Andrea Bohnstedt
Better Safe Than Sorry, The Poll Jitters Were Justified Did you ‘panic shop’ before the elections? I did. Not in a particularly panicky manner, mind you (I live in Westlands, and in the first weeks of 2008, if you weren’t watching or reading the news, and restricted your little rounds from my place to ABC, you could be forgiven for not knowing that there was a bit of a crisis in the country). Partly I did it because a generally sensible, grown-up friend had nudged me to do so, just in case. In the end, it actually turned out to be a sensible thing, mostly because I’m usually a bit more slapdash about grocery shopping and it actually saves you time... |
Oil Find Will Not Transform Lives In Turkana Overnight I’m a sucker for magazines (I’ve got a bit of a deal going on with the news agent at Westgate to set aside the Sunday Times for me every week. I pre-pay, too. I’m that desperate for some regular, old-school, properly produced weekend magazines with a minimum of how to get him to propose/raise your child/catch him cheating stories, inspirational columns, and no curved niches or gun-totting policemen ever). So I was quite excited to discover new Aeon Magazine ( www.aeonmagazine.com ), which looks very promising: the first two features I read, one by Chika Unigwe on the difficulties of migration... |
IEBC Systems Fail: Are We Still The Tech City?‘Thought you’re tech city?’, a West African friend wrote. ‘Yeah, so did I!’, I shrugged my shoulders. No brownie points for guessing that that this was in the post-election week as we watched the IEBC’s system wobble, wobble some more, and then fall over. That’s of course a bit unfair: after all, it was one institution that failed, not an entire sector – and the IEBC isn’t a tech firm to start with. But it was astonishing to behold. A case of Stockholm Syndrome, I felt. Everybody started out on a high, motivated and driven by incredible commitment to be part of the voting process. Eight hours... |
Kenya Is A Country Of Many OpportunitiesEven though I am an idle foreigner, I do often tell people that Kenya is probably the place to go in East Africa. Mind you, this is a general statement – if, say, you want to produce French-language school books for Rwanda, you might find it better to open a presence in Kigali than here. But generally, I say Kenya – and in particular Nairobi - is where it’s at. Yes, it is a corrupt place and the infrastructure is underwhelming and security is often a problem. Nairobi traffic makes me stabby, and the city is often just incredibly hard, draining work. But It’s also the region’s largest and most... |
Is This Kenya's Very Own 419 Scam?I’m a master procrastinator. Big fat deadline? Right, lemme sort out that kitchen drawer that has practically grown its own ecosystem for the past two or three years. Chopsticks – keep them or chuck them? Those sunglasses must be from my former housemate. And look, here’s the little thingie I inherited from my grandmother: a tiny pair of, what, pincers to pick up sugar cubes in an elegant and ladylike manner. It’s silver and old and pretty. In German, it’s called a Zuckerzange. Is there an English word for it? Also, I need to find the silver polish. Wait, where was I? Right, column. This week... |
Formal Education Is Not Automatically GoodAs an analyst, you’re ultimately measured by the reliability of your forecasts. The elections in 2007 were one of my biggest failures. I didn’t see the violence coming at all – and I wonder, in retrospect, if my perception of the run up to the elections had been tainted what I had wanted to see: Political maturity. A peaceful transition in power. A one-term president being ok with a one-term presidency. Right now, I’m torn: partly, I think, I want to know, that it cannot happen again. That it would be inconceivable. That nobody would put the country through such turmoil again. But then there’... |
Uhuru, Raila Took Us For A Ride In The Big Debate There was a lot that I found really positive and exciting about the recent presidential candidate debate. For starters, it was amazing that it happened in the first place, and that the major media houses pulled together. It was certainly impressive to see that presidential candidates could actually be civil to each other in front of the electorate rather than whipping ‘their people’ up against ‘certain communities’ who are out to finish them. And with a bit of insistence, you could actually get the odd reasonably focused response out of them. Overall, I thought the moderation was well done,... |
Election Security Will Trump Manifestos in Economic ImpactLast weekend, I opened the papers, took one look at the deluge of ‘aspirants’ coverage, and then closed them again. I just couldn’t. I do get paid, sorta, to read the papers – my clients expect me to keep up with the news. But at that point, I really had enough of the divorced-from-reality meaningless statements of aspirants of all sorts, whether for local wards or the presidency, Jubilee, CORD, Amani, whoever. Everybody accuses everybody else of tribalism, emphasising their own non-tribalism, and in the same breath order their own community to stick together and vote as a block. Tribalism is... |
Is Konza Going To Be Just Another City Like Thika?I always thought it was a bit lame to use a column to go off on a rant about individual concerns with individual companies, so I was a bit unsure about last week’s piece on KPLC. But it got quite a bit of positive attention, lots of ‘eurgh, yes, that’ comments with similar complaints, retweets, and friends who emailed me and stopped me at Java. But then again, KPLC isn’t just a company. They are a monopolist, so there’s hardly any way around them (Or so we think – not a pressure KPLC seem to perceive, as one commenter on my blog pointed out. According to her, a KPLC representative had said on... |
Kenya Power Is Holding The Country BackI started writing this column in William Pike’s (Star CEO) office where I was temporarily squatting near a socket. Power cut, you see: one of the all-day, scheduled ones. They seem to occur weekly these days, sometimes seemingly scheduled, but unannounced. I had tried to find out why we’re having weekly all-day power cuts (so annoying when your work requires electricity). The answer I received from KPLC was vague: something about repair works in order to make the network better for us, the esteemed clients. All well and good, but it did make me wonder, why is there so much leftover... |
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Andrea Bohnstedt