AT 40, I am a very lucky African to be alive!!!

Today 29/march/2010, as I turn 40, count me as one of the luckiest africans to see the light of the day. Why? perhaps some would say i am exeggerating, or just a numb person, but looking at the figures and official statistics then you'll appreciate my line of argument.

Couple of years ago, my all time Tanzanian favourite columnist, the late Robert Rweyemamu once wrote on East African, "Why Birthdays are rare in Tanzania?" He was sharing a birthday sing along song with other Tanzanians as the Father of the Nation, The late Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere was turning 75. Rweyemamu highlighted a number of diseases inflicting and scaling down lives of Tanzanians including malaria, TB,cholera,and above all, AIDS.

As I celebrate 40th birthdays my mind turns to millions of babies whose lives are wasted on this minute across Africa due to poor maternial care, malaria,manutrition etc etc. In Tanzania by 2007 child mortality rate stood by 116 death per 1000 children under age of five.

One of the basic pre-requisite for development but greatly ignored by african states is the access to clean and reliable water for human consumption. After all 75% of our being is comprised of water. By far this means purifying, reserving sources of water and providing this important resource to all especially the most vulnerable, women and children should be a top priority for any sensible goverment.Animals and plants shares this sacrosanct resource that if one is deprived ecosystem is not balanced.

In african villages women and children spend a big portion of a day searching for water though they are not sure on the safety of the same.As a result looking for water is part of economic undertakings ignoring other important activities with a far liberating results such as education. An african child born in the village is an economic asset for the family and one of the activity is looking for water.This turns out to be a vicious cyle of poverty. A child ( preferaby a girl) mothered by a poor mum does not go to school and ends up doing family undertaking including searching for water. She grows to be a mother material with no education and hence no knowledge of controlling her environment. She gives birth to a child who ends up dying at a tender age simply because her mother do not have enough resources to care for her.

In the year 2000, World nations agreed on Millenium Development Goals ( MDG)and one of the goals was to reduce a number of african people without access to basic sanitation and hygiene by half come to the year 2015.To date no country in Eastern and Southern Africa is on track to meet MDG target on sanitation. In some parts of Dar Es Salaam such as Ukonga suburb pit latrines are dug closer to shallow wells resulting into water contamination.As a result currently one in eight East & Southern african child dies before fifth birthday due to diseases related to poor sanitation and lack of access to safe drinking water. According to The Guardian, ( A Tanzanian daily)Dar Es Salaam has 300 unsafe wells causing an increasing incidences of water borne diseases.

Malaria is the other killer disease claiming lives of africans in magnitude. Malaria is a fatal protozoan disease transmitted by a specific kind of mosquito, the genus anopheles. Malaria is utterly treatable, yet, incredibly claims up to three million lives per year, mostly young children, about 90 percent of whom live in Africa.The fact that virtually everybody in tropical africa contracts malaria at least once a year makes me delighted to see this 40th birthdays. The fate of our children born on this minute as I celebrate across Africa is literally unknown.

Yes children are dying in sheer massive number not seeing their 5th birthday.But another calamity is rampant across Sub-Sahara Africa this time around living behind fortunate survived kids as orphans. This is AIDS, ( Acquired Immune Defficiency Syndrome)

In most African countries, by contrast, only tycoons and cabinet ministers can afford AIDS drugs. By 2002,about 17 million africans had died of AIDS, and 29 millions were HIV positive. Pause for a moment to ponder it: 46 million africans either dead or doomed. Its more than seven times the number of jews, Gypsies and homesexuals murdered by Hitler. Its one and half times the 30 million chinese who died of starvation under Mao Zedong. It is three quarters of the death toll during the whole of the second World War, and by the time AIDS has claimed its last African victim, it may outnumber even that.

At the End of Day. Happy birthday to me!!! & happy birthday to all africans who have seen this day against all odds.

This is how few african residents reserve water.

wiki ya maji

In Sub-sahara Africa water as an important resource has been left to the forces of the market where the powerful affords clean water like this at the cost of around $1( 1.5litres)

KAZI NDIO MSINGI WA MAENDELEO. NCHI MASIKINI HAIWEZI KUENDELEA KWA MSINGI WA FEDHA. NCHI MASIKINI HAIWEZI KUJITAWALA KAMA INATEGEMEA MSAADA KUTOKA NCHI ZA NJE.

J. K. NYERERE

PAT, MEN CHEATERS HAVE LOWER IQ

Pat I support fully heartedly the evolutionary argument presented by Dr Satoshi Kanazawa that men who cheat have lower IQ.

