This uniform is very good against mosquitoes - that's why I don't get
malaria
President Museveni
jj
Stepping out of segregation
The changing face of Kenyan Asians
April in Narnarayan is full of long, humid days hungry for the short rains. Ignoring the short, sharp happy cries of school children on break happy to snatch some sunshine during playtime. TONY MOCHAMA plunges deep into Narnarayan — which, in case you thought it was a town in India, is a small road in the heart of Parklands. The road seems to shrink until it is a dull grey ribbon buffeted by green grass and bush flowers that fill the April air.
It is very quiet as one turns into Swaminarayan Road, where Parklands Day Nursery is sleepily nestled in the middle of this strange place with pepper creepers sneaking up the odd electric pole. A vine bursts from the wells, forms a roadside bush and into the tarmac road, then lies there, like a latent snake. The odd pothole is filled with April rain – and one almost expects to see a live fish swimming there.
All these scenes were in the late-1990s, before ‘the Asians’ came and put up the East African Swaminarayan Temple that features the elephant god Ganesh, sculptures of Sikhs with rifles, sinister-looking angels, multi-armed, flute playing goddesses staring at white cows, lions that look like pussy-cats, and other assorted phenomena of pink marble and religion set up with the ease and speed that only a limitless supply of cash can buy.
The former strangely scenical Narnarayan and Swaminarayan roads have had their secret flora cemented over and a pink wall fences in the temple. The two little roads are so efficiently paved that driving schools use them as learning tracks for their students. Resisting any cracks about "birds taking to wing", one cannot help noticing that Stima Plaza, built in the middle of the Parklands residential area for Asians, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Swaminarayan Temple.
Seldom does the Asian community allow outside influences into their areas of dominance, even something as seemingly innocuous as architectural design.
That is part of "the Asian phenomena" this ability to adapt, transfer, then adopt any part of the world where they land, and manifest their culture. Or decide to move in, with force, into a new nation, or just a neighborhood like Parklands, and make it theirs.
At the turn of the 20th century, Asians descended on Kenya in their thousands as the "effort" part of the British ‘engineering effort’ to construct the "lunatic" rail line from Mombasa to Kisumu — that the Kenya Railways company still runs both its current and redundant coaches on. These so called coolies, braving British wrath, highland malaria, the man-eaters of Tsavo, not to mention our own first national resistance heroes like Waiyaki wa Hinga and Koitalel arap Samoei whose ‘saboteur’ activities — amid stealing rail road material, was to kill the coolies — survived to become the 43rd ‘tribe’ of Kenya,
The Asians have always had the uncanny ability to settle anywhere, and prosper. After Idi Amin kicked them out of Uganda in 1972, many moved to England. Some 32 years later, they had ‘invaded’ the list of Britain’s biggest businesspeople, not to mention that the UK’s favourite dish is no longer Yorkshire British beef but the Indian chicken tikka.
The "coolies"
"The coolies, that is our babajis (grandfathers) and mamachis (grandmas) were the first generation of Asians to set foot in this country," explains Mrs Harsita Waters, the Arts and Cultural Programme Director at the French Cultural and Cooperation Centre. Her grandfather came to Kenya as a shop worker in the 1920s. Her father set up his own shop in Ngara, with his family.
By the time Harsita was born, round about the time of independence, most of the Kenya Asians were firmly part and parcel of the Kenyan society, if also a little apart and a puzzle to the African population. In fact, in practice, many were still deeply enmeshed in their deep cultural practices from Gujerati, Punjab and other corners of South-east Asia.
The 1960s and 1970s were an idyllic time for the Kenya Asian community. The booming economy enabled them do what they do best, which is turn a shilling and make a profit.
Then came the attempted putsch of 1982, the impromptu surge of violence by a small group of looters, rapists and and lawbreakers against some ‘Asian areas’ of Nairobi — like Ngara and Parklands.
Harsita says "many members of the Asian community panicked and left Kenya for Canada, the UK and Asia, convinced that the country was about to go the Uganda way".
To an extent, the Kenyasian community never recovered from this scare. In the 1980s, they deposited huge sums of cash abroad, and every election year since 1992, they were only too ready to take off at a moment’s notice, scared that the nation was going to the dogs ‘any minute now’. In 1997, Moi’s Asian allies held an exclusive high cost luncheon for his campaign kitty.
Actually, in spite of the rumours of impending holocaust in the Asian community at the time, and a month-long curfew, peace quickly returned to the country even as the Moi administration hunted the would-be coup plotters like jack rabbits on a hot season.
Global nature
Harsita, who studied at Arya Girls High School in Nairobi, and took accountancy courses in one of the local colleges before going for a diploma at the "Ecole Moderne de Commerce de Lanjues" in Laussanne, Switzerland, is perhaps the best example of the modem, cosmopolitan Kenya Asian woman. She’s married to a Briton, Mr David Waters, and last year won Frances’ second highest cultural honour, the "Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Merit" for her contribution to the cooperation of the French Kenyan arts.
The Waters, whose roots run deep (if not quite still) have two children. Seren, 13, named for the Serengeti and daughter Mara, also named after the famous game reserve. While Mara, 10, is still in the country, Seren is in England for his high school.
So that one can appreciate the truly global nature of the fourth half-generation of Kenya Asian child (although Harsita does admit that her children are truly privileged to enjoy the triple heritage of Kenya, India, and England).
As is happening, some Kenyasians do get married to Africans (such as Mrs Shaila Koinange, 38, who Jeff admits faced a bit of reverse-discrimination at the beginning when people would say — ‘Onei uyu arathie na muhindi’
( ‘Look at this one who operates an Indian!’); and a rising lawyer who requested we refer to him only as Njoroge who goes everywhere with his ‘asian half.’).
Their children, most likely, will go to schools in the UK or the US, and many will marry some Anglo-Saxons there. If a coolie who crawled out of the woodwork in a village some place in Auraungubad were to, like Lazarus, arise a century on, he might well have himself a descendant who is a citizen of the global village.
"Yet", says Harsita, "there still exist many Asians in Kenya and everywhere who cling stubbornly to the Punjab or Gujarat cultures, refusing to integrate with the locals."
"I mean," she adds, "you cannot enjoy the fruits of a nation, then look down on its original people."
She gives the example of Kenyasians last year who were supporting the India team over the Kenyan one during the 2003 Cricket World Cup games. "It’s not fair," Harsita says.
"Who can like you if you refuse to associate with them? I don’t know how anybody can live like that, but some people survive like that. Some even thrive, but I think it’s … shallow".
Rockets
There’s also an influx of Asians who are now coming in as the coolies did a century ago, together with colliers and coalers. These new employees operate in mostly Asian-owned companies.
Harsita says they are called ‘rockets’ and one cannot help noting the irony in that. The first Asian workers were ‘cool’ coolies, while the new wave of Asian immigrants here a hundred years later are ‘hot’ rockets.
What really caused the heat around the ‘rockets’ when they first showed up in 1996 is that they took up jobs in Kenya that local Africans or even Kenyasians are perfectly capable of doing. And this concern isn’t xenophobic today.
The first ‘rockets’, many operating in small towns like Kitale got that moniker because, just over seven years up the road, their businesses took off "like rockets" and many are quite prosperous today.
No doubt the Kenyasian knows how to make money. Malkiat Singh Dhillon made a fortune by being one of the earliest mass publishers of school texts before the 8-4-4 system of education was introduced.
