End of corona? Really!

End of corona? Really!

I had decided to take a day off work and was just indoors on this Friday, yesterday.  To say that I was doing nothing on this rest day would be an understatement.  I was calculating voltage drops and lengths of electrical cables for a project that is now occupying my time, which should make me a titled man someday, but more on that anecdote later.

The quietness of the house was unmistakable on this Friday.  You could hear a pin drop.  I would occasionally make out some sounds like the house girls around the block doing a jig or two outside the corridor of this first floor apartment.  That laughter and a collection of muffled sounds would soon end and the eerie silence would be back.

The sounds of the engines of motorbikes that would otherwise disturb the peace of the day were unmistakably missing.  I had earlier in the morning passed by the supermarket that is just on my doorstep and had heard an inkling of why this was so.

“Kim anapishana na makarau,” a lady attendant was telling one of the gents who does packing of items in that mart.

“Kwani?,” the guy had gestured, looking in her direction, and momentarily looking through the entrance.

“Wanataka kachukua nduthi yake, na ana waambia haana!,” she updated him, loudly, for the benefit.

“Uongo!”

“Si unajua Kim ameficha nduthi, ndio ana waambia haana!”

This story hit home immediately.  You must be a non-Kenyan resident or citizen to fail to know that motorbikes have had a bad week.  It started by a video clip that made rounds online four days after the fact.  The video shows a short fifteen second clip of some lady screaming while strapped on a car seat, while a mob is tearing into her car, keys and self.  It was ugly!

An explanation note on the Twitter message that accompanied the video indicated that motorbike mobs were molesting the lady for having knocked one of their own, and attempting to flee the scene at Forest road in Nairobi.  The video had caused a national outcry, especially that it was emerging on International Women’s Day, and going against the very grain of the celebrations of the spirit of equality and dignity.  Even the president of the republic made reference to that video during his address on the IWD day… and that is when trouble started for the motorbike people.

A national swoop was initiated and the mob of motorbike operators were reminded to comply with rules that they had largely ignored in every attempt to enforce them in the past.  The rules include asking them to be registered in savings and credit cooperatives (SACCO), having reflector jackets with the group’s name and generally being on self-regulation.  These were best practice rules, but they had since caused a strike by the motorbike operators, a blockage of Thika road by the same mob… and had even caused this crackdown on all motorbikes that were non-compliant.

Now I knew why the motorbike noises were missing from the air.  The environment was so cool for my ‘vee equals ai ar’ calculations… until three, when another stir of excitement disturbed the quiet afternoon.  I could hear the block-folks talk animatedly from somewhere outside the house, possibly on the verandah or the wide parking yard downstairs.

“Imagine hakuna cha mask tena!  Ayi, nilikuwa nimechoka!,” some loudmouth said.  I was two closed doors away, but the statement did permeate.

“Aki Gresi usinikumbushe!  Hakuna cha masks tena!  Gava ime abolish hiyo mambo Gresi!”

“Joan, Hata sijui nifanyaje ku-celebrate!”

Wait the hech a minute!  What is this excitement all about?  No more masking, did they say?

Only one way to find out.  A few clicks on the keyboard and it turned out to be true that the Government of Kenya had (finally) officially revoked the requirement for putting on masks at public places.  People were now free to operate without masks at all public places without fear (or favour) of being arrested.

But wait again, for another minute!  Hadn’t they made this very announcement already? No, they hadn’t.  The last excitement was the abolition of the ten to four curfew in October 2021, but that same abolition did away with masking, didn’t it?  I am sure it did, since from that day corona ended and masking became optional, largely ignored and was more of the exception than the norm.

So, the announcement that it had finally been dropped did not even make a difference nor sense.  This is something that had already been dropped five months ago.  It was just being formalized now.  And is corona even a thing anymore?  465,132,541 infections and 6,060,378 deaths* later and this pandemic has generally turned into an epidemic that we just have to live with.  Kenya has decided to make this live-with-it decision when the numbers are 323171 and 5644 respectively.  Thank the vaccines for that, or what else can we attribute this to?

*source: worldometers

It could be that our focus has moved on to other things.  Maybe it was even the Ukraine war that started ten days ago that made corona lose its glory.  The war that start when Russia promised not to invade, but still did.  This bluff caught the world unawares.  I was one of the people who took the view that invading Ukraine made no sense and hence it could not be possible.  I woke up ten days ago and the pictures on AJZ were clear, as Russian tanks started infiltrating the Ukrainian borders from the south, east and north – the very places where Russia had been conducting military drills, which was now being turned into a practical.

This event put corona on the ‘can wait’ tray, as the world was caught off guard with an impossible situation.  The only thing that was on the table was imposition of sanctions since directly attacking Russia had not been contemplated.  However, just like invading Ukraine did not make sense, something else that does not make sense at the moment can just happen and it becomes – what shall be shall be.

So, as we celebrate the end of corona, forced by other issues that are taking centre stage, let us try to make sense of everything that is happening, if this is even possible.  While at it, make sense of this one – I participated in a democratic election today, where we had to pick one of two candidates… and the votes were 101 against 100.  How democratic can that be?  If you think that is democratic, then you have not heard about the other one that I participated in earlier in the week.  That one had someone with 250 votes being dropped in favour of another with 200 votes – so as to comply with a regional balancing clause.  How is that even possible?  I told you – things no longer make sense.  Live with it!

