THE BIG FIVE

 

THE BIG FIVE

The Kenya Tourism Board uses the concept of the BIG FIVE to brand the country offering in the tourism sector around the world. Tourists are easily able to evaluate the quality of their safari experience by measuring it against whether they saw a lion, leopard, elephant, black rhinoceros, and African buffalo (BIG FIVE) during their visit. It is both a star attraction and benchmark of the tourism package. The beauty about the BIG FIVE concept is that it easily fits in one hand and is uncomplicated by the clutter of “interesting” details and easy to remember. However, the truth is if you get to see the BIG FIVE, you will have passed through and experienced every aspect of the national tourism ecosystem in the process of you journey. You will have passed through grasslands, seen birds, rivers, hotels…  and been exposed to the whole offering of the safari experience. The BIG FIVE concept, just like a good slogan, is not to explain everything, but rather to capture the main idea making the experience attractive, impressionable and unforgettable. As you journey through this book you will see and experience the BIG FIVE, listed below, over and over again in different settings and contexts. They will make reading this book a memorable experience. 

1. Setting valuable goals

The first is setting valuable goals. Though smart goals may be clearly defined and precise, they may not be valuable. Valuable goals are not only smart, but they must be aspirational inspirational, motivational and to some extent impossible set on the border of doability. Like my high school moto; Nothing but the Best is not only aspirational, but personal and challenging, engaging both accountability and integrity, emphasizing virtue and setting a minimum standard of character that propels one to seek out and pursue a just cause and not just reward. Valuable goals resonate with the words of Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, the First lady President of Liberia; If your dreams don't scare you, they are not big enough. A “value-able” goal is a call to action.

2. Progress is to pursue the impossible. 

As Nelson Mandela, the first post-apartheid president of South Africa, said; it always seems impossible until it is done. Anyone in leadership has a standing duty to make progress. Progress is usually marked by a quantum leap, impracticability and a “never been done before” agenda. Whenever you reach that point, know you are on the frontier of human advancement, discovery, innovation and excellence and opportunity to make a permanent difference in the history of your organization or service to mankind. At this point the onus fall upon you to expand the boundaries of human existence. Roger Bannister ran the mile in under four minutes in 1952 Olympics. In 2019, Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon (42 kms) in under 2 hours (1:59:40.2). There are many more such events with great teams supporting them including Neil Armstrong’s visit to the moon in 1969. These publicly celebrated achievement inspire hope in many other unpublicized areas of human endeavor and help direct human destiny. But everyone has the potential to make progress in whatever circumstances they are.

3. People are more than followers!

People are much more than followers, they are leaders, inventors, teachers, students, implementors... fathers, mothers …. capable of so much more than you imagine! They are gods with the power to create. They are people first, not numbers of inventory. Befriend them, deploy them wisely and they will do for you what you could never do for yourself. As a leader you can do very little without them. Submission and loyalty are follower virtues without which leadership is powerless!

4. Taking action: it is not enough to dream, think or even plan without taking action. 

Brain Tracy reminds us that “Amateurs discuss strategy, professionals arrange for logistics”. Miracles are good things, they happen occasionally, but you will be surprised how they often come about after substantive work. Winning the lottery happens infrequently to a very small number of people. However, accomplishing anything, on the main, is not a guessing game or a past time, it is a full-time engagement. Throughout history kingdoms have been built by effort, service and sacrifice; Nonetheless, they are brought down by pleasure, ease and vice. The moment leisure takes prominence over effort the end is near. 

5. The little finger of ethical success

The little finger of ethical success is a bothersome, but essential component to attaining celebrated success. There is a moral component to every achievement. They do not sin against humanity. Success should never be a crime scene. We learn from the life of Mahatma Gandhi that; “ethics makes it right”. 

Excerpt from Leading Transcendent Change Scheduled for March 2024

The Hockey Stick of Human Development

 