A third immigrant, Dr U-Saini was the first to set up a hospital (The Nairobi West Hospital), an idea later copied by stock market guru Jimnah Mbaru, in setting up the Equator Hospital.
With Kenya enjoying an unemployment rate of almost 60 per cent today, the Ministry of Labour cannot afford to sit back and watch jobs go to foreigners, many of whom are far less qualified but discriminatively better paid than the indigenous Kenyan.
The Catalysts
There have been many Kenyan-asian philanthropists who have done a lot of good works for the country.
Consider A.M. Jeevanjee, the Asian trader who came to Kenya primarily to prove that Asians were more than just "coolie rail-road layers" at the turn of the 1900s.
Jeevanjee was one of the earliest owners of the East African Standard. He also built Town Hall and the City Market, the latter location being adjacent to the Jeevanjee Gardens that bears his name.
Another Asian who stuck his neck, if not his pocket out for the African in early years was the lawyer A.R. Kapila who defended the "Kapenguria Six," including Jomo Kenyatta against treasonous charges in 1952, and so was one of the early catalyst factors between allied African/Asian relationships. Then A.G. Charles Njonjo later had Kapila briefly gaoled on trumped-up charges of currency smuggling, thanks to a political fall-out between the two colossi.
But it is the billionaire philanthropist, Manu Chandaria, who must get the mantle for being the true heir to the Jeevanjee legend for charity, having set up the Chandaria Foundation that does lots of good works for the poor in society, a legacy unparalleled in Kenya where even billionaire politicians seldom bother with continuous charity works (other than the odd Phariseean hand-out), and indeed get embroiled in land wars with peasants to erect meaningless monuments to dead mothers and fathers.
So, are the New Rockets likely to be future Jeevanjees or Chandarias?
First wave
While the first wave of Asians came in with the British settlers as labourers, thanks to ‘experience’ gained back home in India when, for Queen, Raj and country, railways were build across the sub continent, there is no good reason for the "rockets" to be here in an economic capacity.
"India," writes Arundhathi Roy in The God of Small Things, "is a country poised forever between the terror of war, and the horror of peace, where bad things can keep happening". Perhaps that is why so many Indians over the past century have taken off to other continents and prospered there with their families.
And perhaps, in Kenya, the Asian has finally found a warm home where they can be "the gods of small things, laughing hollow laughs and shipping cheerfully. Rich boys in small shorts, whistling and kicking stones, elated at having made small fortunes."
That is the splendour of being able to live in a diversified and welcoming society. And it is, to use a typically Indian phrase, "most splendid indeed".
Changing times for ‘Kenyasians’
For over a century, people of Asian descent have been part of the Kenyan society — initially as immigrant labourers during the construction of the railway before setting up the first shops and venturing into commerce. They later formed the bulk of the early bureaucracy in the civil service before taking up the more visible role of the biggest block of investors and entrepreneurs.
Asians — as the "community" of descendants from the Orient have come to be distinguished from the other inhabitants of Kenya — have tended to live in self-segregation that portrayed them as racist. Yet it could well have been the natural reaction to their concern for security and wellbeing abroad. They have robustly interacted with the rest of Kenya in some spheres but maintained a forbidding privacy in others.
Hidden and yet visible on the streets of Nairobi, Kenyan Asians live out part of the city’s dying and untold story. For a long time, the cultural apartheid that has existed between the two races — Asiatic and African — as well as the cultures of the two peoples has been considered the safest way for them to coexist peacefully.
Yet, even when the majority of Kenyan Asians have shied away from engaging in the country’s political affairs and seemed to maintain a measure of exclusive cultural purism, a few have broken the mould. These pioneers we applaud.
Now more Asians can be seen sharing public transport, shopping at common markets, marrying spouses from different cultural and religious backgrounds and participating more vigorously in the life of African Kenyans.
It is not from the traditional philanthropic high horse occupied by a condescending benefactor in relation to a beggar; but as equals and partners in the country’s common destiny. Society brings you the fascinating story of the Kenyasians’ transition, the challenges the community continues to grapple with, as well as what it sees as the future.
The cultural renegades
On TV, the renegade is a 6’2" tall man called Lorenzo Lamaz. He has a ponytail, muscles to make Atlas green with envy, and a bad attitude. In real life, Preeti Pinky Ghelani, a radio-presenter with Capital 98.4 FM station is more like the genuine article.
She symbolises a whole new generation of Kenyan Asians who mix and match naturally with her African counterparts, and thinks, "the whole Asian thing is fake, counterfeit"!
Pinky is a third generation Kenyan. "My grandpa was from Gujerati, while my grandmother was from Delhi," says Pinky, cheerfully biting into her Deli sandwich and not noticing the irony, "Personally, forget that whole ‘Kenyasian’ deal, I’m an African woman and proud of it."
Pinky says she was brought up to see people "for what they are, si maneno ya skin colour".
Not all, but many members of the Asian community have been discriminative — and not just towards Africans, but their own. It is a point Pinky acknowledges.
"The caste system in India, especially by the turn of 20th century, was very strong. It ran the entire spectrum — from the royal Brahmas to the untouchable Pariahs. Really ridiculous snobbery."
Well, a man called Agar did say that snobs speak like people who had given birth to their own ancestors, but is there such priggishness in the Kenyan-Asian community today?
"Yes," Pinky admits, "but not in the sense of class or caste anyway." There’s a very distinct monetary snobbery among many Asians now.
"People are not looking at personality any more but stuff like the kind of car you drive, how many cars you have, the size of bank balances and businesses, and so on."
Snobbery
This material snobbery seems to cut across from Kenyans showing off in their cars at the Engen Service Station, Parklands, and Diamond Plaza, to entire Asian families mindlessly competing for clannish prestige in the Community’s pecking order like the "Coopers" (Kapurs, originally) in the hilarious British-Asian comedy, Goodness Gracious Me!
Pinky also points out some community hypocrisy; "Many Kenyasians say, ‘Oh, we are Kenyan.’ Yet if I were to show up with you (an African) at some community function, or I said on radio, ‘I’m going down for the weekend with Nameless, the musician, to Mombasa,’ however innocent it was, eyebrows would be raised and people would ask my mother, ‘What is wrong with your daughter these days?’"
But isn’t the average Kenyan Asian Community protective of "their own," much as the indigenous Africans once were, taking each other as brothers, sisters, sons and nieces before Western culture arrived, and rained on their parade?
"Some people feign concern in order to be Nosey-Parkers," she says. "Sometimes when you’re going through really tough times (and the Ghelanis have, as a family), you discover it’s just a handful of people who truly care. It’s not like that just in the Kenya Asian Community, it’s like that everywhere."
Political renegades
There is a view of the average Kenyan-Asian as only interested in business (making money), disinterested in the political life of Kenya as long as it is economically stable and prepared to take to the hills like a gangster at the first sign of trouble. That view, generally speaking, is accurate.
There have been many Kenyan-Asian mavericks, or renegades, if you please, who have jumped into the pepper pot of Kenya’s hot domestic politics with gusto.
One such hero was Goan Pio Gama Pinto who was among Kenya’s freedom fighters, but was abruptly gunned down shortly after independence in 1965 for his suspected Marxist leanings.
A true hero for the ‘second liberation’ is the mild-mannered, lawyer Pheroze Nowrojee, whose poetry and humble mien belies a political warrior who went to the streets countless times in the 1990s to protest at the then regime’s injustices, and in 2002 ran a campaign with that old soldier for poitical reform, James Aggrey Orengo. So that no one who looks at Nowrojee considers him anything but an authentic Kenyan nationalist.
