Mauri Yambo

One Hundred Open Access Journals for Facilitators and Learners

2009-11-12T14:42:00.004+03:00

A good number of online journals are available for facilitators and learners of different kinds.

One useful list of such journals is provided in the link below.

Click here to get >>> The Journal Links

Kenya: The Shamba System and Deforestation

2009-10-19T10:10:00.017+03:00

In a column published in Kenya's Daily Nation of September 18th, 2009, Dagi Kimani staunchly defends the shamba system, long practised in Kenya, against the call for its abolition by the likes of Wangari Mathai and Kenya's PM, Raila Odinga. He rejects the notion that it is a factor in the country's loss of forest cover. However, his minority view does not stop the truth (the weight of evidence) from being true (that is, from pointing to its incontrovertibility and many-sidedness).

Kimani acknowledges that his stand on the shamba system is not based on "any particularly wide experience in conservation or education in environmental matters, but on the fact that [he] was born and brought up in Lari constituency, a third of which is under forests where the "shamba system" was successfully practised until the mid-1990s."

In his view, the shamba system is simply "an arrangement where farmers are allowed to farm on government forest-land for a period of up to three years after commercial timber plantations have been harvested."

He elaborates:

"THE HARVESTING IS DONE AFTER THE trees have matured and can produce good timber and other products. This phase, in which all trees are cut down leaving bare ground, is called "clear-felling". Clear-felling only applies to plantations of exotic tree species, such as cypress and pine. In Lari, which, on the Nairobi-Naivasha Highway, stretches from the Uplands junction to a kilometre short of Fly-over, travellers can see examples of these plantations, with rows and rows of trees planted just like any other crop.

The shamba system was designed to allow farmers to benefit from the fertile soils just harvested of trees. But this was not exactly charitable. About two years after the farmers were allowed into the forest-land, government workers would replant the land with rows and rows of pine or cypress.

It was a neat trick. As the farmers weeded their crops growing alongside the young tree seedlings, they would, in effect, ensure that the latter were not choked by vines and fast-growing weeds. This, in effect, saved the forest department from the need to hire thousands of workers to tend to the young trees. In the third year after the young trees had become sturdy, the forester would relocate the farmers to a new clear-felled ground, and the cycle would go on.

Contrary to Prof Maathai's assertion, the shamba system was never designed for areas that carry indigenous plantations...In Lari, when the law worked in the 1970s and 1980s, the only indigenous trees that one was allowed to harvest from time to time were fallen bamboo, and this very sparingly under the watchful eye of the forester..."

[Read more]

Like Kimani, Peter Oduol sees considerable merit in the shamba system, arguing that:

The Shamba system, a form of Taungya where agricultural crops are grown together with forest tree species, has been quite widespread in the high-potential areas of Kenya since the early 1900s, and still is very popular. When properly practiced, the system allows sustained, optimum production of food crops along with forestry species from the same land and thus meets most of the social and economic needs of the shamba farmer.

The weight of available evidence suggests that this spirited defence of the shamba system is too narrowly cast -- Kimani on his neighbourhood in Lari (which allegedly never had a natural forest cover) and Oduol on the economic benefits of the commons to those who "plunder" it for their particular gain. In effect, both are in denial vis-a-vis the accelerating, across-the-country depletion of natural forest cover that is evident all around for any unbiased eye, and mind, to see.

A report of the African Conservation Foundation, though mild in its own assessment of the deleterious effects of the shamba system on natural forest cover, nonetheless captures, non-commitally, the essential and powerful evidence against the shamba system:

"The shamba system failed in some places because the Forestry Department had no staff to supervise the protection of the young plantations after retrenching most of the forest guards and phasing out the cadre of staff referred to during the colonial era as patrol men...

By the late 1980s, conservationists had started raising the red flag on the system's failure as signs that the scheme was being mismanaged and abused begun to emerge...

