Suguta Valley Deaths

Let me share my views on some specific, recent happenings here in Kenya. This is based on news reports: On Saturday 10th November, a group of about 107 police officers entered Suguta Valley in Samburu, Kenya in pursuit of cattle rustlers.
They were shot at, allegedly by the rustlers.
Several of the police officers were killed, some fled and some were left lying wounded.
It is reported that some of those wounded remained there and died, even as late as Monday (about 48 hours after the shootings).
Other survivors were found by some children who were herding cattle.
The death toll currently stands at 42 policemen.

Let me say that again: Fourty Two policemen killed.
Some of the bodies remained there until Tuesday or thereabouts, when the government finally went to collect them and also transported some of the survivors to Nairobi.
The relatives of the police officers were not kept well updated, and some had to go to the valley to identify the bodies of their relatives.
The police commissioner refused to resign, saying the responsibility for the operation lay with his juniors in the field.
Naturally, the minister in charge of the relevant ministry did not resign. Kenya's military has been sent to the valley.
Residents of the area are reported to be fleeing or to have fled, because the bad reputation of the army in such situations, or fearing some form of reprisal.

Picture from Nation Media Group[/caption]
 My thoughts:
It is apalling that a police mission can be so poorly organised that 42 officers are killed in one incident
It is extremely bad that the police left the wounded to die in the valley
It is sad that the bodies of the dead were left there until they began decomposing.
 It is bad to put the bereaved relatives through the anxiety of not knowing what the status of things is. It is regrettable that no one was fired over this tragic loss of life
It speaks volumes if the police are unable to protect even themselves. Are they able to protect ordinary citizens?

• Kenya-Survivor-of-Suguta-Valley-attack-recounts-three-day-ordeal
• How doomed mission claimed 42 policemen
• Kenya-Iteere-blames-commanders-for-Samburu-raid
• Tension-in-Baragoi-as-locals-flee-ahead-of-KDF-operation
• Hundreds-flee-kenyan-forces-hunt-police-killers
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20323962

Related articles

• Dozens of police killed in Kenya cattle raid (euronews.com)
• Kibaki deploys Kenyan military to Samburu (capitalfm.co.ke)
• Why were bodies of murdered officers left to rot? (capitalfm.co.ke)
• Hundreds flee area of Kenya where police died (utsandiego.com)

My First Smartphone

https://babaamor.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/021-we-have-a-winner/

Updates

Hello,
To say that this blog is rather inactive is an obvious understatement. Or maybe not so obvious.
You can find my other postings at the following addresses:
http://www.simple-fitness.net
and
http://babaamor.wordpress.com

Meanwhile, I am using HeidiSQL from http://www.heidisql.com

Shifting Goalposts

Build-up
I jogged about 8.8 km on Saturday, including a 3.8 km non-stop stretch that took me about 23 minutes. Monday's rain disrupted my schedule. On Tuesday, it looked like it was going to rain again and I decided to jog alongside my wife as she walked in the estate. Wednesday, I basically sat around the house and did other exercises. Thursday daytime, my leg muscles were feeling a bit tense. I feared that because of the two-day breaks between my jogs and the unstructured run on Tuesday, I was losing the gains I had made so far.
Time Limit
We had a group coming for Bible Study at my house on the said Thursday, so I had limited time to jog. I decided to run 5 kilometres, and if I would be able, to run 20 minutes non-stop like I had done last week. I was not sure I would manage this, though, and I was ready to try at least 11 minutes non-stop.
Off!
I usually warm up with a little jogging on the spot and brisk walking for 5 minutes or so. This usually means that the total distance I cover usually includes the 5-min walk distance. I wanted to actually measure my 5K time this time. So I did a brief warm-up within the compound and left the gate running. I felt ok. As I approached Mombasa Road, I started feeling a bit strained, so I figured that I was going a bit too fast. I slowed down. The footpath was rather crowded with people walking, but not too much.
Uphill Task
Ahead of me , on Mombasa Road, was the bridge that goes over the railway line. That meant a climb. That meant strain. I jogged on. The uphill jog wasn't too difficult. I had decided not to check my stopwatch (Read: my wife's phone) until I had crossed Enterprise Road. I would then have covered about 1.7 km and would have jogged about 10 minutes. (Wikimapia.org and Google Earth have been very useful in measuring distances.)
Target Ahead
I got over the hill okay, passing the working nation walking home. On my left were cars on the road. The descent was okay as well, and I was still in good shape. I crossed Enterprise Road, still feeling strong. The length of Sameer Business Park was next. My turning point lay just after, at Tulip House. I decided to try and at least reach Tulip House still jogging.
Right, left, right, left, I jogged on. An occasional sip of water.
Sipping water becomes quite a task when jogging and thus breathing more heavily than usual. You have to take a breath, take the sip and coordinate breathing through your nose while keeping your mouth shut and then swallowing.
Turning Point
Tulip House was here. 14 minutes and some seconds. I decided to jog till at least a round figure of 15 minutes. Left, right, left, right. I passed Tulip House a little and turned in a curve to avoid actually stopping. Not yet 15 minutes. Ok, let's try go for 20 minutes then. That would be 60 X 5 which would be 300 seconds right? I started counting.
Passing Sameer again. Passing pedestrians again that I had passed while going the other direction. Right, left, right, left. 180, 179, 178, 177... Right, left, right, left.
I Know I Can
Did I start counting at 300 or 240? Doesn't really matter, the counting is just to guide me, and also importantly, to distract me. Mind games.
I decided to continue jogging at least until I again reach Enterprise Road. Part of my concern was that I wanted to jog a distance that I would be able to measure easily. As I got nearer, I felt I could go on beyond the Road. But there was the hill again in front of me. Of course I can make it to the top of the hill, I told myself. Thank you Lord that I can make it. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. 20 minutes had certainly passed, but now I had a new objective. Let me just jog till the top of the hill.
As I approached the main ascent, some guy joined the path from the left, jogging in a bouncy manner up the hill. Showing off, eh? You have just started jogging moments ago, so of course you can bounce along. He jogged away. I followed at a slow pace. I passed him and other pedestrians a few metres ahead. He was walking. Whassup homey! I said to him in my head.
I managed the climb and descended happily. Some guy had a jacket with a pocket that reminded me of a kangaroo's pouch. His was on the back side of the jacket. In the pocket, he had one of those rectangular, transparent, plastic containers that you can buy some foodstuffs in. I passed him. Another guy seemed to be sagging his jeans, but he did not look the type to deliberately sag. I figured he was just shaped like that, with nothing much to hold up the jeans. I passed him too.
The End
At the bottom of the descent, I felt energised. Maybe it was excitement. I can actually push this till home! I thought. Let me at try at least till the gate. Left, right, left, right! Cars, pedestrians. Left, right, left, right! Look at the road behind, cross. I was now at the gate. I can actually do this! Guard at the gate waved hallo. I waved back. I jogged on. The straight stretch. Left, right, left, right! Excitement! Left turn. Reach for phone in pocket. Refrain from checking the time. Reached our gate. Stop the phone's stopwatch. 5 Kilometres. 30 minutes, 01 seconds! Non-stop! Yesss!!!