Mayor Shakeel Shabbir of Kisumu is still too embroiled in local municipal murk fights, including the legitimacy of his own mayorship, but at least he speaks fluent Kiswahili and Dholuo, and is seen as more of a Luo than an Asian in his home town of Kisumu.
Over-compensating
Noopy, a computer whiz who runs his own information technology firm in Westlands, also has "no time for that Indian thing". As a third generation Kenyan boy, Noopy is ‘totally here, with it’.
On Sundays, he puts on a sleeveless vest with a tattoo on his arm that reads, "I’m Black," just to irritate ‘Asian snobs’, goes out in the town on his motor-bike or souped up Mitsubishi and states that he likes his "coffee, women and music the same — strong and black!"
To state the point rather loudly, Noopy calls his girlfriend, Bella, on his cellphone and invites her for coffee at the Mall, Westlands.
True enough, she does turn out to be a tall, slim, dark and attractive woman, and Noopy smiles, thoroughly pleased with himself.
In his car, driving into the black, moonless night much later, Noopy plays a Marshall Mathers CD.
"Marshall is white," someone gently points out. "He’s black!" everyone yells back, laughingly acknowledging that race is only skin-deep. "Scratch me just a little," Noopy dares, "and I swear a black man will jump out and mug you!"
Noopy may be over-compensating, but for a renegade, he’s all right.
Arranged marriages
What about arranged marriages? Pinky thinks that’s fine "for girls who don’t mind the people they’ll be spending the rest of their lives handpicked for them, but I strongly believe in freedom of choice, and wouldn’t want to marry anyone under duress".
She’s confident she doesn’t really need a husband, but would want one anyway, someday, when she’s ready to get married and start a family. "I hang around my fellow Africans most of the time," concludes Pinky, "and if that makes me a ‘renegade Indian girl’, that’s fine by me. I’d rather be openly ostracised than be secretly, socially segregationist. Besides, we live in modern times. It’s archaic and obtuse to think like that!"
The Nairobi that Asians once lived in and loved
No place in the city centre better demonstrates this than that entire area beginning at the Odeon Cinema building and spreading all the way to the former Casino Cinema. For a long time, beginning in the 1940s and all the way to 1970s that entire city topography was an Asian residential area, straight out of a Hollywood Mario Puzo scene where entire life spans were played out over the decades. Only this time, the people in it are all Asians.
Shops, cinemas, butcheries, vendors, retailers, tailors, taxis and all merchants lived in close proximity of one another. A downstairs shop two floors up would be where the shop-owner lived with his immediate family, with in-laws, cousins, grandmother and other relatives all crowded into the first and third floor.
Places like Lahoria’s and Flora’s would provide cheap and excellent food, and Friends’ Corner was the pub where men hung out at the end of a busy business day.
The typical Asian teenager living there — let’s call him Aslam, would walk to Jamhuri High School, then called Duke of York, and at the end of the day, hang out with his pals on those streets where matatus now crowd.
During weekends, he might take his girlfriend, Sonjia for a lunch treat at Flora’s or Lahoria’s, then take her for an afternoon movie at Odeon, Embassy, Liberty or the Casino cinemas (her brothers, naturally would be sitting two seats behind them, watching them like a hawk, but Aslam wouldn’t mind because this was life).
Later, he may buy Sonjia some faluda (ice cream), which she’d lick contentedly. At Friends’ Corner, Aslam might spot his father, relaxing and drinking with his friends and arguing about business (never politics), until his mother spotted him and sent him to buy supper at the butchery, bread from the baker, veggies from the vendor and so on. Everything was conveniently nearby.
The Liberty Cinema closed its doors to the public after 48 years, in the late 1990s, Pastor Muiru now holds court at Odeon and Casino hosts church crusades.
Gone to the dogs
Only Savani’s Bookshop, where the Asians bought their knowledge, still survives: yellowy, sickly on the pavement, but even Raval’s High School which some of these enterprising Asians named, has gone to the dogs, and now has a bar and butchery about it.
Friends’ Corner has gone to the whores, and leftover drunkards stuck at the wrong end of dusk, which is dawn!
African entrepreneurs have moved into this Asian quarter with force and quartered it into termini for public service vehicles, cyber-cafes, cheap tartly hotels and the ubiquitous "Exhibition stalls". Unless one digs deep, there is nothing to show that this Nairobi existed. It is in none of the archives, history books or past official Nairobi guides. It only exists in the minds of old Asian survivors who lived there.
It’s as if it had been a ghost town in our midst, yet entire generations of Kenyans were born, grew up, married and died right there in the heart of the city.
The last of these places — the very last — is Lahoria’s Bar and Restaurant on Tsavo Lane, just around the corner from Friends’ Corner.
When it is gone, it will be the last light turned out of a Nairobi that is no longer there.
City dwellers
On the other side of Moi Avenue, black crows take off from the rooftop of the four-storey building, and the eye follows these magisterial birds as they go for the sky but is arrested by the curved, sub-continental crown of the building.
Baazar Mansion on Biashara Street, Nairobi, is the last visible vestige of the original Indian trader in Kenya, with its general stores, wholesalers, one-shop merchants, pinkish architecture.
The smell of burning incense wafts out of some shop doors, and into the street. Unseen on the street is an entire community of city dwellers who are there but almost fade into the background of invisibility.
They are members of the Kenyan-Asian community. They are not city dwellers in that sense of "living in town" by renting estate space, that is a highway or two out of the CBD. They live smack in the middle of the city centre, and the only reason they remain invisible is because they literally live a floor or two above the man on the street. On River Road, most of the Asians have been bought out and the above-floot level space converted into boarding-and-lodging facilities.
On a Sunday, Kijabe Street parades many Asian families strolling about in sandals, right at home. But it is on Kirinyaga Road that is truly the home of Kenya’s Asians.
Kirinyaga Road
Walk with your eyes open and your head-in-the-air, and above those car spare part shops, curtains will slightly part and Asian faces will be avidly watching the street below.
Ngara, where the Kenya Asians are everywhere, does not begin to compare with Kirinyaga Road. Here, they exist on the peripheries, clinging onto the bottom-most part of the city-centre, clothes fluttering on lines up to three levels above the ground.
A huge temple on the road facilitates worship, and while the African brothers run the show for Asian owners day by day, the old Kirinyaga Road that was a residential area is by no means dead or gone. It still lives on, leading Patrick Kahoga to exclaim: "What in God’s name are people still living in Kirinyaga Road for? Would you take a taxi there, and call it home?"
The answer to that query, common among many people, is that the ground floor shop, upper-level house is "a common phenomenon" among the friendly classes in India, eager to utilise all time and space for the sake of (saving on) business.
Source: Society Magazine, East African Standard, 04/04/04
Story by ODINDO AYIEKO & BERNADETTE MURGOR
Publication Date: 2004/04/20
After years of separation from
their families and on being presumed dead or missing, they returned. Some had
been enticed into it, others abducted. Many of then lived and worked in
slave-like conditions for decades before their return. So when they finally came
back, some of their own people thought they were seeing ghosts and fled; others
believed their "dead" beloved ones had reincarnated. But for those who had held
all hope against the odds of their loved one’s return, it was simply a miracle.
