Letter from Baltimore 6

JULY 4th offers the feel of American patriotism at its best. Like all former colonies, the United States of America, goes into a frenzy to mark the day of its independence. Apart from the ubiquitous stars and stripes and the partying, fireworks display puts life to the festivities to mark the end of British rule in 1776.
I went to witness the fireworks display at an open near my cousin’s home in Fredrick County. Along the road on both sides were endless queues of cars that stretched out for miles. The evening quiet is interrupted by the ear-splitting blasts of fireworks rockets that lighten up the dark skies. It was a night to behold.
I tell you what, besides the reporting and writing experience, the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships, offers a true taste of America. From chilly and wet Springs to a hot, humid and wet summer, I have been through it all already. All of them.
Summer excites and wears you down at the same time. The air feels warm and relaxing like in a sauna should you take a walk right after a downpour.
I gave my talk at the Johns Hopkins; the role of the media in disease control. I seek your indulgence.
Thank you for allowing me to talk to you today. It is humbling and a privilege to talk to a distinguished audience in one of the world’s acclaimed universities.
As a primary school pupil, I wished to be a doctor ... a surgeon may be. That was never to be. I chickened out when I thought about the blood, tears and death. My mother was a community nurse giving injections to patients in a rural health centre in Kenya. She retired a week ago today. She did basic nursing; vaccinating, giving injections, and tablets for such common diseases like malaria, cholera, common cold ...
If given the opportunity, I would go back and do medicine again. Just probably.
Back to our topic today; the role of the media in disease control.
Obviously, the role of the media in society is to bring to light the hidden facts. We inform, educate and entertain society. The main plagues that man faced at the turn of the 20th century were illiteracy, disease and ignorance. No doubt, ignorant people often fall sick. But ignorance can be banished. And the media plays a great role in that. People need to be told that drinking dirty water is bad for their health. People need to be told about washing hands after visiting the toilet.
They need to hear about good sexual habits; that using the condom limits the chances of getting STDs. And that absconding never killed anyone.
We are a mirror to society and telling the citizens about the consequences of their habits is our role. We tell them about good eating habits and warn them about the dangers of excessive food, drug and alcohol consumption. With us, silence is never golden.
We tell them about getting treatment when unfortunate to fall sick.
Most importantly we rally up communities to fight disease. Sometimes with regret, we create stigma. Like the stigma associated with Aids ...
I save you the trouble of the half-an-hour-long talk, but what do you think? It went well and I got questions and I fired back the answers as best as I could.
In the audience was my friend Mr Robert Little. He just got back from Iraq the previous day. He has lots of recollections from his trip there though he says Baghdad was fairly safe than the last time he was there. He told me about the day he came back to his room in the barracks in the Green Zone and found an Iraqi journalist wearing his bathroom sandals.
“I asked him why he was wearing my sandals and he said he (the journalist) thought it was for community to use during prayers.” I laughed at that.
The journalists were friendly and spent the night watching American movies.
Otherwise, I have no planned appearances lined up soon, but I had another meeting across the street the next day. Bob and I met Mr Robert Keith for a drink at Fell’s Point one of Baltimore’s fantastic spots.
A former journalist, Keith visited Kenya in the 1950s as the independence wave spread across Africa. Working for the African-Institute, his trip took him from North Africa to Central Africa to South Africa to East Africa then back to North Africa before returning to the US. His girlfriend worked in Morroco.
He met some of Africa’s greatest men like Julius Nyerere, who later became President of Tanzania, Tom Mboya a former trade unionist and one of Kenya’s charismatic politicians who was assassinated in 1968. He met a fellow journalist Mobutu Sese Seko, who later became Zaire’s president and a brutal dictator. Nyerere and Mobutu have since passed on. He looked back with a tinge of nostalgia.
Keith also met Keneth Kaunda, the former President of Zambia. At probably 78, Kieth has a photographic memory. As we walked out of Duda’s Pub after an hour of talk, we felt we should have spent more time with Keith. We did not rule out a future meeting.
It is exhilarating that in my next blog, I will writing with the thought at the back of my mind that; this time next month, I will be in Nairobi. Till then, please enjoy.