Archive for March, 2009

my story part 2

After the demise of my grandfather i had a friend whose age was almost to my grandfathers whom i used to visit and i still visit to date and truly speaking this man equipt me with many stories which
made me think as if my granpa was still alife since he too gave me very many memorable quotes of which i will be unravelling as we move along.

when i was a student i used to say that the minute i do my exams then i will be a free man there will be no waking up early in the morning and going to school,little did i know that after the
formal education,going to the world you will need lots of amunition to defend yourself e.g good eduaction and experience.while still in the job hunt i used to read newspapers for any openings
funny enough in most of the adverts they will be asking for a certain level of education and an experience of maybe two to three years then i would ask myself ,where in the world would you have gained
this experience when you just left school the other day?these people must be crazy.

After swallowing the bitter pill of the army recruitment lady luck came along and i had a part time job with the then kenya posts and telecommunication co-operation as a casual labourer,as a casual
i encountered some of the difficult manual jobs in which some of my colleagues left due to the hard labour they encountered but on myside grandpa had given me a treasure which kept ringing in my head
so i had to encounter the hard ship thinking may be this could be the offer the world is offering me(the hard labour)after one year of hard labour there came a memo which said all those casual labourers who have stayed
for one year need to forward their names for permanent employment,i was among those who forwarded their names and luckily by 2nd june 1988 i was absorbed as a permanent employee to the rank of technical assistant or in
other words i was a semi skilled worker of the co-operation.

In getting the permanent employment i was overjoyed keeping in mind that now everything will be a bed of roses since i have acquired a permanent employment.After a month of being a permanent employee usually you get a pay check
evrybody got his/her paycheck but mine was not there when asking the relevant offices about this,the reply was that some documents had not reached salaries therefore a voucher had to be prepared for payment
hopping for things to be rectified the following month but that was not to be because the same story kept appearing for one year till the day i said enough is enough i had to incurr costs of travelling to the headquaters which are in
Nairobikenya while seated in the bus on my way to Nairobi the memorable quote kept ringing in my head (grow up and see what the world has to offer)

I said to my self surely the world has a lot to offer but then is this what grandpa was refering to?is the pain the only thing the world has to offer? .It is after this trip to nairobi when the paychecks started trickling in, month after month
but only after surffering for one year all in the name of what the world has to offer.

my story

welcome once again to swabaks blog,first and formost let me introduce myself
well am a kenyan male born 44 years ago in the coastal city of mombasa which is also the second
largest town in kenya.
   During my childhood i liked having penpals from different parts of the world,so that we would exchange
ideas stories and much much more,i believe the passion for making friends is the thing that lead to introducing this
blog today which i hope to communicate to different people so that we can share ideas.

As a child i was very quite and shy in school and in any gathering ,which i would be in, therefore it was very difficult
for me to be noticed but though i was quite and shy i had one thing which was my passion and that is sitting close to my
grandfather and listening to many stories which i liked and treasured very much and i seemed not to be satisfied since i
kept asking  for more and more of the stories,
and my grandpa would only be too happy to tell me the stories as i was a keen listener.

Among the memorable quotes i got from my grandfather he used to tell me(boy, grow up and see what the world has to offer)this quote is
ever ringing in my head and my grandfather has since died am left with the quote which i am still trying to unravel.

After my ordinary level education i stayed at home trying to learn different things including going fishing with my grandpa and learning anything
that i thought to be relevant in mylife,during my job hunt i had an opportunity of going to the army recruitment exercise back in 1984,actually i passed
through all the necessary requirments including medical tests,apptitude test you name it, at around 20:00 pm while still in the examination room hopefull
that in a few hours to come i will be an army recruit,there came an officer well dressed and well displined and shouted my name out,i replied yes sir,he asked me among the
recruiting officers here whom do you know?i said i dont know any of these officers i have just seen them here, he then said to me bad luck for you try  
next time,that was all to eliminate me in the list of recruits,and there was no time to ask why as it is known in the army you just follow orders no questions or arguments.

I went home devastated as it was already dark the time was 21:30 pm,on my way home after this incident the quote which my late grandpa left for me as a treasure came back
ringing in my head and i kept asking myself is this what grandpa really meant when he told me to (grow up and see what the world has to offer)was this one of the worlds offers?
i was supposed to be offered devastation after going through soo much the whole day? This was one of my greatest embarrasments but in my mind i kept saying to myself if this
is the offer my grandpa was refering to then its a bitter offer but then this was just the beggining of the world for me as i had not established what was the world offer, the
 life was just beggining
it was as if i was being told welcome to the world.