“At least we tried….” how many Kenyans have heard this phrase to explain away incompetencies? Whenever anyone does not do their job right, or fails to deliver, this is the phrase that is always tossed back at people who question why. It is also sometimes followed by a “Well, what have you done?” or a “Well, can you do better?”. Defensive, BS all of it.
I for one am sick and tired of it all. And I’ll share two case studies, that if people had been doing what they were meant to, would never had happened.
During the Easter holidays I happened to have been in Mombasa for business but over the course of my stay there, I went to visit a friend at a beach hotel. The guard refused to let me in with this statement “Unaenda kuona mwanaume mgani? Ngoja” even when I explained that I was going to see a lady friend at the venue. I called my friend, had her explain to the guard but she still refused to let me in insisting that she had to check with reception. Fair enough, right? Throughout this time, other people (of different colour) were being searched and let in no questions asked. As about 15 minutes had passed with no connection to said reception, I asked her if she could escort me to the reception to pay for pool use if all of this was such a huge issue. She refused, by this time my friend had called reception and they called to clear me. The guard did not even search my bag, I assume that I was not deemed a ‘security threat’ just an unwanted. The hotel, a s per tweets from people staying there and my experience still continued treating us badly, at one point my friend who happened to be Indian, had to ask them to stop, and somehow his word worked like ‘magic’. While in Mombasa the hotel and the airline I was travelling with (another long story, we can talk on email on if you wish) frustrated me to high heaven.
Enter Magical Kenya, the promoters of local tourism. I complained and tagged them on Twitter, and asked them to get in touch with me. Several other people also tagged their complaints which were similar as well. To date, despite all their promises that they would and my reminders, all I got were more empty promises on “we shall talk”. Is it safe to assume that they only wish to pay lip service to promotion of local tourism? As well as hand out free holiday online PR stunt trips? Then hope and wish away the actual problems on the ground that have people not wanting to #tembeakenya?
But at least they’re trying right?
Moving on, Al Jazeera’s The Stream has been a great success for them kudos to that, a local station wished to do the same under the name #TheTrend. Sounds fantastic no? I was just as excited as you when called to be one of the first guests on a Google Hangout they had planned yesterday. Arrived at stated location half and hour early to be informed that the wi-fi was down. No biggie, stuff happens so we were asked to go to the station’s building to do it from there. The cab driver, drove like madness so that we could be there by 9pm when the news was to begin. On arriving, we found out that even at the station’s building, wi-fi had not been arranged for us and lo and behold, the hangout had been made public so other people had jumped on it, leaving no space for us, the people who were actually supposed to be on it. Anyhow, a friend and I managed to fix it so that we could hang out but as this was at around 9.45 we were dropped and they chose to skype in so meone from the states instead. Afterwards, we asked one of the people who were behind the show what all of this drama was all about. He then said “Things happen, it was beta, next week it will be better. At least we tried”. Beta? Something you publicised and that was to be aired to millions was beta? Something you could have tested the day before, you test on the same day and then brush away your carelessness of it with words like ‘beta’ and statements like “… At least we tried”?
The problems with our country are not just politicians, or bad roads, or terrorism, they stem from us and the general careless way in which we handle the little that we have. “At least we tried.” that statement will always hold us back from “That was amazing.”
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