Rasta in Schools

When I first visited Kenya in 2006, I was extremely surprised to find that the country had a radio station (Metro FM) that broadcast to the whole nation playing absolutely nothing other than Reggae music 24/7! That has never been the case in Jamaica or, to my knowledge, anywhere else in the world. I commented to myself at the time that Reggae was born in Jamaica but now lives in Kenya!

If you board a matatu (local public transport) you are almost certain to be accompanied by Reggae music thumping out of the speakers all throughtout your journey. And of course, Reggae is regarded as Rasta music.

Today, while Reggae can still be heard on the radio, it is not as prevalent as it was when I first visited Kenya. That is not because Reggae is significantly less popular. Rather, it is because music lovers can now purchase Reggae mix tapes and videos for less than 50 US cents each and many know how to download their favourite Reggae tracks from Youtube for free. There is therefore not much advertising revenue for a radio station that is dedicated to Reggae. But it can be said that Reggae and Rasta have definitely become part of Kenyan culture.

Still, there will inevitable be individuals and certain sections of the Kenyan society who do not wholly approve of what Reggae and Rasta bring, and schools seem to be among those who disapprove. Indeed, even though teachers themselves might not be strongly anti-Rasta, the concern - as was expressed by the school where we first encountered this problem - was that if Rasta is allowed in schools then all students would want to be Rasta! But apart from all that, there also seems to be another dynamic at play.

My personal experience is that of Love all round. From the moment I step off the plane I am warmly greeted by all.

For example, on my recent arrival in the country I joined a very long cue to go through immigration control as a foreigner. When I eventually got to the counter I was told that I needn't have joined that cue. Even though I am not a Kenyan national, I would have been treated as such if I had joined the cue for those who are Kenyans! Then when I entered the baggage hall an airport worker came up to offer help and to request a selfie. I very frequently get such requests.

So what is the other side of the coin?

Well, just before writing this page I thought I would call a Kenya Rasta and ask him for his take on the situation. His view was very different to mine.

He said that a Rastaman is generally looked down upon in Kenya and he seemed as surprised as I was that our experiences differ. I therefore had to ask myself if this is just a matter of personal experience or if the matter is perhaps more complex than it might first seem.

I suggested to him that maybe Rastas from Jamaica are viewed differently from local Rastas and he agreed that this might be the case. Perhaps the local Rastaman is seen as just an imitation rather than the real deal and is therefore held in low esteem.

As I was writing this I thought that I would speak with another Rasta brother and he was able to address the matter in a more analytical way

He brought a number of things into consideration - including Kenya's history and the present political climate. I will not try to say here all that he said. I might address that later. All I will say for now is that it does seem that foreign Rastas are held in high regard while the situation for local Rasta seems to be far less so but is slowly improving. This improvement is aided by the fact that the Kenyan political structure is moving towards acknowledging and embracing Rasta locally.

The swift action taken by senior officers in the Ministry Education to order the school to respect the child's rights is perhaps a good indication of present official policies and attitudes.

Please remember to send to your contacts a link to this site and feel free to add your comments below.

Asante sana... Thank you.

On Sunday January 21, 2018 I sent the following email to the Kenyan Ministry of Education. The subject of the email was "Unlawful Conduct by a School".

Greetings

I am a Jamaican who normally resides in the UK, but over the past twenty-five years or so I’ve been a regular visitor to Africa - and in particular – to Kenya.

Recently I’ve been assisting a mother who has been having an issue with a particular school, and the school’s position is one that I feel now needs to be addressed by the Courts and by the country as a whole.

However, we would ideally prefer for this matter to be resolved quietly without media publicity and without involving the Courts. We therefore hope that you will liaise with the school and get this sorted out quickly so the child can go to school.

If you feel that this is something that you ought to engage with, then please respond to this email and I will send you more details.

I expect to be in Kenya on Friday 26th where my phone number is XXX XXX XXXX*.

