It is stll here

Most people hear about it but probably don't really believe it, but Africa is still a poor place; burdened by the multiplying problems of a multiplying population and inhabited, more so in the rural, by children born to parents who gave up on hope long ago. That is the tragedy and pain of my people. For the destitution of the people, leadership and Government bears the greatest blame. Either ineffective or incompetent leadership or too much tyranny or too less stability on Government.

It takes miracle-like-effort to make it in Kenya.

This is a subject I approach with reluctance more so now as some 'celebrate' the coming baby Jesus-ostensibly-a promise of hope in a world of want.

On the eve of Xmas, The President gave a new year message in which, like he always does, extolled the virtues of a drank-free driving, blah..blah..blah. It's irrelevant what these people tell us. Personally I am tortured to death listening to them.

Let's see: How have the poor gone through this day?

Even here I do not bring home to us the real evil of poverty. What can poor families buy with their meager weekly earnings, if the earn at all (During Xmas employers of poor close shop and go vacation as poor go home during the employer's vacation).
Among the Nairobi city poor, the evil of sweaty long hours and low wages are intensified by high prices of food and fuel for cooking food. In general, the poorer the family the higher the prices it must pay for the necessaries of life.

Rent is naturally the first item in the poor man's budget. Some poor pay their entire income in rent! It is notorious that overcrowded, insanitary "slum" property is the most paying form of house property to its owners. The part played by rent in the problems of poverty can scarcely be over-estimated. Attempts to mitigate the evil by erecting model dwellings have scarcely touched the lower classes of wage-earners. The poor prefers a room in a small house to an intrinsically better accommodation in a barrack-like building. Other than pecuniary motives enter in. The "touchiness of the lower class" causes them to be offended by the very sanitary regulations designed for their benefit.

But "shelter" is not the only thing for which the poor pay high. The price of fresh vegetables, tomatoes, onions, cooking fat, etc is not infrequently seven times the price at which the same articles can be purchased wholesale from the growers. It is sometimes held sufficient to say that the poor are thoughtless and extravagant. And no doubt this is so. But it must also be remembered that the industrial conditions under which these people live, necessitate a hand-to-mouth existence, and themselves furnish an education in improvidence.

It is a depressing subject to talk about. We could go on and on and on. Then what!

Perhaps and this I must do. Ask, when finally there going which way, What for, life?