I define IQ, as the ability to control ones enviroment. As indicated earlier it doesnt ring into my mind that at all times Phd holders can control his enviroment well than the rest of us. I tell you solemnly,due to the fact that this Professor can not enjoy special intimacy with his wife, his intelligence level is lower than ,( excuse my language)an average man who enjoys full time and fulfilling relationship with his other half.

You have pinpointed some universal reasons as to why men cheat, such as women not being good in bed. May I add some other unwise reasons though some are too african. .African Men may say, oh when I married this woman she was spottlessly clean, or other would say now your belly is too big that you're no longer sexy. Yet others will not stand 'mtindi'( you know what I mean). Some men will say this woman nags.

Let me paraphrase all of the above as push factors. As we ( men) move outside our houses( boma) we are confronted by pull factors. These chicks know how to pull our legs. Twentysomething ladies will put on tight jeans, they will avoid fatty foods to lower bellies, and mind you some of them ( hawanyonyeshi) that makes their tits to look like, oh My God!!!, whoops.

Now back to our argument, how man resist these push & pull factors will determine his level of intelligence. If the lady is not good in bed, then it is the responsibility of our intelligence( men) to arouse her sexual intellingensia, after all we're the first to be created by God.It is our duty to demostrate sexual techniques. If she is dirty, then its a man to bear the blame, we dont use our spare time to take care of the kids that a woman spends most of her time raising kids and she's burned out. Man with highest level of IQ will drive/board a daladala straight from work. But because we are less smart most of us succumb to traditional utopian, ( amewekewa limbwata huyo). A family that stay to together, live together. It is precisely this smartness of a man staying home that creates healthy homestead.

Now to the pull factors. Most men are pulled by mistresses after being stressed up by the modern life. Say one is really pressed up by work, or studies that on the way home he's accidentally confronted by a beautiful chic. This lousy man is helpless, it is that stress that pushes him into the impossible angle not a girl. Or some men get attracted to women after being drunk. Let me say only less clever men drink irresponsibly before getting to their families.

Am I harsh!!!! SORRY GUYS.

SILENCES IN WOMEN DISCOURSE

Pat, thanks for mindblowing ideas and they enrich my brain greatly.

African culture stereotype a woman at a larger extent compared to western world.This is our culture. When two men greet each other one would say, 'watoto hawajambo'? meaning including a wife.In Europe & America a man would inquire, how is your other half? this is a big damned different.

In Africa handful women see the limelight of higher education compared to men .
What an african woman seek as she climbs education ladder is to step in the world controlled by men. Men controls the universe. According to latest Forbes magazine, out of 1011 global billionares, only 89 are women and among those 89 only 14 obtained wealth out of their own, while the rest inherited.

Women that ascend to elite class are transformed into a world controlled by men, and in fact they become men minus biological nature. These tiny number drive big and fancy cars,build gated mansions,designate their offices in high street, shoulder to shoulder with biological men seat in the executive boardrooms, and sleep in five star hotels. Yet as you indicated their problem differs extensively with their mates in Kashozi, Kishimundu or Tandahimba. Do they walk miles to fetch water? No, Do they struggle to send their kids to school? No, Are they beaten by men, categorically Nope. In fact we call these women sugar mammies, we live with them and they offer us 'heineken' in exchange for romance.

Then what follows is that a struggle for women self-empowerment becomes top-to-down exercise. Women belonging to elite group such as Mama Salma Kikwete, Mama Ananilea Nkya and Mama Anna Mkapa simply starts petty pressure groups ( NGOs) cosmettically suggesting to create 'fursa sawa kwa wote'.As described by Issa Shivji in his fine book, Silences in NGO discourse, The role and future of NGOs in Africa; you can not fight injustices and inequality by becoming a stakeholder.Powerful women sit down with the devil and discuss the pright of vulnerable folks in the village, this is unrealistic and demeaning.

Shivji argues that these elite group should be a watchdog and not part of the hegemony. Their cause( shuga mammies) should be that of pressure groups not mates in coktail parties at Movenpick. They should not be part of policymakers but criticizers, radicals. We ( wanaharakati) are expecting these tiny number of powerful women to go to the length of walking naked in protest of the injustices and inequality issues such as right to education, right to maternial health, killing of albino etc etc.These women occupying mostly special seat( God knows how they got those seats in the first place, perhaps after being mistress) in our parliament should stand up and say NO to big rise of their salaries and instead fight for the good pay of teachers.

