of single women and online dating

*taking deep breath*

Okay, here goes. My online dating experience.

Once upon a time, in my mid thirties, which can be a desperate time for a single gal, I logged on to an online dating site. After setting up a profile and checking out a few, I found myself chatting to this guy who I seemed to connect with and lo and behold he went to my church! Well, after getting over that surprise and thinking maybe God is in this after all, I set up a meeting with him. We exchanged facebook contacts and I was able to see a picture of him finally, and the same for him, since none of us had put up profile pictures on the dating site. This is Nairobi y’all, its a pretty small place and everyone knows everyone. I’m a very private person so I was not about to put my face out there for people to see. In fact I doubt that very much online dating goes on here and I don’t think that dating site exists anymore.

Anyway, long story short, from the moment I saw the guy’s picture I was not attracted to him at all! But since I had already given him my phone number and we had agreed on the date and all, I ended up going anyway. Besides which if I was serious about finding a husband shouldn’t I be less judgemental and aren’t these the risks I needed to take? So on set date, I made my way to the place and spent a couple of hours with the guy. Meeting him in person did not increase my attraction to him at all, but he seemed to really take to me. What to do? And he had my phone number and everything. I ended up going on one more date with him before I had to do the dirty deed of ghosting him and disappearing from his life.

That was my first and last experimentation with online dating. It scares me now to think how desperate I had become that I literally put my life in danger, going to meet some stranger I didn’t even know. I thank God that He was watching out for me and the guy turned out to be who he actually said he was, because when people chat with you online they can make up any kind of story.

A few years later the guy got married. I saw his wedding announcement in the church bulletin and ran into him after the service and said hi and he introduced me to his fiancé. I didn’t ask how he met her but I’m quite sure it was not online.

After this experience and a few other doomed ones that I may one day write about, my position on relationships now is that God will bring someone into your life and you just need faith and patience. I also refer you to this article by Vanity Fair magazine written in 2015 where they describe apps like Tinder to be the apocalypse of dating. I definitely agree with that article and whenever I see people writing their blogs about how they’re online dating, with their little plan of how they’ll date a certain number of people, use a certain kind of formula and voilà they’ll find a husband or wife, I shake my head knowing I’ve been there done that and hope that they get through their experiment unscathed. I mean sure every now and then you hear a success story from these sites, but I’m convinced this is the exception rather than the rule. And for every one success story there are probably hundreds of horror stories.

I’m now a rested woman and waiting on God and wish for everyone out there the same peace and confidence.

New King James Version Psalm 27:13-14 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!

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on having zero friends

I don’t actually have zero friends but I got the idea to write this post after reading this blog post by a lady who after moving to a foreign country found herself without friends. After suffering through the loneliness for about 3 years now, she has come to appreciate what the situation has developed in her character.

The post struck a chord in me because I’ve been going through a similar phase in my life where I have found myself in a situation where I seem to have dropped most if not all of my friends. It made me feel not alone in this situation. Initially I was a bit worried at my situation thinking that surely one cannot live this way and must stay in contact with people. In fact, I did maintain contact with a few but I found it to really be draining my energy as I was going through a tough time in my life where I needed to stay focused on myself.

Through a series of events I eventually came to the point where I realized it was doing me no good and I slowly cut off all contact with them and now I’m pretty much in a friendless state. It gets lonely but I feel so in touch with myself and able to decide in a clear way the things I need to do for myself without all the chatter one gets from friends and family. Not to mention I don’t miss the gossip sessions that coffee dates with friends inevitably degenerate into.

The writer of the article sounds like she would really be interested in making friends and is hoping this is just a temporary phase. I am quite the opposite and feel very comfortable where I am and that this is where I need to be right now. I did turn 42 this year so I don’t know if this is mid life crisis, maybe it is. I don’t think its a permanent state, I probably may eventually reconnect with some old friends, or more likely make some new friends that match my current phase and state of mind in life.

This Joel Osteen sermon on how we shouldn’t rely on people is my current mantra in life.