Nation writers ODINDO AYIEKO and BERNADETTE MURGOR, bring out
their tales hitherto unheard, and their answers to all the questions that had
remained a mystery for so long.
She left home a toddler and returned a mother of two, 30 years later.
Susan Mwehaki disappeared like vapour that disappears into thin mist, so was the disappearance of SUSAN MWEHAKI (not MWIHAKI???) from her home in Gathungu Location of Riruta, on the outskirts of Nairobi. That was just before her fourth birthday in 1973.
Then 30 years later, she returned home, twice a married woman and mother of two. It was joy and happiness for the family of Mwehaki who had long given up hope of finding her.
Her disappearance brought a lot of pain and heartache to the family. And for days, months and years, they searched for her.
"When Mwehaki disappeared, I almost went mad with grief. I spent many sleepless nights thinking about my daughter," her mother says.
Mwehaki had been a victim of abduction. On the day she disappeared on December 1, her parents, Anne Njeri and George Gachuki walked around the village the whole day and night, but all was in vain. With time, they widened the search and announced her disappearance on radio, but no one had seen the toddler.
Her father later travelled far and wide in search of her. He went to Uganda, Tanzania and other neighbouring countries. He followed every lead, but always ended up a disappointed man.
Sadly, Gachui died 10 years before his daughter’s return. And with his death, all hopes of finding her also died.
"We resigned her fate to God and left everything to him. We knew we would never find our daughter again," says Njeri.
That assumption was proved wrong when Mwehaki walked back into the family homestead on April 27, 2003 with her eldest sister Virginia Ng’endo. The world came to a standstill for Njeri. She could not believe her eyes. Her daughter was alive!
Mwehaki was abducted by a woman, an event she cannot clearly remember. But one thing she remembers. The warmth and happiness she had known was replaced by the icy demeanour of her abductor.
She lived in the woman’s house for a while, then started to work as a housemaid in various places. Her name was changed. She was constantly reminded that she did not belong to the home.
"The woman often reminded me that I was not her child and she would deny me food and kick me out of the house," she says.
Mwehaki was not allowed out of the homestead. She could not go to church or school, and was left to do all the housework, without pay, as the woman’s children went to school..
Despite pleading to be told about her family, the woman refused. In fact this only invited her wrath. Mwehaki became so desperate that she once contemplated suicide.
"Life was so miserable that I decided I was better dead than alive, she says.
Then in 1996, she met a man who wanted to marry her. She took off with him, hoping for a better life. But he too began mistreating her. After one year, she got a child, but the union proved intolerable by the second year, and she ran away. Yes, back to her foster mother!
In 1999, the foster mother married her off to another man. This time it seems luck had finally found her. The man was more understanding and he offered to help her find her family.
He threatened to report his "mother-in-law" to the authorities, so she finally agreed to contact the family in February 2003.
Then much later, after the family reunion, a most bizarre thing happened. Mwehaki's eldest daughter, Njoki, was abducted, the family claims. But not for 30 years. This time, the family says, Mwehaki’s first husband owned up to having the child.
World's oldest jewellery found in
cave
Tim Radford, science editor
Friday April 16 2004
The Guardian
Around 75,000 years ago, in a cave near the southern Cape shoreline in South
Africa, a human drilled tiny holes into the shells of snails and strung them as
beads to make the oldest known jewellery - by at least 30,000 years.
Forty-one shells of the mollusc scavenger Nassarius kraussianus, with holes and
marks in similar positions, have been found in a cave overlooking the Indian
Ocean in South Africa, archaeologists from France, Britain and Norway report in
today's issue of the journal Science.
The shells appear to have been selected according to size, and they must have
been brought to the Blombos cave from rivers a dozen miles away. The shells are
marked with traces of red ochre, so they were either decorated with iron oxide
pigment or they were worn by someone wearing such primitive makeup.
The beads are dramatic evidence of modern human behaviour 75,000 years ago. They
are at least 35,000 years older than the earliest undisputed African ornaments -
some ostrich eggshell beads found in Kenya - and around 30,000 years older than
some perforated teeth ornaments from Bulgaria and a string of sea shell beads
from Turkey. They are the first evidence of artistic creativity and symbolism in
a creature otherwise known only for stone tools and weapons.
"The Blombos beads present absolute evidence for perhaps the earliest storage of
information outside the human brain," said Christopher Henshilwood of the
University of Bergen in Norway, the director of the cave project.
"Agreement is widespread that personal ornaments such as beads incontrovertibly
represent symbolically mediated modern behaviour. Until now, the oldest beads in
Africa date to about 45,000 years. The discovery of 41 shell beads in sand
layers at Blombos cave, accurately dated as 75,000 years old, provides important
new evidence for early symbolically organised behaviour in Africa."
The first hominids in Africa date back millions of years. Homo erectus, a human
ancestor, emerged at least 2 million years ago and began to spread into Europe
and Asia. Some 500,000 years ago, Europe and Britain were colonised by a species
known as Homo heidelbergensis. The first anatomically modern humans, more
slender and graceful than the Neanderthals, emerged less than 200,000 years ago.
These people cooperated, hunted and made stone tools and weapons.
But around 40,000 years ago, something dramatic happened. Humans became
interested in art, ornament and beauty, and the things they left behind in caves
in Europe and Africa marked them out as not just anatomically modern, but modern
in behaviour too.
The Blombos cave discovery however, means that the theorists will have to think
again. The Breakfast at Tiffany's urge for jewellery has turned out to be far
older.
Two years ago, Prof Henshilwood found ochre, marked with abstract geometric
representations, in the Blombos cave, along with bone tools and fishing
equipment. But the beads provide far stronger evidence of abstract thought.
"Beads are an unequivocal argument that people are employing symbols to signify
who they are," said Alison Brooks of George Washington University. "Body
ornamentation seems to be a way humans symbolise status."
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
Lake Magadi leaves one high and very dry
The organiser of our party had thoughtfully phoned through earlier to check if we could use it, but the answer was no. They couldn't possibly accommodate 20 people from the Kenya Museum Society just like that. Indeed the sign said "For Residents Only", but when we drove past there were only a few goats idling about in the water. Uniformed guards checked our cars and wrote down the registration numbers. Magadi doesn't give the appearance of being a hive of activity: the pipes and causeways criss-crossing the lake look rusty, as does the lone freight car sitting on the railway line. Yet it is the world's second-largest producer of sodium carbonate. The company has clearly been much put upon in the past: a sign tells you not to expect any help from the management if your car breaks down, but it has your safety at heart: "It is dangerous to walk on the lake." The solid surface is reminiscent of frozen lakes. The town itself buzzes with activity: goats everywhere, a petrol station and a general store - a bit like an African wild west. Five 4x4 vehicles appear full of white travellers and no one turns a hair. Some don't have a hair to turn as custom dictates shaven heads for the women. Behind the counter the salesman is far too busy to attend to us, which is fine because it allows us to observe the people crowding the shop, the triangular holes in their ears looped with beaded earrings.
