Chew on This...

This was in the Standard Newspaper some time back by humor columnist Ted Malanda. Makes you wonder what this world is coming to, considering that our generation should probably be more successful than our priors, what with technology and advanced “knowledge” et al…

“When I quit my previous job, my employer refused to part with his contribution of KSh390,000 towards my pension saying I had to wait till I became 55, wrinkled and frail before he paid me.

One and a half years ago, I asked him to transfer that withheld pension to my new boss. "I want to consolidate my savings in one basket," I lied. Truth is I was moving my money because I don’t trust government pension schemes.

To my great surprise, they sent a cheque for KSh430,000 last week. In other words, my pension had not been ‘eaten’ as I had feared. It has actually been laying eggs and in three years, it has made me KSh40,000 richer.

Yet when I resigned in 2005, a quarter an acre of land in the neighbourhood of Ongata Rongai was going for half a million bob, payable in beer rounds and small cash installments. Today, the same piece goes for KSh1.2 million, hard cash.

Thus, anyone who bought land is getting rich without lifting a finger while I and millions of other idiots(like yours truly…yes me, the bloggist) whose savings are locked up in fancy pension schemes are only paying investment bankers and getting poorer.

In fact, when we retire, that pension won’t even be worth a skinny he-goat. (Or a Vitz; that crappy contraption that’s invaded the streets of Nairobi)

When my father retired in 1977, I was in Standard Two. His pension was 700 bob a month. Last year, it had appreciated to KSh2,000 — the equivalent of an average beer bill for the evening.(Or a nice pair of sexy stilettos)

To be honest, I still get shocked that the old man, aided by his cute wife who happened to be my mother, squeezed us through school. Don’t forget that unlike these days when we have one spoilt brat, my parents practically raised a football team. Of course, they didn’t achieve this feat on the old man’s KSh700-a-month pension.

Foresight.

Being a man of foresight, he had invested in two zebu heifers in 1959. The magic about zebus, what colonial farmers derisively called shenzi (stupid) cattle, is that they can literally survive through hell.

Unlike pampered hybrid cattle, zebus don’t need veterinary doctors, artificial insemination, mineral water and luxurious foods like Napier grass and biscuits. They are tough. They practically live on sisal and boiled rags.

By the time the old man was fired in 1977, his two heifers had multiplied to 85, including Jomo, a champion bull that sired calves left, right and centre and held the village bullfight champion award for a record four years.

It is those zebus that took my siblings and I through school. Every beginning of term, he would sell a cow or two and shoe us — three pupils at any given time — off to school, while Jomo did his thing. Now contrast that with yours truly, my father’s allegedly "educated and widely traveled" son.

leaky affairs

I own neither land nor livestock. My puny savings are instead locked up in fancy unit trusts, risky insurance schemes, questionable stocks, leaky pension schemes and a second-hand car that guzzles fuel like a witch and depreciates in value each day.

While my father wakes every morning to his mooing assets and the comforting aroma of fresh cow dung, I could wake up to news that some crooked investment broker has tinkered with my stocks and rendered me destitute.

My father knew. Jomo could always sire another calf. But a task force won’t bring back money that a government pension fund took from me by force and gleefully flushed down the urinal.”

I can easily related to Malanda’s ruminations. What a life…it really makes one feel quite wasted now, doesn’t it??

N.B: Italicized phrases are Citycat’s random thoughts…

Always Have A Plan B

I came across this story; and it kinda put things in perspective. That Plan B? A major priority!

A pretty woman was serving a life sentence in prison. Angry and resentful about her situation, she had decided that she would rather die than to live another year in prison.

Over the years she had become good friends with one of the prison caretakers. His job, among others, was to bury those prisoners who died in a graveyard just outside the prison walls. When a prisoner died, the caretaker rang a bell, which was heard by everyone. The caretaker then got the body and put it in a casket. Next, he entered his office to fill out the death certificate before returning to the casket to nail the
lid shut. Finally, he put the casket on a wagon to take it to the graveyard and bury it.

Knowing this routine, the woman devised an escape plan and shared it with the caretaker. The next time the bell rang, the woman would leave her cell and sneak into the dark room where the coffins were kept. She would slip into the coffin with the dead body while the caretaker was filling out the death certificate. When the care-taker returned, he would nail the lid shut and take the coffin outside the prison with the woman in the coffin along with the dead body. He would then bury the
coffin. The woman knew there would be enough air for her to breathe until later in the evening when the caretaker would return to the graveyard under the cover of darkness, dig up the coffin, open it, and set her free.

The caretaker was reluctant to go along with this plan, but since he and the woman had become good friends over the years, he agreed to do it.

The woman waited several weeks before someone in the prison died. She was asleep in her cell when she heard the death bell ring. She got up and slowly walked down the hallway. She was nearly caught a couple of times. Her heart was beating fast. She opened the door to the darkened room where the coffins were kept. Quietly in the dark, she found the coffin that contained the dead body, carefully climbed into the coffin and pulled the lid shut to wait for the caretaker to come and nail the

lid shut.

Soon she heard footsteps and the pounding of the hammer and nails. Even though she was very uncomfortable in the coffin with the dead body, she knew that with each nail she was one step closer to freedom. The coffin was lifted onto the wagon and taken outside to the graveyard. She could feel the coffin being lowered into the ground. She didn't make a sound as the coffin hit the bottom of the grave with a thud. Finally she heard the dirt dropping onto the top of the wooden coffin, and she knew that it was only a matter of time until she would be free at last.

After several minutes of absolute silence, she began to laugh. She was free!
She was free! Feeling curious, she decided to light a match to find out
the identity of the dead prisoner beside her.

To her horror, she discovered that she was lying next to the dead
caretaker…

Many people believe they have life all figured out..... but sometimes
it just doesn't turn out the way they planned it.

Think of a 'Plan B'!

Truisms…

'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so
that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

- BARACK OBAMA