Once upon a time Kenyans kept time

A while back, I was on a working holiday in Europe trying to expand my business in Poznan, Poland and Frankfurt Germany. Here, I found myself asking the same question everyone asks nowadays: “Wakenya tulikosea wapi?”

Poland is not a very rich country. People here are sufferers like in a Third World country, but it’s rare to notice. They have discipline which we lack. Nairobi has more Porsche cars than Poland, meaning we have a more vibrant economy.

People here respect things like traffic lights, rules, most of all have courtesy. What pains me the most is that I was born in  Kenya when all these things were applicable.

I was born at Pumwani Maternity Hospital, which was one of the leading government institutions. Many famous people were born there too, including President Uhuru Kenyatta, former Nairobi Governor Dr Evans Kidero and Makueni MP Patrick Musimba aka ‘Kiyoung’.

 I am the only son of my lovely mother who tells stories how Pumwani was one of the leading maternity facilities. The midwives (some of us  have  names of midwives not nurses on birth certificates) were well trained.

 My dad tells me systems worked such that when I went for an operation at Gertrude’s Children Hospital, my bill was paid by the government. When I attended nursery at Valley Road, I remember seeing City Council workers collecting garbage from the streets. Nairobi was very clean.

Treatment for kawaida sicknesses was at Council estate clinics and dispensaries like Jericho near where my friend Antony Ndung’u was raised. Later on, we moved to Umoja which was perfect. Imagine those days, everyone drank tap water until corrupt people at City Hall started adding powder instead of chlorine to the water. This is how the bottled water industry was born in Kenya. 

If you ask my schoolmates whom we attended school with in town like Ibrahim Ali (Johnnie) and Noah Muga, they will tell you how we booked bus tickets quarterly through bus passes. The buses kept time and ran on a schedule. That means one could plan the whole month to a minute.  That was before ‘African time’ that got charlatans late.   

 My advice to the government is to impose heavy fines on lawbreakers.  Just like in Germany.  We should be fined depending on our incomes. So, this tabia of the rich with four-wheel drive cars overlapping on the roads should end. The governor should enforce the by-laws and heavily fine anyone breaking them. Those littering our streets should be severely punished.

Both motorists should be forced to or made to understand that road signs and traffic lights have to be observed. The county government through the NHIF should refurbish estate clinics so that Kenyatta National Hospital remains a referral facility like in the old days. We can be like any European country if we choose to. Hii tabia na akili ndogo ya Third World lazima tuache!

ojiamboainea@yahoo.com 

@AineaOjiambo