The reds and pinks of their clothes contrast sharply with their skin. Outside the women sit on the ground in small groups with their cabbages, onions and tomatoes spread out in little piles. The salesman informs us that there is no water. I must say I wouldn't dole out such a precious resource to some stray tourists either. However, one beady-eyed member of our party points to the top shelf where a dozen or so small bottles are still wrapped in plastic, and eventually he reaches up reluctantly to get them. Deep in the nearby bush around the Nguruman escarpment, two of us come across a group of morans, young men who have been circumcised and who are perfecting their hunting skills in order to enter fully into adulthood. They are dressed in reds and purples and some of them carry finely carved ancestral spears. One has a pretty, girlish face, and when he sees that we are carrying cameras, he rushes off to the next tree where he keeps his best finery, his red shuka parting in the breeze to reveal two perfect brown cheeks. He returns with an addition to his already elaborate headgear and gets ready to pose. You must be careful taking photos of Masai because they believe that part of their soul goes into the picture, but this encounter, not being mediated by any third party out to make a profit, engenders a small element of trust. It happens that my friend and I both have digital cameras, which creates great excitement. It's one thing having a picture taken, but quite another to see your image captured immediately on the silver screen. One moran is deep in thought, taking it in, his eyes fixed to the spot. A short drive away is an oasis, suddenly lush after the dry savanna. Everything grows here: banana, mango, pawpaw, lemon and aubergine. Finally a young man is found to take us out into the orchard to collect some fruit. No hassle or bargaining about prices for a change: he gladly takes a 200-shilling note and we refresh ourselves after a parching day.
Wednesday 14th April 2004
With defending champion and world record holder Paula Radcliffe concentrating upon the Olympics in Athens, and the second fastest woman of all time, Kenya's Catherine Ndereba, not returning following last year's second place, the race for the women's title appears much more open than last year. But their shoes will be filled by two of the biggest talents in female distance running over the last five years, the Kenyans Margaret Okayo and Joyce Chepchumba.
Okayo is a proven champion when it comes to big city marathons. Her marathon debut in Chicago in 1999 saw her finish one second behind Chepchumba and from there she has gone on to win six marathons, including course record-breaking performances in Boston and New York. Based in Brescia, Italy, and racing primarily in the USA, this is the first time that Okayo has competed in the UK and it is clearly a challenge she is relishing.
"London is a fast course, a flat course" she said at the first race week press conference. "I am hoping for a fast time and a good race."
London will be her final marathon before Athens and victory would undoubtedly cement her status as one of the favourites for the title in what will be very difficult running conditions, but Okayo isn't too concerned
"Being favourite would worry me" she confesses "but I like pressure. I run well when there is pressure to perform"
Chepchumba, who arrived late to the conference following a delayed flight, in contrast doesn't have the burden of being regarded as an Olympic favourite. Despite a running CV which boasts two victories in London, two in Chicago and one in New York, plus a bronze medal in Sydney 2000, her expected place on the plane to Greece alongside countrywomen Okayo and Ndereba has gone to a relatively unknown Kenyan runner. She seems unaffected however: "I have been to the Olympics twice before, both Sydney and Atlanta, so I am not disappointed" was her dignified response, and when asked about any remaining career goals, her reply was "To win London one more time."
Where Okayo is a newcomer to London, Chepchumba is well acquainted with a course she has made her own in recent years. Twice a winner here including a personal best in 1999 and a sprint finish to beat Britain's Liz McColgan two years earlier, she admits "London is my favourite course - I have always enjoyed racing here the most."
A recent success in the Lisbon Half Marathon would suggest that Chepchumba has returned to form at the right time but she won't have it all her own way with Okayo looking for revenge after a back problem led to a disappointing fourth in that race. Now fully fit and with a PB some two and a half minutes faster than her rival, Okayo is not only aiming for a morale boosting victory but also a sub-2:20 clocking, something that only four women have ever achieved.
"A race is a race though" she said "I will run as well as I can but you never know what is going to happen or who is going to win"
Both women admitted that the race will be very different in Paula's absence and relished the opportunity not only to compete against her in future marathons but also to learn from her training regime. Radcliffe has reinvented women's marathon running in the last two years, particularly with her record figures of 2:15:25 set when winning London last year, and Okayo admits that those figures are still out of reach, saying "I would like to speak with Paula to find out how to run that fast!" Their first ever meeting over any distance is likely to be the Olympic Marathon later this year but again Okayo wouldn't be drawn on who she thought would be victorious, saying only "A lot can happen over the Marathon."
The pair's main rivals on Sunday will be the Chinese athlete Sun Yingjie, owner of the third fastest clocking of all time, former World 10,000m champion Gete Wami of Ethiopia and a former runner-up in London, the reigning Chicago Marathon champion Svetlana Zakharova of Russia. Okayo admits that the field is wide open and that a lot will depend on how the race is run, as does Chepchumba, who can rely on a sprint finish if necessary, but both accept that whoever is victorious will either be sending warning signals to Paula ahead of Athens or warning signals to the Kenyan selection committee to reconsider their team choice.© copyright The London Marathon Ltd.
Monday 15th March 2004
The Metropolitan Police will commence vehicle removals on the whole route from 7am on Sunday 18th April. Please ensure that your car is parked off the Flora London Marathon route prior to this time.
THE ROUTE
RED START (Mass Start 09.45) Charlton Way, Vanburgh Park, Charlton Road, The Village, Charlton Park Road, Little Heath, Hillreach, Artillery Place, John Wilson Street, Woolwich Church Street.
BLUE START (Women's Wheelchair 08.55; Elite Women 09.05; Men's Wheelchairs 09.15; Elite men and Mass Start 09.45) Shooters Hill Road, Charlton Park Lane, Ha Ha Road, Grand Depot Road, John Wilson Street, Woolwich Church Street.
GREEN START (Good For Age and Celebrities 09.45) St John's Park, Old Dover Road, Shooters Hill Road (continuing along Blue Start route).
ROUTE AFTER MERGE OF RED AND BLUE STARTS Woolwich Road, Trafalgar Road, Romney Road, King William Walk, Cutty Sark Gardens, Greenwich Church Street, Creek Road, Evelyn Street, Lower Road, Redriff Road, Surrey Quays Road, Canada Street, Quebec Way, Salter Road, Brunel Road, Jamaica Road, Tooley Street, Tower Bridge, East Smithfield, The Highway (eastbound), Butcher Row, Commercial Road, West India Dock Road, Ming Street, Poplar High Street, Preston's Road, Trafalgar Way, Cartier Circle, Churchill Place, Canada Square, South Colonnade, West India Avenue, Westferry Circus, Marsh Wall, Limeharbour, East Ferry Road, Westferry Road, Limehouse Causeway, Narrow Street, The Highway (westbound), Thomas More Street, St Katharine's Way, Tower of London Wharf, Lower Thames Street, Upper Thames Street, Victoria Embankment, Bridge Street, Parliament Square, Great George Street, Birdcage Walk, Spur Road, The Mall (Finish).
EXIT-ENTRY ROUTES FOR THOSE CUT OFF BY THE RACE
SURREY QUAYS Road closures will be in place between approximately 09.05 and 13.30
EXIT Via Surrey Quays Road, Lower Road and Jamaica Road.
ENTRY via Hawkestone Road, Lower Road and Surrey Quays Road.
NOTE: for those living on the River Thames side of Salter Road there will be no
entry or exit for vehicles for 41/2 hours, from 09.05 to approximately 13.30 on
Sunday 18th April. If you intend leaving by car during this period, please park
your car outside the area in advance, ie. to the south of Salter Road, and exit
by the route detailed above.
ISLE OF DOGS Road closures will be in place between approximately 09.35 and 15.15.
EXIT Westferry Road open southbound from junction with Byng Street. A police controlled vehicle crossing point will operate at the junction of Westferry Road and East Ferry Road, allowing access to Manchester Road and then Preston's Road, Aspen Way and Leamouth Road.