One example to illustrate numbness and laziness of these elite group. I was expecting the likes of Mama Mkapa, Getrude Mongela, or Ananilea Nkya to protest outside American Embassy when Washington performed airstrikes to Baghdad. Does this mean they believed deep in their heart that America was right? What about the fate of the poor kids and mothers in Iraq? We know that these women oppose unjust war. Why SILENCE? This is simply because most of these women NGO's are funded by international organisations such as USAID, ( the very American dog).

Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of The Earth strongly and categorically throws punches to the elite class writing that this group is unprepared,lacks practical link between them and mass of the people, they are lazy and cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle. Few years as America was clearing a mess created by a war in Iraq , elite women were rejoicing as Mr Bush was giving some 'makombo' ($750m) to fight malaria in Tanzania. Prof. Mwesiga Balegu, A university don from University of Dar Es Salaam while interviwed by BBC said that this amount is only a drop in the sea as compared to the cost of maintaining war in Iraq.

Once officiating the World' Women day in Tabora last week, President of Tanzania Jakaya Kikwete urged women to seek higher political posts saying 'wanaweza kuwa viongozi wa juu wakitaka'. He went on to say that very soon he will increase a number of women in high court department. As indicated earlier on, these fewer women are awaiting to turn into a world controlled by men and sustain the status quo.

Until the struggle ascends from the bottom; everthing will turn into tragic mishap.

I am out.(florian)

Bullet Proof Leaders aren't afraid to delegate

By Julius Bosire

Many companies are training their employees to become bullet proof managers.

The training is designed to enhance the management and leadership skills of executives, managers and supervisors.

One of the strong points of bullet proof manager is effective delegation of duties. This involves a manager entrusting responsibility, authority, and accountability to her juniors and remaining optimistic that the task will be performed well.

Delegating duties often creates an enviroment for accountability among junior and senior employees. The result attained are jointly owned by those whose responsibility it was to pursue the company's goals.

There are various issues that may inhibit successful delagation of duties. The three main factors are the manager herself, her subordinates, and the environment or organisational structure. Some managers would rather hold on to all assignments as they fear losing authority. Such managers want to be recognised as the source of wisdom in the running of the organisations. They do not mentor their juniors. Yet other managers do not delegate duties because of fear that their subordinates will not do the job well.

Other think that by delegating authority, they may be perceived as weak.

Managers who are insecure in their jobs or believe that certain activities are important to their personal success, are unlikely to delegate. In some cases, subordinates decline to take extra responsibility for fear of failure. Some decline to to take up new responsibilities due to to lack of self-confidence, or a feeling that their managers have no confidence in them.

When this happens, and they are forced to take up the assignments, they become resentful, hence producing poor results.

Some employees are not willing to take up new assignments because their managers do not give them the required power and authority. They feel that their managers want to make them fail.

Managers who do not delegate duties are likely to burn out, leading to lack of creativity, and innovation. Also, they lack groomed successors when they eventually leave office. It is such organisations that ''poach'' managers from other companies.

On the other hand, staff who fear failure usually remain in the same position for long periods, grumbling that the company does not promote its own.

An organisation with a condensed structure, with few jobs and little authority delegated, may end up frustrating ambitious employees. However, employees are initially reluctant to take up delegated roles.

Proper delegation involves assigning specific duties to people and clearly explaining to them what is required. A manager must then relinguish some authority to the selected person.

Some managers understand very well that certain duties cannot be performed without authority but go ahead to merely delegate. This is wrong.

Kenya Wildlife Service director Julius Kipng'etich says the manager concerned should give the employee certain power to deliver results. "The manager should give a very strong strategy and environment,'' Mr Kipng'etich says.

He should explain the organisation's goal, empower his subordinates and make them understand that they will be held responsible individually for their performance. The overall responsibility, however, lies with the manager.

Mr Kipng'etich adds that a manager should build an enviroment conducive to performance of new tasks,since learning is a process. He discounts fears felt by some managers that some subordinates cannot perform certain tasks.

Managers need to cultivate a culture of trust, They should empower their employees and let them learn new tasks on the job. Subordinates, on the other hand, should accomplish the assignments delegated to them.

Patricia King'ori, the general manager of Global System for Mobile Communications, East and Central Africa division, says a manager should think strategically and have the global picture of the business in mind.

Getting involved in small jobs will deprive the manager of the time and space to guide his or her team.

''One is likely to overwhelm herself or himself and develop medical complications if one doesn't delegate some roles.

