I should be worrying about Her hair.

I am staring out the window on this sixth floor and I am in awe. Again. I thought that Sydney and Perth were amazing. Then I came to Arlington, Virginia (apparently there are Arlingtons in Texas and Alabama) and I was simply blown away. It is the end of winter though my freezing self wouldn't know it for all the snow that seems to just sit there mocking me with its iciness and begging me to put a foot wrong so that I can put to the test Obamacare.

Every time I leave the comforts of Eastlands and find myself on someone else's East, I am always amazed at the shocking differences I encounter. Take public sanitation, for example. There are staggering differences in what Nairobians - Eastlanders, really - are willing to tolerate. We no longer bat an eyelid at garbage at the side of the road, overflowing sewage or blocked drains. We see nothing wrong in littering and we have a casual acceptance of the sloth in the public sanitation department when it comes to removing trash from the streets.

It's been raining the past few days in Arlington. In stark - STARK - contrast to Kenya, things haven't gone to total hell. Traffic flow remains civilised and rule-bound. Drainages haven't blocked. Sewers haven't overflowed. Sidewalks (pavements) are eminently usable. Civic facilities continue to be functional unlike the chaos that prevails every time a single drop of rain hits the ground in Nairobi and all other towns and cities.

It is easy to look at the facilities available to Virginians and wring ones hands in despair at the chaos that prevails in Kenya. But that would elide the poor civic mindedness of the residents of Nairobi. We have refused to participate in the effective governance of our city citing the difficulties involved in such participation. But our reticence has contributed significantly to the liberties City Fathers have taken over the past three decades. They lie, cheat, steal and mismanage while we go about our lives without a care in the world. We are past masters at bitching about the state of affairs, but every time we are given an opportunity to contribute to the reforms needed to make our city the pride of the world, we take a step back, raise our hands in surrender and say, "Si tuko na serikali!"

Being a Kenyan is a study in stoicism. We suffer our own apathy. We suffer our leaders. We suffer our decrepit public infrastructure. We make a life for ourselves despite all this. If we simply got off our asses, pushed the Kideros of this world to do their damn jobs without bitching about the past and the mistakes of past leaders, can you imagine how much improved our lives would be? So Kibera is being upgraded. What we know is that such projects invite rent-seekers of the worst kind. We must stop suffering our leadership. It is the only way that when we walk down the street in the middle of a rain storm our fear will not be about the mud, the blocked drain, the overflowing sewer or the lawless motorist, but whether or not Her hair will be at risk.