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) was the first government organisation to criticise the system following its restoration by Presidential Decree in 1993 with claims that 19 per cent of natural forests had been encroached upon by the shamba system.

For instance, KWS argued that the shamba owners had secretly extended their boundaries to the Naro Moru Gate of Mt Kenya National Park, and that the remaining forests were being subjected to extreme pressure from squatters, who were felling more trees, and burning indigenous forest areas for cultivation.

Later, KWS was to expose an even more flagrant abuse of the system when its surveys indicated that 143 plantations, of approximately 200 hectares along Ruguti and Thuchi rivers, had been planted with the lucrative, but illegal marijuana instead of trees...

In 2004, the Government decided to stop the system and gave all the cultivators notice to vacate the forests by March the same year."

[Read more]

It Was Morning Again: Haiku

2009-10-19T09:26:00.003+03:00

I walked in shallow
Thought. ’Twas morning in Chin Ya –
Rain and fire crack.

[Nairobi: Jan 16 & Jan 22, 2005]

October Rain in Gaia

2009-10-16T09:53:00.011+03:00

["My mother is a fish" ~ J. Steinbeck]

Cold wind plows the ether, and plows there, gathering clouds in uneven, woebegone 'debts'.

Still, a felt frontal temp 'trop'.

Imagine, then, in that troopin townward, a bloody nuclear 'winder' & else that, let us further imagine, goes with it. How cataclysmic it would have been back in the day; how, lest we forget what aint there (really) to remember, it would in its fullness, in a refreshed nightmare scenario, p.

And still, an October rain.
A passionate embrace of liquid presence like no other we want to remember just now.

This passion which is like no other.
This presence which is like no other.

We don't want to remember any another just now.

And we don't want to remember the 'trout' except by a flick --
of the imagination.

Flickerer's closer to his mother than she thinks.

Monday Morning Questions of the Quarterback

2009-10-12T12:55:00.005+03:00

What did they know that I, Quarterback, didn't?
What did I know, so that they didn't:
-- Didn't know, nor know that they didn't,
-- Didn't know that I knew,
-- Didn't have to know, nor have to have,
-- Didn't have to tell me save that they knew not (save that I knew) what I did know?
What difference will all that make now, in that in which it makes no difference,
And in that in which it makes?
What questions will they not ask that I myself have?
And that I myself dare not ask?
And not not ask?
And that I myself will not answer?
And not not answer?

Wilderbeest's Theorem

2009-10-08T16:28:00.010+03:00

1. "If you don't follow the crowd, you will not survive, as you will perish," says the wilderbeest, who invests in The Crowd, the one and only.
2. "To succeed, don't follow the crowd," proclaims the Investment Guru, whose wisdom lumpsum, high-net-worth, individuals swear by [Read more].
3. "When we, all, stop following the crowd, we still will," muses the wilderbeest.
4. Fair point, though, is that, typically, not all will not follow. Wilderbeest will acknowledge that, for sure.
5. Moral of the story, then? Never follow and never not follow the crowd on an impulse -- injudiciously; which is something else that's more important that Bill Bartman's trying to say here with his four rules, and in particular with his notion of the "instrument rated" pilot.

CSO 302: Qualitative Research Methods -- CAT

2009-10-05T16:41:00.018+03:00

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

COURSE: CSO 302: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

SEMESTER: September-December 2009 [Module II]

CAT QUESTIONS [Released: 3.00 pm, 5th October 2009]

ANSWER ANY TWO QUESTIONS
1. Critically discuss the nine rules of Sociological method suggested by Giddens, highlighting what you consider to be the value that they add to the practice of qualitative sociological research in Africa to-day.

2. What is experimental research? Briefly discuss what you consider to be three of the most promising experimental designs for qualitative research in Sociology, and explain why you think so.

