The costly price of cheap unga

The costly price of cheap unga

I have now proved that the extra germ in my body is doing wonders.  I say this because I have broken run record after run record since that booster shot number 2 of COVID19 vaccine.  I so far have a total of four shots in the arm for this virus, three on the left and one on the right arm.  All this as global infections* of corona virus disease reaches 576,581,896 infections and 6,405,982 deaths.  Kenyan numbers are so far 337,389 and 5,672 respectively.  

*source: worldometers website

Nonetheless, corona is now virtually over and a forgotten disease.  It has been overtaken by other global problems including lack of food (grains), blamed on the Ukraine-Russia war that started mid-February.  Other issues include flooding, drought and wildfires, blamed on global warming.  Corona and COVID19 are no longer the ‘in thing’.  So, I did the 5-in-5 event last week, that is, 5-runs-in-5-days.  However, this time I did it on the longer 15-17km route on the Mary Leakey loop.  The average speeds started at 5.07 (15.4km), 5.03 (17.11km), 5.00 (17.13km), 5.01 (17.14km), 4.59 (17.14km).  Yesterday, was a Monday and I still added another run on the route getting to 4.49 (17.16km).  

All these runs were not for bragging rights, far from it.  These were experimental runs.  I was in the running lab, out there on the road, to confirm that the corona vaccinations, the booster to be specific, worked and had added an extra shot of energy in my runs.  Nonetheless, we still have a fast run, in the name of the July International marathon.  Let this run confirm that my experiment is true, as I take the body for a ‘sprinters delight’ July marathon, where runners are expected to run their fastest over the 21km distance.

However, there is no guarantee that my so far successful experiment with good runs shall continue for long.  This is because of the new global challenges which now exclude COVID19.  The cost of food stuff has been rising continually in the last two months.  While a kilo of our very lifeline staple food, unga, was retailing at 50/= hardly one-month ago, it had risen steadily and even had doubled already by last week.  In fact, it was even virtually impossible to get that maize flour at even the doubled price.  It was heading to triple, all this while, the income levels had remained the same.  This unga thing was going to be a big issue and I had even seen a news clip on Aljazeera about Kenya and the unga crisis.  Of course, that clip showed a demonstration that was taking place in the city streets where the people were protesting these very high prices of unga.

It was therefore a sigh of relief when the president just last week issued an executive order that the price of maize flour ‘be and is hereby reduced to 100/= for a 2kg packet of unga, in the whole territory of the republic of Kenya with immediate effect’.  That was a big announcement.  It was a life changer.  We would at least start eating.  I was getting tired of starving on rice and other starches.

I visited my local supermarket that is just in front of my living quarters last week, a day after the announcement, and was not surprised to find no packet of maize flour that was retailing at the new prices.  The cheapest 2kg packet was still selling at 206/=.  I gave it an ‘ignore’ and believed that there must have been some ‘clearing of old stocks’ thing going on first.  I visited the same supermarket over the weekend and the situation was the same – same old prices, no new prices.  I even visited an outlet of a major, sorry, the major supermarket chain in Kenya, at Adams Arcade same weekend and as sure as there is global warming, there was no cheap unga!  All branded packets were retailing at over 200/= per 2kg pack.

What is going on?  How can the big boss of the whole country give a decree, and no one obeys him?  It was just yesterday that someone whispered to me that he had seen cheap unga somewhere in Kangemi.  I took it upon myself to check this out and went to a supermart branded ‘friendly’.  I was surprised to see an advert for 2kg pack for 100/= placed somewhere outside the store and for sure when I went in, I did get the cheap unga available.  What a relief!

I picked some five packets and was just about to make my way to the cashier when some supermarket attendant called me back and beckoned me to the unga section of the store.  I assumed that he wanted to persuade me to buy some more.

“Ni mbili tu,” he said.

It took me some interpretation to decipher what he was saying.

“Nini mbili?”

“Unga ni mbili tu.  Kastoma wanachukua mbili tu”

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, July 26, 2022

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