Andrea Bohnstedt
The Radical Notion That Women Are People
I am lucky: I have a lot of wonderful people in my life. Amongst them are my girlfriends. Most of them, all, I think, are professionals. Some of them mothers, but not all. This wasn’t a deliberate choice, but since I’m quite wrapped up in my work, I think it just so happened that most of my close women friends also fall into that category. Obviously I think they are great, because why would I be friends with them otherwise? They are smart, interesting, passionate about what they do, and fun to hang out with. And they are part of the web of support that helps keep me standing, and going,...
What Is Wrong With KPLC And MPs? A few weeks ago, I had asked the good people at the Star if I could please do my column fortnightly, partly because i have been incredibly busy with other work, and partly because it can be a bit of a drag to find something to write about every Friday. How much is there really to say? But duh: KPLC! An ever rich field for column treasure hunting. In fact, I suddenly began toying with the idea of a weekly KPLC monitor. I am beginning to develop a minor obsession with their Facebook feed. It is a curious mixture of the functional, that is, inviting feedback and comments on outages, and rather... |
Will The New Government Save Kenyans Any Money?A few years ago, I read Njenga Karume’s autobiography. He had worked with a proper writer, and I found the book quite a good read. Of course I thought there were many things that would have been worth investigating more closely, but it was an autobiography – by definition, this was Mr Karume’s version of history. Amongst the things that made me raise an eyebrow was an anecdote how he lobbied for one of his friends to be nominated MP. The intriguing thing was that he mentioned that his friend was illiterate. Now I appreciate a friend who has your back, but you’d think that being able to read... |
Vocational Training The Missing Middle?Like the rest of rest of Kenya, I kept twiddling my thumbs whilst waiting to hear about the cabinet appointments. By twiddling my thumbs, I mean working away quietly because not doing so will not feed the doglet and keep a roof over our heads. And by ‘rest of Kenya’, I mean all those working people, not those freshly elected representatives of the people who have mostly been throwing toys out of prams over flags and whinging and whining over their new salaries. I was particularly stunned by the argument that there would hardly be any cash left for them to live on once the deductions for car... |
Better Safe Than Sorry, The Poll Jitters Were Justified Did you ‘panic shop’ before the elections? I did. Not in a particularly panicky manner, mind you (I live in Westlands, and in the first weeks of 2008, if you weren’t watching or reading the news, and restricted your little rounds from my place to ABC, you could be forgiven for not knowing that there was a bit of a crisis in the country). Partly I did it because a generally sensible, grown-up friend had nudged me to do so, just in case. In the end, it actually turned out to be a sensible thing, mostly because I’m usually a bit more slapdash about grocery shopping and it actually saves you time... |
Oil Find Will Not Transform Lives In Turkana Overnight I’m a sucker for magazines (I’ve got a bit of a deal going on with the news agent at Westgate to set aside the Sunday Times for me every week. I pre-pay, too. I’m that desperate for some regular, old-school, properly produced weekend magazines with a minimum of how to get him to propose/raise your child/catch him cheating stories, inspirational columns, and no curved niches or gun-totting policemen ever). So I was quite excited to discover new Aeon Magazine ( www.aeonmagazine.com ), which looks very promising: the first two features I read, one by Chika Unigwe on the difficulties of migration... |
IEBC Systems Fail: Are We Still The Tech City?‘Thought you’re tech city?’, a West African friend wrote. ‘Yeah, so did I!’, I shrugged my shoulders. No brownie points for guessing that that this was in the post-election week as we watched the IEBC’s system wobble, wobble some more, and then fall over. That’s of course a bit unfair: after all, it was one institution that failed, not an entire sector – and the IEBC isn’t a tech firm to start with. But it was astonishing to behold. A case of Stockholm Syndrome, I felt. Everybody started out on a high, motivated and driven by incredible commitment to be part of the voting process. Eight hours... |
Kenya Is A Country Of Many OpportunitiesEven though I am an idle foreigner, I do often tell people that Kenya is probably the place to go in East Africa. Mind you, this is a general statement – if, say, you want to produce French-language school books for Rwanda, you might find it better to open a presence in Kigali than here. But generally, I say Kenya – and in particular Nairobi - is where it’s at. Yes, it is a corrupt place and the infrastructure is underwhelming and security is often a problem. Nairobi traffic makes me stabby, and the city is often just incredibly hard, draining work. But It’s also the region’s largest and most... |
Is This Kenya's Very Own 419 Scam?I’m a master procrastinator. Big fat deadline? Right, lemme sort out that kitchen drawer that has practically grown its own ecosystem for the past two or three years. Chopsticks – keep them or chuck them? Those sunglasses must be from my former housemate. And look, here’s the little thingie I inherited from my grandmother: a tiny pair of, what, pincers to pick up sugar cubes in an elegant and ladylike manner. It’s silver and old and pretty. In German, it’s called a Zuckerzange. Is there an English word for it? Also, I need to find the silver polish. Wait, where was I? Right, column. This week... |
Formal Education Is Not Automatically GoodAs an analyst, you’re ultimately measured by the reliability of your forecasts. The elections in 2007 were one of my biggest failures. I didn’t see the violence coming at all – and I wonder, in retrospect, if my perception of the run up to the elections had been tainted what I had wanted to see: Political maturity. A peaceful transition in power. A one-term president being ok with a one-term presidency. Right now, I’m torn: partly, I think, I want to know, that it cannot happen again. That it would be inconceivable. That nobody would put the country through such turmoil again. But then there’... |
Uhuru, Raila Took Us For A Ride In The Big Debate There was a lot that I found really positive and exciting about the recent presidential candidate debate. For starters, it was amazing that it happened in the first place, and that the major media houses pulled together. It was certainly impressive to see that presidential candidates could actually be civil to each other in front of the electorate rather than whipping ‘their people’ up against ‘certain communities’ who are out to finish them. And with a bit of insistence, you could actually get the odd reasonably focused response out of them. Overall, I thought the moderation was well done,... |
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Andrea Bohnstedt