Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Toastmasters Speech number 5 - Your Body Speaks


When it came to toastmasters speech number 5, I chose a topic that would give me the greatest opportunity to use gestures. So I chose a topic involving showing directions, size and weight.
Below is the result.



Kenya!
Magical Kenya.
Kenya
When it comes to holidays, many Nairobians prefer the magical Mombasa; some to sunbathe and others to watch the sunbathers. Most to ride on noisy Tuk Tuks to bars and drink themselves into disheveled and haggard, caricatures of their initial selves before the holiday. To resuscitate on return, some end up at those eateries where wooden boards and aluminum platters constitute the entire crockery, fingers their cutlery. Here, a chunk of boiled or roast meat is served on the rectangular board, the salt placed diagonally opposite. The chunk is then cut to pieces, while their nibble fingers play breakout against the butcher’s knife. Lastly, the butcher tosses a piece into his mouth, pushes the board a tad bit and says Karibu - welcome. Then he tucks the machete size knife under his arm, and then executes an about-turn with military class precision.
Why go through all this while Ngong is just yonder? Ngong should be a tourist attraction by its own right. Where else do you see a young man in a three piece suit and rubber gumboots? Where else a taxi motorbike with the passenger of the passenger, a bleating goat?
A trip to Ngong starts on Ngong road.
You know it is Ngong road if it is just wide enough for two small cars to pass each other without going off the tarmac. You confirm it is Ngong road when you encounter the Karen cowboys in their fuel guzzling juggernauts outsmarting the Ngong bus drivers in rowdiness.
Fast forward to the incline where ahead you can see the wind mills adulterating Ngong hills. On that incline, you will encounter the specter, of a handcart riding a man down the slope at heart stopping speed, his toes barely touching the tarmac.

Welcome to the chaos that masquerade as Ngong town!

Now enjoy the confusion all around you and drive on to a T-junction. A magical junction this one because, west to your right leads you to magical Kenya, East to your left magical Kenya. It’s Alice in wonderland all over again.

If for example you go West, you can drive via Kibiko where on a bad day burning money falls from the sky and on to Ololosokuan.
Ololosukuan is campsite perched on the Eastern escarpment of the Rift Valley. Set under untamed, rocky Savannah bush the camp is a fine escape from the concrete jungle of Nairobi. From its vantage viewpoint, you can see Kimuka further on where children unwittingly play catch using live artillery shells. But the last night I was at Ololosukuan, the despicable, miscreant, vile vandals vandalized a transformer, leaving us groping in the dark.

If you go east you can go past Kiserian, perhaps the only town in Kenya on a major road junction is not called Makutano, and then on to Olorgesailie.

Olorgesailie is a prehistoric site within a campsite. It’s hot weather makes it Mombasa less the sea, mosquitoes and coconuts. The pristine, serene surrounding is conducive for you to finish reading that book you started two years ago. The early morning is glorious, the sunset sheer magic, and the night skies so clear you can count all the trillion stars if you stay long enough.
Oltepesi, where you will buy the forgotten supplies shares a single weighing scale that is passed shop to butchery to serials shop. Finding this scale is not guaranteed so the toss weighing method is preferred.

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