The Hockey Stick of Human Development 

For millennia and more, in A Very Short History of the World, humanity preoccupied itself with survival, migration and dominion in an effort to justify residency of the earth against natures harsh untamed environment. The very challenge of existence was driven by a search for God and meaning, religion, customs and tradition that evolved into cultures that governed the lives of a people in their perspective of the known world. Indeed, a true story is only as good as its perspective. Up until the middle of the second millennium A.D., humanity labored long and hard developing The Origins of Political Order to create community, society and government. Humanity paced itself on a gentle incline with the locus of development isolated in independent Babelous ethnic kingdoms, cultures and civilizations dotted on continents around the world. Nonetheless, When We Ruled, became a mantra for the epitome of human achievement in philosophy, arts, science architecture, trade, government and supremacy of military campaign as kingdoms fought for dominance and control of wealth and resources in their limited interaction with their neighbors. However, as sea travel and empire building took center stage, the world, as a globe, began to gather a collective momentum of renaissance learning and change in the formulation of a global culture. The writing of The Evolution of Management Thought, captures the migration of the European agrarian economy between 1400-1700 AD to the industrial revolution driven by factory production and capitalism in the 1800s. The dramatic change to centralized institutional enterprise created the “corporation”, the “worker”, the “entrepreneur”, “investors”, the “manager” and the “business executive”. At the time, The Wealth of Nations, the signature tune of capitalism, coincided with the declaration of independence of the United States of America from its colonial legacy. America rang the bell of freedom and shipped the seeds of globalization around the world. Africa provided free slave labor to the agrarian revolution in the foundry of capitalism and supplied valuable raw material to Europe at negligible cost of administrative and military occupation during The Scramble for Africa. Organization designers, Henri Fayol, Alfred Sloan and their peers supplied the leadership thinking that enabled unprecedented levels of human production. The hockey stick of human development took a dramatic turn after two intra-European ethnic conflicts, World War I & II, enjoined intercontinental participation in in the early 1900s. From then on, the race for global dominance was on. But it also signaled the death of parochial empires in the worlds’ east, west, north and south. However, with the installation of global socio-economic architecture provided by the League of Nations, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, gave rise to global corporations. In other words, poverty became a product of dysfunctional human development. And the earth suddenly became a very small place. It became impossible to remain isolated or even independent, one had to be “aligned” to some direction. The earth suddenly became a very small place. It became impossible to remain isolated or even independent, one had to be aligned. But then too, it became practical that an isolated event in one part of the world could catapult major change in another corner of the globe. The age of technology and communication coupled with advances in health and education steeply changed the trajectory of human development as the rate of the rate of change became exponential bringing with it, on a massive scale, hitherto unknown phenomena such as pollution, deforestation and rising sea temperatures. These effects were engineered by the capability humanity has developed to disorient, displace and destroy at a rate much faster than nature has the ability to replenish. The hockey stick of human development suddenly became complicated by the character of human engagement with nature. By the time Carson was writing the Silent Spring in 1962 it was clear that nature was hitting back. Paradoxical as it may seem, in addition to celebrating the complexities of achievement brought on by technology and socio-economic advancement, humanity must now pacify nature for continued tenancy of the earth.  However, the nature of the leadership challenge is no longer localized it is globalized.  The study of Leadership to find models beyond the sufficiency of big man theory, trait and charisma to lead the world out of this new crisis, developed intellectual models such as path to goal, situational analysis and transformational leadership theory, behavioural, situational, contingency, transformational, adaptive and systems theory to help manage the complexity and chaos of our present world. Even though the world has entered turbulent and disruptive periods of change where organizations are challenged to find ways of Delivering and Sustaining Breakthrough Performance, the next phase of human development calls for leaders who will conscientiously evaluate the costly impact of short-term expediency versus long term survival to set organizations and humanity on a course to ethical, sustainable, socio-economic enterprise. The challenge is not partial to the east, the west, the north or the south. The costs are no longer local. Consequences are global. 

Allan Bukusi, Nov 2023

Excerpt from Leading Transcendent Change Scheduled for March 2024

Vindu Vichenja'nga!

 

Vindu Vichenja'nga!

Vindu vichenja'nga - Is tongue-in-cheek idiomatic phrase was coined during the 2022 general elections in Kenya to explain the changing political landscape. It captured the accompanying uncertainty among voters about which candidates would be elected to office by an electorate whose loyalty seemed to be constantly shifting. In English the phrase roughly means “things change… and then keep changing”. Puny as it may seem, the phrase does capture the essence, dynamics and nature of the global and local socio-economic turbulence being experienced in our world today. Business men and women set out to achieve clearly crafted visions with accompanying strategic plans to support their intentions. However, the next morning the government introduces a substantive new tax that in effect wipes away 50% of the companies’ anticipated profits over a five-year plan period. Simply put, in spite of the surprise, standard strategic planning tools do not allow for disruptive environmental change. nonetheless, the term “dynamic strategy” does obtain both context and meaning in a world that is constantly changing.  

