Temper mindless consumption with production in the counties

After many months of hearing the word ‘deadline’ ringing in my ears, I took time off the cut-throat newsroom processes to cool off. Now, I like quiet life. If I could – once in a while – tiptoe away to a place of lush green thickets, the chirping of crickets, the melodious whistling of the mid-afternoon wind in the boughs and not a single human shout in the air, I may yet live a bit longer. But you would be fooling yourself if you think the poetic serenity of my craving can be found in the village. Not anymore. Kenyan villages - trust me, I have been up and about - are no longer the havens of verdant green tranquility. Chalk up to many years of importing second-hand Japanese cars, and the expanding middle class, the city bedlam is catching up with what were dusty one-street shopping centres just ten years ago.

Folks, there is nowhere to run. In places where you could have fallen asleep for five hours in the middle of the road and woken up before the next car passed, today you sit on a balcony of a village bar and witness rush-hour traffic snarl-ups reminiscent of the city’s gridlock. And we are not just talking about rickety pick-ups that send black smoke billowing endlessly to the skies. No, the county chiefs roll in style; in humongous gasoline-guzzling showroom machines. They live obscenely large, arrogantly oblivious of rumours swirling around about the sources of their newfound wealth. And you’ve got to like the way MCAs display Toyota car keys on the bar table. And oh, they call each ‘other’ mheshimiwa, even when flattering a colleague into buying another frothy round.