Regards

Geeza Graham

+44 XXX XXX XXXX*

*This document is now being made public and so all personal information has been redacted.

I had consciously chosen not to send them any details because I first wanted to see how they would respond to an accusation that a school was acting unlawfully. The Ministry did not respond.

If they had responded, I would then have sent them the following:

[...See what I would have sent...]

The mother visited the school on the 16^th January and afterwards she informed me about what had happened. I then prepared the following document which she handed to the school’s headmaster the next day. The headmaster read this document in her presence along with another document that accompanied it.

Dear Sir

My daughter and I are particularly impressed by the performance of your school and so we were very excited yesterday to attend for my daughter to enrol. However, your deputy raised an issue which left us slightly deflated and I am therefore writing to formally put on record my position regarding the matter in question.

Because she hadn’t yet started at your school, my daughter came yesterday wearing a hat. Your deputy asked her to remove it, and on seeing her locks, your deputy told her that she could not attend school with locks. I told her that my daughter normally wears a head-scarf to school and that her previous school accepted that. Still, your deputy maintained her position. I therefore feel that I should now point out the following.

Every individual has an inalienable right to practice his or her beliefs so long as it does not offend common decency or impose on another person’s rights or freedom. That is a fundamental principle that is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and it is a principle that forms part of the Laws of every civilized nation – including Kenya. This principle is expressed in general terms in Article 2 of the UDHR and it is specifically addressed in Article 18 which states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

It really is not part of a school’s function to try to hinder any kind of religious practice or belief. That would be a violation of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as shown above, and would be a contravention of Kenyan Law which fully ratifies all the principles and Articles of the UDHR. Furthermore, what justification can there be for preventing my daughter from wearing a head-scarf for religious reasons while permitting Muslim girls to do so? It is difficult to see that as being anything other than discrimination against a particular religion. It cannot be good to teach tomorrow’s adults to be so intolerant of others, nor is it good to show them that those in authority will trample on their rights if and when they feel like doing so.

I trust that your deputy will now put aside all prejudice and religious bias and will decide to uphold Human Rights and the Law of the land. I further hope that this matter will not have to be referred to the Ministry of Education and/or to the Courts.

Yours respectfully

XXXX XXXXXXX

(Parent)

After reading the document shown above plus a second document, the headmaster maintained the position that the child cannot attend his school without trimming her locks.

The following document gives further details that are extremely hard to believe and frightfully disturbing – especially given the contents of this additional document.

[...See this other document...]

Before presenting this other "eye-opening" document, it would be useful to put the document in context.

The mother has three daughters and this is the third time this issue has arisen.

When the family decided to align itself with Rastafarian ideology and the daughters started to let their locks grow, the primary school that they were attending took the same position as this school has. However, after presenting to this primary school a document that was similar to the one shown earlier, they changed their stance, and so the daughters continued at this primary school with maximum respect from all teachers and fellow students. That was the first episode settled.

Later, the eldest daughter – Kxxxxx- started at a secondary school and continued to wear her headscarf.

Initially she had no problem, but at some point during her third term, the school learnt by hearsay that she has locks under her head-scarf and so they insisted that she had to shave her head or leave the school.

I happened to be in Kenya at the time and so I had a fairly lengthy phone conversation with the headmaster, but he maintained his position. I therefore sent him the following document which addressed the matter in more pointed detail than the one earlier, and because of what that document put forward, this headmaster then felt he simply had to relent.

Kxxxxx has therefore remained at her secondary school and continues to be a model student. That then was the second episode settled.

Now the second daughter needs to start at a secondary school, and having just missed the required grades to attend the same school as her older sister, this issue has risen yet again at this school that had accepted her before they became aware of her locks.

In addition to the document shown earlier, her mother also presented to the headmaster the document that caused the second headmaster to change his mind. But this third headmaster apparently feels that his school does not need to be mindful of the Law and that they retain the right to practice religious discrimination.