ENTRY Via either Cotton Street and Preston's Road or Leamouth Road, Aspen Way
and Preston's Road. Pedestrian access allowed at all times.
NOTE: Residents living on the River Thames side of Westferry Road will be
'locked in' between approximately 09.35 and 15.15 on Sunday 18th April. If you
intend leaving by car during this period, please park your car outside the area
in advance, ie. to the east of Westferry Road, and exit via the route detailed
above.
THE GREENWICH FOOT TUNNEL The Greenwich Foot Tunnel will be closed southbound between 10.00 am and 12 noon on Sunday 18th April. If you wish to cross the river from north to south during this period, alternative arrangements will be in place at Island Gardens DLR Station. Flora London Marathon marshals will issue free tickets for travel between Island Gardens and Cutty Sark. This free travel will only be available between 10.00am and 12 noon on 18th April 2004.
WAPPING Road closures will be in place between approximately 09.15 and 15.45.
EXIT for those living south of The Highway and east of Thomas More Street, a free, secure, overnight car park is available from 4.00 pm on Saturday 17th April in the playground of the Bishop Challoner School. Access to the school is via Commercial Road and Steels Lane. Residents may return to the school on foot at any time whilst the road closures are in place via the pedestrian subway at the junction of The Highway and Glamis Road; vehicles can then leave the area via Commercial Road (open east bound and west bound). A police controlled vehicle crossing point will be in operation across The Highway whilst the road is closed, with access via Wapping High Street and Glamis Road. However residents are advised that while the race is in progress and runners are using both carriageways on The Highway (between approximately 11am & 12.45pm), it may not be possible for vehicles to cross.
ENTRY Access will be via the police controlled crossing point at the junction
of The Highway and Glamis Road. Again residents should note that it may not be
possible for vehicles to cross the Marathon route whilst there are runners on
both carriageways. Pedestrian access is possible at all times via the subways at
East Smithfield and at the junction of The Highway and Glamis Road.
| Mile | Main Road on Route | Closes | Opens (NO EARLIER THAN) |
| RED START |
Charlton Way | 07.00 | 10.30 |
| BLUE START |
Shooters Hill Road | 08.00 | 10.30 |
| 1 | Red Route: Charlton Road | 08.00 | 11.00 |
| Blue Route: Shooters Hill Road | 08.00 | 11.00 | |
| 2 | Red Route: Little Heath | 08.35 | 11.00 |
| Blue Route: Charlton Park Lane | 08.35 | 11.00 | |
| 3 | Red Route: Artillery Place |
08.35 | 11.00 |
| Blue Route: John Wilson Street | 08.35 | 11.00 | |
| 4 | Woolwich Church Street | 08.35 | 12.00 |
| 5 | Woolwich Road | 08.35 | 12.00 |
| 6 | Trafalgar Road | 08.35 | 12.30 |
| 7 | Creek Road | 09.05 | 12.30 |
| 8 | Evelyn Street | 09.05 | 12.30 |
| 9 | Surrey Quays Road | 09.05 | 13.30 |
| 10 | Salter Road | 09.05 | 13.30 |
| 11 | Brunel Road | 09.05 | 13.30 |
| 12 | Jamaica Road | 09.05 | 13.30 |
| 12.5 | Tower Bridge | 09.15 | 14.45 |
| 13 | The Highway | 09.15 | 15.45 |
| 14 | The Highway (junction of Butcher Row) | 09.15 | 15.45 |
| 15 | West India Dock Road | 09.35 | 15.30 |
| 16 | Trafalgar Way | 09.35 | 15.15 |
| 17 | Marsh Wall | 09.35 | 15.15 |
| 18 | East Ferry Road | 09.35 | 15.15 |
| 19 | Westferry Road | 09.35 | 15.15 |
| 20 | Westferry Circus | 09.35 | 15.15 |
| 21 | The Highway (junction of Narrow Street) | 09.15 | 15.45 |
| 22 | The Highway (junction of Thomas More St) | 09.15 | 15.45 |
| 23 | Lower Thames Street | 08.00 | 15.45 |
| 24 | Upper Thames Street | 08.00 | 15.45 |
| 25 | Victoria Embankment | 08.00 | 16.45 |
| 26 | Birdcage Walk | 07.00 | 16.45 |
Please note that all reopening times are approximate. Roads will be reopened
by the
Police only when it is safe to do so.
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A bumpy ride
If Sukaina Jaffer, from Kenya, had realised what
she would have to go through to
study at a UK university, she may have reconsidered her options
Friday April 09 2004
The Guardian
The long road to acquiring an education is not particularly smooth. On my
mission to obtain a masters degree in international journalism at City
University in London, I experienced several hiccups.
Although gaining a place was not a problem, the processes of getting to the UK
to start it was.
To enter the UK, I needed to get a student visa. This required me to travel from
my sunny, coastal home in Mombasa to the deep, dark dangers that lurked in the
capital, Nairobi.
Several students from my country had applied and some of them had had their
applications rejected. My cousin was one of them, but decided to reapply, so we
set off for the British High Commission together. I was worried as I did not
know what fate awaited me.
We arrived at the embassy at the ungodly hour of 5am. The queue that met our
sleep ridden eyes was unbelievable. It was longer than the River Nile.
We lined up, amid people of various cultures and backgrounds, and experienced
all the pushing, shoving, and arguments.
But we never made it to the embassy steps as the queue was too long. At 5pm, we
returned home only to come back the next day for the same routine. Only this
time it was raining and we had no umbrellas. To add insult to injury, we had no
luck then.
When we finally made it in, everyone was exchanging horror stories about
previous applicants. The situation was not pretty. After an hour, I was called
and interrogated by a British official. I say interrogated, not interviewed,
because you should have heard the types of questions he asked me, and his tone
of voice was not only overtly loud but also sarcastic. I knew that this was an
intimidation tactic used to scare off insincere applicants. Far from being a
timid person, I answered his questions in a firm and confident manner. This man
was not going to thwart my chances of an education that I was determined to
pursue. After 45 minutes of this style of questioning, I was told my application
had been accepted. I could not believe it. This was the first hurdle of the
journey passed. Unfortunately, my cousin's application was again rejected.
If I thought my experience of standing in long queues in Nairobi, had been bad,
then I was totally unprepared for Heathrow Airport. Now, this queue stretched
from Nairobi to Australia. Everyone who had a non-British passport and was from
a Commonwealth country had to queue in a different line. After being checked by
the immigration officials, I had to join an even longer queue, especially set up
for foreign students. Everyone in this line had to be checked by health officers
to make sure no one was carrying tuberculosis into the country. This was our
"welcome" to the honourable country of the Queen. If I had known it was going to
be this bad, I would have reconsidered studying in the UK.
After two hours I finally made my way out of the airport and glimpsed the sunny
sky. Yes, to my utter shock, the sun was actually shining.
But the trials and tribulations of being a foreign student were far from over. I
still had to open a bank account. At one bank I was told that I could not have
the regular account offered to British students since I was a foreigner. I,
therefore, would have to open a special kind of account that would require a
deposit of £1,000 that could not be withdrawn when I used the account. At
another bank, I was told I could not open an account because it could not verify
my mailing address in Kenya as it did not have a sister bank in the country.