Vindu vichenja'nga - reminds us that change is not static and that change in and of itself keeps changing inspiring further change. You can’t get too comfortable with where you are if you want to get through to the future. A leader must look for a transcendent vantage point, like an eagle rising above a storm to surmount and survive the turbulence in the market place.  There is a saying, “You cannot see the picture if you are in the frame”. Sitting in the frame only adds confusion to the complexity of whatever challenge it is you are facing.  Since ancient times, army generals first worked to capture high ground from which they could strategically direct the war efforts taking place in the valley below. Similarly, leaders, in exercising that ancient wisdom, need to seek out vantage points that allow them to tactically direct operations on the ground and ensure their businesses survive and thrive in today’s turbulent world. 

Vindu vichenja'nga, also presents us with a major challenge to lead changing change! We are urged to not just observe change or lead through change, but change ourselves to transcend environmental change. In other words, while things will always keep changing, we must find a way to arrive at our desired goals in spite of those changes. We cannot use change as an excuse for failure. Thus, even when the weather changes or market conditions shift and a new president is elected, we must find a way to get the children through school! But we also find this powerful change metaphor in the transcendent leadership of the founding fathers of modern African nations. They looked beyond the conundrum of colonialism to create a new moral state of existence for generations to come. 

Preview excerpt from

Leading Transcendent Change 

Scheduled for March 2024

Let me know your thoughts....

What is this book about?

 

Natures challenge of unchecked global warming, effects of pollution and water scarcity are forcing nations to make costly self-preserving decisions they did not consider important half a century ago. Governments are seriously talking about the weather, and urgently investing in earth stewardship policies and values they ignored as inconsequential not too long ago. International business practice is adrift with powerful undercurrents of protectionism, exploitation, subsidies and trade barriers alongside the power struggles of technology, politics and brazen survival economics. Disruptive events like wars, drought and other disasters create overnight market shifts the produce what economist call the “butterfly effect”. In theory, the flutter of this tiny insects’ wings in an isolated part of the world can cause tidal waves half way around the globe. At the local level unstable economic performance, lacklustre policy formulation, numbing poverty and a lack of foresight force political administrations to restart the economy with every election cycle rendering strategic planning a nightmare. Meanwhile, everyone in industry, businesses, traders and the stock market are looking for signals of near-term (given up in long-term) direction to get an idea where to invest their funds, determine which products to sell and yearn for stable raw material and input prices to hopefully predict realistic profit margins. The problem is the signals keeps changing. The impact of this global and local (glocal) environmental turbulence hits the leader mid-stride in the course of his or her executive duties having made a commitment to the employer to deliver the organisation goals - the board is earnestly waiting for a premium return on its investment. However, under these conditions, failure to achieve goals may not be as much due to a lack of the leaders’ competence as much as it is because the goal posts keep shifting and the world won’t stand still long enough to get a clear shot at goal.

The purpose of this book is to empower leaders (readers) with an understanding of how to navigate turbulent environmental conditions. It provides them with a tool kit to successfully navigate the ever changing global and local landscape as it impacts organisation survival and growth, business operations and profitability, leadership team effectiveness and powering employee performance in a volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world. 

It is about placing in the hands of a leader skills to navigate work related business challenges that arise due to the environmental impact and fallout facing organisations in VUCA conditions. It is about developing skills to avoid knee-jerk reactions to regular and irregular organisation problems and reducing the amount of time spent firefighting crisis. It’s about studying the environment and making reflective and strategic decisions that transform a business to fare better in the face of prevailing environmental change. This book is about revising business objectives in order to realize transcendent performance. It's about people and the culture that drives them. It’s about business renewal and organisation sustainability. It’s about making leaders out of followers and “following leaders”. It is about engaging our God given gifts of ideation, innovation and creativity to resolve persistent and pervasive problems. But then again, it’s about unravelling complex problems as opportunity for growth. One could also say it is about adopting a transcendent leader mindset that enables business transformation and organisation success. In a nutshell, I would say that is what this book is about.   

Scheduled for March 2024

Let me know your thoughts...

Sow in the hard times, Save in the good times!

 Sow in the hard times, Save in the good times!

Wisdom unclassified.