See the second and more expansive document here.

www.blacklives.club is a new website that aims to address a wide range of issues that affect people of African descent worldwide. This - "Rasta Children in Schools" - is our first topic. If you enter your email address at the bottom of any page on our site we will inform you whenever there is new posting.

We agree with you that a school cannot permit every child to do as he or she pleases, and so there needs to be rules that each student must comply with. In fact, the need for rules does not apply only to schools. In all areas of Life, whenever and wherever individuals come together and function as a body, there needs to be rules that govern that body. Such rules serve to protect the interest of each member of the group and to ensure that the group functions in an efficient and orderly manner to the benefit of all. In light of what I’ve just written, we hope it is clear that we fully appreciate the importance of rules.

As a member of a school, each student should comply with the rules laid down by that school. But children are not the only ones who need to obey rules. Matatu drivers and other motorists should follow the rules of the highway code but instead, they cause avoidable deaths on the roads by doing as they please; public servants in Kenya often disregard the rules that govern the way they ought to do their jobs and so corruption is commonplace; many Kenyan employers ignore labour laws and treat employees as paid slaves; the Kenyan police officer whose job it is to uphold the Law is often the principal law-breaker etc; etc; etc. In short, laws seem to exist in Kenya as fine sounding words on paper, but the country’s citizens and institutions appear to have very little real regard for those words. Sadly, although the primary responsibility of a school is to prepare children to be good law-abiding and productive adults, many teachers will beat pupils even though they know that it is unlawful for them to do that. The lesson to the children is that those in authority have a right to break the law if and when they want to. So if children are taught that abuse of power is acceptable and that those who are seen as the pillars of society are entitled to disregard the Law, then what kind of employers; police officers; politicians and teachers will these children grow up to be? It seems that children are being taught that they should fear those in authority because those in authority have nothing to fear.

[ ...Read More...]

Still, the fact that a school might knowingly disregard the Law does not give a pupil the right to ignore the rules of the school. As Jesus is reported to have said: "All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not” - Matt 23: 3 KJV. So yes, we think it is important for Kxxxxx to observe school rules. I will therefore now ask: what rule is she violating? I cannot imagine that there is a school rule that forbids a child from having dreadlocks under her head-scarf, but if there is such a rule, then the school is breaking the law of Kenya and of all civilized nations who have signed up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). I will now remind you that Article 18 of the UDHR states:

So why are you insisting that Kxxxxx must shave her locks or leave the school? And why do you expect that the Ministry of Education will support your stance? I really don’t know what their position would be if asked, but do you consider the Ministry to be a body that also ignores the Law?

Kxxxxx is now in the third term at your school and up until Monday her head-scarf has not been seen as a problem. In fact, when she first started school your deputy advised her on the most appropriate colour for her head-scarf to go with the school uniform. I think you will agree that apart from her performance in sports and other physical activities, Kxxxxx has so far been a model student in every other way during her time at your school. She is very well behaved and has made impressive academic progress at each exam. Yet, since you have come to learn from one of her fellow students that outside of school she has dreadlocks under her head-scarf, you now see her as being unworthy to be at your school. If that is your final position, I will now let you and all interested parties know our position.

[...Read More...]

We do not want to undermine your school’s authority nor is it our desire to cause you any embarrassment. Kxxxxx’s mother, at all times, makes every effort to be reasonable in her dealings with others and so if you can present good reason(s) that will make her understand why Kxxxxx should remove her locks then she would be more than happy to comply. But at the moment we consider that the school is imposing an arbitrary rule on a family and is doing so for no reason other than that they feel like doing so and they have the power to do so. We further consider that laws and rules that serve a common good are necessary and just, but when laws and rules are made purely as an exercise of power by the powerful, then such laws represent an abuse of the power that is invested in the lawmaker. What makes the matter infinitely worse in this particular case is the fact that the arbitrary rule being imposed is known to be unlawful.

