It is safe!

The youth, it has been said, are the fountain from which a new generation will sprout and lead the society into the Promised Land, wherever that land is. In many instances, the youth have been referred to as the modern Joshua who takes the baton from Moses and points the way to that misty future full of promise.

If you care to look at the broad spectrum of Africa, you will shudder at the Moses types from whom the youth must fashion a future. They are a motley mix of marauding Moses types who seem to have been molded in the wood of selfishness and fed into the fire of kleptomania. I am sure that Kwame Nkrumah is shuddering with Ghanaian rage and wondering if he lived in vain.

As with all days, there is always light after dark, and it is indeed darkest before dawn. Africa's finest hour seems to stem from its darkest moments. The bright light that is shinning through the cloud over Kenya has brought new meaning to the phrase; there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

There is this sweet, fifty year old lady who shares the food that is placed before the man they call Uhuru Kenyatta. The other day she dreamt of running a marathon. Then she runs a half marathon and before the excitement of that marathon had died down, she had completed eight-hours of non-stop running in the London Marathon.

While it is noble that she was doing it to  'raise money for the provision of 47 mobile clinics, through her 'Beyond Zero' charity that seeks to prevent early child deaths and improve maternal healthcare', it does not take the brain of an ugali chef to figure that she had better options before her. She could have passed around that huge begging bowl to the Chinese and all those counties would have had state of the art clinics before you said sukumawiki.

All she needed to do, dare I say, was to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of the most powerful man in Kenya.  That man would then summon all the powers invested in him and cause clinics to sprout wherever she deemed fit. Or better still, she could have evoked her membership to the first ladies of Africa and nudged their maternal instincts and thereby cause money to flow into the accounts of 'Beyond Zero'

Of all the options that were laid at her table, she chooses to run a marathon. A marathon!!!! Let it be known to one and all that running a marathon is not kuku business. I have run a marathon…. a half marathon. All that pounding on the road plays tricks on the mind and body and it is not a thing for the chicken hearted.

She put her body on the line for the sake of unfortunate mothers that are spread out in the far-flung corners of Kenya. Therein lies the light that shines through this decision, that I am sure was made when blood flashed through her brain. Therein lies that sacrificial spirit that Africa needs to progress beyond the pit of egotism that we are mired in.

Therein lies the stuff of which a modern day Moses is structured; the stuff that causes an individual to lift others up; to light up the face of a poor community; to give dignity to the process of populating this fair earth: to give of oneself in ways that is as challenging as it is tormenting; to gallivant all over London when one could easily muster the financial might of the Kenyan taxpayer in the pursuit of jewellery at Harrods.

Therein lies the magma like heat that can fashion an exemplary baton. The kind of baton that is as solid as it is legendary; the kind of baton that the modern day Joshua will firmly hold, lift up and declare to the world; the future is safe with us!