Can the Little Ones Now Smile?

This is November 16, just another day in Africa. But it is in one such day in 1976 that thousand of children in the black neighborhood of Soweto in South Africa were bludgeoned to death by ruthless apartheid regime when protesting for their rights.

More than three decades to day, it behooves us to ask the obvious of questions, are our children today better than before? Can we stand shoulder tall and claim that justice has truly been done for these young angels?

Writing this is at the backdrop of disturbing media information of archaic behavior of child molestation, hunger and rape all meted against the innocent child. A common foreign media stereotype on the African child which however is frighteningly true in some part of the continent is that of a hapless, tottering kid in ragged clothes, romping up and down the streets begging for food and alms.

But this is not necessarily true for the whole part of the continent. There surely is some light at the end of the tunnels even for the pitch dark parts of the black African continent. The global organ that roots for the rights of the child –UNICEF comfortably declared that child mortality rate has dropped by fifty percent from the year 1960 down the lane to date. That simply means that the number of years a child needed to leave has now doubled in the last five decades. This is not entirely bad news.

More children can now go to school today more than before. Many African countries like Kenya, South Africa and Egypt have elaborately rolled out programmes to facilitate free basic education for their children.

 In ASAL regions of Kenya with tough weather conditions and scarce food water, the government in partnership with sympathetic NGO’S has well executed dietary programmes to help cushion the disadvantaged kids against these harsh conditions. This is an important leap towards the achievement of the millennium development goal -2015 that targets to reduce child mortality.

Africa after all not that bleak. With all the imminent challenges that dogs her we sincerely need to grant her all the due she deserves.

http//amugashakalengeka.blogspot

IDENTIFYING YOUR STRENGTH....

ARE YOU AWARE OF THIS....READ THROUGH AND YOU WILL BE THANKFUL

Aura Readings-                                                                                 By Amugasha Kalengeka-Kenya

Aura reading is the spiritual identification of a person’s distinct quality through analysis of what is called spiritual energy system. The energy system is said to appear in seven layers.

Experts who read the aura are generally referred to as aura readers and they give insight into your capabilities by identifying your strength and weaknesses.

Aura reading mostly focuses on your current strength that will enable propel successfully into the future. The aura reader helps you identify your experiences that can abstract your progress into a bright future. The session then helps you to side pass these obstacles for proper progress.

It is believed that everyone has aura. In fact, children are said to see their aura as a matter of nature. It is a part of their world.

Truly religious people have golden auras around their heads similar to what we see in the images of Mary the mother of Jesus or even the picture so of Jesus himself that are drawn by artists.

Aura reading is important because it helps the reader identify the true nature of people s/he is interacting with. It is difficult to lie to a person with ability to read aura because the person can see it from the kind of aura surrounding you that you are not telling the truth.  Aura readers do this by interpreting aura colours, which are believed to be loaded with meaning.

For example, primrose shows that someone is oozing with an air of confidence whereas rustic red depicts a short temper person. An aura reader will diagnose someone with dark greens aura to be someone with mental stress.

The aura reader is able to diagnose body multifunction through encouraging certain habits and discouraging others from the revelations s/he gets from reading your aura surrounding you.

One can however not get to successfully fake aura because it reflects what you really are from within which is not what you ca hide from yourself.

But the good news is that what can control their aura if they accept positive changes of their negative self. This done through one identifying their present weaknesses in their aura system ,digest it and seek to positive it for you to gain the necessary healing.

Aura healing helps you to retain your vision by staying lively and focused. Since our aura interacts with those of others it doesn’t pay much to hang around people with dull auras e .g. those with foul tempers,negative motivation e.tc.  less our aura taps these frivolous energies from their system.Remeber your mother’s  guide about good company? Yes, that is the spirit here. 

LEARN TO READ AURA, WILL YOU?

MAGICAL SWITZERLAND

SAMPLE THE UNSPOILT SWITZELAND THIS SUMMER !

Welcome to Switzerland! The land where nature come to play and tantalizing panoramic sceneries.

Summer is almost here! Sample out with your loved ones the Switzerland’s stunning mountain scenery, unblemished nature, well-known sense of hospitality and of course our impressive cities

Switzerland will give you a unique opportunity to sample out cultural ambience from different parts of the worlds all at the same go. Visit Switzerland’s magical lakes, snowcapped mountains, ultramodern cities and picturesque villages available to you at an affordable budget.

Travel by in the comfort of our trains all the way to the magnificent Swiss Alps or rent a car to explore from any travel agents available on the Swiss ports allover the country. Well, the choice is all yours! You can make your travel arrangements online all you need is to click on http halloswisstravel.com and you are instantly hooked up.

Or same still contact or visit "Magic Switzerland" our tour operator and destination specialist with offices in Switzerland and the United States of America. They will explain to you all you need to know. They can also arrange for car rentals,hotels, rail passes and every thing that you will need to travel to Switzerland and the rest of Europe

Better still,you can contact read travel guides on Switzerland online and contact a tourism agency that will design a perfect travel programme for you as per your needs.