Now, children do not learn only from school teachers. In fact, their most important teachers are their parents. Kxxxxx’s mother feels she has a responsibility to do her best to teach Kxxxxx right from wrong and she is not prepared to shirk that responsibility. For her, to shave Kxxxxx’s locks would be to collude with the school in breaking the Law, and it would be to teach her daughter that she and her children to come have no other choice but to give way to injustice from those who have power. This mother refuses to teach her daughter such a soul-destroying lesson.

You see, this is not about Kxxxxx keeping her locks. It is about the school obeying the Law. It is also about teaching Kxxxxx that every adult has a right and perhaps a duty to stand up against injustice. In the US in the 1950’s Rosa Park was arrested when she stood up against the injustice of racist laws that required her to give up her seat on a bus to a white male; in the 1960’s Mohammed Ali gave up his heavyweight crown and risked years in jail rather than go to fight on behalf of the American nation that abuses his people, and to fight in a war against a nation that had never offered his brothers and sisters such abuse; Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in jail in his stance against the inhuman apartheid regime in South Africa; and in Kenya, the dreadlocked freedom fighter - Dedan Kimathi - paid the ultimate sacrifice in the Mau Mau’s stance against the injustices of colonial rule. And while our stance may not be as historic as those just mentioned, it is driven by the same spirit - namely, a determination not to accept that which is unreasonable and unjust.

And finally, I ask: what really is at the root of this matter? In a world where people of all nations across the globe now recognize Rasta as being the most powerful ideology to have ever come forth from the Black race and an ideology that provides a guiding light to mankind, why is it that the only people who want to fight against Rasta are Black people themselves? And while Black people are dreaming of dying and going to heaven, Rasta is focussed on how we should live on earth in Peace and with Love and Respect for all of God’s Creation; so why do a certain class of Black people have a problem with Rasta? Is it because they see themselves as Christians? Did Jesus associate himself with the high and the mighty or – like the Rastaman in these times – did he stand up for the poor and oppressed? What statement(s) have I made in this document that you consider to be unreasonable or untrue? Putting aside for a moment religions and the Law, what principle are you defending by fighting against what is reasonable and true? I’ve clearly stated the principles behind our stance, so I now ask again: what is the important principle that you are defending by your insistence that Kxxxxx should remove her locks?

It is time to think...

This third headmaster apparently thought about all that was presented to him but, unlike the second head, he saw no good reason to adjust his stance. The child therefore remained out of school.

To see how things developed go to the top of the page and press "How the Events Unfolded".

The email to the Ministry was sent on Sunday 21^st January while I was still in the UK. By the following Tuesday I had not received a reponse so I decided to call the day after.

The woman who answered asked me what email address did I send the message to, and when I told her, she said that I had used the wrong address and so she gave me a different one to use.

At the time, I could have pointed out to her that it was from the Ministry's website that I got the email address that I'd used and that the message did not bounce back. So even if it had gone to the wrong department, then given that the Subject of the message was "Unlawful Conduct by a School", I would expect that whoever received it would have passed it on to the appropriate person.

However, I did not bother to make the point. I simply sent the message to the new address that she gave me.

I was in Kenya a couple days later on Friday, but by then there was no response from this new address and so I decided to visit the Ministry on the following Monday.

To see what happend at the Ministry on Monday, click here.

I think it would interest you to know all that happened on that Monday, but I will just say that I was eventually asked to come back on Wednesday with the child. When we went on Wednesday the man who had told me to come back, along with a woman who was also in the room, behaved in what I consider to be a most despicable manner!

They did not want to hear anything from me, and the woman suggested that they should speak to the child in Swahili. Then she had what she obviously thought was an even better idea and so they told me to leave the room. I saw no great need to argue with them because, as far as I was concerned, regardless of what they might say or do, there can really only be one outcome. So after making clear that I considered that they were acting improperly, I left the room.

