Death by killer robot / urine

So a man in australia, using plans downloaded from the internet, built a killer robot, that he then programmed to shot him in the head. A novel way to commit suicide.

In my home town, there was Hugo, the last of a long line of Jewish watch-makers. Hugo was depressed. When you saw him on the street, he walked, stepping only among the shadows, and responded only to his surname.

One day Hugo went on a skiing weekend to Pamporovo (in Bulgaria) and never returned. The ski-lift, of Soviet design, broke a hinge and crashed into a crevasse carrying away Hugo, the last watch-maker’s son into its cold, swirling depths.

Hugo’s mansion was taken over by City Hall (no will, no known relatives). While arranging his meager items for auction, the bailiffs of the council discovered a giant, reeking vat in the cellar. Next to it were a calendar and a letter.

The letter was a suicide note dated well into the future. The calendar had numbers scribbled against each date, and a crude summation formula to estimate when the vat would become full (a watch-maker is always a man of precision).

The mysterious purpose of all this was soon clear. Everyday, Hugo peed into the vat. He intended to pee into the vat until it became full. On that momentous day he intended to dive into the vat, and drown in his own urine.

Thus, a badly assembled hinge made by a Gulag inmate in some desolate corner of the Soviet Union prevented the eventful demise of Hugo. A death, in the end, relegated to just a trivial ski accident.

Timing

In the context of this post:

Traveling from Westlands to City Centre

Mode of Transport	Time taken (in minutes)
Motorcycle	11 minutes
Matatu*	31 minutes
Car (4×4)**	44 minutes

* – includes waiting time, and walking time to/from matatu stage
** – includes time taken to find a parking slot
(I suspect a reasonably fit human on a bicycle can beat the timing of the matatu)

Coastal under-class

Met random fishermen in random villages along the coast. Average incomes are around 9,000 shillings a month (about $125) – for a family size of 2 adults and 3 children (second, third wive and their kids not included). About 50% of that income is spent on food purchases : rice, vegetables, meat. The biggest fishes are sold to middlemen and wholesalers, the fishermen consume the leftovers. Every member of the family works towards generating an income. Boats are rented from a few boat-lords.

I found a large, white, but now red and sun-burnt volunteer in one of these villages. “I love this place”, he said without enthusiasm [and without an exclamation mark in his tone ]. His blackberry phone had discharged, week long power outage. What was he doing here ? Some obscure plan to build latrines. When I asked the villagers about a toilet, I was directed towards a clump of bushes, which seemed pleasant enough. The half-constructed latrine was some distance away – the brittle concrete radiating heat , hordes of flies and the smell of fish-bait. What problem was this cement horror solving?

One of the most lucrative businesses here is that of a liquor store. Most are run by enterprising groups of women. In another village, named after grains of mineral-salt, I met an old woman, an important person, one of the eminent palm wine brewers of the area. Lots of drunken men lay in the shade of baobab, most in an incoherent state. The other profitable enterprise is also run by women – a kind of thread, woven out of the tail bones of a shark, used for making fish nets.

What do they all think of the elections ?
We didn’t vote, we don’t have ID cards.

Few have ID cards here (which explains the low numbers on voter rolls, despite high population). Getting one requires lining up in some foreign government office, scratching the right palms, and answering difficult questions : “Are you really a Kenyan…?”, “Are you a muslim?”. Its just easier not getting an ID card – what would you use it here for anyway ?

Everybody knows, everyone else. Moreover, they see little reason to vote.
(One wonders, does an ID card serve any real purpose, apart from being a way of identifying someone negatively ? Clearly the history of this ID-card is rooted in colonial controls)

Borrowing and lending is via a local money-lender / pawn-broker who mortgages cash at atrocious interest rates, but users of his services are rare – for there isn’t much worth mortgaging. He showed me some of the abject pawned items: an ancient radio set, a silver bangle, a clock (one of those winding varieties, what use is a clock here anyway?).

It feels far away and remote, not for its distance, but because of the way the people ask with wonder about a remote and mythical place called Nairobi.

Cleansing

It seems very odd to me that every Kikuyu I meet in Muranga expresses revulsion and self righteous indignation that their “kikuyu race” is being slowly but surely exterminated by a gang of “other” tribes.They are clearly lying because:

• Even the day after ethnic bloodshed was reported I attended a couple of parties in Muranga celebrating “victory”. It is not surprising that one of the first items to run out during the fuel / transport crisis was beer.
• As recently as October 2007, the government itself was complicit in extra-judicial killings of about 500 young Kikuyu adults. I didn’t hear anyone mourn that.

About Muranga: I haven’t written about the town, so let me update you. This is one of those shitty little towns you find in third world countries. No breadth, no shape – a clump of buildings along the highway (with the usual fly blown butchery), a market that sells second-hand clothes, and everything smells of something. It also happens to be one of the most violent towns in the country. During my brief stay in Muranga, I heard of many casual instances of violence : a chicken thief whose hand was cut off, a man who cut off his wife’s ear because he suspected her of cheating (hope she cuts his balls off in revenge).