To make matters worse, my mailing address consisted of a series of numbers,
which were not accepted by the new British banking rules. Unlike the west, where
mail is delivered to your home, in Kenya mail is delivered to a post office
address and is then picked up from a personal locker. I was certainly in a
quandary. Luckily, my bank in Kenya had a sister branch in London, which I
visited. I was told that I needed an introduction letter from my original bank.
Eventually, after the letter had been faxed to London, I was able to open an
account, but could still not receive a credit card.
Coming from a so-called developing country, I thought things in the west would
be carried out much more efficiently. However, I found the contrary to be true.
Operations in Britain are certainly slower than a snail's pace.
Meanwhile, my father had wired some of my tuition fees to the university, but
when I checked with the finance office, it was not registered on their
computers. As I had the original fax, the office accepted it as proof. The
remainder of my fees were wired in the second term but again the computers did
not register the transfer. Consequently, I found myself being denied computer
access privileges on campus. I was furious, to say the least. Fortunately, as
this had happened before, they reactivated my privileges and I supplied them
with another faxed letter.
Things have now been merrily progressing as my course gets more intense with all
the assignments that are being piled on us. Despite all the tube delays and
terror alerts, London is an amazing city. Cosmopolitan to the core, it exudes a
dynamism that is unmatched anywhere in the world.
All in all my experiences as a foreign student have taught me several things. I
have learnt that you must always be prepared for the unexpected and have back up
plans to fall on. It is also my earnest belief that education is a lifeline and
that success only attracts those who persevere against all odds.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
General' Museveni quits army
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has formally retired from the military, but not before he was promoted to the rank of general.
President Museveni will stay commander-in-chief of the army.
His official retirement from military duties is the result of a legal requirement which bars serving soldiers from being active members of a political party, ahead of Uganda's expected return to multi-party politics.
After the pips on President Museveni's lapels were changed at a ceremony at Bombo barracks, Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi, thanked his president for what he called a job well done.
He then presented a certificate of retirement to the president.
Wearing his floppy military sunhat, Gen Museveni said he has left the army to fight new battles.
It is assumed that he means taking on the opposition parties from within the National Resistance Movement Organisation, NRMO.
Bush career
Betty Kamya of the Reform Agenda pressure group described Gen Museveni's military retirement as a good step but said it won't mean much unless he steps down from political office in 2006 - as the current constitution demands.
Retired General Yoweri Museveni today said: "People have been wondering since I'm retiring if I will still be able to eliminate the Lords Resistance Army, LRA rebels."
He answered: "Yes because I am the commander-in-chief."
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This uniform is very good against mosquitoes - that's why I don't get
malaria
President Museveni
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Yoweri Museveni has been a military man since the 1970s - his Front for National Salvation, along with other forces, including the Tanzanian army, ousted Idi Amin from power in 1979.
He then went to the bush after the chaotic 1980 elections to form the National Resistance Army (NRA) which fought its way to power in 1986.
Ask Ugandans what is the best thing President Museveni has done and many suggest keeping a relatively well-disciplined army - at least compared to former regimes.
But some opposition politicians criticise his hold on the current army.
MP Winnie Byanyima claims that Mr Museveni now has an even firmer personal hold on the army and suggests the presidency and the military will only be completely delinked after he has left power.
At his military camp in Lira, I recently asked the president when he would be taking his uniform off.
He gave little away in his answer.
"You see this uniform is very good against mosquitoes," he told me. "That's why I don't get malaria."
Bill Gates;
not the richest man
BY: Agencies
DATE: Tuesday, April 06, 2004
A fierce debate has been sparked in Stockholm, after a
business magazine argued that software tycoon Bill Gates was no longer the
world's richest man.
Swedish business weekly Veckans Affarer announced that Ingvar Kamprad, founder
of Ikea, had topped Mr Gates, with a 400bn-kroner (£29bn; $52bn) fortune.
The report was quickly taken up by media around the world.
But according to the furniture store, the magazine forgot that Mr Kamprad has
not owned Ikea since 1982.
Veckans Affarer admits the anomaly, but insists that Mr Kamprad still calls the
shots at the firm, and so can be considered its de facto owner.
'Completely wrong'
The dispute is one of methodology: Veckans Affarer has simply added up the total
value of Ikea's 186 stores in 31 countries.
Ikea argues that this is flawed, since Mr Kamprad donated his interest in the
firm to a Dutch-based foundation in 1982.
"This is completely wrong. It's a mistake that is made all the time," said Ikea
spokeswoman Marianne Barner.
"Estimating the value of the company, including all the stores, and saying it's
all Ingvar's, that is totally wrong."
Forbes, the US magazine which compiles what it claims is a definitive list of
the world's wealthy, puts Mr Kamprad at number 13, with a fortune of $18.5bn.
Pulling the strings
Veckans Affarer has stoutly defended its position.
Its basic argument is that the Kamprad family still effectively own Ikea through
a network of foundations.
Mr Kamprad has claimed that the foundation structure prevents him passing on the
company to future generations, but the magazine disputes this.
Such structures are not unknown in Sweden, where top companies are keen to avoid
high levels of taxation.
Mr Kamprad, whose three sons work in senior positions in the firm, has moved his
personal headquarters to Switzerland to take advantage of its generous tax laws.
At the same time, Mr Gate's fortune has been battered by the fall in the dollar,
Veckans Affarer argued.
A few words of encouragement
Jeevan Vasagar reports on the stigma of Aids
in Kenya, and tentative
efforts to overcome it
Jeevan Vasagar
Wednesday March 31 2004
The Guardian
When Edwina Atieno told her neighbours she was HIV positive, her business fell
apart. The fear that surrounds Aids in Kenya, as in other African countries, is
so potent that no one would touch the fried snacks she cooked.
"I lost all my customers," Edwina said. "They didn't like to buy my eatable
things. They questioned me every day: 'Why did you do these things that make you
HIV-positive?'"
In Kisumu in western Kenya, where Edwina lives with her three-year-old son, Aids
deaths are attributed to curses. Those who die of Aids-related illnesses are
judged to have done something wrong.
Even those who have the courage to admit that they have the illness find it hard
to explain this to their children.
In Kisumu, which has the highest rate of HIV infection in Kenya, a Catholic
community group is seeking to challenge the culture of secrecy by encouraging
HIV-positive parents to keep "memory books" for their children.
Edwina, who is separated from the father of her son Fidel, started writing the
book to explain her life to him after she is gone.
"I write for him everything that he ought to know - all about his life, about
his dad, and the separation and why I stayed single," she said. "I enjoy writing
because it seems that it is something deep that I share out. In just the way
that you share out a secret - if you write it down, it won't bind you."
The book will not just be autobiography, but is intended as a slender insurance
policy for Fidel, giving him an opportunity to contact his father when his
mother dies.
Fidel's own HIV status is unknown. Testing is not considered beneficial for
children, as they are not sexually active. Health workers also fear that if he
is known to be HIV positive, Edwina's relatives will refuse to look after him.
The shame that surrounds HIV means Aids orphans are often excluded from wider
society. Even within foster families' homes they can be kept separate from other
children.
Earlier this year, an Aids orphanage in Nairobi threatened to sue the
government, claiming that its children had been denied access to public schools.
Although the schools did not openly refuse the children because they had HIV,
they had been rejected "on spurious grounds," the Nyumbani children's home
alleged.
The stigma is not unique to Kenya. Such attitudes are widespread in sub-Saharan
Africa, where there were 2.3m deaths from Aids last year, according to the UN
agency UNAids.