Travel guides will also familiarize you with main attractions of Switzerland with destination information of Zermatt and the Matterhorn, the hiking paradise of the Bernese Oberland and the Engadin, or the famous destinations Geneva, Lucerne, Interlaken and the Swiss capital of Berne. This will give you a head start.

So do you want to tour Switzerland?

IN UGANDA ANARCHY REIGNS SUPREME

Time out for Museveni

"We have known how to face dangers to obtain our liberty, we shall know how to brave death to maintain it."

Toussaint L'Ouverture, to the
Directory ruling France, 1797

As the world stands and watch, Museveni is making outrageous rampages in Uganda killing peaceful demonstrators and maiming civil right activists and other dissenting voices.

II A sure Idd Amin,Uganda’s late dictator toppled by Museveni is now smiling from ear to ear in his grave awed at the audacity his predecessor can pull.

Yesterday , for fear of granting his fearsest rival Dr.Kiza Besigye  freedom to roam and galvanize Ugandans for a walk to work protest,Museveni in his barbaric grandeur and guts locked him up under what his government spokes person called protective custody.

What the president is not aware is that you cannot suppress an oppressed people for long. There is always an elastic limit to everything. If he got his history right Museveni will remember the Santo  Domingo slaves revolution of 1791 led by the famous - Slave Army of Toussaint L'Ouverture.

The revolution that began as mere rebellion by an oppressed people went down into history as the most successful revolution of the centaury. It happened in Haiti it can happen in Uganda.

Unlike Kiza Besigye who looks robusts and daredevil, Toussaint L'Ouverture was born sickly yet a clever commander whose tactics and sheer guts was instrumental in helping the slaves of Santo Domingo break into their freedom. Great emperors like the Napoleon also fell. Where is are the Saddam Hussein of this world?Did Mubbarak not dash into the oblivion? Yet all this were men of ‘grandeur’ as well.

Museveni thumbs his chest at his electorates, he sneers at their poverty with careless arrogant remarks. He makes them feel that Uganda can never be Uganda without him. And he had even has the audacity to publicly declare that since he forced his way into power Ugandans must brace to force him out of it too.

This comes from the mouth of a man who owns almost all of the Uganda’s capital –Kampala, as the rest of the civilian waddle and wiggle in acute  poverty checkered by increased cost of living. Uganda is an unfortunate country under one man siege.

Museveni boasts of increased economic growth, but those are only figures, the people of Uganda want food on the table. He boasts of steady energy supply and the inherent discovery of oil in Uganda,but all that has not translated into jobs and education for  his people.

The Ugandan despot jokes that he and the people of Uganda are in the same situation. How can they be in the same situation when he flys in a private chopper while the rest of the Ugandan walk to work to save for the next meal?

With all these signs, the end is nigh-Museveni is time barred.

Amugasha Kalengeka -Kakamega

There Should Be No Formulae on Foreign Policies

On the recent times, there has been hullabaloo in the media about South Africa shifting positions on its foreign policy.  These changes in position have elicited accusations and counter-accusations has sparkled a debate in the international relations academia whether foreign policy guide should be a rigid or flexible .

Although scholars of foreign relations led by the likes of McGowan and Shapiro have proposed various theories on foreign relation, I strongly believe that their can never be a general formula to approach broad spectrum of issues that bombard us each day. Each issue that crops up has its own uniqueness and reactions on it cannot be pegged par se on theories and formula outlined in a policy document.  

The idea that this document should be unbending in itself  irks as it brings an impression that people need to think along certain lines. Why should South Africa severe its lucrative business relationship with china just because of an insignificant visit by the Dalai Lama?

Each country operates under different, unique political, economical and social environment. The current status quo constant, the same foreign policy document cannot dictate relationship between say a country like Kenya and Somalia and Kenya and the United States. This is for a simple reason that these two countries have completely different environments and share different kind of relationship with Kenya. Therefore relationship between Kenya and the US will be more reciprocative than the one with Somalia since Kenya has more to loose with a severed link with the US than with Somalia. This is because Kenya benefits more from its trade ties with the US than Somalia not in terms of balance of trade but in the sense of corporate advantages that Kenya draws from this relationship.

It is therefore logical to say that an umbrella policy will not give required attention to the prospective partner since she will have to share it with another not so equally rewarding.  

Take another example in the principal of non-interference that graces most of these documents. When another country’s dictator stands in the way of the world’s general order will the rest of the world stand arms akimbo watching because they want to respect that country’s sovereignty?   

Policy should just be a general guideline, but reference to it should be a wholesome approach based on the surrounding factors on an issue emerging in the international arena. Foreign Policy documents must therefore be constantly reviewed to accommodate other new circumstances. The document should not abhor our reasoning and hinder critical thinking.

AMUGASHA KALENGEKA- KAKAMEGA

Feature-The Ikhonga Murwe

Travel Feature

THE IKHONGA

MURWE-The Place Where Your Sins Are Forgiven and All Your Problems annulled BY AMUGASHA KALENGEKA

It is 6:30 in the morning at the

South of Kakamega town. We are

Murwe-the mysterious crying stone

of Ilesi.The signature tune of a reverberating Isikuti can be heard

cutting through the thick fog laced

with the glorious sing songs of the

sonorous birds of Kakamega.