3. Briefly discuss the following pairs of terms, showing the main features of each term and how the terms in a pair resemble or differ from each other:
a) Hermeneutic Circle and Hermeneutic Interpretation
b) Content Analysis and Literature Review
c) Naturalistic Observation and Surveillance.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: Saturday 24th October 2009, strictly from 11.00–12.00noon only.

NOTE:1. I prefer typed answers. Expected length of each CAT submission: 6 to 10 typed, double-spaced pages only
2. Additional marks will be awarded for answers which display originality of thought, as well as critical thinking. Marks will be deducted for Xeroxing published or other works, and for lack of seriousness (i.e. for sketchy, “bulletized” and/ regurgitated answers)
3. Your answer should clearly demonstrate, through citations, that you have engaged in noteworthy library reading for this CAT.

Deforestation Threatens the Family Tree

2009-10-01T09:50:00.010+03:00

1. What is deforestation? Read Here
2. Deforestation compromises livelihoods: Read More
3. Deforestation drains water resources: Read More
4. Deforestation is a threat to human life: Click here to read -->> (a) and (b)

Surrealist Mindgames & Else: This U Gotta C

2009-09-25T11:06:00.006+03:00

This surrealist Phenomenology of Mind isn't what GWF Hegel had in mind, is it? No, it's not. This sort of mindgame is another kettle of fish altogether; or shall I say, fis?

Click here to see what I mean. What the mind, a charged mind, and a camera can do. What can such a player play?

Isn't that a feast. A fistful of something or other, which (let's look at it one more time with our bearings just right, & eyes & minds wide open) let's see & locate!

Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber: Links To Online Resources

2009-09-24T14:51:00.018+03:00

[This 'SOCIAL THEORY' Blog Post will be updated periodically]

KARL MARX
1. Brittanica's Brief Discussion of His Life and Works
2. Quotes From Karl Marx
3. Marx: Key Concepts, Ideas and Elements of Theory
4. Important Links to Texts by Marx and Engels
5. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The Communist Manifesto
6. The MarX-Files (a Virtual Library)

EMILE DURKHEIM:
1. Emile Durkheim, a Biographic Note (From G. Marshall's Dictionary of Sociology)

MAX WEBER
1. Moriyuki Abukuma's Weber Texts
2. Weber's Fundamental Concepts of Sociology (From University of Chicago)

Place of Distance: Haiku

2009-09-22T10:14:00.003+03:00

Abode of farthings.
Place/play of distant places.
Dismassiveterrit.

Before You Know It, a Century's Gone By

2009-09-07T10:53:00.003+03:00

Before you know it, a century's gone by. Then another. Then all you can talk of is a distant place (this here) and another Time altogether, with which you are only in the slightest connected. Of people who, though quite who we are, we're quite, quite unlike. And so Time flies. In the main, though the emotions of roots and certainties of history remain, we're soon not really connected to any person we truly and personally know there, in the bygone Time.

Six September Tweets

2009-09-03T17:43:00.008+03:00

Here are six tweets that I posted on my Twitter page today. Thought I should share them (the latest appears as 6, and so on):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

6. Show me again my house of cards of yesterday, now that I'm older & wiser & dream-strapped & else. Don it dull in de memories? #MicroFiction

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5. If this be September, thusly, how was my August house, sans down feathers & fluffy memories, Tinende? #MicroFiction #Writing #Nairobi #Kenya

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4. The #Toyota Model #NDAH has a letter missing E-NDAH. Enda! Naenda. [Or was that NOAH I misread, in the haze of midday traffic? (update Aug 4)]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3. A conspiracy of winds & tremors & else, here 'n there, heralds jst what the weatherman's promised, seems 2 me. #MicroFiction #Weather #World

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. Choice unbrella's out, in Iborian, the day being what it chooses 2 B. Against my wish? Nope!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. A coooold #Nairobi! C &, to boot, W! Did we perhaps forget to turn the September page? #ElNino

Are You on Twitter? Then try Social Oomph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kenya: Raila's Stunning Victory in the Bomachoge and Shinyalu By-Elections

2009-08-28T16:50:00.011+03:00

Congratulations to PM Raila Amolo Odinga are in order, after his stunning, almost single-handed, victory in the Bomachoge and Shinyalu Parliamentary by-elections.