After about ten minutes the man emerged from the room with the child who was now in tears. I asked her why she was crying and she said that they had told her that she will not be able to go to school if she did not shave her locks. They had spent those minutes questioning and browbeating her and telling her all sort of things. Among other things, she was asked to say what she wants - to go to school or to keep her locks. They said it had to be one or the other.

Despite the fact that they had managed to reduce her to tears, she maintained her stance. She said that she wants both, and they could not move her from that position. I was really so proud of her when she told me what had taken place! Eventually, they could see that they were not achieving anything so the man came out in a vile mood and now had to take us to see the Deputy Director of Education - Madam Kirongo - whom we should have seen on Monday but who was not available.

Madam Kirongo and her colleague who was in the office with her, had been led to understand that this student simply wants to wear dreadlocks in school. Apparently, the man had briefed them to that effect before we were invited into the room. This was despite the fact that on Monday I had presented this man with the documents and had tried to talk with him about the matter.

Anyway, when I told these officers that the child would be wearing a head-scarf, the lady immmediately said that the school has no right to interest itself in what is under the child's head-scarf. She explained that the Ministry determines policies which are then implemented by local district councils. She therefore found out which council would cover this particular school and spoke with the head of that council. She wrote a brief message on the documents that we had presented, instructing the District Councillor to do as per their phone conversation. She then told us to take the documents to the DC.

When we got to the DC he in turn wrote on the document, and after stamping it officially he gave us a copy to take to the school the next day. He also said that he would speak to the school and that we really shouldn't have had to go through all this. We could simply have come to him in the first place.

To see what happened when we went to the school, click here.

As you might well imagine, the school did not roll out the red carpet and greet us with great joy and laughter. However, when we went to see the headmaster in his office and later the deputy in hers, they each dealt with us as I imagine they would do with any other student who had come to enrol. Everything seemed quite normal - especially with the deputy. Still, I think I could sense a little uneasiness in the headmaster when we first entered and gave him the documents.

For our part, we dealt with the situation almost as if this was the first time the child had come to enrol, and as if there is nothing of any signifance attached to this enrolment.

There is now something I feel I need to state and explain.

The headmaster read the first page of this 5-page document that we had brought to him. This first page was a copy of the email that was sent to the Ministry plus the hand-wriiten notes by the senior person and the DC.

After reading this page he then turned over to read the next page and so I told him that he has already seen the rest of the document. After a quick glance at these pages he declared that he had previously read the first of these other four pages but had not before seen the rest.

In other words, he had not read the more expansive document that had been sent to the second headmaster. Later, when I asked the mother about this, she confirmed that there had been some mis-communication between us and that indeed the headmaster had not read the second document.

But by the time I learnt this, much of this website had already been developed and I did not feel inclined to go back and change the structure and flow of the site. Plus I thought it would be good for visitors to the site to see the second document. I therefore left things as they were. But I now repeat: when the mother and her daughter visited the school, this headmaster read the document that was addressed to him but he did not read the document that caused the second headmaster to change his mind. Perhaps if he had read it, he would also have had second thoughts.

Conclusion

Our experience clearly suggests that discrimation by schools in Kenya against Rasta children is widespread and that lower-ranking officers within the Ministry of Education will support this. However, the Ministry's high-level officials are not supportive of this practice but are probably unaware of the level of this particular problem. Furthermore, this newpspaper report indicates that schools will readily ignore guidelines and instructions issued by the Ministry. But this issue is not simply a case of schools defying the Ministry. It is a matter of them violating the Law of the land and so, if necessary, the Courts would be expected to enforce compliance.

However, families who identify with Rastafarian ideology seem not to know their legal rights and/or they do not feel able to effectively challenge this abuse which appears to be wide-spread and systematic. It seems that these families simply accept such treatment as being normal or standard and so this unlawful practice carries on unnoticed.