Book review: When God winks on love

I absolutely love this book, its chicken soup for my soul so to speak. The author, Squire Rushnell, has a whole series of these books that concentrate on coincidences in our life which he says do not happen by accident but are orchestrated by God, thus Godwinks.

This one on love has absolutely heartwarming stories on how people from all walks of life found love in their life by “coincidence” including the author himself who found his happily ever after having gone through 2 divorces. Its an uplifting book and an easy read because its a series of short stories as opposed to one long novel. So if you’re looking for some light reading, this is the book for you.

RETURN TO EDEN: ‘Agrihoods’ Provide Suburban Living Built Around Community Farms – Not Golf Courses

Would love to see a development like this in Nairobi, we have way too many golf course developments going on.

RIELPOLITIK

Source – collective-evolution.com

– California’s first farm-to-table new home community just opened. Called “The Cannery,” it’s a residential project designed and put together by The New Home Company. Designed with a seven acre urban farm near the center of downtown Davis, this 100 acre project is considered to be the very first agrihood built on what used to be industrial land.

The community is also home to 547 houses, all of which are energy efficient; each one is solar-powered and comes equipped with electrical car power outlets.

This is great, initiatives like these need to start happening all over the world, and the fact that somebody has now done it shows the rest of the developed world that it’s possible. Instead of building normal residential communities, why not create something sustainable?

Earthships, tiny homes, weatherproof greenhouses, organic farming and more all seem to be part of a larger…

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Wedding song

Been absolutely loving this song by Alice Kimanzi celebrating marriage. I’m sure this one will be playing at all the weddings this year.

Waambie,mie, nimeshapatikana, sinitafute kule, kwa mabinti nishahama

(Tell them I have been found, don’t look for me at the single girl’s camp, I have moved!)

Book Review: The emancipation of Robert Sadler

This is an amazing book about a man born in 1911 in South Carolina. He was sold into slavery not once but twice, by his own father at the age of 5. This despite the fact that the emancipation proclamation had already been issued many years earlier (about 1862).

The book takes us through his experiences in slavery from the age of 5 till 14 when he escaped. Then on to his life as a free man. He struggles with freedom and at one point even decides to go back, finding the free world too difficult and unfamiliar to navigate. He eventually becomes a preacher and lives a life of great faith, helping others.

What I found so captivating about the book is how it tells the story of Robert and God throughout. The reader is able to see how, through people and events in his life, God was slowly drawing him, showing him he cared. And how these events eventually lead to Robert becoming a man of great faith.

The book is very well written and easy to read, I could barely put it down. This despite the fact that I was reading it for the second time. I first read it about 20 years ago, a borrowed copy from a friend. I was reminded of it after watching the movie Amazing Grace, which tells the story of how William Wilberforce struggled over many years to get the bill outlawing slavery passed in the British parliament. I googled the title online and was pleasantly surprised to find it available on Amazon.

It has some underlying analogies to real life, in areas where we have become so accustomed or enslaved to certain ways of living and thinking. Change is difficult and we find ourselves wanting to go back to what is familiar, even though it is not beneficial to us and we need to go forward to better things. Think about an employee trying to become an entrepreneur. Or the Israelites on their way to the promised land, who frequently complained about the new challenges they were encountering and wished to go back to Egypt, to the familiar. Freedom has a price.

All in all the book is a great read!

Kenya doctors strike: My view

Today (17 Feb 2017) is day 75 of the ongoing doctors strike that has caused mayhem and raised temperatures everywhere. I thought I’d give my 2 cents worth.

My first instinct is to support the doctors because the public health sector is in serious need of overhaul.  The doctors have complained of understaffed and under equipped hospitals leading them to simply ‘preside over death’ in their own words. In some cases basic supplies like gloves are not available, endangering the doctors and patients lives. Medicines are not available so patients have prescriptions they cannot fill, or they have to go to private pharmacies which they may not afford.

The doctors are demanding a pay increase which they say the government promised in their Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) signed in 2013. This increase has been reported to be as high as 300%  in the media. The government has offered a 40% increase and insists no CBA was ever signed and therefore this is not a legal document. The increment has been refused by the doctors. Resulting in a stalemate with the public caught in between. Are the doctors greedy or is the government unreasonable?

