Kenyan Pundit

This post at Cock and Bull Stories took me back to my Sandak days.

I was into Sandaks like a problem. Like Ken writes Sandaks made shoes affordable for the masses. Before Sandaks convincing your parents to shell out chums for non-essential shoes (i.e. either school shoes or the obligatory Sunday-best shoes) was a problem. Enter Sandaks and you could even get the same pair of shoes in different colors. Your feet burning in plastic and all be damned.

I managed to pull the coups of all coups by convincing my mum to buy me a pair of “top of the line” Sandaks for school. Big feat because Sandaks were “banned” in my primo. My classmates were uber-impressed. A few days later, I proceeded to lose one of the shoes in a river that bordered the school while playing a stupid game ati whose shoes can fly the furthest (story for another day). Without even blinking my mum made me go to school with one shoe the next day (ili iwe funzo).

So do you have any Sandak stories?

For the policy wonks, all you ever wanted to know about the 2006/2007 budget (includes links for non-wonks as well).

AOB: What kind of rubbish reporting is this? To think that the parliament press passes are wasted on these guys.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, this is a must read.

About this time last year, Live 8 was dominating the Kenyan and African blogosphere. One theme that emerged from the discussion was that while ranting and raving and making ourselves be heard was all well and good, it (blogoactivism?) doesn’t do much to address the realities and challenges of the continent.

Over the last few weeks, I think I’m beginning to see a pattern emerge as far as Afro-bloggers taking their ideas to the next level and it’s making me very happy. Tangent: It’s not an easy thing to do…I can’t even begin to tell you how many people have told me that Mzalendo will be a non-starter because Kenyans don’t care about what their politicians are up to…our philosophy, if we build it they will come. Tangent Over.

From Cheeseforge and Zangu News, to the budding idea of Sanaa. From recently launched Afrigadget and African Women Blogs aggregator to Kenyamoto. And from the tireless Africa and entrepreneurship promoter, Emeka (with others) DeniAfrica.

Keep up the good work and keep asking why not!

Inspired by Bankelele.

I’m a buy and hold kinda person and unfortunately when I was buying these stocks I was a broke-ass chick who had just discovered this thing could the stock market (nothing much has changed, I’m still broke-ass) and I couldn’t invest as much as I wanted other than this small ka-stash I’d managed to save. At the time everyone thought I was crazy to be buying stocks in Kenya. This was circa 1996-1997 when all indications were that the Kenyan economy was permanently destined for the toilet. Told y’all I am an optimist about the place

1. Kenya Breweries (bought at Kshs 50, when all else fails Kenyans will drink, this was the time when Castle was coming into Kenya big time and people thought it was over for KBL, my broker at the time tried to talk me out of this one…I asked him whether Coke collapsed just because Pepsi showed up…I had the last laugh on this one, especially after the stock split)

2. Kenya Airways (my last purchase at Kshs 7.00, it was the cheapest stock on the exchange and all I could afford)

3. B.A.T (bought at Kshs 45…what can I say, I believe in the power of vice)

4. Stanchart (bought at Kshs 55, I think)

5. Barclays (bought at Kshs 90 and Kshs 120, the most expensive share in my portfolio at the time…they give healthy dividend shares and I’ve been very happy with them since my shares have almost doubled without me doing a thing)

6. East African Portland Cement (used to be the dog in my portfolio for the longest time, I had wanted to buy it at Kshs 15, but my broker dilly-dallyed and I ended up buying at Kshs 22, I was so pissed off at him for buying at more than fifteen bob…but now that the price has hit kshs 122, I ain’t mad no more :-))

Shoulda bought KCB, was at 30 bob for the longest but you couldn’t convince me that the government influenced loans weren’t going to sink it…great comeback story.