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LONG READ: The YALI Experience in 3,200 Words

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There are lessons you are inadvertently taught when you are a 35-year-old being forced to sit in the same class with an 18-year-old. Imagine someone who is half your age, with less of life experiences sitting by your side, being taught the things you should have learned eighteen years ago. You feel a little jealous that you were not told these things early enough; that some people are just lucky. But you also feel hopeful that a young generation is being made to learn about better ideals of leadership, and what a good society should look like. It is also somewhat shameful that you haven’t really done a lot to ‘change lives’, and in a country with a life expectancy of 61 years such as Kenya, you take a silent vow – the things you tell your heart and your mind and your conscience— to use the remaining part of your life to change the world. Your world. But when you sit in that class with an open mind, to learn not just from the lecturers but also from your colleagues, both the one
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Four things Kenya’s ex-CJ Willy Mutunga told the BBC about Kenya’s politics

Kenya’s former Chief Justice, Dr Willy Mutunga is one of those guys you can listen to for a long time without getting bored – that is, if you like those debates about Kenya’s struggle for democracy, political freedoms, and if you want to make sense of the political razzmatazz. He has been there, done that.  And when he came out on the other side, he concluded that Kenya is a bandit economy . That view hasn’t really changed, and he still thinks the country’s elite is playing a “very very dangerous game”. He actually says that Kenyan leaders are captives of imperialist and neoliberal forces. Four things Kenya’s ex-CJ told the BBC about Kenya’s politics      1)    It is a 'class problem' ‘We are in an environment of gossip, fake news, great great polarization that I have avoided being partisan about these issues. The position that I have taken very clearly and publicly myself is that, I blame the Kenyan elite, and I don’t buy the argument that either of the fact
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Book Review: Dance of the Jakaranda

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When you see the ‘k’ in Jakaranda, you really want to correct it. Who writes ‘Jacaranda’ that way? Well, Peter Kimani does, and it is the name he chose for his fictional nightclub. (Ha! Had to spoil it for you this early! Perhaps I should not have mentioned that. Sorry Peter, and Bola, I just couldn’t resist!). The book is not about dancing. Yes, there’s plenty of that vividly described, you can feel the party mood, smell the sweat of the revellers, the aroma of the nyamachoma and even the stench of the urinal, and trigger whatever sense is triggered when you see, smell, and drink alcohol. The reason I loved the book, is the meticulous research that went into it. All great works of historical fiction need thorough research. In Kenya, with the political identities defined or determined by ethnic identities, and the question of identity being pretty much the determinant of everything in an individual’s life, more so in political participation and public service, such re
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