 to Form 4 at Nyeri High School.

“I loved the sense of independence,” he says. It was also in high school that the incubator innovation idea began budding, having experienced the challenges of traditional hatching with a mother chicken. An event which also spurred him to innovate was when a neighbour poisoned his chicken. The scaled-down versions of electric incubators he developed won him several prizes at high school science congresses.

To make ends meet after high school, Kago’s life took a different trajectory, almost drawing him away from his passion for poultry. In 1997, he went to Nairobi and settled in the Kiserian area. To survive, he worked as a stone mason and casual labourer. Later on he got work as an apprentice carpenter for two years in a funeral home where he learnt joinery. He got so skilled he could make pool tables.

The skills he learned from the funeral home proved priceless. He was able to join the dots when designing a viable working electric incubator in 2002. He bought the fittings needed for the incubator with $6 he saved from hawking cigarettes, his last job before re-entering the poultry business.

Today Kaki Village Enterprise is regularly courted by Kenyan government ministries and international NGOs, interested in the company’s technologies for farmer groups.

For Kago, his journey has not been without challenges. He is of the opinion that Kenyans are yet to appreciate local technology as the solution to boost industrialisation. He also says that banks make it difficult for small entrepreneurs to access credit facilities.

Kaki Village Enterprise currently has three branches in various parts of Kenya. At the age of 36, Kago is full of ambition and aims to start a unique poultry cooperative in the future. He is also a keen admirer of the Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Source: http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/kenyan-poultry-entrepreneur-turns-6-into-a-100000-business/13823/

Marrying across one’s race subjects partners in love to a fare share of strange traditions writes, THORN MULLI

I recently had the pleasure of attending a multi cultural wedding between Wanjiku, a stunning Kenyan lady and Claus, a charming German gentleman.

During the colourful reception, I had the pleasure of interacting with Claus’s family. Being a friend of the groom the ushers inadvertently led me to his ‘side’ and this was what broke the ice to what turned out to be, not only a cheerful conversation, but an informative one as well.

It turns out that the seating arrangement amongst other Kenyan ways was rather amusing to the visiting Germans. “Ruracio”, a common practice amongst the Agikuyu and in essence most Kenyan communities that involves haggling over bride price was an odd experience as is nonexistent Germany.

Morning gifts

Marriage is essentially by common consent amongst parties involved and the only custom that came close to bride price was “morgengabe” that loosely translates to ‘morning gifts’. It involves presenting gifts to the bride’s family by the groom’s on the morning of the wedding.

Katana, a Giriama hailing from Kwale made the banter even more interesting when he pointed out an odd traditional Mijikenda practice. He explained that in the olden days, a respected elderly woman would accompany the newlyweds in their room to witness their first night together. Her role was to present the bloodied beddings to the community as proof of the bride’s purity.

She was also meant to offer insight in case of any shortcomings, no pun intended. A bride whose beddings came clean was condemned and in some cases ostracised by the community. It was even shameful for a bride to enjoy her first night as this amounted to proof of prior youthful indiscretions.

An unspoken tug between the visitors and us, the Kenyan hosts, erupted with each trying to show that their culture was indeed richer and stranger than the other. Mr Dominic, the grooms father and most knowledgeable of his kinsmen’s customs led the onslaught.

First was the “kossenbitter” practise. He is one of the brides cousins charged with the duty of hand delivering wedding invitations. Donned in a tuxedo and hat, he dispatches the invites that take several days to complete. To urge him on, he is offered two glasses of “schnapps” that represent the bride and groom at every stop.

During the weeks preceding the wedding, Germans organise “paube”, which generally involves a house warming party that doubles up as an engagement party for the couple.

On the eve of the wedding, a tradition called “polteraband” involves the couple cleaning up a mess of dishes broken by friends and relatives. The significance of this tradition is to scare away the “poltergeists”, an evil spirit. The dishes broken are believed to bring good luck as they signify breaking up of old lives and beginning new, fresh, and ultimately better lives.

Blessing the marriage

At this point, those rooting for Kenyan native customs got a boost when the conversation was interrupted by gift presentation. Wanjiku’s clan presented the couple with a bed symbolising they had officially blessed the union and allowed the bride to make a home with her husband.

To wish them health, traditional cooking implements were presented to the bride assuring the groom that he would never lack. This included a nyungu (earthen cooking pot), a mwiko (wooden stirring stick) and of course a kiondo, a sisal basket for carrying groceries from the market.

Not to be left behind, Charlotte, the groom’s cousin explored a contemporary German custom initiated also on the eve of the wedding day. The groom gathers friends not involved in kidnapping and hiding his bride for a search. The search would of course begin in a bar where the groom buys drinks for the search party.

Still practiced is a lighthearted practice called baumstamm sagen that exerts the newlyweds who amazingly wear their wedding bands on their right hands. They are required to saw a log on half using a two-handle saw. The aim is to not only test their physical strength but also how well they can tackle problems together.

Dusk soon raided our party and as Wanjiku tossed her bouquet to a frenzied group of single ladies who scrambled to catch it in the belief that it would force lady luck ensuring their wedding was next, Gisela, Dominic’s mate noted that if it were a traditional German wedding, fir tree branches would be laid out in front of the couple as they left the reception.

This was done to attract luck and fertility. And so without a clear winner we again silently agreed to a draw and bade each other goodbye.

Source: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/sports/InsidePage.php?id=2000047670&cid=619