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, March 12, 2022

Running falsely – is it worth it?

Running falsely – is it worth it?

Yesterday was a memorable Friday.  I left Uthiru at one, got a matatu to Kawangware, and then another one to Adams Arcade.  I had not even settled and taken a breath when I was called into the dental room.  I was ushered straight to the reclining seat that I am now so used to.  There was no time for niceties.  I appreciate that DSes are busy people.  Additionally, I do not like anything that starts with ‘dent’ and I try to give such the minimum of the minimum time available.

I had already seen that dental crown for the few seconds that I had, before being ushered onto the recliner.  It looked so real!  That premolar ‘imposter’ was almost like the real thing.  It had been shaped like a real, had the colour of a real and even had the hardness of a real one when I touched it briefly.

“Let us fix him in there,” the DS said as he probably pointed at the crown, and waved in my direction in my recliner.  I could not see much from my semi-sleeping position.  I was already having on my face that large pair of goggles that I loathe.  Of course, I got to appreciate them soon, when water splatter and some flying debris from all manner of dental works started flying about.

I was now used to this dental chair, in this very room for the last five months.  I had started this in early October 2021.  I was finally ending in in March 2022.  I had second guessed my decision to get this prosthetic into my mouth to fill that gap on the lower jaw, the gap that had been there for over twenty-years with no effect at all.  I was comfortable with that gap as was, after all, it was these same DSes that extracted a premolar from that very spot, when they claimed that it was of no use, rotten, they called it.  Why did they want that gap now filled, when it is them who wanted it created?

The same DSes had now changed their narrative and told me that if that gap remained open, then the upper premolar would progressively grow longer and get into that gap.  This was surely impossible.  The gap had reduced in size as a result of the neighbouring teeth filling it up over time, though the gap still remained.  The upper tooth had grown longer than the rest, but with just a manageable bit, not as exaggerated as the dental surgeons, DSes, were stating.  Anyway, they are the experts.

The discussion to get that gap filled started earlier in 2021.  October just happened to be decision time.  I went for it.  It was more of I had no choice based on the Armageddon that the DSes had promised if that gap stayed for a day longer than October.  It is then that the procedure started.  That is when the implant was drilled into my jawbone in that three-hour operation.  This is already in the public domain, so let me not remind myself of it.

Five months later and here I was on this Friday, finishing what I had started.  A was paying up an instalment of almost 50k in each of those months, all from my pocket, after the insurance had declared such an important treatment as ‘cosmetic’, despite this being something that would be spelling doom to my life.  How can something that affects your life adversely, in the opinion of those who have our lives in their hands, be considered ‘cosmetic’?

Soon the temporary cap that had been affixed on the gum of that gap was unscrewed and the implanted screw exposed.  It was not long before that crown, with a hole brought it, was affixed onto the implanted screw.  A small wrench was fixed onto the small groove on the crown and this fixed the crown into position.  Finally, that groove through the artificial tooth was filled up with some materials, which I just heard them ‘mix it up’, ‘fix the primer’, ‘UV it up’.

Just when I thought they were through and….

“Try to close your mouth and try fit your jaws together,” the doc said.

I tried.

The jaws did not fit!

I could feel the very high level of the prosthesis preventing my already lowered upper premolar from settling onto the lower jaw.  I did not know that the upper and lower jaws have a natural comfortable resting position!  

“I feel a hard thing in the mouth,” I responded.

“OK, let me see,” he tried seeing.

“Bite on this, and move your jaws in a chewing motion,” he continued, after fixing something like a piece of paper into my mouth, on that right side next to the now filled-up gap.

A series of grinding sounds would soon follow.  Each grinding sound would then be followed by that chewing on paper thing, then another examination of that paper, then another round of grinding.  Four repetitions later and, “It is almost comfortable,” I said.

“One more time,” he said, “Get me the diamond,” he instructed the nurse aid.

The nurse gave him something that I did not see.

“This is when we usually need such,” he told the nurse in a manner of education, as he proceeded to fix something to one of the gadgets, but I could not see the motions from my reclined position, which was now completely flat – and I hate flat!

Another round of grinding of both the upper tooth and the new lower crown followed.  When it was done, I did the last chewing motion and all was just about well.  Not exactly OK, since I still felt that something new and hard was in my mouth.  It did not feel like a tooth, more like a piece of stone in my mouth.  The upper tooth was still hitting that new tooth and responding with some uncomfortable knocking sensation.  However, I had to live with it for now.  I just hoped that the strange feeling in the mouth would subside.

Hardly twenty-four hours later and that strange feeling in the mouth is gone!  I hardly feel any new different tooth in the mouth, nor is there a knocking action of the upper tooth onto the lower ceramic.  I feel nothing at all.  I have only experienced a sharp pressure pain once, when I chewed on a tough piece of bone.  Other than that, I am not even sure if there is a new tooth in the mouth.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, March 5, 2022