And finally, from a visit to this site, one who doesn't know much about Kenya could be left with the view that the country is very anti-Rasta. But that is not the reality. To get a balanced view of the situation go to the top of the page and press "Kenya and Rasta".

Free to Criticize or Be Criticized

Greetings Robert

If you or anyone should have any reason to mildly rebuke me or to cuss me with hell-fire and brimstone, I would welcome that.

That's because whatever wrong I might have committed would have been done unintentionally and without any kind of ill-will. I would therefore greatly appreciate being made aware of any errors/misjudgment I might have made so I can learn from them and make amends if possible.

On the other hand, after another person has expressed disapproval of my actions, if I consider that I had done nothing wrong, then I would be glad that he had expressed his views since that would give me the opportunity to clear up any misconception he might have.

In short, whether his criticism of me is completely valid; totally invalid; or anything in between, I would be glad that he had come forward and made his views known. Furthermore, I feel that I have a responsibilty to our relationship to express my criticisms to him for the very same reasons that I would want him to express his criticisms to me.

Sadly, in this situation I do not feel free to make any criticism of you because I really don't know how you would take it. So instead, and for the records, I will simply lay out my account of how we've come to be where we are now and I will leave you to judge your actions and mine if you so wish.

You, Me, and Jamaica Jadiladha

For almost three years now I've nurtured the idea of Jamaica Jadiladha and eventually you became interested to the point where, in September last year, you became a director of Jamaica Jadilicious Ltd. This appointment was hugely significant to me.

You may recall me telling you that even if I could easily bring the vision of Jamaica Jadiladha into reality all on my own, ideally I would not want to do that. I told you that, for me, it is of great spiritual importance to have some other Jamaican or Jamaicans directly involved in making this a success. So, to have someone with your skills; knowledge; and experience in tandem with me, seemed like destiny in the making.

The next few months turned out to be a series of starts and stops. We would head down a particular road full of hope only to find that that road led to nowhere. We would then have to change route and strategy. Then about ten days ago, we were unexpectedly presented with a couple of very clear paths forward. Suddenly we had simultaneous offers from two different sources. One offer came from Tanzania and the other from Kenya.

So it was that ten days ago I had a meeting with two businessmen in Kenya who seemed very keen to engage with us, and at the same time I had an appointment with a hotel chain in Tanzania who had decided to get in touch with us. My meeting with those businessmen was on Saturday, while the meeting in Tanzania was scheduled for the following Tuesday at 11:00 am.

At Saturday's meeting the businessmen asked me to submit a proposal to them, and the meeting ended with them expecting to receive that proposal by Sunday or Monday. I completed the proposal on Monday morning.

Now, the proposal made some very specific statements about the share of the business that these men would acquire, depending on the level and form of their investment. The proposal also made clear that we would not be prepared to be minority shareholders in the business. Thus, if their required level of investment turned out to be such that they feel it is worth more than a 50% share of the business, then we might consider injecting cash to lower their investment. Alternatively, in such a scenario we could offer them a share of Jamaica Jadilicious Ltd. Such a share would be in line with the amount by which their investment is deemed to exceed the 50% level.

I naturally felt that it is important for you as a director of the company to see all the details of the proposal before they are submitted to these businessmen and so I sent the document to you at about 10:30am UK time for your review and comments.

Later that day while I was on my way to Tanzania I tried to talk with you about this proposal. But I was now travelling on very noisy public transport and was having problems with network coverage. We therefore could not have a proper conversation and so I decided that I would speak with you later.

What Happened in Tanzania and Since Then

Once I crossed the border between Kenya and Tanzania, my Kenyan sim cards were now roaming but I had a Tanzanian sim that I had acquired the last time I was in that country. I had planned to use this sim in Tanzania but found that it would not work. I was told by people who seem to know, that the sim card would have expired after a couple of months of not being used. I would therefore have to wait until I get to Tanzania before I could communicate.

