Otiato Guguyu, Author at Newsroom by Maudhui

February 20, 2023 Otiato Guguyu

The best time to sink a 91-meter borehole in Ruambwa

The ‘Mulipuko’ water point fitted with a handpump is the center of activity in Ruambwa, a small village near Port Victoria. The manually operated water borehole is operated mostly by women and children like a gym lat pull-down that looks easy until you try and can only manage a trickle. Built by KEFINCO (Kenya Finland Cooperation) in the 1980s along 1399 other boreholes and 1363 hand-dug wells across Western Kenya the Mulipuko- local for explosion, got its name from the blasts that were used to blow up the rocky layers to get to fresh water. Bunyala infamous for its flooding is a paradoxically an acutely…

February 17, 2023 Otiato Guguyu

Marriage in Rowo where Suba language is fast fading away

“Kijaluo ni chumbi (sic) ya samaki,” the old man spits it at me with a lisp that phonetically accompanies the signature tongue of the good people from the lakeside. Two of his calloused fingers hooked onto my forearm to insist on my paying attention. He is visibly drunk at the point of this eureka moment that he has stumbled on an answer to a question I asked five wise men a few hours earlier. Why no one spoke Suba anymore even amongst themselves? The wise men, five village relations, had been summoned to receive the dowry of our Suba-glittering-diamond Kakwe; from her enchanted Odiero of…

Corporate News Technology

February 17, 2023 Otiato Guguyu

Mechanics, fuel stations and jobs that may disappear in the next decade

Mechanics specializing in repairing combustion engines in vehicles, vehicle assemblies, and petrol stations will need to change their business model or risk extinction after the European Union voted to end the production of petrol and diesel cars over the next 12 years. From 2035, all car manufacturers operating in the European market will be legally prohibited from producing and selling cars that emit carbon dioxide as the EU bloc moves to effect drastic measures to cut greenhouse gases in the vehicles industry by 100 percent. Implications for the rest of the world especially Africa, which relies on global supply chains for vehicle imports are huge,…

Counties News

February 14, 2023 Otiato Guguyu

Who should CafeDeli host next Valentine’s Day?

Café Deli was a security risk to the country on February 14th, as about fifty police officers drawn from top brass of Nairobi city from all formations, regular, traffic, crime units some in weather-beaten brown jackets and others in workmen overalls were for the first time in their careers hosted for a valentine’s brunch. Obado Obado, the Café Deli founder met these two brown jackets on the flight of stairs thinking they were ordinary customers to explain that he had reserved the top floor of the two-storey establishment built around Rubis Petrol station on Koinange street for his special guests. A brief conversation and his…

Featured

February 14, 2023 Otiato Guguyu

Where I met my valentine

When I told NyarSindo I wanted to experiment with writing covers for weddings and asked what questions should I ask the couples, it was a no-brainer she said, ask them how they met. But as I found out, it was easier said than done. We had been having a nice cosy dinner with a few beers inside us driving Odiero and Kakwe to the hotel anticipating the trip to Sindo. But NyarSindo knows how to go about this business better, she started telling them how we met. We all have our versions and this is mine. I was reading Jean-Paul Sarte’s Age of Reason when…

Corporate News

February 12, 2023 Otiato Guguyu

We are too old for a digital valentine’s day

For Naomi Ndungu, a flower vendor at City Market, the hub of Nairobi’s retail roses, carnations, and alstromeria, the free public WiFi set up two months ago will not change how she will sell during this Valentine’s Day. She is as old school as they come, paying Nairobi County all year round for a stall and hoping her skills in wrapping bouquets, the loyal customers she has accumulated over the years and the fact that she is saved, a religious assurance that she will not steal or take advantage of her customers, should be enough cushion against tech-savvy competition and hawkers switching their merchandise to…

Featured Health

February 2, 2023 Otiato Guguyu

Biting baby formula shortage eating our pockets

The slurp of gurgling milk that Manyala drowns in, refusing to break for air thrills me as much as it worries me in the wake of the worsening infant formula shortage in Kenya. You see, the young man can gulp down a tin in a couple of days, a damning appetite under the current economic times. I think to myself that if my finances hurtle south, and like most Kenyan middle class, I am a paycheck away from poverty, it will be Manyala’s baby formula that will be one of the first victims on the chopping board of domestic cost-cutting. I know most of you…

Brands Corporate News Technology

February 2, 2023 Otiato Guguyu

Quitting Zuku, the billing company that provides internet, sometimes

I have been waiting for Zuku Amazing to call me over the last couple of days as they are wont to so that I can give them a piece of my mind before I dump their services. Calling them is out of the question if you know better than to want to listen to marketing music while your phone gets hot from being placed on hold as your credit gets sucked away into a rabbit hole. But I know, or at least I have known that one thing Zuku is exceptionally prompt about is reaching out to their customers whenever their accounts fall due, so…