My housegirl talks to me with wringing hangs this morning of how she found out her son is missing. A month ago, he goes off to visit his dad in Kosovo, New Muthaiga, Nairobi and is playing outside and .... they reported him missing to the police, the chief and I ask you, what else is she to do and how? There is no proto to post in a newspaper. His name is Francis Nyakambi Omwomba, 9 years old and how does a 9 year old just go missing? I am informed that this is quite common in kijiji. Children get taken by barren women, people who would sell then and send them off to Ngambo, lock them up in a room ...
She is stumped as to what she can do to find him. I am stumped as to how this happens and why we are now helpless to do anything to help her.
And .... I ask what I would be like if this was to happen to me and then I am, maybe just human, in that I am thankful that this is not happening to me.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
when is one more too many?
I went out on the town a couple of Friday's ago (thank you for Philo saying yes to looking after my two 'mkoras')to a swanky club (with such a standard name that it can only succeed as this could have been in any major city in the world) .... there must be money in this country, in a recession, with inflation rising because that bar was packed and the cost of a drink was amazingly incomprehensible.
I met some lovely people but one woman struck me ... we were having a lucid conversation, intelligent, interesting, funny ... and then she told me she had to leave to go home and feed her 4 month old baby. I was intrigued and impressed. Good for her. She needed her life and needed to get out but also knew that she had a window of about 2 hours (don't we all remember that breastfeeding window ....mine was one and a half hours ... exactly!)before she needed to be back for her child. I was in awe. Then I asked her how many children she had and she said this was child no.4.
How do we, supposedly intelligent beings, dare to have more than 2 children in this day and age when our resources are shrinking? When we are killing our planet? When we are poisoning our oceans, cutting out forests, depleting our food and water sources to such an extent that we are heading for an implosion or explosion, depending on which theories you would like to ascribe to?
I am really scared. She came from the same background as I, probably went to a similar school, works for the betterment of the poor and then .... this! And I am not over reacting and over thinking at all!!!
How do we help ourselves grow more responsible? I can only say that it starts with each one of us ... examine your own back yard, your own view of how you fit into your family, society, your world .... it cannot afford your freedom to procreate as you wish, weather you have the money to pay for those educations and food is not the question, it is can the world sustain those four extra mouths you have so easily added to our over populated world.
End of sermon.
I met some lovely people but one woman struck me ... we were having a lucid conversation, intelligent, interesting, funny ... and then she told me she had to leave to go home and feed her 4 month old baby. I was intrigued and impressed. Good for her. She needed her life and needed to get out but also knew that she had a window of about 2 hours (don't we all remember that breastfeeding window ....mine was one and a half hours ... exactly!)before she needed to be back for her child. I was in awe. Then I asked her how many children she had and she said this was child no.4.
How do we, supposedly intelligent beings, dare to have more than 2 children in this day and age when our resources are shrinking? When we are killing our planet? When we are poisoning our oceans, cutting out forests, depleting our food and water sources to such an extent that we are heading for an implosion or explosion, depending on which theories you would like to ascribe to?
I am really scared. She came from the same background as I, probably went to a similar school, works for the betterment of the poor and then .... this! And I am not over reacting and over thinking at all!!!
How do we help ourselves grow more responsible? I can only say that it starts with each one of us ... examine your own back yard, your own view of how you fit into your family, society, your world .... it cannot afford your freedom to procreate as you wish, weather you have the money to pay for those educations and food is not the question, it is can the world sustain those four extra mouths you have so easily added to our over populated world.
End of sermon.
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