Drip Cycle

0000 can’t believe two hours have passed and the drip is finished. Finished reading Next (a gift from AfroM) and I now start reading this week’s Time. They can’t start a new drip because wrist is swollen where the vein has had enough. Note: Nurses seem more callous at night. Are they tired or more hardened to the calls of patients at midnight?
0012 Nurse disconnects drip – releasing me to go to the toilet. “Always carry your phone with you” – is something you are advised when you check in as phones tend to disappear, usually if you fall asleep during visiting hours. The toilet lights are off at night and there’s no switch but using my Nokia screen – there’s no need for a light.
0017 Back to bed. Not really sleepy and I don’t use the mosquito net
0028 Mosquito buzzes my face. There’s a myth that Nairobi mosquitoes don’t transmit malaria, but I don’t wish to complicate my recovery/treatment by proving this out and I clumsily put the net down to cover the upper half of the bed and fall asleep
0145 Doctor comes in with a nurse. They make a new cut in my left hand and insert a tube to attach a new drip. Drip in right hand is removed and sealed with a bandage.
0200 Another nurse comes and connects the drip bottle to the new tube. Back to sleep.
0530 Use toilet but this time I use the urinal – it’s a paper gourd that they bring round and is good for two flows. When on drip and drinking fluids throughout, one needs to go to bathroom a lot
0625 Nurse comes in to administer blood pressure, pulse, and temperature tests
0632 Get SMS from Couch Tato telling me when I might find a rare DVD I am looking for. (Does he ever sleep?)
0640 new jug of drinking water delivered by a waiter.
0800 Watching CNN news: I must find out what the differences are between Sunni’s and Shiite’s.
0821 Breakfast brought in. Even though I am supposed to be on a low-fat diet, they keep bringing some fatty foods. Take porridge, Weetabix, banana, and tea leaving aside the boiled egg and sausage.
0852 finish breakfast – takes longer to eat with the wrong hand
0937 finish reading Time magazine
0955 Take a shower, and get new gown & shorts as my bed is changed. I am not able to walk about because my doctor shows up. She examines me, is happy with progress but asks that a blood sample be taken tomorrow morning after which she’ll consider discharging me
1000 Back to bed. If I had my Celtel line I’d be able to make more daytime calls, but stuck with Safaricom and waiting for whoever calls. I get a call from the office
1005 Drip reconnected. Must finish my Lucozade bottle by tomorrow when I leave. Hate this stuff
1145 Finish reading a chapter of a manuscript and use paper toilet before visiting hours start
1150 Dietician brings suggested menu/foods for my recovery after I leave hospital and we discuss what is acceptable and what’s banned
1205 Have to use the toilet. This time I ask to be disconnected and walk to the bathroom. Getting sloppy, this is the first time I have left my phone behind. I rush back to find its still there
1210 – 1215 first visitors of the day – and one brings another bottle of Lucozade
1220 Itch on my right hand and realise it’s a mosquito bite from last night – I hope it drank saline instead of my blood.
1222 Lunch arrives
1225 More visitors. My sister is first and I send her downstairs to buy the newspapers (perks of being in the hospital) and a Safaricom airtime card. They’re here as I eat lunch. Have a wide discussion about the poor state of roads, book publishing.

1405 Back to the toilet. As I am washing hands, I drop my phone in the sink. I scoop it up and take paper towels back with me where I strip, dry, and clean the phone which seems to be intact.
1440 Still reading a newspaper but no drip running. I go to the nurses’ station to ask to be reconnected to drip.
1500 Still no one. I ring my buzzer and when nurse responds, ask again to be reconnected to drip. There seems to be a slacking of work as nursing shift ends and another begins as those going off have to prepare extensive reports.
1520 – 1530 New nurse comes and attached new drip bottle
1540 Start reading Foul about corruption in the soccer administration world. It’s a great and someone should give a copy to our sports minister who’ trying to sort out Kenyan soccer. Other countries like Antigua and Jamaica have gone though what Kenya is going through (interim committees, normalization committees, suspension, and threats) FIFA does not appear to like government interference and prefers to deal with local sports administrators however corrupt they are.
1550 Waiter comes round but I decline afternoon tea. Other patients are asleep and I ask him to turn off TV, which is now showing an (annoying) kids variety show.
1650 Still reading Foul when first evening visitors arrive. Some visitors are interesting, others are tiring. For many, I have too repeat the story of who I ended up here. I engage some visitors in constructive talk; get advice on recovery while others have nothing to say. Still pick up some tips – I may get my full allocation of Stanbic IPO shares, and while this hospital has no internet for patients (am told), Kenyatta National Hospital (of all places) is a wireless hot spot
1830 I get a late visitor. Near the end of visiting time, guards don’t let in more visitors (except VIP’s) but my buddy assures me she can get past any time as she has a stethoscope in her car she wears.
1850 My boss visits. He’s on leave, but working on other projects. He advises me to enjoy the enforced rest and avoid dealing with office matters
1900-1920 Watch the 7 PM news as I eat dinner. Chicken again though not as fatty this time.
1945 Go to bathroom again
2000 Drip is reconnected. Lie back and drift in and out of sleep. TV still on with Spanish soaps with bad accents, and later the 9PM news. I try and remember the name of the movie where Wesley Snipes or Steven Seagal’s characters’ rip drip tubes from their arms, fight people sent to kill them and flee from hospital in a wheelchair.