Six Things Transformative Leaders Do

 

Six Things Transformative Leaders Do

Click to download full article

Abstract

This paper is a synopsis of six things transformative leaders do to ensure a business survives and progressively advances towards its long-term goals amid the volatile, unstable, complex and ambiguous environmental conditions of the 21st century. The author draws this synopsis from previous research reviewing, 1) scholarly published papers, academic literature and empirical studies accessed through online scholarly search engines and knowledge bases, dated 2010 onwards, documenting and offering theoretical, conceptual and philosophical frameworks on the emergence of transformative leadership to help leaders profitably navigate the challenges of a chaotic, crisis ridden world, and 2) analysis of published case study data on African CEOs celebrated for successfully turning around failing businesses and posting outstanding outcomes in depressed local economic conditions. The paper suggests that business survival calls for higher skill sets than simply outsmarting the competition, keeping up with evolving customers or managing the bottom-line. Rather, transformative leaders facilitate irreversible transcendent change to ensure business survival, sustainability and long-term success. While conventional theory suggests that apex leaders should take direct control of business operations, transformative leaders install a vibrant business culture where leadership responsibility is shared with empowered followers. They keep the business abreast of the evolving economic environment by maintaining a profitable, responsive and creative tension between the business readiness to change and the impact of external forces altering the environmental landscape. In this paper the researcher uses classic, contemporary and current leadership theory to anchor its findings.

Keywords

Transformative Leaders, Transforming Culture, Turbulence, VUCA, Afrocentric Business Leadership, Dynamic Strategy, Empowered Followers, Transcendent Change, Creative Tension, Ubuntu

Leading Transcendent Change

 

Essential Skills for Leaders in Turbulent Times 

We are living in turbulent times and a whole new combination of skills and competencies are required to navigate a Volatile, Unpredictable, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world. Business leaders and leaders in all sectors of society and the economy need to bunker down and rethink their leadership approach to getting things done! The Concept of Leading TRANSCENDENT Change is not your normal change leadership program. It is based on Published Research. "Six Things Transformative Leaders Do" is based on a four years of study in search of an Afrocentric Business Leadership Model that will help local leaders ensure their business are able to survive, and indeed thrive, in turbulent economic environments. Here is the action plan; click one, or act on all THREE options below today;

1. Register here for the webinar before the 17th of October 2023,  

2. Down load the very readable research, or the best option 

3.Contact me on email and we can pick up the discussion on how I can run this program for your organisations leadership team. 

Warm regards,

   

Corruption cure

 Corruption exists because systems do not work, not because people are corrupt!

DO LIFE sound bytes

Indigenous Leadership Research in Africa (ILRA) - It is a Critical Calling !!!

INDIGENOUS LEADERSHIP RESEARCH IN AFRICA

Abstract

This paper challenges leaders involved in governance, politics, academia, industry and leadership training to access the Afrocentric leadership advantage to unlock the wisdom and benefits of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) across the continent. The authors conducted a review of recent published literature by African leadership scholars that authenticate indigenous leadership thought in the face of historic, colonial and imperial Eurocentric western theory. The authors re-position indigenous leadership research as a critical center-piece and last-mile strategy to achieve pragmatic national transformation. The authors argue that hegemonic Eurocentric leadership models serve to satisfy global, financial and economic capital gains metrics, but do not always serve the social wellbeing and transformative growth interests of local communities. The paper urges policy makers, leadership program developers and business innovators to access and incorporate the findings of Indigenous Leadership Research in Africa (ILRA) to inspire national development and prosperity over the next 200 years.

This article will change the way you think about "African leadership" and "Leadership in Africa"

Allan Bukusi

In the Matter of the People of Kenya and the Government!

 

In the Matter of the People of Kenya and the Government

In the matter of the people of Kenya and the government, there is no contest. The established definition of a democracy is, “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people” (Abraham Lincoln, 1863). The government is morally bound to EMBRACE the will of the people. There is no such thing as “my government”. It is the “PEOPLES government”. At best, a leader can only claim,” my administration”. Secondly, there is neither a majority nor minority, it is the AGENDA of the people that must prevail. Third, representatives who defraud the PEOPLE of their VOICE by abandoning the people that elected them, from whatever party and for whatever reason, are in breach of INTEGRITY (Ch.6 Laws of Kenya,2010) and are ethically obliged to apologize to the PUBLIC and stand down for falsifying the will of the PEOPLE. 

Allan Bukusi

Here is how to make Friends with a Wasp!?

 

Make Friends with a Wasp!?