"As long as a manager is able to guide others and monitor the progress, she or he should succeed in achieving the desired results,'' she says.

Mr Kipng'etich and Ms King'ori agree that fear of being outshone by juniors is the main reason some managers fail to delegate duties.

Both say that delegation without supervision likely to yield low returins. Bullet proof management emphasises involvement, participation and team work.

With these, managers should be able to insulate themselves from potential bullets at the workplace.

Source: The EastAfrican

You wanna play in South Africa?? Play Safely; Condoms to save fans from AIDS

Britain, a football fanatic nation will 'donate' to South Africa 42 million condoms as fans are getting prepared to descend to the country ready for World Cup.

Meanwhile, the Britain Department for International Development is set to announce 1 million pound funding at an emergency funding summit in London on HIV prevention and treatment to be held soon. Earlier on while on official visit to Buckingham Palace, Mr Jacob Zuma a President of South had requested the Queen for the extra 1 billion condom to cater for the expected thousand of tourists who are going to watch world cup on june this year.


South Africa, has 5 million people with HIV infection, the highest number in the whole continent, and the goverment has warned that 40,000 prostitutes might enter the country to watch the world cup, hence PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE.

Logically this is not a donation but a necessity especially coming from ever cautious nation like Britain. Brits wear crash helmets when they cycle, they expect their goverment to ensure that every last molecule of any chemical that even sounds scary is removed from tap water, and they buy bags of nuts with the words 'warning: contain nuts' on the packet.



Consider this, In South Africa one in every five adults live with HIV and a nation has an estimate of 5.7 million victims, the highest rate in Africa. This is the country that even her own President admitted of taking shower after sex to lower the risk of infection. Earlier this year President Zuma did not use a condom when having sex with a daughter of a family friend who subsequently gave birth to his 20th child.

On the whole Africa state of disease is worrying to say the least, by 2002, about 17 million africans had died of AIDS, and 29 million were HIV positive. Pause for a moment to ponder it: 46 million africans either dead or doomed. Its more than seven times the number of jews, Gypsies and homesexuals murdered by Hitler. It's one and a half times the 30 million chinese who died of starvation under Mao Zedong. Its three quarters of the death toll during the whole of the Second World War, and by the time AIDS has claimed its last African victim, it may outnumber even that. ( extracted from The Shackled Continent, by Robert Guest).

Obviously in Britain Aids is no longer a death sentence. Costly drug cocktails can keep HIV-positive patients alive and healthy for a long time. But still a prudent and cautious goverment would rather spend now and prevent huge bills in future.

Of late FIFA ( The World football governing body) has already sold 630,021 ticket to 188 countries ready to enjoy the world's most glamouring event taking place from june 9th, 2010.

SIKU YA WANAWAKE DUNIANI

The struggle for gender equality still lingers on, though I am pessimistic of the progress!!!

Here are my worries:

1. In Tanzania,for every 4 among children below the age of 18, one is having a baby.
2. In urban families especially Dar Es Salaam, girls constitutes the majority number of housemaids most of them imported from the rural areas. There wages is disgrace, averaging 30,000/= ( $25 a month). Of late, the goverment has failed to enforce her own approved minimum wages for housemaids, i.e 85,000/= a month, ( $70)
3. 75% of women resides in rural areas where electricity supply is negligible. By average, only 11% of Tanzanian households enjoy this vital utility. This means a good number of these women including girls spend many hours fetching firewoods instead of studying.
4. Most of the enlightened section of women resides in urban settings, though they're busy running NGO's advocating gender equality, they fail to cover rural areas where majority of the vulnerable section of the population ( women) resides.

ciao.

BIBI BIBI BIBIIIIII!!!

BIBI HUYO, BIBI

BIBI HUYO, BIBI BIBI HUYO BIBI

RESPONSE TO THE PREVIOUS LOVE CHEATERS POST

Cheating only brings pain.There is no happiness in cheating, Looking at the kind of style that many young and old people live 2day. People have ignored the value of truth fullness and openness in a relationship.Cheating brings nothing other than pain and suffering in the long run.There is nothing that makes man/a woman happier than the fact of knowing that they are not being cheated on, It promotes a sense of confidence between a man & a woman. Its really bad to find out that the person you love is the very person who is cheating on you.People should open their eyes wide and realize that cheating brings pain nothing other than suffering, destruction and pain to the concerned individuals and the families with increase in AIDS cases. I think people should stop dreaming and start living . Anyone who cheats should know that they only have one life to live and once you mess it up, its gone for good. One will be Kissing his/her future goodbye because there is nothing as horrible, as one dying of AIDS at a very tender age.To those who are being true to their partners, keep it up because there is reward for you at end.