"As the epidemic reaches further and deeper into societies, so does the fear
that surrounds it," UNAids stated in a report published last September. "In many
countries and communities the shame and stigma associated with being HIV
positive have reinforced denial and hindered effective action. Friends and
family die 'after a long illness', never of Aids."
There are some signs that attitudes are changing. In a recent edition of the
East African Standard newspaper, a remarkable personal ad began: "37-year-old
HIV-positive woman looking for a romantic, sensitive HIV-positive man."
But other ads stressed the importance of HIV negative status as well as beauty
and financial stability. While the social stigma remains strong, and the cost of
AIDS drugs remains so high that those who admit they are sick cannot then get
treatment, openness remains the exception.
In Edwina Atieno's book, the sole reference to her HIV status is a passage that
reads: "Worry not. People are born to struggle. Nobody will stay in this world
forever. Please go to your aunty Mary, or any of your uncles that you feel
comfortable with."
She has not yet found the words to write that she has HIV, but she hopes to
break the news to her son directly when he is old enough to understand.
"I don't know whether my life will be long, or whether my Fidel will be big
enough to tell. I started writing this in case I die early. If he grows up while
I am still alive, I will do the job, to explain to him why I am writing this
book."
Appropriately, Edwina's hope for Fidel's future is that he will be educated
enough to dispel public ignorance about HIV.
"I would like him to be a doctor, so he can know about diseases," she said. "So
he will not have many questions about his mum who was HIV positive."
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
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Credit debt alert
By Jonathan Prynn And Jane Padgham,
Evening Standard
1 April 2004
The Government was today accused of stoking up Britain's £1 trillion credit crisis with new laws making it easier to walk away from debt. Financial experts and consumer groups warned reforms taking the stigma out of bankruptcy could lure consumers into more borrowing. The law changes aim to encourage failed entrepreneurs to get back on their feet by allowing discharge from bankruptcy after 12 months instead of three years. Some bankrupts will be able to walk free of their debts within weeks. However, there are growing fears that provisions of the 2002 Enterprise Act which come into effect today will spur further credit-card splurges.
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Moi: I did not okay torture
Story by ODHIAMBO ORLALE
Publication Date: 03/31/2004
Former President Daniel arap Moi yesterday denied claims he sanctioned torture of critics during his 24-year reign.
In a rare interview with journalists after launching his foundation for peace, the Moi Africa Institute, Mr Moi said those who worked under him should account for their actions.
But the former president conceded that he was aware of complaints by suspects in the 1982 abortive coup by some Kenya Airforce officers.
"I was not aware of people being tortured at Nyayo House,'' he said after the launch in Nairobi.
He added: "Those who are complaining knew the laid down procedures and should have reported to the authorities. I only heard of the abortive coup suspects' torture claims."
But Mr Moi cut short the question and answer session after the journalists also asked him to state whether he would attend the on-going Goldenberg Inquiry to clear his name.
"I have sent my advocate to the inquiry and he is best placed to respond," he said.
The commission was set up by the Narc Government to investigate allegations of irregular payment of billions of shillings in export compensation to Goldenberg International and related companies in the 1990's.
Hundreds of politicians, activists and journalists were rounded up by the Kanu regime in the 1980s and 1990s and either tortured, or detained before they were finally jailed for being members of underground movements like Mwakenya.
During the launch, Mr Moi donated Sh20 million to the Moi Africa Institute during the ceremony at the NGO's offices at Kabarnet Gardens, Nairobi.
The institute will also deal with HIV/Aids and tuberculosis programmes on the continent.
Mr Moi told guests that his NGO would be non-partisan and would solicit for funds from local and foreign wellwishers. But he cautioned that the institute would welcome volunteers and and not job seekers ''because we have no money''.
The NGO, he said, had a wide-ranging agenda to implement in phases, and would not be involved in politics.
It would work with Kabarak University, also owned by the former President, to set up a faculty known as Africa Centre for Peace Management and Strategic Studies.
"The centre will provide intellectual space for research into causes of conflict and early warning mechanisms to avoid war," he said, and appealed to his local and foreign friends to support his NGO by contributing funds or volunteering their services.
He said he would work closely with governments, international organisations and agencies, institutions with similar objectives as well as individuals.
Yesterday's launch was attended by only one Cabinet minister, Kalonzo Musyoka, who served under the Kanu regime in the same docket of Foreign Affairs. He sat next to Mr Moi in the VIP tent reserved for board members of the NGO, but did not address the gathering.
The low-key ceremony was a who-is-who forum in the retired President's regime.
They included the leader of the Official Opposition, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta; former ministers Charles Njonjo, Sam Ongeri, Julius Sunkuli, William Ruto and Katana Ngala; former head of civil service and Secretary to the Cabinet Sally Kosgei and former Permanent Secretary in charge of internal security Zakayo Cheruiyot.
The former President will be the chairman of the seven-man board, while former Chemelil Sugar Company managing director Aaron Tuikong will be the acting executive officer.
Other directors are Catholic Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a'Nzeki; Mr Njonjo, Bishop Silas Yego of African Inland Church; Egerton University vice-chancellor Ezra Maritim; former Presbyterian Church of East Africa moderator John Gatu and former Moi University vice-chancellor Justin Irina.
Mr Njonjo praised his former boss for retiring from politics and volunteering to use his experience and wisdom in resolving conflicts - Daily Nation.
Tergat pulls out of London
Marathon
Star names missing from line-up
Duncan Mackay
Saturday March 27 2004
The Guardian
With Paula Radcliffe missing already, the Flora London Marathon suffered another
blow yesterday when Paul Tergat withdrew from next month's race through injury.
Radcliffe had preferred to concentrate on her Olympic preparations so organisers
were pinning their hopes on Tergat, the elegant Kenyan who, in Berlin last
October clocked 2hr 4min 55sec to wipe 43 seconds off the world record, to
headline their race on April 18.
But Tergat, 34, strained a calf in his right leg in training and is receiving
daily treatment in Italy. He refuses to jeopardise his chances of being ready
for the Olympics in Athens in August when he will be seeking to win the one
honour to have eluded him in his brilliant career.
Tergat made his marathon debut in London three years ago and this was due to be
his fourth appearance. He is still seeking his first victory after finishing
second twice and fourth once.
Earlier this year Tergat had said London was dominating his thoughts.
"Everything I do at the moment is geared towards winning it," he said. "Success
there is very important really to wipe away my bad memories."
Now he has been forced to concede defeat. Tergat said: "I am really
disappointed but I wouldn't compete in London unless I am 100%. It has always
been my aim to win London. It will just have to wait for another year."
The quality of the field will still be deeper than in any other race this year
apart from the Olympics.
It includes the London Marathon champion and Olympic gold medallist Gezahegne
Abera of Ethiopia, Morocco's reigning world champion Jaouad Gahrib and the
world's fastest debutant Evans Rutto of Kenya.
Also running is Kenya's Sammy Korir, who finished only one second behind Tergat
in Berlin to become the second fastest of all time.
Kenya's challenge is enhanced by the Chicago runner-up Daniel Njenga, offering
the nation a real chance of the men's title for the first time since Douglas
Wakiihuri in 1989.
The race will also double as the British Olympic trials. The challenge is headed
by Jon Brown, fourth in the Sydney Games four years ago, and also includes Mark
Steinle, whose previous best in London is sixth place.
Much will also be expected of Karl Keska, Britain's leading 10,000 metres runner
of recent years, who is due to make his debut in the race this year.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
