The trouble of swimming in cash in a sea of poverty

NAIROBI: A few days ago, I took a couple of weeks off the hectic newsroom schedule to cool off. You see, the newsroom present numerous cut-throat deadlines and schedules that are obviously not for the faint at heart. There is hardly time to step back and think. You are supposed to make decisions as you move on, fully aware that one silly mistake and you end up with a shameful blooper that may haunt you for the rest of your career life. Luckily, when you have been chasing commas, full stops and doing battle with bad syntax for more than ten years like yours truly, you develop instincts that tell you something is wrong even before you read halfway through a story or script. So much that even when you are on leave you fear that things are moving too slowly and something might go wrong!
So to kill boredom and reconnect with life away from the eternal city bedlam – the crazy motorists zigzagging on Mombasa road and honking at no one in particular and the noisy matatu crew – I decided to sample life on the outskirts.

Somewhere on the eastern side of town, I made the mistaking of taking an earth road that I think the city county government officials should see, to erase any doubts that pouring cash into planting and protecting grass is no priority in a city where some people drive through quarry-like roads every day. A few kilometres into the unknown, I chanced upon a marshy stretch where two deep ruts had been covered with El Nino run-off water. I asked a group of about five young men standing nearby whether they had seen any cars drive past that section. They assured me that the section was easy to wade through.