I think the nation will allow him to crow and thump his chest for a while. I suspect that in Nyanza lots of tongues are wagging with, at their tips, the nickname Agwambo. I susect that at State House President Kibaki and his kitchen cabinet are, instead, tongue-tied; nay, dumbfounded. VP Kalonzo must be lost for words too. I myself am amazed at Raila's nine lives; at his escape-artistry.

While this victory doesn't change/amend Raila's flawed inner, "private" character (which is what I suspect riles Ruto & else and everyone that doesn't fit into Raila's idea of his own future), it is nevertheless integral to his enduring and deepening public persona. The man is in our face, whichever way we turn -- and very much a part of what Kenya really is today -- warts and all. Kenya and Raila are, in our time (which is the only time we have), inextricable. This is an effect you cannot, honestly, ascribe Kibaki, who increasingly belongs in the past, or Kalonzo. There's a qualitative difference here -- whatever your ethnic background. Right?

All this is said against the background (which, indeed, reinforces it) of the recently widespread, and even believable, predictions of the political doom and gloom that awaited Raila post the just concluded by-elections. He was in recent days constantly attacked and ganged-up on by all and sundry -- Ruto, Moi, Jirongo, Livondo & else (na wengineo). It did not seem that there was a way he could get out of all that quagmire unscathed. The man seemed cornered.

Political (and military) campaigns are all about victory. Victory has a great and convergent effect, all in all. It converts non-believers into believers, ardent or passive or reluctant; and the greater and more consequential the victory, the greater the effect.

Raila is the victor now, nationally; though no one really knows about tomorrow. His party, ODM, wasn't even the incumbent in Bomachoge, Kibaki's PNU was, via Nyachae's Ford-People! The man seems unstoppable right now. I think the better word is: He seems so inevitable. As the saying goes, however, a week in politics is an eternity.

As we look forward to the 2012 elections, is it safe to say the following (Ruto and The Hague always being the wild cards): that as things stand now Raila will still sweep Nyanza and Western Provinces (whichever ways they are split before 2012); that those two provinces will be massive anchors for his fight for the hearts and minds of Nairobi voters, who in any case have generally tended to lean his way; that he will get far better than 25% (and enough) of Rift Valley votes (remember that his camp also won the last two by-elections in the Rift Valley, despite Ruto's nonchalance); and that Coast and North Eastern votes are his for the taking? And Central Province? Isn't he day-dreaming if he continues to harbour thoughts of winning it -- or even faring decently there? I'll leave most of Eastern Province to "native son" Kalonzo.

Having said all that, who our next President will be in 2012 remains a twenty billion shilling question; for 2012 remains eternities away.

Kenya: Going Home Early Today To Be Counted

2009-08-24T12:05:00.007+03:00

It's national census day in Kenya today. And I'm going home early to be counted. Me and my family. We will answer all the questions: including the vexed one of ethnic background -- still called tribe in official circles here.

We are all proud of our ethnic diversity, I believe -- even as we try to build a larger country, Kenya. We shouldn't be afraid of what the politicians might do with the numbers that come up. They cannot do any worse than they already have. And I suspect some are pertified of the figures that will come out -- as petrified as they were ten years ago (and, even more so, twenty years ago). Remember, the census figures of 1999 were never fully released. The 1989 figures were doctored, as many people in the know claimed to know. And whose respective dockets were those then, pray tell? Hypocrisy -- hypocrisy -- is the name of the game for the politicians. But it shouldn't appear to be sonfor ordinary citizens, or for the leaderships of our civil society. Hypocrisy and contradition. The 2009 figures might not be fully released either -- till after the 2012 elections.

