We need winter, not counties, to spur development

      Motorists abandon their vehicles and start walking to their homes on Georgia Highway 140, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014 in Canton, Ga.

If the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company discovers revenues have dropped drastically, it should not bother to institute a commission of inquiry into the matter or investigate staff for pilferage.

My moles on the ground say households have cut down on water use, but not because of concern for the environment or head-of-the-house-led initiatives in cost cutting. With Nairobi temperatures dropping to ominous lows in this July winter, men have simply stopped bathing.

And because sons tend to be like father, the little rascals have said goodbye to water too.

Men will cry foul, I know, saying it is women who waste water by bathing in a whole drum of water twice, or sometimes six times, a day. Nonsense! We men enjoy higher pot belly per capita and while these things get women who have style swooning and drooling, they require lots of nourishment, and water to clean too.

Chilled toes

Water aside, few people venture outdoors after dark because of the chill. As a result, muggers and carjackers are having such a torrid time I hear they are considering floating a Eurobond on River Road.

Contrary to common belief, however, quarrelsome couples who have not spoken to each months after a small fight over the colour of the dress their daughter wore to Sunday school aren’t enveloped in nocturnal tender loving care either.

It is so cold, I hear, that marital beds are now separated by a wall of china, lest contact with a spouse’s chilled toes trigger domestic violence.

Be that as it may, if Kenya got colder and temperatures snowballed to sub-zero levels, maybe our African brains would start working. Winter would actually spur development faster than devolution and the current strategy of sending MCAs to Naples to study Italian culture.

It is winter, after all, that fostered efficiency and innovation among wazungu. Because winter kills, wazungu had to craft heating systems, ensure their electricity supply was efficient and adequate, and manufacture warm clothing. I mean, they even ‘discovered’ coffee yet our soils were perfect.

Indeed if Kenya had suffered winter since the Stone Age, power blackouts would have been castrated eons ago and we would not be risking desertification.

Cool houses

We would be taking better care of our forests; to warm ourselves, and for timber, because wooden houses are warmer than those mabati things we construct in Limuru.

But more important, our architects would not be photo-copying English-style mansions in Mombasa and Garissa. They would have been forced, by necessity, to develop houses that are cool in such places (I still wonder why they haven’t come up with a modern and affordable manyatta for our hot, arid areas).

Most vital, winter spurs tourism. Wazungu don’t come here because they ‘love animals and Africa’ but because it is just too bloody cold back home.

So you want domestic tourism? Let temperatures drop to negative 10 degrees in Nairobi and see how fast Nairobians will suddenly discover a mysterious love for Africa and drop pubs for the animals in Maasai Mara.

Otherwise, ‘domestic tourists’ will continue trooping to Mombasa to booze two days a year.