0015 Wake again TV still on. Busta & Diddy’s “Pass the Courvesoir” video is on but not as interesting to watch three years later.

Share splits continue

ICDCI formalized their share split yesterday as CMC also announced a 10 for 1 share split.

Pressure will continue to build on companies with high flying shares like BAT, Bamburi and Standard Chartered to follow Barclays, Sasini, and EA Cables in announcing share splits. Speculation about splits has also caught on at KPLC, Equity, NMG and Jubilee.

Oil
– NOCK will acquire 45 service stations from Somken an independent Kenyan company which seems to be shifting its focus to oil exploration.

Jobs

AIG Kenya
– Consumer marketing manager
– Agency development manager
HR-kenya@aig.com by 26/1

Internal auditor at Care Kenya. apply to hrmanager@care.or.ke by 20/1

Project management office Director at the East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA) – Mombasa. Details here and deadline to info@eatta.co.ke is 22/1

Family finance: – Head of business development, branch business development managers (5), Credit officers (27), procurement officer. Apply online by 27/1

Executive director at Forum for Africa women educations Apply through KPMG by 31/1

Kenya commercial development foundation: Finance & investment manager, financial management accountant, grants management accountant, communications officer and interns. details here and deadline is by 26/1

Tsavo securities: Head of stock broking head of fixed income head of ICT and head of research as well as relationship managers apply through manpower associates

Following the recent government director on using chase cars to escort money to/from banks G4S/Securicor will hire over 800 new drivers

distributorships
For Celtel in Nairobi, Coast, Mt. Kenya, Western, Nyanza, Central & North rifts. Contact Kioi.e@ke.celtel.com

For Honda motorcycles in Kenya. Contact Takao_Ishizuka@hm.honda.co.jp

EADB Venture Capital

The East African Development Bank is proposing to set up a venture capital fund to invest between $100,000 to $1 million in companies who have turnover over $100,000 and are prepared to give the fund shares in exchange for capital invested. Expressions of interest to be sent to venturecapital@eadb.org

State of the VC

Is Kenya ready for VCs? Do we have the expertise and are they necessary?
The regulations for the VC industry are yet to be formalized and the Acacia Fund remains the only venture capital firm licensed by the CMA. But there are other players such as ICDCI, investment advisers, investment companies, and entities like Transcentury who can arrange equity-based financing for viable companies.

Given the archaic company laws and endless court processes, entrepreneurs in Kenya have to be very careful about who they let in as equity partners. They feel better off borrowing from a bank that they can pay off and walk away from after a while instead of having VC as partner/co-owner.

The VC route is more suitable for established companies who have a good long-term understanding of their requirements and the benefits that are offered by different equity partners.

A more viable, non-VC option for start-ups is the government’s proposed youth enterprise fund which was gazetted in December. (read more)

Mid East Careers

Companies this week looking for Kenyans to go work abroad

KBR, the global engineering & and construction subsidiary of the Haliburton Corporation, is seeking people to go work in the Middle East & Central Asia for a variety of positions including transport & maintenance, craft & trades, logistics, and management & administration. Apply online.

Cabin crew at Qatar Airways. Apply online by January 12.

Work ethic & sucession

Work ethic is something I’ll have to work on in 2007. In vying to start the aforementioned kiosk, I still have the idea that I can sit in an office all day and only visit the shop in the evening to collect the day’s income, pay bills, and reconcile accounts & inventory. That may be a recipe for mediocrity.

Just before Christmas, I went to buy some wine from a famous small town shop. The proprietor, let’s call him Mr. Shah, has been at his storefront for the last 20 years. He is supported by his grown children and their spouses to run the shop and despite millions of shillings in annual turnover, they still have modest and humble lifestyles. He’s there from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. – 6 days a week and drives a 20-year-old Mercedes.

This management style of Asian businessmen where they commit themselves, family, and their time to running the shop is admirable – and you see it in hardware, auto part shops, pharmacies, supermarkets etc. – i.e. owners being on the ground [not far away in someone else’s office, trying to run the shop via remote control – over the phone to avoid relatives looking for jobs, creditors, and others seeking favours]

Some business run by remote control may succeed, but rarely. As an owner, I’ll have to get down & dirty with customers and suppliers every day and know the business in & out and ring the cash register myself – and that will come by being in the shop full-time. I have already promised a distant an uncle that his currently unemployed son could run the shop once it’s ready – but I may have to rescind that offer. Am I ready for that? I don’t know.

There are limits at succession time – as a parent has to convince his kids that their future is in the shop and not being a CPA working at a multi-national firm. This is a dilemma Indian shopowners and African landowners/farmers face – with many of them running large businesses but which their kids have no interest in taking over. What happens to the business after many years? Sell out – move abroad/travel the world for the rest of their lives? I hope that will be a dilemma I’ll be facing in 20 years time (i.e. How do I give away my money/estate?).