I arrived in Tanzania at about 10:30pm Monday night, and although I could purchase airtime, there was nowhere for me to get a sim card. I just had to wait until the morning.

Getting a sim card the following morning wasn't the simplest of task and I finally got one with just about enough time left for me to get something to eat and then go to the meeting at 11.

Michelle was a few minutes late for the meeting and so while I was waiting I tried to get this newly acquired sim card setup for using the internet, but that just wasn't happening. Even after Michelle arrived I asked her to wait a few minutes while I continued to try. She graciously agreed but still I couldn't get it to work. So eventually we had our meeting without you being able to join us on Skype which is something that I had suggested would be ideal.

At some point when our meeting was nearly over I commented on how useful it would have been for you to have taken part in the meeting. Michelle then suggested that I could have used the hotel's wifi, but by then most of the discussion had already taken place and there seemed to be no real point in you joining us at that stage. But after the meeting was over I remained in the hotel for a while to now try using the wifi; but still I couldn't.

The simple fact is that - wifi or no wifi - the sim card could not access the internet because it had not been properly configured to do so.

After numerous attempts to obtain the configuration settings - before and after the meeting - and after three calls to the network's call centre, someone eventually got a senior technical person to call me. (His number is +255 784 105 505). He called some time later and so, at about 1:30pm - approximately an hour and a half after my meeting with Michelle, I finally had internet connection and was then able to talk with you via WhatsApp.

By this time I was on the road and about to set out on my return journey to Kenya. But I called to brief you on the meeting. Still, I felt that we could talk in detail about that later. My primary interest at that point was in getting your feedback regarding the proposal. As I indicated earlier, these men were expecting that document by Sunday or Monday, and by now it was Tuesday. They had twice tried to communicate with me regarding this document and so I now considered this a matter of urgency.

However, when I tried to address this with you, you didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I therefore suggested that you should go and read the document. You said that I should give you about 20 minutes.

That was about 1:30pm seven days ago. I have not heard from you since then.

I called you about 45 minutes later but you did not answer. I called again about two hours later, and again you did not answer. Immediately after this second call I called again. This time the call was declined. I therefore now felt that I had to send the proposal to these two businessmen without having received from the company's other director any comment on the contents of that document...

Now, at our meeting I had told Michelle that you would be getting in touchwith her regarding the décor. But given your apparent refusal to communicate, I was now uncertain as to whether or not you would. So the following day I sent you an email pointing out the uncertainty and asking you to clarify your position. You did not respond.

Conclusion

Once I crossed the border between Kenya and Tanzania, my Kenyan sim cards were now roaming but I had a Tanzanian sim that I had acquired the last time I was that country. I had planned to use this sim in Tanzania but found that it would not work. I was told by people who seem to know, that the sim card would have expired after a couple of months of not being used. I would therefore have to wait until I get to Tanzania before I could communicate.

I arrived in Tanzania at about 10:30pm Monday night, and although I could purchase airtime, there was nowhere for me to get a sim card. I just had to wait until the morning.

Getting a sim card the following morning wasn't the simplest of task and I finally got one with just about enough time left for me to get something to eat and then go to the meeting at 11.

At some point when our meeting was nearly over I commented on how useful it would have been for you to have taken part in the meeting. Michelle then suggested that I could have used the hotel's wifi but by then, most of the discussion had already taken place and there seemed to be no real point in you joining us at that stage. But after the meeting was over I remained in the hotel for a while to now try using the wifi, but still I couldn't.

The simple fact is that - wifi or no wifi - the sim card could not access the internet because it had not been properly configured to do so.

After numerous attempts to obtain the configuration settings - before and after the meeting - and after three calls to the network's call centre, someone eventually got a senior technical person to call me. (His number is +255 784 105 505). He called me some time later and so, at about 1:30pm - approximately an hour and a half after my meeting with Michelle, I finally had internet connection and was then able to talk with you via WhatsApp.

That was about 1:30pm seven days ago. I have not heard from you since then.