The negotiating process is made more complicated by the fact of devolution which has been implemented starting 2013 in accordance with the new constitution voted in 2010. So who are the negotiating parties? Doctors and county governments? Or doctors and the national government?

This strike has made me look up all kinds of articles on unions, governance, civil society,politics and power. There is no government (or any employer) that will just give its people some kind of benefit without them demanding it. Thus the necessity of the existence of unions and civil society organizations. Power cannot go unchecked otherwise it will go to all sorts of extremes. As the famous saying goes, power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. That’s why the executive always has to have checks on it’s power, mostly in form of the judiciary. But if the judiciary is compromised, it absconds this duty and starts behaving like an arm of the executive, enforcing its power against the hapless citizens.

When Judge Hellen of the labour court carried out her threat to jail the leaders of the doctors union, this is what it looked like to me. Fortunately enough everyone was horrified at this event which made its way into the international media. Ministry of Health officials relented, the decision was appealed at the Supreme court level and the union officials were released 2 days later. As it stands now the matter is in the Supreme court docket.

In retrospect I don’t fault her decision. She was acting in accordance with standard procedure that has been followed in these cases. We have seen this in cases of teachers union strikes and the ongoing lecturers strike. The governments MO is to take a hard stance, after a while salaries will not be paid, the strikers feel the pinch and eventually relent and go back to work with no or very little concession from the government.

My only prayer is that the public interest remains well represented so that at the end of this saga we don’t have well paid doctors going back to work in hospitals that are still not equipped to deliver the services required.

I must state that in this period my son fell sick at some point and being the middle class insured Kenyan that I am I was able to take him to a private hospital where he was promptly treated. So the people suffering in this whole scenario are poor Kenyans who compose a big section of the population. I pray for their sake,and mine also, that the resulting consensus provides a solution that will bring a much needed overhaul to the public health sector that will bring relief to all Kenyans.

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Day 88 – 2nd March 2017

A scheduled update was given today in the Supreme court following the last mention on 15th February. Still no consensus has been arrived at. The faith based organisations are now involved in the mediating effort (taking over from the KNHCR and LSK) through an inter religious body known as the Inter Religious Council of Kenya. The presiding Judge Martha caused laughter when she expressed her relief at the involvement of the church, saying this is a matter that requires divine intervention.

The parties have asked for 2 more days to enable them reach a consensus and a mention date has been set for next Tuesday (7th March). Once again there was an emphasis on the unresolved issues being salary and training for the doctors. Where is the public’s interest in all this?

See local media coverage on this here.

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Day 93 – 7th March 2017

Still no deal.There is a sense of exhaustion with the never ending process now. I did not see live coverage of the court proceedings as has happened before.

The inter religious council that was acting as mediator reported that the deal was 98% done and only one or two issues needed to be agreed on. Interestingly, this is the same thing the previous mediators had said. So they’re are some sticky issues that are apparently proving to be quite….sticky.

The government presents the issue to be all about the money but the doctors insist that its about more than that. The government has become increasingly hostile, accusing the doctors of taking them for fools. They have fired some doctors and threatened to replace them with foreigners.

I’m so disheartened to see how the negotiations have degenerated into power and ego plays, though I suppose that’s to be expected. What about the issue at hand, the health sector that needs reviving? There is of course a more over arching issue at hand which is what is more and more being described as a crisis of capitalism, described in this article here more eloquently than I ever could.

It reminds me of the famous illustration of wise King Solomon arbitrating between 2 women to decide who the child belonged to. He ordered that the child be killed so that the real mother could be revealed.

My fellow Kenyans, the child belongs to all of us and we need him/her to stay alive and grow for all our benefit. Let us come together and chart the best way forward for the good of all.

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14 March 2017

Today is day 100 of the strike and it looks like there is a deal. Finally. The speculation is that the government’s hand was forced since the president is due to give a state of the nation address tomorrow.