A LOVE AFFAIR WITH MY HOMELAND - KENYA

  “And the earth We spread out, and placed therein firm mountains” [al-Hijr 15:19] Mt. Kenya at sunrise   Alia, my sister in law from Mombasa and her daughter in law and children have coming visiting us in Nairobi after Abdallah's engagement.   Abdallah has gotten hitched to Muskan. Mzahim (Alia's son) and his wife, Randa and their 3 very well behaved children have travelled from UAE for the occasion. The engagement party in Mombasa was a small family affair but well managed and smooth apart from the crazy traffic snarlups that Mombasa is now famous for. Mzahim got only two days off so he is back to work in UAE. Randa and kids have a few more days and as a revenge for their superlative hospitality whenever we visit UAE; Muna and I have decided to give them a revenge treat.  A road trip to Naro Moru and the Mountain. Saba saba day is a no-go-out day since the opposition have arranged nationwide demonstrations against the new tax laws among very many other ...

  I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy  Ernest Hemingway THE DIVINE NILE AT JUBA South Sudan (SSD) is the youngest independent Country in Africa. Years of domination by the  largely Arabic speaking  North part of this largest of countries in Africa has left the South steeped in desolate ignorance and deliberate neglect - making it one of the least developed nations in the world with one of the highest levels of illiteracy anywhere. Politics aside, this largely untouched land mass is one of the most endowed countries in Africa with huge deposits of oil, natural gas and other minerals. SSD is larger than Kenya and Uganda combined with large swathes of forest, savannah and the Sud - the famous swamp into which the Nile disappears and reappears several hundred kilometers later....an ecological miracle in itself! Both South Sudan and the North Sudan (referred to as The Sudan) are dominated by the one miraculous feature - THE NILE; more p...