I can think of several ways in which the new census numbers that will come will represent an opportunity we can creatively leverage for a stronger, more prosperous, more assertive, more changeful Kenya; a Kenya more attuned to and more ready for critical mass of all sorts. For one, the new numbers are certain to sharpen the equity debate across the country -- and that will be a good thing. Emergent changes in the social structure will be more sharply in focus. There will be new narratives about the nation's changing use of technology, about its innovativeness, about its world of work -- and, mor broadly, about changes in its culture. Much more will be known about the evolution of our physical, technical and intellectual assets at the household level, across different strata or segments of our changing social structure. A clearer picture should emerge about the distribution of absolute and relative poverty across the country. And likewise about the consumerist middle class.

In one of this morning's daily papers it was boldly estimated that we Kenyans now number 40 million. So be it! A watershed of sorts this. Worth taking a note of. And I can't deny I was abstractly sort of pleased by the numbers!

Heir to Dead Trees: Haiku

2009-08-15T10:28:00.003+03:00

Give me green. Eri!
Didn't want it t'be fantasy.
I'm air! To dead trees!

Mirror: Haiku

2009-08-15T10:18:00.004+03:00

In your eyes, Is less.
Sadly, ice only you man!
Keen, dry leaves. Air bound.

[For Kimani Maruge (global pupil), d. 14 Aug 09. Nairobi]

Bodiseye: Haiku

2009-08-10T09:40:00.004+03:00

Eye. Very same storm.
Sea! How I enter myself.
How -- I undo tins.

Other Hand of the Father: Haiku

2009-08-04T14:49:00.005+03:00

Distant gaze. Red timbre.
Ballots of revolution.
Weche Milosee.

Birth of Totality: Haiku

2009-08-04T10:23:00.005+03:00

All the dead matter!
Reason we count as we do!
Shadows at noon tide!

Collage II: Haiku

2009-07-24T14:52:00.003+03:00

Levi-dead-in heart.
He chumped indo de coal tay.
Taniel afta rim!

Collage I: Haiku

2009-07-24T10:04:00.003+03:00

Oben! Sisemi.
Upon a cream, tenderness.
All that rouge, aha!

Kenya: The Tug of Cremation and Tradition

2009-07-21T10:06:00.022+03:00

"Dust to dust, ash to ash"!

No burial tug-of-war ever gripped the attention and imagination of both men and women in Kenya than that of S.M. Otieno -- a prominent Luo lawyer long married to Wamboi, a Kikuyu -- some twenty three years ago (in December 1986). In some ways, it in fact drew worldwide attention, particularly among feminist and gender advocacy groups.

With the recent passing of Mr. Joshua Okuthe -- a well-known sports personality in Kenya, a former national athlete and a member of the same Umira-Kager clan of Ugenya and Alego that, after a long court battle successfully fought, buried S.M. Otieno according to its wishes and against those of his wife -- the far-less emotive, intra-ethnic controversy was now not about where to bury the dead one, but whether to cremate or bury his remains.

Okuthe's first wife insisted on cremation, arguing that that was his own wish. His second wife, and his clan, sought to bury him in Muhoroni, in the lake region. The first wife pulled a fast one on the rest and had him cremated in Nairobi under the clan's very nose and before a court injunction could have effect. This left the clan with no option but to ritually bury the idea of his body in an empty coffin. It proceeded to do just that, in a low-key and partially televised ceremony at Okuthe's modern-rural home in Muhoroni.

I suspect that an appropriate portion of Yago, the funerary tree of Luo tradition, took the place of the absent, nowhere-to-be-found, body in that bewildering coffin. This is a practice which Luo mourners have typically resorted to when the body is lost and is nowhere to be found despite a decent period of search and waiting and when all sorts of other protocols have been duly observed. So there are really never empty coffins there, and no hollow burials.