Lessons From The Road

I have been jogging since Dec 13th last year. That would be a little over 8 weeks now.
It has been interesting. During the early weeks, I Googled something I had seen asked by someone else on the Web: When does it get easier?
I identified with the askers. I was following a run/walk program and sometimes I was struggling through the run sections.
The answer was that it gets easier after something like 6 to 8 weeks.

When I worked my way up to running 8 minutes at a time, I was elated. I was actually a bit surprised as well, considering how I had been finding 5 minute runs difficult.

On Monday 7th Feb, I ran about 21 minutes and 30 seconds non-stop. I was very excited. I could actually run 20 minutes non-stop! This was one of the requirements in one of the training programs before training for a half-marathon so I considered it some sort of milestone.

I have learnt a few things from all this:
1) Gradual change does indeed add up. I actually moved from running 2 minutes at a time to 20 minutes, through gradual and regular increments.
2) A written plan is good. There are many free training programmes out there. I got and followed one. It felt good to cross out the days I had run and mark my time and distance. I am not sure I would have continued running if I did not have a definite programme I was following.
3) We need fans. I noticed with some amusement that whenever I was passing people, whether or not I knew them, I would try to run a bit faster or with a straighter posture. I guess we all want to look good to others. But maybe it's just me. No wonder someone said that if you want to go faster, go alone, but if you want to go further, go with others.
4) Sometimes it indeed is mind over matter. Sometimes the reason I was eager to complete my run stretch and walk was simply that I was counting down to it. At the end of my runs, many times I was not feeling completely exhausted. I tried mental games but did not get far. If I had other things to occupy my mind, I could probably run longer before feeling the 'need' to stop.

I also learnt that there are very many products out there for runners - from fuel belts to energy gels to heart rate monitors. I wonder which of those are used by Kalenjin runners.

The Abortion Issue

Kenya is considering a new constitution. The Church has some objections to the Draft Constitution. The media has been claiming that the Church opposes abortion if the life of the mother is in danger. That is NOT true.

Below is the issue with abortion.

Article 26 says:
1) Every person has the right to life
2) The life of a person begins at conception
3) A person shall not be deprived of life intentionally, except to the extent authorised by this Constitution, or other written law.
4) Abortion is not permitted unless, in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law.

Now, the problems are in Clause 4.
The problems are these:

Problem 1) The clause does not define 'trained health professional'
That means a nurse, a clinical officer or even a psychologist can be called a trained heath professional.

Problem 2) The phrase "There is need for emergency treatment" is not restricted to treatment related to the pregnancy.
So, if a mother needs emergency treatment of her toe, then she can abort, even if the sick toe is not affecting the pregnancy.

Problem 3) The words 'or health' are ambiguous.
The World Health Organisation defines health at this link:
http://www.who.int/about/definition/en/print.html/
and says
"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

So, if a psychologist says that a baby will endanger the social well-being of a woman, then the woman can abort.
Or if a nurse says that a pregnant woman will experience anguish because she wanted to get a Masters degree before getting a baby, then their mental well-being is in danger and they can abort.

This is effectively abortion on demand

Problem 4) the clause 'or any other written law' means that 50 members of Parliament can be in the House, pass a new law by simple majority, and abortion will be legal, thus nullifying all the other clauses that prohibit abortion.

PHP With Microsoft Access

I am a rather happy man. I have just learnt from the w3schools site and a little tweaking that I can very easily connect PHP to a Microsoft Access(R) database. Yes, I knew it was possible but I expected a number of errors.

I very easily connected to my secured database (it uses Microsoft Access's user-level security). I can also read data from queries that I have created in Access. What's more, we use some software to hide the database files and the security file. The connection still worked even with hidden files! Excellent! Simply excellent!

One of the reasons for my exuberance is a particular task I have pending, of creating a huge document that contains data from an Access database. The document is currently created partly in Word and partly using Access reports. Access forms and reports were a little cumbersome for this task. Now I have the chance to use PHP's scripting while the users fill in the data as before in Access. Now i need to learn how to generate PDF's using PHP. I already have some links on that.