What if I told you that you should make friends with a wasp?!! You probably would think I am out of my mind, but if I told you that it will save you a lot of money and save your health too, you may want to find out how. If you have been following my stories you will recall that I often refer to my grandmother’s garden. So, you won’t mind if I go back there to extract a tall childhood tale…

Long, long ago deep in the village of the rural areas of my country, where tarmac roads were scarce and only found on the main street of major towns, the rural highways were a few tracks that led to the local market. In those days we got healthcare services from the village dispensary. Under the bare roof, which you could see by simply looking up, were massive hives of wasps. The wasps went out and came in as they wished. No, they did not reside there to access the health services, we humans, came for. They lived at the hospital as an appropriately located abode with suitable structures to accommodate their communal existence. The one thing we children were often reminded was not to disturb the wasp nest. Wasps won’t bother you unless you antagonize them. So, we all grew up knowing that wasps were to be found in buildings, on roofs, trees and other high out of the way places. The cardinal rule was simple, wasps were not to be disturbed. 

Nevertheless, wasps could also be found in the open fields where we went to get grass for cows and graze the animal herds. In those places the wasp protocol was forgotten and sometimes ignored. It was then that we got stung by the little creatures. To be honest, apart from a few times when we were stung by accident, there were times and places where we threw one or two stones at the wasp nest and ran as fast as our little legs could carry us. Those whose legs did not move fast enough paid the price of a well-positioned sting in an embarrassingly visible body part.  In those days, it was child’s play and a laughing matter to see a friend with a swollen eye, who would not tell his mother the truth about what really happened. If they told the truth, they would end up with a double punishment for disobedience. In the fields wasps would be seen carrying their prey, their own food. Usually, the prey were many types of caterpillars. Somehow there were so many caterpillars that wasps had more than enough food. I mean, for a truth, in those days caterpillars would grow quite healthy and multiply fast. Today, we struggle with caterpillars as pests, probably having more wasps would give a different outcome. “More food for wasps than destruction to crops”. It amazes me today that we need wasps because I know there were very many in the old days. As a scientist I am looking for ways to bring them back in their numbers because I think they have something to teach us and more so do for us. Wasps are one example, but spiders, ladybugs and lacewings, among other insects, are friendly insects that feed on pests that damage crops. All these were plenty in my grandmothers’ garden because their foods were abundant, safe to the environment and available. Their shelters were plenty with no one to disturb them in their daily routines. Above all, they were not being killed by chemicals. 

People who grew up in the village may recall that we chewed, inhaled and took tea made from various plant concoctions to cure stomach ailments and headaches. In my grandmothers’ garden, collecting plant leaves and either boiling, drying, inhaling, fumigating or pounding them was a normal strategy against non-friendly insects and diseases. Whenever disturbing creatures appeared at our door step or in the home, there were plants and substances that would be used to handle these incidences. My grandmother placed a plant, which I now know as Mexican marigolds on doorsteps so that red ants which lined up towards her bedroom made a U-turn to their colonies. Marigolds and many other plants are plenty and diverse. Their presence chases out insects and uniquely harbors bees and some butterflies, giving shades and leaves fall to make good soils. To keep insects away from our household food reserves my grandmother mixed ashes with grains and no insects damaged them. Grains were mixed with ash from special trees and plant branches so they remained free from pests yet edible. Other types of ash were used to make ingredients that softened meat and vegetables making meals extremely tasty and easily digestible.  Unlike my grandmothers’ tactic of causing ants to make a U-turn, pesticides are today sprayed in the fields to kill wasps, and other friendly insects. Experts tell us that there are immensely more insect species than the total global population of human beings. Surprisingly only less than one per cent of these insects are what we call pests! If we carefully rear the other 99% would they not help us keep the environment in balance.

Today, many plants, some of which were also used for ailments are sprayed or fumigated with chemicals to suppress and repel insects. A great deal of our food crops are sprayed with chemicals which we ingest along with dead plants and dead insects. But we can use both plants and insects as repellants. We must be bold enough to ask, can we recreate our environments so that we do not need chemicals at all? Can we make an environment where insects, plants and animals can safely coexist?

© Angela Mkindi, 2023

Edited by Allan Bukusi

Stories from a changing environment

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Sometimes, you don't appreciate what you have until you share it!

 

CARGO: A story of friends, sprays and sumu!