Philip Ochieng, the renowned columnist, whose writing I much admire, suggests (I think he thinks that he argues rather than suggests) that cremation was very much a Luo tradition, which they lost (and have forgotten all about) when their paths and those of the Baganda -- who (and whose 'country') bear the names that they gave them, and who have kings because they gave them a kingship though they themselves had nonesuch -- crossed and for a while merged, some centuries ago. For him, the evidence of a cremating past is in the persisting and highly charged practice of "Tero Buru" (Dispatching of the Ashes), which brings to an end, several days after the actual lowering of the departed's body into a defined grave, the series of burial rituals for the community's dead prominents. To Ochieng, "Buru" refers to real (but now only imagined) ashes of the departed. You get "Buru" only whey you burn and burn to the core, and in this case when you cremate. Read more.

I think that Ochieng's conjecture stands on very thin ground, though I have never really tried to unravel the symbolism of "Tero Buru" -- or the genesis of Oburu. In fact, I have never paid it much attention, beyond its momentary theatricality -- which is perhaps monumental on occasion, and which is infrequently shown on local television.

There is just so much historical narrative and folklore -- compounded by a long-running, deeply ingrained and 'living' system of norms and values -- that leaves one with the suspicion and even conviction that the actual burial of ringre (Flesh of the Departed, who is Elsewhere) was the common mode of practice long ago in Sudan*, and long before contact with the Baganda was made -- a practice which only continued, unabated, after that greatly consequential symbiosis was overshadowed by the further, single-minded, movement into present-day Kenya. This view seems to be reinforced by, as I am able to tell, the persisting burial practices of other Luo groups -- who remained and remain in the Sudan, Ethiopia and the DRC, and who did not experience that passionate politico-cultural embrace between the Jok'Owiny and the Baganda.

______________________________________________
*Sudan: That land of countless pyramids, more numerous than in all of Egypt. Pyramids, which symbolize not the practice of cremation but the very idea of creation, and of the everlastingness of the body (and hence of the life hereafter).

A Mid-Season's Day: Haiku

2009-07-16T11:14:00.005+03:00

A cold, austere morn.
Petal, spent, on polished floor.
Birds. Of a sometime.

Ati What You Don't Know About M-PESA!

2009-07-15T11:36:00.005+03:00

An article published at the CGAP website (click here to read) appears to want to credit the success of Safaricom's M-Pesa entirely to the ingenuity of a consulting group based in the UK, and almost none to the role that Safaricom played, and clearly none to the communicative habits and inclinations of millions ordinary Kenyans who have made M-Pesa a household label worldwide, and potentially a global brand.

I have posted a comment at the CGAP website which reads as follows:

Your saying that "Safaricom was not heavily involved in the [M-pesa]pilot" -- when, clearly, the pilot would never have been possible without Safaricom's network [of technology and people (ordinary Kenyans)] -- reminds me of a Tweet some 2-3 months ago which claimed that M-pesa's success was (solely?) thanks to a grant of some 2 million British Pounds from DFID. How many DFID grants have gone down the drain?

That particular grant would have had no effect were Safaricom not already succeeding on the ground with its mobile phone service. And Safaricom would not have been succeeding already were it not for millions of Kenyans who took to it as the answer to the technical and bureaucratic tyranny of the then fixed-line, monopoly operator.

To me, the most important passage in the above narrative is this:"Furthermore, the design of the application interface and entire system underwent several iterations. It began as a tool for the repayment of MFI loans. It was launched as a P2P transfer service. Such changes were made because the pilot team did their research, and closely monitored usage patterns. Their findings in the field were then fed back into the design of the application." That passage underscores the rather obvious fact that the M-pesa service as rolled out reflects ordinary ("unbanked") Kenyans' expressed preferences in the use of mobile telephony -- not to pay debts but to meet social capital obligations and other reciprocal duties and responsibilities.

Ordinary Kenyans were an integral partner in the initial success of M-pesa, and cotinue to power its growth. Some credit to them, please.

I invite any and all comments from you