At this point we are facing the

Isukha community’s most sacred of treasures. Standing tall is a

panoramic view of a mighty 40

meters high granitic tor that has

features resembling the human

anatomy with ‘eyes’ dripping with

‘tears’  simulating someone crying.

The tor is green and thick with

mosses plowing most of its surface signifying survival through tests of

time, braving agents of denudation.

Our guide,Mzee Umahala Okubasu, 73,draws our attention to a caravan of semi-naked individuals coming through the Shiminyiro – a cave at the foot of towering rock.

“These are people of Oluswa

victims or in some case products of

incest”, said Mzee Okubasu,”they

have come here to be cleanced,

these rocks here have a magical

powers to clear away all your

iniquities  and problems-you just

have to confess and all your problems will glide away with the

morning sun”.

Shiminyiro is Luhya for, the

sqeezer, it refers to the attribute of

the rock that is believes to squeeze

out all the transgression from its

visitors.

Over the years the Ikhonga Murwe

has been a permanent feature that underpins the culture of the Isukha

people of Western Kenya. Apart

from Kakamega Forest famed for

its diverse birds and insects, the

Ikhonga Murwe projects significantly

as one of the pillars that

Characterize the western province tourism circuit.

According to Ephantus Kinyua,the

Western Kenya tourism circuit

manager, it is estimated that  about

3000-5000foreignors pay visit to

the mystic rock annually, pumping in

over ksh.3 billion to the economy in

form of the much needed foreign exchange.

As we take a sightseeing tour

around the crying stone we meet

with a snaking pilgrimage of

worshippers who have come to pay

tribute to their gods.

“They are from Legio Maria

sect”, Mzee Okubasu tells us, “they

make annual pilgrimage to this place

to fulfill their religious requirements”.

An eloquent skilled orator,

Mzee Okubasu takes us through the

myths, epics and folklores that

surround this gods bit of artwork.

Among the narratives imbibed into

Mzee Okubasu head is the story of

Nandi warriors who in frustration of

the stone’s sorcerous power that

helped the Isukha win wars against

them, tried to pull it down. It is said  the hundreds of warriors in the

failed attempt were struck down in

the rock’s lethal vengeance.

Oriedo Chuma, an anthropologist at

the mines and geology department

in Kakamega confirms that the

Ikhonga Murwe was formed 6

million years ago, long before man

walked the surface of the earth.

He explains that the ‘tears’ trickling

down from the rocks is

indeed poisonous water comingled

with quartz, alkali, feldspar and mica.

But to the Isukha people living

around the Ikhonga Murwe, the

crying is something they look

forward to because is a precursor

for good things to come.

It is no wonder that when famine

strikes, the Isukha asks the gods of

the mighty Ikhonga Murwe for intercession.

From fires petering out in the

presence of the morning light our

guide explains to us that some

rituals had just been carried out in

the heart of the night when it is

believed that the malevolent spirits

are asleep.

The western tourism circuit however

suffers some extreme setbacks from

the almost immotorable roads in the region.

Mr.Ephantus notes with deep concern

that the poor states of the roads and inadequate five stars

accommodation facilities has robbed

the region of the numbers in

tourism tariff in comparison to

places like the coast where Kenya

highway authority has concentrated

its efforts.

We culminate our journey by a visit

to the Isukha river, where water

from the sacred stones of Ilesi spits

into it with a thunderous gush. As

the Isikhu meanders through the

woods and the great Ikhonga

Murwe cry its heart out, we trace

our path back awed at the creativity

of mother nature.

Condom shortage? Blame it on Mututho

Condom shortage? Blame it on Mututho

The recently passed alcohol law is proving counterproductive if the sentiment in the grapevines is anything to go by. The reduction of drinking hours courtesy of this too much ado about nothing law has sends revelers into much thinking about a plan B. And from this thinking, a solution was hatched that seems more pernicious than the booze combined with its treacherous effects- the Red Light Districts.

The Koinange streets of this part of the world are alive today and kicking than never before. In stead of the booze (the condemned bottle) the drunkard now has with him a hip flashing night bird for company. A right thinking Kenyan can of course deduce the package that Mututho and the prostitute will be bringing to the harmless drunkard. The poor drankard who would have died in prime age of alcohol related ailments is now forced to either die early of STIs or rush for the revered rubber.

In fact in Nyeri ,(there is no doubt that people from this land are known to be the most enterprising in the country) night birds charge between ksh.300-1000 a round for revelers without condoms and as low as ksh. 20 kama una yako-as the advert used to say.

In such a hard time when Kenya is chocking with inflation necessitated by the greed in the oil industry, Ksh.300 let alone 1,000 is not everybody’s money. It is single meal’s budget. So a simple pack of three condoms that goes at 10 bob or sometimes free of charge would go along way in helping the poor ex drunkard save something at the same time have his fun.

Maybe we need to rethink again if we need this law again. But I don’t see us repealing it anytime soon. So, more rounds of condoms again Mr. Government!

AMUGASHA KALENGEKA-KAKAMEGA