C A R G O

A story of friends, sprays & sumu

I tell stories about my grandmother’s garden to anyone who will listen. Some Sundays I meet with friends to share stories. Our agenda, at the restaurant last Sunday afternoon, was to eat salads and talk about life. When the salads came my friend shouted, Jaman! - a Swahili expression calling attention to an alarming issue. She then said, “Do you know that in places where vegetables are grown, they are being sprayed. Nowadays, tomatoes, are sprayed with chemicals when they are as young as seedlings. Spraying is done at every stage; flowering, setting fruits, before harvesting and actually after harvesting so that they don’t go bad. Since I found this out, I don’t eat salads containing tomatoes”. 

Another friend gave us some interesting information on the field work she had done to assess crop pollination in vegetable growing areas around town. Her assignment was to count the number of insects visiting a designated square patch in selected farms in the area. He told us, “To my surprise and agony, I stood for more than one hour, in a flowering maize plot, without spotting a single bee. This story made my mind race back to my grandmother’s garden for shelter. But, I also remembered things I had read from newspapers abroad of places where pollination does not take place naturally and farmers buy colonies of bees to pollinate orchards. My mind went back to the wasps and bee-stings that were normal in my grandmothers’ garden and wondered whether what my friend was saying was really happening in my country. Back then, it would have been impossible to spend an hour not seeing an insect on every square foot of ground in the garden. I did not want to believe my friends story, but I’d say that one hour of apparently no life in the insect world is really a stretch of the imagination. That would simply never happen in my grandmother’s garden. 

“Not far from here”, another friend said, “I worked with a community where the farm owners insisted on spraying crops until a shadow mark was left on the ground and the leaves were soaked in tears”. “This”, she said, “had been going on for nine years”. I couldn’t imagine how many insects had been smashed out over this period. Communities have certainly become richer with more money to spend from casual labor even though they ingest the sprays, mix the chemicals and inhale fumes and droplets from the spray guns. One of my friends said, “Did you see the African eggplant farm we passed down the road? “Yes”, we replied in chorus. At the back of my mind, and of course to the best of my knowledge, African eggplants are among vegetables that are not sprayed along with potato leaves, cassava leaves, pumpkin leaves and local amaranth. My friend went on, “Actually, the egg plants were not sprayed, but they were sold on the ground where the spray was mixed yesterday.  

Three of our friends came in late for the meeting and joined our discussion midstream. One of them said, “Farmers are always encouraged to wear protective gear when spraying their crops because the chemicals are poisonous, but farmers are scared and don’t use them for many reasons. For one, the clothing brings too much heat, making people sweaty, sticky and slippery on warm days – which is most days of the year! The gear is not only uncomfortable, it is expensive too and some of the protective gear makes it difficult to go to the toilet”. The other late comer said, “Anyhow, many farmers cannot intellectually reconcile themselves to understand that they are being asked to spray food with unsafe chemicals they will feed their children, customers and friends. The Swahili word for these chemicals is “Sumu”. Sumu is used to kill things. Farmers wonder why they are supposed to use Sumu on food. Sumu is something to be feared, it kills, and has no alternative meaning, purpose or explanation. “In my family we use Sumu for rats”, said my friend, “and whenever Sumu was put in the kitchen or storerooms, vigilance was needed to ensure that nobody used the pots and edible food that was set as bait for the rats… The hunt, search and smell of dead rats was always unbearable. We called in my brother to do the undertaker job of removing dead rats…he would chase us all around the house holding them by their tails before throwing them into the rubbish pit”. The third latecomer said, “How can we safely use unsafe substances?”. How can Sumu be used to produce food, that is supposed to give health and well-being?” Nobody said anything.

It was getting late and I would have to leave the meeting soon, but none of my friends seemed ready to go home yet, so I stayed on. “During the harvest season”, my friend began, “the nickname for laborer’s who are hired to pick crops from the field are called “Cargo”. They are presumably called “Cargo” because they carry the crops from the field in buckets to weighing stations where they are paid every day, so long as they meet the stipulated seven buckets by the end of the day. If they do not meet the target, they are not paid a cent. But many are happy to get work on the farms anyway because they have families to feed and fees to pay for their school going children”. However, as we talked about life in the village where the “Cargo” lived, the conversation tuned in to the beautiful young women who were not giving birth. “They are not as strong as the women in my grandmother’s garden”, I said “do you see any young women in the Cargo squads?" But my other friend said, “it is because of the endless bending all day and the smell of the harvest spray… you can’t do this work and keep a baby... I know a man who is making so much money spraying crops for the market that he bought two motorbikes in three months… I hear he is planning to buy a pickup… but, people don’t know that he has another farm on which he grows food for his family to eat. On that farm he does not spray anything and he told his young wife never to visit the market farm… You know how people talk…. Someone told me that he has scales on his back from carrying the tank he uses to spray the crops for the market.”. Finally, I had to drag myself away from the meeting. I made the excuse that I had to get ready for work tomorrow. What I did not tell them was that they had given me a lot to think about.