Says Grace

WALOKOLE MNASEMAJE????

Are atheists and liberals smarter?

4. March 2010 by Leanne Larmondin, Religion News Service

Are people with high IQs more likely to be liberal, atheist and monogamous? They are, according to a recently published paper by Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In a controversial article in the March issue of the journal Social Psychology Quarterly, Kanazawa suggested that young adults with higher intelligence scores are more likely to say they do not attend religious services; they also identify themselves as liberal. His research is based on U.S. data that showed young adults who self-identify as “not at all religious” had an average IQ of 103, while those with an average IQ of 97 identified as “very religious.” Kanazawa, who called himself a libertarian and atheist, said there are evolutionary reasons for his findings. Smarter people, he argued, are more willing to adopt “evolutionarily novel” thinking and values.

Humans, he said, are naturally designed to be conservative and put a high value on family and friends. So, Kanazawa wrote, “What is conservative in the U.S. — caring about your family and your friends and your kin — is sort of evolutionarily familiar.”

By contrast, caring about unrelated strangers (what Kanazawa calls liberalism) is “evolutionarily novel,” as is thinking rationally about natural phenomena, like drought and pestilence, rather than seeking supernatural intentions behind such disasters. Belief in God comes out of paranoia, he said. Hunter/gatherers needed a supernatural explanation for natural phenomena, like lightning, drought and pestilence. “Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid,” said Kanazawa. “So, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to go against their natural evolutionary tendency to believe in God, and they become atheists.” The study also found that men with higher IQs tended to be monogamous. Since it was released, Kanazawa’s research has been criticized for his use of IQ scores as a measure of intellect and for his limited sample of American young adults who self identified as liberal or conservative and “very religious” or “not at all religious.”

Pengo kati ya walionacho na wasionacho ukizidi ni kama vile petroli kumwagia ndani ya nyumba,mlipuko ni lazima, ( julius Nyerere)

LEO NI SIKU YA MAZINGIRA AFRIKA

kata mti panda miti. Wanasayansi wanatabiri kwamba ukataji wa miti ( deforestation) utapunguza uzalishaji wa chakula kwa asilimia 50% ifikapo 2020.

unyevenyevu( moisture) unaotoka kwenye miti na kuelekea angani ( atmosphere) utusababishia mvua, ambayo unyeshea mazao yetu ya chakula na biashara.

LOVE CHEAT MEN HAVE LOWER IQs

Deceitful and despicable is one description that wronged wives could apply to their cheating husbands. Plain stupid is another. For scientists have concluded that men who sleep around are likely to have lower IQs. It is a finding likely to prove of interest to Cheryl Cole as she contemplates her errant partner Ashley's unfaithful ways.

Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist from the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the smarter a man is, the less likely he is to cheat on his partner. His theory is based on the assertion that through evolutionary history, men have always been 'mildly polygamous'. That has changed today, however, and Dr Kanazawa explained that entering a sexually exclusive relationship is an 'evolutionarily novel' development for them.

According to his theory, intelligent people are more likely to adopt what in evolutionary terms are new practices - to become 'more evolved'. Therefore, in the case of fidelity, men who cannot adapt and end up succumbing to temptation and cheating are likely to be more stupid. 'The theory predicts that more intelligent men are more likely to value sexual exclusivity than less intelligent men,' he explained.

According to his theory, the link between fidelity and intelligence does not apply to women because they have always been expected to be faithful to one mate - even in polygamous societies.

8.4 Million Tanzanians Skip Meals daily

Some 8.4 million Tanzanians skip meals daily to cope with biting economic hardships, according to findings of a new survey.

The social, political and Economic Barometer ( SPEC) indicates that 17.2 million people have also drastically reduced expenditure on essential

households items in response to spiralling prices of basic commodities.

The findings were released yesterday at news conference in Dar Es Salaam by media group named Synovate Tanzania ( formerly Steadman Group) to determine the levels and standards of living among Tanzanians.

As 'elite' comes up with this alarming statistics, the reality reveals a different picture and only if our world could be a little bit flatter the situation could be colorful. The recent reports show that at Rukwa region peasants are desperate seeking a permission from the goverment to be allowed to offload extra tons of maize produce to neighbouring Zambia. Apparantely, folks at Musoma district survives on bushy mangoes.