© Angela Mkindi, 2023

Edited by Allan Bukusi

"Stories from our changing environment"

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my Grandmothers garden... a land I want my children to SEE!

 

my Grandmothers garden  

… a land I want my children to see. 

I grew up in the shadow of the tallest mountain in Africa. It was covered in snow from the top to the bottom of the clouds. It was always there, the mountain towering like a sentinel watching over my grandmother’s land. Looking back a few decades I see a series of changing events in that lively and vibrant country. One can tell that something very tragic has happened. The mountain is sad and dry. The dense views of landscapes, the dark colours of the soil, sounds and movements of millions of species of plants and animals are now rare to locate. Dark grey clouds that ran up the mountain and poured down clear water every day are no longer grey but smoky white. The ever-flowing rivers and forests, a far cry from the bare rock, are a story my children never get tired of listening to.“Mama!", they ask, "Was it a dream?  tell us once more about your grandmother’s country, was it real?”

Those who grew up in the rural areas can relate. There are still old men and women in the village who can tell this story. We saw bees, wasps, scorpions, birds and varieties of butterflies. These were our companions on the way to and from school. They told us the time, sunrise, midday and sunset. They wished us well and told us that God had given us the gift of another day. They supplied us with food and even pointed us to where more food and fruits were available. Going to school, we latter found out the functions of plants and animals in the environment. They were called “flora and fauna”, not that it mattered much to us. We just ate and enjoyed the plants and animals. But I tell you, in Africa, everything and everyone is related so we associated with plants, animals and insects as neighbours respect each other’s territory and share the general blessings of sun, rain and natures garden. We chewed shrubs and flowers, fruits and several varieties of plants. We could easily distinguish between the poisonous and edible. We were not clever. We watched the birds. If the birds ate the fruit, we would eat them. If the birds did not touch them neither would we. Thanks to instructions from elder brothers, sisters, uncles, neighbours, parents, and grandparents we understood that everything in nature had its place. We saw a kind of environment that we could not imagine would be missing in a few years to come. For you, young ones, I must tell you what happened in my grandmothers’ garden so that you may know it was true. I lived it, I loved it, I touched it. 

I experienced bee colonies flying from one corner of the garden to the other in perfect harmony, freedom like a buzzing whirlwind. They always announced their departure and arrival. They knew when to go and where to stay. Each beehive was established on trees some near roadsides and homesteads in my grandmother’s country. I remember a story of a cow dying of bee stings. My own brother was seriously bitten by bees in his attempt to harvest honey from a Jacaranda tree under the noon sunshine at the age of eleven. He knew there was need for smoke and he had a fire stick, and a container to harvest honey. He learned from our grandfather who would harvest up to six beehives per night, with his friend, using a certain type of smoke that would not actually kill all bees. Although in the process some would die of course. The knowledge about the best trees for bee colony establishment, techniques for averting bee stings and safe harvesting was a science my grandfather had mastered. He would tell us about the importance of planting trees, and taking care of insects, not only bees, by establishing and maintaining their habitats and for the sustainable harvesting of medicine plants. I remember the garden was full of thousands and thousands of butterflies. I even remember accidentally stepping on a slowly moving chameleon. I had not seen it as we walked on the trail - that made me very sad. 

When it grew dark, we had to change the paths we would use to get home because of the thick darkness in the forests. At night, you never knew what you might meet. The night belonged to the animals of the forest. People only came out of their homes at the announcement of the bird that saw the first ray of sunlight. I think that bird also told the animals that it was their time to go home. The oxen were called out to plough the fields from first light to the middle of the morning then let out to pasture. The aroma of freshly turned earth, roots, grubs and the morning dew is a far greater wonder than brewed coffee.   

Another is a story I remember is waking up to search for mushrooms from hotspots that we could easily locate in different parts of the garden.  We knew their varieties, and we knew the difference between edible and poisonous shoots. Some mushrooms grew in the middle of banana trees, this was one type. There were bigger ones in the forests, and still others in the open fields during the heavy rain season at around weeding time. There were also many types of edible foods growing naturally. Some looked like weeds, others like pods while other fruits ripened in specific seasons and were only available for a short time. We had to share the fruits with the birds. Anyway, like I said, if the birds ate them you knew they were safe. We would store the harvested mushrooms in water to avoid rotting before cooking them. In between planting and harvest season, the only things farmers carried along with them when going to the farm were hoes, knives, containers of some foods to eat close to the end of the farming day and empty bags. Empty bags were meant to collect food stuff growing in the fields and along the way home such as vegetables, bananas, pumpkins, and fruits that grew along the farm boundaries. There were times we would go looking for forest delicacies while our elders showed us the various medicine trees. Hoes were for cultivating and knives for chopping branches here and there in the field and collecting firewood on the way back home. Naturally growing and sown seeds helped fertilize the soil and filled the soil with humus. Yes, the soil was rich volcanic red, moist and softly dark crawling with worms, ants and I can’t tell you how many other ugly things. The soil was properly positioned to give different varieties of food during the year. It was a pleasure to feed from nature and its great variety of foods and medicine. 

In my grandmother’s place. We never missed ripe bananas, avocados, and peaches, which she rarely sold in the market. We enjoyed these fruits each time we went. Especially on Sundays when we passed by from school. She complained about some being stolen, but still, plenty were available. It was in the lower dank garden that we located ripe bananas by their aroma in the middle of a dense field covered by bananas, avocados, sugarcane, peaches, and many other seasonal fruit trees. 

When I stand in one corner of my grandmothers’ garden today, I see all four corners of the field. It was a fun place to play with so many things you could do and a lot of things going on under your feet. It was the busiest place I could imagine. Back then it was very big and took a long time to walk around. We never went to buy food from the shop, but sometimes we would ask or exchange food with the neighbours. There was enough for everybody. 

The sky was sea blue and the cotton white clouds rolled into balls of mist as it ran down the mountain side and turned into due that covered the grass, flowers, slugs, snails and snakes that crawled along the undergrowth. The air was clean, mint and pristine. Later in the morning, if you stood still in the fields, you would see Guinea foul, squirrels and mole hills, grasshoppers, termites and safari ants each going about their business like nothing else mattered. There was a place where the water came out of the rock. In the afternoon you could join in the warm laughter of the river as it ran down from the mountain over pebbles and into the stream.  In the evening, downstream, there were fish, frogs and all sorts of insects that would gather in chorus to welcome the evening sun. We always wanted to stay until sunset, but we knew we had to run because we had wandered far from home. That, my friends, was my grandmothers garden in my grandmother’s country... a land I want my children to see.

© Angela Mkindi, 2022

Edited by Allan Bukusi

"Stories from our changing environment"

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TWENTY TWENTY THREE IS HERE!

TWENTY TWENTY THREE IS HERE !

2023 is a blank exercise book I have been given to write my thoughts, my dreams and yes, my history. Problem is, it is already five days into the year and I am working hard to keep my thoughts ahead of my history. We may not always think of it like that and often wait for things to happen and the year to unfold and get old. Sometimes it feels a little stupid to want to set goals. But I want to do things differently this year. I want to ask God to give hope and meaning to my thoughts and give me the courage to set goals. I want to take up the challenge to help Him make them a reality. The truth is I believe I can create reality by my thoughts, words, works and deeds so that is why I usually spend December of every year thinking about what I will do with the next 365 pages of the book I am writing. I feel better when I write. I don’t always accomplish earth shaking goals. I am not a miracle worker. I am sometimes disappointed when I think I should have set higher goals or done a little bit better than I did last year. Sometimes each year, I have to forgive myself for being such a dreamer like a drunkard with my head in the clouds. I chastise myself for not doing what I said I would. But hey, I am always happy that I set out to do something I could be proud of at the end of the year! Some of those projects were houses, savings, getting an education or changing my behavior and the way I do things. Even though the disappointments come like COVID, wars, elections and economic meltdown or silly things like losing friendships - over which I have little or no control, I always set goals with hope and courage so that at the end of the day I can thank God for every chapter of my life. We have about 360 pages left. I don’t know whether your script is going to turn out to be a blockbuster movie, but I would pray that you would take charge of it, for your own sake – I hope you have a plan or at least some priorities. You will never regret that you set out to write your own story.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

Allan Bukusi